Marvin A. Roslansky was born in Lakefield, Minnesota in November 1922. His family went through the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. His father was a truck driver but lost his trucks during the Depression. Later he would work for the Minnesota Highway Department. His mother did not work. He had two brothers and one sister. It was a tough time to grow up. Roslansky worked on farms during school vacations. He graduated from high school in 1940. He had a separate class with a credit while he worked at a filling station and repair garage. He joined the Marine Corps in March 1941. At that time, he could not afford to go to school, and war was going on in Europe already. He went through training in San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. He became ill while at the rifle range and had a mastoid [Annotator's Note: bone behind the ear] operation at the sick bay. He finished training around May 1941, and from there went to Mare Island [Annotator's Note: Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California] until September [Annotator's Note: September 1941] or late August [Annotator's Note: August 1941] when they boarded ship and went to Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. They were not told where they were going. Roslansky only received basic training, he is one of the few Marines who never learned how to swim.

Marvin A. Roslansky [Annotator's Note: a US Marine] was assigned to Insular Patrol [Annotator's Note: with the Guam Insular Force Guard], doing sheriff's duties on the island of Guam [Annotator's Note: Guam, Mariana Islands]. He carried a .45 caliber pistol [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] and one round of ammunition. There were 39 members of the Insular Patrol. He lived in a shack of his own, and would make rounds, visiting schools and getting to know civilians. They raised their own crops. He cooked for himself, but natives cleaned his house. He was entirely on his own, unless he had a problem which he rarely did. Among the 20,000 or so locals, there were around 50 Japanese citizens on the island, very good businesspeople as far as he knew. The minute Roslansky arrived there, Captain Morgan [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Captain Glenn Dean Morgan] told them they were sitting on a keg of dynamite. They knew there was a problem. There was a large radio station in Guam that was blown up as soon as they could so so. There were 147 Marines on Guam, and about the same number of Navy men who were generally unarmed. They were mostly taking care of and painting barracks. There were only 11 or 13 .30 caliber machine guns [Annotator's Note: Browning M1919 .30 caliber air cooled light machine gun] to start with, three of those were given to the Guamanian infantry. There was no way for them to prepare for a possible invasion of Japan, even though they knew it was coming. There was no heavy equipment. They did have the Penguin, a minesweeper [Annotator's Note: USS Penguin (AM-33)] with a 2-inch gun, but she was sunk.

Marvin A. Roslansky [Annotator's Note: a US Marine assigned to the Guam Insular Force Guard in Guam, Mariana Islands] was called back in from Barrigada [Annotator's Note: Barrigada, Guam] where he was in the plaza. He watched the Japanese make their run [Annotator's Note: Battle of Guam, 8 to 10 December 1941, Guam, Mariana Islands], and could even see a Jap [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] through his open bomb bay doors. Their first runs had been on Sumay [Annotator's Note: also called Sumai, Guam] and Apra Harbor [Annotator's Note: also called Port Apra, Guam]. He was not surprised at the attack. The Japanese had been flying over for a while before the war, taking photos. Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands] was only 90 miles or so from Guam. He had been called in to the plaza in Barrigada after Pearl Harbor had been bombed [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. They bombed Hagåtña [Annotator's Note: Hagåtña, Guam] on the second day, having started with the Marine barracks and oil tanks the day before. Before the Japanese landed troops, they had heard that men on Saipan had been captured. The Japanese also broke people out of the jail, perhaps to serve as interpreters. Once the Japanese landed, Roslansky threw his pistol into a fishpond because he did not want to get caught with it on him. The Japanese landed in three or four different spots; the island was only eight miles wide. His commanding officer, MacNulty [Annotator's Note: US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel (later Brigadier General) William Kirk MacNulty], was also in the plaza, as was McMillin [Annotator's Note: US Navy Rear Admiral George Johnson McMillin]. It may have been Commander Keen [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] who made the surrender. The Japanese gathered all the men in the plaza and stripped them down, with machine guns at each end. A Marine named Kauffman [Annotator's Note: Private 1st Class John W. Kauffman, Junior], was about three men down from Roslansky. The Japanese were in front of Kauffman telling him to do something, but he did not speak Japanese, and the Japanese did not speak English so he could not understand. The Japanese soldier ran a bayonet right through Kaufmann, killing him. Only around 9 to 12 service personnel were killed, but a lot of civilians were killed. After the surrender, they stayed in the Insular Patrol headquarters and a Catholic church, until around 12 January [Annotator's Note: 12 January 1942] when they went to Japan. Most of their food had been damaged due to the invasion. The electricity had gone out, so the refrigerators were not working, and the Japanese did not know what to feed them. In the first thirty days they did not eat very much. Most of them probably did not even have bowel moments. The telephone lines were cut the morning of 9 December [Annotator's Note: 9 December 1941], before the invasion. It was assumed that it was Japanese saboteurs. They left Guam around 12 January [Annotator's Note: 12 January 1942].

Marvin A. Roslansky [Annotator's Note: a US Marine captured by the Japanese at Guam, Mariana Islands] was taken [Annotator's Note: from Guam to Japan] via the Argentina Maru, a luxury liner. The prisoners had been told they were being taken south and were in shorts and tropical weather clothing, but it was very cold when they arrived in Japan in January [Annotator's Note: January 1942] after a five-day voyage. They had been stripped when captured but were able to redress in their own clothes. Otherwise, they were not allowed to take anything with them when they left. They were fed twice a day, soup and bread, and were brought up in small groups twice a day to get fresh air on deck. Roslansky does not recall any mistreatment of the prisoners on the ship. They were taken to Shikoku, Japan, on the inland sea. Roslansky was put in Zentsuji [Annotator's Note: Zentsuji prisoner of war camp in Kagawa, Japan] and stayed there until the war was over. They were taken back [Annotator's Note: to the United States] on 14 September [Annotator's Note: 14 September 1945]. In Shikoku [Annotator's Note: Shikoku, Japan], they had a barracks. At a certain point, the Japanese guards left, and the prisoners set their own guards up. As far as work details, they worked in Okayama [Annotator's Note: Okayama, Japan] doing terracing work for a few months, then went to Takamatsu [Annotator's Note: Takamatsu, Japan] and Tadotsu [Annotator's Note: Tadotsu, Japan] to work on the railroads, loading and unloading freight every day. They had no tools and did everything by hand. They took soup, vegetables, and rice with them to work every day for lunch. As far as living conditions, they were 14 men to a side, 28 total, on seven tiers. They had no heat, and it would get down to 10 to 15 degrees. There were bed bugs, but they were so tired from working that they did not worry about it. This was in Zentsuji. There were 103 prisoners remaining when they were finally repatriated. There was a doctor VanPeenen [Annotator's Note: US Navy Junior Medical Doctor Hubert John VanPeenen], but he had nothing to work with and no medicine, so they were told to take care of themselves. They were happy to work, it gave them something to do. The officers did not work, so they kept a garden, but the Japanese took a large share, so there was nothing left for them. They then tried raising rabbits and the same thing happened, the Japanese took the best ones. All of the men got along very well. They had to try to steal food, and if they got caught, they were beaten. They worked with civilians and learned a few things from them. Those natives were not treated any better, and even worse off than the Army was. Roslansky does not know how many times he was caught for stealing food. He wants to forget about that part of it. At that time, it did not seem human that people could do what they did [Annotator's Note: Roslansky gets emotional, wipes away a tear].

Marvin A. Roslansky [Annotator's Note: a US Marine captured by the Japanese at Guam, Mariana Islands] and his fellow prisoners were beaten if they did something wrong and got caught. The Japanese, however, recognized that they needed the prisoner labor as all of their young men were in the service. Most of the people working the docks [Annotator's Note: the prisoners of war worked alongside local civilians] were older men. Punishment also depended on the mood of the Japanese guard that day. They worked loading and unloading freight, such as rice, one sack was 20 pounds. They would carry it on their shoulders and stack it in a warehouse until it was full or the car as empty. They worked every day. They had one day off every two weeks to wash their clothes and go to church. They had good chaplains with them. There was a man who was kind of in charge as their spokesperson, but the chain of command no longer mattered. The American officers were also beaten. The Japanese did not abide by the Geneva Conference [Annotator's Note: the Geneva Convention created standards for humanitarian treatment in war]. The Japanese had them all sign a paper saying that they would not try to escape, but there was no reason for it as they had nowhere to go. They resisted signing it but did so eventually under duress. No one escaped prisoner of war camps in Japan, there was nowhere to go, and they could not blend in with the local population or hide. When the Ambassador to Japan [Annotator's Note: Joseph Clark Grew, Ambassador to Japan, 1933 to 1941] left, his whole library went to the prisoners. They had a newspaper for a while. In 1943, it was finally decided that they would not have any communications except what they could glean from the civilians they worked with. They learned to speak Japanese because it was the only way to get by. It was difficult to learn, but they did it. He still remembers some of it. The day they were captured a fellow Marine was bayoneted because he could not understand what the Japanese were telling him to do. When the Gripsholm [Annotator's Note: MS Gripsholm] came in June 1942, they brought Red Cross boxes over with them, but they were put in storage. They probably got one around Christmastime 1942 [Annotator's Note: December 1942]. There was no Japanese Red Cross like in other places. They were able to write to their families, but it took six to eight months to get a letter back and forth, and they could only write about certain things. There was so much propaganda, you had to be careful what you put in writing. To keep up their morale, the prisoners had to stay confident and tell themselves they would be rescued. In Shikoku [Annotator's Note: Shikoku, Japan], they saw B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] jet streams in February 1945. They just had to wait and see what happened. After the war was over, they learned that the Japanese had a plan to deal with them. They had dug graves for them. At one point, B-29s dropped them food. The Army of Occupation was not allowed in until after the surrender in September [Annotator's Note: 1945]. They did not reach Roslansky and his fellow prisoners until about 13 September [Annotator's Note: 13 September 1945]. They had ample food after the B-29 drop, but the doctors told them to be careful with how much they ate.

Marvin A. Roslansky [Annotator's Note: a US Marine captured by the Japanese at Guam, Mariana Islands] and his fellow prisoners became friendly with some of the civilians they worked with. The civilians were not treated well, whereas the Army men were. They were even tough on their own soldiers; they were able to see into a training camp from where they were. They did not have a clandestine radio. Prisoners joined them in Japan from Wake [Annotator's Note: Battle of Wake Island, 8 to 23 December 1941, Wake Island], including Joe Brown [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] who flew a PBY Consolidated PBY Catalina out of Dutch Harbor [Annotator's Note: Battle of Dutch Harbor, 3 to 4 June 1942, Dutch Harbor, Aleutian Islands, Alaska], with some officers off the Houston [Annotator's Note: USS Houston (CA-30)]. They got some news from these new men coming in. He also met Ernie Rogers [Annotator's Note: US Army Staff Sergeant Ernest J. Rogers] who was taken prisoner on Wake Island. There were only 12 or 13 prisoners from Wake. No one saw the end of the war coming until the emperor [Annotator's Note: Emperor Hirohito, also called Emperor Showa, Emperor of Japan] announced surrender on 14 August [Annotator's Note: 14 August 1945]. They knew it would eventually come to an end, but not when. The atomic bomb saved lots of lives [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. Once the war ended, they had food but had to eat slowly and carefully to not get sick]. He left Japan in September [Annotator's Note: September 1945] and went back to Wakayama [Annotator's Note: Wakayama, Japan]. He then took a destroyer to Guam where he spent a week or so. He finally took a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. It felt good to be back in Guam. They were kept in a hospital, so they could not venture out. After San Diego, he was sent to Great Lake [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Great Lakes in Lake County, Illinois] and stayed from January [Annotator's Note: January 1946] through April [Annotator's Note: April 1946]. He was discharged there.

Marvin A. Roslansky [Annotator's Note: a US Marine assigned to the Guam Insular Force Guard in Guam, Mariana Islands] threw away his service pistol when the Japanese invaded [Annotator's Note: Battle of Guam, 8 to 10 December 1941, Guam, Mariana Islands]. The worst part of the whole thing was when the Japanese pulled the American flag down and put theirs up. He aged from 19 to 23 during the war, which changed everyone. There has never been another war like it and probably never will be again. Everything changed, women were working when before it had only been men, production became faster, and more. The American prisoners of war had to work like the Japanese military did, bowing to their officers and to a statue of Buddha [Annotator's Note: Gautama Buddha, founder of Buddhist religion]. Most World War 2 veterans became productive, got jobs, and got married. He went into the wheel alignment business for three years and then into auto dismantling for 32 years after the war.