News at Eleven: Within the walls of the old prison,

[Josiah Wistar] Worthington was charged with preparing the facilities for the arrival of the many exhausted and wounded troops that would inevitably be arriving from the besieged island of Corregidor, just off the tip of Bataan.

"From then on," [his daughter Frances Worthington] Lipe said, "he was a prisoner in 12 different locations. They were sent to Formosa for a period of two and a half years and then they were sent on to Manchuria--over close to the Gobi Desert. That's where he finally was liberated."

Throughout the years of captivity, Worthington's poem grew ever longer.

"A flowing beard
Makes halter shank
That's commandeered
To pull and yank,
And lead a frail
Yank 'round the trail.
Your manicure
Commands contempt.
You never know
Just what was meant,
But one swift blow
And down you go."

It was in this way the war veteran recorded tortures and privations endured under a Japanese regime not signator to the Geneva Contentions.

from The Boerne Star: Daughter makes life's work of prisoner's epic poem

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