Girocho: A GI's Story of Bataan and Beyond

After surviving the brutal Bataan Death March in spring 1942, Louisiana native John Henry Poncio spent the remainder of World War II as a Japanese prisoner, first at Camp Cabanatuan in the Philippines and later at Hirohata in Japan. In those three and a half years, U.S. Army Air Corps sergeant Poncio suffered severe beatings, starvation, disease, and emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of his captors. However, his resiliency, sense of humor, and cunning helped him to persist and to…