The Father Who Survived Bataan and Came Home a Hero
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 26 March 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, Estel Myers joined the military after an argument with his father and soon found himself in the Philippines as the war in the Pacific turned against American forces. After the fall of Bataan, he was captured by the Japanese and forced into one of the darkest chapters of World War II, the Bataan Death March. He survived imprisonment, brutal treatment, and the uncertainty that defined life as a prisoner of war in the Pacific.
His children tell the story of the man who came home after the war and the father they grew up knowing. In remembering Estel Myers, they reflect on his World War II service, the meaning of POW survival, and why his story still matters today.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:14.1 | This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star |
| 0:19.5 | and the American people. |
| 0:21.8 | Up next, the story of a World War II veteran and survivor of the baton death march, |
| 0:27.2 | Estill Myers, told by his family members. |
| 0:31.3 | Let's get into it. |
| 0:33.7 | I miss him so much, and he was a lot of fun. |
| 0:38.3 | It's okay to cry. |
| 0:40.3 | Our family was like, beaver cleaver. |
| 0:55.0 | Well, dad was a beaver cleaver. |
| 0:58.0 | Dad was funny. |
| 0:59.0 | When he was feeling good, he would get in his boxer shorts and start dancing across the living room floor, smack in his butt, and singing. |
| 1:09.0 | He used to wake me and my sister Paul had up because we were the youngest. |
| 1:13.6 | He would wake us up for school and he'd say, |
| 1:17.6 | Alicia D. Paulie Pee, rise and shine, |
| 1:22.6 | the sun shining. |
| 1:25.6 | His vegetable soup was the nastiest thing you could ever eat. see the sunshining. |
| 1:31.9 | His vegetable soup was the nastiest thing you could ever eat. |
| 1:34.3 | He would take everything out of the refrigerator. |
| 1:45.1 | I don't care if it was a crumb and put it in a pot and make us all eat it and say they're starving children in Africa or whatever it was. |
| 1:46.5 | He didn't like waste. |
... |
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