Malcolm Ernest was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in June 1916. He was at Nichols Field in Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines] when he heard about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He had entered the service in December 1935. He attended basic training in Alabama and was in the 4th Tank Company there from 1935 to 1937. He was then transferred to Fort Benning, Georgia. He reenlisted at Barksdale Field [Annotator’s Note: now Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City and Shreveport, Louisiana] in October 1938. He stayed there until October 1940 when he went to air mechanics school in Dallas, Texas. He worked on B-10s [Annotator's Note: Martin B-10 bomber], B-12s [Annotator's Note: Martin B-12 bomber], P-36s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-36 Hawk fighter aircraft], and P-35s [Annotator’s Note: Seversky P-35 fighter aircraft] for six months of intense training. His outfit [Annotator's Note: 27th Bombardment Group] moved to Hunter Field in Savannah, Georgia. He joined them but was sent to school again at Lowry Field in Denver, Colorado for bomb sight maintenance. He then rejoined his outfit in Savannah. They got orders to the Philippines and he arrived Thanksgiving Day, 1941 at Nichols Field. They never got a chance to be assigned any work. They were attacked from the sea and the air the same time as Pearl Harbor. Nichols Field and Clark Field were annihilated.

[Annotator's Note: Malcolm Ernest was stationed at Nichols Field near Manila, Philippines with the 27th Bombardment Group when it was attacked by the Japanese on 8 December 1941. The Philippines were on the other side of the International Date Line and a day ahead of the United States where it was 7 December.] Malcolm Ernest was in his barracks and they had no antiaircraft guns. General MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] knew it and Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] knew they were going to be attacked. Ernest spent three years in Manchuria [Annotator's Note: China]. The interpreters there were Japanese who had been born and educated in the United States. The interpreters told them they knew where everything was in Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. Japan started preparing for war in 1919. We captured medical supplies that had been given to Japan in 1924. They had taken over the south islands. Amelia Earhart [Annotator's Note: American aviation pioneer] disappeared in there. She formed a group of lady pilots called "The Ninety-Nines." There were no planes at Nichols Field at the time [Annotator's Note: of the Japanese attack]. There were 1,250 of them [Annotator's Note: officers and enlisted men] there in the 27th Bombardment Group. There are less than 100 left of them [Annotator's Note: at the time of this interview].

The VA [Annotator's Note: Veterans Administration] had their headquarters in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. Malcom Ernest was trying to get his disability raised to raise his pay. He had been in Manchuria [Annotator's Note: China] where it got 60 below and his feet had been frozen. The VA told him that was not in the line of duty. He also had beriberi [Annotator's Note: Severe, chronic Thiamine deficiency]. He did get 100 percent disability. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him about Japanese interpreters in Manchuria.] The interpreters joined them during the surrender. About 40 percent of them [Annotator's Note: the prisoners] did not make it [Annotator's Note: did not survive the Bataan Death March in April 1942]. They went days and days with no food or water. Ernest had malaria and a high temperature. He passed out on the highway. He woke up to a Jap [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] kicking him. He tried to shoot him but there was no shell chambered. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer backs up to Nichols Field.] MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] had the unit [Annotator's Note: 2nd Battalion, Provisional Infantry Regiment (Air Corps)] go to Bataan [Annotator's Note: Bataan Peninsule, Luzon, Philippines] by ship and trains. The Bataan Death March ended up at Camp O'Donnell [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines]. During the attack, a lot of men were wounded or killed. At Bataan, they were issued Springfield rifles [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber Model 1903, or M1903, Springfield bolt action rifle]. They had no food or rations. They had planned for a long siege. [Annotator's Note: Ernest goes back to the incident on the road during the march.] Along the way, Ernest woke up in a field all by himself. He walked into an area and saw a pump and got water for the first time in days. A Jap had a samurai sword and told him he was going to cut his head off. Ernest ran out to the road and got away.

Malcom Ernest was at Bataan [Annotator's Note: Bataan Peninsula, Luzon, Philippines] about four months [Annotator's Note: before the United States surrendered to the Japanese]. They were given very little food. They would go into no-man's land [Annotator's Note: an area of unoccupied ground between the static positions of opposing forces] to get rice and peanuts. There were also sugarcane fields they could cut. They also used it to make beer. They were surrendered on 8 April 1942. They were down to less than half-rations per day. No supplies or ammunition were coming in. The top commander was General Wainwright [Annotator's Note: US Army General Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, IV]. Their commander, General King [Annotator's Note: US Army Major General Edward Postell King, Jr.], surrendered them to keep them from being slaughtered. Ernest did not take part in combat. They were moving south to try to get away. The Japanese were close enough to hear talking. Ernest and two others were in a hole. They eased out and a guard started shooting at them. Ernest was hit his leg by a bullet. He had a bag and the bullet hit the buckle. There were about 18,000 Americans on the island. He had about 100 men in his group moving south. They were on patrol one night and they got caught in gun fire. Ernest got behind a tree. They killed hundreds of Japanese with .50 caliber machine guns [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun]. They kept coming and coming. They were there one night, the Mariveles landing, on the end of the island of Luzon. They were cut-off completely. They had horse-drawn artillery with them, and they ate the horses.

In Mukden, Manchuria [Annotator's Note: Hoten Camp, Mukden, now Shenyang, China], Malcom Ernest learned how to communicate with the Manchurians, who did not speak Japanese, Chinese, or Russian. They would smuggle things to him. He was working in a tool and die plant first, but then went to a saw mill, where he was working when the war ended. He told one Manchurian to bring him a lunch every day. The Manchurian said the Japanese would get suspicious if he had two lunches, so Ernest told him to just bring one for him and then go home for his own lunch. Ernest kept promising him the moon in order to survive. After the war, B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] dropped clothing, food, medicine, and more to them. Ernest decided to help the Manchurian. He got a cart, loaded stuff up and took it to him. His wife put him in a hot tub and gave him a bath. They had food and drinks together. They had a room for him with a hand crank record player. The man's wife came in to be with him and explained their custom to Ernest that everything they had was his. Ernest told him he could not do that.

[Annotator's Note: Malcolm Ernest was among the Americans who were surrendered to the Japanese in Bataan, Philippines on 8 April 1942.] They all dropped their arms and started marching north [Annotator's Note: Bataan Death March, April 1942]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer recounts Ernest's prior story of being marched back to him.] Ernest continued down the road, and there were big houses along it. The Japanese were having a morning ceremony. Ernest found a water pump and was getting water. A Japanese officer came up with a samurai sword and told him he was going to cut his head off. Ernest ran away and got in among some Filipinos on the road. A couple of years ago [Annotator's Note: from the time of this interview], Ernest received an invitation from Camp Shelby, Mississippi to attend a reunion of the Bataan Death March. In the museum there, they have one of the swords. After running from the Japanese officer, he rejoined the march. The march ended up at Camp O'Donnell [Annotator's Note: Capas in Tarlac, Luzon, Philippines; former United States military installation used as prisoner of war camp by the Japanese]. 200 of them were taken to a schoolhouse on stilts. There was no clothing or bedding. They were placed in groups of ten and were told that if one escaped, the remaining nine would be shot. Ernest heard two men in his group talking of an escape. The next morning, instead of going to work, he pretended to be ill and went to sick bay. All hell broke loose, because the two had escaped. Another man had replaced Ernest in the work group. That man was with the other eight who were shot by the Japanese.

[Annotator's Note: Malcolm Ernest was a prisoner of war at Camp O'Donnell on Luzon, Philippines.] Ernest was among a group put on a ship north in October 1942. They stopped in Formosa [Annotator's Note: present day Taiwan]. They could not lie down. Between Formosa and Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan], American Navy submarines got the ship in front of them and the ship behind them. They got to Kobe, Japan and 500 prisoners got off. Ernest went to Manchuria [Annotator's Note: Hoten Camp, Mukden, Manchuria]. When the war ended, the Russians had to rebuild the train tracks. Ernest went to visit the Great Wall of China. He spent two months just traveling. His diet in Manchuria was mostly grain. There is not much food value to it. He never had rice. The war was over but there was no way out. He took a rail to Korea and got on a Navy LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank]. There was a bad typhoon. The Japanese mines were breaking loose. One morning a mine hit them, and the ship was sinking. Ernest got two life preservers and bailed out. He floated for two days before he was picked up and taken to Okinawa. His cousin was there in the Seabees [Annotator's Note: members of US naval construction battalions], so Ernest stayed with him. He then took a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] to the Philippines. On his airplane, a man accidentally opened the bomb bay doors with six men laying on them. They fell into the ocean. In the Philippines, Ernest got on the Klipfontein. It hit a sunken ship and got a new propeller. They went to Seattle, Washington and that night he talked to his wife for the first time in four years. His wife got the wives of some other men, and they met the men in San Antonio, Texas. They had a lost weekend. His wife told him he was now sterile. Nine months later, she had their son. His friend's wife had one the same day.

Malcolm Ernest was with about 100 American prisoners in Manchuria [Annotator's Note: Hoten Camp, Mukden, Manchuria; present day China]. He worked in a saw mill. The camp was guarded well. He worked in a tool and die plant for about a year. He then worked in a crane factory for another year. He was working in the saw mill when the war ended. The only meat they got was a dead rat once in a while. At the plant that made the cranes, he had a Manchurian smuggling in food and cigarettes to him. Ernest was in charge of the food detail. They served the food from buckets. Ernest would take a carton of cigarettes and put in the bottom of a bucket. He was selling them. He got transferred to the saw mill and he sold his operation to another man who got caught doing it. [Annotator's Note: There is an odd cut then Ernest is mid-sentence talking about a trip he did not get to take.] The camps were fenced. They slept on pads made of hay. They worked every day, all day. There were Manchurians there too. The Russians controlled the railroads. The Manchurians were doing the same work. The Japanese patrolled 24 hours a day. Everyone roomed together.

In the main camp [Annotator's Note: Hoten Camp, Mukden, Manchuria; present day China], Malcolm Ernest and the prisoners were taken care of pretty well. The main thing was food of which they did not have much. He worked with a Manchurian who helped him a lot in the saw mill. They were producing lumber. The Manchurian smuggled things into the camp. Ernest never tried to escape because there was nowhere to go. The ones who tried to escape are still there. They got shot. In Cabanatuan [Annotator's Note: Cabanatuan Prison Camp, Cabanatuan City, Luzon, Philippines], Ernest volunteered to be on the burial detail to get extra food. There were over 100 [Annotator's Note: prisoners] dying there every day. He left there in October 1942. [Annotator's Note: Ernest describes a book called "The Ghost Soldier" that has a story about a man he knew.] On 7 December 1944, 99 B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] came over them. Mukden was a big industrial center. A Japanese Zero [Annotator's Note: Japanese Mitsubishi A6M fighter aircraft, referred to as the Zeke or Zero] shot one of the B-29s down. The B-29 dropped his bombs over the camp. The ground was frozen like concrete. There was a hole were the trash was buried, so he and some others ran there for cover. Six others beat them there, so they stopped short. A bomb hit that hole and killed all of them. That was a close call. In 1962, Ernest was with 2nd Air Force Headquarters at Barksdale [Annotator's Note: Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City and Shreveport, Louisiana] and was working on overseas shipments. [Annotator's Note: It is hard to follow Ernest's story but it results in him not flying on an airplane that crashed. He cites it as another instance of having a close call with death.] He had another close call on 11 May 1999 when his aneurysm exploded. He had surgery and the surgeon told him he came within seconds of dying. He has had some close calls.

The Russians [Annotator's Note: 262nd Rifle Division, 113 Infantry Corps] liberated Malcolm Ernest [Annotator's Note: from Hoten Camp, Mukden, Manchuria; present day China] then B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] dropped them food, clothing, and bedding. The Russians did not give them anything. Ernest went by train to Korea. On the train was a female Russian soldier who had her own compartment. Ernest spent two days with her. She took him to another train with some Russians and they had vodka. They all toasted Stalin [Annotator's Note: Joseph Stalin; General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] and Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] and everybody. It took two months for the railroads to be repaired. In Korea, they boarded an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] that hit a mine and sank. Ernest spent two days and nights in the ocean. He got picked up and was taken to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] where his cousin was stationed. He was then flown to the Philippines. He took a ship from there back to the United States. They had been liberated on 20 August 1945. He went to a hospital at Fort Lewis, Washington and then took a hospital train to San Antonio [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas]. In Manchuria, the Japanese treatment depended on you. They were searched four times a day. If they found something they did not like, they would make the prisoners stand in the snow. They did not have adequate clothing. They only had coal to make fires. They got some grain three times a day. They only received Red Cross supplies one time. Ernest got to a point where he could not sweat. He had to urinate about once an hour. It was very cold there. He traded around when they got the Red Cross boxes. He ate everything he got, that day. The next day he started sweating regularly and the urination problem stopped.

Malcolm Ernest has traveled all over the world. He enjoyed Puerto Rico more than anything else. They have great bass fishing. They stocked their lakes with fish out of Georgia. They also have mongooses they brought in from India. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Ernest what he thought of the Philippine troops.] Some of them were the best in the world. Some did not last long. They would go in the jungles, kill Japs, and never be seen. There was a lot going on before the war. In the Philippines, we captured Japanese six months before the war started. The Philippines used pesos for money. For 25 pesos, you could get a tailor-made suit of clothes. The finest.

[Annotator's Note: Malcolm Ernest was a prisoner of war at Hoten Camp, Mukden, Manchuria; present day China.] Ernest promised all kinds of things to a Manchurian who helped him during his time there. The day after he declined to sleep with the Manchurian’s wife, he did ask him to find him a nice, clean girl. [Annotator's Note: Ernest tells the story of the man offering him his wife after the war ended in the clip titled "Manchurian Saw Mill".] The man brought him six. The will to live kept him going during his captivity. A lot of the men who died, did not have the will to live. Ernest turned a bunch of them around. One night, a man told him to leave him alone because he was talking to his mother. Ernest slapped him. He made it back. He saw another guy who did not know where he was. Ernest got him some medicine. He made it back too. In Mukden, his crew chief got too sick to work. He told him some things to tell his wife for him. He died that night. Ernest called his widow on his return to the United States and did as he had been asked. The people that survived the Death March [Annotator's Note: Bataan Death March, April 1942] were his age. The older ones and the younger ones went first. It was all mental.