James Joseph Bollich was born in August 1921 south of Eunice [Annotator's Note: Eunice, Louisiana]. Before the war, he was attending college in Lafayette [Annotator's Note: Lafayette, Louisiana]. When Pearl Harbor was attacked [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], he was in the Philippines. He had done maneuvers in Louisiana using dive bombers, then shipped to the Philippines. Bollich joined the Army Air Corps in August 1940. He wanted to be a pilot, but did not think he would pass the test. He did his basic training in Dallas [Annotator's Note: Dallas, Texas]. When he finished, he joined the 16th Bombardment Squadron, 27th Bombardment Group then did maneuvers in Lake Charles, Louisiana. He boarded his transport ship in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] and sailed to the Philippines. Bollich was an aircraft mechanic, but never had much time to work on a plane. When war broke out, his planes had not arrived yet and were diverted to Australia. In school, he worked on every part of an AT-6 [Annotator's Note: North American AT-6 Texan advanced trainer aircraft]. In school, Bollich had to figure out how to fix radial engines [Annotator's Note: reciprocating type internal combustion engine]. His squadron had 165 people in it, but he worked with three or four men when fixing a plane.

When James Bollich was evacuated to the Bataan Peninsula [Annotator's Note: Bataan Peninsula, Luzon, Philippines], he made it to an airfield. When he got to the airstrip, he found out the P-40s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] did not belong to his unit [Annotator's Note: 16th Bombardment Squadron, 27th Bombardment Group]. His unit was the only one who evacuated with their equipment. At the airstrip, Bollich did not work on the planes, he acted as an anti-aircraft gunner. He thinks he may have damaged some Japanese planes. When the Japanese landed on Luzon, everyone went to the Bataan Peninsula. The Japanese planes would hide in the clouds, then would dive bomb the airstrip. The planes Bollich had were used for reconnaissance. If a bomb hit the runway, the engineers would fix the strip, then the Japanese would come back. The only look outs they had were the machine gunners. They hid the planes under the large trees. Two or three were lost while being moved from the airstrip. Bollich kept the planes near the strip, which confused the Japanese. There were no tents, so Bollich had to sleep on the ground near his foxhole. The troops were scattered around the mountains. He stayed there for four months. When the Americans evacuated to the peninsula, they were cut off from food sources. Eventually they ran out of food. The Japanese brought in additional troops, allowing them to break through the front lines. When Bollich arrived at the tip of the peninsula, he was told of the surrender. He destroyed his weapons and ammunition. General King [Annotator's Note: US Army Major General Edward P. King, Jr.] decided defense of the area was impossible. When war broke out, he was issued a World War 1 era rifle [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber Model 1903, or M1903, Springfield bolt action rifle] and a .45 caliber pistol [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol]. The rifle was good for hunting birds and other small animals. By the end of the battle, they killed and ate the horses and mules. He remembers going to sleep with a piece of bread and being swarmed by rats. Bollich was not far from the front lines, so he could hear the fighting. He did not see his first Japanese soldier until after the surrender.

During the surrender, James Bollich destroyed his weapons and threw them into the water. When he was falling back, he did not think there was going to be a surrender. He had a First Sergeant that thought the Japanese would take good care of them. He died six weeks later. Bollich was being strafed and bombed at the surrender site. He was able to hide until the bombers came overhead. A bomb landed 20 feet way from him. The following day, the ground troops came in and started the Bataan Death March. Bollich was among the first to start the march. The first Japanese soldier he met beat him after a miscommunication. Once they ran into the frontline troops, the Americans started getting robbed, then beaten. They were beaten all day long. The Americans were not allowed to stop or get water. The first night, they were allowed to rest. The second day is when people started collapsing. Those that collapsed were murdered. When he saw another water well, Bollich got some. Guards would start shooting when this happened. After the first night, the prisoners walked day and night. The Americans outnumbered the Japanese, so they were able to get water at night. Bollich avoided the areas where people were being beaten. Escape would have been easy, but he did not know what he was getting into. One night, he slipped out of line and ended up in a shack. He got some rest with another soldier, then returned to the line.

It took five and a half days for James Bollich to reach Camp O'Donnell [Annotator's Note: American instillation used as a prisoner of war camp]. General King [Annotator's Note: US Army Major General Edward Postell King, Jr.] was there and offered words of encouragement. The Japanese commander then explained the rules of the camp. He also told the prisoners they arrived there to die, which Bollich did not believe was a correct interpretation. During the first few weeks after the surrender, a quarter of those captured died. Most people died of dysentery. They were only given a handful of dry cooked rice. Eventually, they were given scraps from carrots and sweet potatoes. Three men got out of the camp to get food. When they returned, they were tortured for three days. The Japanese made the men dig graves, then executed them. After that, the prisoners were put into groups of ten that would die if one person tried to escape. Bollich does not think that worked. There was no extra food to eat.

James Bollich was on one of the first ships to take prisoners from the Philippines. The Japanese put 2,000 men into a ship hull. By that time, most of the men had dysentery, which killed many people. Three days later, an American submarine attacked the ship. Bollich could feel the ship turning, hear Japanese men screaming, and feel explosions. He hoped the Americans would sink the ship and he would be picked up. The American torpedoes were not good and failed to sink the ship. Bollich was told he was going to Japan, but ended up in Pusan, Korea. The ship was so full of human waste that the Japanese had to stop in Formosa [Annotator's Note: present day Taiwan] to clean out the inside of the hull. He took his clothes off and was sprayed with a fire hose. It was the first shower he had in seven months. He had not taken his clothes off for seven months. He did not realize how emaciated he had become. He put his old clothes back on and boarded the ship. It was November and very cold and Bollich ended up with pneumonia. In Korea, he had to be carried out of the ship. He was thrown into a truck and transferred to a camp. He was treated by a doctor at the camp. It was difficult for him to eat. Thirty-five of the 80 men sent to the hospital survived.

Once he was strong enough, James Bollich was transferred to Mukden, Manchuria [Annotator's Note: Mukden, Manchuria, China]. It was extremely cold there. He was given new summer clothes to wear while in Korea. The train dropped the prisoners off in the snow miles away from the city. When he got into the camp, he had frostbite on his face and feet. He did not lose any limbs. He weighed 92 pounds, even with his clothes on. Bollich was given dog meat from some of the prisoners. The Japanese fed him three soup meals a day, allowing him to gain some weight. The camp was big, capable of holding the 1,000 plus POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] there. When people died, it was too cold to bury them. They stacked the bodies in a shack until the spring when they could be buried. Some of them had hepatitis, causing the bodies to turn yellow. Each man was given his own grave. There were not that many guards at the camp. The prisoners were constantly counted. They were all given a bowl and spoon to eat with. After being counted, Bollich was sent to a factory to work. Three people escaped from the camp in Manchuria. The men were captured and executed, but there were no threats to the prisoners. That scared Bollich. He was carrying a compass, which he kept on him at all times. He initially hid the compass in a bag. He was afraid the Japanese would find the compass in his barracks. He stuck it under a floorboard near his bunk. When the war ended, he tried to find the instrument, but it was gone. A friend of his told him a bomb that exploded on the barracks knocked the compass into a different area. Three bombs landed in the area, including one that killed several prisoners. Later on, he got in touch with the American embassy in Manchuria and told them about the compass. The embassy told him he would try to find it, but the one barrack building saved by the Chinese was not the one he was in. Bollich does not want to go to the camp site to look for it.

James Bollich was liberated by the Russians. Near the end of the war, the Japanese put out an order for all POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] to be executed when the invasion of Japan commenced. Five or six Americans parachuted into the area and were captured. They had the mission of convincing the Japanese that the war was over. There was a Japanese-American interpreter. Bollich did not recognize them because the uniforms were different. He thought they might be Germans. That night, none of the Japanese guards did their normal routines. The next day, the camp commander was convinced about the armistice. The Americans were kept in the camp until the Russians appeared and liberated the camp. Soon, American planes began dropping food and clothes. About five weeks later, they boarded a ship to Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. The ship ran into a typhoon. Early in the morning, there was a bang and the power went out in the ship. The Americans went to the top deck and prepared to abandon the ship. The ship hit a mine, killing sailors and the recently freed prisoners. The sailors thought the ship would split apart, but it held and made it to Okinawa. Bollich was put into the bomb bay of a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] bound for Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines]. One of the plane's bomb bay doors opened, dropping around 30 POWs into the ocean. Bollich was hospitalized in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California], then El Paso [Annotator's Note: El Paso, Texas] for several weeks. After his hospitalization, he was allowed to go home. Stopping off in Crowley [Annotator's Note: Crowley, Louisiana], Bollich got a haircut and was accidentally told two of his brothers had died in the war. When he got home, his mother was devastated over the losses of her sons. She thought he was also dead. He wrote letters in the hospitals, but never got responses. Bollich is glad he did not know about his brother's deaths while he was imprisoned.

James Bollich's younger brother never made it overseas. One brother died in a fighter pilot accident and the other died in a bomber. As a prisoner, he thinks prayer helped him survive, but he also thinks some people prayed to die. If a person caught dysentery, they were going to die. Bollich thinks luck helped him too. When he was at his airstrip, Bollich and another soldier were running to the same foxhole. The other man made it first and a bomb fell right on him. All Bollich could find was a compass. He was hit in the arm by shrapnel. He also thinks his upbringing helped him survive. He knew how to hunt, fish, and live outdoors. While in Manchuria [Annotator's Note: Manchuria, China], he worked in an abandoned factory built by the Ford Motor Company. The Japanese wanted the POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] to build war goods for them. The prisoners regularly sabotaged the equipment. In Manchuria, he was mostly guarded by Manchurians. The Chinese would buy stolen goods from the prisoners. Bollich was not kept together with the Filipino prisoners at Camp O'Donnell [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines]. Several hundred Filipinos died a day in the camp. The POWs did not get time off and worked from sun up to sun down. They only had a day off for Japanese holidays. Bollich is happy about the use of atomic bombs because he believes it saved his life. One Japanese commander murdered the POWs in his charge after the invasion of Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan].