By Matt Wake (Contact / Staff Bio)
March 27, 2008 - 12:00 a.m. EST

CLEMSON ā€” For a guy whoā€™s walked through hell, Ben Skardon is surprisingly humble about the experience. During World War II, Skardon spent three years in Japanese prison camps, stepping over the bodies of dead friends and subsisting mostly on prayer.

Still, the 90-year-old Army vet scoffs at being called a hero.

ā€œI donā€™t know why I lived and others didnā€™t,ā€ Skardon said. ā€œAll my friends are dead. My neighbor calls me his hero, but I donā€™t see what I did as heroic.ā€

When Skardon was captured by Japanese forces in the Philippines in April 1942, he already had malaria. Skardon and approximately 75,000 other U.S. and Philippine soldiers were then forced to march approximately 80 miles from Mariveles Point at the Bataan Peninsula to a prison camp in Sand Fernando, Pampanga.

Only an estimated 54,000 captives survived the march. However, Skardon rescinds book accounts of their path being lined with corpses. Although Skardonā€™s booming voice is built for dramatic delivery, his descriptions of the Bataan March are devoid of hyperbole.

ā€œI donā€™t remember seeing a littering of bodies as some have described,ā€ Skardon said. ā€œBut I do remember seeing three bodies of American soldiers in the road that had been run over so many times they looked like cardboard cutouts.ā€

TRAIL OF TEARS

U.S. and Philippine soldiers were not allowed food and water on the march, which lasted around eight or nine days. Before the exodus, Skardon managed to secretly ingest a can of condensed milk, sans water.

Prisoners were subjected to frequent bayonet jabs, random beatings with two-by-fours and other forms of brutality from Japanese soldiers who herded them like cattle. While the Japanese traveled by motor vehicles, Skardon and company marched in their socks on the macadam roads.

Troops who lagged behind were executed.

ā€œLife meant little to them,ā€ Skardon said, in reference to his captors. ā€œWithin two to three hours of the march (beginning), you learned not to call attention to yourself.ā€

To avoid increased exposure to violence, Skardon tried to stick to the middle of the marchers, head down. The prisoners were only permitted to sleep during the heat of the day, as the Japanese chilled in the shade. Skardon and his comrades slept squatting down, resting on their haunches.

Years later, history books would call the grisly trek the Bataan Death March, or the Death March of Bataan. And following Japanā€™s surrender in 1945, an Allied commission convicted Japanese General Masaharu Homma of war crimes, including the death march, and the horrors at the prisonersā€™ destination, Camp O'Donnell. (Japan was not a Geneva Convention signatory.)

ā€œWe didnā€™t know it was something that was going to be called a ā€˜death march,ā€™ but we knew something was terribly wrong,ā€ Skardon said. ā€œIt tested my humanity. I came to realize how easy is it to die if you lose the will to live.ā€

Although the Filipino soldiers were granted amnesty by the Japanese military and released in June 1942, the American prisoners, including Skardon, remained captives for years. He wasnā€™t released until September 1945 ā€” but thatā€™s another story.

A WALK TO REMEMBER

On Friday, Skardon, a Clemson resident, will step on a plane to attend an event commemorating his perilous journey. The Bataan Memorial Death March will once again be held at the White Sands Missile Range, near Las Cruces, N.M. Now in its 19th year, the memorial attracts around 4,000 participants a year.

Skardon didnā€™t even know about the White Sands tribute until 2007, his first year to attend.

ā€œItā€™s the best conducted military event I think Iā€™ve ever participated in,ā€ Skardon said. ā€œThey have a very solemn ceremony. Thereā€™s no gala. Thereā€™s no cheerleading, or anything of that nature.ā€

The memorial begins at 6:30 a.m. A roll call is given in remembrance of those present and those who died during and after service. Bugle calls punctuate the morning.

Last year 49 states were represented at the event, as well as more than a dozen foreign countries, including Germany, Canada and England. The memorial march is actually a run, two of them to be exact. Soldiers and civilians participate in marathon and 15-mile events.

When Skardon attended the 2007 memorial, he wasnā€™t looking to get in the action. However, those plans changed.

ā€œI was so impressed by the ceremony that preceded the march that my grandson and I just started out behind after everybody had gone,ā€ Skardon said. ā€œI had no idea I was going to walk that far.ā€

Seven miles later, Skardon, then 89, and his grandson, Ben Skardon Smith, were done. During their walk, Skardon kept noticing the ambulance following them at the back of the march. There was also a helicopter dipping down from time to time, checking the route.

Five miles in, Skardon asked Smith to tell the EMS personnel to go ahead and pass him. The vet didnā€™t want to hold them up. Smith returned from the dispatch laughing.

ā€œThey said for you to keep walking. They have a hard time keeping up with you,ā€ Smith said.

PROLOGUE

After retiring from the Army as a captain in 1962, Skardon attended graduate school at the University of Georgia. (He graduated from Clemson before his military epic; keeping his class ring hidden was paramount during captivity.) Skardon went on to teach English at Clemson University, retiring from his post there in 1983.

At Clemson, Skardon taught courses like English 101 and 102. As far as authors go, Skardon holds the most respect for Byron, Keats, Shakespeare and Milton. However heā€™s a fan of more recent works, like that of Upstate novelist Ron Rash.

As harrowing as the Bataan Death March was, it was just the beginning of Skardonā€™s adventure. Before being returned to U.S. soil in 1945, he would endure a litany of illnesses: malnutrition, recurring malaria, high fever and edema. At one point his weight sank to 90 pounds.

Skardon credits two fellow prisoners, Henry Leitner of Aiken and Otis Morgan of Laurens, with helping him make it through the three-year nightmare. The 28 pages of this newspaper are not enough to recount their arc.

Today, Skardon is understandably grateful for escaping the din. His wife Betsy even teases him heā€™s too ā€œupā€ all the time. But one look into Skardonā€™s hazel eyes, and you can tell thatā€™s not the only direction heā€™s familiar with.