good night from new york. tonight on "war stories," they were subjected to unspeakable brutality. >> i scream and my wife has to shake me. >> no conscience whatsoever. they killed kids, women, everything. >> tonight, the real story behind the bridge and the river quai. >> if you spoke to them. >> the prisoners of the rising son. that's next on "

this is hallowed ground, scene of one of the notorious and saddest events in the history of war. i'm oliver north. this is "war stories." during world war ii, this was the site of camp o'donnell. it was here in the spring of 1942 that the death march came to an end. for the survivors already suffering from disease and malnutrition, their ordeal was just beginning. in the next 40 days, more than 1600 of them would die at the hands of their brutal captors. during world war ii, over 130,000 u.s. soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and guardsmen fell into the hands of our nation's enemies. 17,000 of those brave souls died in captivity. yet even in the bleakest of circumstances, many of them managed to fight on. tonight, the heroes who survived against overwhelming odds. join us for "prisoners of the rising sun."

>> we had little food. we' we would talk about food a lot. >> there was a desperation. all the prisoners are dying here. please send us food. and 60 years later, it sends a shiver down my spine. >> brian mcarthur spent three years combing through the dusty diaries for his book "surviving the sword." >> japan in the 1930s was a mysterious country compared to the rest of the world, especially america. >> the japanese considered themselves to be a superior race. >> this goes back to the 1860s. >> in palo alto, california, roger manzell helps keep the memory of p.o.w. camps alive.

>> they created the mythology of an emperor. and since that god protects japan, they were superior to all other races. >> japan itself had strong imperialists and regressive tendencies. >> vital resources, and there was none of this in japan. >> but there was plenty in china. the world watched in horror as the japanese brutalized china's capital city in december 1937. over the next six weeks, tens of thousands of women and girls were raped and mutilated and some 300,000 people were murdered. >> what are we doing with the chinese prisoners of war? >> enslave them if they could, killed them if they didn't. >> spring 1941. britain led by prime minister winston churchill stood alone

against adolf hitler who had conquered most of europe during the previous two years. president franklin roosevelt and churchill formulated what later became known as the europe first strategy. the plan was to defeat hitler in europe before turning the full attention to the japanese. this plan would have grave consequences for the hundreds of thousands of allied personnel stationed in the pacific. >> i volunteered to go to the philippines, which in retrospect was a bad decision. >> robert granston was a 25-year-old officer when he arrived in manila in may 1941. >> i should have known then that things were going to take an unfortunate turn. however, when you're young, it was a pretty exciting place to live. >> they had a waiting list at that time to get in the navy.

>> bruce elliott gordon from kansas wasn't thinking about the japanese when he shipped out in 1941. do you remember anybody talking about the japanese and whether they were likely to make war on us? >> i never heard anything about them. >> all of that changed on 7 december, 1941. >> the radio was blasting, japs had bombed pearl harbor. the united states and japan are at war. >> of course the japanese were already in china. >> there were 40,000 right down the road from us. >> 25-year-old terrence kirk from harrisburg, illinois, was stationed in northern china. >> our colonel, japanese conned them into believing that we were to have diplomatic immunity and be sent back. >> butth weren't sent home. terrence kirk and the marines became some of japan's first allied prisoners of war.

three days after pearl harbor, the leader stormed across the philippine island of luzon. >> three weiaves of 57 bombers d i could see the bombs coming down like needles. i remember the smoke and the smell and the body parts here and there. >> the initial attack completely demolished the navy. >> as american and filipino forces, low on food, ammunition and eventually morale began a long holdout. troops tried to stop the swift japanese advance in the dutch indies. january 1942. phillip toucy and 3,000 british troops arrive in singapore. toucy had no idea he'd soon be

at the center of one of the most notorious chapters in p.o.w. history. what was so important about singapore to the empire? >> they believed it was impregnable, and it guarded british territories. >> julie is his granddaughter and the author of a bock. >> he knew. >> the tiger of malaya had steamrolled his way down the melee peninsula and was closing in on the 270 square mile island fortress. the british, australian and dutch allied forces in the pacific lay on the brink of ruin. >> he was sent up with his gun and they defended for about two or three days, and then they went to singapore island. >> the battle was just about over. >> he planned on becoming a journalist in kent, england, but he was drafted and sent to fight in singapore. >> that's where we ran out of land. that's where we were caught.

>> on 15 february, 1942, singapore fell to the japanese. >> i think the white races were taken by complete surprise by the brilliance of the japanese in the field. >> in a little over two months, the general's troops had conquered wake island, guam, hong kong, malay and borneo. more than 100,000 troops had surrendered. within weeks, another 42,000 dutch and 10,000 british had also surrendered on java. a badly wounded fergus woke up in a singapore hospital bed and couldn't believe what was happening. >> the japanese were killing everyone in their beds. when they got two beds away from me, i went unconscious again. when i woke up, there were four people alive. they had killed 200. and the reason was that i was bleeding all over the face onto the floor. and the japanese thought they

had already bayonetted me and i had passed. >> 9 april, 1942, major general edward king reluctantly surrendered the 78,000 sick and starving americans and filipino troops. help promised in the form of hundreds of ships and thousands of men never came. >> i think i lost my innocence then. and recognized that all these hundreds of ships and thousands of men weren't going to come and save this little fanny of mine. >> the japanese initially marched them off to p.o.w. camps. >> the death proximately 60 mil. >> the sick and starving prisoners would march for days without food or water. those that couldn't keep up were shot, bayonetted or run over. >> they were placed in steel boxcars and in the hot sun, transported and then walked to o'donnell. >> camp o'donnell would mean

death for thousands of p.o.w.s. but before the surrender, granston made it to the last holdout in manila bay. was there hope that somehow it was going to hold out? >> not really. after they surrendered, i think it was pretty much gassed. >> this is the manila city jail. during world war ii, it was a notorious prison. thousands were held by the japanese in horrific conditions. that's next on "war stories."

every day, it was raids after raids. we knew that it was just going to be a matter of time because we were getting low on rations and everything. >> 21-year-old marine glen from urbandale, iowa, was one of the

15,000 men who along with 55 army nurses were forced to surrender on 6 may, 1942. >> it was a heartbreaking day. we'd see old glory flying in the breeze. and see it come down. it just made you feel like a man without a home. >> as the japanese soldiers came in with their guns, their rifles and their bayonets, and there was a deathly silence. >> for bruce gordon elliott, the end seemed truly at hand. >> they had to strip all our clothes off, everything, and put us right out on the cliff of queens tunnel. and they had a machine gun set up. about this time two officers were hollering in japanese. told us to go back and get our clothes and everything. motioned for us to do it. but they were going to make us jump off that cliff or shoot us. >> a few days later they brought in some ships.

as we were marching out, they would search us and take all your watches and they'd say, open your mouth. this one guy apparently had quite a few gold teeth. the jap took a rifle, knocked his teeth out and said get that gold. >> the army nurses remained behind with the sick and wounded and were later interned in manila in a filthy prison camp at santo tomas. the men were packed in steamers headed for manila. hundreds of filipinos watches as the prisoners endured a brutal six-mile march in the scorching sun down the city's dewey bouleva boulevard. >> we saw a young filipino lady holding a young baby in her arms. this jap ran over, grabbed it from her, threw it in the air and caught it on a bayonet. >> their destination, theous pr. it was a stop-over on the way to their new home, a prison camp 90 miles north of manila.

>> we were kept there for a couple of weeks. rumors of a death march came into it and what had happened to our buddies who had surrendered on april the 9th. >> the prison is a very rough place. >> there we were given little rations of water and minor rations of rice. >> all the time i think about how many i going to get out of here? the prison, i knew i couldn't escape from there. >> a lot of guys were in bad shape. and the rest of us, we went up. and at cabana tawan, we'd get half a rice a day, we was lucky. >> you'd die rather than

surrender. that, of course, is why they so despised the allied prisoners. >> the prisoners were despised by a man nicknamed the razor, the japanese prime minister. >> there was a policy set out by tojo himself. no work, no food. >> when did the japanese decide that you guys are going to be slave labor for them? >> it started right away. there were early drafts taken to japan to work in shipyards, work in mines, slave labor. >> when singapore fell, 50,000 british and australians were taken captive on one day. >> there were houses and bungalows, and it was just normal living. >> was there any expectation that your parents would be notified as to --

>> no, not at all. you might just as well have been on the back of the moon, and we were all posted missing. and in my case, i was killed in action. >> after nearly three months in starvation, 1300 of his men were marched 24 miles in stifling heat to a new camp. there they'd earn their three minuscule meals of rice a day by building a shrine to the 3500 japanese killed in the battle for singapore. >> then they built another shrine for the british and allied dead as well. >> they were actually allowed to build a shrine to their own dead. >> the japanese were very respectful of the dead, more than the living, which was always puzzlesome. he said he felt that the japanese had a very low regard for human life and the british probably had a slightly too high regard. coming up, toucy and his men find themselves in a steamy jungle, helping build what

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august 1942. the brutal allied campaign to wrest the solomon islands from japanese control begins in the canal. in the philippines, 300 prisoners including elliott and mcdole were transferred to a new hell on the island of palowan. >> there's no medical treatment. you know the rate at which guys were dying there? >> i would say maybe three or four a day. >> we started clearing the jungle. and we were going to wind up building an air strip. >> that was only on palowan and the prison camp i would say about two weeks. >> they may have been able to

hold elliott, but on palowan, he and five others made a desperate bid for freedom. >> we crawled under -- the building brothers were all sleeping. he went down to the beach. a back of a boat dike a dugout about 12 feet long. >> this is not something made to go into the open sea. >> no, sir. we started paddling. >> you're headed where? >> headed south was all we knew. >> we had no idea. what happened to them. the only thing we knew is that they escaped. so then they put us on a starvation diet. no food. for three days. >> elliott and his fellow escapees would spend an incredible 18 months island hopping throughout the philippines in small boats. sometimes sailing for 300 miles at a stretch. >> we'd get turtle legs and catch fish and coconuts. we were eating good. >> they finally hooked up with

allied forces on the island of mindinau. >> they couldn't find them, so we were back out there slaving away. on that air strip. >> in october of 1942, lieutenant colonel toucy and 600 of his men imprisoned in singapore found out they'd be going on a little train ride. they had no idea where they were heading. >> we were told we were going to red cross camp, good conditions, everything nice. >> nothing could be further from the truth. packed like sardines in a steamy ra railway cars, they embarked on a 900-mile journey. >> hot during the day and freezing at night. most of us had dysentary. >> child's play compared to what awaited them. >> they were on the edge of this big river. that they were going to be

building not one bridge but two. first a wooden service bridge and then afterwards a more permanent structure because the river swelled in the monsoon season so they needed a steel and metal bridge. >> we were told that this had been arranged and we must do. we literally no option at all. >> they were building what would become the bridge on the river kwai. 200 p.o.w.s and 200,000 slave laborers. the railway would connect thailand with burma. >> and it crosses ravines, bridges, rivers. no one bridge crosses the river kwai which it's now known. his bridge was this huge obstacle, this great river. they had to cross that river in order to get the train up towards the burma border so they could take their men up to fight in india. >> when do you first find out that your job is to help build this railroad for the japanese? >> well, we were never told.

we were just sent off in great gangs, and we were carting soil. we had a little basket about that size. and every one of us had a basket, and then you would just walk to somewhere, tip it over, and go back all day. and we were building a 50-feet embankment to put the rails on top of that. that's when we realized we were building a railroad. coming up, the speedo period turns life on the railway into a living hell. that's next on "war stories."

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the japanese plan for building the railway connecting thailand and burma