For almost 18 months Dan Crowley worked on carving out a runway for the Japanese on Palawan Island in order to "escape the unspeakable conditions" of the camp the POWs were housed in at Camp Cabanatum. The airstrip he helped build was called the Puerto Princesa Airfield. It is now a civilian airfield.
Crowley said that while he was there the Japanese "burned alive a hundred-plus Americans." He recalled that the Americans were forced to "dig a long ditch", then forced into it and covered with gasoline. The Japanese guards then lit the gasoline with torches.
Altogether, Crowley was a prisoner for three and a half years and endured "unspeakable tortures" and saw "many of his friends suffer the most inhumane murders of the war."
He was finally liberated two days after the Japanese surrendered in the Philippines in 1944. Two years later he was honorably discharged from service.
He was promoted to sergeant in October 1945, before he left the Army but never learned of his promotion.
On Monday, he received that promotion he earned so many years ago.
The Greatest Generation. --GreGen
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