The prisoners had a long wait in the sun, then were stripped and searched again.  All remaining personal possessions were confiscated - nail files, scissors, toothbrushes, razors, blades, matches, pen knives, cigarettes, pipe tobacco, along with blankets, shelter halves, and rain mats. 

Camp O'Donnell was the lowest ebb.  The many rough  experiences of the years ahead could not approach the despair of O'Donnell. The food consisted of lugao twice a day.  Lugao was a watery gruel  made  from  half  rotted rice and a few putrid comotes - a type of root fit for animal fodder. No salt was used and water or soap was not used to wash the utensils. 
Water came from the river which was about four inch deep slimy mud, into which the overflow of the pit latrines seeped, with just a scum of water on top.  The water was unpotable and had to be boiled. Many men drank this water and became diseased from it. 

Young men had not yet learned the water discipline that  the old timers had in getting along on a minimum of water and avoid-ing contaminated the water you drank at all costs.  Bad water killed the young by the hundreds. Russ would collect fresh rain water from leaves. He also would stay away from stagnant ponds or pools. He always would go upstream to gather water and use any medicines like iodine or chlorine tablets he could get. 

From the beginning the rate of death at O'Donnell  was  more than  a hundred a day.  Soon it was 20 Americans and 150 Filipino lives each day.  It became increasingly difficult to bury them. Many were found dead each morning by the latrines. 

In the first nine months of incarceration in Camp O'Donnell more than 40,000 American and Filipino prisoners died. The chaplains had more freedom of movement here and conducted as many as 500 simple funerals a day. Dying was easy, the living was hell.