Prisoner of the Past : World War II: Interned by the Japanese for more than three years, a teen-age boy was kept from hating his captors by the precepts of his missionary parents.

The worn red shirt--more patches than original fabric--hangs in Robert Thomas Bousman’s closet.

So does a worn pair of khaki shorts with at least 10 patches of different fabrics.

Although the outfit has no monetary value, it means the world to the 66-year-old Santa Paula minister.

Bousman was wearing that outfit on the sunny morning of Feb. 23, 1945, when he was rescued from an internment camp in the Philippines and, at age 16, given back his life.

“I wept. I wept and wept when I stepped into the American tractor,” Bousman said. “And although I was free, all I could think about was food.”

Bousman, who was imprisoned with his missionary family, is one of 2,146 Americans, mostly civilians, who were held for three years at Los Banos prison, south of Manila, during World War II. The Philippines at that time was an American territory under occupation by the Japanese.

As the 50th anniversary of his liberation nears, Bousman looks back, reflecting that it took him this long to “work through some anger.”

An anger caused by nearly dying of starvation and by the humiliation of being unable to help himself or the ones he loved.

“It hurt me when my sister, who was six years younger, was crying because she was so hungry,” Bousman said. “But I was hungry, too, and there wasn’t much I could do.”

Bousman’s three-year nightmare began the evening of Jan. 5, 1942, when Japanese soldiers knocked on the door of his parents’ suburban Manila home and ordered them to leave immediately.

Gathering a few personal belongings, Bousman, his parents, his 7-year-old sister and 11-year old brother were taken to the prison camp.

“We were told that it was going to be a temporary thing, but as the years passed, we learned that it could be forever,” Bousman said.

Although the camp was controlled by 250 Japanese soldiers, the prisoners were allowed to operate it. So the prisoners--among them physicians, dentists and musicians--transformed the camp into a well-run community.

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Families lived in small bamboo barracks--infested with mosquitoes and open to the outside air, offering no privacy.

“We heard everyone talking and snoring and everything else,” Bousman said.

The camp was divided into areas, each having its own leader.

By 7 a.m., the prisoners would line up for roll-call, and by 9, the children would go to classes taught by prisoners.

Some of Bousman’s instructors were well-educated--one man had a doctorate in history from Yale.

In his makeshift school, Bousman learned much about music, literature and history, enough so that his credits from the camp were later accepted as worth three years of high school.

But he also learned about pain and how fragile life could be.

When he was 15, he helped bury his best friend, who had died of malaria. Every night, Bousman would fall asleep with the fear that he would not wake up.

“At age 16, I began to realize that none of us might make it home alive,” Bousman said. “It was very real and scary. We were frightened.”

One day, the Japanese soldiers came to search the barracks without warning and nearly found some Philippines money that his parents had hidden.

The punishment for having it was death.

“The money was wrapped in a cloth laying on the bed and when (the soldier) put his hand on that money to pull out the mattress, I nearly fainted,” Bousman said. “It was really scary.”

It was in the third year that life became almost unbearable.

The three meals a day were reduced to two, and meat and milk were just memories.

“We suffered severe malnutrition,” said Bousman, who at the time was 5-foot-11 and weighed less than 100 pounds. “But it was the adults who looked awful. It was horrifying seeing my parents get so run down and thin.

“At the end, we were so weak and starving. So hungry that some of the old people died of hunger.” He spent much of his time dreaming about food.

Bousman said he thought that life was over one day when he was helping bury a friend who had died of hunger. “We could hardly lift the casket,” he said. “The sun was so hot I felt I was going to faint.”

To make up for the lack of food, Bousman and his family would eat grass and roots, whatever they could find. Often, they were served old cereal covered with worms.

Later, when they were back in the United States and people would ask Bousman and his family if they ever ate dogs, cats or rats, they often responded: “We were never so lucky to catch a dog, cat or rat.”

But just when life seemed at its bleakest and most hopeless, they were rescued.

Bousman remembers the morning of Feb. 23 when 150 paratroopers attacked the camp about 7 a.m. and shot every Japanese guard.

“When we heard the shooting, we all quickly fell to the ground and crawled back to our barracks,” Bousman said. “We pulled our mattresses over our heads and waited for the worst. We were surprised when we heard shouts saying, ‘We are going to get you out of here.’ ”

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As the American troops took over, the prisoners were told to run to amphibious tractors, which then took them to an American-dominated area south of Manila.

A week later, Bousman’s father decided to return to his church in Manila, and the rest of the family boarded a transport that arrived at the Port of Los Angeles on May 1, 1945.

From Los Angeles, the family went to stay with Bousman’s grandparents in Columbus, Ohio.

“During my first three months back, I spent all my time eating,” he said. “Food had never tasted that wonderful.”

After graduating from college, Bousman attended seminary in Chicago. He came to Santa Paula in 1953 and for 41 years was pastor at the First Presbyterian Church.

Bousman, who lives with his wife of 44 years and has three grown children, said that, because of his parents’ love, he learned not to hate his captors.

“Our Christian parents helped to keep us from poisoning ourselves by hating the Japanese,” he said. “When we would sit and complain about the Japanese, my father and mother would say, ‘Just look at those men. I bet they have families back in Japan, and I bet they wish they were home.’ ”

To celebrate the “miracle of our rescue,” Bousman said he has met every five years with other former prisoners. To celebrate the 50th anniversary, Bousman spent three days in Las Vegas for a reunion in early February.

Although the pain is behind him, he said he wants to hang on to the memories.

“My dream,” Bousman said, “is to write a book about my experience in Los Banos.”