As dawn broke over the South Pacific on Sept. 21, 1944, Jack Comstock, MD, stepped out of the officers’ quarters on his callused bare feet, wearing a G-string and little else. He stared at the specks on the pale horizon.
In fall 1944, prisoner-of-war Jack Comstock, MD, was assigned to travel to Bilibid Prison in Manila then to a boat along with 500 slave laborers bound for Japan. With the medical detachment approaching, Comstock knew the time had come.
He needed to bury the latest stash of diary entries underground – literally.
Jim Kilburn, a relative of Jack Comstock’s who lives in Boulder, recalls a humorous entry in Comstock’s World War II diary.
“Uncle Doc,” as Jack Arthur Comstock became known, was born in Fort Collins on Dec. 19, 1914, the youngest child of George and “Miss Arthur” Comstock. During his early years, Jack’s family, which included a brother and a sister, shuttled between dusty outposts in Colorado, Texas and Oklahoma. Members of the family often separated for the sake of keeping or finding employment.
Chris Casey and Russell Stone
