GRANTS PASS — Visions of a Christmas dinner with a golden brown turkey, mountains of steaming stuffing and mouth-watering pumpkin pie were pushed from Jim Drolette’s mind each December.

No matter how he longed to be back at his parents’ Park Street home near the Rogue River for Christmas during World War II, the Marine fought off the dream.

"You learned to disregard holidays, to disregard anything that brought pain," he said.

"It’s amazing how a little attention to something like that can deteriorate your condition. You had to stay in survival mode."

The Grants Pass native knows about survival: At age 19, he became one of the nation’s first WWII prisoners of war when Japanese forces captured his Marine Corps guard unit on Dec. 10, 1941, on the island of Guam.

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The Marine remained a POW for nearly four years, surviving on one daily meal of sticky rice and watered-down soup.

He was part of a unit that lacked the necessary firepower to withstand the overwhelming Japanese force that arrived right after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941. His commanding officer surrendered rather than send his Marines to their death.

"The Japanese had put out the word that our guys would be hung or shot if they didn’t surrender," he said.

"When the Japanese came in, they wanted to know where all the machine guns were, all the artillery, the tanks," he added. "Well, they had a great imagination. We had no machine guns, no artillery, no tanks."

After about 20 days on Guam under the watchful eyes of the Japanese, the POWs were taken to the Zentsuji War Prisoners Camp on Shikoku Island in Japan, where he remained with about 200 POWs for nearly four years. That island is located about 400 miles west of Tokyo.

"But we were lucky," he said. "They brought in a Japanese brigadier general to command the camp. He was very strict, running it by the book."

He will tell you that Marine Corps basic training was a Boy Scout camp by comparison, however.

"We were always hungry," he said. "Their idea of standard fare didn’t include breakfast and lunch and dinner."

When representatives of the International Red Cross came to inspect the camp, the Japanese always had pots filled with meat boiling to indicate that the POWs were well-fed. In actuality, they were never fed meat, Drolette said.

To survive, the POWs became skilled at stealing food from their captors. When it came to cleaning the camp kitchen, they were always eager to volunteer in hopes of getting more food.

"The Japanese used huge cauldrons that were v-shaped so the bottoms got most of the heat," he said of cooking rice. "Well, the rice on the bottom would stick. If it were cooked just right, it would be a golden brown."

When hunger gnaws at your gut, even burned rice becomes a delicacy, he said.

Back home, his family members didn’t know he was alive until they received a letter on Sept. 8, 1942, nine months after he had been captured.

"Dear Mother, Dad and Sisters," it began. "Although there are many things you want to know, the only things I can tell you is that I’m in good health and have no injuries.

"I know you are going to worry about me, Mother, but I wish you wouldn’t," he added.

He indicated the POWs were being treated well.

"We have enough to do around the camp to keep time from dragging," he wrote. "Take care of everybody, Dad. Someday we’ll all be together again."

But that day didn’t come for another three years.

Drolette, who stood nearly 6 feet and weighed about 170 pounds, was part of a work detail at the camp. The forced labor included loading ships. They worked six days a week, taking Sunday off.

"We were not overworked simply because we would have never survived and they knew that, " he said, noting the POWs were weak from lack of food.

He figures he lost about 30 pounds as a POW.

"We got down into real fighting shape by the time we were through," he said. "We sure didn’t have any excess fat left on us."

He and his fellow POWs were liberated three days after the war ended on Sept. 2, 1945.