My Hitch In Hell: The Bataan Death March

Author: Lester Tenney

One-sentence summary: An American POW tells his harrowing tale of capture, torture and survival in the Philippines and Japan during WWII.

B.A.D. Girls Book Rating: 7

Our favorite thing about it: We liked learning about the history and a piece of WWII of which we were previously unaware. We also appreciated this tale of extraordinary human strength and courage.

Our least favorite thing about it: Obviously, it was difficult to read the graphic depictions of war and more specifically the gruesome treatment of the POWs.

Main Topics of Discussion: War, Morals and Values, Decisions, Relationships, Survival, Faith

Our favorite quote: Under normal conditions, in the real world, only two possible courses of action are open to us: either we can try to make our lives conform to our beliefs, or we can modify our beliefs to conform to our lives. Although true contentment may depend a great deal on which path we choose, under the conditions I faced on the march, I quickly found that in order to survive emotionally and physically I had to choose a little of each. p.58

Notes: Despite the graphic nature of this book and the attention that demands from any reader, we discussed more of the psychological and practical aspects of Les’s survival. We were truly amazed at how he was able to survive. One of the first things we discussed is how he was able to do this. He mentions several things in his book, one of which is a general positive outlook and a desire to survive. We all noticed that he did not mention God or faith once as a reason for his survival, which was interesting in contrast to other survival tales such as Left to Tell. Another thing that he does not specifically mention is luck, which we believed in several cases did save his life. We also marveled at the selflessness of some of the POWs. Lester was saved on more than one occasion by a fellow POW. Those captured troops who became traitors to America and other Americans truly appalled us. We discussed several instances where Les had to make a decision and whether we would have done the same thing or not and why. Overall, we were all interested to learn about the part that the Philippines played in WWII. None of us were previously aware that it had any part at all, which brought up the topic of how history is written and told. We appreciated that Les has written his story down as one of the few survivors of the Bataan Death March so that story and piece of history is not forgotten forever.

Memorable Meeting Moments: This book choice was Amberly’s and we really missed discussing it with her! We met at Pei Wei for dinner and then made a stop at Half Price Books before ending up at Barnes and Noble for our main discussion…and coffee, tea and dessert! What a fun night!