About the author: Albert Heath Chestnut (February 16, 1918 – April 16, 2016). Civil engineer. Aviation officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps, assigned as a mine engineer in the Philippines. P.O.W. in the Philippines and Japan.
For more see his obituary, Albert H. Chestnut, WWII POW, engineer in The Buffalo News.
About the diary: In The Buffalo History Museum blog, this entry contains the following:
Albert wrote in unusually tiny pencil handwriting, 1/16” at the most.. Because of the pencil writing, there are often words or sections of pages that have become smudged or blurred making it difficult to read portions of the passages…
Albert Chesnut’s first diary begins around April 9th, 1942, the day the United States surrendered at Bataan and Americans and Filipinos were consequently taken captive by the Japanese… After nearly seven months of being held at Camp O’Donnell, … Albert was sent by train back down to Manila, marched through the business district and held on a dock in the bay for four days. Over a thousand men were then packed below the deck of Nagato Maru, known as a Japanese Hell Ship, and sent to Japan…
Albert Chestnut donated his diaries,.., his Army commission and other family papers in 1999 (Mss. A99-10). Due to the fragility of the diary bindings and the possible handling smudges, the physical use of the diaries are restricted to serious researchers with a valid ID from an institution of higher learning and are engaged in a PhD dissertation.
Albert H. Chestnut Diaries