Already in the Philippines when Pearl Harbor was attacked, Ralph Griffith was ordered to his wartime position on Corregidor. He helped to dig in the antiaircraft guns and run communications lines, and prepared for war. The day after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese attacked the Philippine islands. Before landing on Corregidor, the enemy attacked from the air. Initially they sent in dive bombers that came in pretty low, and the Allies were able to shoot many of them down. They soon changed their tactics, but continued aerial bombing of the island every day. When Bataan fell, the Japanese used Mariveles, just across the channel from Corregidor, to shell the island at night. Griffith was part of the coast artillery, working in the range section to track enemy bombers, and taking shelter in foxholes when under direct fire. He said morale was pretty high at the start, even though there was little rest. Toward the end of the siege, food and ammunition were running low, and the promised reinforcements were not forthcoming. The soldiers began to feel they were cut off from the rest of the world. Griffith's position was on the edge of a 400 foot cliff on the southern part of the island, and when rumors spread that the Japanese were going to land on Corregidor, the unit [Annotator's Note: 60th Coast Artillery Regiment (AA)] shoved their movable equipment over the cliff and disabled the big guns. Griffith's unit shifted to a reserve position, but before they were called to the battlefield area, the Army had surrendered. Griffith said that although he didn't see combat on the ground, he found the realization that he was going to be a prisoner of war "pretty scary."

When they heard news of the surrender, Ralph Griffith and his fellow soldiers destroyed their rifles and proceeded to Malinta Tunnel. There, for the first time, Griffith saw the Japanese aggressor. One Japanese soldier approached Griffith and took his watch, wallet, and rings, and used his bayonet to cut Griffith's dog tags off. It was a tense encounter. For two weeks, Griffith and the other prisoners were held on the beach at Corregidor, with only boiled rice for sustenance and pup tents for shelter. Then they were loaded onto landing craft, transported to Manila, and marched down the main streets with the "sober" Philippines citizens watching. On Manila, the prisoners were kept in Bilibid prison for a few days, then moved by boxcar, on foot, and trucks to Cabanatuan where they spent a month or two. Many of the prisoners had dysentery, and 40 to 60 people were dying every day. When captured, a couple of prisoners who had escaped were tortured, made to dig their own graves, and then shot with everyone watching. Diseases such as malaria, dysentery and beriberi were rampant, and the prisoners were starving. Next, Griffith was trucked back to Manila, placed in the hold of the ship Toa Maru [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling] and sailed to Taipei, Formosa where they were brought on dock and sprayed with fire hoses while the Chinese watched. They were returned to the ship, and just outside the harbor it took fire from and American submarine whose torpedoes just missed either side of the ship. They rode out a typhoon for a couple of days, and finally arrived in Busan, Korea in November [Annotator's Note: November 1942]. Griffith said they were issued warmer clothes, then were put in trains to cross Korea to Mukden, Manchuria where they were placed in Camp One. Over 200 prisoners died that November. Griffith was immediately put to work in a factory with the Chinese, who would sneak him food and cigarettes, on war machinery for the Japanese. The prisoners "did a lot of sabotaging," according to Griffith, recording bad dimensions on blueprints, and manufacturing parts they knew wouldn't work. Back home, Griffith's family knew only that he was missing in action. About two years after his capture, his mother was advised that he was being held as a prisoner of war.

The Japanese captors held the prisoners' mail and Red Cross packages until the war was over, and Ralph Griffith didn't get his mother's letters until after he was liberated by the Russians. News of the end of the war came through a number of American airmen who bailed out over Mukden and were taken prisoner by the Japanese there. Soon afterward, the Russian Army marched into Manchuria and liberated the camp. Griffith was stationed as a guard on the main gate when a whole platoon of Japanese soldiers, now prisoners themselves, were brought in seeking shelter and care. They were turned away. Griffith said they just changed places with the guards in the camp when the Russians came down. On his first day of freedom, when the Americans had free run of the city, Griffith walked out of the main gate not knowing which way to go. He said a small girl of six or so years of age took him by the hand and led him to a house where a Chinese family fed him and treated him to a couple of glasses of rice wine. He became friends with the little girl, and gave her all the blankets and goods he could muster when he left. Other Chinese families treated Griffith and the other soldiers with a great deal of compassion and respect. He corresponded with some of them until the country was turned over to the communists. Griffith went back to China in 2007, but found no trace of the people he knew there. He visited the camp, which had been turned into a museum, and donated his uniform and medals to their collection. Griffith said it was really strange to see the place again, but is glad he went. He didn't think much of the Japanese during the war and his captivity; more recently he visited Japan as a guest of the Japanese government on a friendship tour, and found the current generation reasonable people. He no longer has any animosity against their race.

Ralph Griffith was moved on a hospital ship from Manchuria to Okinawa and there he ran into friends he knew before the war. Together they flew on a C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] to Manila, then Griffith and one of the guys shipped out to California together. When he arrived in San Francisco, just before nightfall, he stayed up all night looking in wonder at all the lights on shore. Griffith went to Letterman General Hospital when he arrived, and was happy to be back. He went by troop train to a hospital in Clinton, Iowa, and finally saw his family on a two week pass to Hannibal, Missouri. He had a touching reunion with his mother and brothers. [Annotator's Note: Griffith shows some emotion at the recollection.] He couldn't believe he was home, and had to walk around town to get acclimated. His return to society was not "too bad," and he "outgrew" the bad dreams after a while. He said he never talked about his experiences, even to his wife, until he started attending reunions, and got more comfortable with the subject. Now he speaks to school groups with relative ease. He believes it is important that the younger generation learns about the war, because their knowledge of the events is so limited. His message to Americans going forward is to try to live together and respect one another.

Ralph Griffith was born in March 1923 in Hannibal, Missouri, one of four children. His father was an iron worker with the WPA. [Annotator's Note: The Works Progress Administration, later the Work Projects Administration, was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal agency that employed millions of job-seekers to carry out public works projects.] Griffith went to school in Hannibal along with other poor children of the Great Depression era, none of whom were conscious of their social status, that made their own toys and played outdoors in the neighborhood. Griffith quit school halfway through the ninth grade to work at a bowling alley, and at the age of 17 he joined the Army. He had heard about the world political situation through newsreels at the movie theater, and felt he was pretty well informed for his age. He was the only young man from his neighborhood who volunteered for the armed forces and being rather adventurous, he asked to be sent as far away as possible. Griffith said the sea voyage to the Philippines was a great experience. He had basic training on Corregidor, a tadpole-shaped island in the middle of Manila Bay that was small and mostly jungle at the time. Griffith commented that service in the Philippines was very good. There were natives who kept his shoes shined, his clothes laundered and his hair cut. The island was garrisoned with 14 inch disappearing guns that faced the ocean.

Ralph Griffith said the worst part of being a prisoner was the uncertainty. They never got any news. They had no idea how the war was going and merely lived from one day to the next. Moreover, there was always the threat of being beaten for the least offense. Griffith was sure that some of the Japanese guards looked for excuses to do it. Once, Griffith tried to smuggle into camp some tobacco a fellow prisoner gave him at the factory but a routine search revealed the contraband and he was beaten with a shoe in an attempt to identify the donor. Griffith said he would not incriminate his friend, but his blood was all over the wall before he was thrown into the guardhouse on limited rations for two weeks. The terrain in the part of Manchuria where he was imprisoned was flat, and the temperature in winter could reach 40 below zero. The only hint he had that the war might be ending was a series of bombing raids on the Manchurian factories by American B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] bombers. Two errant bombs hit Griffith's barracks and killed 16 or 17 prisoners, wounding many more. A buddy of Griffith's, who was lying just three feet from him, was killed by shrapnel. Griffith said he was sustained mostly by a determination to see it through to the end and also by a macabre sense of humor shared by the prisoners, one that other people wouldn't understand. Being around "Orientals" all the time, Griffith said the United States started to seem like a foreign country to him; he didn't know if he'd ever get back. And he became so used to seeing skinny men [Annotator's Note: Griffith himself weighed 98 pounds when he was liberated, 30 or so pounds less than normal], that when he returned to the United States he was surprised by how healthy everybody looked.