Eugene Bleil, 91, who grew up in Van Buren Township and graduated from Belleville High School in 1938, hitch-hiked to Detroit with his brother in 1939 to enlist in the Army Air Corps.
In recent years he spent 10 years writing “Consigned to Death Six Times: Surviving Bataan, the Death March and Life as a POW,” which was published in November by Credo House Publishers. He had to write in spurts because the memories were very hard to deal with.
Each chapter ends with the words, “And then it got worse…”
Young Eugene and his brother Marvin, who was eight years older, grew up in a house on Ross Street, a small subdivision off Haggerty Road of homes erected for the workers at the Detroit garbage reduction plant at French Landing and then sold to a Mr. Ross who relocated them and rented them out.
Eugene later recalled his family’s home had no heat or water. He remembers being very hungry and, sometimes he and Marvin would hitch-hike to Eloise hospital for the mentally infirm and sneak in, getting in line with the patients and being served food.
After graduation he and his brother Marvin became hobos, looking for jobs. They went as far west as Grand Junction, Colorado, and found jobs raising trout and temporary work in an oil field. Then they came home.
Alice Riggs Herkimer, 94, of Belleville recalls that Eugene was poor and worked on her family’s farm across the road from his home. She recalls one time, when he was about 14, he was pitching manure with her brother Emerson Riggs and Eugene told Emerson that when he grew up he was going to be a doctor. Eugene said Emerson laughed so hard he almost fell in the pile.
Dr. Eugene Bleil retired in 1994 from a career as an anesthesiologist, but he still retains his physician’s license. He worked at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing and lives in East Lansing with Opal, his wife of more than 60 years.
Eugene recalls that at one point Marvin announced he was joining the service, pointing out, “The military will feed me, house me, train me, and even pay me.”
Eugene was convinced and he and Marvin enlisted. They were trained as aircraft mechanics and based at Chanute Field, Illinois, and then at the Air Force base at Wichita Falls, Texas where both got pneumonia. They were separated and Eugene was posted to Nichols Field near Manila in the Philippines in December, 1940.
A year later, the Japanese attacked the U.S. base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, leading the U.S. into World War II. Japanese planes also attacked Nichols Field, driving U.S. troops onto the Bataan Peninsula.
By New Year’s Day, Eugene and his fellow aircraft mechanics had been changed into “provisional infantry” and fought to control the Bataan Peninsula through the early months of 1942.
U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur retreated in March and U.S. troops were surrendered to the Japanese Imperial Army on April 9, 1942. That’s when Japanese commanders decided to march a column of 78,000 U.S. and Filipino prisoners 65 miles to a prison camp over five days and four nights with no water or rest.
As many as 12,000 men died along the way by being brutally killed or dying due to heat, exhaustion, or malnutrition. More died later in prison camps.
Performing hard labor, sick with dysentery and underfed, Eugene dropped from his enlistment weight of 190 to just over 70 pounds. He was imprisoned in two camps before being sent to Japan as a slave laborer.
He spent the last two years of the war in Japan, working in a steel mill and unloading ships, where he and other hungry prisoners would secretly fill their pant legs with grain. Staff Sgt. Bleil was freed in September 1945.
He looked up Opal, a girl he had met before the war and found her in Chicago. He had prayed she hadn’t married anyone else. Opal had been told he was dead. She accepted his proposal, with the stipulation that he go back to school.
He earned a chemistry degree at Michigan State University and graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1955.
Marvin stayed in the military and became a part of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), the forerunner to the CIA. Marvin died a couple of years ago, Eugene said.
Dr. Bleil said he and other returning prisoners of war were forced to sign “gag orders” prohibiting them from publishing their stories without government permission, even after they reentered civilian life.
He said a lot of men were waiting for that gag order to expire. He’s not sure exactly when it did, but other fellow POWs also have published memoirs.
He meets regularly in Ann Arbor with a group of other former POWs, including two other veterans from the campaign in the Philippines who fought at Corregidor.
Dr. Bleil’s daughter Claudia was quoted in the Lansing State Journal as saying, “This story needs to be told. He’s just so direct and matter-of-fact. He doesn’t pull any punches. History somehow has a way of repeating itself, so we need to pay attention to some of the lessons that are here.”
On Nov. 11, 2011, Dr. Bleil was among six inducted into the interactive Veterans Memorial at Lansing Community College. The memorial showcases the significant contributions of Michigan veterans through the use of video storytelling.
Although he received a Purple Heart, Dr. Bleil said he returned his medal during the 1980s to protest the Veterans Affairs Department’s refusal to treat persons with mental illnesses as a result of their captivity.
Dr. Bleil is scheduled to have a book signing event at noon, Jan. 11, at Lansing Community College, Administration Building Board Room, 610 N. Capitol Ave., Lansing.
His book can be ordered by email at [email protected] .
Or, those interested, may send a check for $35 ($30 for the book and $5 for shipping) to: Eugene E. Bliel, 1481 Stonegate Lane, East Lansing, MI 48823. Be sure to include your address for mailing.
I heard about Eugene through his friend June cantaberry and Lee she knows him personally I’m going to read his book gods blessings thank you for my freedom god
Bless America
My older brother, Arthur J. Wall was in Dr. Bleil’s high school class at Belleville High School as was a sister-in-law, Virginia I. Mitchell.
What a fantastic story this is. Thank you for your service. Robert Wall
I recently received a letter from Dr. Bleil and his daughter Claudia, offering me a copy of his book. I would like that very much. I had sent them a copy of the Class of ’38 composite, so this is a thank you I presume. I still live at 2229 Goodson Trail, Monterey, TN 38574-7272.
After we are finished reading it, I will send it on to my brother’s son, Lawrence Arthur Wall in Houghton, Michigan where he and his family live. It was the home of his mom who was brother Art’s wife, Esther. They had three children, Nancy Jean, deceased; Karen Edith of Biltmore Lake, N.C. and of course, Larry of Houghton, MI.
I was born on Sumpter Road in Belleville. Robert or Bob