I AM ALIVE!: A United States Marine's Story of Survival in a World War II Japanese POW Camp

By Charles R Jackson

The postcard came with the words "Imperial Japanese Army" printed at the top. On it were written three simple words: "I AM ALIVE!" And with this, Charles R. Jackson's wife knew that her husband, a US Marine sergeant major, had survived the Japanese capture of Corregidor and could only hope he would continue to survive the hell that came with being a Japanese prisoner of war.

Held prisoner for three horrific years, Jackson survived the war and penned his memoir, though it went unpublished and forgotten for decades. That is until Bruce "Doc" Norton, himself a decorated US Marine veteran, and an acclaimed military historian, brought the memoir to light.

In a rare look into the heart of combat, Sergeant Major Jackson describes the fierce and ultimately losing battle for Corregidor, the surrender of thousands of marines, and the death marches that followed. And all this was simply a prelude to the fight for survival that would take place in the POW camps. Jackson's memoir gives voice to the thousands of men who fought and died during WWII, in the Pacific. His character and spirit evoke the very definition of the Marine Corps's motto, Semper Fidelis--Always Faithful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quadrant Books
• Release date: May 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781937868062

Book preview

Our bayonet was twelve inches long, its handle four more, and it weighed a pound. It was of dulled blue steel, an unlovely thing, and unloved. But the Japanese bayonet is a beauty of gleaming steel, longer than ours is by several inches, with a point upturned in a cruel curve. Their officers glory in their Samurai swords, but the troops worshiped their bayonets with a fanatical devotion. These bayonets were now brought most forcibly to our attention; for the next three years and more we were never allowed to forget them. Don’t stop for water, they just stuck a fellow was the word passed. We looked at the moving column up ahead, and there as that column divided itself like a swift, rushing stream around a rock in its bed, we saw a pitiful, crumpled figure lying in the road, his bright blood reflected against the shining sun. Let the chow alone, they just got another! was barked at me as I was stuffing my shirt with C rations from a roadside dump. I looked up, and there was a man in the ranks passing by, supported by a comrade and trailing a few drops of red in the gray dust.…

I AM ALIVE!

Also by Bruce H. Norton

Force Recon Diary, 1969

Force Recon Diary, 1970

Encyclopedia of American War Heroes

Stingray

With Donald N. Hamblen:

One Tough Marine

With Maurice J. Jacques:

Sergeant Major, U.S. Marines

With Len Maffioli:

Grown Gray in War

I AM ALIVE!

A United States Marine’s Story of Survival in a World War II Japanese POW Camp

Sergeant Major Charles R. Jackson, USMC (Ret.)

Edited by

Major Bruce H. Norton, USMC (Ret.)

I am Alive!

Quadrant Books

Published by arrangement with the author.

Copyright © 2000 by Bruce H. Norton

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information please contact: [e-mail] or by writing us at the following address:

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Grateful acknowledgment is made to ASSEMBLY Magazine for permission to reprint an excerpt from an obituary article written by Alexander G. Kirby. Copyright ASSEMBLY Magazine, Spring, 1972.

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a division of Author Coach, LLC

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DEDICATION

It is customary to dedicate your work to someone—this shall be no exception. After due thought, these stories and articles are offered to the following:

First Lieutenant Asaka, Infantry, Imperial Japanese Army: His stern and rigid treatment was tempered by a real regard for our welfare while I was imprisoned in Japan; an enigmatic figure, we think he saved many lives entrusted to his care.

Soochow, the little Marine mongrel mascot: His keen ears often detected bombing and strafing planes ahead of the air raid warning. Unlike most other dogs, who gave warning by scurrying for shelter with their tails tucked between their legs, this little fellow stood his ground, barking furiously at the sky raiders before he would take cover. By doing so, he saved the lives of many of his Marines.

Last, to Big Ray Foss, a civilian employee at the Cavite Navy Yard, who, when the going was really rough, shared his starvation rations with Soochow and kept the little dog alive.

—Charles R. Jackson

To Bruce and Elizabeth—to whom I owe so much.

—Maj. Bruce H. Norton, USMC (Ret.)

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

Background …

1. The Story of Father McManus—A humble Catholic chaplain’s sublime self-sacrifice.

2. The Story of Captain Fleming—An army officer shows leadership and bravery.

3. The Story of Lieutenant Asaka—An enigmatic Japanese. We hated him; we respected him; today we are beginning to like him. A real soldier.

4. The Story of Doctor Wade—Our bravest man. A story of high, sustained courage.

5. The Story of Joe Pearlstein—His courage came out under fire. As a prisoner, he died for his principles.

6. The Story of Lt. Col. Masao Mori—An affable, cultured gentleman, the prisoners thought well of him, but he was a fiend in his cruelties. I hope the War Crimes Commission gets this fellow.

7. The Story of Lieutenant Colonel Anderson—The beloved Old Man. He set the example as a leader.

8. The Story of Yamanouchi—A humble private in the Japanese army, the camp interpreter. A Christian by repute; a kindly man by our standards.

9. The Story of Negro Bell—Sixty-six years old, a forgotten hero of Corregidor. Boys from the Deep South wanted the honor of burying him.

10. The Story of Koenig and Corley—Just two ordinary Marines. Gallantry above and beyond the call of duty. They denied it.

11. The Story of the Old Swede—1st Sgt. Earl O. Carlson, USMC. A study in twenty years of drunkenness. He found his soul at the last and laid down his life for a Jew. A story without any moral.

12. The Story of Five Gallons of Rum—A short history of rum, some pertinent observations on it, and the travels of this particular five gallons.

13. The Story of the Old Army Game—Gamblers, 20-percent men, human leeches, and carrion crows. Something of their methods and philosophies. A distressful sidelight that might better have remained concealed.

14. The Story of Soochow—The odyssey of a little dog in war and in our prison camp, none too creditable to the survivors of the 4th Marines.

15. The Story of Private Gizmo—A good Marine who turned yellow and killed himself. A study in war neurosis hysteria, acute.

16. The Story of First Sergeant Santaleses—A first-class soldier of the Philippine Scouts. With a few men of this type, a general could storm the gates of hell.

SHORT STORIES

17. Fish Stories—For the Isaak Walton trade.

18. A Black Market King—Torture and death for trading with the Japanese.

19. All of My Suckers Are in Jail, Too.—Musings of a dobe saloonkeeper in jail himself.

20. Sulfa Drugs and Morphine—A tale about a prisoner who avenged his comrade’s death at the hands of a brutal guard.

21. Cornstarch Pills—Trimming the guards in the black market.

22. False Teeth and Coconuts—A wise old Marine has the last laugh on a wise old sailor.

23. I Call Her ‘Hey, You!’ —A tale of a Cavite squaw man that made us laugh in prison camp when there was so little to make one laugh.

24. Donald Duck—We Marines brag about one of our colonels.

25. Laughing with Death—Are we entirely sane when we remember Big Mac with laughter?

26. The Lister Bag That Didn’t Get the Purple Heart—Just an ordinary Irishman wounded on Corregidor.

27. The Emperor’s Birthday—An old-time, steady type of Marine sergeant major.

Epilogue

Bibliography

Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to express my gratitude and sincere thanks, first to Dr. David M. Goddard for allowing me permission to edit and publish his uncle’s stories; Maj. Gen. John S. Grinalds, USMC (Ret.) and President of The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, Capt. John S. Coussons, USN (Ret.), Col. Thomas Palmer, USMC (Ret.), Col. Philip W. Leon, USA (Ret.), Col. John G. Tony Lackey, III, USA (Ret.), Maj. Edward Y. Hall, USAR, Col. James A. W. Rembert, Col. Richard D. Mick Mickelson, USMC (Ret.), Special Agent Craig M. Arnold, FBI, Mrs. Janis W. Breazeale, Ms. Crystal M. Lottig; Mrs. Jacqueline Chocas, Mr. James S. Simons, Mr. Richard M. Cutler, Jr., and Mrs. Rosalba H. Norton for providing me with their critical reviews; to Maj. Jim Capers, USMC (Ret.), and G.Sgt. (Gunnery Sergeant) Joe Singh Rodriguez, USMC (Ret.), for their investigative expertise; to Mr. Carlton Shokes, Ms. Mary Chapman, and Mrs. Erika Larsh, from The Citadel’s Information Technology Services Department, for their great patience and professionalism; Mr. Fred J. Graboske and Mr. Charles R. Smith, at the Marine Corps Historical Center, for their advice and support with this project; and Ms. Kerry Strong and Dr. Jim Jinther at Quantico, Virginia, for their assistance in providing those photographs that have enhanced Sergeant Major Jackson’s work.

To all of these good people, I am indebted—Semper Fidelis.

—B.H.N.

FOREWORD

This book, in the opinion of many, is one of the most remarkable records of Marine Corps history written after World War II. Charles Ream Jackson’s ability to present his collection of fascinating observations as a prisoner of war in an honest, clear, and chronological order has made my task as editor a most enjoyable experience. To that degree, I have tried to maintain the integrity of his original manuscript as much as possible.

The transformation of this Marine’s extraordinary story, moving from his recorded remembrances originally typed on onionskin paper, now turned brown and brittle with age, into book form, began in 1994.

While I was serving as director of the Marine Corps Command Museum, in San Diego, California, Mrs. Margaret McRae Jackson brought her husband’s collection of notes and short stories to me. She hoped they could become a recorded part of Marine Corps history, and to ensure that happened, the original pages of Jackson’s stories were forwarded to the Marine Corps History and Museums Division, located at the Washington Navy Yard.

Ironically, Charles R. Jackson and his wife, Margaret, had for many years lived in the coastal town of Pacific Beach, a few miles north of San Diego. Margaret, in 1992, realizing that her own health was rapidly deteriorating, wanted to be certain that her husband’s written account of his time as a Marine POW survived.

With assistance from Dr. David M. Goddard, Charles R. Jackson’s nephew; Mr. Fred J. Graboske, the Marine Corps History and Museums Division’s chief archivist; Ms. Sheila Biles, library technician for the Special Collections and Archives Division at the United States Military Academy Library, and Dr. J. A. Jinther, photographic archivist at the Marine Corps Research Center, Quantico, Virginia, a more complete picture of Charles R. Jackson’s twenty-eight-year military service has now been documented.

As Jackson states, there have been a number of books written about the American prisoner of war experience, histories of men brutally killed, tortured, and starved while in the hands of their Japanese captors. Most of these books have been written by historians who were most fortunate in never having personally experienced the horrific effects of being a guest of the emperor. Here is a significant exception!

I AM ALIVE! is a fascinating series of stories—personal, graphic observances coming from one Marine sergeant major who, as a prisoner of war during World War II, credits his own struggle and survival not only to his fellow prisoners of war, but to several of his Japanese captors!

As editor of this work, my inclusion of Jackson’s personal history, as background, is offered to assist the reader in getting to know and understand this remarkable man. It is readily apparent throughout his recollections that Jackson was a devoted Christian, and true to his Marine Corps motto of Semper Fidelis—Always Faithful—he, too, managed to keep the faith during his extraordinary and heroic ordeal. It is the documented history of compassionate, courageous, and spirited individuals such as Charles R. Jackson that help define the term—UNITED STATES MARINE.

—Maj. Bruce H. Norton, USMC (Ret.)

INTRODUCTION

My name is Charles R. Jackson. I am a professional Marine, with nearly twenty years’ service in our Corps. Prior to that, I served for eight years [as a commissioned officer] in the United States Army. While in the Marine Corps, I have served in China several times, in the Philippines, Japan, Guam, Hawaii, [on] most of the West Coast and at a few of the East Coast naval stations in our own country, as well as in Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. I have also been seagoing, and have had at least a year’s service on transports in my wanderings.

I left Pearl Harbor in October of 1940 for duty in Shanghai with the 4th Marine Regiment. We evacuated that troubled city and landed in the Philippines a week before the war began. We saw a bit of Bataan and a lot of Corregidor, and then came more than three years of dreary imprisonment. Surrender found me working for the Mitsubishi Company in one of their copper mines located some four hundred miles northwest of Tokyo.

This [book] is written in the quiet and peace of an old Virginia town, without benefit of notes or references, except in a few cases where specifically stated. My experiences are still vivid enough to be remembered clearly. A critical reader may find minor errors in numbers of troops, dates, and certain happenings, but these recollections are as accurate as I am capable of making them.

While a prisoner, I suffered from partial blindness, the direct result of prolonged starvation. An Army Medical Corps doctor, Lt. Col. Warren A. Wilson, procured for me, after some ten months of helplessness, a pair of eyeglasses from one of our dead. With these glasses I was able to sew my clothes, do my work, and read such books as our meager stock provided. Had it not been for these blessed volumes, I doubt my capacity to have pulled through, mentally. Physically, I will always bear an eternal gratitude to the doctors who were my fellow prisoners. They saved thousands of lives, these unselfish gentlemen and physicians. Never, during those dark days when the worst in us came to the surface, when it was a case of dog eat dog for survival, did I see or hear of a mean, cruel, or selfish act on the part of these splendid men. The Red Cross food and medicine, scant as they were (for the Japanese seldom allowed them to be issued), were the means whereby most of us who survived are alive today.

Among the diseases I recall having, generally at one and the same time, and all the time, were pellagra, ulcers, dry and wet beriberi, malaria, dysentery (both bacillic and amoebic), amblyopia of the eyes and bursitis in the shoulders, scurvy, and arthritis. (Chronic diarrhea, internal bleeding, and malnutrition I hardly count as diseases, I was so used to them.) On two occasions my weight was 95 pounds or less. My average weight might have been 125 pounds. During the only break I ever got, a kitchen police job in the galley, my weight went up in those five lucky months to 165, only fifteen pounds below normal.

And yet, I was only an average prisoner as far as diseases went. The weak and dispirited died early. We who survived must have been incredibly tough, with the most intense desire to live.

Strange as it must seem to some of you, I bear no hatred toward the Japanese, except for a few individuals with whom I came into close contact and earned their disfavor. Judged by our own standards, there were even some good men among our enemies. Remember that these people were but ninety years removed from a medieval society; considering that, we were lucky not to have been killed when we surrendered. The Chinese and Korean forced labor prisoners were treated far worse than we were.

In the Bataan campaign our forces did cruel and evil things that would have justified severe reprisals. In the Corregidor surrender, whose terms I understood included turning over all installations intact, we grossly violated those terms by destroying all we could in the few hours left to us. There was no punishment for that.

As I said, there are a few Japanese against whom I bear a personal grudge, and it would not be true to deny it. Yet, on the whole, I think I can safely speak for most of the fellow prisoners whom I knew, and say that we bear them no ill will. Apart from systematically starving us, there was a strange mixture of kindness and cruelty, with the former predominating. One sometimes thinks that they themselves did not have too much with which to feed and clothe us, for the blockade cut off essential food, medicines, and other supplies for the whole nation.

I have come out of this nightmare of over three years in jail in pretty good shape except for my eyes. I now know I have cataracts in both eyes, and they are increasing in size. One of our doctors, Lt. Col. Albert A. Weinstein (who died 25 February 1964), once remarked to me that the most amazing thing he had observed among us prisoners was the incredible toughness of the human body and how hard it was to kill.

In telling these tales of other people, I have tried as much as possible to keep out the personal element. This was difficult to do. I was too much a spectator, and sometimes a participant, in all of them except one. (I shall tell you of this one when I write it.) These are primarily character sketches of different men of different races, along with a little dog and five gallons of rum, which I thought to be outstanding. I have tried to add enough narrative and background to keep the reader’s interest. In closing, I repeat I cannot hate the Japanese.

—Charles R. Jackson, 1948

BACKGROUND …

Charles R. Jackson was born on 14 July 1898 in Dinwiddie County, Petersburg, Virginia, the firstborn son of Capt. Montgomery Chamberlayne Jackson and his wife, the former Isabel Biscoe. Their home was located at 30 Corling Street, Petersburg, Virginia, where Captain Jackson was, in 1917, president of the Jackson Coal & Coke Company.

Charles had a brother, Montgomery Chamberlayne Jackson, Jr. After graduating from high school, both brothers attended Virginia Military Institute, where Montgomery graduated in 1920 with a baccalaureate degree in science. He served in the U.S. Army and by 1956 had risen to the rank of colonel. He was employed by the U.S. Life Insurance Company in Carmel, California, and died on 6 June 1972.

Charles R. Jackson attended Petersburg High School, where the records show that he studied Arithmetic, English, History and Civil Engineering, in Primary School, and concentrated on Algebra, Plane geometry, English, French and Drawing during his last year of high school. He also studied drawing at Smith Art School in Petersburg under the guidance of Mrs. Judy Smith.

At VMI, which he attended for two years, Charles pursued a degree in civil engineering.

Charles R. Jackson applied to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, and was admitted on 14 June 1917. He was a second alternate appointee of Congressman Walter S. Watson from the Fourth District of Virginia, and his father, Capt. M. C. Jackson, was listed on his application as his guardian.

An accelerated curriculum was in effect at the time of Jackson’s cadetship due to personnel shortages caused by World War I. Charles R. Jackson graduated on 1 November 1918, ranked number 178 in a class of 284 members.

Charles R. Jackson’s class returned to the academy on 3 December 1918 to pursue a postgraduate student officer’s course, from which they graduated on 11 June 1919. During the period of 13–20 July 1919 he toured the battlefields of France, observing the Belgian, French, and Italian fronts and the Army of Occupation. He traveled through Germany from 17–27 September before returning to Camp Benning, Georgia, as a student officer at Infantry School in October. He resigned his commission on 19 January 1920, but was reappointed a second lieutenant of infantry on 1 July 1920 and promoted to first lieutenant that same day.

The Howitzer, the yearbook of the Corps of Cadets, published by the Class of 1921, which graduated on 1 November 1918, shows two photographs of Cadet Charles Ream Jackson, nicknamed Charlie, or Jack.

Beneath his Howitzer photograph it reads:

Will call any place in the city in my unlettered wagon, and buy or sell Old clothes, rags, bottles, and sacks. Did you ever see that legend over a junk shop door? Diogenes says that Jackson is the man who first patented the idea. Could he develop a Neapolitan brogue, he surely would be in his element, for he is the most accomplished scavenger in the Corps, and has amassed a fortune in clothes, shoes, leggings, b-plates, gloves, bell-buttons, and gray rags.

Charlie has considerable talent for drawing and printing. The vast amount of ice cream he has eaten in payment for artistic hop-cards may partially explain the precocious embonpoint that has given the Kaydet store so much trouble. Glance through this book and see for yourself that Goldberg—or Broberg—has nothing on him.

He has other remarkable talents, notably that of kissing the boot. His efforts in this line have been of avail, but as Stevenson tells us, the true success is to labor.

Ditch the boodle boys, here comes Jackson.

He served with the 22d Infantry at Fort Porter, Buffalo, N.Y., 30 November 1920 to 3 March 1921; at Fort Jay, N.Y., from 4 March to 20 May; at Fort Porter, N.Y., 21 May to 16 September; at Fort Benning, Georgia, on detached service, from 17 September 1921 to 1 June 1922; at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, with the 23d Infantry, 1 June 1922 until he was returned to the grade of second lieutenant on 15 December 1922.

He transferred to the Coast Artillery Corps on 8 June 1923. He served at Fort Ruger, Hawaii, with the 16th Coast Artillery from 1 October 1923 to 16 September 1924; at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, from 16 September 1924 to 27 July 1925. He resigned, for reasons unknown, on 27 July 1925.

Civil History: Engineer, E. I. DuPont de Nemours Co., Hopewell, Virginia, 1920; student, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1920; Member, Eleusis Fraternity and Cornell Society of Engineers; Engineering Sales Department, Standard Oil Company of California, San Francisco, 1925; Engineer, E. I. DuPont de Nemours Co., Parlin, N.J. and Flint, Michigan, 1927.

For reasons known only to Charles R. Jackson, but to his everlasting credit, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps as a private on 3 September 1927.

Jackson’s Marine Corps career began when he enlisted at Detroit, Michigan, as a private. He served in China for a total of almost three years, Nicaragua one year, and the Philippines for one year. He now was a first sergeant, but became a temporary sergeant major on 14 August 1940. Meanwhile, he was sent to Pearl Harbor on 2 July 1940 and to China on 14 November 1940, then returned to the Philippines on 1 December 1941.

When the Japanese invaded Luzon after the Pearl Harbor attack, he was active in the fighting in Bataan. His unit, the 4th Marines, was stationed on Corregidor. Jackson was verbally given the rank of lieutenant colonel, but no papers were issued, and after the war no records of this were available. I think that Charlie was correct. When I was in 6th Army headquarters, 1948–51, I remember someone asking me if I had a classmate who was a Marine officer on Corregidor, but unfortunately I had to reply that I did not know.

"During the fighting on Corregidor, Charlie was awarded the Silver Star on 13 April 1942 for his bravery in saving the lives of his comrades while under direct enemy fire. He was also awarded the Purple Heart on 2 May 1942 and a Gold Star in lieu of a second Purple Heart on 6 May 1942.

After the surrender of Corregidor, Charlie was taken [by the Japanese] north to Cabanatuan [POW camp]. There he managed to escape from the Japanese and helped organize a Filipino guerrilla unit to harass the Japanese. When the Japanese organized a major retaliation against the guerrillas, Charlie started south to Luzon, hoping to work his way to Borneo or to Australia. While traveling south he contracted malaria and became unconscious. He had given away most of his supply of quinine. When the Japanese found him, they gave him quinine and recaptured him. He was held in Manila for a while, and then was sent to Japan. There he worked in a copper mine and in the scrap metal department of a Japanese steel mill until the end of the war.*

In a letter written in 1992, asking to describe Sergeant Major Jackson, Mr. Joseph E. Frenchy Dupont, Jr., of Plaquemine, Louisiana, recalled:

The thing that I remember most about [Sergeant Major] Jackson was that we enlisted Marines had a nickname for him—we called him Chowbanger Jackson. In China, the chowbanger was a food prepared on the street corners by the lower-class Chinese. They would have a bamboo yo-yo pole about seven feet long, and on one end would be a little charcoal-burner stove and on the other end would be their supplies. They would walk down the street with this pole and it would bounce, so that on the upswing they would take their steps, and could carry its weight when both feet were on the ground.

Whenever Sergeant Major Jackson would go on liberty, and we would pass by him on rickshaws going downtown, he could be seen on the street corner eating these chowbangers with the Chinese coolies and the lower class of Chinese people that were around. A chowbanger, as best as I can remember, was a fried, doughy substance made from rice flour and some other ingredients.

We thought he should have eaten in a better situation, down at our club, as we did, rather than out on the street corner with the Chinese coolies. Of course, no one ever called him Chowbanger to his face.

Sergeant Major Jackson was the sergeant major of the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, and in my capacity as a private first class, I had very little association with him. I did have an occasion at one time to go to his quarters. I can’t remember the reason why, but it was after I was transferred into the Battalion Intelligence Section and became part of Headquarters Company, 2d Battalion.

I remember going into his quarters and I saw him without his shirt on, and to my surprise he was covered with tattoos all over his body. He had a spread eagle on his chest, and the wing tips went off to his shoulders. On his back was a large Chinese dragon extended from just below the nape of his neck, down his back, in a curling design to where his pants came to well below his waist.

With this thought in mind, I can remember that he never appeared in the barracks with just a skivvy shirt on. He always wore long-sleeved shirts, possibly to hide the fact that he had these tattoos. In regards to his physical appearance, he kept his hair cut very short. He was always dressed immaculately. He was a rather large man, as I recall, and always made a good presentation as a Marine. He was not a sloppy person. He was always neat and properly dressed.

I have one other story about Charles R. Jackson that I believe is worth sharing:

We evacuated Shanghai on November 28, 1941 and went to the Philippines and landed at the Olongapo Naval Base. On Christmas Eve, after the war had started, we were bombed by the Japanese. The naval base was hit pretty hard, as was the little barrio outside the base.

The word came down that the Japanese were driving down our way, and we had to leave Olongapo for fear of being cut off from the rest of the Regiment. The bombing began on Christmas Eve, and by morning everyone had begun the evacuation. Being assigned to the Battalion’s Intelligence Section, along with a Lieutenant Sidney F. Jenkins and five other Marines, we were the last ones to leave Olongapo with Lieutenant Colonel Anderson.

We were all riding in a truck with Sergeant Major Jackson, Lieutenant Colonel Anderson and Lieutenant Jenkins, driving down the Bataan Peninsula toward Mariveles where we would bivouac before going over to the Island of Corregidor.

As we drove along, we passed by the remains of a bombed out cabaret, a small nightclub. It had been badly damaged by a bomb, but part of it was still standing. Colonel Anderson suggested that we stop, as it was Christmas Eve, and that we all go inside and have a Christmas drink. All of the Filipinos had taken off to the hills and there was no one around. Half the walls had been knocked down, but the bar was still standing, although it too was in pretty bad shape.

We went inside and one of the Marines began to fix drinks for all of us. It was Colonel Anderson who suggested that we gather around a piano and sing Christmas carols. Lieutenant Carol knew how to play the piano, and Sergeant Major Jackson had a pretty good voice. I remember one of the carols we sang was, O Come All Ye Faithful. The real title was Adeste Fidelis, and he sang it in Latin. He said, Dupont, do you know that the Christmas carol, Adeste Fidelis, is the oldest of all the carols? It was written back in the Middle Ages and the author is anonymous. No one knows who wrote it. I remember that well, and it stayed with me. I was surprised to hear him say that, and I often wondered whether or not he knew what he was talking about. I thought it very strange that a sergeant major in the Marine Corps would be so knowledgeable about church music.

Years later, I had occasion to talk with Fred Koenig, who was a member of our Battalion Intelligence Section, and I asked him if he could remember anything about Sergeant Major Jackson. He said, Yes, I remember my impression of Sergeant Major Jackson was that he was a very well educated, refined man, but he never acted that way around the troops. He maintained his usual demeanor of a Marine Corps sergeant major who was rough and tough, and didn’t want to appear to give the impression that he was interested in things other than Marine Corps activities.

Fred Koenig, known as Bones, later told me that he had gone on liberty with Sergeant Major Jackson. This was the first time I had heard this. According to Bones, Jackson talked about the arts, music, and literature. But when he was back in garrison with the troops, he used the rough and tough language that the rest of us did.

Two articles, appearing in the United States Military Academy’s Thirty-Five Year Book and Fifty Year Book, respectively, published by the Class of 1919, offer additional and supporting information about Charles R. Jackson:

Commissioned Warrant Officer Charles R. Jackson, USMC:

Charlie, the Missing Marine, has finally been located; retired after thirty years service, and living in San Diego. After resigning from the Army, for the second time, in 1925, Charlie enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, and served in all enlisted grades from 1927 to 1945, when he was promoted to the rank of commissioned warrant officer (infantry). He retired in 1951. Charlie was captured on Corregidor