Jack Comstock: A Survivor’s Story
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| Dr. Jack Comstock (center in tan uniform) with fellow officers. |
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2005 issue of CU Medicine
Today. It is reprinted with permission by the School of Medicine Alumni Association.
Being assigned to the Philippine Island of Luzon in the spring of 1941 seemed
like an idyllic post for Jack Comstock (MD, ’38), a newly commissioned
Army officer. Luzon Island was one of the loveliest of the Pacific’s
pearls with pristine beaches, tropical vegetation and sparkling waters all
around.
Just a few months after his assignment began, the dream became a nightmare.
Everything changed in the Pacific after Pearl Harbor was bombed on Dec. 7,
1941.
Hours after the bombing, the Japanese began an onslaught of U.S. air bases
in the Philippines. A bitter fight between Japanese and Allied forces for
control of Luzon lasted four months. Outmanned and outgunned, with food,
ammunition and medical supplies depleted, and with no relief in sight, the
Allies were forced to surrender in order to prevent a wholesale slaughter
of troops.
After their surrender, American and Filipino troops were marched headlong
into the darkest terrain of human nature on a torturous journey known as
the Bataan Death March. The ensuing years would test the endurance of Dr.
Comstock and the other prisoners of war on the Bataan Peninsula.
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| Col. Jack Comstock, MD |
Jack Arthur Comstock was born Dec. 19, 1914, in Fort Collins, Colo., the
youngest of three children. As a boy, the family shuttled between Colorado,
Texas and Oklahoma looking for work, finally settling in Boulder before the
Depression hit. According to family members, young Jack always wanted to
be a doctor.
After graduating with honors in chemistry from the University of Colorado
at Boulder, he pursued his longtime dream of becoming a doctor by graduating
from the CU School of Medicine in 1938. In 1940 he completed an internship
at New York City Hospital and joined the Army in 1941.
He was stationed at Fitzsimons Army Hospital where he served as ward surgeon
before being assigned as attending surgeon at Sternberg Hospital in the Philippines
in May 1941, a desirable post in peacetime.
On April 9, 1942, Dr. Comstock became a prisoner of war of the Japanese
and served as an attending surgeon in a POW camp on Luzon’s Bataan
Peninsula, 60 miles from Manila. Beginning the day before the surrender
until his rescue
more than three years later, Dr. Comstock risked his life to secretly keep
a diary while imprisoned. It is the only known diary chronicling real-time
events of a POW in the Pacific Theater.
His remarkable diary describes the deprivation, starvation, diseases and
atrocities of war, as well as how he bartered for food, and treated sick
and wounded POWs with meager supplies. The entries include how many men died
each day, what he ate, the weather, war rumors and how he passed the time.
Dr. Comstock’s dry wit and positive attitude are evident throughout
the 130-page diary.
– June 9, 1942
Sunrises
and sunsets are very beautiful. Range of mountains to the east make me quite
homesick. It would seem that U.S.A. ought to be able to do
something about getting us out of here even though the war is not yet won. Red
Cross not doing or allowed to do anything yet. 286 dysentery cases. They were
already beginning to die an hour later. Robbie told me that on the hike…he
was forced to bury men alive. Some were trying to crawl out of the grave.
He saw men who fell out shot and hit in the head with shovels. All this
amounts to a debt that cannot be collected.
 |
American
Ex-Prisoners of War
|
Weakened from hunger and disease after months of fighting,
an estimated 72,000 troops were marched by the triumphant Japanese military
some 65 miles north to prison camps. Along the way the POWs suffered cruelly at the hands
of their captors. Men who couldn’t keep up risked disemboweling, emasculation,
punitive amputations or decapitation.
Figures vary but it’s estimated that at least 600 Americans and 5,000
Filipinos died due to the brutality of their captors on the torturous march
through the jungle. The survivors were packed into railroad cars and shipped
to prisoner of war camps, where another 1,000 Americans and 16,000 Filipinos
died from starvation, disease and mistreatment. Some POWs were loaded into
the holds of cargo ships and sent to work as slave labor in Japanese industries.
By the war’s end, more than a third of the POWs in the Pacific
would be dead.
– May 30, 1942
Hiked to R.R. station and loaded in freight cars. About 90 in our car. Was
hottest time I have ever had. Was almost more than any of us could
stand. Got fruit and water once along the way. Will stay in concentration camp
in Cabanatuan tonight. No latrines. Flies and maggots terrible. We have a
32 K hike tomorrow.
War came on the heels of the Depression which in some ways helped prepare
the POWs for the grim conditions in the camps. During the Depression,
Americans had learned to make do; repair what they had; and improvise
what they needed.
Their ingenuity served them well in the prison camps, where they trapped
rats for food; secretly built radios; and bartered for food and supplies.
– June 2, 1942
I have a fourth of the hospital assigned to me. Very bad situation as we
have practically no drugs. Many have malaria and we have no quinine.
Considerable diarrhea.
Like everyone else in the camps, the physician POWs had to improvise
in order to provide medical care. They were able to perform surgeries
in the camp and even some autopsies. Dr. Comstock and his fellow physicians had
the burden of determining which patients would benefit from their very
limited medical supplies as opposed to those patients they could only make comfortable.
The Japanese guards were afraid to enter the wards because of the
contagious diseases, which perhaps is why Dr. Comstock was able to successfully
maintain a diary.
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| Dr. Comstock’s POW ration cards |
After decades of keeping the diary in the family,
Dr. Comstock’s nieces,
Nancy Wittemyer, BS ED ’64 and Jacquie Kilburn, BA ’71, both
of Boulder, wanted to share their uncle’s experiences. Nancy let fellow
CU alumni Edward Kinzer, BS Pharmacy ’48, MD ’52 and John Farrington,
BA ’49, MD ’52 read it. Drs. Kinzer and Farrington were so moved
by Dr. Comstock’s compassion, bravery and tenacity that they
consider him a medical hero and want to give him the recognition
he deserves.
Dr. Kinzer, who served in the U.S. Air Corps during the war, is intrigued
by Dr. Comstock’s diary, for the historical significance that documents
an event in our history he strongly feels should not go unmarked. A retired
physician living in Johnstown, Dr. Kinzer said of Dr. Comstock, “He
could be a symbol of the attitude and accomplishments of all of us
who served in WWII through what he did.”
Dr. Farrington, who served with the 77th Infantry during the war,
never met Dr. Comstock, although he has come to know him through
the diary. He made the observation that soldiers are not trained to be POWs.
“It’s all on-the-job training,” said Dr. Farrington, a retired
Boulder physician, about being a prisoner of war. “People rose
to the occasion and did what they had to during those difficult times
when they found themselves in intolerable situations. They learned to cope
from one day to the next. To survive, they had to be tougher than
their captors, although they couldn’t show it.”
Disease was a relentless problem in the camps. In the first few months,
dysentery, starvation and malaria were the primary causes of death.
As time passed, the effects of strenuous labor and malnutrition took a dreadful toll
on the men. Severe nutritional deficiencies caused a host of debilitating
diseases, including scurvy, diphtheria, beriberi, pellegra and rickets. Other
conditions Dr. Comstock encountered were pustular dermatitis, acute
glomerulonephritis, primary amebic pulmonary abscess and meningitis.
– June 25, 1942
Men on my ward rapidly going down hill. About 60 now having active chills
and fever. Number of dysentery cases increasing. Amount of edema
increasing. General weakness definitely increasing. No medicines or supplies.
Not even any dressings. Quite an epidemic of upper respiratory disease.
I believe half will be dead in 4 to 6 weeks if no medicine comes in.
17 diphtheria suspects brought from Camps #2 and #3. Mango beans
for supper…
Deprived of adequate protein, vitamins and minerals, the men’s
bodies shunted nutrients away from non-vital organs, causing their hair,
eyes, feet, teeth and nerves to be affected by an array of ghastly conditions,
the likes of which a physician may never encounter in a lifetime.
– Oct. 23, 1942
6 deaths. Have about 100 corneal ulcers due to vitamin A deficiency present
in hospital. Vitamin deficiencies are getting worse and worse.
I am afraid much blindness will result from the xerophthalmia, if not death.
Scurvy,
pellagra, xerophthalmia and beriberi are as common here now as
colds
are in winter back home, and not just mild cases, but severe.
 |
WWII standard Red Cross POW package. |
When so many POWs were losing their eyes, testicles and limbs to disease-related
complications, success stories were few.
A letter written in 1972 by a former POW patient expressed gratitude
to Dr. Comstock for saving his leg. When the wounded man was
brought into
the camp
hospital, it was feared his lower leg would have to be amputated,
but Dr. Comstock refused to give up without a fight. With no
anesthetic available, four men held the unfortunate man down
while Dr. Comstock
cut the wound
open, cleaned it out, filled the incision with sulfanilamide
powder and then lay
him in the sun to recuperate. After repeating the procedure twice
more
and with a few weeks rest, the man recovered fully. “I have always been
very grateful for this…and wish to thank you for all you did for me…,” the
man wrote.
A POW’s survival depended upon his will to live and the
ability to adjust to the daily mayhem and desperate conditions
of captivity.
– Oct. 16, 1942
7 deaths, including 4 officers. Terrible rice today. Had more worms than
usual in it. Have got to the point that I no longer attempt
to pick out the worms unless they have an especially pleading look in their
eyes. Just as
well eat them and get a little protein.
Despite the hardships, Dr. Comstock was able to find diversions.
He whittled a chess set, using neoprotosil to color the pieces,
played the occasional
volleyball game and read voraciously, books such as Thin
Man, Pocketbook of History, A Man Called Cervantes, and Good
Earth,
including brief
reviews of his books in his diary.
– April 2, 1943
No deaths. Usual ward work in the A.M. Played some chess and slept
in P.M. Went to a show “Town Hall Tonight” after supper.
Show was very well done and was very interesting. Food continues
scant. Meat issue is
still small and vegetables are greatly decreased.
On Jan. 30, 1945, the 6th Army Ranger Battalion stormed the
POW camp in Cabanatuan rescuing hundreds of American and
British prisoners. A few days later, soldiers
liberated the camp where Dr. Comstock was being held.
– Feb. 5, 1945
What a day! Americans have moved into compound with machine guns, rifles,
etc….Oh, wonderful, wonderful Americans! Just to
see these soldiers in their green uniforms and with their
rifles, all well nourished and looking
plenty tough…
After the war, Dr. Comstock continued his medical career
in the newly created U.S. Air Force and served in a variety
of
areas,
including
post surgeon
at Roswell Air Force Base in New Mexico and deputy air
surgeon with the Strategic
Air Command in Omaha, Neb. He was a medical observer at
the first hydrogen bomb test at the Bikini Atoll in 1947
and
later in life
was even interviewed
about extraterrestrials.
When asked whether an autopsy
had been performed in July 1947 on aliens from a crashed
spaceship
in
New Mexico, Dr.
Comstock could hardly stop laughing long enough to declare, “Preposterous!”
In the mid-1950s, he began to lose his eyesight due to
ocular histoplasmosis - perhaps a consequence of his imprisonment.
He retired from the
Air Force as a colonel in 1957. Because of his vision loss,
he was unable
to set up
a medical practice, but continued to care for family and
friends for many years.
After returning to Boulder, Dr. Comstock moved into the
family home in Boulder to care for his aging parents. His
nieces,
Nancy Wittemyer
and
Jacquie Kilburn,
were quite fond of him. They remember him as a generous,
caring man who wholeheartedly embraced life after the war.
He made
every occasion
special,
they said, whether
cooking gourmet meals for holiday gatherings or making
homemade ice cream and lemonade for casual summer gatherings.
“We knew it was bad, but the way he wrote the diary, he didn’t dwell
on the hideousness of it,” said Kilburn. “He
always found something good to say in his diary. He came
home with a gusto for life.”
Unable to drive, he would pedal about town on a clunker
of a bicycle with his little dog Chloe perched in the basket
to check
on elderly
neighbors. By then Dr. Comstock only had peripheral vision
and was color blind,
but
that didn’t deter him from growing an enviable English
garden featuring 42 varieties of dahlias. Every fall he
could be found in the kitchen dressed
in faded army fatigues making jellies and preserves from
the apples, blackberries, raspberries, cherries and pears
that grew around his Victorian home.
“He was a person who enjoyed life and went out of his way to enrich other
people’s lives,” said Ms. Wittemyer. “He
had an ability to make ordinary events special. How he
could have such an unbelievable garden
when he was blind – that just explains him. And when
he got Parkinson ’s
disease later in life, he bore that with such dignity.”
– Oct. 13, 1944
This probably is last entry, as I am getting ready to bury my diaries,
and hope I can recover them after the war. It is a certainty
I can’t
get them out with me. Probably would mean a lead pellet
for me if they were found.
Probably, they have just been a lot of work for nothing.
Much air activity today. Could the Yanks be near? Hope I get to read this
after the war.
Many SOM alumni served in WWII, from infantryman and tank commander to
fighter
pilot and support personnel. Their stories are equally compelling and poignant.
Theirs is the generation that weathered a Depression
and won a world war, the war they hoped would finally
end all
world
wars. Too soon,
the first-hand
accounts will be gone and all that will remain will be
diaries, faded photographs and stories passed on.
As Drs. Kinzer and Farrington remind us, it matters to
acknowledge and honor those who went through hell and
came out the other
side. What we
are is defined
by what we were.
Even in the bleakest moments of our
lives, seeds of a brighter future are being sown.
– Feb. 22, 1945
…
We are supposed to leave in A.M….Future looks rosy for us from here
on out.
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