A. L. Carter

For nearly 85 years, Arthur Carter has struggled through travails such as war, prison camps, even typhoons and cancer.An in-depth profile of the former county judge and legislator.

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For nearly 85 years, life has tested Arthur Carter.Many times, it seemed he would surely be killed by one formidable enemy or another.Despite war, hunger and thirst, a Japanese prison camp, a typhoon, and cancer, he prevailed. As he approaches his 85th birthday on March 7th, 2001, Carter reflects on a remarkable life that has been far from kind to him, but then extraordinarily generous, too.He has lived through hell on Pacific islands as a Marine fighting a Japanese invasion in World War II, and survived a prison camp that was so brutal he cannot tell you many things that he saw. From the infamous Death March at Bataan to seeing hundreds die at the hands of Japanese soldiers in prison camps, and the "Hell Ship" he was on that was nearly blown up just a few miles from freedom, Carter is one of very few such survivors alive today. After the years of suffering came satisfaction and accomplishment. He came home to Berryville and began a distinguished career as county judge that lasted 28 years, then went on to the Arkansas Legislature as Carroll County's Democratic representative in the House, where he served two terms before retirement. At his home on Mountain Street in Berryville, plaques line the walls. There are proclamations that thank him for his instrumental roles in various civic achievements such as working to build the county's hospital and Heritage Center.And there on the wall is the Bronze Star, one of the nation's highest honors. •••

Arthur Carter sits in a comfortable chair, and thinks back nearly 60 years to the day it all began, Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. "I don't like to do these things (interviews)," Carter said."It hurts to do it." He was a Marine military policeman in Caviti Naval Yard at Manila Bay in the Philippines, where the bombing began shortly after Pearl Harbor. As the Japanese invaded and overwhelmed the U.S. forces, Carter and a small cadre of about 15 men were left behind to blow up an ammunition dump as the rest of the Marines retreated toward Corregidor and the Bataan peninsula. "We fought our way through Manila to Bataan.It was already being occupied by the Japanese, and they were machine-gunning us as we went through.We arrived at Bataan late at night, in a bombing raid.I dove under the roots of a Banyan tree. ...We fought there until they didn't need us anymore, then they sent us to Corregidor for beach defense." •••
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"When Bataan surrendered," Carter said, "The Death March began there.Some say it was 60 miles, others say 80, to Cabanatuan prison camp.One of the reasons it was so tough is because they were already starving by then.Plus there were thousands of civilians caught in there with no food.We fought another month, and were captured May 6." On Corregidor, Carter first saw the brutality that was to come. "For the first eight or ten days (after capture), we had no food or water.The Japanese soldiers were masters of punishment.Everybody had amoebic dysentery.It was terrible, terrible stuff." He remembers the hunger doubling him over, and also catching raindrops in his mouth, the only water he could get. "People who have never been hungry cannot know what it's like, the gnawing at your stomach.
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After a trek through Korea to China, Carter was greeted by below-zero weather and a new job as a worker in an old factory at Mukden, Manchuria. Then came three Christmases as a Japanese captive, with so little food that he was down to 96 pounds on his six-foot-one frame, a shadow of the former 200-pound Marine. As the fourth Christmas approached, a change came over his Japanese captors."This little boss told me the Americans had dropped a ‘block-long' bomb on Hiroshima.I couldn't figure a plane large enough to carry such a bomb, of course I didn't know anything about an atomic bomb." Soon the Japanese surrender came, and Russian soldiers moved in.Suddenly, his former guards were gone, replaced by new ones."We would have beat the whey out of them," Carter recalls.The Russians made the Japanese lay down their arms in front of the POWs, and U.S. planes began dropping food and medicine.
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After surviving the typhoon, Carter and the other Marines watched as an old mine washed up along the ship, and floated down the port side.The men hit the deck, Carter said, just before ... "Kapoooom!It blew a hole in the side of the ship, and I thought we were going to capsize."Though they were taking on water, the ship managed to make it to port safely, and eventually Carter recovered at the Naval hospital in Oakland, California, before making his way back to Berryville. ••• Luck is a subjective thing, Carter believes."I was lucky I went to Manchuria, despite the cold.A lot of POWs went to the salt mines in Japan, which was worse.Luck is relative." How did he find the strength to survive? "Well, being a country boy like I was, we managed it a lot better than the city boys.The boys from the Depression era from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and the Navajos from New Mexico, we had it a little rougher before we even got there.
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Carter finally settled on his 180-acre farm in Berryville with wife Marie.They have been married 54 years, and have a daughter, Ann, of Berryville, and her twin Abe, of Atlanta.Arthur Carter met Marie at a dinner they threw for him at Oak Grove just after the war.Marie was a worker at an aircraft factory in Kansas City during the war. The Carter family has become legendary in Arkansas.His grandfather was Thomas Maple Carter, "an old war horse," Carter said.Thomas was a Civil War veteran of the Confederate Army who was shot in the side "through and through" and used to show his battle wound to the young Arthur.His uncle was Abram Lafayette Carter, a physician known here as A. L. Carter, who operated the county's first small hospital in Berryville.Both A.L. Carter and Arthur Carter when he was county judge were instrumental in creating what is now Carroll Regional Medical Center.The Carters, Richard Harp, Dr. Wayne P. Jones, Bill Walker and James Garrett all worked hard to get the hospital built here and floated a bond that Carter remembers was about $28,000.
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"It was 28 beds, and we thought that was pretty nice for the time (the 60's)," Carter said. •••

Carter's old friend, Berryville Councilman Burt George, said, "Arthur Carter won't brag on himself, but I will.He's about the greatest guy I know, and he was a hell of a county judge." When Carter took office in 1950, George said, Carroll County was mainly dirt roads.Carter was responsible for paving most of the highways, which were then county roads.George remembers a list including what are now Highways 143, 311, 21 and 221 North and South, 103, 187 around Beaver Lake, Passion Play Road, etc. "When he took office," George said, "he had one road grader and an old bulldozer that was froze up.The county didn't have much money back then." In addition to essentially creating the road department, Carter was also responsible for spearheading with others many improvements such as the county airport.
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Carter is now an "old war horse" like his grandfather, having survived the nightmares of World War II and the ravages of cancer in his leg.He lost both his knees some time ago, a result he believes of his hardships in the prison camps and perhaps the Death March itself when he was prisoner #387.A dangerous bout of acute pancreatitis nearly killed him, too. He has lived several lifetimes as a soldier, a civic servant, a legislator and a cattleman.In 1989, he was named top dairy producer in Carroll County, and has raised turkeys and Holstein heifers as well.He helped pioneer no-till farming here in 1985, and the list goes on. These days he still volunteers around the county, at the Heritage Center and the Berryville Chamber of Commerce office. And his humor is still intact."If I'd have known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself," he chuckled.

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