SURVIVED  AS  JAPANESE  POW

Frank H. Bigelow was born at Rugby, North Dakota, on August 5, 1921.  On September 24, 1940 he enlisted in the Navy and following recruit training his first duty station was aboard the USS Arizona.  Upon volunteering for Asiatic duty in early 1941, Bigelow was transferred as a communications yeoman to the submarine tender USS Canopus operating in the Philippines.  As World War II began, Canopus was dispatched to Manila where it received numerous bombings from the Japanese, but bombs failed to sink her.  Finally, the captain ordered her booms askew and purposely given a large list, and with smoke from smudge pots pouring from holes, the ship appeared to be derelict and abandoned.  However, every night the repair shops were busy repairing Army and Marine Corps equipment. 

Finally, in April 1942, it became necessary to scuttle the ship as the Japanese advanced.  When Bataan fell, Bigelow became a prisoner and he spent time at several Japanese POW camps in the Philippines.  He was then taken to Japan aboard a “hell ship” and spent the next one and a half years at Camp 17 in Omuta, Fukuoka, as a slave laborer in a Mitsui coal mine.  Between Christmas and New Year of 1944, while deep in the mine, a large rock fell on Bigelow crushing his right foot and ankle.  The Japanese refused Plaster of Paris for a cast and when Bigelow’s leg began to swell, and gangrene set in, a fellow POW, who was a doctor, had to amputate his leg below the knee although he had nothing to work with except a few tools he had made of old mess kit knives and anything else he could find.  Following the amputation to keep the gangrenous toxins from spreading, the doctor packed the amputation with one item readily available in the prison camp – maggots.  Bigelow later commented that although the pain was excruciating and four men had to hold him down, “You don’t know what you can do ‘til you do it.  The doctor did a very good job of it.”

Bigelow was released from custody in August 1945 when Japan surrendered.  After about 30-days of freedom in Japan, he gained a reported 60-pounds and was taken to Okinawa aboard the carrier USS Chenango.  He was then transported to Guam, then San Francisco, and finally to the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia where medics worked on his leg stump and built him a new leg before he was discharged.  The loss of his leg did not hinder Bigelow in the pursuit of a decent living as he subsequently enjoyed life to the fullest and even displayed a knack of dancing the jitterbug.  Following the war, he was interviewed on national television several times, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, was featured in a story by Parade magazine, and was frequently sought after by the media to tell his story of mistreatment and slave labor while a Japanese POW.

Frank H. Bigelow died at the age of 81 on July 10, 2003 and is buried at the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell, Florida.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)