Bataan Survivor Seeks Compensation : San Diego: Leon Beck escaped during ’42 death march and waged guerrilla war on Japanese troops. U.S. paid his salary, but he also wants it to cover his rations and shelter.

SAN DIEGO — Leon Beck has proven he can persevere.

He did it when he escaped the Bataan Death March in 1942 and hid out in jungles as a guerrilla fighter for three years.

And he’s done it since 1953, fighting the government to try to recoup the money he says he’s owed for rations and shelter during the war.

“There’s a principle involved in this,” Beck said. “I fulfilled my contract with the Army; now they should fulfill their contract with me as an individual and an American soldier.”

At 73, he remains proud of the Bronze Star he earned. And he sat in the front row at President Clinton’s speech during recent V-J Day ceremonies in Honolulu. But there is still the little matter of 1,027 days.

That’s how long Pvt. Beck of the 31st Infantry Division spent in the Philippine jungles after he fled the death march, where thousands of his fellow soldiers starved on the 70-mile trek to a Japanese concentration camp.

Beck says he waged guerrilla warfare against the Japanese with other escaped U.S. soldiers and Filipino natives until he was finally liberated on Jan. 29, 1945.

He received his basic soldier pay for his time in the jungle. But he believes he’s due compensation for food and lodging as promised in enlistment contracts.

A 1942 federal act provided up to $5 a day for active-duty servicemen who did not receive food and lodging from the military.

That would come to $5,125 for Beck. He also wants 3% annual interest, bringing the total to more than $23,000.

In denying Beck’s request in 1953, the U.S. Army said soldiers had to have written orders to be guerrillas, something Beck never got when he rolled off the road during the march, hiding in the brush until the Japanese passed.

“He had to have orders to act as a guerrilla to obtain this particular funding,” said Jean Marie Ward, a spokeswoman for the Financing and Accounting Service of the Defense Department. “And the Army said, ‘Sorry, you didn’t have the orders.’ ”

Beck says that’s preposterous because no higher-ups in the Army were going to give him written orders to escape during the death march. What’s more, his superiors were prisoners too.

But, Beck says, soldiers were always told it was their duty to try to escape if captured and to continue to resist the enemy.

The Army also told him he was ineligible for the money because he was not in physical custody of the enemy.

“There were no roads, no airplanes, no way to get away,” he said. “I was confined to an island; there was no way off.”

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) made several unsuccessful attempts in recent years to win Beck’s compensation and now he’s drafting a bill.

“This is a new Congress, new leadership,” said Hunter spokesman Harald Stavenas, “and Duncan thinks we can get something done.”

Though walking for him today is painful because of poor circulation, Beck isn’t slowing down in his fight.

He zips around his condo in an electric wheelchair and shows off a yellowing binder of military documents and letters he has written to every president, the Pentagon and members of Congress.