Poems from prison

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Shannon Hall
  • 7th Bomb Wing Public Affairs
6/4/2010- DYESS AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  "Come live with me in my prison cell, where live the free, who now sing so well, some song forgotten with its lovely bars, with none to intrude but the friendly stars."
Capt. Charles T. Brown, a World War II prisoner of war, wrote 90 poems during his three-year imprisonment.

Captain Brown served with the 14th Regiment of engineers as a surgeon for the Philippine Scouts and was stationed at Fort McKinley at the beginning of the war. He was captured in Bataan on April 9, 1942, where he survived the Bataan Death March, a 60-mile march from the Bataan peninsula to the Japanese prison camps.

During this march, prisoners were denied food and water while others were murdered by beheadings, throat cuttings and casual shootings. After the march, the captain was put in Bilibid Prison, Muntinlupa City, Philippines, where he remained for three years.

During his imprisonment, Captain Brown wrote a collection of poems titled, "Bars From Bilibid Prison." Throughout his imprisonment, he was able to keep the poems hidden from the Japanese by burying them in a mason jar in the prison field. His poems give insight into what he went through during his imprisonment.

"We have stacked our arms, and in silence wait, The prison walls that are the fate, of vanquished men with blasted schemes. We have stacked our arms, but not our dreams," a line from a poem titled Bataan Surrender.

Captain Brown was freed on Feb. 4, 1945 and stayed in the Army, retiring as a lieutenant colonel.

His collection was discovered by Blair Howell, the collections present owner, at a shop in San Antonio, Texas, and will be on display at the Dyess base exchange for a couple weeks. The display has the original copies of the poems, some binded copies, as well as CDs with copies of every poem Charles Brown wrote. This is the first time the poems have been displayed in public.