John Edward Love was born in Clovis, New Mexico in August 1922. His father abandoned his family during the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], so his mother moved them to Las Cruces [Annotator's Note: Las Cruces, New Mexico]. In 1937, she met and married a rancher. They moved to Albuquerque [Annotator's Note: Albuquerque, New Mexico]. The cost of food was very expensive during the Depression and life was hard. His friend told him about the National Guard and taught him how to do Morse Code [Annotator's Note: a method of telecommunication encoding characters in a system of dots and dashes]. When Love was 17 years old, his friend convinced him to join the 111th Cavalry [Annotator's Note: 111th Cavalry Regiment] of the New Mexico National Guard because it paid 11 dollars a month. Love figured that would help his family. The Guard was very exciting, and he went on maneuvers with his unit. In January 1941, things began to change due to the uprising of hostilities in Europe. The military sold all the livestock and equipment to the ranchers and converted his unit to an anti-aircraft coast artillery [Annotator's Note: 200th Coastal Artillery Regiment (Antiaircraft)]. He received training in the new equipment including anti-aircraft guns and then trained other soldiers in his unit. In mid-1941, his unit was sent to Fort Bliss, Texas and received target training using tow targets and artillery from 1917 and 1918. Love had been assigned to the Headquarters Battery. By the end of 1941, he was part of one in five artillery batteries out of the whole United States. In September 1941, his unit received orders to ship out to the Philippines. He boarded a train and headed to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] and boarded a ship, called The Paris [Annotator's Note: unable to identify], to take them to the Philippines. The ship stopped in Honolulu [Annotator's Note: Honolulu, Hawaii] and Love spent two days in the city, then boarded the ship again for an eight-day voyage to the Philippines with the USS Houston (CA-30) as an escort, even though America was still in peacetime. During the voyage, the ship went through a typhoon. When the ships arrived at the Philippines, he was loaded in a truck and sent to Clark Field [Annotator's Note: now Clark Air Base in Luzon, Philippines] and taken to his barracks. A few days later his unit, the 200th Coast Artillery of National Guard, received their military equipment with orders to assemble them in various locations around Clark Field. He was given a chance to go on furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to see the city of Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Philippines]. Love requested to be transferred from an aide clerk to Battery C of the regiment because the aide work did not appeal to him, and he wanted to be on the guns. More regiments were arriving in the Philippines, along with the Army Air Forces.

In the fall of 1941, John Edward Love and his unit [Annotator's Note: 200th Coastal Artillery Regiment] were stationed at Clark Field [Annotator's Note: now Clark Air Base in Luzon, Philippines]. Love was in a Non-Com [Annotator's Note: Non-commissioner officer] meeting on a Sunday morning when he first heard the news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Military personnel soon heard that Navy planes were heading to Clark Field. When planes arrived in the vicinity of Clark Field, Love soon found out that they were not Navy planes, but Japanese bomber planes. Fighter planes came in and began strafing the base. Love and his battery reacted by firing on to the planes with anti-aircraft guns. After the attack, everyone was in shock. They began taking an inventory of the dead and wounded, and of the loss of planes, facilities, and equipment. The Japanese were very good fighter pilots and bombardiers. His unit was transferred to an Army camp in Manila a few days after the attack for three months. The Army had put the units on half rations in January [Annotator's Note: January 1942], but by March 1942, Love and his unit were receiving only a quarter of their rations. They had to find food elsewhere. Morale began to deteriorate because they were running out of food and ammunition. By late March 1942, Love heard word that no help was coming, and they were left on their own. The military had abandoned 22,000 Americans to fight the Japanese on their own, with only the help with 10,000 Filipinos. For four months the abandoned troops fought the Japanese with all their might. Love and his unit fired and hit many dive bombers, but the Japanese were also very successful in hitting their targets. Casualties and loss of equipment began to mount up. On 8 April 1942, Love's unit was given orders to destroy all their remaining equipment and artillery. He was transferred to an infantry unit. They dug foxholes along the main road to Manila. On 9 April [Annotator's Note: 9 April 1942], Love was in his foxhole and saw a scout car with three officers flying a white flag. Love knew at that moment that the troops would be surrendering to the Japanese, and he began to break down. [Annotator's Note: Love asks to pause the interview at 0:41:11.000.]

In April 1942, John Edward Love [Annotator's Note: with the 200th Coastal Artillery Regiment] was in a foxhole along the side of a road in the Philippines, when he saw a three officers driving in a scout car waving a white flag. Love knew that his unit would soon be surrendering to the Japanese. Love exited his foxhole and threw his .45 pistol [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] and ammunition belt into a nearby swamp. He broke his rifle. Then several hundred of the troops began to gather and wait for orders. Love thought that this was his last day on earth and that he was going to be shot by the Japanese. When a Japanese regiment arrived, they began searching them, taking their personal items, and slapping the Americans around. Love felt so defeated when he saw Japanese regiments arriving in horse drawn artillery and setting up gun batteries. The Japanese artillery began firing onto Corregidor [Annotator's Note: Corregidor, Philippines] and Love decided to move out of the way because he knew Corregidor would fire back. As the artillery began to settle, the Japanese pushed the POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war] further up the road. The Japanese did not know what to do with them and Love figured that they would be terminated because all the prisoners were in their way of taking over the area. Many of the troops were thirsty and jumped in the nearby swamps to drink some water. The Japanese soldiers fired on them. When the prisoners came upon artisan wells in the towns that passed through, they would try to get some water, but the Japanese bayonetted or shot them. The only rest they received was when the Japanese changed guards at night. Love sat on the side of the road during this time. He became hungrier and thirstier as time wore on. The second night there was a heavy rain which helped him recharge and had confidence that he could make it through. Many of the prisoners suffered from malaria [Annotator's Note: mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite] and dysentery [Annotator's Note: infection of the intestines]. He knew if he tried to escape, he would be shot. His body was so worn down that he did not want to attempt it. If an American soldier fell out of the column, they were shot by the Japanese. If a soldier tried to help someone, they were shot as well. As the column walked up the road into Orion [Annotator's Note: Orion, Philippines] a little Filipino boy tried to hand a mango to Love. A Japanese soldier saw the attempt and killed the little boy.

After the fifth day on the march in the Philippines [Annotator's Note: Bataan Death March, the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000 to 80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war, 9 April 1942], John Edward Love and hundreds of POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war] arrived at the O'Donnell prison camp [Annotator's Note: Capas in Tarlac, Luzon, Philippines] and the Japanese led the prisoners into an abandoned rice paddy field. The camp consisted of half-restored grass huts from the Philippine Army maneuvers. The Japanese captain of the camp came out and introduced himself. He was a "mean-son-of-a-gun." He was short with a beard and thick glasses. He had all sorts of equipment attached to him and rattled as he walked. He stood on a box when he spoke to the prisoners. The captain told the prisoners that they would not treat them as POWs but as captives. The Japanese would treat the prisoners anyway they felt necessary to control them. The camp was horrible. There was no water, and more and more prisoners kept arriving. There was hardly any where to go to protect themselves from the sun. Love and other able soldiers divided themselves up into two details to carry the dead and dig graves. They made a litter to carry the bodies. There were Japanese civilians taking pictures of the POWs carrying the bodies to the burial ground. When they returned to the camp, more soldiers died and therefore there were more bodies to bury. Bodies were left in the sun, and they would begin to deteriorate at a rapid pace. Blowflies [Annotator's Note: also called blow flies, carrion flies, or cluster flies] were so prevalent they created shaded areas. [Annotator's Note: The video blacks out from 1:04:36.000 to 1:04:50:53.000.] As the dead kept mounting up, the soldiers on detail got behind by three days. Love and the POWs did not stay at Camp O'Donnell for too long due to the scarcity of water. Later in life, Love led a campaign to change the caption on a historic march photo. Although the Bataan Death March was very inhumane, his experience at Camp O'Donnell set another precedent of the Japanese's inhumanity. He had to watch his friends die and then see the bodies blow up due to the sun and filled with maggots and blowflies. The prisoners were given very little water and a cup of rice twice a day. O'Donnell was the most horrendous place he has ever experienced, and he will never forget it.

John Edward Love [Annotator's Note: an American prisoner of war] and hundreds of other POWs were transferred from O'Donnell prison camp [Annotator's Note: Capas in Tarlac, Philippines] to a prison camp at Cabanatuan [Annotator's Note: Cabanatuan Prison Camp in Cabanatuan City, Philippines]. The Cabanatuan camp was larger than O'Donnell. There were more guard towers and grass huts. Love did not want to stay at the camp if he had the option not to, so every day he stood at the front of the gates and waited for the Japanese to ride up in American jeeps to take him somewhere for labor work. He was transferred to Clark Field [Annotator's Note: now Clark Air Base in Luzon, Philippines], his base before surrendering [Annotator's Note: Love describes this Segment 03 – "Surrendering and the Bataan Death March" of this interview series]. The Japanese had taken everything out of the barracks, but Love and 30 other Americans could sleep on the floor and find shade from the sun. There was also a latrine and running water. He was able to take a shower which he had not in months. They were given rice to cook and eat. Love and the group of soldiers were given detail to work on a runway. When Love was working on the runway, Japanese pilots would try to land on him and other prisoners. He had to lie flat on the ground in ordered to be avoided. Working on the runway, Love was able to familiarize himself with all the different Japanese planes. He worked at the runway at Clark Field from June 1942 to October 1944. He had another job of destroying American planes with axes. He also cleaned up all the wreckage at Clark Field. In late October 1944, the Japanese ordered Love and the other prisoners to load up on trucks. They took them to Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Philippines]. The conditions at Clark Field were better than at the other prison camps, but still did not get very much to eat. He was always hungry. Sometimes the Japanese woke the prisoners up in the middle of the night to load bombs on flatbed trucks. Once, when he tried to lift a hundred-pound bomb onto the truck, he lost his grip and dropped it on the foot of a Japanese soldier. The Japanese soldier hit him with the butt of his riffle because Love broke his foot. He never saw that soldier again. After being loaded up and taken to Manila, they marched in a column to the port. A young girl of 17 years gave the "victory" sign to Love as he passed her. A Japanese guard saw her and beat her to a pulp. Love wanted to kill that soldier; he was so heartbroken. When they arrived at the pier, they boarded a Japanese transport, the Noto Maru. He and 300 prisoners were jammed in the hole of the ship with the hatch closed. The Japanese lowered food and water down in buckets. The prisoners had to divide the contents up fairly. It was hot and humid, and they stayed in the hole for two days before the ship left the pier because they were waiting to make a convoy. The ship sailed to Formosa [Annotator's Note: now the Republic of Taiwan] which took about three or four days. The Japanese made the prisoners climb out of the hole using ladders. It was torture because their legs had been cramped for so long. The Japanese hosed them down with high power saltwater hoses. The flushed out the hole to get rid of the dead bodies and ordered the prisoners back into the hole. After two days at sea, the prisoners heard concussion sounds. Some of the Navy prisoners said it was the sound of depth charges [Annotator's Note: also called a depth bomb; an anti-submarine explosive munition resembling a metal barrel or drum] and torpedoes. Love fund out later that the Japanese convoy was under attack by an American submarine for about two days.

John Edward Love and hundreds of other POWs' [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war] hell ship [Annotator's Note: unmarked Japanese ships used to transport Allied prisoners of war to and from Japan under hellish conditions] made it to Japan. The prisoners were forced to jump from the ship to a ferry ship. The ferry took the prisoners to Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan]. The prisoners were directed to form a column and march through the city of Tokyo, blindfolded. He was able to peek through his blindfold and could see sandbags stacked everywhere. They marched to a railroad station and boarded a coach train. They were able to sit in seats, and were told not to look out the windows, which were covered up. After a four-day travel on train, they arrived at Sendai, Japan. He and the prisoners disembarked the train and walked over a low mountain range and down to a road. He saw cable cars going up and down the road. He realized later that it was part of a copper mine. They crossed a river and entered a prison camp. He stayed in barracks with double-deck bamboo bunk beds. He was given a green uniform and rubber toe shoes and assigned a number. His number was 207, and his inmates could only refer him to that number. The weather was very cold and snowy. The latrine was an outside pit with a Japanese guard standing by it. Every morning the prisoners had to crawl to the bathroom and bow three times to the guard before they could relieve themselves. Then they would have roll call, which was often torture because the Japanese soldiers tried to find ways to beat the prisoners. Love and the prisoners climbed up a glacier for about a mile until they reached the entrance of the mine. They were given old mining lamps. Once all the prisoners had their lamps lit, they began their trek into the mine. They worked with elderly Japanese civilians. Love was taught to mine and use dynamite by an elderly Japanese man. There were times where they got into the mine and saw that there were cave ins. On one occasion he was doing work when he heard a groan from the wall of the mine. He began moving the rocks and out popped a Chinese man. Both of his legs and arms were broken. He soon learned that the Chinese worked at night and the Americans worked in the day. On another occasion a Chinese girl bumped into him while he was trying to fix his light. Love quickly motioned to her to go back where she came from.

John Edward Love and hundreds of other POWs' [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war] continued to mine [Annotator's Note: in Hanawa, Japan] for a year. They arrived in October 1944 and in September 1945, they received word that the war was over. Love woke up one morning to find no Japanese guards on site. They had left during the night. The prisoners then began shouting, "The war is over!" They broke into the kitchen and found rice and apples soaked in brine. They found baby shark heads soaked in formaldehyde. They boiled the shark heads to get the formaldehyde out, scraped the meat out, and put it in the soup. The POWs stayed at the camp because they knew the Allied forces were coming to get them. One day the prisoners saw Navy planes fly over them. The planes did not see them, so the prisoners decided to have mirrors ready and wrote "POW" on top of a building so planes would find them. A couple of days later, a group of Navy planes flew over again and spotted the prisoners. The next day, the planes dropped drums of food, clothing, and equipment for the prisoners. Love ate a fruit cocktail, graham cracker, and Carnation milk [Annotator's Note: American milk company]. Once the food hit his stomach, he threw it up. About a week or so later, a reconnaissance car came to the camp to liberate them. Some of the prisoners went to the nearby town and asked the locals to help move their sick in exchange for food. Eight men died while in the mine. The liberated prisoners made it to Sendai [Annotator's Note: Sendai, Japan] and went to a hospital ship. The medical team stripped and deloused Love and the rest. They were given fresh clothes and food. The ship took them to Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan] where he was interrogated by military personnel. Love was then transferred back to the Philippines by way of an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] where he was admitted into a hospital in Luzon. He stayed in the hospital for three or four weeks. He then boarded a ship to head back to America. The ship broke down during their voyage, so it took longer to get back. The shipped arrived in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] and he then was admitted into a hospital. Several weeks later he was transferred to Fort Bliss, Texas and admitted to another hospital. Months later he was able to go home. [Annotator's Note: Video goes back from 2:07:22.000 to 2:07:41.400.]

After John Edward Love [Annotator's Note: a former prisoner of war] recovered and was released from the hospital, he decided to use the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] and get a college education. He enrolled at the University of Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was discharged in San Antonio, Texas in June 1946. He suffered from nightmares after he returned. His university sent him to a hypnotist. After two months of hypnosis, he stopped having nightmares. He graduated from school and found a job at an oil company and stayed with them until he retired for 35 years. When Love was in the Philippines, he never heard any news. During his time on the Bataan Death March [Annotator's Note: Bataan Death March, the forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000 to 80,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war, 9 April 1942], he saw his friend's head get chopped off by the Japanese for having Japanese money. Another friend of his had a Japanese fan and he was killed for having that. Years later, Love and other former prisoners were asked by the Japanese ambassador to come to Japan for a formal apology for the way they treated them. Love said he would only accept the apology, if Japan admitted to the atrocities of the Bataan Death March, the conditions of the prison camps, and the hell ships [Annotator's Note: unmarked Japanese ships used to transport Allied prisoners of war to and from Japan under hellish conditions]. Love does not recall having any medical attention while he was a prisoner. He contracted worms while he was a prisoner. Love was sitting on a log with a friend [Annotator's Note: in the 200th Coastal Artillery Regiment] drinking tomato juice when someone told them the American military was abandoning the Philippines [Annotator's Note: during the Fall of the Philippines, invasion by the Empire of Japan, 8 December 1941 to 8 May 1942]. His friend took out his pistol and shot himself in the head. In the early days of the World War 2, Love thought they were winning, but he soon realized that he was wrong. The Japanese dive bombers were very successful in destroying their [Annotator's Note: American artillery] positions. The Japanese Air Force was everywhere while he was in the Philippines. While he was on artillery duty, he shot down several Japanese airplanes that bombed Filipino villages. After going without food for three days, his regiment surrendered to the Japanese. The moment they surrendered was a very low point.

The older soldiers did not survive like some of the younger men [Annotator's Note: as prisoners of war in the Philippines]. John Edward Love believes this was because younger men had more positive morality and were able to work. Love is frustrated that the military retired the F22 Raptors [Annotator's Note: Lockheed Martine F-22 Raptor tactical fighter aircraft] because Americans that are stranded in a foreign country may need to be rescued. He does not blame the American military for leaving the Philippines when they did because they would have lost more troops [Annotator's Note: Fall of the Philippines, invasion by the Empire of Japan, 8 December 1941 to 8 May 1942]. Evidence proves that it was impossible to defend the Philippines because of its location and the number of troops and equipment America needed. After the Battle of Midway [Annotator's Note: Battle of Midway, 4 to 7 June 1942 at Midway Atoll], his treatment [Annotator's Note: as a prisoner of war] got a little better from the Japanese. World War 2 changed the world and taught it a big lesson about totalitarian governments. Throughout his prisoner of war experience he did not stay with the same men the whole time, except for one man. There should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and they should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations because World War 2 was a significant war in American history.