That’s What you Call Being Worked to Death

At Kai Tek I moved boulders mostly but earth moving. They were tearing down this hill to give them a few extra yards of runway. But they were using the airport at the time but this was really getting rid of that house across the street so we could see through it, you know. The planes would come in more freely, larger planes I suppose. But it was just bull labour work. They had little railroad tracks there, not railroad, but little mini tracks with earth movers on them. Fill that up with shovels, but it was hot. Holy jeez, it was hot. This was the summer of 1942. It was hot. And there was a lot of diphtheria. We lost about 400 people there that summer in camp from diphtheria. They had nothing to give anybody - drink lots of water. I remember that we used to come home from work generally after dark. This portion was when we used the boats to get around and we’d asked who was it today and they’d call off four or five names of friends that had died from diphtheria. One guy, I’m pretty sure, I know his name, he flaked out on the grounds there and they picked him up and brought him back to barracks. By the time we got back that night, he was dead. That’s what you call being worked to death, you know. Saw that in Japan, too.