Kyler, Pvt. Stanley H.

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Pvt. Stanley Hardin Kyler was born on September 22, 1922, in Washington County, Kentucky, to Royal Lambert Kyler and Mary Divine-Kyler. His mother passed away when he was a child, and his father married Ova Theodore Perkins-Kyler. Stanley had one sister, one brother, two half-sisters, and two half-brothers. Like many others at the time, Stanley left school after the eighth grade and went to work as a farmhand.

At some point, Stanley joined the Kentucky National Guard in Harrodsburg. The tank company was federalized in September 1940 and ordered to Fort Knox, Kentucky, on November 25. The company boarded 10 trucks in Harrodsburg on November 28th and its tanks were loaded onto a flatcar and taken by train to Ft. Knox. The company left Harrodsburg at 12:30 P.M. arriving four hours later at 4:30 P.M. 


The First Sergeant, Edwin Rue, – on December 26th – was given the job of picking men to be transferred from the company to the soon to be formed Hq Company. Many of the men picked to be transferred to the company – from all the battalion’s companies – received promotions and because of their ratings received higher pay. It was at that time that Stanley became a member of the company.

The new company was the largest company in the battalion and divided into a staff platoon, a reconnaissance platoon, a maintenance platoon, a motor platoon, and the usual cooks and clerks that every company had. Men were assigned various jobs which included scouts, radio operators, mechanics, truck drivers, and other duties.  Men were also sent to specialty schools with training in areas like tank mechanic, radio, automotive mechanic, and small and large arms.














On the side of a hill at Camp Polk, the battalion learned that they were being sent overseas as part of Operation PLUM. Within hours, many of the soldiers had figured out that PLUM was an acronym for the Philippines, Luzon, Manila. It was at this time, that married men and men 29 years old, or older, were given the opportunity to resign from federal service. Those who did were replaced with men from the 753rd Tank Battalion. This battalion had been sent to the fort but had not taken part in the maneuvers. The M3A1 “Stuart” tanks from the battalion were also given to the 192nd.

Traveling west over the southern train route through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona the battalion arrived in San Francisco and ferried to Ft. McDowell, on the U.S.A.T. General Frank M. Coxe, to  Ft. McDowell on Angel Island. On the island, the tankers were immunized and given physicals. Men found to have treatable medical conditions were held back and scheduled to rejoin the battalion at a later date, while other men were simply replaced.


On Wednesday, November 5, the ship sailed for Guam but took a southerly route away from the main shipping lanes. It was at this time it was joined by, the heavy cruiser, the U.S.S. Louisville and, another transport, the S.S. President Calvin Coolidge. On Sunday night, November 9, the soldiers went to bed and when they awoke the next morning, it was Tuesday, November 11. During the night, while they slept, the ships had crossed the International Dateline. It was about November 11th that they arrived at Wake Island to pick up food and water and drop off B-17 ground crew personnel.



At the fort, the tankers were met by Colonel Edward P. King, who made sure that they had what they needed. He also was apologetic that there were no barracks for the tankers, and that they had to live in tents. The fact was he had not learned of their arrival until days before they arrived. He made sure that they had Thanksgiving Dinner –  a stew thrown into their mess kits – before he left to have his own dinner.





The morning of December 8, all the tankers were ordered to the perimeter of Clark Field. During the night, word had been received about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. HQ Company remained behind in the battalion’s bivouac. Many of the men were leaving the mess hall when planes appeared over the airfield.

All morning long, American planes filled the sky. At noon, every plane landed to be refueled and the pilots went to lunch. At 12:45, 54 planes approached the airfield from the north. The tankers believed the planes were American until what they described as “raindrops” appeared to fall from the planes. When bombs began exploding around them, the tankers knew the planes were Japanese. Stanley and the other members of HQ Company could do little more than watching the attack and seek shelters since they had no weapons to be used against planes.



When the soldiers were ordered to move, they boarded trucks and drove to Mariveles. They were stopped outside the barrio and from there, they walked to Mariveles Airfield and sat and waited. As they sat and watched, the POWs noticed a line of Japanese soldiers forming across from them. They soon realized that this was a firing squad and the Japanese were going to kill them.

Sitting, watching, and waiting, the POWs wondered what the Japanese intended to do. It was at that time that a Japanese officer pulled up in a car in front of the soldiers. He got out of the car and spoke to the sergeant in charge of the detail. The officer got back in the car and drove off, while the sergeant ordered the soldiers to lower their guns.



During their time in the bullpen, the POWs watched the Japanese bury three POWs. Two were still alive. When one of the men attempted to climb out of the grave, he was hit in the head with a shovel and buried. At some point, the Japanese ordered the men to form ranks. They were marched in detachments of 100 men to the train station.

At the train station, the POWs were put into a small wooden boxcar known as “forty and eights” because they could hold forty men or eight horses. The Japanese packed 100 men into each car and closed the doors. Those who died remained standing since they could not fall to the floor until the living climbed out of the cars at Capas. From there, they walked the last miles to Camp O’ Donnell.









The camp was actually three camps. Camp 1 was where the men who captured on Bataan and taken part in the death march where held. Camp 2 did not have an adequate water supply and was closed. It later reopened and housed Naval POWs. Camp 3 was opened for the men captured when Corregidor. In addition, men from Bataan who had been hospitalized when the surrender came were sent to the camp. Camps 3 was later consolidated into Camp 1.





Rice was the main food given to the POWs fed to them as “lugaii” which meant “wet rice.” During their time in the camp, they received few vegetables and almost no fruit. Once in awhile, they received bread.

The farm detail was under a Japanese guard known as “Big Speedo” because he was taller than most of the Japanese. He knew very little English and used the word “Speedo” when he wanted the POWs to work faster. Overall, the POWs felt he treated them fairly and did not abuse them. There was also a smaller Japanese guard known as “Little Speedo,” who was fair to the POWs. Smiley was another guard who the POWs quickly learned not to trust. He always had a smile on his face, but he was mean and beat the POWs for no apparent reason.

The POWs cleared the area and planted camotes, cassava, taro, sesame, and various greens. The Japanese used most of the food for themselves. When the POWs arrived at the farm, they would enter a shed. As they came out, it was common for them to be hit over the heads by the guards.

The Japanese wanted an airfield for their fighters, so the POWs were given the job of constructing it. The POWs leveled the land and moved dirt. At first, they used wheelbarrows to move the soil, but when this became inefficient, mining cars and track were brought in, and the POWs loaded the cars and pushed them to where the dirt was being dumped.

The POWs also worked planting rice. While planting rice, one of the favorite punishments was for a guard to push a man’s face into the mud. Once his head was in the mud, the guard would step on his head to drive it deeper. Other details did go out but usually lasted a few days. Major details, of hundreds of men, left the camp and worked on projects that lasted years. When, due to illness or death, details became depleted, more POWs left the camp for details as replacements.


It is known that on Sunday, July 5, 1942, Stanley was admitted to the camp’s hospital suffering from diphtheria. How long he remained in the hospital is not known, but it is known that he was discharged. He was again admitted to the hospital on Saturday, November 28, 1942, suffering from xerophthalmia. This eye disease was a result of the lack of Vitamin A in his diet. He was treated and discharged on December 9, 1942.

In early July 1943, Stanley’s name appeared on a list of POWs who were being transferred to Japan. Trucks arrived at the camp and drove the POWs to Manila. On July 23, the POWs were boarded onto the Clyde Maru. The ship sailed the same day for Takao, Formosa, and the Japanese allowed 100 POWs to be on deck, at the same time, from 6:00 A.M. until 4:00 P.M. On July 28, the ship arrived at Takao, and remained at the port until 8:00 A.M. on August 5th when it sailed as part of a nine-ship convoy. The ship arrived safely at Moji on August 7th.

On August 8, the POWs were lined up and marched to the train station. At 9:00 A.M., the train departed and the POWs took a two-day train trip to Omuta, Kyushu, arriving there at 7:30 P.M. on August 10th. After they left the train, the POWs marched eighteen miles to Fukuoka #17. Eighteen POWs were taken by truck to the camp since they were too ill to make the march.

At the camp, the POWs worked in a condemned coal mine where each team of POWs was expected to load three cars of coal a day. The POWs worked 12-hour workdays with the constant threat of rocks falling on them. Those POWs who the Japanese believed were not working hard enough were beaten. The POWs worked in three shifts with a 30-minute lunch and one day off every ten days.

The camp was surrounded by a 12-foot wooden fence that had three heavy gauge electrified wires attached to it. The first wire was at attached at six feet with the others higher up. The POWs lived in 33 one-story barracks 120 feet long and 16 feet wide and divided into ten rooms. Officers slept four men to a room while enlisted men slept from four to six men in a room. Each room was lit by a 15-watt bulb, and at the end of each building was a latrine with three stools and a urinal. The POWs slept on beds that were 5 feet 8 inches long by 2½ feet wide, made of a tissue paper and cotton batting covered with a cotton pad. Three heavy cotton blankets were issued to each POW plus a comfortable made of tissue paper, scrap rags, and scrap cotton.

Life at Fukuoka #17 was hard and there were prisoners who would steal from other prisoners. To prevent this from happening, the POWs would “buddy-up” with each other. Another problem in the camp was that POWs traded their food rations for cigarettes. POWs who did this were referred to as “future corpses.” The situation got so bad that the Japanese finally stepped in and stopped it.

A meal consisted of rice and a vegetable soup three times a day. Those POWs working in the mine received 700 grams a day, while camp workers received 450 grams a day. Officers, since they were not required to work, received 300 grams a day. Those working in the mine received three buns every second day since they did not return to camp for lunch. The meals were cooked in the camp kitchen which was manned by 15 POWs. Seven of the POWs were professional cooks. The kitchen had 11 cauldrons, 2 electric baking ovens, 2 kitchen ranges, 4 storerooms, and an icebox. To supplement their diets, the prisoners also ate dog meat, radishes, potato greens, and seaweed. As they entered the mess hall, they would say their POW number to a POW at a wooden board who would take a nail and place it in the hole in front of the man’s number to show he had been fed. After all the POWs had been fed, the board was cleared for the next meal.

There were also bathing rooms in the camp with two bathing tanks that were 30 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 4 feet deep. The tubs were heated with very hot water. The POWs working in the mine bathed during the winter after cleaning themselves before entering the tubs. They did not bathe during the summer months to prevent skin diseases.

The camp hospital was a building of ten rooms that could each hold 30 men. There was an isolation ward for 15 POWs usually men suffering from tuberculosis. The POW doctors had little to no medicines or medical supplies to treat the ill. Dental treatment consisted of removing teeth without anesthesia.

In addition, the sick were forced to work. The Japanese camp doctor allowed the sick, who could walk, to be sent into the mine. He also took the Red Cross medical supplies meant for the POWs for his own use and failed to provide adequate medical treatment. Food that came in the packages was eaten by the guards. Those POWs working in the mine were given more Red Cross supplies than the other POWs.

Corporal punishment was an everyday occurrence at the camp. The guards beat the POWs for slightest reason and continued until the POW was unconscious. The man was then taken to the guardhouse and put in solitary confinement without food or water for a long period of time.

The Japanese interpreter in the camp refused to perform his duties resulting in the POWs receiving beatings because they could not explain the situation. He also would inform the guards of any alleged violations of camp rules which resulted in the POWs being severely beaten. This happened frequently at the mine with the interpreter usually the person responsible. He also, for no reason, slapped and beat the POWs.

On one occasion in November 1944, shirts had been stolen from a bundle in a building. The Japanese ordered all the POWs to assemble and told them that they would not be fed until the shirts were returned. The men returned the shirts anonymously, and the POWs received their meal at 10:00 P.M.

During the winter, the POWs were made to stand at attention and had water thrown on them as they stood in the cold, or they were forced to kneel on bamboo poles. It is known that the POWs were made to stand in water and shocked with electrical current. At some point, Jim recalled, two POWs were tied to a post and left to die. This was done they had violated a camp rule.

On August 9, 1945, some of the POWs saw the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Those who saw it described that it was a sunny day and that the explosion still lit up the sky. The pillar of smoke that rose from the bomb was described as having all the colors of the rainbow. Afterward, the POWs saw what they described as a fog blanketing Nagasaki which seemed to have vanished.

The POWs went to work and talked to the Japanese minors who spoke about how those, who had survived the blast, would touch their heads and pull out their hair. They stated these Japanese died within days. They also told of how they heard about a detachment of Japanese soldiers sent into Nagasaki, to recover victims, and how its members suffered the same fate.

When the POWs came out of the mine, they found that the next shift of POWs was not waiting to go to work. That night, the POWs were made to stand at attention for two hours. They all had their blankets because they believed they were going to be moved. Instead, they were returned to their barracks. The next day, when it was their turn to go to work, they were told it was a holiday, and they had the day off. They knew something was up because they had never had a holiday off before this.

Finally, the POWs were gathered in the camp and told that Japan and the United States were now friends. They were also told to stay in the camp. They also found a warehouse with Red Cross packages and distributed the packages to the camp. One day, George Weller, a reporter for the Chicago Daily News entered the camp. He told the POWs that there were American troops on Honshu. The camp was liberated on September 13, by a POW Recovery Team and on September 18, at 7:09 A.M., the POWs left the camp and were taken to the Dejima Docks at Nagasaki, where they boarded a ship and were returned to the Philippines.

Stanley was returned to the Philippines, where he received medical treatment and was fattened up. He returned home on the U.S.S. Storm King arriving in San Francisco on October 15, 1945. He was sent to Letterman General Hospital before he returned to Harrodsburg and receiving additional medical treatment.  He was discharged from the Army on September 4, 1946.

Stanley married Gathel Wells-Kyler on August 22, 1964, and the couple lived in Means, Kentucky. Stanley Kyler died on May 15, 1992, in Mount Sterling, Kentucky, and was buried at Powers Cemetery in Denniston, Kentucky.

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