H-AGOM-RStahl
CONTENTS
Preface xi
Introduction xv
by
Dr. Clayton D. Laurie
Prologue 1
1. MY
WAR BEGINS
1.
To Brisbane 9
2.
To Mindanao 22
3.
The Not-So-Secret Landing 30
4.
To Samar 46
2. ESTABLISHING
SMITH'S NETWORK
5. To Palapag Mesa 57
6. Station &MCA 69
3. ESTABLISHING
MY NETWORK
7.
To Luzon 83
8.
General Vera 91
9.
The Turkey Shoot 100
10.
Verds Camp 103
1
1. The New General Vera 108
12.
Our Cupboard Is Getting Bare 124
4. A
DIFFERENT KIND OF WAR
13.
The Leyte Landing 145
14.
Search and Rescue 151
15.
Airdrop-Finally! 157
16.
The Abuyon Airfield 162
5. OUT
OF THE JUNGLES
17.
To Manila 171
18.
Would You Like Another Mission? 181
19.
Home Again 184
Epilogue 191
Annotated Bibliograpby 195
Index 197
Robert
Stahl Darrell
Landau Gerry Chapman
AGOM
Reunion Reno NV 1998
One of the
best-kept secrets of World War 11 is the story of the activities of the Allied
Intelligence Bureau (AIB). In the
Southwest Pacific Area, the AIB, an operating agency of theater G-2, was the
counterpart of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in the other
theaters. It carried out clandestine
activities behind enemy lines from the Solomons to Singapore, from Port Moresby
to Manila, reporting Japanese shipping movements, aerial activities, weather
information, and military intelligence.
An interAllied agency, the AIB was composed of Australian, British,
Dutch, and American intelligence units, each operating in the geographical
areas that had been under their country's jurisdiction before the Japanese
invasion. By penetrating Japanese-held
islands far in advance of the many military campaigns, AIB agents gathering
intelligence information paved the way for the Allied victory over Japan.
The Philippine
Regional Section (PRS) was the AIB's operating arm in the American sector. Under the PRS, the First Reconnaissance
Battalion (Special), an amalgamation of the 5217th Reconnaissance Battalion
(Provisional) and the 978th Signal Service Company, furnished these
intelligence-gathering services throughout the Philippine archipelago.
A two-volume unit
history of the battalion and the signal service company was written in 1945,
when the need for the units' activities ceased to exist and they were
disbanded. However, the document was
immediately classified "Secret," not to be downgraded to
"Unclassified" until July 1953.
By that time it was of little interest, for America became engaged in
the Korean conflict. The report
languished unnoticed in a few military libraries and in the National Archives
in Washington, D.C.
In 1985, Alfredo H.
Despy, who had been a member of the First Reconnaissance Battalion, sent a copy
of the history to the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command
(INSCOM). From the INSCOM history
office, on 22 May 1985, Despy received a letter thanking him for sending
"certain information on the history of U.S. Army intelligence operations
in World War II which was notpreviously
available to us" (emphasis added).
The letter went on to note that "the Ist Reconnaissance Battalion
and 978th Signal Service Company were the first and only Army units to
undertake such a specialized mission during the course of the Second World
War. While similar functions were
carried on in other theaters, they were executed by the Office of Strategic
Services, not the U.S. Army." To this day, the story of these activities
remains one of World War II's best-kept secrets.
You're No Good to Me Dead takes its name
from the admonition given this brash, young enlisted man and my comrades by
Gen. Douglas A, MacArthur immediately prior to our departure from his
headquarters in Brisbane, Australia.
Our primary mission was to gather intelligence information and send it
to Australia. Since we were to avoid
physical contact and armed combat with the Japanese, this is not a
blood-and-thunder tale of combat with the enemy. It is, rather, an account of the experiences of a young man who
suddenly finds himself in the role of a spy in a totally alien environment,
living a life of anxiety, boredom, frustration, loneliness, some pleasure,
occasional excitement-and constant danger.
Originally, this
story was a sketchy collection of anecdotes of my personal experiences, written
soon after I returned from the war. I
envisioned its future as a dust-collecting notebook of some sixty typewritten
pages that might be of interest to one of my descendants should he or she delve
into family history in future years.
Forty years later I came across the notebook, blew off the dust, and
decided to enlarge on its information.
One's memory of
experiences past is oftentimes adversely affected by infrequent recall-from
time to time the mental picture changes to reflect what might have been rather
than what actually was. For me this was
not a problem, since I had three controls: my previously written notes; a copy
of the First Reconnaissance Battalion unit history; and, most important, a
complete log of all the messages, except for ship and aircraft sightings, that
passed through station S3L, my main radio station, neatly lettered in pencil in
two elementary school composition notebooks and on some loose pages torn from a
third notebook. These were paraphrased
versions of the actual messages, for making exact copies would have been a
violation of cryptographic security requirements. (Having at hand a coded
message and an exact copy of its plain text is a cryptanalyst's delight!) These
three collections quickly stabilized my thinking if I began to drift from the
facts.
Unfortunately, I
did not record descriptions of the towns, the terrain, and the people. For these I had to rely on my fifty-year-old
memory. If discrepancies are discovered
by others who were in the same areas at the time, I apologize for my faulty recall. The errors make no difference in the
accuracy of the storv as a whole.
For information
about the events of World War II that influenced or were influenced by my
activities, I referred to news media publications of the period. When I doubted the authenticity of these
sources, I turned to a historian friend who has made an in-depth study of the
activities of the war in the Pacific, and particularly of the activities of the
Philippine guerrillas. This led to his
reading my notes and to his urging me to write my story for publication. I am most deeply indebted to Douglas E.
Clanin, an editor at the Indiana Historical Society, for without his prodding
this book would not exist.
My thanks go to
David L. Edelman, a former technical editor, a writer, and a classmate at
Lehigh University in the immediate postwar era, who not only pressed me to
write but also critiqued the product; and to the members of the American
Guerrillas of Mindanao, with whom I have met at biennial reunions for many
years, sessions that afforded me the opportunity to refresh my memory by
reminiscing about the wartime days.
These men graciously admitted me to membership in their organization
even though I was on "their island" for less than a month.
And most of all, I
thank my wife, who put up with days and days of my moodiness when the words
wouldn’t come out right. Thank you,
Ruth.
INTRODUCTION
You're
No Good to Me Dead is the hitherto untold story of the
wartime experiences of Lt. Robert E. Stahl.
His role as an intelligence agent in the Philippines with the U.S. Army 978th
Signal Service Company, First Reconnaissance Battalion (Special), Philippine
Regional Section, G-2/Allied Intelligence Bureau, is both extraordinary and
unique. Stahl spent the fifteen months
between November 1943 and February 1945 in a strange and alien environment,
behind enemy lines, enduring incredible hardships and dangers far removed from
those of conventional military service.
Yet he and his comrades, most of whom were Filipinos specially recruited
for such duties, made contributions to the war effort and witnessed historical
events that had an enormous impact on the military operations leading to the
liberation of the Philippines and the ultimate Allied victory in the Pacific.
Stahl's memoirs
provide a bird's-eye view of service in a specially created U.S. Army unit that
was attached to the combined Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB). The AIB was a hybrid organization that has
largely been forgotten or overlooked by historians writing about the Pacific War. The only major published work on the agency,
entitled Allied Intelligence Bureau: Our
Secret Weapon in the War Against Japan, was written by its American deputy
controller, Lt. Col. Allison W. Ind, in 1958. No further works on the bureau have yet
emerged in the fifty years since World War II.
But the AIB's significance was far greater than one would surmise from
the limited existing literature. Simply
put, the AIB did much to lay the groundwork for Allied victories throughout the
Southwest Pacific, especially in New Guinea and the Philippines. In many situations and locales prior to
1944, it was the only unit capable of providing accurate intelligence on enemy
air, sea, and land movements and of carrying out the other special and
unconventional warfare activities needed by Allied forces.'
The AIB was created
in 1942 during the darkest days of the war, well before Stahl's arrival in the
Philippines. In the six months
following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese conquered most of Southeast
Asia and the South and Central Pacific Ocean areas. In the Philippines, in the forefront of the Japanese advance,
American and Filipino forces under Gen.
Douglas MacArthur retreated to the Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor
Island by early January 1942. Despite
being outnumbered and short of supplies, they managed to hold out until early
May before surrendering. Elsewhere,
small bands of Americans and Filipinos scattered into the hills and jungles of
the vast archipelago to continue their armed resistance to the Japanese.
While
American and Filipino armies were besieged in the Philippines, British
Commonwealth forces were suffering monumental defeats at Hong Kong and
Singapore and were being driven from Malaya and Sarawak. By May 1942 the British Empire in Asia was
lost, and beleaguered Allied units manned hastily thrown together defenses in
Assam and northern Burma in expectation of a Japanese assault on British India
itself In the East Indies, Dutch military units gallantly, but futilely,
attempted to defend the vast Indonesian archipelago against overwhelming enemy
forces that landed at several locations from Borneo, to Sumatra, to the Celebes
and Java, in March 1942. Sweeping aside
all resistance, the Japanese established complete control over the Dutch colony
by late May. Farther to the southeast,
Australians clung to Port Moresby, well aware that this small portion of Papua
was the last Allied toehold north of the Australian continent.'
The ferocious
Japanese onslaught had not only caught the Allies ill prepared and off guard
but had completely destroyed intelligence-gathering networks and lines of
communication, while stranding thousands of allied soldiers and civilians
behind enemy lines. As shattered armies
poured into Australia, General MacArthur arrived from the Philippines to find
the hastily organized ABDACOM (Australian-British-Dutch-American Command) in
confusion and disarray. Perhaps no
problem was more salient than the complete dearth of news and information from
the territories recently lost to Japan.
The Allies were operating in a virtual intelligence vacuum, MacArthur
discovered, and were relying on articles and maps from National Geographic and photographs gleaned from tourists and
missionaries evacuated from recently overrun areas. Sporadic and haphazard radio contacts with American and Filipino
holdouts in the Philippines continued to reach Australia, though with
diminishing frequency, following the surrender of Corregidor, but these
transmissions ended altogether in August 1942, effectively denying MacArthur's
command of all knowledge of enemy strengths and activities to the north. just
as the Americans were blinded to events in and around the Philippines, the
British, Dutch, and Australians similarly lost contact with their prewar
colonies.'
In mid-April 1942,
MacArthur began to build an intelligence organization. Fortunately, there was then gathering in
Australia a vast collection of Allied personnel, many of whom possessed the
talents, specialized language skills, and cultural and geographic knowledge so
desperately needed. A myriad of Dutch,
British, and Australian intelligence groups were already in operation when the
Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) was formed under MacArthur's command on 18 April
1942, yet each was organizing its own schools and training bases, gathering its
own intelligence, establishing supply depots and mapping infiltration routes,
and devising operational plans largely focused on their prewar colonial
holdings. Such varying and dispersed
groups, all operating independently yet duplicating each other's efforts,
seemed to MacArthur and his assistant chief of staff for intelligence (G-2),
Col. Charles A. Willoughby, to be a
recipe for disaster.
MacArthur also
refused to have American forces, or any Allied force, committed to operations
in marginal areas that would divert strength away from the war-winning strategy
he was devising. His planned
counterattack would move north through New Guinea to the Philippines, while a
separate northward advance from the South Pacific through the Solomon Islands
by U.S. naval and marine forces under Adm.
William Halsey, and a westward advance through the Central Pacific by
Adm. Chester W Nimitz, occurred
simultaneously. Allowing the various
intelligence agencies to continue operating in the current manner virtually
assured diversions from this master plan.
The Allies thus needed unity of command in SWPA and an umbrella agency
to coordinate their activities, preferably a bureau under the tight control of
MacArthur's General Headquarters (GHQ).
The solution was
the combined AIB, officially established on 6 July 1942 in a directive issued
by Col. Van S. Merle-Smith, the
executive officer of the Intelligence Section (G-2), GHQ/SWPA'The new AIB
absorbed all intelligence agencies then in Australia and was itself
incorporated into the theater
command structure under the control of GHQ/G-2. As originally configured, the AIB performed many tasks in
addition to intelligence gathering, and the bureau ultimately organized
guerrilla groups, trained and infiltrated sabotage and special operations
teams, evacuated Allied airmen trapped behind the lines, and conducted
propaganda campaigns. Because of the
diversity of these missions, the AIB was divided into four alphabetical
sections: Section A (Special Operations-Australia), Section B (Secret
Intelligence Service), Section C (Combined Field Intelligence Service), and
Section D (Military Propaganda).'
Section
C of the AIB was further subdivided into geographic areas, in recognition of
the individual national interests in SWA.
Thus the Netherlands East Indies became an area of Dutch attention, the
Philippines were reserved for American and Filipino activities' and Papua, New
Guinea, the Solomons, Bismarcks, and Admiralties, collectively known as the
Northeast Area, were reserved for Australian operations. Each geographic subsection coordinated
planning, transport, and supply needs with the larger AIB sections. Other outside agencies under nominal GHQ
control, such as the Netherlands Forces Intelligence Services, the Netherlands
East Indies Government Information Service, the Allied Translator and
Interpreter Section, the Allied Geographic Section, and the Central Bureau, a
combined cryptographic office, supported AIB operations.'
The
AIB was often called "MacArthur's OSS." Although it did perform
missions in SXWA that were similar to those carried out worldwide by the OSS
(Office of Strategic Services), the AIB was a diffuse, combined Allied agency,
employing military and civilian personnel from at least four nations, most not
subject to American authority. The OSS,
a much larger agency, employed over 9,800 people, primarily American military
and civilian personnel. A forerunner of
the Central Intelligence Agency, the OSS operated with a budget, physical
infrastructure, logistics base, and a degree of analytical and intellectual
sophistication that dwarfed the capabilities of the much smaller and localized
AIB. Through the efforts of its
director, Maj. Gen. William J. Donovan, the OSS initially
enjoyed a high degree of autonomy in the military theaters abroad and was
responsible only to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff UCS). As an organization it was therefore
theoretically above and beyond the command and control of even those at the
highest levels of the War and Navy Departments, including theater commanders
like MacArthur, Nimitz, and Halsey.'
Yet, MacArthur's
staff was quick to claim that the AIB was indeed the OSS in SWPA. The reason for this is that MacArthur did
not want the highly independent OSS, or General Donovan, threatening, or
interfering with, his control of intelligence gathering, special operations,
and psychological warfare in the Southwest Pacific. MacArthur therefore used the existence of the AIB, a bureau whose
own multinational and fragmented command structure was not entirely to his
liking, to convince the JCS and the War Department to keep the OSS out of
SWPA. Willoughby would later claim that
MacArthur could not wait for the OSS to send personnel to Australia, where
intelligence was needed immediately in April 1942, yet the Office of the
Coordinator of Information (COI), the OSS predecessor agency created by
President Roosevelt in July 1941, had already placed agents in Europe, Africa,
and Asia by the time of Pearl Harbor.
COI had even provided anti-Japanese propaganda to MacArthur, through its
Foreign Information Service, while he was still on Corregidor in early
1942. But despite attempts by Donovan
to create a SWPA niche for the OSS in 1942, 1943, and 1944, all of his efforts
were rebuffed.'
By October 1942, the
AIB, MacArthur's smaller, yet more satisfactory OSS substitute, was already
fully operational throughout SWPA, including the Philippine subsection of
Section C, AIB/G-2, commanded by AIB Deputy Controller Allison Ind. The subsection's mission was to establish an
intelligence network in the Philippines, create a chain of communications, set
up escape routes for downed pilots and prisoners of war, and develop an
organization for covert and propaganda warfare. The subsection established radio contact with guerrilla bands in
Cebu, Mindanao, Luzon, Panay, and Negros in November 1942 via the Philippine
Message Center at MacA-rthur's Brisbane GHQ, and it dispatched the first
penetration team to Negros under Maj.
Jesus A. Villamor, a Filipino, on 27 December 1942. The Villamor team was followed by five other
AIB teams dispatched to Panay, Negros, Mindanao, and the Sulu Archipelago by
the end of July 1943."
As the American
buildup in SWPA gathered speed and strength, and as operations in New Guinea
and the Solomons continued, inter-Allied differences began to surface within
the AIB. Conducting combined operations
in areas previously controlled by several powers, each with contradictory
interests and postwar aims, was proving tremendously difficult. The United States did not want to promote
Allied imperial designs or be associated with them but was nonetheless
compelled to cooperate with those nations whose aid was necessary to defeat the
Japanese. Thus, while the AIB contained
Americans and supported MacArthur's operations, the United States, and GHQ, did
not recognize any political interests in the Dutch East Indies or in Melanesia
and preferred to have direct control over all activities that stood to even
remotely affect American military operations.
Increasingly,
GHQ treated Philippine activities as an exclusive U.S. Army concern while
concomitantly withdrawing support from the AIB, perceiving its operations to be
irretrievably connected with the imperial interests of the Allies and involving
units and personnel not directly under U.S. Army control. In addition, by March 1943, GHQ was able to
begin a regular system of supply for guerrilla groups using cargo submarines
capable of carrying about one hundred tons of supplies per trip to the
Philippines without AIB assistance.
Colonel Willoughby and the AIB controller, Australian Col. C. G. Roberts, thus decided that the AIB
required some fine-tuning."
In May 1943 GHQ
announced that it was renaming the Philippine subsection of the ATB the
Philippine Regional Section (PRS) and placing it under the control of Col. Courtney Whitney of MacArthur's G-2
staff. The AIB alphabetical sections
were replaced with sections allotted to specific nations and regions, similar
to the older geographic subsections that had existed under Section C, AIB. The new PRS would maintain contact with
guerrilla units and intelligence teams already in the Philippines, which would
still report to the AIB, but GHQ was now free to create additional teams under
U.S. Army and American leadership. It
had been decided that the task of creating bases in Mindoro, Samar, and Luzon
and closing the gaps in the networks in southern Luzon was best left to
specially trained U.S. Army personnel operating under GHQ supervision rather
than through the AIB. Comprised
entirely of U.S. Army soldiers controlled by Whitney, the new PRS teams would
be drawn from the 978th Signal Service Company, a unit scheduled for activation
in July 1943. Team members would be
highly trained specialists capable of building, operating, and maintaining
radio stations, identifying enemy aircraft and warships, forecasting weather
conditions, using sophisticated technical equipment, and devising cryptographic
systems. Most important, the PRS teams
would not be directly connected to the AIB.
Whitney took
command of the PRS on 24 May 1943. The
section immediately assumed nearly autonomous status within the theater, as
Whitney reported directly to the chief of staff, GHQ, through MacArthur's
assistant chief of staff for intelligence.
From June 1943 until June 1944, the PRS, although officially a part of
the AIB and nominally under its control, was actually a semi-independent staff
section of GHQ that took over many AIB training and communications facilities
for its use while handling most administrative and supply matters through the
GHQ staff. Under Whitneys command, the
PRS would insert sixteen U.S. Army teams into the Philippines by the time of
the invasion of Leyte on 20 October 1944."
The immediate
Impact of the creation of the PRS was that most of the AIB teams in the
Philippines were increasingly ignored by GHQ, or were not fully exploited. Within weeks Whitney further consolidated
PRS control over intelligence activities in the Philippines by announcing that
guerrillas would be responsible for providing intelligence from areas south of
twelve degrees north latitude, an area of decreasing U.S. Army concern, while
the newly inserted PRS teams would provide intelligence north of this line, in
areas already targeted for U.S. Army invasions. These shifting command structures and responsibilities, the steps
leading to the creation of the PRS, and the inter-ARted political rivalries and
tensions were unknown to Stahl during the war, but they nonetheless had a
significant impact on his service, especially after the U.S. Army landings at
Leyte and Luzon in late 1944 and early 1945.
It
was soon after the rounding of the PRS that Stahl arrived in Australia. He had been inducted into the U.S. Army
Signal Corps in the summer of 1942 and sent to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, for
cryptographic training before undergoing further instruction with the OSS. In April 1943, just before GHQ announced its
plans to create the PRS, he was shipped to Australia for assignment to AIB
headquarters. For the next seven months
Stahl monitored infrequent radio transmissions coming from the
Philippines. Stirred to intense anger
by reports of Japanese brutality, he volunteered for M Charles M. Smith’s
penetration team, which was going to establish a base on Samar and the Bondoc
Peninsula of southern Luzon.
Trained as a radio
operator and cryptographer, Stahl had to prepare for additional duties in the
Philippines, as well as a lifestyle that would turn out to be anything but
typical. In late November 1943, accompanied
by two Americans and nine Filipinos, he boarded the USS Narwhal for the fifteen-hundred-mile trip to the enemy-occupied
Philippines. Landing first on Mindanao
for a rendezvous with American guerrilla leader Wendell W Fertig, Smith’s team
soon reached Samar, where they established a radio station overlooking the San
Bernardino Strait, made contact with local guerrilla groups, and began to
provide vitally needed military intelligence to MacArthur's forces advancing
through New Guinea. In late May 1944,
Stahl took his own team and traveled to Bondoc Peninsula in Luzon, where he
established a new intelligence network.
According to SWA reports, he transmitted his first message from Luzon on
31 May 1944. Between that time and
January 1945, he broadcast a further 109 messages."
Through it all,
Stahl survived an incredible number of hazards. The Japanese stationed on Samar and Luzon were a constant and
ever-present threat, both to Stahl and to those Filipinos who knew of his
whereabouts. Frequent enemy sweeps of
Stahl's zone of operations, in search of arms caches, guerrillas, and
intelligence agents, prompted him to change locations often. Maintaining security and avoiding capture
often became his top priorities, especially after he discovered that the first
PRS team inserted into Mindoro, under Maj.
Lawrence Phillips, was wiped out in February 1944, while another, part
of Stahl's own network, was discovered and destroyed in Masbate in May 1944. The knowledge of his certain fate if
captured could never have been far from his mind, as the Japanese were well
known for their barbarous treatment of prisoners in general and of intelligence
agents in particular. Many grim stories
regarding the loss of Dutch AlB agents in the East Indies, who were often tortured
for days before being beheaded, were circulating around the AIB before Stahl
landed in the Philippines.
Threats to Stahl's
life were not just confined to the Japanese.
As he recounts, many Filipinos knew of his location, and while the vast
majority were loyal and clearly anti-Japanese, Stahl, like all guerrillas and
intelligence agents, had a price on his head that could easily induce
betrayal. Surprisingly, however, one of
the greatest threats to his continued well-being came not from the Japanese but
from the numerous Filipino guerrilla bands.
Although ostensibly anti-Japanese, several of these units more closely
resembled bandits than cohesive military forces. Always short of food and often burdened with malfunctioning or
inadequate equipment, Stahl lived in crude and remote camps in the
disease-infested jungles. Simple
creature comforts such as clothing, decent shelter, and, most of all,
food-items taken for granted by many American soldiers-were unobtainable
luxuries for Stahl, located fifteen hundred miles behind enemy lines.
While Stahl carried
out his duties and maintained friendly relations with the local guerrillas
during 1944, the U.S. Army cleared New Guinea and prepared for the liberation
of the Philippines. Unbeknownst to
Stahl, however, the American victories prompted significant changes within GHQ,
the AIB, and the PRS. No longer in need
of constant Allied troop and material support or the services of the
multinational AIB, GHQ/SWPA officially announced on 2 June 1944 that the PRS/G-2
was being abolished and that its duties were being split between the newly
created Philippines Special Section of G-3 (Operations), and Philippines
Special Section, G-4 (Supply), both under Whitney and the GHQ/SWPA staff. Now all intelligence and guerrilla
activities in the Philippines came exclusively under GHQ/U.S. Army control,
permanently ending the GHQ/G-2/AIB relationship."
Thus by August 1944
the intelligence network that included Stahl and eighty-two other stations in
the Philippines came completely under the jurisdiction of GHQand the U.S. Army,
even though Stahl was never told the technical details or personal
ramifications of the command change. In
the months before American forces invaded Leyte in October 1944, Stahl came
Into contact with many new U.S. Army intelligence-gathering and weather teams
that were inserted by GHQ near his base in Luzon entirely without his knowledge
or any headquarters notification.
Once the PRS was
abolished, the AIB largely withdrew from the Philippines and had little
connection with activities there after October 1944, even though it maintained
a small liaison office at GHQ After the Leyte and Luzon Invasions, the agents
and guerrillas inserted by the AIB and the PRS were absorbed into the
Philippine Special Sections of GHQ as soon as they made contact with advancing
U.S. Army units, their missions now considered complete. Thus, in December 1944, SmitEs network was
turned over to U.S. Sixth Army control, while Stahl continued to operate from
Luzon until his evacuation from behind enemy lines in February 1945.
Robert Stahl's
riveting, informative, and frequently humorous reminiscences are
invaluable. They are the first and only
detailed memoirs from an American soldier's perspective that vividly describe
the difficult daily existence of clandestine agents and the average Filipino
living under the Japanese occupation, as well as the color and complexity of
wartime peasant society and culture.
His narrative makes plain that the relationships between Americans and
Filipinos, between guerrilla units and their allies, and between MacArthur's
headquarters and agents in the field were not always cooperative or efficient,
and, in fact, were usually tenuous and ad hoc, contrary to the popular image of
the immediate postwar years. What
emerges from Stahl's powerful and meticulously reconstructed account is an
accurate portrayal of the tremendous dangers such duty behind the lines
entailed, as well as a confirmation of the value of the intelligence provided
at great personal risk by this small minority of Americans and Filipinos. Unlike the heavily publicized exploits of
guerrilla units in the Philippines, the activities of those U.S. Army soldiers,
including Stahl, who volunteered to leave the safety of MacArthur's headquarters
in Australia to gather intelligence in enemy territory, until now was known
only to a few."
Dr. Clayton D. Laurie,
Center
of Military History, U.S. Army
NOTES
1. Allison W Ind, Allied Intelligence Bureau: Our Secret Weapon in the War Against Japan (New
York: David McKay, 195 8).
2. For the Philippines, see Louis Morton, The Fall of the Philippines (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Army Center of
Military History, 1993); and D. Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur 1941-1945 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975),
Part 1, Chapters 1-3.
3. For the first
six months, see Ronald Spector, Eagle
Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New York: Random House,
1984).
4. Operations of the Allied Intelligence
Bureau, GHQ, SWIPA, Charles A. Willoughby, comp. (Tokyo:
GHQ, Far East Command, 1948), 4: 1; for ABDACOM, see Spector, Eagle Against the Sun, 127-34, 330; and
Louis Morton, Strategy and Command.- The
First Two Years (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History,
1962), 166-80.
5. Operations of the AIB, 4:7,
and Appendix 2.
6. Operations of the AIB, 4:7,
and Plate 3; also Ind, AIB, 10- 1 2.
7. Operations of the AIB, 4:7-15,
and Plate 3; Ind, AIB, 7-8.
8. OSS Manpower Report, 30 April 1944,
Box: I 0 1, Entry.- 99, Record Group 266,
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington, D.C.;
for the OSS and attempts to get into SWPA, see Kermit Roosevelt, Way Report of the OSS, 2 vols. (New
York: Stewart, 1976); Anthony Cave-Brown, The
Secret War Report of the OSS (New York: Berkeley Medallion Books, 1976); R.
Harris Smith, OSS.- The Secret History of
American First Central Intelligence Agency (Berkeley: University of
California Press), 250-5 1; Bradley F. Smith, The Shadow Warriors.- The OSS and the origins of the CIA (New York:
Basic Books, 1983), 195-96, 254, 3 1 0;
Anthony Cave-Brown, Wild Bill Donovan:
The Last Hero (New York: Times Books, 1982), 515, 517, 780; and Richard
Dunlop, Donovan: American Master Spy (New
York: Rand McNally, 1982), 185, 402-13, 437.
9. Willoughby's argument is covered in Charles
A. Willoughby and John Chamberlain, MacArthur,
1941-1945 (New York: McGraw-Hill), 144; and Ind, AIB, 10. See "Basic Military Plan for Psychological Warfare in
Southwest Pacific Theater," PG/26, 9june 1943, later designated JPS Joint
Planning Staff) 212/D and JPS 214/D. it
was rejected by the JCS on 8 July 1943.
See also File: Chronology, July-Dec. 1945, Box: 3, and File: Japan, Box:
6; Memo, Donovan to JCS, 12 June 1943; Memo, MacArthur to JCS, IS Jan. 1943;
Memo, MacArthur to JCS, 22 June 1943; Memo, MacArthur to JCS, 30 July 1943; all
in File: Chronology, Apr.-June 1943, Box: 3; Interview, Lilly with Col. J. Woodhall Greene, 16 Oct. 195 1, File:
SWPA, Box: 13; Memo to Adm. King for C/S Sig, re: OSS in SWPA, 29 Sept. 1944,
File: PWB/SWPA, Box: 9, all in Entry: Edward P. Lilly Papers, Record Group 218,
NARA; see also Memo, E. A. Were: History of Relations of OWI with GHQ, 5 May
1943, File: OWI Propaganda to NEI, Entry: 283K, Box: 10, Record Group 331. Operations
of the AIB, 4:42, n. I 1.
10. Intelligence Activities in the Philippines
During the Japanese Occupation, Charles A. Willoughby, comp., vol. 2 Tokyo:
GHQ, Far East Command, 1948), Plate 4; also operations
of the AIB, vol. 4, Plate 12; Ind, AIB,
11 5-45; and Jesus A. Villamor, Thg Never
Surrendered.- A True Story of resistance in World War II (Quezon City:
Vera-Reyes, 1982). The six AIB teams
were led by Maj. Jesus A. Villamor, Maj. Jordan A. Hamner, Lt. Col. Charles M.
Smith and Comdr. Charles A. Parsons, Maj. Emidgio Cruz, Lt. T Crespo, and Lt.
Ireneo Ames.
11. For the
American-Allied difficulties, see William R. Louis, Imperialism at Bay: The United States and the Decolonization of the
British Empire, 1941-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); and
Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind.-
The United States, Britain, and the War Against Japan, 1941-1945 (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1978); see also Letter, John Davies to Lt. Col. Paul
Pennoyer, 24 Apr. 1944, re: American Psychological Warfare in CBI, File: CBI,
Box: 2; also File: "A Brief on American Psychological Warfare," Box:
18, P. 14; and Annex "A," sub: Information on OSS and O@,
USAF/GHQ/CBI, 20 Sept. 1944, File: CBI; and File: Chapter 3, Section 3, Box:
16, all in Entry: Lilly Papers, Record Group 218, NARA.
12.
Operations of the AIB, 4:3
5-42, and Plate 9.
13.
Operations of the AIB, 4:39-42,
n. 9, n. I 1, also 4:68-71, 78-80; Intelligence
Activities,
2:32-34; George Raynor Thompson and Dixie R. Harris, The Signal Corps. The Outcome (Washington,
D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History., 1991), 273; and Ind, AIB, 174.
14.
Operations of the AIB, 4:57-58,
68, 91-92, and Plate 19; also
Intelligence Activities, 2:34, and Plate 4. PRS teams were led by Lt.
Comdr. "Chick' Parsons, Maj. Lawrence H. Phillips, Lt. Col. Charles M.
Smith (including Stahl), Capt. Robert V Ball, WO Lucien V Campeau, 1st
Sgt. Amando S. Corpus and Sgt. Carlos
S. Placido, M.Sgt. Richie D. Dacquel, Lt. Comdr. George G. Rowe, Capt.
Bartolomeo C. Cabangbang, Capt. Enrique L. Torres, Lt. J. V Valera, 1st Lt. E.
T. Pompea, Maj. George Miller, and Maj. J. D. Vanderpool, and Lt. Col. Eutiquio
B. Cabais.
15.
Operations of the AIB, 4:68-71,
78-80; Thompson and Harris, Signal Corps,
273; and Intelligence Activities, 2:30-31,
34-35, and Appendixes II, 13, 15, and 16.
The arrangements to send Signal Corps personnel (including Stahl) to
Australia were made by Ind prior to the creation of the PRS.
16. For Smith and Stahl's activities, see Intelligence Activities, 2:39-51, 86-87,
90-91, 98-99; Plates 5, 9, 10, 12, 15.
17. For Dutch agents in the NEI, see Operations of the AIB, vol. 4; for the
Phillips party and its fate, see Intelligence
Activities, 2:36-39, Plate 6.
18. Ibid., 4:84, 91-92.
19. Ibid., 4:92; Thompson and Harris, Signal Corps, 273.
20. Among accounts of guerrilla operations in
the Philippines are Russell W. Voickmann, We
Renzained.- Three Years Behind Enemy Lines in the Philippines (New York: W
W Norton, 1954); Philip Harkins, Blackburn’s
Headhunters (New York: W W Norton, 19 5 5); Edward P. Ratnsey and Stephen
J. Rivele, Lieutenant Ramsey’s War (New York:
Knightsbridge, 1990); Jesus A. Villamor, They
Never Surrendered.- A True Story of Resistance in World War II (Quezon
City: Vera-Reyes, 1982); John Keats, They
Fought Alone (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1963); Ira Wolfert, American Guerrilla in the Philippines (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1945); Travis Ingham, Rendezvous by Submarine (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1945);
Elliott Thorpe, East Wind, Rain (Boston:
Gambit, 1969); and The Guerrilla
Resistance Movement in the Philippines.- 1941-1945, Charles A. Willoughby,
comp. (New York: Vantage Press, 1972).
YOU'RE NO GOOD TO ME DEAD
Prologue
Moving
quietly at less than two knots, the American submarine slipped through the
narrow passage of Surigao Strait on the northeast coast of Mindanao
Island. Easing gently into Butuan Bay,
where the forces of Imperial Japan occupied all the surrounding land, the old
submarine was in a war for which it had not been designed. The knocking and clanking of her old hull
and fittings heightened the tensions of the men aboard. The modem submarines of late 1943 were much
smaller and swifter, like mako sharks in comparison to this plodding old walrus
from the days of World War I.
But this was a
special mission that could not be handled by the sleek undersea killers of the
U.S. Navy that terrorized Japanese shipping throughout the Pacific Ocean and
the seas of the Orient in World War II. Nearly twice the size of the modern
boats, the old Narwhal was able to
carry the hundred tons of cargo and the twelve U.S. Army passengers that
comprised the reason for this invasion of enemy waters.
Arriving early in
the afternoon of 2 December, the Narwhal
had ample time to inspect the surface of the bay and examine the
beaches. The submarine's captain wanted
no surprises during the execution of his boat's mission. For hours he maneuvered around the bay at
periscope depth, looking for some telltale sign that the Japanese were waiting
to ambush him and wreck the mission. At
last, the skipper slapped up the handles of the periscope and ordered it down.
"It's almost
sundown," he said. "Bring her
up, and we'll move closer to the shore.
The place is dead ahead, and the recognition signs are rigged up proper."
Compressed
air surged into the ballast tanks, and the old vessel began to rise. I wiped the curtain of sweat from my
forehead and gripped the Thompson submachine gun. Now, I would meet the enemy in our occupied Philippine Islands.
For almost two years,
my life had been leading to this moment-ever since that day of horror and death
at the end of 1941.
It
was a usual Sunday morning for most Americans until the Japanese bombs awoke us
from our dream of neutrality. From
those hours of terror and tragedy, a date was burned into the minds of all of
us. Sunday, 7 December 1941; Pearl
Harbor Day. This day saw a major
portion of the U.S. Navy die under the blazing sun of the Japanese Imperial
Navy. World War II had engulfed the
United States of America.
The outrage of
America’s citizens flamed instantly, and so great was that burning that the
events of subsequent days rumbled past us almost unheeded as we reeled in
shock. Soon President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt would call it a "dastardly attack" and in his call to
Congress for a declaration of war label this "a date which will live in
infamy!"
Across the
international date line it was 8 December.
Here, too, the Japanese Imperial Air Force attacked the Philippine
Islands without warning. Beginning at dawn,
wave after wave of bombers struck at U.S. and Philippine military
installations, primarily on the island of Luzon. They met with little resistance, for the Americans and the
Filipinos were unwarned, unprepared, and completely off guard. Squadrons of fighter aircraft followed the
bombers, strafing the areas to disrupt any attempts to mass a defense.
At Clark Field, on
Luzon, the major U.S. Army Air Corps base in the Philippines, the aircraft were
aligned in neat rows along the taxiways the commanding general insisted on
orderliness, and they were set up like toys on a playroom floor. Later it was said that they were so aligned
11 to protect against sabotage." The Japanese planes destroyed them like a
clumsy-footed father would wreck a child's toys. A few planes survived the bombing and strafing to become
airborne, but those that weren't shot down in the ensuing fray had difficulty
finding enough undamaged runway to land on when they returned. America's Southwest Pacific air arm was
virtually destroyed in one day.
The
few remaining aircraft and some of the Air Corps personnel were quickly moved
to other, more southerly, airfields, primarily Del Monte Airfield, on
Mindanao. The remaining airmen were
Issued rifles and, with no training, became infantrymen. What followed was an intensive land, sea,
and air assault on the American and Filipino forces throughout the
archipelago. Without air support, the
ill-equipped and poorly trained defenders were overwhelmed. The results would have been the same even
with air support, for they were completely out manned in numbers and outclassed
in armament and military skills. The
defenders collapsed in disarray.
In March 1942,
President Roosevelt ordered Gen.
Douglas A. MacArthur to Australia, there to regroup the Allied military
forces. To Gen. Jonathan M. "Skinny' Wainwright fell
the task of assuming MacArthur's command and leading a valiant but hopeless
fight against the invaders. Bataan was
lost. Then Corregidor. Then the rest of the islands. Two months later, General Wainwright
suffered the ultimate indignity of surrendering the Philippines to the
Japanese. Along with most of his
troops, he became a prisoner of war, not to be released until 1945.
Much of the blame
for the rapid demise of the Allied defensive effort must be laid at the feet of
those holding commissioned officer rank.
When the order to surrender was issued, late in May 1942, many of the
soldiers on Mindanao never received the order.
Of those who did, some could not get information from their superiors on
where or how to surrender. Some could
not even find their superior officers!
In short, there was a complete collapse of command and communications. As a result, most of the Filipino soldiers
discarded their uniforms and faded into the civilian population, while many of
the Americans moved off into the jungles in small groups to await MacArthur's
counteroffensive, certain to occur in a short while-"six months at the
most," they told each other.
It
was a long wait.
The
Japanese Imperial Army sealed its conquest by demonstrating its capacity for
inhumanity. The Western world did not
learn of the unbelievable atrocities inflicted on the captured American and
Filipino troops for another year, when the first group of American POWs escaped
from the Davao Penal Colony on Mindanao and the story unfolded. Written first-person accounts by former POWs
are numerous, and all attest to one fact: not since the Middle Ages had a
conqueror treated the conquered with such inhumane cruelty.
The
Japanese treatment of the civilians was no different. They looked -upon the Filipinos with disdain and loathing and
sought to control the natives through fear, a serious psychological error. Although it could be argued that the United
States exploited the Philippines for half a century, the relationship between
the two peoples was always friendly, and the Filipinos were always allowed
their dignity. Not so with the
Japanese. It was not surprising that
most natives remained loyal to the Americans.
Despite its obvious
failure, the Japanese continued the policy of fear. Wives and daughters were raped and killed; sweethearts and
sisters were kidnapped and forced to travel with the Japanese troops to supply
entertainment and sexual gratification for the Sons of Heaven.
The Filipino men
and boys seethed at the harsh treatment.
Some openly resisted. Many were
killed. They were "too
Americanized" and against the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere," said the Japanese They were taken to nearby fields and forced to
dig pits into which they tumbled as they were slaughtered, there to be covered
over with the soil of the land they loved.
The townspeople
were forced to witness these executions.
The Japanese spokesmen said the executions were held publicly to show
the Filipinos that the Japanese were interested only in "helping" the
Philippines become a strong and independent nation." just whom did they
think they were deluding-the Filipinos or themselves?
Yet more men
resisted, and the executions became more cruel. They were bayoneted, decapitated, burned alive, hanged-even
boiled alive in large metal drums, the fires stoked by their neighbors, who,
prodded to the task by Japanese bayonets, cooked their fellow countrymen until
they screamed and screamed, mercifully soon to pass into unconsciousness-and to
die.
Seeing that open
resistance was useless, the Filipinos took a new approach-passive
resistance. They worked for the
Japanese, certainly, but slowly-ever so slowly. The Japanese forced them to work harder, prodding them with
sticks, then with whips, and soon with their favorite instrument, the bayonet.
Men took their
families and sneaked away at night.
Others followed, knowing that if they stayed they would be punished when
the first desertions were discovered.
Into the hills they went, where they could conceal themselves in the
dense, green jungles and stay alive – if they could survive the ever-present
menaces of disease and hostile natives.
As Christians, they were not welcome in the lands controlled by the
Moslem tribes, the Moros, who believed that killing a Christian afforded direct
access to heaven. Nor did the Igorot or
other semi-civilized tribes take kindly to interlopers.
Finding a fairly
level spot in a Jungle, the refugees would clear a field and plant rice, corn,
and camotes, degenerated sweet
potatoes, for food. Soon brothers,
sisters, and friends would move into the same area. When the Japanese came looking for them, the fugitives would move
farther into the jungles. They learned
that by teaming together they could move faster and more safely; at the new
location, four or five men working together could clear a field and build
shelters quickly. Community effort
became the rule.
As more and more
families "buckwheated" (a name for this relocation that derived from
the way Filipinos pronounced the English word (“evacuate"), the Japanese
patrols reached deeper and deeper into the jungles, seeking them out until the
pursued were cornered in the deepest and most formidable lands, where a move in
any direction would be a move toward the enemy. But a cornered animal is a vicious animal. The people knew that certain, cruel death
awaited them if they were captured, and took to the offensive with their bolos, machete-like, sharp-edged knives
used for all types of work by the Filipinos.
Bolos had been used to kill animals for food. Now they were used to kill humans.
They ambushed
Japanese patrols along the trails, besting the well armed enemy with their
primitive tools and boundless courage.
They set deadly traps fashioned with the unique ingenuity of one pursued
– barbed stick, sometimes tipped with poison, rigged by bending a small tree to
the ground in such a way that when an unwary enemy stepped on a loose log on
the trail the trap was sprung and the barbed stick propelled by the bent tree
silently hit its mark, sending to his ancestors another Son of Nippon, one who
nevermore would toss a baby into the air and catch the infant on the tip of his
bayonet, who never again would rape, maim, and kill.
Tales of the
ambushes and the silent death traps reached the Japanese garrisons. Now it was the enemy soldiers' turn to experience fear. Their patrols no longer penetrated the
deeper jungles. This success inspired
the natives. "We have driven the
Hapons from the jungles," they cried, and we will drive them from our
towns!"
The urge for
revenge surged through the blood of the mistreated men. They formed small fighting bands, selected
leaders, practiced ambush tactics, planned
their attacks on the patrols – the beginnings of the guerrilla armies. They sought out the Japanese patrols, killed
the enemy, and carried away their weapons to the jungle camps, to be used
against the former owners in the next ambush.
Their numbers grew
with men from the towns who had suffered all the humiliation they could stand
from their Japanese "benefactors." A town’s doctor, summoned to care
for a wounded guerrilla, would hurry to be of help. He knew full well the
dangers, but he responded. Then,
fearing Japanese retaliation, he and his family would "buckwheat” to
escape execution.
And their nwnbers
continued to grow. Men who were
"cooperating” with the Japanese in the towns would serve as spies, telling
the guerrillas where the next Japanese patrol was going and how many soldiers
would be in it. They would stash food
in secret places for retrieval by the guerrillas. Ammunition would be spirited away from the Japanese supplies and
sent to the guerrillas, to be used against the enemy in the weapons already
captured.
And still their
numbers grew. Men from the larger
cities, and from neighboring islands, who were on the Japanese lists of
pro-Americans, ran to the guerrillas.
Soon there were many unarmed men in the hills, men able and willing to
share the work and the fighting, but for whom there was no work, and no arms
with which to fight. They were deadwood
with whom the rations of the fighting men had to be shared, and food supplies
were pitifully short without that extra burden.
The critical arms
shortage led to bringing tribes of semi-civilized natives into the camps to
teach the new members the use of another deadly and silent weapon-the bow and
arrow. Soon there were squads of
archers to help with the ambushes. The
urgent need for weapons produced another idea-the baltik. Shotguns had been
used for game hunting prior to the war.
Now they were available, but there was no ammunition for them. To convert them to warring weapons, wooden
plugs were fashioned to fit the chamber of the shotgun. A hole was drilled lengthwise through the
plug to accommodate a rifle cartridge.
When fired, the small slug would literally rattle as it flew down the
oversized barrel and out at its target.
Like the zip gun used by American inner-city youth in years yet unborn,
this homemade modification could not be used at long range. Nor was the baltik accurate, for without a
rifle's bore to send it point first on a direct course, the slug, if it hit its target, often hit
broadside, with very effective results Crude as it was, the baltik had killing
power, and that was what mattered.
And so the
guerrilla bands grew into a mighty fighting force, inspired by one aim: a
peaceful existence in their beloved Philippine Islands.
MY WAR BEGINS
Part
I
To Brisbane
Chapter
1
Never in my weirdest
nightmares in early 1942 did I find myself in the Army, let alone in Brisbane,
Australia.
Sunday, 7 December
1941, was a sunny day, and the usual group of guys just past teen age collected
in front of our favorite ice-cream parlor in Shamokin, Pennsylvania. Most of us were still dressed in suits and
ties, for we were on our way home from church.
This was our Sunday ritual. Here
we would lay our plans for the rest of the day. Which fellows had dates?
Who had cars or could borrow the family auto to go fifteen miles down
the road to cruise the streets of Sunbury?
Who had money for gas? Major
decisions had to be made to assure a good social life. I was one who owned a car, if you could call
a 1934 Plymouth sedan that burned more oil than gasoline a car. I also had no money, for I had a low-paying
job as a clerk in an automobile tire store.
My car payments ate up most of my salary. Using my car today would require a joint venture with someone with cash in his pocket.
As I pulled into
one of the available parking spaces along the sidewalk, I was listening to a
news broadcast on the radio: "The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor, and
are expected to attack American positions in the Philippine Islands,"
intoned the announcer. My mind ran
through my limited knowledge of geography, searching for places with those
names. "Heavy damage has been
inflicted on the Navy’s Pacific Fleet."
All
the war news we had been hearing concerned the events taking place in Europe,
and I was reasonably up to date on the contest between the Allies and the
Nazis. I had not been paying much
attention to the diplomatic negotiations taking place between the United States
and Japan, though. Suddenly, halfway
around the world, another confrontation with a new enemy was beginning.
I
was not alone in having sketchy knowledge of the Pacific area. To me and to most others living in the
anthracite region of Pennsylvania, the Pacific was a vast unknown. Understandably so. The citizens of our town and countryside were of European descent. Anglo-Saxons-some of whom claimed ancestry
to the Revolution, some even to the Mayflower
owned the factories, mines, and
stores. My ancestors had come from
Germany and worked in the construction trades or as farmers. Many others were recent arrivals from
Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and middle Europe, mostly coal miners who had sought
and found in the United States a better life for themselves and their
children. In this adopted land they
were rewarded for their hard labor, and they prospered. They were not wealthy, but they could live
comfortably and with a sense of dignity.
In fact, they were living in luxury compared with their relatives and
friends who had remained in the old country.
While they maintained strong ties to their ancestral lands in the
British Isles, Poland, Yugoslavia, Latvia, Russia, Italy, or elsewhere, they
took great pride in their American citizenship. They were not Polish Americans, Irish Americans, Of Italian
Americans, but simply Americans. Yet, with their strong ties to the
homelands, their mental images of the world consisted of only America and
Europe. Asia and the Pacific were
almost nonexistent, except that people knew Japan existed because of the shoddy
goods imported from there.
This mentality
reached into the curricula of our public schools. In addition to the three Rs, we studied American and European
history, but not much world history.
The languages taught were English, Latin, French, and Spanish, but not
German, for the bitterness against the Germans had continued since World War 1.
Russian and Slavic children learned those native tongues in schools operated by
denominational churches and, of course, at home, for the native tongues
prevailed in the homes of most of the families from non-English-speaking
countries. On the matter of languages
in my home, confusion reigned. My
mother, and my grandmother who lived with us, were bilingual and spoke Pennsylvania
Dutch, as were many of our neighbors.
Dad was not. Out of deference to
him, Mother spoke only English when he was around, and she never encouraged the
rest of the family to speak "Dutch." Thus, we were not a bilingual
family. Interestingly enough, although
we Pennsylvania Dutchmen were of German descent, we were accepted because of
our deep ancestral roots in America.
Geography and
social studies covered the same American and European territories, with an
occasional hint that several other continents existed. While we learned which countries were rich
in certain raw materials and which grew certain food staples, we never learned
that half the people of the world ate rice three meals a day. Those people lived in the never-never lands
of Asia and the Pacific Islands.
Nor did knowledge
of geography come about from travel.
Although our ancestors had emigrated from Europe to America, that was a
once-in-a-lifetime happening. Travel
was the luxury of the rich. Anyone who
made a pleasure trip to Europe or returned to the old country to visit
relatives was looked upon in awe for having amassed the wealth to do so. Even
traveling cross-country was a rarity and placed those who did so only a small
status step below those who had gone abroad.
My parents had taken our family – four boys, two girls, and Grandma – on
some trips from time to time, never more than five hundred miles from our
hometown, yet we were listed among those who traveled a lot. So, it seemed quite natural that I had
difficulty determining where the Hawaiian and Philippine Islands were located.
Before I had turned
off the engine, several fellows jumped into my car, eager to hear the news
broadcast. They, too, were unsure of
what countries – what continents – lie west of California. We decided to go to my home, pick up a high
school geography text, and get our bearings straight.
As we listened, the
impact of the news slowly took effect on all of us. Soon we were not the usual boisterous, effervescent group laying
plans for the days and nights activities.
In fact, dates, cars, gasoline, spending money, and all the other
normally important items suddenly were forgotten. It didn’t take us long to realize we were in for a great change
in our lives.
Most of the gang
tried to enlist immediately after the hostilities began. We recognized that military service was, for
us, inevitable. Being drafted was a
minefield of uncertainty, and we realized that life in the military would be
more bearable if we joined the service of our choice.
With my best friend, Kim Savidge, I tried to
enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He
was accepted. I was rejected. My vision was too bad, they said. I took this rejection badly. I wanted to be one of the guys in uniform –
one of the gang. Contributing to the
war effort by working in a defense plant would not be much of a show of
courage. But I seemed to have no
choice.
I
immediately enrolled in a night school course to learn a trade. My only job since graduating from high
school three years previously, selling automobile tires, had not afforded me
experience highly useful in the war production industry. I was halfway through a course in
machined-parts inspection when my number came up in the draft. I reasoned that reporting to the draft board
would be a mere formality, for the Air Corps had already rejected me. I forgot that the Infantry didn’t require
20/20 vision.
Dr. Sidney Kalloway Sr., a local physician
(and Northumberland County Coroner) who served as the medical examiner for the
draft board and who was the father of another of my friends, labeled me as fit
for service. He had already certified
his son's health so that he could become a U.S. Navy pilot.
"Your eyes are
fine," he said. "The Army
will keep you fitted with glasses.
"
I was inducted into
the U.S. Army in the summer of 1942.
Soon after, Lt. Sidney Kalloway
Jr., USNR, was shot down and lost at sea.
That
August I had the first train ride of my life, to the U.S. Army Reception Center
at New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, courtesy of Uncle Sam. Half the town's population milled around the
train platform in a scene being duplicated in many towns throughout the United
States: Parents, relatives, friends, and girlfriends vied for the last-minute
attention of the young men going off to war.
Roman Catholic nuns passed out St. Christopher medals to all who would
take them. Not to be outdone, the local
Baptist minister handed out New Testaments, while members of the American
Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, most of whom were attired in the parts
of their World War I uniforms that still more or less fit, provided each draftee
with a sewing kit.
Finally the
conductor sounded his "All aboard," the recruits boarded, and the
train steamed off. There were teary
eyes both inside and outside the train, for many were certain that they would
never see each other again. And, unfortunately,
some were right.
The train took a
most circuitous route to cover the seventy miles to New Cumberland. The unofficial home guard was making sure
that no saboteurs disrupted the civilian war effort, so the train's path was
kept a top military secret. Get there
we did, however, albeit many hours later.
At New Cumberland,
with the rest of the recruits, I spent several days in lines for clothing,
physical exams, shots, orientation movies, and lectures, and passed many boring
hours waiting for some corporal or sergeant (probably picked and promoted out
of the group of recruits that had passed through this routine the week before)
to line us up again. It got to be a
habit to join the end of any line I saw, hoping I had stumbled on a chow line.
Gradually, the
recruits were shipped out in small groups to various basic training
centers. I was disappointed when I
wasn’t part of a group going to Randolph Field and the Air Corps, happy when I
didn't go along with the group to Fort Benning and the Infantry.
By the end of the
first week I was the only one left in my barracks except for the noncom who was
the barracks orderly. On Saturday
afternoon I stripped off my clothes, dropped them on my cot, and headed for the
shower. On my return I couldn’t find my
cap. I headed for the orderly’s room to
complain about someone stealing it.
There he sat, calmly sewing piping on a brand-new overseas cap that
looked suspiciously like mine, while he told me that if I had lost mine I'd
have to go to the quartermaster and purchase a new one. I had learned my first lesson in
self-preservation in the Army! I
promptly sat down and labeled, with indelible ink, all my gear with the
regulation last initial and last four digits of my serial number. For the rest of the weekend I walked around
the camp out of uniform, for I had only been issued one cap. On Monday I bought a new one-the cost to be
deducted from my first pay.
That day I also
became a part of a new bunch of recruits.
The first time I protested that "I had that shot before," I
was escorted to the mess hall to scrub pots and pans. From then on I followed the crowd, figuring that a double dose of
the shots was not lethal, and certainly preferable to KP. By the end of the second week I was finally
given an assignment-to the Signal Corps at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.
My second train
ride took me to Camp Edison in Seagirt, New Jersey, the Basic Training Center
for the Signal Corps. Being a service
unit rather than a combat unit, Signal Corps basic training was not the
rigorous, twelve-week ordeal that combat soldiers were given. It was the most basic of basic training’s –
two weeks of broad-brush exposure to the skills all soldiers should have. It was almost as though they didn’t expect
us to ever see any action. We did have
some close-order drill, firing range practice, and other associated garbage,
but nothing to prepare us for combat.
The most difficult part was a fifteen-mile hike with full field pack
that included an overnight bivouac to get to Fort Monmouth when basic training
was completed.
Life
at Fort Monmouth was great! We were
students in the Cryptographic School-the elite of the Signal Corps. We marched to school in the morning, marched
back to the barracks in late afternoon, and the rest of our time was our own,
with unlimited passes to town. Such
things as guard duty and KP did not exist.
It was too good to
last, and last it didn’t, for the Cryptographic School was moved en masse to
Vint Hill Farms Station in Warrenton, Virginia, just as the winter of 1942 was
approaching. We arrived just in time to
help convert a cattle farm into a military base. It was mud, mud, mud, and more mud. The soil was so unstable that the road from the main gate to the
woods where our barracks compound was located was corduroyed. New logs were added periodically as those in
place disappeared into the mire.
And it was
cold! Building contractors had erected
one-story prefab barracks units, six or so surrounding a similar budding with
showers, washbowls, and toilets. Each
of the enlisted men’s barracks housed about forty men. A short distance away was a similar building
that held the company's orderly room, bachelor officers' quarters, and the
officer’s latrine. The buildings were
un-insulated and were very inadequately heated with potbellied stoves. It wasn’t unusual to find the plumbing
frozen on a bitterly cold morning.
A half mile away,
accessible via another corduroy road, stood a few more prefab buildings that
housed the Cryptographic School.
Unfortunately, we saw the interior of the school buildings rarely during
the first few months after our arrival, for Vint Hill Farms was also to be the
War Department's Radio Intercept Station, and the first priority was to get the
intercept station in operation. Here a
large complement of radio operators would soon be copying, around the clock,
volumes of coded messages being sent between the major radio stations of
foreign governments, both friend and foe, amassing reams and reams of messages
for cryptanalysts to study in their search for the keys to the messages'
contents.
A feeble attempt at
camouflage was being made here. The
intercept station, with its operators,
was to be located in a couple of barnlike buildings. Leading away from the barns was what was supposed to look like,
from the air, a cattle runway, but which would really be a runway for the
lead-in wires from the reception antennae to the radios. In the pastures were the antennae-sixteen of
them. Each consisted of four telegraph
poles set in a diamond configuration with a wire suspended from top of pole to
top of pole, the long axis of the diamonds oriented so as to box the
compass. Thus, when a weak signal was
heard, the operator would be able to switch to an antenna of different
orientation in hopes of getting better reception. Instead of going to crypt school, we were assigned the priority
job of digging holes for the poles that would support all of these antennae and
the lead-in wires. We had no powered
augers to drill these holes in the frozen ground, so we used human-powered
posthole shovels.
By mid-January our
physical labors were completed, and we were able to get down to our
purpose-cryptanalysis studies. Our
instructors at the school were recent college graduates-professorial types-many
of whom would later hold high positions in business, industry, and government,
One was Lt. McGeorge Bundy, a Harvard
graduate who after the war held many prestigious positions in education and
government and served as president of the Ford Foundation. Another was his equally well known brother,
Lt. William Bundy, who followed his military career serving the government in
positions with the CIA and the Department of Defense. With several other brains, they tried to develop in us the
ability to solve complex crossword puzzles.
We also were given crash courses in foreign languages. I was exposed to Japanese, but it didn’t
take.
My favorite
instructor in crypt school was S/Sgt. George Bailey. George was also an enlisted man, and we became drinking
buddies. On most any evening we could
be found in the noncommissioned officer (NCO) club drinking 3.2 beer. We both applied for appointments as warrant
officers and were turned down. Then we
both applied for Officer Candidate School (OCS) and were accepted.
When our names
appeared on the bulletin board list of accepted OCS candidates, we decided to
go into Warrenton to celebrate. And
celebrate we did! We came back to camp
well looped and went to the NCO club for still another drink. There we grew louder and drunker, and no one
could miss our vocal derision of the officers who ran the school. On the very next day we found that our names
had been scratched from the OCS list, and one day later we were on an overseas
assignment list. Next stop, Brisbane,
Australia. Both Bailey and I eventually
got direct commissions: he for being a member of a team that cracked a Japanese
cipher system and I for my role in the Philippine guerrillas.
Auther
1943
In Brisbane I was
to be a code clerk, technician, fourth grade, Signal Corps, U.S. Army, assigned
to the headquarters of the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB). I was one of a group of eight enlisted men
who, with four commissioned officers, were being rushed to Australia from Vint
Hill Farms in April 1943. We were all
trained to some degree in cryptography and cryptanalysis.
Preparation for
overseas assignment began in early March.
Orders were cut for a seven-day delay en route to go home and say
good-bye to the folks, and then to report to Arlington Hall, a top-secret
military intelligence operation outside of Washington, D.C. There, in a few
weeks, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) gave us a crash course in
espionage operations. Their efforts,
aimed at turning us into secret
agents overnight, were not very successful.
The training might have served us well had we been going to infiltrate
Paris, but it would be rather useless in the jungles of the Pacific
Islands. However, I had been in the
service for almost a year and had learned that an enlisted man did as he was
told, no questions asked. Each of us,
individually, was put through the hare and hounds routine in the streets of
Baltimore, Maryland, some forty miles north of the nation's capital. This exercise consisted of being given a
four-hour head start before being pursued by "the enemy," then trying
to keep from being apprehended for the next twenty-four hours. What a joke! It didn't take long for me to be caught in one of the strip-joint
bars on Baltimore's famous Block.
We soon entrained
from Washington, D.C., to Hamilton Air Base, just north of San Francisco, where
we were rushed through the overseas physical and shots routine. We then enplaned for Australia. With 1st Lt. Charles B. Ferguson
in charge, our group consisted of 2nd Lts. Kenneth E. Bry, Edward H. Hale, and
Clinton B. McFarland; T/Sgts. George K.
Bailey and Walter G. Clark; T3gs. Marion W Bugh; T4gs. Seymour Ginsberg and
myself; and T5gs. George E Gregory, Norman J. Lipman, and Irving H. Robinson.
California to
Hawaii was a first-class flight. Our little
group occupied a C-47 cargo plane, the military version of the DC-3, which was
used by civilian airlines of the United States and other countries. The crew included a steward serving drinks
and snacks. This is real living, I told myself.
The
flight from Hickam Field in Honolulu to Australia was quite different. Apparently we were bumped from our
commodious accommodations by higher-ranking brass, who had in turn been bumped
by Eleanor Roosevelt, who was en route to Australia on a morale-boosting excursion. So, from Hickam Field to Canton Island, to
Suva in the Fiji’s, to New Caledonia, and on to Brisbane, we rode the same kind
of plane, but without its bucket seats.
Instead, we made ourselves as comfortable as possible in the cargo area,
sprawled on top of the mailbags, as our pilots and navigators sought out those
wee dots of land in the vast Pacific Ocean.
I've often wondered how in the world they found those little atolls,
like Canton Island-about three square miles of coral in the middle of a million
square miles of sea. I've also been
afraid to ask.
That
I was a part of a group of very resourceful individuals became evident during
this trip. We were not great military
men, to be sure, but certainly survivors and opportunists. For example, Norman Lipman, a short, rotund
Chicagoan, was obviously of use to the Army because of his brain and not his
brawn, for he could speak, read, and write twelve languages, including Hebrew
and Greek (but not Japanese). He
arranged some mailbags into a semblance of a card table, produced a deck of
cards, and cleaned the clocks of all of us in a poker game that lasted for
three days.
Our
lives in Brisbane were about the same as civilian life would be in any midsized
American city, although all of Australia seemed to be twenty years behind
America in development. Perhaps much of
this contrast came about from their suffering the privations of war close to
home. There were also noticeable little
things that had nothing to do with the war.
For example, my future father-in-law sent me a large can of pretzels
from his hometown of Reading, Pennsylvania.
My Australian friends were amazed when they saw and ate these tasty
morsels, for pretzels were unknown in their country.
The city was
overrun with uniformed Americans who manned the various offices of MacArthur's
General Headquarters (GHQ), drove the Army's vehicles, and did all the other
tasks that needed to be done. All the
offices were open around the clock seven days a week, and we worked rotating
eight-hour shifts. After all, there was a war going on.
Trolley
cars clanged along the streets, and our uniforms afforded us a free ride. Those Australians who owned automobiles
sported charcoal burners mounted beside the engine bonnet. These created an aerated gas that served as
fuel for the engines, for gasoline was in extremely short supply
We were domiciled
in a vacated fire station. The ground
floor, where the fire engines had been housed, was now a mess hall. Because our days did not begin and end with
the rising and setting of the sun but were determined by our work schedules, we
could get breakfast, lunch, or dinner at any time of the day or night, without
question – all cooked to order. On the
second floor (which Australians call the first floor) was the dormitory. Here were row upon row of army cots, each
with a footlocker nearly positioned to its side under a rack on which uniforms
were hung. This was home, and no undue
noise was permitted day or night, again because of our work schedules.
Whenever we were
not on the swing shift, we would head for the local pub just before 5:00 PM.,
unless we were on the wrong side of payday.
The pub would open at that time, but the daily ration of beer would not
last long, and we stood three deep at the bar and quaffed as fast as possible
to get our share. When the beer tap ran
dry, we would drink rum from the small keg hanging behind the bar, a brass cup
dangling under its spigot to catch the drips.
Payday came on the
last day of the month. We would line up
outside the orderly room, and when our turn came we would enter, salute the pay
officer, sign the pay roster, and collect our cash. Immediately outside the exit from the orderly room, the supply
sergeant had a regulation sized craps table set up. This was his concession-the profits to be shared with the company
commander. Next to the table was a
bottled-goods stand, which rarely had anything other than Gilbey's gin for
sale. The scotch and whiskey went to
the officers clubs.
We were treated
well by the Australian citizens, who invited us to their homes for tea and/or
supper. It didn't take me long to learn that tea was the main evening meal,
while supper was a snack later in the evening.
Occasionally we were invited to "boil the billy," that is, to
join in a picnic in a nearby park, where the tea would be steeped in a billycan
over an open fire. Usually we would
travel in a charcoal-fueled automobile.
And, of course, we were always invited to join them at a Sunday church
service.
We were not
received as well by the Australian soldiers.
We Yanks were paid much better than they were, which translated into
more available female companionship.
The girls liked the things that the American soldiers could afford, and
they made no bones about taking advantage of this wealth. Sometimes this led to confrontations that
became severe enough that "American martial law" would be declared,
and the Aussies were restricted to quarters.
This did nothing to improve international relations.
The Australian Red
Cross operated canteens where we could while away time with coffee, doughnuts,
and dancing. In addition, they operated
a rest and recreation area at Coolangatta, a seashore resort not far from
Brisbane. There we could get reasonably
priced meals and a bed and spend days off duty lazing about in the surf Also,
the place had some very comely hostesses with whom most of us dreamed of
getting lucky, while few did.
Pleasant as life
was, we had a job to do. It interfered
with our pleasure, but it took priority.
We worked in Heindorf House, a multistoried office building in downtown
Brisbane. It was one of several
buildings housing MacArthur's GHQ, with several floors devoted to the AIB. One floor was occupied by the AIB's
Philippine Regional Section (PRS), our sector of the operations. Our code room on this floor held about a
half-dozen desks and chairs and several filing cabinets. In one corner was a teletype machine, which
afforded us communication with some mysterious location where a radio station transmitted
and received our messages.
Guards in the lobby
prevented visitors' access to the building unless they were cleared to
enter. In addition, outside our office
door sat, around the clock, guards who would let no one but our personnel into
our area. Security was so tight that
sometimes, if a new guard was on duty, we couldn’t get in until we were
properly identified by someone already in the office. Even people who worked in other offices of the AIB could not
enter our sanctuary. If one of us was
there alone, he could not leave until another of our crew came in, for the room
could never be left empty of our personnel at any time. Our operation was the acme of top secret.
We worked in duty
groups of one officer present as a boss and two or three enlisted men as his
crew. The guerrilla movement was just
beginning, and radio traffic was sporadic.
This made the job very boring, with nothing to do but read books, work
crossword puzzles, or sleep. One of the
lieutenants took to reading the dictionary.
I think he was up to the D's when I left to go to the Philippines.
The
war in the Pacific was now somewhat more than a year old. During that time several radio stations
claiming to belong to guerrilla units had successfully established contact with
MacArthur's GHQ in Australia. Some
claimed to have salvaged radios left behind by the Army during the
surrender. Others said they had
confiscated some of the Philippine Postal Service's radiotelegraphy
equipment. Their authenticity was
suspect, and the cipher systems they used varied from poor to nonexistent.
We had been brought
in with a twofold purpose. First, we
were to establish the authenticity of the guerrilla stations. Were they for real, or were they some sort
of Japanese ruse? Second, if they were
verified, we were to establish secret cryptographic systems to maintain message
security. Establishing authenticity
would have been difficult but for Yankee ingenuity. Our guerrilla correspondents had identified themselves by name,
rank, and serial number. With this
information we were able to have Secret Service agents in the States visit
their families, from whom they obtained personal information only the callers
would know and which we could use to question those men who were sending
messages from the Philippines.
Possessing this
information, we would send a very military-sounding message with a personal
ending, such as "MARY AND SUZIE SEND THEIR LOVE, AND HOPE YOU WILL BE HOME
SOON." Now we had to depend on him, and his ingenuity. We purposely left out the name of someone
else of equal importance in his life. If the reply was "TELL THEM I LOVE
THEM TOO," we considered that he might be in trouble, and probably a
prisoner of the Japanese, for we had not included, for example, his son Adam in
our transmission to him. If his message
was "TELL THEM, AND ADAM, THAT I LOVE THEM TOO, " we felt relatively
sure he was authentic. This was a
touch-and-go way of establishing creditability, but it was the best we could do
under the circumstances.
Establishing a
secure code system was more difficult.
Few of the guerrilla radio operators knew much about cryptography. Some had pocketsize encoding devices that
the Army had used for years in the field to yield a substitution cipher. Anyone with a yen for newspaper crossword
puzzles and cryptograms could break these codes in minutes. In a few cases we were able to set up more
complex codes using the same sort of personal information we used to
authenticate the stations, but our results in this respect were very unsatisfactory.
In only one way can
top-secret code systems be established without fear of their being compromised:
they must be exchanged between the stations by physically handing them over in
a face-to-face meeting. This becomes a
rather difficult feat when the two parties are separated by fifteen hundred
miles of ocean controlled by the enemy and when one of the parties is located
deep in the jungles of enemy-held territory.
This meant that someone from our unit had to penetrate the Japanese
lines to establish the cipher systems.
None of us wanted this assignment.
Sure, we tried to demonstrate our bravado by boasting to each other
about wanting to be the first of our group to go 'into the Philippines, but
each of us secretly hoped that someone else would be chosen. Life in Brisbane was calm, peaceful, and,
except for the inconvenience of working an occasional night shift, the best way
to fight a war. Why do anything else?
Then we encountered
several Americans who had been POWs.
They were from a group of ten men who had escaped from the Davao Penal
Colony on Mindanao, formerly a prison farm for felons but now holding a mixture
of soldiers and civilians under the Japanese.
They had made their way to Australia via the guerrillas and a U.S.
submarine. Their stories of the
unbelievable atrocities being committed by the Japanese against American and
Filipino prisoners got to me. Suddenly
the work I was involved in seemed infinitely more important. I volunteered to carry secret cipher systems
into the Philippines, then become a guerrilla and a coastwatcher, where I hoped
to be even more useful.
To Mindanao
Chapter
2
At
this stage of the proceedings, I met one of three Americans who had firsthand
knowledge and experience of the Philippines, Maj. Charles M. Smith. He had been a mining engineer in the
Philippines and was trapped there when America surrendered the archipelago to
the Japanese. He had sent his family,
wife Kathryn and their two young sons, to their former home in Texas when war
became imminent. Charlie stayed on, for
he was near the end of a three-year employment contract that included a sizable
bonus if completed. He had gambled and
lost, for war came before his contract completion date. He did not collect the bonus-and wound up
committed to a life with a very unpredictable future.
After several
months in the jungles of Mindanao, he and fellow mining engineers Jordan Hamner
and Charles "Chick” Smith, with two Filipinos as crew, sailed to Australia
in a cumpit, a twenty-one-foot
sailboat with an eight-foot beam, which they modified by adding weight to the
keel, a deck, and a small Japanese diesel engine. The engine would be used only in emergencies, for they could
carry precious little fuel. They made
their thirtyday journey on an ocean filled with Japanese naval vessels, past
islands occupied by Japanese troops, and made landfall at the northern coastal
town of Darwin on 4 January 1943. From
time to time, other Americans tried to make this journey. Most died in the attempt.
Before
leaving Mindanao, the trio had promised still another mining engineer, Wendell
Fertig, the leader of a budding guerrilla band, that they would attempt to get
General MacArthur to send supplies from Australia to the guerrillas. Smith and Fertig had met MacArthur socially
in Manila from time to time before the war started, so Smith did not feel he
would be approaching a stranger in making this request.
U.S. Navy
submarines had carried Dutch, Australian, and English coastwatchers into
several of the Pacific islands to report Japanese shipping movements to Naval
Operations and to report military intelligence to the AIB. Even as the Smiths and Hamner were sailing
south, a submarine was plying its way northward below the surface of the same
ocean, carrying a landing party to the Philippines. These intelligence-gathering teams were dropped off by
operational submarines on the way to bigger things-combat with the Japanese
Navy-much like a truck driver carries a hitchhiker to the next town.
No attempt had been
made, however, to carry major cargo loads of supplies to the growing guerrilla
units. The operational submarines had
no extra space for cargo. Carrying a
few extra men and their personal gear made for crowded quarters until they were
left at their destination. A larger
vessel assigned to supply duty alone was needed. The USS Narwhal, a submarine of World War I vintage and
almost twice the size of this war’s operational subs, was pressed into this
service. How the supply lines were
established and the missions conducted has been described elsewhere.
The Navy was
rightfully concerned about the security of a vessel being stationary for hours
on the surface of enemy-controlled waters while being unloaded. They insisted that an Army officer with vast
knowledge of the Philippines and Filipinos be responsible for the security of
such an undertaking. Smith obviously
had the requisite knowledge, but he was not of the military. He also had a promise to keep to guerrilla
leader Fertig. So, instead of remaining
a civilian and returning to his family in El Paso, Smith accepted an Army
commission as captain in the Corps of Engineers. Jordan Hamner, not to be outdone by his friend, also accepted a
captaincy and later led a penetration party into Tawi Tawi and Borneo. "Chick” Smith, somewhat older than his
two companions, opted to return to the United States as a civilian.
At the same time,
one of the most bizarre escapes of the war was taking place. In 1921, Charles "Chick” Parsons had
gone to the Philippines, a member of the crew of a merchant ship. There he left the ship to join an uncle who
lived in Manila. Having stenographic
training (not an unusual skill for a male at that time), Parsons served a stint
as secretary to Governor-General Leonard Wood, a position that led him
to and through the doors of the homes and clubs of the American and Filipino
elite. Three or four years later he
joined the Luzon Stevedoring Company, eventually rising to the top of its
executive echelon. He settled in Manila
and married a Filipina, with whom he had three children.
Chick had a love of
the seas and a deep interest in naval activities. This led him to join the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1932. He was called to active duty in December
1941 and served a very short term with the Intelligence Office in Manila.
The social life of
the capital city included many affairs of state, attended by dignitaries of
countries from around the world. At one
time Panama did not have a permanent consul assigned there, and Parsons was appointed
honorary consul, to represent Panama whenever necessary. When the Japanese overran the Philippines,
Parsons claimed Panamanian citizenship and the right of repatriation for him
and his family to Panama. After much
negotiation, including intercessions by representatives of other countries that
had maintained neutrality, he and his family were flown to Hong Kong, and from
there repatriated to Panama on the Gripsholm. Had the Japanese known that this
repatriate was Comdr. Charles A.
Parsons, USNR, it would never have happened.
So, about the time
the Smiths, Hamner, and two Filipinos were about to make landfall at Dar-win in
January 1943, Chick and Katsy Parsons were dancing the night away at a New
Year's Eve celebration in Washington, D.C. Chick would soon be joining his old
friends in Australia and then returning to the Philippines in different
guise. He would become the coordinator
of GHQs supply lines to the guerrillas.
He would shuttle between Australia and the Philippines by submarine many
times and become GHQs one reliable envoy to all guerrilla groups. Parsons would parachute into Leyte a week
before the Allied landing in October 1944 and, with the cooperation of the
local guerrilla units, secretly evacuate all the civilians from the vicinity of
Tacloban, away from the devastating naval bombardment, without the Japanese
realizing it. This was probably his
finest hour.
Now the Navy had
one of its own to join with Charlie Smith in making a major submarine supply
run to the Philippines a secure venture.
Despite this fact, and even in the pressing urgency of war, agreement on
operational plans between the services took considerable time. So, while awaiting this agreement, Captain
Smith and Commander Parsons penetrated Mindanao by operational submarine late
in February 1943. Parsons worked out
security details for the Narwhal's upcoming
landing on Mindanao with Col. Wendell
Fertig, while Smith established a radio station overlooking the harbor at
Davao. With few interruptions, this
station continued to send out extremely valuable reports of Japanese shipping
movements and other intelligence information until the war’s end. Smith and Parsons returned to Australia soon
after the station was in operation.
With agreement
still pending, Smith was sent to the United States to locate material suitable
for clandestine missions in the jungles.
Armed with almost dictatorial power, he selected radios and supporting
gear for priority shipment to Brisbane.
He then returned to Australia-and waited.
In November 1943 he
was Major Smith and was organizing
another invasion party to go to the Philippines to establish additional radio
stations and an espionage network, this time on Samar Island and southern
Luzon. In addition, he, with Parsons,
would be responsible for the security of the Narwhahl carrying arms, ammunition, and other supplies to the
guerrillas on Mindanao, where his party would go ashore.
I first met Smith
in early November at Heindorf House, the location of our code room and the
headquarters of the AIB. He was a
forty-year old Texan of medium build, height, and weight, with not an ounce of
fat. If you had to find an Army officer
who didn’t look the part, Charlie was your man. He had not been a cadet at West Point, nor had he been exposed to
a ninety-day-wonder OCS course in the Army, so spit and polish was not his
bag. His uniform was not tailor made of
expensive fabric. He wore the suntans
of an enlisted man which he purchased from the quartermaster, never pressed,
and his insignia of rank was always askew on his collar. His face was weather-beaten and lined, his
eyes displayed a subtle twinkle, and he rarely trimmed his greying blond
mustache. Bald on top and fringed
around, he appeared to have a self-inflicted haircut. He demonstrated a disdain for military protocol. That I liked. He had shown his combat and survival skills on his previous
missions. I liked that, too. If I was going to get into this mess, I
wanted to serve with him, or someone like him.
When I asked if I
could go with him on this mission, he stared at me and said, "Man, are you
crazy?"
"I don’t think
so, " I replied. "I've read
the messages that come from the islands, and know what's going on. I have a pretty good idea of what must be
done and what to expect. I think I
could do it. At least, I'd like to
try."
He asked me what I
knew about communications. I told him
of my civilian experience with amateur radios and my Army training in
cryptography and cryptanalysis. I also
spoke of the urgent need to set up secure cipher systems throughout the
islands. He decided I might be useful
and added me to his group.
I sometimes wish
Smith had asked me if I liked rice. My
resounding "No!" would have ended my participation.
Selection
and training of the men who would carry out the operations of the PRS was, like
most military undertakings that were not refined by years and years of
repetition, rather clumsily handled.
Originally, Col. Allison Ind was in charge of
the PRS. Between December 1942 and July
1943, under his direction, several penetration teams made up of Americans and
Filipinos were organized and dispatched to the islands. They were escapees or evacuees from the
Philippines, and had undergone training in schools established by the Australian
Army to prepare coastwatchers to be sent to islands immediately north of the
Australian mainland. These schools
offered training in intelligence gathering, commando skills, amphibious
operations, radio operation, ship and aircraft recognition, weather observation,
and other skills essential to combat intelligence work. However, similar training on a much larger
and more concentrated scale would be needed in order to blanket the Philippines
with intelligence networks.
Col. Courtney Whitney, who succeeded Colonel Ind
as chief of the PRS, went to California in the spring of 1943 to select a group
of volunteers from the First and Second Filipino Infantry Regiments to be the
nucleus of the unit's operatives. As
these men arrived in Australia, they were temporarily assigned to the
Australian schools until a new camp was established. Camp Tabragalba, located near Beaudesert, Queensland, known only
as Camp X, was kept under heavy secrecy and security wraps. The camp and the 5217th Reconnaissance
Battalion (Provisional) became realities on 8 October 1943.
The camp's training
program thoroughly covered the skills needed by agents entering enemy-held
territory; survival, weaponry, hand-to-hand combat, and communications, to name
only a few. I was not able to participate
in any of these activities, except for a few days of Morse code practice to
polish my hand and ear, and one night's exposure to handling a rubber boat to
go ashore. The rest of the skills I
would have to learn through on-the-job training from Major Smith.
Capt. James L. "Doc" Evans Jr., M.D.,
was also a missioner, as we were labeled.
Although Captain Evans was a doctor, his professional skills were not
his reason for being in Smith’s party.
Doc was an exceptionally good radio operator. He had been a radio ham for more than fifteen years before
entering the service, and he was also an excellent radio technician. He, too, did not receive any training at
Camp X.
We spent two weeks
gathering together the equipment we would need for the first six months of our
stay in the Philippines. We hoped that
this would be the length of our mission.
Our gear consisted mainly of radio and ordnance equipment and a minimal
amount of clothing. We took only a few
cases of GI food rations, for we planned to live largely off the land. We included several cases of whiskey, some
wheat flour, and several cases of sacramental wine. The whiskey was for us; the flour and wine were for the Roman
Catholic priests and their parishioners, our extremely faithful allies.
Everything that had
to be cushioned for shipment was wrapped in newspapers telling of the Allied
victories in the islands south of the Philippines. The packing materials would be carefully removed, then circulated
for public relations purposes. Lastly,
we had lots of cigarettes, matches, pencils, and chocolate bars, all packaged
in wrappers emblazoned "I Shall Return!-MacArthur."
Although Evans
would not be on a healing mission, he did select a supply of medicines to be
taken aboard. These included aspirin,
sulfanilamide powder and sulfathiazole tablets (miracle drugs in 1943),
morphine for the painfully wounded, atabrine to prevent malaria and quinine to
treat it, adhesive tape but no bandages (they
could be rolled of cloth in the islands), and a host of other drugs, supplies,
and medical instruments. These would be
shared with Fertig.
Oh, yes. We also carried thousands of Philippine
pesos-real money newly printed in Washington, D.C., minted with engraving
plates taken from the Philippine treasury when the islands fell-loosely packed
with water and sand in sealed, five-gallon metal containers. The water-and sand mixture was intended to
age the money, since Filipinos would be hard pressed to explain to the Japanese
where they got crisp, new paper money.
Aging the currency this way was a brilliant idea-until it came time to
dry it so that it could be spent. If we
had sunlight we would spread it on the ground and hope it wouldn’t blow away
while it dried. During the rainy
season, which seemed to be all the time, we sat beside fires waving wads of
currency over the heat to drive out the moisture. We also had counterfeit Japanese invasion currency (called APA in
the islands), American made, to spend freely to inflate the Japanese currency.
All
in all, our party’s gear weighed about ten tons. In addition, the submarine carried ninety tons of arms,
ammunition, and medicine destined for Colonel Fertig on Mindanao. Moving this mass of supplies in a
clandestine mission – including a landing by submarine, hauling it through
jungles, clambering up mountains, and avoiding discovery by Japanese patrols –
was either brave or foolhardy. I had
trouble selecting the proper adjective.
I wanted to do something significant in the war, and I wanted it to be
physical as well as mental activity. At
that point (I was aged a full twenty-three years), I recognized that the
mission might prove fatal to me, but that didn’t seem too likely just
then. I could just as easily be hit by
a truck on the streets of Brisbane. The
mission would certainly be an adventure and a bit out of the ordinary for a guy
from Pennsylvania. When I tried to
envision myself toothlessly telling my grandchildren about the exciting times
in the code room in Brisbane, the picture was blurry. Of course, relating tales of soggy heat in the insect-ridden
jungles seemed a bit on the weird side, too.
As a result, I gave up such thoughts and focused on the job immediately
at hand.
We
flew from Brisbane to Darwin, Australia, on 24 November 1943. Our invasion team consisted of we three
Americans and nine Filipino soldiers who had been educated in America,
infantrymen-turned-agents who had been schooled at Camp X.
The one hundred
tons of cargo had been loaded on the Narwhal
at a dock in Brisbane, save for our personal gear, which we toted in
barracks bags. The cargo had to be
packed in containers small enough to fit through the sub's hatch openings and
narrow interior passageways. Barrels
for 37-millimeter antiaircraft guns didn't fit inside, so they were stowed in
two aft torpedo tubes accessible from the deck. The submarine departed Brisbane for Darwin several days before we
enplaned to meet it.
I was a basket case
on the flight to Darwin. As soon as we
were off the ground, I barfed my breakfast.
I continued with dry heaves on each of the remaining three legs of our
journey. I would like to say I was
airsick, but I was just plain scared.
On 26 November 1943
we boarded the Narwhal at Darwin,
bound for Butuan Bay and the Agusan River on the north coast of Mindanao. There we would rendezvous with the Mindanao
guerrilla forces on 2 December. The
submarine trip was an interesting new experience. Most of the time we traveled on the surface, making about twelve
knots. On several occasions, either for
practice or because of an unidentified plane or surface craft, we would
crash-dive. Underwater we traveled at
about two knots. The popping,
crackling, knocking noises inside a submerged submarine can give a landlubber
an entirely different perspective on submariners. Reassurances that the boat was not about to come apart at the
seams could not quite overcome my concerns during crash dives. Some people cannot quite get accustomed to
traveling underwater. I was not
particularly bothered by the dives, except for the bad vibes transmitted to me
by one electrician's mate who was paranoid about depth bombing. I liked the guy as a conversationalist, but
he made me uneasy with his fears.
Otherwise, the trip
was uneventful except for one occasion when an enemy plane was not sighted
until it was almost directly above our vessel.
Doc Evans was on sun lookout, a euphemism for getting some fresh air on
deck, when the dive alarm sounded. He
was the first man through the hatch but wasn’t fast enough going down the
ladder. The next man stepped all over
him. He was a sorry sight with a black
eye and facial cuts as a result.
"How do you
like that?" he complained. "I
earn the Purple Heart before I meet the enemy"'
The Not-So-Secret Landing
CHAPTER
3
We
were to have a top-secret rendezvous with the guerrillas under the command of
Colonel Fertig. Through the Surigao
Strait, we entered Butuan Bay on the northeast coast of Mindanao early in the
afternoon of 2 December. We circled at
periscope depth for several hours. Lt.
Comdr. Frank D. Latta, the sub's
captain, checked the bay for problem craft, then located the prearranged
security signals on the beach – a white sheet suspended between two coconut
trees with smoking fires one hundred yards to the left and right.
Just before dusk,
the Narwhal surfaced and moved to a spot
less than a half mile from shore. Doc
Evans and I, both newcomers to the islands and to guerrilla warfare, did not
know what to expect. We were prepared
for anything, half expecting to engage in a hand-to-hand battle with a Japanese
boarding party upon surfacing. When we
climbed through the hatch to the deck, Evans wore a side arm, while I packed a
submachine gun. Commander Latta was
already on deck, and when he saw us with arms he bellowed, "Put those
damned guns away! Do you want to hurt
someone!"
I looked around,
and, instead of seeing Japanese naval vessels approaching us, I saw a most
beautiful sunset. Dusk moves in and out
very rapidly in the tropics. All the
spectacular colors of a leisurely northern sunset flash by in rapid
succession. I watched the sun disappear
over the mountain jungles to the west, and then my eyes dropped down to the
beach in front of us. There stood fully
two hundred natives, cheering and shouting greetings to us, while a small band
played "Anchors Aweigh." So much for the secret rendezvous! All that was missing were some Madison
Avenue advertising men.
Two diesel-powered
launches towing a large lighter moved out of the Agusan River and made fast to
the submarine. The sub's four hatches
were opened, and Filipino laborers swarmed around them like flies. The submariners raised the cargo up through
the hatches, and the laborers carried it to the lighter. While the unloading operations were going
on, the natives traded bolos, bananas, coconuts, and even Japanese cigarettes
for the American cigarettes the sailors possessed. With all this activity, I had one disturbing thought.
"Where are the
Japanese?" I asked an American guerrilla who was on the deck with us.
"See those
lights over there?" he replied, pointing to a spot on the shoreline
roughly ten miles to the west.
"That's Nasipit, where one garrison is, and the other is over
there." He pointed to another cluster of lights about the same distance to
the east, which I later learned was the town of Cabadbaran.
"My God!"
I said. "Why aren't they trying to
stop us?"
"They're as
scared of us as we are of them," he answered. "We whipped their asses lots of times, and they leave its
alone."
In the hills behind
Nasipic there was another large light.
It seemed to be flashing, like the lights on a Christmas tree. I pointed to it and asked, "Are there
Japs there, too?"
"Nah.
Them’s fireflies. Them bugs
swarm on one tree and sometimes there's enough of 'em to light up the
sky," he said.
In the next fifteen
months I saw lots of brilliantly lighted trees-firefly sex orgies.
The Narwhal did not return to Australia
empty. Replacing our invasion team on
board were Chick Parsons, on the return leg of one of his many trips between
Australia and the Philippines, and seven evacuees-a mixture of military and
civilian personnel, including one woman and an eight-year-old girl. Replacing a small portion of our cargo was
about a ton of bananas, the only gift the guerrillas had available to thank the
crew for their services.
Major Smith,
Captain Evans, and I boarded a third launch, Colonel Fertig's command vessel,
to move up the Agusan. In typical
officer-to enlisted-man fashion, Fertig acknowledged Smiths introduction of me
– then ignored me completely. He had a
small goatee, which he stroked like a kitten as he talked. The colonel was thin, but I could tell that
normally he was a big man on whom the poor diet of the last two years had taken
its toll. He was a middle-aged man with
kindly eyes that, I discovered later, hid a very stern manner. This manner was responsible for his success
in dealing with the Filipinos and building a genuine fighting
organization. It also made him less
than popular with the American guerrillas he commanded. Many hated him but held their feelings in
check. They realized that survival was
their first aim, and cooperation among the Americans was the key to that end.
From Fertig's
launch we said good-bye to the submarine and its crew and then sailed up the
Agusan River.
On
4 December 1943, Capt. Charles B. Ferguson, chief of the code room in the
Heindorf House in Brisbane, carried a message to Col. Courtney Whitney, chief of the PRS. It was from Fertig, and read as follows:
CARGO UNLOADED IN
THREE HOURS AND SUCCESSFULLY MOVED UP THE AGUSAN BY DAWN, 3 DECEMBER. VESSEL CLEARED AT 2230 H. CP [Parsons] OUT
AND CMS [Smith] IN. QUANTITY
APPRECIATED AND HELP IMMENSELY.
The
message carried Whitneys endorsement when it went to General MacArthur as
follows:
Message
confirms previous information in re operation but adds that supplies were moved
up AGUSAN by dawn 3 December. I
understand that in the river movement a 100-ton lighter is employed with
launches to tow. By completion of the
movement in the manner indicated the area of the BUTUAN BAY was cleared of all
supplies by dawn of the night during which delivery was effected. This discloses satisfactory organization and
preparation.
The
feasibility of supplying the guerrillas via submarine was now established.
Undoubtedly, the
brass in Brisbane were comforted to know that they could supply the troops in
the bush, but the job was only half done as far as we were concerned. We did not plan to operate at Butuan Bay
with the Japanese looking over our shoulders.
Still to come was the minor chore of moving one hundred tons of supplies
up the Agusan River for several miles-a task simply stated but not easily
accomplished. For starters, the lighter
with its supplies was not clear of the Butuan Bay area, as Fertig's message to
GHQ had said. Poor navigation had put
the launch towing the lighter high and dry on a sandbar. Our supplies were barely out of the bay at
the mouth of the Agusan River.
By midnight on the
night of our landing we were in the town of Butuan, the gateway to the Agusan
River. Throughout the war this town was
the scene of much guerrilla activity.
Whoever held Butuan controlled the river valley. From its source in a vast jungle swamp, the
Agusan winds its way northward through a wide, flat plain for twentyfive miles
before it reaches the bay. Rice fields
abound in the valley, making it one of the most productive farming areas on
Mindanao.
Control of this
important food source seesawed between the guerrillas and the Japanese. At one time, a guerrilla unit under the
leadership of Col. Ernest E. McClish
and Ma)'. Clyde C. Childress was
occupying Butuan and was under a stiff siege by Japanese troops. The guerrillas ran short of ammunition-as
did the Japanese. A truce was declared,
with each side occupying half the town.
There was one store located in the middle of the town, and it was
patronized by both sides at the same time.
McClish soon
realized that the Japanese had what he didn’t have-a source of supply. It would be only a matter of time until the
Japanese would receive a shipment of ammunition and the guerrillas would be
overwhelmed. With a last-ditch show of
strength, the guerrillas attacked the Japanese, who had holed up in a
concrete-block schoolhouse with a corrugated-steel roof For nine days the
guerrillas tried to drive them out of this building. McClish and his men had no artillery or other heavy weapons, and
their small-arms fire was ineffective against this concrete bunker. The standoff ended when the Japanese called
in aircraft to bomb the guerrilla positions.
The guerrillas retreated to the surrounding jungles.
Apparently, the
Japanese felt they could not maintain their advantage, and they moved out soon
after. The guerrillas had controlled
the town, and the valley, ever since.
We stopped at Butuan only long enough to ensure that the guard company
stationed there had the munitions needed to hold the river when our hundred
tons of supplies moved in.
From Butuan we went
to Amparo, a barrio, or small
village, several miles upriver. It was
now four o'clock in the morning.
Colonel Fertig and Major Smith went into one of the houses near the
river while Major
Childress
and Capt. Paul Marshall took Doc Evans and me to a house about two hundred
yards away. The rest of our party had
stayed on the lighter. I was ready for
some sleep.
In semidarkness
broken only by the eerie light of a native coconut oil lamp, Evans unrolled his
jungle hammock, a GI contraption with a canvas bottom, a waterproof top,
mosquito netting on the four sides, and a zippered flap on one side to provide
an entrance to this protection from the elements and the bugs. He tried to suspend it between two of the
house's supporting posts, but it was a losing battle. I was asleep before he gave up, for I had spread my hammock on
the floor like a mattress. He soon did
the same. Less than an hour later I
awoke. The bamboo floor had wrinkled my
back like a washboard, and the mosquitoes were driving me crazy. I got up and went outside to await the
dawn. Soon Evans joined me, while
Childress and Marshall, being used to this life, slept on. Evans and I, too, would soon become
accustomed to bamboo houses and mosquitoes.
With the coming of
daylight I was able to examine our luxurious quarters. The hut was built against a small hill,
supported about six feet off the ground by stout posts. A bamboo ladder served as the front
steps. The roof was made of buri palm leaves – large, fan-shaped leaves that served the purpose of
shingles very well – on bamboo rafters.
The exterior walls were of matting formed by splitting bamboo poles into
half inch strips and weaving them into a flat panel. The flooring, too, was made of bamboo, this time split into
half-round strips and laid side by side on a framework of bamboo poles. All this was fastened together with rattan, a strong but flexible vine that
worked like thick twine. The cost of
nails, even if they were available, would be prohibitive, so homes were made of
the available jungle materials.
There was no
furniture except for a kitchen stove and a long, low table. The stove was a three-foot-square bamboo box
supported about two feet off the floor and filled with six inches of dirt. Here a fire could be built to heat clay cooking
pots of food suspended on rattan vines dangling from a ceiling rafter. Fifteen feet long and twelve feet wide, this
one-room house, I learned from Marshall, was considered ample space for a
family of ten, plus in-laws, by Philippine standards. It provided the only housing they needed-a place to get out of
the rain.
As the sub was
being unloaded the day before, I had noticed young boys shadowing the Americans
wherever they went. Whenever an
American wanted a small task done, he would call one of these boys to do it. In
the morning I found out why. Instead of
our having to repack our gear, two boys, seeing that we were awake, came into
the house and reassembled our packs.
Then they carried them to the launch and guarded them while we went to a
nearby house for breakfast. I asked
Clyde Childress about this, for I wasn’t exactly enthused about risking having
my gear stolen.
The
submarine NARWAHL, which transported men and materials to the guerrillas and
carried evacuees to Australia
"These kids
really love the Americanos, and want to be around us all the time," said
Clyde. "They are our interpreters,
translators, guides, lackeys – and seem to be able to smell danger coming. They’re good to have around. And don't worry. Your things are safe."
Major Childress, a
graduate of a military school in the States, had been a U.S. Army officer on
temporary duty as a battalion commander in the Philippine Army prior to the
war. Unsurrendered, he roamed the
mountains and jungles of Mindanao for almost a year before joining Colonel
McClish in forming the 110th Division of the Mindanao Guerrilla, a
unit that, by December 1944, had a strength of more than three hundred officers
and five thousand enlisted men.
Captain Marshall
was one of the ten men who were the first escapees from Davao Penal Colony to
reach the safety afforded by the guerrillas.
Several of this group of escapees were the men I had met in Australia
who caused me to volunteer for this mission.
A private first class at the time, Paul and two other enlisted men
decided to stay with the guerrillas rather than be returned by submarine to
Australia. By January 1945 he had been
commissioned and promoted to lieutenant colonel. At that time, McClish and Childress were evacuated to Australia,
and Marshall took command of the 110th Division. This division was instrumental -in the mopping
up operations when the Allies returned to Mindanao.
Breakfast was an
experience. It was prepared by a
Filipina, the first woman I saw in the islands. She was beautiful! If all the women here are like her, I must
have died and gone to heaven, I told myself.
They
weren’t.
Small, with
waist-length black, wavy hair, she had the complexion and skin color American
girls – and men, too – try to imitate every summer by sitting in the hot sun
hour upon hour. She was slender and
shapely, and anyone observing me would have said I was ogling her, and would
have been right. She spoke very good
English and was obviously a good cook.
What she lacked was a variety of ingredients.
For breakfast, she
presented what looked like Cream of Wheat covered with milk and sweetened with
brown sugar, a side dish of fried potatoes, and coffee. But how different it all tasted. What we really had was soft-boiled rice, or lugao, coconut milk, unrefined native
brown sugar, or calami, fried camotes, and
nice coffee. This delighted beverage
was made with roasted and ground rice, and it tasted worse than GI coffee, if
that's possible. Although the meal
looked good and I was plenty hungry, I couldn’t eat it. I wondered how much weight I would lose
before I got used to eating native food.
After breakfast we
continued our launch trip upriver, stopping at Fertig's ordnance supply depot,
six miles distant. Soon Smith and
Fertig went further upriver to Esperanza, where Fertig had his guerrilla
headquarters. Evans and I stayed at the
supply depot with Lt. Bob Crump, the
depot's officer in charge, awaiting the lighter with our supplies. When it arrived we would separate our ten
tons from Fertig's supplies and set them aside for later pickup, to be taken
with us to Samar Island.
Crump was a young
American geologist who had surveyed Mindanao for oil deposits. He had completed his survey and was in
Manila awaiting transportation back to the States when the war caught him. He turned his survey over to a Filipino, who
put it in a safe-deposit vault in a bank.
The bank was later destroyed, and three years' work went down the
drain. He had returned to Mindanao in
search of a hiding place from the Japanese, and there he joined the guerrillas.
To me, Bob's food
was much better than the breakfast had been.
He had some chickens, and therefore we had eggs. Not necessarily fresh eggs, though. Those we cracked open and found to be free
of feathers, we fried. Out of a dozen,
we managed to find six or seven that were not occupied. He also served lugao, which one cannot avoid
in the Philippines. I Stirred the rice
and eggs together, hoping to hide the rice.
The mixture was barely edible, but I devoured it.
I now realized that
I was going to have to learn to like rice.
Meanwhile, I planned to rely on "I Shall Return" chocolate
bars as a main course until they ran out.
At this point I began to understand that the change in lifestyle
represented a major obstacle, on a par with the Japanese Army. Fatigue and the debilitation from jungle
accommodations plus alien food loomed large in my view of the future.
That day, I learned
how tough it is to move supplies when you are using native labor and worn-out
launches instead of GI trucks. In the
afternoon, while we were still awaiting the lighter, a native came paddling up
the river in a baroto, a native
dugout canoe with outriggers to keep it upright. He told us that the lighter was stuck near the mouth of the
river. One of the launches, the Liberty Belle, had run aground on a
sandbar in the bay, and the other launch was not strong enough to pull the
fully loaded lighter further up river than Butuan.
I jumped into his
baroto and we went to Butuan, arriving at dusk. I found the lighter anchored offshore opposite the town, in full
view of any Japanese planes that should chance to fly over it. While the Philippines are noted for thick
jungles and heavy foliage, sometimes with branches reaching across and
concealing whole rivers, the Agusan over around Butuan is quite wide, with rice
paddies along both shores. No natural
cover here. This was not a good place
to park an equipment-filled lighter!
Lt. Willard Money
had done the best he could to camouflage the lighter with coconut fronds and
banana tree leaves. The equipment
unloaded from the sub the preceding night was already being put to use, for he
had set up one of our 37-millimeter antiaircraft guns on the beach to drive off
any inquisitive Japanese planes.
Lieutenant Money
was a big man. Even though life in the
jungles had assaulted his health, he still towered over six feet and weighed
close to two hundred pounds. An Air
Corps man who had been a crew member on Colin Kelley’s bomber, he had fled to
the hills instead of surrendering. (Kelly was among America’s first heavily
publicized war heroes. At a time when
the military and the press needed something positive to report to offset the
bad news of the early days of the war, he was reported to have bombed and sunk
the Japanese battleship Haruna, a
feat for which it was recommended he receive the Medal of Honor. He did not receive the medal, and in later
years it was revealed that the story was a fabrication, probably started by an
overzealous member of MacArthur's staff.)
There
was nothing I could do at the time to improve the cargo situation. The only other launch we had available had
already been loaded and was on its way to the supply dump. It would not be possible for it to get to
its destination, unload, and return before dawn. In the company of Lt. Elwood Royer, a Pennsylvania Dutchman by
birth but more recently from Salt Lake City, I went to the mouth of the river,
where we found the Liberty Belle high
and dry on a sandbar. Even though it
was midnight, a crowd of Filipinos was working desperately to get it
afloat. They knew what a task it had
been to capture this vessel from the Japanese and get it operating, and they
struggled heroically to get it back into the safety of the river. Everything was going as well as could be
expected, so Royer and I returned to the lighter and slept.
The launch we were
awaiting to pick up its second load was the Captain
Knortz. It was named after a
guerrilla hero, William Knortz, who lost his life early in the war. He had had another launch out in the bay on
the north coast of Mindanao one night.
The diesel engine failed, and after working on it for hours and not
being able to get it to run, he attempted to swim to shore, a distance of two
or three miles, to get help. The men he
left behind on the boat said that after he had been swimming for several
minutes they heard two shots. Knortz
had his pistol with him, and it is presumed he fired the shots to drive away
attacking sharks. His body was never
recovered. This presumption leaves the
manner of his death unconfirmed, a situation not uncommon in clandestine
operations.
The
Captain Knortz pulled in at the expected time, and we
sent off the second load. Something had
to be done and done in a hurry, because the lighter was in a very bad position
and every minute it was in danger of being bombed by Japanese planes. One hundred tons of equipment is not
considered very much in normal operations, but when one is fifteen hundred
miles inside enemy lines, that much equipment is more valuable than a warehouse
full of gold. Moving it was
imperative. While we were pondering our
next move, the Liberty Belle, now
free of the sandbar, hove into sight.
With that launch plus the Millie, which
Fertig and Smith had taken to Esperanza and which had just returned, we were
able to tow the lighter upriver to Amparo and anchor it in a secure, secluded
spot. From there the three launches ran
shuttle service to the depot, and within twenty-four hours the cargo was
reasonably safe.
I began to separate
our equipment from Fertig's while Evans went upriver to Esperanza. He wanted to set up an infirmary immediately
because Ferrig had told him of the deplorable health of many civilians and
guerrillas. The Agusan valley is a
malaria sector, and 75 percent of the population was stricken with this malignancy. It was after he saw these people that Evans
realized he was needed on Mindanao as a doctor.
“Besides,"
said Doc, “with you around, Smith doesn’t need me as a radioman."
Two
days later, I was satisfied with my separation job and had our equipment
stowed, ready to be loaded on the launch that would carry us to Samar. Or so I thought. I contacted Major Smith by radio for instructions, and he told me
to bring all our gear to Esperanza, where it was to be unpacked, further
separated, and repacked. Why? Who's to know? The guerrilla army worked just like the regular army.
Lt. Leonard L.
"Bob" Merchant, Fertig's chief transportation officer, had our goods
loaded onto the Liberty Belle, and we
headed up the Agusan to Esperanza. En
route he told me why and how this boat had found herself high and dry on the
night we arrived. Merchant, in
preparation for moving the lighter from the bay into the river, had carefully
placed channel markers at the Agusan's mouth early on the day of the
landing. He had driven stout bamboo
poles deep into the sand along the shallows, attaching flares to their tops as
he went. The flares were bundled rags
saturated with coconut oil, the local substitute for oil lamps. They would bum for hours. Helping him was one of his most capable
Filipino boatmen, Saltoro.
"Do you know
what these are?" Bob had asked Saltoro.
"Oh, but yes,
Sair!" he replied. "They are lamparos to show to you the way to
Butuan, Sair, when you bring to the river the big raft!"
"That's right,
Saltoro. Now, here's what I want you to
do. \"en it starts to get dark tonight, Bob said very slowly so that
Saltoro would understand, "I want you to get Sanchez and Domero and the
baroto, and paddle out here and light these lamparos. Do you understand?"
"Oh, but yes,
Sair!" Saltoro answered.
"Then tell me
what you are to do." It was important to have a Filipino repeat
instructions to be sure he understood them, for they would rarely admit that
they didn't understand.
Saltoro repeated Bob's words, and Bob was
satisfied.
After the lighter
was cut loose from the submarine, Bob watched as the pilot of the Liberty Belle turned to port, then to
starboard, then to port again – obviously unable to find the lighted markers.
Bob yelled to Pedro,
the pilot: "What the hell are you doing?
Get this tub up the damned river!"
"Yes,
Sair!"
Again the Liberty Belle yawed, dragging with it
the lighter and the Captain Knortz, which
was serving as a pusher.
"Where the
hell are ya goin'," Bob shouted. "The
freakin' lights are over there to the left." Merchant, an Air Corps
mechanic who had not surrendered, never quite got the hang of this port and
starboard stuff. He never docked a
boat; he "Parked" it.
"No,
Sair! They are not our lights! That is not the right way, Sair!"
Bob had a short
fuse. "Get the hell outta the
way. I'll drive the bastard!"
Merchant grabbed
the wheel and lined up on two lights he saw.
He still doesn't know what or where those lights were, but he promptly
put the Liberty Belle up on a
sandbar.
He was livid! Fertig would bust his ass for this one. But now there was nothing to do but get the
boat off the bottom. Luckily the lighter
and the Captain Knonz were floating
and could proceed at least as far as Butuan,
Two days later,
Saltoro sheepishly approached Merchant.
"What the hell
happened to the lamparos?" Bob asked.
Came the reply:
"But, Sair! I could not find
Sanchez and I could not find Domero and I could not find the baroto. So, Sair!
I swam out to the lamparos, but my matches, they got wet, and they would
not light!"
Esperanza
was a much smaller town than Butuan. A
large house built of imported milled lumber was the dominant structure. It was surrounded by another large house,
made of bamboo, and about twenty smaller bamboo houses of various sizes. The large bamboo house held one wealthy
Chinese family. It was large because
there were many children, and also because it housed a store, and space to be
rented to the government for the post office.
The Chinese householder was a rich man of the community.
All the other
inhabitants labored for the wealthy or operated farms as sharecroppers. They did, however, have a democratic form of
government, and the peons elected a mayor, a council, and a judge. They also had a vote in the provincial and
national elections. And they paid
taxes!
In prewar times, the large, lumber-built
house was the abode of a wealthy Filipino family. From here the Filipino ruled his fief, controlling the lands and
the people for miles around. He had
recently moved his family farther upriver and loaned his house to Fertig to use
as his domicile and headquarters. It
was a one-story affair on stilts, as were all the houses, and about thirty feet
square in plan, divided into several rooms.
It boasted a verandah with wooden front steps instead of a bamboo
ladder. Fertig could be found on this
veranda most any time he was n town, and it was here I witnessed his sternness
with his men.
A Filipino had been
brought in on a desertion charge and was promptly ordered confined by the
colonel. The prisoner appeared to have
been beaten, and Fertig ordered an investigation into possible
mistreatment. I later inquired as to
what would happen to the deserter and was told he would be brought to trial
before a court-martial composed of Filipino officers who were members of the
guerrilla forces. The trial would be in
accordance with the Articles of War of the U.S. Army. As for the beating, I was told that if the prisoner had, indeed,
been beaten, those responsible would also be court-martialed. This was proof to me that the guerrillas on
Mindanao were not bandits, as many of the guerrillas groups had become, but
were a disciplined military unit. I was
not in Esperanza long enough to learn the results of the court-martial.
Fertig had the best
of a meager lot of food and drink, furnished by the wealthy Filipino, who
recognized the importance of the guerrillas as protectors of his domain. Fertig's troops did not share in this
larder.
About twenty-five
Americans formed the cadre of Fertig's headquarters. Many were Air Corps men from Del Monte Airfield. Among them was Capt. Robert V. Ball. Captain Ball was chief signal officer, in charge of the radio
network. A new bamboo house held the
net control station (NCS), through which contact was maintained with
Australia. The NCS also had irregular
contact with several radio stations scattered throughout Mindanao and
surrounding islands. Some, located on
mountaintops, afforded a view of the seas, and they reported Japanese shipping
movements to Fertig's station, to be relayed to U.S. Naval Intelligence in
Australia. Setting up a similar network
of coastwatcher stations was our mission on Samar. Other stations moved with the commanders of the infantry patrols
roaming the island. At best, these
stations operated intermittently, since they had only homemade radios, which
were extremely unreliable. With the
equipment delivered by the Narwha4 these
stations would now be able to maintain regular communication.
Ball's station
required a 110 volt electrical supply.
Since electricity was a luxury not found in these small towns, a power
unit consisting of a twentykilowatt generator driven by a diesel engine had
been installed. It had been moved there
from a nearby mine that was abandoned upon the arrival of the Japanese. Since this was more power than the station
needed, a crude distribution system carried electricity to Fertig's
headquarters and to most of the other houses to provide electric lighting.
Captain Evans
converted one building into an infirmary and immediately had a thriving
practice, with both soldiers and civilians as patients. His medical skills were sorely needed here,
and it was not realistic for him to go north with Major Smith and me as a
radioman.
Although he never
said so to me, Smith was unsure of my ability to take charge of his radio
network. In fact, I believe he was
concerned about my ability to cope with the lifestyle we would have to endure
and the dangers we faced. Would I
"crack”?
While he knew the
Philippines and the Filipinos, and was as tough as they come in combat, Smith
knew nothing about radio operation. He
needed to feel secure about his chief signal officer. True, Doc Evans was no more experienced in jungle life and
guerrilla combat than I was, but by having both of us with him, there was a
good chance that one of us would be able to handle the job without folding.
Together, Smith and Fertig found the
solution. Evans would stay with Fertig,
serving both as a doctor and as chief signal officer. Ball, who had gone with Smith to establish the radio station
overlooking Davao harbor nearly a year ago, would go north with us.
I was quickly
impressed by Captain Ball. He was a
handsome man with dark, curly hair, five feet, ten inches tall, and weighing in
at 150 pounds, despite the privations of the past two years. He wore a permanent smile. At twenty-eight years of age, he was my
senior by about five years. Somewhere
he had acquired a supply of vitamin pills, and he made a religion of getting a
pill three times a day. He was also an
exercise fanatic, jogging and doing push-ups every day. This despite the rigors of a normal life in
the jungles.
"Good
health is the most important thing for survival in the jungles," he said.
He
had a philosophy for budgeting his time, and he taught it to me: Always leave
something to do tomorrow.
"In the first
place," he said, "it's too hot to do too much work in any one day,
and in the second place, with nothing left to do, tomorrow would be a dull
day."
Ball and I became
fast friends immediately. This was
important, for we would soon be spending twenty-four hours a day together. Even a solid friendship could grow thin
under those conditions. I looked upon
him as a mentor, and he accepted me as a student.
Some of his
lessons, I'm sure, kept me alive. He
taught me how to recognize which nuts, berries, and roots were edible and which
were highly poisonous. Sometimes the
differences in appearance were minute-tiny, but not insignificant. Another very valuable lesson came out of his
descriptions of his skirmishes with Japanese patrols. @en describing ambush
setups, he always stressed the need to ensure that a back door was available
for emergency evacuation; following this guidance saved my neck on occasion
months later.
Fertig
was quite aloof and mingled only with a very few select people – old prewar
friends, rich Filipinos, politicians.
Major Smith, obviously, moved in with Fertig. Doc Evans, though "only" a captain, became a part of
Fertigs select group. I rarely saw the
colonel, and even more rarely spoke with him.
I joined the lower-echelon Americans for
dinner on my first night in Esperanza.
Here I had my first taste of ginamoose,
a slurry of boiled baby shrimp, small enough to qualify as maggots. I've never eaten maggots, but they couldn't
taste worse than ginamoose. We also had
the usual boiled rice and some boiled fish.
I was quite disappointed because I figured that the more Americans there
were around the place, the better the food supply would be and the better
tasting the meals. Not true.
Almost all of the
Americans had their own huts, equipped with native housekeepers of the female
variety, and Ball was no exception.
After dinner we all went to Ball's house, where I shared with them one
of my precious bottles of Mount Vernon whiskey and a bottle of apricot
brandy. This was the first stateside
booze they had tasted since the surrender.
Realizing that the two bottles would not last long, they augmented the
bar supply with several bottles of tuba, a
native drink made of the juice that seeps from a freshly sliced coconut
bud. Every day the tuba gatherers scale
the palm trees, cut a thin slice from the end of every available bud, and hang
a small bamboo bucket under it. The
next day the gatherers scale the trees again and collect the juice in a larger
bamboo bucket. The bud by this time has
formed a thin covering over the wounded end, so another thin slice is taken and
the process is repeated.
Tuba has the
alcoholic content of beer for the first day.
Then it quickly becomes more potent.
After five days it is mixed with red beans-what the natives call chili
beans-and makes good pepper vinegar. If
it's allowed to stand for ten days and then triple distilled, it will run a
gasoline engine.
With gasoline in
short supply, the guerrillas ran their precious few trucks on tuba
alcohol. This would sometimes create a
problem. Men would take a truck on an
assigned detail with plenty of fuel to complete the mission and return to
base. It was not unusual for them to
siphon the fuel from the tank along the way to mix a few highballs. Then an SOS would be sent to the nearest
distillery for more fuel.
We had a great,
though raucous, party that first night.
I related the latest news from the outside world. They had heard and read a lot of the
propaganda passed out by the Japanese, which was counter to equally exaggerated
Allied propaganda being beamed to the islands from shortwave radio stations
located in California and Australia. It
was only human for them to believe some of it.
They were happy to hear firsthand news from someone from the outside
whom they considered reliable, as well as my tales of the Allied victories on
the islands between Australia and the Philippines. Not so the estimates of when the Americans would get to Mindanao.
My bottles were
empty, and I was quite thirsty after my long discourse on the news. I was scared of the water, so I decided to
try the tuba. Its bouquet was
audacious, and its full-bodied flavor somewhere between presumptuous and
nauseating. I did not like it. However, several months later, when all the
whiskey I had brought with me was gone, I would sit in a coconut grove and wait
for the gatherers to come down from the trees, there to drink the fresh, sweet,
yellow nectar of the coconut bud. Even
though it was full of dead flies, it was delicious.
After our night of
revelry, I was not in shape to find my way to my quarters, so Ball rigged up a
place for me to spend the night at his house.
I had not yet gotten my head to my makeshift pillow when I felt the
building shake. That must be a water buffalo scratching its back against one of the
poles supporting the house, I told myself I didn’t think more about it and
went to sleep in a drunken stupor.
The next morning,
Ball said to me, "Did you feel the earthquake last night? That was a big one!"
Sorting
our gear again and getting it ready for the trip north took only one day. I then had idle time to fill until we were
to depart for Samar. I spent some time
helping in the radio room. My skill as
a radio operator had become rusty, so I needed more practice at sending and
receiving messages. I also worked with
the code clerks, teaching them new code systems, keyword programs, and cipher
security. The most important factor in
cipher security is to not use the same code keys too frequently. Cryptograms can be broken quite easily if
one studies a sufficient volume of messages that use the same code keys.
Leaders
of the guerrilla infantry units and of the perimeter guards protecting Fertig
and the Esperanza headquarters came and went, taking with them columns of cargadores bearing a share of the arms
and ammunition we had brought in. I
talked to as many of them as 1 could, for I needed to learn something about
Philippine geography. Of Mindanao I
learned a lot, but that would not help me where I was going. Unfortunately, I got precious little
information about the islands to the north.
No one I talked to had ever been to Samar.
I was also very
concerned about the seeming indifference to the Japanese presence. There was so little discussion of the
Japanese Army and its deployment that after several days I became quite
complacent; in fact, there were days when I completely forgot that I was
fifteen hundred miles behind Japanese lines.
Apparently the Japanese were not as unconcerned as the guerrillas seemed
to be, and they formulated plans to attack.
Soon after the Smith party departed for Samar, the Japanese went after
Fertig in force and drove him from Esperanza to a spot deeper in the
jungles. By that time, however, the
equipment we had delivered had been well dispersed throughout the guerrilla
organization, and none was lost.
To Samar
CHAPTER
4
In
addition to us three Americans – Smith, Evans, and me our original party out of
Australia included nine Filipinos who were also soldiers in the U.S. Army. They had
been handpicked by Colonel Whitney from the ranks of the First and Second
Filipino Infantry Regiments in California.
All had volunteered for this duty.
Most had lived in America for many years and had been educated in the
United States. They could speak Visayan
and Tagalog-the dialects of Samar and Luzon-in addition to fluent English. They were well-trained radio operators,
though lacking in practical experience.
This they would soon get. Most
were also schooled in gathering intelligence information as espionage agents.
Our coastwatcher
network was assigned to cover the sea-lanes between Leyte Gulf and Manila
Bay. Geographically, this is a vast
area some ninety thousand square miles.
However, there were only about six hundred sea-lane miles to be watched,
and there were ten passes or straits through which most of the traffic would
pass. We calculated a need for ten
stations, located on high ground and with good visibility of the seas, to give
the area adequate coverage. In
addition, we would need another three floating stations as spares to take over
the operations of stations forced to move by Japanese patrols or bombers. We also would have to establish a few
stations that would operate only to send out intelligence information. Although we would recruit local radio
operators to man some of our stations, our network would not be complete until
we got more men and equipment from Australia.
We anticipated a rendezvous with the Narwhal
in several months, after our main station was established on Samar, to
augment our supplies and our manpower.
The military operating as it does, our game plan was changed from time
to time, and our network never grew to planned size.
Major Smith wasted
no time in getting parts of our network established. Sgts. Aniceto C. Manzano and Crispolo C. Robles were sent to
Bondoc Peninsula in southern Luzon; Sgt. Restituto J. Besid with Pvts. Querubin
B. Bargo and Andres S. Savellano went to Masbate Island; Sgts. Gerardo A.
Sanchez and Daniel B. Sabado headed for Cebu Island; and Sgt. David D. Cardenas
and Cpl. George R. Herreria went with us to Samar.
Captain Ball had
replaced Doc Evans on our invasion team.
We added Capt. Armato Arietta, a Filipino member of Fertig’s
organization, who would serve as a courier and espionage agent, and Lieutenant
Royer, who had combat skills, especially with .50-caliber machine guns. Two of these weapons were our heaviest
armament, for the 37-millimeter antiaircraft guns had stayed with Fertig. Royer would command our mighty army in the
event of skirmishes with the Japanese.
Also with us were
five Filipinos who proved to be very important to our well-being. Each had his individual skills, which would
be used repeatedly in the days ahead.
Rodriques, about sixteen years old, was our cook, trained in this skill
by Major Smith’s wife, Kathryn, when he was their houseboy on Masbate Island. Rodriques stayed with Fertig while Smith was
in Australia, and rejoined Smith each time he returned to the islands. He kept us as well fed as possible, given
the raw materials he had to work with.
Whenever we got a pig to cook, I would hang around his stove as he
rendered the lard from the animal. This
process produced succulent, crisp, tasty snacks of pig flesh that really hit
the spot. Rodriques would use the lard
to fry whatever he could – usually fish or camotes, and, on rare occasions,
chicken, eggs, or bananas.
Catalina was the
major's bodyguard. He had sailed with
Smith to Australia, where he joined the U.S. Army as a private when Smith
accepted his commission. He returned to
Mindanao with Smith, went with him to establish the coastwatcher station
overlooking Davao, fought alongside Fertig's troops when Smith returned to
Australia, and rejoined him on his return to Mindanao. Medium in height and stocky in torso,
Catalina was ever alert to Smith’s safety and watched over him like a Secret
Service agent would the president of the United States. I felt that he was watching over me, too.
Ochigue
and Madeja were two soldiers we borrowed from Fertig. Both were seasoned veterans of guerrilla warfare and had
reputations for courage and loyalty. In
addition, Ochigue was one of the few Filipinos big and strong enough to carry a
Browning automatic rifle (BAR) and two bandoliers of ammo. Madeja, though smaller in stature, kept pace
with him.
Federico, another
teenager, had been with Captain Ball so long that they were bonded like father
and son. Federico took care of Ball’s
equipment and belongings, while Ball took care of Federico.
Lt. Gerald S.
Chapman, an Air Corps man who had joined Fertig's guerrilla force, was
transferred to our party. He was
already on northern Samar, operating a coastwatcher station overlooking San
Bernardino Strait and reporting to Fertig's NCS. Chapman was guarding one of the most critical shipping lanes with
antiquated, worn-out radio gear. We
planned to furnish him with new equipment when we got to that area and then
incorporate his station into our net.
On
23 December we moved downriver to Butuan.
With a passenger list of twelve, two crew, and ten tons of arms, food,
and radio gear aboard, the Millie was
overloaded and no longer maneuverable.
She obviously was not the vessel we needed for the perilous trip we
faced. Also, we wanted to load more
ammunition and food. We needed more
boat.
In Butuan we
located the Malaria, a seventy-foot
Japanese fishing vessel captured by the guerrillas. Powered by a one-cylinder diesel engine, she was capable of five
knots per hour on the sea. She had an
aft engine house and a deep hold amidships.
When we met with heavy seas the second night out, we learned that she
also had a split keel. Malaria was not her original name, but
she was so dubbed because of the way she shook due to the slow "pub, pub,
pub" of her one-lung engine-like a person suffering the chills of malaria.
In Butuan we loaded
some rice and fish for our next weeks larder.
Of more importance, we loaded a twenty-five-pound sack of salt. The major knew how important this would be
in trading with the natives in the jungle mountains, where this commodity did
not exist. It was almost worth its weight in gold. We also took on the only available meat-two live chickens. Are chickens generally capable of emotional
expression? These were. They huddled together, heads low on the
breast, each consoling the other.
"Hey,
Ball! Look at those chickens! I think they have more sense than we
do," I said. "They seem to be
scared of the run we're making!"
"They’re
right," Bob replied. "A man's
a damned fool to try to run through these straits. Each time I sail from one island to another I swear 'Never
again!' but here I am trusting my luck once more. I've covered damned near every square inch of these islands, and
now I'm starting my second round. Ever
since I escaped from the Jap camp I've been chasing the greener grass on the
next hill. I don't suppose I'll ever
find it until I either get picked off or somebody comes around and takes me
back home."
I had to agree with
him about the grass on the next hill. I
had only been on Mindanao three weeks, and I was already looking for the
pastures of Samar. But I didn't grasp
the fatalistic thought of the rest of his statement, for I had not been exposed
to any real danger as yet, and, like any other inexperienced GI, I considered
myself indestructible.
Fertig
sent the following message to Brisbane on 23 December 1943:
CMS AND PARTY
CLEAR-ED MY HF.ADQUARTERS TODAY. SHOULD
CLF-AR I OTH MILITARY DIS'I'RIC-l' BY DECEMBER 25. WE WILL MAINTAIN DAILY SKEDS [radio contact] WITH HIM. LAUNCH PATROLS INTERCEPTING ALL SAILBOATS
BETWEEN LEYTE, BOHOL.
Whitney's
endorsement on this message was sent to General MacArthur on 24 December:
"Note enemy patrol activity between Southern LEY-FE, BOHOL and Northern
MINDANAO. Trip north of Smith party
will be a hazardous one."
On
Christmas Eve, the Smith party was heading out of the Agusan River into the
Mindanao Sea. As dusk seemed to rise in
pursuit of the sunset, we chugged away from Butuan, taking advantage of the
cover of darkness to sail the first leg of our northward journey. By hugging the west coast of Mindanao's
Surigao Peninsula, we could stay reasonably clear of the Japanese convoys. Our main concern was the Japanese patrol
boats sniffing like hounds around the shores for traffic such as ours. If we were discovered, our defense would be
evasion by slipping into an inlet – if one was availble or engaging them in
battle. The latter was not a desirable
alternative, because we lacked the speed and maneuverability of a gunboat. The Malaria
was an old, wooden tub with virtually no speed and no cannon. Her armament was our few rifles, submachine
guns, and BARS, topped off with two .50-caliber machine guns.
Dinagat
Island, our first relatively safe landfall in the Surigao Strait, the ocean
gateway to the southern Philippines, was ninety miles – some eighteen sailing
hours or more – away. We would have to
put in somewhere en route.
Major Smith was
running the show, Ball was helping him call the shots, and we had a captain on
the boat. With nothing for me to do, I
stretched out on the roof of the cabin and watched the moon playing
hide-and-seek with me through some lazy clouds. I thought about home, my family, my friends-what I might be doing
if I was home on this Christmas Eve.
And, for the first time since I got involved in this mission, I realized
what I was doing to the folks at home.
Especially to my Mother and Dad!
I was one of three sons they had sent off to war, and now I had suddenly
dropped completely out of existence! My
weekly letters to them, even though delivery was slow, would no longer
arrive. Sure, I had written home and
said they might not hear from me for a while, but now I suddenly realized that
the censors would not pass a letter like that.
I was gone! Missing! Dead!
Mother and Dad, what have I done to you!
I slid off the
cabin's roof to the rail-and puked. For
the first time in my life, I was concerned about someone else's feelings. A snot-nosed, selfish young punk had
suddenly gotten a conscience.
Four
months later the mailman handed Mother an envelope from the War
Department. I will never be able to
sense the anguish with which she tore open its flap, or the relief she felt on
reading its contents. Inside was a
letter from me – the last one I had written – all about the deeds of derring-do
in the cauldron of Brisbane, Australia.
Another letter was included. It
read:
Dear Mr. and Mrs.
Stahl:
This
is to inform you that the writer of the enclosed letter is alive and well. Although you cannot correspond directly, you
may send one letter per month, not more than two pages, and one photograph, in
a sealed envelope bearing his name only, without rank. The letter must be enclosed in another
envelope addressed to: U.S. War Department, Section i4A, Washington, D.C.
Letters
from him will be forwarded to you as conditions permit.
To
maintain security and to insure his safety, it is imperative that you inform no
one of this matter.
Uncle Sam was very
kind. He also forwarded my last letter
to my girlfriend with the same covering letter.
Letters
of this sort were being delivered all across the United States to parents and
wives who were almost out of their minds with fear and worry. In most cases, the fears had little
substance. For some, though, the
horrors proved all too real.
The servicemen and
women who actually faced combat seldom gave thought to the red-handed demon of
war and what it could mean on a personal level. Such thoughts had a way of unnerving a warrior and could lead to
indecision at a critical moment. It was
after the action that the combat
veteran had time to think about what was already history and what could have
gone wrong. Even then, we found it best
not to dwell on such negative daydreams.
I
was awakened by shouting. Captain
Arietta was calling to a native onshore, asking him to bring a baroto out to
the launch. With our hit or-miss
navigation, we knew only that we were somewhere along the coast of the Surigao
Peninsula.
Soon the native was
beside us, and after talking to him Arietta said, "There's a barrio along
the shore, Bolo-Bolo-Domei. This fellow
says there are no Japs there, and it will be a good place to hide today."
We were able to
pull into a small inlet near the barrio, where we anchored and concealed the Malaria as best we could with banana and
palm tree leaves.
The local citizenry
were Christians, and with them we celebrated Christmas Day, exchanging gifts of
our "I Shall Return” chocolate bars and cigarettes for their native
chocolate, calamai. Their chocolate had a coarser texture
and a stronger flavor than did our domestic chocolate bars. It came in bowl-shaped chunks, molded in
halves of coconut shells.
The sudden arrival
of Americanos was cause for a special celebration this Christmas Day. From nowhere a pig appeared-alive, but not
for long. Soon it was slaughtered,
dehaired, scrubbed, and on a spit over a fire.
Meanwhile, the women of the barrio gathered herbs, roots, leaves, and
whatever else went into the making of the sauces for lechon, a pork barbecue dinner.
Rice, palay, was pounded in a
large wooden mortar and pestle, then winnowed and put to boil. After several hours of preparation we sat
down to a unique Christmas dinner, the likes of which I would never again see.
"Sat down to
dinner" connotes tables, chairs, silverware, china, tablecloths,
napkins-the works. All of these were
nonexistent. The meat of the pig was
sliced off with a bolo, the same one that had been used to kill the pig and to
chop the kindling for the fire. The
sauces were contained in halves of coconut shells and were ladled out with
spoonlike pieces of bamboo, as was the rice from the clay cooking pot. All this was placed on a fresh banana
leaf-the plate-and eaten with the fingers while we squatted on the ground. The Filipinos had a way of hunkering down
with both feet flat on the ground and their butts resting on their heels. I don’t recall ever seeing an Americano who
could do this; we just sat down and crossed our legs in front of us.
No matter The food
was delicious. The sauces, made from
herbs and roots, gave a unique flavor to the meat, regardless of the part of
the pig it came from. And, to my
delight, the sauces disguised the taste of the rice. And the best part: no dishes to wash.
Of course, these
villagers knew about the wonders of tuba, and one chunky lad brought out the
village supply, slightly overaged, which he doled out in the customary coconut
shell equivalent of stemware. The
locals seemed to think we lacked the social graces of polite guests when we
declined the third or fourth servings.
However, it was rather rank, and besides, our minds were still locked on
the narrow passage of the Strait that awaited us with the setting of the sun.
Throughout the day
we all rested as much as possible, and as darkness approached that evening we
stripped the camouflage from the Malarl'a
and crept out to open water, waving good-bye to the residents of
BoloBolo-Domel, our Christmas dinner hosts and hostesses. Storm clouds were blotting out the pale blue
of the sky with dark gray masses that looked solidly ominous. With apprehension and mixed emotions, we
watched them gather above us. A storm
would make our next leg more difficult to sail, but the gray, elemental
confusion might very well conceal us from the Japanese patrols. If we could maintain a five-mile-perhour
pace (almost flying, for our doughty Malaria),
we could reach Dinagat before daylight.
The rains
came. And so did the winds. And that is when we discovered the rift in
the Malaria's backbone-the split
keel. At times it felt as if we would
separate into two pieces of boat, but the captain yielded to the wind and the
currents, enabling our noble vessel to remain intact. Thoroughly drenched, we reached Puerto Princesa on Dinagat Island
and were able to put in and camouflage the boat before dawn. We lucked out, since the Japanese had left
the town the previous day.
Eighteen miles to
the west, across the Strait, lay Panaon Island and the southern tip of Leyte,
where Lt. Truman Heminway had set up a coastwatcher station as a part of
Fertig's network. Major Smith and
Captain Ball loaded new radio equipment and codes in a baroto and paddled
across the Strait to deliver them to him.
Meanwhile, the rest of us spread out our cargo to dry it as best we
could. Smith and Ball returned late in
the evening, and since none of us had slept in more than twenty-four hours, we
stayed in Puerto Princesa overnight.
Seventy miles of
open water across Leyte Gulf separated us from our primary destination-Samar
Island. We had no choice but to cover
this leg by sailing day and night, hoping we would encounter no Japanese patrol
boats. We would be passing Homonhon
Island on our starboard side, but we could not risk a stop there, not knowing
whether it was occupied by friend or foe.
We sailed at dawn,
and everyone on board kept a constant watch for other vessels. Royer had set up our. 50-caliber machine
guns on deck and had spread belts of ammunition on top of the Malaria's engine house to dry. The ammo had gotten wet on the run to
Dinagat, and we were afraid it might misfire.
The combination of the sun’s heat plus the heat from the engine did a
good drying job-so good, in fact, that some of the rounds started to
explode. When the first few rounds went
off, almost simultaneously, we were all sure we were under attack. Only after we could locate no enemy vessels
in sight did we realize what was happening.
Again we were
lucky, for we encountered no enemy patrols and reached a small bay at barrio
Guinan on Samar Island late on the night of 27 December. Only a narrow peninsula and bay separated us
from the town of Pamb 'an Sur.
As the year drew
quietly (we hoped) to a close, we had at last reached our new home. True, we were at the southern tip of Samar,
and our appointed destination was at the northeast corner, overlooking San
Bernardino Strait and the Japanese using that route; but at least we were now
on land and no longer exposed on the open sea.
ESTABLISHING SMITHS NETWORK
Part
2
To Palapag Mesa
Chapter
5
Ten tons of
equipment does not sound like much, but put it into a small vessel in a shallow bay with no chance of
unloading at a dock, and it becomes a large problem. Add the strong possibility of being spotted by enemy aircraft and
bombed off the map, and the problem becomes enormous.
At Guinan we began
to off-load our cargo onto outrigger canoes so small that they would have
difficulty staying afloat with more than two people aboard. It was a slow operation, but that was just
as well, for we still did not know if we could stay there. Were we in friendly territory? if not, we
would have to reload our gear in a hurry and "haul ass" to more
friendly climes.
Major Smith made
his way to Pambujan Sur to determine the local attitude toward Americans. Meanwhile, Captain Ball and I proceeded to
stash our equipment on the shore. It
was a relief to have Smith return with a favorable report. We emptied the Malaria of its cargo and sent it on its way south. Then we began loading our gear onto a
beat-up old truck to haul it over a mountain to another bay, where it was
loaded onto a sailboat to cross the bay to Pambujan Sur. Repeating this process over and over made
for a couple of sleepless days and nights.
Why didn't we sail
right into the Pambujan Sur harbor? It
had deep water up to it’s pier, and we could have off-loaded very easily. The answer is simple. We had to bide our time until Smith
determined that we were welcome. More
important, the Pambujan Sur harbor's narrow entrance could have been easily
blocked, trapping the Malaria –
and us. We would have had no escape route.
By
30 December we were established in the largest house in the town. Time for radio station @CA to hit the air
for the first time. Ball, using one of
our small radios, relayed the transmission to KAZ, the AIB radio station in
Australia, through Fertig's station, KUS.
I encoded the first message, saying we had arrived safely on Samar. We also tried to contact some of our net
stations, but met with no success, because they had not had time to establish
themselves at their destinations.
On 31 December a guerrilla leader,
Maj. Manuel Vallei, arrived at our
headquarters, along with several local politicians. Success in the islands depended in large part on a good
relationship with politicians. We tuned
in a news broadcast from San Francisc – the first news they had heard since the
islands had fallen, except for the constant Japanese propaganda
broadcasts. Seeing us – real, live
Americans who had come from Australia – and hearing the news of the Allied
offensive in New Guinea and other islands to the south brought tears of joy to
their eyes! They had been waiting for
General MacArthur to send THE AID, and it had finally arrived.
To show his
appreciation, Major Vallel quickly organized a New Year's Eve party – a dance
complete with live band in the local school building. Makeshift decorations were made and hung; a buffet of many
varieties of native and Spanish delicacies was spread. And instead of having coconut oil lamps to
light the festivities, the town's electric generator was fired up for the first
time since 1942.
Of course, we had
first choice of dancing partners, for if any man made a move toward any girl in
the hall before we had selected our partners, he was ushered out immediately.
To climax the
festivities, Major Vallei gathered the Americans together and said, "I
have a surprise I have been saving for the first Americans to return
here."
With that he led us
to his house, opened his electric refrigerator, which hadn't been in operation
since the generator had been shut down, and broke out a case of Coca-Cola.
"This was
bottled in Manila," he said, "before the Japanese came, and I have
been saving this one case for our first American guests."
Needless to say,
the dance was over as far as we were concerned. Ball and I fought for the privilege of carrying the Coke to our
house, where we had several fifths of stateside whiskey begging for a chaser.
It was a very happy New Year's Eve.
The New Year's
celebration continued into the next day.
Ball, Royer, and I were more than a bit hung over. Smith had soaked up as much of the booze and
Coke as we had, but he recovered more rapidly.
The town of
Pambujan Sur boasted an industry-a machine shop that used to supply parts for
the mining industry. It stood idle now,
except for reloading cartridge casings with black powder and lead bullets for
Vallei's guerrillas. They had the tools
to make arms. What they lacked was raw
materials.
Major Vallei had
one more surprise for us – a homemade cannon!
Fashioned from a piece of six-inch cast-iron water pipe, it was mounted
on a wheeled carriage. Vallei had the piece
rolled into the town square, and after much ceremony he personally touched the
flame to the fuse.
It went off. How it went off! Eager to demonstrate their
military capability with a bang, the cannoneers had used too much black
powder. When the smoke cleared, the
cannon was intact-except for a split down the barrel from end to end.
The noise didn't do
my headache any good, either.
We were still far from our ultimate
destination, a position on a mountaintop near the north coast of Samar, on
Palapag Mesa. There, in the jungles
high above barrio Gamay, near the town of Oras, we planned to establish station
MACA, our NCS.
Ball, Royer, and I
had the happy task of manhandling our gear about a hundred miles up the coast
to Gamay, and then up the Mountainside to an uncleared site in the middle of
nowhere. Smith had an equally difficult
task. He had to deal with the politics of guerrilla warfare.
There were good
guerrillas – and there were bad guerrillas.
Some, like Fertig's organization on Mindanao, actively resisted the
Japanese occupation and strove to make life a bit more tolerable for the
Filipinos. Others were mercenaries who
saw the Japanese occupation as an opportunity to rob and plunder under the
guise of resistance. They operated, in
effect, a protection racket, but only feigned protection.
The mercenaries
quickly became enemies and warred against each other for control of portions of
the various islands-the areas they wanted to loot. For the Filipinos, life under the heels of these robbers was
little better than it had been under the control of the Japanese.
Part of our mission
was to evaluate the guerrilla bands,
then try to combine the worthwhile groups under a common command. Selecting a commander acceptable to all the
guerrilla chiefs on an island was rather difficult. Egotists all, each was "the best" and therefore felt he
should be the overall leader. Our trump
card in this game-our power play-was the promise of THE AID, a submarine loaded
with arms and ammunition, which we would call for if they would cooperate with
us and with each other in subversive activities against the Japanese. We offered them arms for the price of unity
of purpose-ultimately under our direction.
On Samar there were
only two guerrilla organizations worthy of consideration. Major Vallei controlled the southern portion
of the island, and was not against a cooperative effort – if he could control
the whole island. The northern portion
of the island was controlled by Capt. Pedro Merritt. Captain Merritt was a mestizo born of a Fillpina and a U.S. Army
black man of Spanish-American War vintage.
Merritt was not about to give up his domain. He was not interested in surrendering his power on the mere
promise of some arms to be brought in on a submarine that, to him, was nonexistent
because he hadn't seen it.
Smith, our
diplomat, spent much time during the next several weeks running back and forth
between Vallei and Merritt, trying to resolve the issue. Meanwhile, Ball, Royer, and I struggled to
move our equipment northward. We
cleared Pambujan Sur on 3 January, leaving Sergeant Herreria there with a small
radio as a rear guard. Smith also sent
Sergeant Cardenas to the west coast of Samar to observe shipping on the Samar
Sea and to keep us informed of any Japanese land activities while we were
establishing the main station.
Some gear was
shipped in three bancas, small
sailboats, moving along the coast.
Royer, Ochigue, and Madeja each rode one banca, armed with BARS. Each boat carried about a thousand pounds of
gear. The rest of our equipment went by
land. Four carabao, water buffalo, and their owners were hired to pull heavily
loaded vehicles-two carts and two sleds.
We still had the truck we had used earlier, but its engine objected to
the diet of alcohol it was being fed and was very unreliable. The monsoon season had begun, and with it
our labors were multiplied. The
constant drizzle made the road feel as though it had been greased, and the
bridgeless stream crossings became deeper and more treacherous. The truck wallowed in the jellied mire or
tobogganed from the road. We soon found
it best to depend on the carabao carts and sleds and on cargadores, who
backpacked heavy loads mile after mile on the one-lane, muddy road running
close to the coast. Reverting to methods
long since rejected in America, we abandoned the truck.
Carabao
and cart for moving cargo
Our train of
cargadores resembled an old African safari, some with backpacks, others with
loads balanced on their heads, still others with heavy loads suspended on long
poles with a man toting each end.
Although the constant rain made life generally miserable for us, it did
have a plus side. The carabao sled
runners moved more easily in the mud, permitting heavier loads. Yet, if we covered five or more miles in a day we were happy.
Which is worse –
clothing saturated with rain, or clothing saturated with sweat under a
poncho? I soon got a native-style burl
palm leaf hat, a wide brimmed woven affair that, like an umbrella, shed the
water from my head and sent it down to my shirt. I folded and packed my poncho for future use during lesser rains.
Thirty miles up the
east coast of Samar sits the town of Borongan, and it proved to us that the
"bamboo telegraph worked well in the Philippines. Before we started moving north the people of
Borongan knew we were coming, and when we arrived they were ready for us. This town was in Captain Merritt's area, and
he had ordered a reception that would outdo that at Pambuan Sur. Whether it did or not is debatable. We
enjoyed the food, the drink, and the fellowship. What we needed, however, was an assemblage of volunteers to help
us in our move.
Despite our
transport problems, we encountered some very wonderful and loyal people in
Borongan. Here lived Mrs. Emma McGuire,
the Filipina wife of an American mestizo who had lost his life in a -motorcycle
accident in 1942. She knew where her
husband, who had been the manager of a mine, had hidden some equipment back in
the hills when the invasion began, so she led us to one of his caches, where we
found what we would need in our camp-a diesel engine and a tenkilowatt,
110-volt generator.
We had brought with
us a big, clumsy, but powerful radio,
one with a fifty-watt output. According
to Doc Evans, that was enough power to reach Australia from anywhere in the
islands. It was this monster that
required a 110-volt power supply. When
we left Australia, our equipment included several small, gasoline-powered generators,
two to supply 110 volts and the rest to charge six-volt storage batteries. During a test run on Mindanao, one of the
110-volt generators had thrown a connecting rod, making it useless to us. We left it with Evans for spare parts.
We were glad,
therefore, to get this spare power supply.
We were not overjoyed, however, to add another ton to our hauling
burden. A smaller rig would have been
our choice, but we were shopping in a tropical jungle, not at Sears.
Mrs. McGuire fed us
three good meals a day during our stay in Borongan, her table always adorned
with foods from her capacious larder of prewar canned goods. I loved her for her vittles, for she served
a variety of mixes and sauces to conceal the taste of that hated staple –
rice. A few weeks later she moved up to
our camp with her family and kitchen staff.
What a blessing! Few people have
remained in my memory as solidly as Mrs. Emma McGuire. She had been Miss Philippines in her younger
days, though by this time she had spread to amazing proportions.
Dr. Arturo Victoria
was another helpful Boronganian. He and
his wife were extremely knowledgeable and furnished us with many lively
conversations during our short stay. He
took on the chore of furnishing us with medical treatment, something we sorely
needed and deeply appreciated. Amazing
to me was that he and his family spoke none of the Filipino dialects in their
home. The only languages allowed within
its walls were English and Spanish, and their children were extremely fluent in
both. Of course, they all spoke
Visayan, too.
We dismantled the
diesel engine as much as possible, removing the two flywheels and miscellaneous
parts. Still, the cast-iron block
assembly weighed more than five hundred pounds. The cargadores suspended it between two long poles, and four men
shouldered the ends of the poles to carry it.
Each flywheel, weighing about two hundred pounds, was also slung from
poles, with a man shouldering each end.
The miscellaneous parts were backpacked. The ten-kilowatt generator, unlike those manufactured with
today's technology, was large and heavy.
It could not be easily dismantled, and required a two-pole sling
arrangement. Twenty men, working in
shifts, were needed to move the engine and generator.
Of course,
"McGuire's Monster," as we had labeled the recently acquired diesel
engine and generator, required additional cargo: diesel fuel. Coconut oil burned well in diesels and was
universally used for this purpose. We
picked up three large drums of it in Borongan, and these, suspended from stout
poles, required six more bearers.
We did not have a
permanent team of cargadores. Almost
daily we had to recruit a new crew from a local town or barrio to move us
farther up the road. To protect us from
a surprise attack by a Japanese patrol, we sent out an advance scouting party
of three or four soldiers, led by Captain Arietta. This party would also recruit laborers – sometimes, I fear, with
a bit of "persuasion."
The cargadores and
the carabao teamsters were paid daily.
They were afraid to accept our real Philippine currency lest they be
caught with it by the Japanese and be unable to offer a satisfactory
explanation for where they had gotten it.
But they accepted our APA currency, even though we were passing out
higher-denomination bills than the Japanese ever printed. Some of our large-denomination currency was
later known to have been used by the Japanese troops.
Each evening during
the move, Ball or I would hang a makeshift antenna and set up a radio to make
contact with Australia, relaying through Fertig's station on Mindanao. We used a small, portable set for these
contacts, the kind of radio that would be used by our satellite stations. With three or four watts of output, the
transmitter was barely powerful enough to send a signal to Fertig's station,
now more than two hundred straightline miles away. In addition, we tried to contact our agents, who had gone their
separate ways from Mindanao. They did
not respond to our calls.
We were also
unsuccessful in contacting Sergeant Herreria in Pambujan Sur, where our safari
had begun. While we were at Borongan I
decided to return there to determine the problem. This was not an unthought-out decision on my part. We still faced forty miles of sloughing
through mud to reach Oras, where the road, such as it was, ended, and then
thirty more miles on a muddy trail to Gamay.
But Mrs. McGuire had a motorbike, and if I could get it running I could
use it to return to Pambujan Sur – and then ride all the way to Oras on return. This would be better than hiking.
I was able to get
the bike started, and set out the next morning, arrive same day. Deep in the recesses of the condensers
resistors and tubes of the radio at Pambujan Sur I found a broken wire. After I connected the ends together the
radio worked.
But another problem
developed on my trip south. The clutch
was slipping on my motor bike. My
knowledge of the mechanics of motor vehicles and of the gasoline and diesel
varieties was almost nil. I could fix
radios but machinery had me buffaloed.
Major Vallei had a mechanic who spent three days making the repair. It would have been done in an hour in
America, but speed was never the order of the order of the day in the
Philippines. There was always "manana."
The repairs
completed I returned to Borongan, arriving around dusk, slow, constant drizzle,
had become torrential. It rained hard
for about a week, making it impossible for me to travel northward. O divided my
time between Dr. Victoria's and Mrs. McGuire's ;home so that the burden of
feeding me did not fall too heavily on either family. After a few days I had read all of their old magazines and books,
and time hung heavily on my hands. I knew that Ball was waiting for me to help
him – in Oras or somewhere. There was
still lots of work to do.
It was the rain
that had made the jungle on these volcanic islands, through the aeons, dripping
moisture had eaten away at the lava rock slowly, chipping it into bits of sand
and dust until, eventually, there was a pocket of soil that could nourish a
seed. This was the start of the lush
forests in which we hid and carried on our coastwatching. The rain. The ever loving rain. The rain
that made our lives a soggy struggle as we tried to haul our tons of equipment
and supplies up the slippery trail that we chopped from the jungle. It was the rain that slowed the Japanese
patrols, just as it slowed us. It was
the rain that chipped away at our strength, our energy and our determination,
just as it wore down the lava rocks. The rain was our enemy and our ally.
Finally the
torrents of rain diminished to a slow drizzle once more. I hit the road it was a mess of muck. Many times that day I slid off the road and
found myself knee-deep in mud. In one
spill the motorbike was on its side completely under water and silt.
I got to Oras the
next day. Despite the rain, Ball had somehow moved the equipment our to Oras to
Gamay, and from there to the base of the mountain. I spent the night in the home of the mayor of Oras.
Early the next
morning a runner from Borongan arrived with a note from Dr. Victoria. It read: "The Japs landed here
yesterday about one hour after you left.
They were looking for you and your party. We directed them to the south." Thanks, Doc, for sending
them the wrong way. By the time they
get to Pambujan Sur and back up here, we will be well hidden in the hills.
But what about
Herreria? He was in Pambujan Sur with a
rifle, a radio, and a duffel bag full of U.S. Army clothing and gear. Would warning of the impending arrival of
the Japanese reach him by bamboo telegraph in time to escape? There was nothing I could do but hope and
pray – and wait.
Ten days later he
arrived in our camp. He had set up his
radio station about a mile to the north of Pambujan Sur, on a bluff about a
half mile from the coast, giving him a view of any passing ships. From there he could also see the inlet to
the Pambujan Sur harbor. When he saw
the Japanese launch entering the harbor, he and the two soldiers Major Vallei
had assigned to him abandoned the camp and took off to the west into the
jungles. After the Japanese left,
Herreria returned and found his camp intact.
This experience unnerved him, and he packed up his equipment and came
looking for us.
Meanwhile, Sergeant
Cardenas had run Into a hotbed of Japanese activity on the west coast of
Samar. His station was captured before
he was able to get it operating, but he, fortunately, was able to escape and
make his way to our location.
Herreria was not
unnerved for long, however, nor was Cardenas intimidated by his
experiences. Together they soon headed
north to the Manila area, where they became one of our best operative
teams. En route they tangled with the
Japanese and lost their radio equipment, but managed to avoid capture. While in the Manila area they each made
several trips into the city, where they were able to penetrate the Japanese
headquarters and bring out much valuable information. They carried this information to Sergeant Robles on Bondoc
Peninsula, from where it was radioed to us and relayed to GHQ.
Major Smith had
divorced himself from his diplomatic duties long enough to reconnoiter northern
Samar and select the site for our station.
He was somewhat familiar with Samar, for as a mining engineer he had
worked on Masbate Island, located immediately to the west across the Samar
Sea. From there he had, on occasion,
visited Samar.
Smith selected
Palapag Mesa, on the northeast corner of the island. Rising to thirteen hundred feet above sea level and faced with
steep mountains, it provided nearly perfect terrain for protection from attack. It lay between almost impenetrable jungles
to the north and the south for several miles in each direction. At the base of the mountain to the west was
the town of Catubig. We could be warned
of any Japanese approach from that direction by runner. The east face of the mesa was almost a sheer
cliff, easily defended, Ball and I agreed, but a bitch to scale with our
equipment.
An overgrown trail
led from Gamay to the top of the mesa.
The first mile back from the coast was flat, then the mountain began
abruptly. We had to hack the growth
away with machetes to make it usable.
The steep trail whipped back and forth across the face of the mountain,
much like the path of a switchback railroad.
From the top of the cliff, a four-mile, fairly level path led to the site.
Of course, during
our backbreaking labors up the mountain, the rain continued. The trail up the Mountainside was a
three-foot-wide slough. In the dry
season the cross slope would have been reasonably flat and stable, but now
there were about six inches of gooey soil underfoot, resting on a sloping base
of volcanic rock. With each step we
would slide toward the downhill side of the path. We could not use carabao to haul loads up the trail; it was much
too narrow, and a carabao is not a surefooted Grand Canyon mule. Everything was moved on the shoulders and
backs of diminutive, but surprisingly strong, Filipinos. With a really heavy load, they would gather
together to the task, grunting, shouting, lifting, pushing, and pulling – all
the while joking, laughing, and making a game of their toil. They lost much of that esprit de corps when
moving the diesel engine and the generator, though.
Meanwhile, the site
was being cleared and bamboo-and-thatch structures were being built. Although Captain Merritt resisted Smith’s
efforts at guerrilla unification, he assigned many of his "subjects"
to the task of helping us get situated.
Had he not been embroiled in a territorial battle with Major Vaflei, he
might have been a much greater asset to the American cause. Unfortunately, he could not swallow his
pride.
Our equipment moved
up the mountain at a rate of about one ton a day. I stayed in Gamay, dispatching the cargadores with their loads,
while Ball and Smith received, sorted, and placed things as they arrived at the
camp site. Ball and I kept in touch by
radio, using the voice capability of the sets and speaking in the only tongue
we knew – English.
This
wasn't as risky as it might seem, for the radios were not very strong and the
Japanese were far away, we hoped. This
was, though, a violation of all army regulations. But – Hey! Will the MPs
come from Australia to arrest us? We
sort of hoped so. Meanwhile, Royer,
Ochigue, and Madeja led small groups of soldiers on patrol to protect us from
unexpected visitors.
Occasionally I
would wander a few miles up or down the coastline, where several farmers had
cleared caingains, small truck
patches. I was surveying their
crops. When would the maize and
pifios-pineapples---be ripe? Food was
always on my mind. It wasn’t exactly an
obsession, but it wasn’t far from one, either.
And then, one day, I made a quite different discovery.
Why an illiterate
farmer, living along a dirt road, the front of his hovel facing the ocean and
the back bordering on a jungle, would have such a device is beyond me. Nevertheless, amid a pile of junk behind one
of the farm houses I found a commode. A
"porcelain pony'! For months I had
been wearing two side arms. One was a
.45 automatic, the other an entrenching shovel. Diarrhea was my constant companion, and I used that tool many
times a day. Wouldn’t it be great, I
reasoned, to have an outhouse complete with a flush commode in our camp? I couldn’t wait to make a deal with the
guy. The negotiations were weird, since
neither of us spoke the other's language, but somehow the commode became
mine. What a joy! I felt like a man who had just rediscovered
"The Lost Dutchman” mine or a buried chest of jewels in an inherited
basement. Real American civilization
had been unearthed in this primitive jungle.
I sent it up the
trail on the shoulders of two cargadores.
Soon Ball was calling me on the radio.
He was chuckling.
"Bob," he
giggled. "I'd stay away from the
major for at least a week if I was you.
By that time maybe he won't shoot you." In the background I could
hear Smith raving.
Crestfallen and
embarrassed by my own lack of thoughtfulness, I returned to my chores, vowing
to restrain my creative urges in the future.
Just the same, it seemed that Providence had smiled on me at the time.
Certainly, after
these many years, our campsite has reverted to an indistinguishable part of the
jungle. But somewhere among the trees,
the vines, and the rotted remains of past vegetation lies a moss-covered plumbing
fixture, a monument to my stupidity.
Smith's
savvy showed in the location he had selected for our station. At about a thousand feet above sea level, we
were not at the absolute top of the mountain.
To the south, several square miles of land rose about two hundred feet
higher than our camp. It was a
veritable rain forest, and here the jungle moisture collected and sent a small
stream-the beginning of a mighty river, I suppose-through our camp. The stream provided us with drinking water,
bathing water, and laundry water – in that order – as it flowed along. His savvy also showed in the layout of the
camp. He ordered construction of a
shack for radio operations, a cookhouse with a mess hall of sorts, and
individual lean-tos for the officers himself, Ball, Arietta, Royer, and
me. And, of course, there was a
dormitory for the enlisted men. He knew
we needed some privacy, a chance to get away from each other for part of each
day, even though we were confined to a cleared area of less than a half
acre. He also ordered a pit toilet to
be built. It did not feature my
treasured commode.
You may have
noticed that I just listed myself with the officers. Before we left Mindanao, Colonel Fertig had cut orders making me
a second lieutenant in the U.S. Forces in the Philippines (USFIP). In our situation this was quite necessary,
for the class distinction between officers and enlisted men was very important
to the Filipinos. An American who was
not a commissioned officer was automatically considered by the guerrillas to be
the lowest of the low – a misfit to be ignored completely. There just were no capable American military
men who were not of rank. It was also
important for an American to outrank the Filipino guerrilla leader he was dealing
with at the time. (This may cause some confusion for the reader, who will find
the same American carrying a different rank at various places in this book.) I
found myself voicing a personal promotion to captain, major, or colonel when my
situation dictated. I had a problem
when I encountered Lt. Gen. Gaudencio V Vera, but we'll get to that later.
Station MACA
CHAPTER
6
Before
we left Brisbane, Major Smith had chosen "ACA" as our call sign. The letters represent the way MacArthur
scrawled his initials on papers: "MacA." Smith was not the military
sort, but he had quickly recognized the importance of skilled maneuvering in
Army politics. Kissing up was rife in
the services, in the AIB, even in the guerrillas. He knew he had to do it if he wanted to get what he wanted and
needed adequate supplies and good manpower.
Although Bob Ball
or I had set up a small radio each evening as we worked our way northward on
Samar, station N4ACA did not become stationary until the second week of
February 1944. "Temporarily
stationary” would be a more apt description.
We weren't
completely moved in, but we had set up the fifty-watt transmitter and the
diesel engine and generator we had hauled from Borongan. We had lots of extra wattage available from
our generator, so, like Fertig, we ran electric lights into our few
buildings. Overhead, and certainly in
full view of any curious Japanese airplane pilots, was the antenna, stretching
about a hundred feet between two tall trees.
Our location near the top of the highest point in the area was fine for
transmission and reception of radio signals, but it did not do much for
concealment. This was a problem at all
of our stations.
One by one our
satellite stations came on the air. We
had established time schedules for contact with each of them, but we soon
realized that they were not in as secure a position as we were and might not
find it safe to call us at the scheduled time.
Therefore, we maintained a continuous watch on our assigned
frequencies. This meant that Ball or I
had to sit in front of the radio from 6 A.M. to 10 P.M., awaiting a call. The headphones grew very heavy.
We, of course, had
other operators with us. They had been
taught to send and receive Morse code in the AIB camp in Australia, but they
were inexperienced. So many
stations-Army, Navy, and civilian-communicated on our assigned frequencies that
the interference was, at times, horrendous.
It was not unusual to hear a very powerful stateside station
"working" an equally powerful station halfway around the world. They would blanket the frequency, burying
the signals of our low-powered radios.
Little could be done except wait until they ended their transmissions,
strain again to hear the NMCA call, then vary the signal's pitch ever so
slightly to make it different from the pitches of the other signals. This was not taught in school. It was a skill learned through experience,
and our operators learned rapidly.
Ball and I worked
out a deal. Occasionally, one of us
would do double duty, working the whole shift, while the other took a
break. I liked ocean bathing, so I
would often hike down the mountain to the coast, where I would ride the waves
and lie on the beach-not a tan, sandy beach like those I knew in New Jersey,
but a black, sandy beach, for these were volcanic islands. Bail would head for a quiet spot in the
surrounding jungle, take to a book, and get away from it all. These were our simple pleasures on a day off
Sergeants Robles
and Manzano had reached Bondoc Peninsula on Luzon. We made our first contact with them, station MAA, on 28 January
1944, when we were still on the move.
One day later we successfully contacted Sergeant Besid and Privates
Bargo and Savellano, station MAB, on Masbate.
Theirs would be strictly a watcher station, observing shipping on the
Sibuyan Sea.
Sergeants Sanchez
and Sabado, station NIAD, reported sporadically. They were on a military intelligence mission to Cebu, an
extremely "hot" area. Cebu
City was a transportation center, the site of a major airfield, and a port of
call for cargo ships. Learning the
makeup of the cargoes was their main interest.
A radio contact with us to send out this information had to be brief,
for their peril increased in direct proportion to airtime. We wanted to respond to them promptly on
call, no matter when.
The
satellite stations had ATR4 radios, a collection of resistors, condensers,
vacuum tubes, and wire packed as neatly as possible into a compact unit-about
the size of a lunch bucket for a person with a huge appetite. While the unit itself was quite portable,
moving a whole station in a hurry was not easy One problem was the power
supply. The ATR4s used a dry-pack
battery furnishing low voltage for the filaments of the vacuum tubes and a
higher voltage to push the signals out into the ether. The battery packs weren’t large-they were
smaller than the radio-but they weighed at least five pounds each. With a one-time life of about five
transmission hours, the average watcher station would eat them up at the rate
of one every ten days. A six-month
supply was a ninety-pound burden.
An even bigger
problem was the antenna. Before we left
Mindanao, Larry Evans, our expert radio technician, gave us instructions on
antenna installation. According to the
latest theory, the most efficient signal output would be obtained by using
half-wave antennas, that is, antennas cut to a length one-half the wavelength
of our signals. Operating on five
frequencies between 4,0 1 0 and 8,020 kilocycles would require five different
antennas, varying in length from 58 to 1 16 feet. Also, the desired height was at least thirty-five feet off the
ground, and the ideal orientation was perpendicular to the direction of the
station being contacted.
So much for
theory. Our agents cut wire about
eighty feet long, strung it between the two biggest trees they could find,
regardless of direction, and hoped for the best. Technical perfection was a luxury that was not ours. When it came time to "haul ass,"
they yanked the antenna down if they had time, or left it there for
posterity. They could always find more
wire.
It was a foregone
conclusion that, in the event of enemy attack, we would have to destroy the
massive radio installation we had built up.
So, we had to set up in advance alternate locations we could move to if
we were driven from Palapag Mesa. A few
days after MACA was in operation, Smith and I went on a burial mission. We went off into the rain forest to set up
the first of these alternate sites. The
location of these sites was to be known only to him and me. We could not take cargadores or guards
(except the ever-faithful Catalina, the major's bodyguard). Ball had no need to know the locations, for
he would be leaving us soon to go north.
Royer spent much of his time along the coast road, so he would be one of
the first to face enemy invaders and also among the first to be captured if the
Japanese came. It would be better for
him, and for us, if he didn't know where we were.
Smith and I each
carried a pistol, rifle, machete, jungle hammock, backpack of food, and
entrenching shovel-mine for two purposes, for – I still had diarrhea – chronic,
bordering on dysentery. We rigged up
two small sleds, like miniature carabao sleds, and on them we pulled the three
pieces that constituted a 3BZ radio, the two storage batteries required for its
operation, a gasoline-powered generator, two five-gallon cans of gasoline, and
three cans of real pesos.
Surprisingly
enough, hacking through the rain forest was not all that difficult. Being on a mesa, we were on what amounted to
gently rolling terrain. Wet, yes, bur
the overhead growth was so dense that the smaller, bush-type plants had
difficulty surviving. By working our
way around the bigger trees and the fat vines that climbed them, and by
chopping down some underbrush, we were able to cover several miles per
day. We took turns in the lead, one
chopping away with his bolo while the other two followed behind, pulling the
sleds. On my first turn at the front,
my left arm (I'm a lefty) soon told my right arm that it was time for it to get
to work. In less than a day I was
ambidextrous with that wicked blade.
As we went along we
had to mark the trail with something distinctive. In a month our makeshift trail would again be overgrown, so the
usual trailblazing signs, such as notches on trees, would then be
indistinguishable. We had no choice but
to use pieces of cloth tied around vines.
We could only hope that if we ever had to use the trail we would
remember to remove the markers en route.
On
our third day out, the major sat down on a fallen tree and said, "OK,
boys. This is it."
I
sat down beside him. I didn’t say
anything to him, but to myself I said, This is what? This spot didn’t look
any different from any other place I had seen in the last three days. I didn’t argue, for I was glad for the rest.
We cleared a small
area, perhaps twenty feet square. Smith
and Catalina went off about fifty yards beyond the clearing with the sleds and
the radio gear. There they quickly built
a sort of shelter with palm fronds to conceal the equipment and protect it from
the rain. Meanwhile, I moved off in
another direction and dug a hole about two feet deep and large enough around to
take a five-gallon can. This was
difficult digging, for the ground was mucky humus threaded with a thick mat of
twisted tree and plant roots. Into it
went one of our three cans of pesos. I
drove a stake close to its heart and marked it with a piece of cloth. Not far away I buried another can, and,
still another short distance away, a third can. I had just put sixty thousand pesos-thirty thousand American
dollars-into an earthen safe-deposit box.
When
we were leaving the burial site, I asked the major, "What made you pick
that location?"
Came the reply,
"I was tired of walking."
Months later I
recognized the value of the money I had stashed in the jungle. I was in the Army's finance office in
Manila, collecting my back pa@$3,0 8 8.22 for fifteen months' work. I had buried the equivalent of twelve years'
pay! I often wonder what happened to
that money. I know I never dug it up.
On the way back to
camp, I stumbled and fell against a bush.
As I fell, a branch hooked onto my eyeglasses, pulled them off, and
flipped them into the underbrush. I was
so nearsighted that I had to put my glasses in a special place each night
before going to bed so I could find them by feel in the morning. Had I been alone I would have been in deep
trouble. Fortunately, Catalina found
them rather quickly, and we continued our hike.
This event gave me
something to ponder as we trudged along.
My vanity had kept me from being fitted with GI glasses. They were, to me, ugly. Nature had not endowed me with great looks,
and I didn’t need any adornments that made me look worse. In the bustle of getting ready for this
venture, it had never occurred to me to get an extra pair. This was an example of my poor
planning. Now here I was, fifteen
hundred miles from the nearest U.S. Army unit, with one pair of civilian
glasses, not even the sturdy, unbreakable kind. Should something terminal happen to them, I would still be able
to operate a radio, but how would I locate it?
I thought of trying to have another pair sent to me if a submarine ever
brought us more supplies. That was a
great idea, except that my medical record in Australia did not include the
information from an eye examination and fitting. How would they know what prescription to send me? From that day forward my glasses were
treated with tender, loving care.
Major
Smith was not one to sit around idly.
Two years of roaming through the jungles with the constant threat of an
unknown Japanese presence had him constantly looking over his shoulder for
trouble. He maintained a mental picture
of what lay in any direction from his present position, be it in a camp or on a
trail, and he was almost animal-like in his maneuvers. One thing was certain; he would never be
caught off guard. This constant
alertness was, no doubt, a big factor in his survival. He didn’t itch for a fight, but he had no
fear of a battle if one was in the offing.
His ability to read
the thoughts and the intents of the Filipinos was no less uncanny. He could seemingly pick up the scent of an
enemy, despite protestations of loyalty.
He had determined that Major Vallei, the leader of the guerrillas in the
southern portion of Samar, was loyal to the Americans and to his Philippine
homeland. As a fighting force, Vallei's
guerrillas might not decide the outcome of future hostilities against the Japanese,
but at least they would be on our side.
Smith was not so sure of the loyalty of Pedro Merritt and his army.
"Bob,"
Smith said to me, "Let's go down to Catubig and talk to Merritt. Let's see what he's doing."
"OK,
Major," I replied. "Ready
whenever you are." I wasn't exactly thrilled about slipping and sliding
down and then clambering back up a tortuous ten-mile trail, although I had
never been to Catubig and was interested in seeing the town. But he was the boss, and I did his bidding.
Catubig was
situated on a stream that became a full-fledged river in a hurry by collecting
water rapidly from the mountains and jungles surrounding Mount Capotoan and its
encircling hills. The river was
navigable by small boats for about twenty miles and spilled into the Philippine
Sea at Laoang, near the east end of the San Bernardino Strait. Here Captain Merritt spent most of his
time. His organization didn't include a
headquarters, so his headquarters was wherever he happened to be at the moment.
The town was a
collection of about twenty bamboo shacks situated along the west side of a road
that paralleled the river. Their fronts
faced the road, and their backs abutted the river. Extending from the rear of each house was a catwalk on stilts
leading to an outhouse, which discharged directly into the water. It wasn't hard for me to see why Filipinos
had such a problem with disease, for this river was also the source of water
for cooking and drinking. The
connection between drinking water, sewage, and disease never seemed to register
with the natives.
What interested me
most, I suppose, was that there was no door on the outhouse. This, too, I soon learned, had a
purpose. One could see when it was
occupied and should await his turn. The
catwalk and the outhouse were so rickety that they would not bear the weight of
two people.
Nature has a way of
protecting people from themselves. At
least twice a year this river was subject to flooding. Then it would chum its silty bottom,
overflow its normal five-foot-high banks, and spread the fertilizer-rich water
and silt across acres and acres of nearby fields. Thus, the toilets were flushed and the crops fed.
Merritt
learned through the bamboo telegraph that we were coming.
When
we arrived, preparations were already under way for a fiesta. The Filipinos used any excuse to have a
fiesta, and we didn’t object. This one,
however, did not end on a happy note, for the meeting between Smith and Merritt
was anything but cordial.
Smith was seeking a
commitment from Merritt to join in a united front against the Japanese. He knew that Merritt preferred to keep his
options open. Merritt would go with the
side that did the most for him, and he hadn't yet heard the Japanese offer. Smith had also warned me that this meeting
might become a confrontation, and that I should be ready, as he put it, to
"fight our way out."
This was the first
time I had seen Merritt, although I had heard much about him. When I saw him, his ancestry was
evident. He was much larger in stature
than any Filipino I had yet seen. His
skin color and negroid facial features belied any Filipino heritage. Filipinos are brown. He was black. In addition, he had the curly hair of an African Negro.
Smith and Merritt
discussed the pros and cons of the guerrilla movement, and of the American
aims, for a long time. I noticed that
both ate considerable amount of the available food, yet neither touched any of
the alcoholic drinks to be had. I had
partaken of both. I also noticed that
each of them was becoming more exasperated by the other's position.
Finally, Smith
stood up and slid his hand down to his pistol.
I stood up and cocked my
tommy gun.
"Listen to me,
you black bastard!" Smith
shouted. "I'm in control of this
island. If you do anything to try to
stop me, or to help the Japs stop me, I'll cut your balls off and ship them
back to Africa!"
Not one of
Merritt's men moved. None of them
wanted to face a tommy gun or the BARs held at the ready by Ochigue and
Catalina on the edge of the group.
From that day
forward, Merritt gave Smith very little help.
Nor did he ever give him any trouble.
A
few weeks before we had embarked from Darwin, the Narwhal carried a small intelligence party to Mindoro Island. This party, eight men with Maj. Lawrence H. Phillips, Corps of Engineers, in charge, set up a small coastwatcher
network overlooking the shipping lanes from Manila into the South China
Sea. Their NCS call sign, ISRM, was
politically equivalent to ours. It
stood for "I Shall Return-MacArthur."
Late in February,
the Narwhals to deliver more men and
supplies to Phillips. Phillips did not
keep the appointment, for he and several of his men were ambushed and killed by
the Japanese while taking a bath in a stream near the rendezvous site. The submarine discharged its cargo and
passengers on Mindanao a few days later instead.
As usual, the full
story of the ambush and its possible cause will never be known. However, Phillips and his men may have been
careless in maintaining code security, sending too many messages using the same
keys. Information gathered from
Japanese files after the war indicates that the enemy had broken his codes and
knew of the planned supply mission.
We did not learn of
Phillips's death immediately. He was in
direct contact with GHQ, so we had no code system established with him. We noted, however, that we were no longer
hearing his signals on the air, and were more or less prepared for the sad news
brought to us by a courier returning from the west coast of Samar. The courier did not have any details, and
several weeks passed before we learned how Phillips had died. Smith was the one most affected, for he had
known Phillips in Australia. To the
rest of us, ISRM was just another coastwatcher station that no longer existed.
I know it sounds
callous, but to Ball and me this meant that we now had to expand our network to
include at least one coastwatcher station somewhere in northwest Mindoro. We would have to spread our operators and
equipment thinner so that the sea-lane from Manila to the South China Sea would
be covered-and this meant sending men and equipment we could ill afford to give
up.
By
March 1944 we had a pretty smooth operation going. Our satellite stations were sending in many ship sightings. We had been able to recruit several native
civilians who were radio operators for the Philippine postal system, sort of
like our Western Union. It didn't take
long for them to learn the Army's systems on the air. In addition, we had recruited a few brave Filipinos who undertook
intelligence missions for us. The Japanese were not bothering us, and we were
able to obtain food regularly from the natives.
Then our troubles
began. The constant high humidity and
moisture got into the bowels of our radio and shorted out critical parts. We had spare parts – condensers, resistors, tubes,
wire, and a soldering iron to be heated in the embers of a very hot fire-and I
was able to find the affected parts and replace them, but when the main
transformer went out we were in trouble.
We didn't have a spare.
Fortunately, we had Benito Moya working for us. He was one of the radio operators we had
recruited – a very quiet little man with unlimited patience-a person who could
sit down and "pick the fly shit out of pepper," and he undertook to
repair the transformer.
For several days
Benito unwound the wires inside the transformer, carefully coiling them so they
could bc returned to the core after the burned spot was found. Once he discovered and fixed the break, he
painstakingly rewound the coils, layer by layer, each layer separated from the
next by paper impregnated with a waxlike substance, until the transformer was
whole again. Alas, the moisture got to
it again and again, and he repeated the task several times until we decided it
was a lost cause.
Without that
transformer, our big radio transmitter was useless. And without that radio, we no longer had need for a 110-volt
generator. McGuire's Monster, which had
been so laboriously moved from Borongan to our camp, was no longer needed. As far as I know, it still sits somewhere in
the jungle on top of Palapag Mesa, amid a tangle of decaying vines. Beside it lies a fifty-watt radio
transmitter, next to a commode.
We had only one
backup transmitter that was powerful enough to reach Australia with
regularity. It was standard equipment
in the Netherlands East Indies military units, so we labeled it "The Dutch
Set." This radio resembled the ones I had built when I was a teenager and
radio ham. It had a metal chassis on
which was mounted the usual array of radio parts, and was faced with a piece of
Bakelitc through which protruded the knobs for tuning and operation, the
markings for the dials being crudely drawn by hand. Its electrical power came from a generator mounted on a
stationary bicycle.
We scoffed at this
piece of equipment, calling it a piece of junk we were sure would never be of
any use and wondering why we had bothered to bring it with us. We soon knew. Despite its crude appearance, "The Dutch Set" had one
great advantage over its professional-looking American and Australian
counterparts: it was waterproof All of the guts of the set had been coated with a paraffin-like
substance that was not affected by the heat of the resistors and tubes. Moisture was sealed out. It had
another plus: its weird-toned signal was much different from that of American
or Australian radios. Its signal cut
through and overpowered competing signals, making us much more readable to the
receiving stations.
We relied on this
set while the transformer for our big radio was being repaired, and when that
set was no longer operable "The Dutch Set" became our mainstay. Ochigue, Madeja, and Catalina did not like
it. Because of their size and strength, they were called on to pedal the bicycle. When we were receiving a message, the
pedaling was like riding a straight, level road, but when we were transmitting
a message much more power was required, and the ride on the bicycle was
"uphill all the way."
Once in a while,
Federico or Rodriques, both wiry little fellows, would try to demonstrate that
they, too, were strong and powerful by taking a turn on the bicycle. When they faltered, they were subjected to a
lot of good-natured kidding from the bigger fellows. I think it was kidding, but I'm not sure, since all the jabbering
was in Visayan. This was the sort of
high-level entertainment that broke up what was otherwise a dull life for all
of us.
In
mid-April, Ball left us to go north to establish a radio station on the east
coast of Luzon, about a hundred miles northeast of Manila, near Baler Bay. There, at the south end of the rugged Sierra
Madre mountains, Maj. Bernard Anderson,
a veteran of the Bataan fiasco, had organized a guerrilla army. He was in
a very strategic spot for subversive activities against one of the largest
concentrations of Japanese in the Philippines.
Of course, this meant that he was in a most hazardous location as
well. Ball would supply him with radio
capability to get his intelligence information out to us and on to Australia,
and also would be in position to arrange for a submarine rendezvous in the
area.
On
2 May 1944, the extreme perils of what we were involved in came home to
me. Sergeant Besid and Privates Bargo
and Savellano, our team sent from Mindanao to establish a station on Masbate,
were discovered by the Japanese. Bargo
and Savellano were captured and executed.
Besid escaped and later rejoined us on Samar. Until now, our "invasion team" had been intact. Suddenly my complacency disappeared. Although I had yet to see a Jap, I now
realized that what happened to Bargo and Savellano, and to Major Phillips and
his men, could happen to me.
When a young man
thinks of combat, be it sports or war, he sees himself the victor, the
hero. Never does he envision himself
the vanquished – the occupant of an unmarked grave. Could this be why we continue to have wars?
We
had planned supplies and manpower for the first six months of our mission. Now it was May 1944, and the U.S. Army was
still dilly dallying around far south of the Philippines. We had used up the supplies we had brought
with us on the Narwhal six months
earlier. Several radios had been
captured by the Japanese patrols, our generators were wearing out, and we
needed more arms and ammunition, medicine, cigarettes (we had been rolling our
own cigars from native tobacco for months), and, above all, shoes.
For weeks we had
been sending GHQ our shopping list of items.
Finally someone in a cushioned chair in Brisbane decided we were due for
a supply run. A rendezvous was arranged
and accomplished; the Narwhal arrived
in Gamay Bay on 24 May 1944. Aboard
were twentytwo men and fifty tons of equipment.
Again we lucked
out, for the Japanese were nowhere around when the sub arrived. We had no launches, no lighter. Instead, we had a sea full of large barotos
shuttling between the submarine and the shore, each loaded to within inches of
shipping water. But the weather was
good to us; the sea was especially calm, and by dawn the cargo was spread along
the beach close to the water's edge.
The submarine was long gone.
Two
paraos, large bancas, were anchored offshore, one to
be loaded with men and equipment to move up the east coast of Luzon to Captain
Ball at Baler Bay. The other was mine,
for Smith had determined my schooling under him to be complete. It was time for me to graduate and go out on
my own. He had decided that we needed a
sub-NCS on southern Luzon to improve our operations in that area and to serve
as an alternate NCS should MACA be lost to the enemy. This station would also be important in relaying Ball's traffic
if he should be forced to use a low-powered transmitter, and it would serve as
a relay station for radio stations being established by other guerrilla units
on northern Luzon. The Narwhal had just delivered the necessary
equipment. I was to take a penetration
team to Bondoc Peninsula on the west coast of Luzon, about one hundred miles
southeast of Manila Bay. With luck I
could land near Robles's station. Smith
and Royer would stay on Samar.
We picked through the
equipment on the beach and loaded about five tons' worth on the parao destined
for Ball. Before nightfall it sailed
away, with six of the newcomers on board: Lts.
Vincente V. Labrador and Carlos E Ancheta; S/Sgt. Cipriano L. Miguel;
Sgt. Pete L. Luz; and Cpls. Agrifino J. Duran and Rudolph B. Santos.
Another five tons
of equipment were loaded on my sailboat.
With me would go four newcomers: S/Sgt. Gerardo B. Nery, Sgt. Jack Montero, and Cpls. Eddie C. Holgado and Julio C.
Advincula. In addition, I had
"adopted" Ochigue and Madeja.
If Smith could have his Catalina as a bodyguard, these two were mine.
While
all the activity of loading the paraos was going on, a steady stream of
cargadores was toting the other forty tons of gear up that tortuous trail to
ACA.
Early on the
morning of 27 May, we had the beach cleared of equipment. I shook hands with Charlie Smith, who had by
now become one of my dearest friends, boarded the sailboat, and headed into a
new life. I wondered if either of us
would survive, or if we would ever meet again.
I think Charlie had the same thoughts.
I think we both had
another thought. Was my training really
complete? I still had not encountered a
Jap!
Among
the twenty-two new arrivals were two Air Corps meteorologists, Sgt. William R. Richardson and Cpl. William Becker III. America's island-hopping forces had advanced
to a point midway between Australia and Mindanao. P-38 fighters, stripped of their armament and fitted instead with
aerial cameras, were beginning to map the area. Soon B-24s would be based close enough to reach the Philippines
with a full load, drop their bombs, and return home. To the Photo Joes and the bombers, weather information was very
important.
Richardson and
Pfc. Jerry D. Pascua, another of our
new men, set up a weather observatory along the east coast of Samar. They had to move frequently, for making
weather observations required that they release hydrogen-filled balloons into
the air daily to determine wind currents.
Obviously, this activity drew attention to their location and aroused
Japanese interest.
Corporal Becker,
with Sgt. Raymundo E. Agcaoili and
Pvt. Isaac Z. Aguila, went to Sorsogon,
Luzon, to set up another weather station.
They had problems similar to Richardson's and Pascuds, but they, too,
succeeded in their mission.
Until now the
Japanese had not paid much attention to northeastern Samar. They soon did.
Establishing My Network
Part
3
To Luzon
Chapter
7
We
had a favorable wind at the outset of our voyage to Luzon. Within several hours we had reached the
northeast coast of Samar and turned west toward the San Bernardino Strait. As we were rounding Cape Espiritu Santo we
saw two launches moving toward Samar from the east side of Luzon. They appeared to be heading into the area we
had just left-where the submarine had surfaced only a few nights ago.
I had two
choices. I could proceed, knowing that
Smith had observers watching the waters we were in and would be aware of the
launches. Or, I could set up a radio on
board, call MACA, and warn Smith. Our
sailboat would pass as a normal native commercial vessel, we hoped. Using a radio would only draw attention to
us. I decided to remain quiet, because
getting established on Luzon was very important.
We moved into the
current of the Strait. The Pacific
Ocean feeds the South China Sea through the waterways between the various
islands. Eastto-west currents prevail,
and the flow through the Strait runs for eighteen out of twenty-four hours in
that direction. Even though we were
becalmed for much of the afternoon, we were still making ten to twelve knots
because of the current. As we were
passing through the Strait I wondered if Lieutenant Chapman, located high above
us on Luzon, was watching us.
By the morning of
the twenty-eighth we were well through the Strait and in the pass between Ticao
Island and the Luzon mainland. By noon
the wind had died. We were again
becalmed, a condition that was, I soon learned, a virtual certainty every
afternoon. With little, if any,
current, we sat in one spot for hours.
The native crew sat on the stern, whistling at the sail. This, they said, would "call up the
wind." Apparently the wind wasn't listening. When the captain sensed that I was getting irritated, he put a
long oar over the stern and began to leoleo-in
the States we call it sculling.
Back and forth he stroked the blade behind the boat. He knew what he was doing was useless, and
so did I Yet, he was trying. And, of
course, it did no good for me to become irritated. My emotions didn't make the boat move.
This was
exasperating, not to mention worrisome.
Here we sat, within sight of land on either side, with no way of knowing
who was watching us, I took all of my people below deck and left only the
regular crew topside, not wanting to draw attention to ourselves by having many
people on deck. Down in the hold, among
the stowed gear, it was hotter than hell.
Banca
used for interisland travel
Finally the sun
reached the horizon, and, as the air cooled, the breeze began to blow. Darkness allowed us to get up on deck, where
we spent the night.
Morning came, and
by my feeble navigational skills I calculated that we had covered thirty
nautical miles in the past twenty-four hours.
It was now the twenty-ninth, and we were in Burias Pass. By midday
we were again
within sight of land on both sides-becalmed.
A repetition of the day before.
Back into the hot hold we went.
Bad navigation on
my part put us several miles off course into Ragay Gulf that night. We maneuvered back to our planned course and
rounded Bondoc Point early in the morning of the thirtieth. We were low on drinking water and considered
trying to pick some up there, but the water was much too shallow for the parao
to near the shore. We had no small
boat, so someone would have to swim to shore, borrow a baroto, and bring out
the water. When a pair of sharp eyes
spotted a shark fin, we abandoned the swimming plan. We would do without water.
We sailed on, but
before we lost sight of the Point a launch came out toward us. I had a premonition: I was about to meet the enemy for the first time.
The parao on which
we were traveling was of rather crude construction. It appeared to be built on top of a baroto, a dugout canoe. With that as its base, ribs were added about
three feet apart, and the hull was covered with wide boards. I think they call this "lapstrake"
construction, but I may be wrong. I'm
not a shipwright, nor am I a marine architect.
I'm a landlubber trying as best I can to describe a boat I once rode in.
Just below the deck
was a six-inch-high slot that extended completely around the perimeter of the
boat. I suppose this was to ventilate
the hold. Through this space ran the long
poles to the outriggers. (This space soon had a much more important function
for us.) The end result was a sailboat thirty feet long and eight feet wide,
not counting the outriggers, with two masts and sails.
On seeing the
launch, I immediately took my men below deck.
I placed Ochigue at the center of the boat along one side. Here, through the ventilating slot, he could
see and shoot at the launch should it approach on his side. Madeja occupied a similar position on the
opposite side. Both had their BARs at
the ready. The others were spaced at
other points on each side. I told them
all to remain absolutely quiet, and not to take any action unless I started
it. My plan was to allow our captain to
do ail the talking and try to get us through without being boarded. Should this fail...
The launch pulled
up alongside the outrigger on Ochigue's side.
No breathing was audible in the hold of our parao. Through the ventilation opening, I could see
four armed men on the launch. They were
not Filipinos. I did not understand any
of the conversation that took place between our captain and the person who
boarded us from the launch. I did hear
what I thought might be the accent of one who normally spoke Japanese, although
I was not sure.
The
discussion seemingly became more heated.
Suddenly the hatch cover was lifted, and a head came through it to look
below. The owner of the head had sealed
his doom. Immediately, Ochigue began to
spray the launch with his BAR. Madeja
leaped to his side and opened up as well.
All was quiet within ten seconds-a seeming eternity.
No part of my body,
internally or externally, was not trembling.
I had to appear to be a strong leader, although doing so required a
superhuman effort. Somehow, despite the
uncontrolled flow of adrenaline, I pulled it off.
I ordered the Jap
dragged from the sailboat to the launch.
But now what? Should we just set
the launch adrift with its inanimate crew and hope that when it was recovered
by someone we would be far removed? I
wanted a more positive way of disposing of the evidence.
I dug through our gear
and found some plastic explosive, a fuse, and a detonating cap. We set the explosive in the launchs hold at
the base of the transom, rigged to go off in five minutes. We then started the engine, lashed the
wheel, and pointed the launch toward the southwest into the Sibuyan Sea. It headed on an erratic, yet reasonably
straight course. We heard it
explode. We watched it sink. We cheered!
But it was a hollow cheer, at best.
None of us liked the narrow confines of the sailboat as a combat arena,
least of all me.
It was not yet
noon, so we still had some wind pushing us to the northwest along the coast of
Bondoc Peninsula. The captain hugged
the shallow waters offshore as much as he dared. I sat below deck with my binoculars glued aft through the ventilating
slot. I was certain we had been seen
and would encounter more problems.
Suddenly, around a
headland several miles behind us loomed a Japanese naval vessel! I don't know what class or kind it was, but
it was big!
"Head
for the shore!" I screamed.
The captain turned
to starboard and promptly ran aground.
The crew and everybody else went overboard to push the boat back into
deeper water. Meanwhile, the Japanese
ship motored on its merry way past us, ignoring us completely. They didn’t know or care that we existed.
"That's enough
of this shit for me," I announced.
"We're putting in somewhere
tonight."
I
didn't hear a dissenting voice.
But where? For navigation I had a 1933 edition of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey
Chart of the Philippine Islands, covering all the land masses and seas from
Borneo and the Celebes Sea north to the Batan Islands, roughly a thousand
miles. The scale was about twenty miles
to the inch. It gave much information
about the depths of the water in the major seaways, but didn't show any rivers,
inlets, or anything else about the land.
So much for detail. I also had a
1940-edition Socony- Vacuum Oil Company
Road Map. Why that was published
I'll never know, for there were precious few roads in the Philippines. This map, too, lacked any indication of coastal topography My pocket compass
rounded out my store of navigational equipment. I doubt that Columbus was equipped any better-or any worse.
With these
navigational aids I had a fat chance of finding Sgt. Crispolo Robles on Bondoc Peninsula, Luzon, Philippine Islands.
The sun set. Dusk sped by in good tropical fashion. You could almost hear a dunk when night
fell. To the northeast the dark
mountains of Bondoc Peninsula were silhouetted against a light blue, starlit
sky. Dead reckoning told me we were
near the town of Mulanay and Robles's station, but was it opposite us, ahead of
us, or behind us? I searched the
profile of the mountains and noted a due. just ahead of our course, the
mountains dipped to what could be a river valley. It was a chance, and had to be taken.
I pointed it out to
the captain and told him to try to find a channel we could use to get close to
the shore in that area. We moved in
that direction and soon found ourselves in dangerously shallow waters. He dropped the sails and we began to pole
the boat, now this way, now that, cautiously working our way closer to what
might be a river.
Still afloat, we
came to a mangrove swamp. We still
seemed to be in a sort of channel, but I feared grounding the boat and decided
to try to wade ashore. Madeja went
overboard with me, and together we sloshed our way knee- to hip-deep through
the tangle of mangrove tree roots. In
this mass of foliage we were in what
could be called absolute darkness. We
had coated ourselves with insect repellent, but within minutes we were both
covered with literally thousands of mosquitoes. They were in our eyes, our ears, our noses-we had to breathe
through clenched teeth to keep them out of our threats. Loyal Madeja would have suffered through
this torture with me forever, but I couldn’t take it, and we returned to the
boat.
Meanwhile, the
captain had been checking the depth of the water around the boat. "Sair," he said. "We are in a wallow."
"What's
a wallow?" I asked.
"It is, Sair,
where the carabao take the bath. It is
deep enough for our boat, Sair. We can
go in here."
I doubted that we
were in a carabao wallow here in the swamp.
I suspect he used that term because he didn’t know the English words
muddy channel." I didn't argue. He
was the boss of the boat, and I allowed him to move closer to land. I wanted to get us and our gear off -the
boat, and if this was the way, great.
We were in a ditch
of some sort, a path through the mangrove swamp that almost seemed to have been
dredged. Slowly, cautiously, we moved
inland. Soon we were clear of the
mangrove trees, still afloat in a narrow but relatively deep ditch. In fact, the ditch was so narrow that there
would have been barely enough room to turn the boat around to get out.
Still fearing that
the boat would run aground, I told the captain to get as close to the bank as
possible so that we could unload. This
we did. Using the outrigger supports as
a gangplank, we piled the gear on the riverbank. We were now on terra firma, and I already felt more comfortable,
despite not knowing where I was or what might lie ahead.
My concern now was
to conceal where we had landed. If our
parao had been under surveillance and was now seen returning to the south, even
the village idiot would know where we had debarked. I told the captain to move out of the river and continue to sail
northwest for another day or so before returning to Samar. The captain was a pretty sharp cookie and
understood what I was trying to do. He agreed.
I
gave him a tip of a thousand pesos.
Real.
Memorial Day, the
thirtieth of May. The day for placing
flags on the graves of departed veterans, and flowers on those of loved
ones. On this day in 1944 such a
hallowed spot beckoned to me, and although I was well aware of it, I managed to
ignore it. It was not yet to be-
Benito
Ampiloquio rose with the sun, slipped on his damp shirt and pants, and headed
for the bay. He would net some fish,
then return to his house for breakfast.
His wife would have the palay pounded and winnowed by that time. After he finished eating, he would carry
some of the rice and fish to the U.S. Army radioman who lived on top of the
mountain three miles to the northeast of Benito's coastal barrio, Patabog. He would carry enough for three meals so
that the radioman would not have to leave his station today.
As he walked along
the path beside the river, the morning sun still low behind him, Benito noticed
that the cogon grass had been trampled in one area. Must have been some wild
cattle here last night, he thought.
He made a mental note to bring his rifle, the rifle he had concealed
from General Vera, tomorrow. Perhaps he
could shoot one of the cows and drag it home to slaughter. It had been a month since he and his family
had eaten baca.
He saw a man appear
on the path a short distance ahead of him.
The man had a rifle. He was not
wearing the telltale cap of a Japanese soldier, so he must be a guerrilla. Benito gave no thought to fleeing, for he
knew that if he tried to run the guerrilla would shoot him. The local guerrillas were as much to be
feared as the Japanese.
On this morning,
the soldier was Ochigue. They
approached each other while Madeja stepped onto the path behind Benito, ending
any chance of retreat. I watched from
the tall stalks of cogon grass as they conversed. They were having difficulty, for Ochigue and Madeja spoke the Visayan dialect, while Benito spoke
Tagalog. There are many dialects in the
Philippines, and while there are some similarities, the vocabularies are quite
different.
Sergeant Nery
stepped up to join them, for he knew Benito's tongue. Soon he returned to my side.
"Lieutenant," he said, "you ain't gonna believe this, but
that fellow knows Robles, and also knows where he's at!"
I didn't believe
it. No one short of a saint could be so lucky, and there
wasn't a saintly bone in my body. I
sent Nery and Madeja with Benito to find Robles and bring him to me. After yesterdays escapade I was taking no
chances.
They returned
before noon. I believe Robles was glad
to see me. He and Sergeant Manzano had
departed Mindanao in December, and Manzano had moved farther north soon after
the two had gotten to Bondoc. Robles had
been alone among the natives since January, and, being Americanized, he needed
company. Yet, something seemed to be
bothering him.
Benito had prepared
a "buckwheation," a place to hide in the hills if the Japanese should
appear. It, too, was three miles
northeast of Patabog, but along a more southerly trail out of the barrio. A mile of dense forest separated it from
Rohles's station. A more visible trail
near the hiding place led to the town of Mulanay, on the coast five miles south
of Patabog. I told Benito I needed to
use his hideaway for a short while. I
had no idea if that meant a few days or a couple of months. He was glad to let us use it when I handed him a few .30-caliber cartridges for
his rifle. I left to Nery and the
others the job of moving our equipment and gear to Benito's hideout. It would be the location of our
station, S3L, for the immediate future.
Robles led me to
his station. From there, on 31 May, I
contacted Smith by radio.
CHASED EN ROUTE BUT
ARRIVED OK. ANDERSON'S MAN HERE SO WILL
DISPATCH MONEY AND CODES IMMEDIATELY.
WILL INSTRUCT HIM ON PENDEZVOUS WITH OTHER PARTY.
About two hours
later, I received the following message from Smith:
GOOD GOING. CONGRATS.
SEND T'WO RADIOS TO ANDY. NIPS
ARE AFTER US. KEEP CONTACT WITH BALL.
The
launches we had seen moving toward Gamay Bay when we were departing Samar had
been loaded, as I suspected, with Japanese troops to go after Smith and station
NTACA. Smith was about to utilize one
of the alternate sites we had prepared.
June
was hell. But, in turn, I was to find
out that so would be July ... and August ... and September ... etc.
When I was on Samar
with Smith I had the equivalent of a nine-to-five job. He called all the shots and made all the
decisions. My only responsibility was
to keep the radio station operating.
Otherwise, I just did as I was told.
Now things were
different. I was in command, in a
situation where plans I made had to be changed almost minute by minute, or so
it seemed to me. Smith was on the run,
and he was on the air only sporadically.
My station had suddenly become the NCS.
Instead of simply sending information to Smith to be relayed with his
big transmitter to GHQ, I had to find another route through the ether to
Australia. I tried going through
Fertigs station, KUS, on Mindanao. The
Japanese were giving him fits also, however, and KUS couldn't be of much help
to me.
That was only one
of the problems. In addition, I soon
had a daily flow of agents coming in and going out. I had agents losing their radios-or worse, being captured. I had stations coming on the air, only to
disappear and never be heard again. I
had really important ship sightings that I could not get through to GHQ because
the Japanese were jamming my signals. The Japanese were using direction-finding equipment to locate my
station. And guerrillas to the north
were depending on my station to handle their radio traffic to and from Australia.
A young kid whose
only responsibility as a civilian was to sell tires and household appliances to
the retail trade suddenly was in over his head. For all the problems, however, there were two good things going
for me. First, Bondoc Peninsula was not
an important bit of real estate to the Japanese, so it was not occupied. Second, we had brought at least five hundred
pounds of rice with us from Samar, so we would eat for a while.
General Vera
CHAPTER
8
It
was about ten o'clock of a humid morning when Jack Montero came to the
station. Gerardo Nery was operating the
radio. Montero had gone to Mulanay the
day before, shopping for viands, vegetables,
and mandk, chickens. He returned with neither. But he had a message.
"A'General
Vera' is in town and wants to meet you there," he said.
"Wbere
is he?" I asked.
"At
the schoolhouse. And so's his
army."
I strapped on my
.45 and slung my carbine over my shoulder, and we headed down the trail.
"We've got
company," I mumbled to Montero.
Spaced every quarter mile or so along the trail was a soldier standing
in the bushes. There were probably
others I had not noticed.
"You got that right, Sir," Montero
replied. "There's lots of beady
eyes on us. This could be
trouble."
"Just stay
calm-but be ready." I saw Montero feel for the clip in his submachine gun.
When we reached the
schoolhouse, we found about twenty men lolling about. Their "uniforms" consisted of whatever they could find
to provide coverage with some measure of decency. Some bore small arms, others had bolos strapped to their
waists. One wearing a semblance of a
military uniform and carrying a pistol approached me.
"I
am Colonel Figueras, the chief of staff for the general," he said, rather
haughtily. "Come. I will introduce you to him."
As Montero and I
entered the schoolhouse door, someone yelled, "Attention!"
Everyone inside
stood-except the general. He just sat
sprawled in a chair behind the teacher's desk, toying with a pencil over a pad
of paper.
What
in the hell is this? I asked
myself A rehearsal for a grade-B movie?
Colonel Figueras
said, "Lieutenant Stahl. I have
the honor to present co you" (he pointed with arm extended and his hand
palm up, and with a slight bow) "Lieutenant General Gaudencio V. Vera,
commander in chief and judge advocate of Tayabas Guerrilla Verds Party!"
Without standing,
the general nodded, then directed us with his pencil to five seats, front row
center. Obviously, he was expecting
others to join us. He then passed an extended arm across the room much as would
the pope from his balcony to the crowd in Vatican Square. Everyone sat.
My
God! I
thought. With all my other problems, now I have a Hollywood grandstand psycho to
contend with!
Still seated, the
general introduced the others at the head table. On his right was his wife-, on his left his other wife. Seated at one end of the desk was his
"friend." She was obviously the one he was screwing, for she wasn't
hard to look at, while both his wives were considerably less well favored. Her name was Maria. Colonel Figueras took a chair at the other
end of the desk.
I looked
around. Behind me seated at the several
rows of student desks were what appeared to be local townspeople. They could have been dignitaries. I had no way of knowing. More important, around the perimeter of the
room armed men stood shoulder to shoulder, obviously there as a threat to me.
Now the general
stood. It made little difference, for
his head didn’t rise much higher. He
was about five feet, two inches tall, exceedingly thin, gaunt, sunken cheeked,
hollow eyed. His teeth were much too
large for his mouth, giving him a constant snarl. His eyeballs were very large, adding to his proper appearance as
the madman he was. He stared at me as
he spoke.
"Welcome to
Bondoc Peninsula, Lieutenant Stahl. My
guerrilla forces have kept this entire peninsula free of the Japanese. The United States Army and the Philippine
Army may have surrendered, but we did not
surrender! Bondoc Peninsula has not
surrendered to the Japanese! We are
still a free country!"
He went on and
on. His troops had attacked the
Japanese garrisons to the north and had "established a front, preventing
the Japanese from moving down the peninsula." He was maintaining civilian
government in all of the towns and barrios.
His troops were enforcing the laws.
And much, much more was claimed.
His tirade ended
with, "And when my supreme commander, Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur, sends me enough guns, Tayabas Guerrilla
Vera's Party will drive all of the Japanese from the Philippines forever!"
He sat down. There was a murmur of conversation
throughout the room. I had no idea what
was expected of me, so I just sat there and waited. Finally the general said, "Colonel Figueras. Bring in the proof that we have the
power. Bring in the Americans we have
rescued from the Japs!"
Figueras left, but
he was back almost immediately with three newcomers-three light-haired,
white-skinned Americans. They stepped
up to me and introduced themselves in turn: George McGowan, Eldred Sattem, and
Chester Konka.
If the general
thought that his show would go on, he was about to receive quite a jolt. Ignoring the general, the four of us shook
hands, patted backs, and began talking all at once, no one listening to the
others. It was a bedlam that went on
for about ten minutes. The three extra
chairs in the front row were never occupied.
Everyone moved
outside, where a table had been spread.
Party time. Barbecued pig, many
flavored sauces, rice, fried camotes, and fried bananas. My three new friends and I conversed through
full mouths.
Soon George McGowan
maneuvered me away from the rest.
"Bob," he said. I
don’t recall George ever, in our more
than a half year together, calling me "Lieutenant." "Bob. You got trouble."
"What
do you mean?" I asked.
"That son of a
bitch is gonna kill you and the rest of your guys. He wants your guns.
"Oh,
shit! What do I do now?" I said
this out loud, but I was talking to myself.
"Soft-soap the
dumb bastard," George replied, "And play for time."
Suddenly, for me,
the party was over. I thought of the
soldiers Montero and I had seen when we were coming down the trail to town,
guessed at how many there were. I added
those I could see here in the school area.
We were outnumbered at least ten to one. We didn’t have a chance.
I ate some more
food-although my appetite had gone somewhere else. I had to do something distracting while I considered what the
next move was to be. Fleeing was
impossible. To fight was to invite
disaster. I needed time to think.
I walked to where
the general was holding forth with the local politicos, at least that's who I
thought they were. George wandered over
to join US. WC chatted, with the general doing most of the talking, telling me
of his prowess as a military leader.
At a lull in the
conversation, I looked at my watch.
Then, loud enough for all to hear, said: "General. I must go to my station now, because I must
call Australia at four o'clock. I will
see you tomorrow."
If Vera was
surprised at this maneuver, he didn’t show it.
He probably thought that if he didn't kill me today, he would do so
maniana.
I turned to George
and said: "George. Would you like
to go with me and see my station?"
"Sure."
The
general said nothing. He could kill
George tomorrow, too.
The trail to
station S3L was rather steep. Not
nearly as bad as the one up the face of the cliff at NMCA, but steep enough
that talking en route wasn’t practical.
By the time we got
there I found I had not lied to the general, for I had some messages to send,
and, luckily, Doc Evans at Fertig's station was able to relay for me. That done, George and I sat down on a couple
of makeshift benches at a makeshift table.
We now had time to talk.
"George. Have you got any ideas on what in the hell I
can do?"
"Shit,
no," was the reply. "Konka
and Sattem and me have been with this bastard for a couple of months, and can’t
get away. We wanna go south and try to
get to Australia somehow, but the prick won’t let us go. I think he's holding us hostage, hoping to
trade us to someone for some guns or something."How’d you come to be with
Vera? Did he spring you from the
Japs?"
"Shit,
no. The three of us were taken out of a
jap prison, luck of the draw, kinda, and sent to do coolie labor for a Jap
patrol. Konka and me, we was Air Corps
mechanics, and mostly we kept their trucks running. Sattem, he was from the Coast Artillery, and since they didn't
have them kinds of guns, they made him do all the shit details, like – ya know
– cookin, scrubbin, and all that kind of crap.
We did all their dirty work, but it was better than being in
prison. Until they started beatin'
us."
George paused, and
sort of cringed as he thought about what they had been through. Then he continued: "The patrol got a
new commander, and he really hated Americans.
So, every time we moved into a new town, like every two or three days,
he'd drag us into the town square in the evening. He'd make all the people in the town watch while his men beat the
shit out of us with their belts – and clubs.
And once in a while one of us would be clobbered with a rifle butt. All the time he kept tellin' the Filipinos
that we were rotten dogs – didn’t deserve to die – just to be tortured. Finally, we got sick of that shit and took
off one night. We ran and ran and ran
for hours with them chasing us. But we
got away."
Again he
paused. I could see that he was
thinking of some of the details of that night.
"While we was
runnin in the dark, we came to a kind of a old fence or somethin'. Konka and me ran night inta’ the son of a
bitch, and it tore the hell outta’ our legs.
We wanted t’ get away so bad, we stepped back and ran into it agin', and
it tore us apart some more. Then Sattem
went up and stepped right over it. It
was only about a foot high! Then we
stepped over it, too."
He lit a cigarette,
and went on. "We wound up with a
farmer in the mountains who took us in and fed us. That's where Vera's people found us and took us to him."
His story was
interrupted by a call on the radio. It
was something routine, so I copied it and put it aside for the time being.
"Look,"
he continued. "Old' Pancho' –
that's what we call him – he's been good to us. Feeds us, treats us like humans.
Not like the Japs did. But he
won't let us go. And I guess you
noticed, we don’t have guns."
For a long time, we
hashed and rehashed my situation and possible solutions. All the ideas we had came to the same
end. Disaster. I was about to just give in to the general
and hope to get out alive.
George, though, did
not give up so easily. He was a
gambler. When asked where he was from,
he would reply, "I lived behind the post office in Reno, Nevada – seventy
miles behind it."
"Bob," he
said, "dodt give in. This guy is a
kook, but his ego is so big that he thinks he's in direct line of command
behind General MacArthur."
I
sneered. But I liked George's
suggestion. Play on the son of a
bitch’s ego.
"I'm not
shittin' you, Bob. Make up some
cock-and-bull story to feed to him, and he'll buy it."
What's
to lose? Give it a try.
I composed a
message "to General MacArthur." I even went to the trouble of
encoding it. Of course, it wasn’t
sent. Then I wrote a reply from
MacArthur, again complete with decoding, which was never received.
TO MACARTHUR FROM
STAHL. MET GENERAL GAUDENCIO V. VERA ON
BONDOC PENINSULA. HE HAS STRONG
GUERRILLA FORCE HERE WHICH CAN AFFORD ME AND MY STATION PROTECTION FROM THE
JAPANESE. BUT HE NEEDS APMS. CAN WE SUPPLY?
The reply:
MACARTHUR TO
GENEPAL VEPA THRU STAHL. APPRECIATE
YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE LIBERATION OF YOUR HOMELAND BY FURNISHING PROTECTION
TO ONE OF MY MOST IMPORTANT SOURCES OF INFOPMATION. YOUR OFFER TO ENSURE SAFETY OF STATION S3L WILL BE RFWARDED BY
SUPPORT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
Early the next day
I went back to Mulanay with the phony radiograms. I located the general and handed him the messages. This
is it, I told myself if he buys this
baloney we're home free. If he doesn't,
its 'lidids amigos!" I was not a mountain of confidence.
Vera handed the
papers to a young man who served as his secretary.
"I cannot see
these. My glasses got broken in one of
our battles," Vera said. I guessed
he was illiterate.
The secretary read
my "Message" to MacArthur. At
first Vera beamed, then seemed to scowl a bit after conversing in Tagalog with
Colonel Figueras. The secretary then
read MacArthur's "message, to Vera.
His chest expanded so much I waited for the explosion!
"My commander
has acknowledged me!" he shouted for all to hear. "He is sending us arms!"
The scheme
worked! Moral: When you're dealing with
a nut, think like a nut.
"Do you want
to send a reply to General MacArthur?" I asked. I wanted to spread the lard on thicker. Then I had second thoughts, and said to myself, You dumb bastard! Shut up! Quit when you're
ahead,
"Yes,
Lieutenant. Yes! I will write one immediately."
A half hour later
he handed me his reply. I glanced at it
but didn't read it. It was so long it
would have required a four-part message if it were sent.
I put it in my
pocket. Upon my next call of nature,
the paper was put to good use – then buried with the rest of the crap.
Next
I had to find Robles. Where was he
yesterday, when I met with the general?
Why had he been less than enthusiastic about our arrival several days
ago? I wanted some answers-fast.
I hiked up to
S3L. Nery was sitting at the radio,
ready to answer if any calls came.
McGowan was with him, for we had planned for George to help move the
station if things did not go well with the general.
"It
worked! It worked!"
"I told ya it
would," said George. "That
dumb shit will believe anything if it fits his ego. And there's lots’a room in that ego."
"Yeah. So far, so good. But how am I going to explain the delays – Why ain’t the
submarine coming in? Where are the
arms, and why ain’t they here?"'
One thing at a
time, Bob. We're OK today."
George
went with me to Robles's station.
Rather than walk three miles back to Patabog and three miles more to
Robles's station along a more or less parallel trail, we decided to cut through
the forest. It was a pretty tough mile,
for we had to hack away lots of underbrush and cross several narrow but deep
streambeds to create a path. All things
considered, the direction we took was not bad.
We intercepted the main trail within a quarter mile of Robles's station.
As we worked our
way through the forest I reflected on the events of the last several days. I had seen Robles only once since we
landed. Where had he been? Had he been avoiding me? Why wasn't he at the schoolhouse when I met
the general? Why didn't he warn me
about the general – tell me what a nut he was?
To put it mildly, I was developing a very dour mood.
"George,"
I said, as we took a break from our labors, "I'm gonna jump all over
Robles as soon as I see him."
"Why?"
George asked. "He didn't do
anything."
"That's
right. He let me get damned near killed
and didn't do a freakid thing about it.
I oughtta shoot the bastard!"
"Calm down,
Bob. You need that guy, so don’t go off
half-cocked. At least hear him out
before you explode on him."
I thought of his
advice. George was going to be a good
man to have around. Still, Robles had a
lot of explaining to do.
We encountered two
of Vera’s soldiers as we approached Robles's shack. Fortunately, they recognized George and let us pass. From here, high on a bluff overlooking
Mompog Passage, shipping movements could be observed and the information
quickly radioed out. Robles was doing
just that when we arrived.
We chatted. Talked about the radio equipment – the war –
the food – the people. Robles and I
both knew that I had not hacked a mile-long trail through the forest so we
could have a social visit. Each waited
for the other to get to the subject.
Finally, I got down
to the serious business.
"Cris," I said (Crispolo was his first name), "what's
going on here? Why didn't you warn me
about the general?"
"I
don’t really know," he replied.
"What the hell
do you mean, you don't really know! I
damned near got killed – all of us damned near got killed, and you didn’t do a
damned thing to help us."
"I don’t know
how I could have helped. I have no
influence with Vera."
"But you could
have been there. You could have said
something. You could have done ...
well, something."
We sat there in
pregnant silence, each weighing our next words very carefully. George was right. I needed Robles. And he
needed me. Smith needed us both.
“Lieutenant,"
Robles finally spoke, "Let me try to explain. I don't know if I can or not, but let me try."
"OK,
Cris. I can't be any angrier than I am
now, so go ahead."
"When Manzano
and I arrived here six months ago, we ran into the same buzz saw you did, only,
I believe, worse. Vera was even crazier
then than he is now. He had a very
small 'army’ and almost no arms. The
guerrillas to the north around Lopez and across Ragay Gulf on Sorsogon were
anxious to wipe him out, and he was constantly running from them.
"Actually,
none of these guerrillas are worth a damn against the japs. If they should accidently encounter a
Japanese patrol they would run like hell.
The leaders are not military people.
In peacetime most of them were politicians. Now they have 'armies' made up of their friends and
relatives. They roam the countryside
like nomads trying to find and kill each other. They have to eat, so they force the civilians to give them
food. They’ve already confiscated most
all the guns and any other useful articles they could find."
I passed around a
pack of cigarettes, and we all lit up.
Then Robles continued.
"Vera grabbed Manzano and me as soon as we landed here. He would have killed us for our guns
immediately, except that one of his wives interfered. She has a few grains of brains and got him to weigh the value of
our guns – two Pistols, two carbines, and two tommy guns – against a radio that
could make contact with the Americans to the south. The radio won, but even then it was a swap.
"Manzano was
going to move closer to Manila and into densely populated areas where guns
would be a burden. So he took only his
pistol, and we gave Vera his carbine and submachine gun. Vera was happy, and I had a spot for the
radio. It was a good deal for me."
"Yeah. But I still don't see what all this has to
do with me," I said.
"Look,
Lieutenant. My radio hasn't done Vera a
damned bit of good yet. I'll bet he
gives his wife a lot of shit about it.
I figured that I should lay low, so that the dumb bastard didn't realize
that you, too, came here with nothing but arms and a radio – and that he
already has a radio. If I had tried to
help you he might have killed us all.
We need at least one watcher station on Bondoc Peninsula."
What he said made
sense – ugly, sickening sense!
Sacrifice whatever or whomever so that the radio network survives. A wonderfully patriotic gesture, except that
it was I who would have been sacrificed.
Not a pleasant thought.
But what about my
departure from Samar – the launches moving toward the submarine rendezvous spot
I had just left-my decision not to warn Smith by radio, lest our move to the
north be compromised. I had made a like
decision then.
But
it seems so different when the shoe is on the other foot!
The Turkey Shoot
CHAPTER
9
For
several months, Lieutenant Chapman had been covering the San Bernardino Strait
as a coastwatcher from a spot on Samar, as a part of Fertig's network of
stations. Now, assigned to our network,
he moved to southern Luzon near the town of Santa Magdalena, where he had a
much better view of both the Strait and the surrounding waters. But the Japanese presence in that area made
his operation much more difficult – not to mention dangerous. As a result, he had to limit his airtime,
lest he be detected and captured.
Although I had
copies of Gerry Chapman's codes, we had limited communications, for he found it
best to make direct contact with the NCS, MACA, Smith's station on Samar, or
else communicate with KUS, Fertig's station on Mindanao. I relayed for him only on rare
occasions. One of those occasions was
in the late afternoon of 15 June.
I heard Gerry
trying to contact NMCA and KUS. I had
no idea of the content of his message, but I noticed that the Japanese
"jamming" sending out interfering noises to keep his message from
being heard was more intense than usual.
He tried repeatedly to get through to both stations, but neither could
read his signals. I could read bits of
his message through the jamming, and decided to try to get a complete copy. if I could do so, I might be able to
help. A sixth sense told me it was
important. By listening in on his
repeated transmission attempts, I finally was able to get an accurate copy of
his coded message.
Gerrys transmitter
had about a four-watt output. Mine had
twelve. I thought I might be able to
blast through the interference with my more powerful signals. I called MACA to relay Gerry's message on
another of our regular frequencies, but the Japanese jamming was covering me like
a blanket. I called KUS. Same result. I tried calling KAZ, although I had a history of limited success
in reaching Australia with my equipment.
I couldn’t raise a soul.
Meanwhile I listened to Gerry on another receiver. He was still trying, but it was a losing
battle.
Suddenly I heard
someone calling my station. I couldn’t
read the caller's ident, but through the din I finally understood a request for
me to change to another frequency. "QSY
10,800. QSY 10,800," the caller
said. Whoever was calling obviously
knew something about my equipment, for he was asking me to switch to 10,800
kilocycles. Only a station that knew
what frequency crystals I had would request this, for it was a doubling of my
5,400-kilocycle crystal, a frequency I rarely used, but a good one for
long-distance communication.
I made the
change. The Japanese apparently hadiit
been listening, for they didn't move in on the new frequency. The station that called me was KFS, the
Mackay Radio station in San Francisco!
Mackay Radio was a commercial communications network with stations
around the world, and was now furnishing relay services for military
radio. With their supersensitive
equipment, they had heard my calls to KAZ and offered to relay for me.
Soon the message
reached Naval Intelligence in Australia via two differcnt routes. KFS sent it direct to KAZ, and also sent it
to Fertig's station, KUS, which relayed it to KAZ, too.
Now that the
message was sent and received, I took to decoding it to see why Gerry had
deemed it important enough to fight so hard to get it through. His message read, "GOING EAST, TWO
SMALL PATROL BOATS, TEN CRUISERS, THREE BATTLESHIPS, ELEVEN DESTROYERS AND NINE
AIRCRAFT CARRIERS."
Gerry had spotted a
flotilla of Japanese naval vessels heading eastward through the San Bernardino
Strait, out of the island waterways into the Pacific Ocean. This was one hell of a large portion of the
Japanese Navy!
Why was this
significant? At the time, U.S. forces
were invading the Mariana Islands. The
Fifth Fleet was standing off the shore of Saipan, having bombarded the island
to clear the beaches for the amphibious landing. Now the fleet was supporting the landing, and Adm. Raymond A. Spruance was unaware of the
approaching Japanese fleet – unprepared for a sneak attack from the rear. With the information Chapman supplied,
Spruance had time to steam westward to engage the oncoming Japanese
flotilla. The result: the First Battle
of the Philippine Sea, the "Marianas Turkey Shoot," in which the U.S.
Navy virtually destroyed the Japanese Navy, especially its air arm. The Allies now had supremacy on the sea and
in the air, a power we never relinquished.
Had he done nothing else, Gerry Chapman had earned, and rightfully
deserved, the "Well Done" he received from the U.S. Navy.
Forty years after he reported Japanese fleet
movement through the San Bernardino Strait, Gerry Chapman (right) meets with the author.
The radio contact
with KFS had a deeper significance for me.
With my twelve-watt transmitter I could rarely send a readable radio
signal the fifteen hundred miles to station KAZ in Australia because of
ionospheric problems, a part of the technology of shortwave radio I never did
fully understand. Yet here I had made
contact with a station some seven thousand miles away, across the Pacific
Ocean! Again, that mysterious ionosphere came into play. Apparently something called "skip
distance" was involved. At any
rate, I discovered that when darkness covered the Pacific between me and San
Francisco, a period of about one hour each night, I could communicate with KFS,
a powerfid relay station. I now had an
unseen ally who would provide a much-needed new path to KAZ.
Vera’s Camp
Chapter
10
There
were repercussions to our success in relaying Chapman’s sighting report to
Australia. When Chapman saw the
Japanese fleet heading through the Strait, his report turned a possible naval
disaster into a major victory for the United States. The significance was not lost on the Japanese. We began to observe evidence that they were
taking our operations seriously.
Launches carrying
strange-looking gear, which we described as "Chinese clotheslines,"
were sighted both in Mompog Passage and in Ragay Gulf Our radio station was
between them on Bondoc Peninsula. I
suspected that these were crude radio-direction-finding rigs seeking a fix on
our station. My concern was great
enough that we ceased radio operations for several days until they moved away,
shifting our radio relay work to one of the other net stations.
We were too close to
the coast and were vulnerable to attack by Japanese patrols. We were not high enough in the mountains to
be able to make best use of our limited signal strength. We did not have a good view of the
seas. In short, we were in a lousy
location.
Leaving the station
in Nery's hands, I went off in search of General Vera. When I found him and told him I needed to
relocate to a safe, high spot that afforded a view of both shores of the
peninsula, he was eager to help. The
general had taken the "message" from General MacArthur
seriously. He would have shelters built
for the station in or near his camp.
Since finding him had not been easy, and since this location seemed to
provide the other things I needed, I agreed.
I saw in this two pluses. First,
mercenary or not, he had some armed men who might
fight to protect us from the enemy if the need ever arose. Second, he could feed us along with his
troops, eliminating our problem of searching for food. I realized that the food would be stolen
from the civilians, but perhaps I could supply him with APA money to buy the
food instead of forcibly taking it.
Moving in with him
was a horrible mistake. The problem was
sanitation. Here was a "military
unit" that had never heard of a straddle trench or a latrine. Imagine more than one hundred men, women,
and children living in a jungle camp where every call of nature was handled as
an animal would-drop it anywhere and don't even cover it catlike! I now knew why they lived the nomadic life
that Robles had described. The stench
was unbearable.
I discussed this
with the general and even showed him diagrams of a straddle trench as depicted
in my Soldier’s Handbook. I could see that he didn't take to the
idea.
"Lieutenant. Do not worry. I have a squad of twenty men who are already building the houses
for the new camp. We will move again in
a few days."
And move we
did. Again and again, when the land
around the camp was polluted, we took up residence on another mountaintop, and
as soon as we had moved, the construction crews were put to work building the
next camp.
There was no
shortage of locations for camps, for Bondoc Peninsula, save for the very narrow
coastal plains, is a mass of forbidding jungle mountains, each of which a
prudent person would deem inaccessible if that person were not engaged in a
war. They are not high mountains they
range only to about fifteen hundred feet-but scaling them is a nightmarish
task. There were few ridges connecting
the peaks, and the usually steep trail, if a trail existed, descended almost to
sea level before rising to the new heights.
These were rain forests-damp, sloppy, and uncomfortable, even without
the contribution of the frequent monsoons.
This nomadic life
rendered the operation of an NCS a near impossibility. In effect, we had to have two stations, one
operating while the other moved, but we had neither the equipment nor the
manpower to do this efficiently. In
addition, many of the sites were completely buried in the forests, without a
view of the waterways. In desperation,
I confronted Vera.
"General,"
I said, "I cannot be moving my station every week or so. Australia is complaining that I am not doing
what I was sent here to do, for my operations are interrupted too often."
"Lieutenant
Stahl," he replied, "I am only doing what my supreme commander,
General MacArthur, ordered me to do. I
must protect your station, and we must keep moving so the Japanese cannot find
us."
"Yes, General,
you are doing that, and well. Australia
knows. But I need a permanent
location. And it must be where I can
see the ships."
It galled me to be
forced to patronize this character. Yet
I needed his support in order to keep my station operating. This was a touchy issue, for in his little
mind he believed he was doing a great job of following the instructions given
to him by his "supreme commander." He was ensuring the safety of my
station, just as he had been ordered to do when we were in Mulanay. Yet, in reality, he was a psychopath, with a
hair trigger on his temper. I had
witnessed his violent rage, seen it terminate in the execution of real or
assumed enemies. I had not yet endeared
myself to him, and I and my men could easily be the objects of his next
maniacal rampage.
To my advantage, I
had learned to read his facial expressions for signs of the level of his
anger. This talent I had picked up by
conversing with him frequently, for we invariably ate together. The measure of his rage was reflected in the
rapidity of his eye movements and the tenseness of his lips surrounding his
oversized teeth. Neither of these signs
was now evident, so I pursued the idea of a permanent-as far as permanent was
possible in enemy territory camp for my station. After much persuasion, he agreed to help me get set up wherever I
wanted. He also agreed to supply me
with four soldiers for perimeter guards, plus a cook. The magic of General Mac.Arthur's "message to Vera" was
still working.
The next day,
Eldred Sattem and I roamed the hills nearby and selected a spot midway across
the peninsula, between the towns of Catanauan on the west and San Narciso on
the east. From here we could walk to
three bluffs, all within a mile, from which we could see the coasts and both towns,
each about ten miles away, and the town of Mulanay as well. Vera had a radio shack, a mess shack, and
several leantos built there in two days.
We dug our own straddle trench.
Handy to the
selected location for our camp was a free-flowing, cleanwatered stream. It was not ours exclusively, for we had
several neighbors on local ridges, small family groups who had
"buckwheated" from nearby towns for fear of the Japanese, fear of the
guerrillas, perhaps just plain fear.
Each family had cleared a small area on which they could live and grow
some crops for sustenance. This ample
source of water was their primary reason for selecting the locations to which
they had moved.
The
stream came out of the ground and flowed immediately into a sort of steep
riffle, almost a waterfall, and it was from this portion of the stream that
water for drinking and cooking was collected.
The ledges, about eight feet high, ended in a rather large pool serving
as a bathing and laundering area. Here
the women would do the family's washing (and ours for a small fee), beating the
clothing on large, flat rocks at the pool's edge. That task finished, they would bathe in the pool, washing their
bodies without removing the wraparound garments they were wearing. Children before puberty wore nothing but
shirts, which grew shorter and shorter as they grew bigger and bigger, so
bathing, for them, was not a problem.
Passing that age, the girls adopted the wraparounds and the boys adopted
shorts, neither of which were removed for bathing. After the women and children left the pool area, the men would
assemble for their baths.
Noting that the
riffles dropped at about a forty-five-degree angle, Sattem took a long bamboo
pole, rammed a long stick through it to break out the diaphragms dividing the
pole's sections, and created a water pipe.
He then stuck the pipe into the source of the water, propped it up with
other poles so that it carried some water straight out from the top of the
riffles, and voila! A shower bath!
We uninhibited Yankees would strip to the altogether and cavort under
Satteas contraption, unheeding, or uncaring, of who was watching us. It wasn't long until the native males began
to approach us, asking for some of our soap, a commodity they did not have and
one that, for some reason or other, we had been supplied with in a quantity we
would never, ever, use up. The natives
would work up a huge pile of lather on their heads, then share the lather with
their friends.
Soon we began to
hear female tittering in the bushes surrounding the pool. We had an audience. Finally, one of the bravest girls approached
for a head full of soap, all the while trying to avert her eyes, yet not being
able to do so because she would then be looking at our nudity. With a head full of suds, she ran off to
share it with her friends on the other side of the pool. In just a few days everybody was showering
with us-but they didn’t remove their shorts or their wraparounds.
Being
away from Veris constant presence would be good, but now we had an added
problem: he no longer would be supplying us with food. This would not be an immediate burden, for
we still had a hidden stash of rice.
But we now had fifteen people to feed; the six Filipinos who had sailed
with me, the three Americans who had moved in with us, four perimeter guards, a
cook, and myself. This would soon
become a problem.
The New General Vera
CHAPTER
11
Station
S3L was soon operating as a well-knit organization. Major Smith had successfully evaded the first set-to with the
Japanese and somehow, miraculously, not lost his equipment. NMCA was again the NCS, although
sporadically, because the Japanese were nearby and would occasionally send a
patrol in Smith’s direction, calling for another fight. When he was off the air I could relay
through my newly found friends in San Francisco-station KFS. Sergeant Nery and the other radio operators
were doing a very efficient job.
Chester Konka had taken over as cryptographer, encoding and decoding
messages. Eldred Sattem kept the
generator operating and the batteries charged.
Ochigue and Madeja handled the posting of the guard. George McGowan sort of hung around with
me. I had little to do but recruit
agents and give them assignments-and sweat until they returned.
For several days I
roamed the mountains surrounding our camp, making a mental map of the lay of
the land. George and I had set up an
alternate location for emergency use and had stashed food and equipment in
several other spots, but I needed to know
as much as possible about the terrain in all directions-a lesson I had learned
from Smith.
On one of my early
walks I became disturbed because I did not encounter any of the perimeter
guards. I returned to the camp and
located Ochigue. "How come there
aren’t any guards out there?" I asked.
"But,
Sair, they are there," he replied.
"Then
why didn’t I see any?" I persisted.
"Come
with me, Sair, and we will find one."
We walked perhaps a
half mile. Ochigue stopped and made a
half whistle, half guttural sound. I
can’t really describe it, let alone make it.
Out of the bushes stepped, like a cat, a pygmy-sized, bushy-haired,
extremely dark skinned native, naked except for a loincloth. He was not carrying a rifle. He had a small bolo tied around his waist, a
bow in his hands, and a quiver of arrows on his back. An Igorot!
"This is a
guard?" I stormed. "What good
would he be if the Japs came after us?"
"Let
him show you, Sair," was the
reply.
Ochigue spoke to
the guard, and pointed to an odd-looking tree some one hundred feet away. Immediately the Igorot whipped out an arrow
and zinged it into the tree. And again,
and again. Three arrows in not more
than ten seconds, all without the attention-gathering noise of rifle fire, and
if there had been a six-inch-diameter bull's-eye on that tree, all three arrows
would have been in it! I could do no
better with a carbine.
"Where
did this guy come from?" I asked.
"Sair. Between here and Lopez is a small but very
deep jungle. It is from there he
came. He and his family moved there
from the north a long, long time ago."
"Is
he one of Vera’s soldiers?" I asked.
"No,
Sair. He heard that the Americanos were
here, and he wanted to see one. I hired
him. And I also have his brother."
I was wrong. Instead of fifteen, we had seventeen mouths
to feed.
Getting
to know the territory required visiting the nearby towns and barrios. Good relations with these people would pay
off in warnings of Japanese arrivals and in procuring food.
Years of
association before the war had demonstrated to the Filipinos that America was a
nation of heavy drinkers. We didn’t
have to struggle to keep this idea alive.
Consequently, many of the people in the surrounding towns who wanted a
favor from me would introduce the request with a gift of something
alcoholic. Prascos, about a quart, of various unidentifiable alcohols were
often sent. More appreciated were gifts
of Japanese beer, brewed in the San Miguel Brewery in Manila, a reasonably good
substitute for stateside beer.
Occasionally, Japanese soldiers would use the brew as a bartering
incentive in dealing with the Filipinos.
Eventually, after several more trades, the beer would arrive at S3L with
the compliments of a mayor or other -influential citizen from one of the
surrounding communities, accompanied frequently by a request for a copy of the
latest radio news. I would send the
messenger back with a typed copy of a news summary, to be proudly displayed by
the beer’s donor to everyone within sight for weeks and weeks, until the paper
was tattered and torn beyond recognition.
This led me to establish
a newsletter. I began to send out
frequent news summaries to the mayors, with the request that they make copies
and distribute them to towns and barrios more remote from our area. Result?
The citizens became reasonably well informed of the progress of the
war. Copies of our newsletter were
found in the files of Japanese military units when the islands were secured by
the American forces.
More immediate was
the flow of gifts of Japanese cigarettes, candy, and other items, purchased by
the Filipinos from the Japanese neighborhood association stores and sent to
me. Most appreciated were the Akedonos
cigarettes, not a bad-tasting Japanese cigarette, and much better tasting than
my poorly hand-rolled native tobacco cigars.
Among the
townspeople there was an aura of ill feeling concerning Vera. He was not so much feared as he was despised
and loathed. He was a blowhard and a
braggart, and there were numerous rumors of his mistreatment – and even
execution – of his political enemies.
In addition, the people placed no stock in his offer of protection from
the Japanese if they should appear in the area.
Of the towns I
visited, San Narciso was by far my favorite, and I hiked there – ten miles each
direction – frequently. The mayor, Jesus Medenilla, was a successful
businessman, and also well educated, as were his wife, son, and three
daughters. This showed in their
conversations, their living standards, and their dress. They were quite Americanized. The mayor was well known and very well
liked, and his popularity extended as far as Manila Vera knew better than to
tangle with this man. Vera catered to
him.
This families
demeanor and lifestyle had rubbed off on the other citizens of the town. The houses, on stilts as was the custom
throughout the Philippines, were better built, better kept, and had neater
yards than in any other town I had seen in the islands. The ever present pigpens and chicken coops
sat empty under the houses. To keep the
guerrillas and the Japanese from confiscating the livestock, the mayor had
ordered all the animals taken to a well-concealed community caingain, a farm,
deep in the woods, there to be tended by the citizens on a rotating basis. He ordered frequent distribution of meats to
all.
Dogs
roamed freely in the streets. These
were not pets. One or two would
disappear from time to time when the mayor cut the meat ration.
Many men wore
cotton trousers and shirts instead of the more common coarsely woven abaca shorts and sleeveless tops; women
wore dresses, not wrappers, and carried umbrellas to keep the brilliant
sunshine from giving their skin an even darker shade of brown. Most, though, both men and women, were
barefoot, for shoes and clogs were in short supply and were saved to wear to
church or to fiestas.
"I understand
you met the general," the mayor said to me as we sat on chairs on his
veranda. It was our first meeting.
"Yes. It was quite an experience." I had
emphasized the words.
The mayor
smiled. "I take it from your reply
that I need not ask your reaction to him."
"I've met
quite a few guerrilla leaders, but he certainly is one of a kind." I was
unsure of the relationship between the two.
Was I saying too much? Was I
talking out of turn?
"My son, Juan,
is a lieutenant in Vera's army," he continued. "He says you have had quite an effect on the general."
"How
come?"
"Juan
says Vera is-how do you Americans say it? Cleaning up his act."
"What do you
mean?" The last time I had seen Vera was in that pigsty I had refused to
live in. It would take a lot of
cleaning before anyone noticed.
"Well,
Lieutenant, since he received a message from General MacArthur he has decided
to convert his bandits into a trained army."
Surely the mayor
was too smart to believe my sham. Deep
inside he certainly must be laughing.
It didn’t show.
"Yes," he
continued. "They now have
inspections, drills, even combat practice-no shooting, of course, for they have
very little ammunition for the few guns they have."
"I hope they
dug some latrines," I replied.
"That's what they needed most.
"Oh, yes,
Lieutenant. They have. Juan says the camp's so clean they won’t
have to move every week anymore."
We chatted on,
while his wife brought us drinks.
Rather potent drinks, and midway through the second I felt a bit woozy.
"Mayor, what's
in this drink?" I asked.
"Alcohol. Distilled nipa palm juice. We call it nipa wine. It's not bad mixed with good, strong papaya
juice. It's about 170 proof, the way
you measure it in the United States.
Hard to get, though, because we don't have many distilleries around
here."
Guerrilla
platoon leader preparing troops for inspection.
An idea for a
future use of nipa wine began germinating in my mind. Perhaps this wine would be useful in case of a gasoline shortage.
After
several days of rest and relaxation while getting to know the people of San
Narciso, I undertook the trek back to our radio station. In nice weather, the hike from San Narciso
to S3L was a pleasant constitutional.
The first five miles-to barrio Abuyon-ran through a narrow stand of
coconut trees that lined the shore of Ragay Gulf. Here, if the time of the day was right, one could buy a bamboo
container of tuba.
Whenever possible, we would time our travel
to arrive at about four in the afternoon.
The tuba gatherer would have a fresh supply then, and after sipping a
bit of the nectar we would carry a three-quart container to the camp to add a
bit of splendor to the evening's ration of rice.
Guerrillas
ready for inspection
At Abuyon the trail
turned away from the shore. The first
mile of this leg of the journey traversed a large, flat cogon grass field to
the base of the mountains. This stand
of grass ranged from eight to ten feet tall.
All that could be seen from the trail was the sky above. Here a long-sleeved shirt and trousers were
essential, for cogon grass has narrow, sharp edged leaves that cause painful
scratches and cuts on bare skin. Except
for one small area near the center of the field, the path was usually dry. Even the wet area was easily crossed.
Then came about
four miles of rather steep climbing in a deep forest. As trails go, this one was not bad, except in the rainy season,
which had begun soon after we arrived there.
With the rains it became a muddy "bitch." It ended at a
cleared, level area, about a half acre in size, where our camp was
situated. We were not surrounded by a
jungle. We were in a mahogany forest
with heavy underbrush. Rotting stumps gave
evidence that the area may have been logged many years previously. To fade into almost impenetrable jungle, we
needed to go not more than a quarter of a mile to the north. The whole journey-San Narciso to S3L-could
be made in about two and a half hours.
When
Vera’s men built the structures in our camp, they had erected one rather large
headquarters building. It was a
two-room affair, bamboo framed with buri palm leaves for roof and siding, all
tied together with rattan around a dirt floor.
The main room, about ten feet wide and twelve feet long, served as both
a radio room and a mess hall. A small
table and bench in one corner held the communications equipment. Down the center of the room ran an
eight-foot-long mess table with benches.
All were made of bamboo and rattan.
Added to this room was a smaller one furnished with a bamboo platform
padded with a woven buri palm mat for a bed.
Atop this was my jungle hammock, the bottom resting on the palm mat, the
top tied off on four corners so I could be protected from the oversized
mosquitoes by its netting and from the leaks in the roof by its top. This room was my private quarters. Nearby was a cookhouse, and surrounding all
were many individual lean-tos so that everyone had a place of his own. Each of these had a roof over a bed similar
to mine. The Igorot preferred to sack
out away from us, in the woods,
When I arrived in
camp from San Narciso, I found everything in order. Sergeant Nery had no problems to report in operating the radio;
code clerk Chester Konka had been able to decode all the incoming messages, and
none of them required major quick decisions; Eldred Sattem had the generator
working-the batteries well charged; and George McGowan was biding his time
awaiting my return. Our
"army" Ochigue, Madeja, and the guards-had set up a good security
program.
With dinner,
everyone got a small but much appreciated ration of tuba. We had no meat, no fish, no camotes. just
rice, and tuba to wash it down. Food
was becoming a problem.
After dinner we
gathered around the mess table. Under
the light of homemade lamps sitting on the table-halves of coconut shells or
flat tin cans from army ration packages filled with coconut oil, with rolled
rags for wicks-McGowan, Sattem, and I played poker, gin rummy, single and
double solitaire, and cribbage. Sattem
had made a cribbage board and taught us the game. We spent many evenings in a running competition for high stakes,
which none of us took seriously. When
this activity got boring we would bet on whether or not the gaku lizard
climbing the wall would catch the fly it was stalking. We read books borrowed from people in
neighboring towns. Konka wasn’t much
for drinking, card playing, or betting on lizards, so he sat around reading, or
honing and stropping a straight razor he had come upon in his travels. I'm sure he constantly thought of the use he
could have made of this instrument if he'd had it when he was a prisoner of the
Japanese. These were the activities
that kept us from going stir-crazy.
Tonight we had a
special treat. Mayor Medenifla had
given me a prasco of his precious nipa wine.
I poured a small amount in tins for each of us. This was valuable "drinking whiskey'
and would be rationed out over several evenings. With each sip we screwed up our faces, for without a mixer or a
chaser it was pretty bad stuff, but we liked the effect.
Sattem, always
concerned about running low on fuel for the battery charger, said,
"Egads! This stuff would eat the
varnish off a bar. I wonder if it would
burn."
He touched a match
to his tin. Immediately it began to
glow with a pure, blue flame, not unlike the flame of canned heat. Sattem was sure this liquid would serve as
fuel in an emergency. The germ of an
idea I'd had when visiting the mayor in San Narciso now had sprouted. I made a mental note to get some nipa wine
from Medenilla to stash away for use if we should run short of gasoline. Eventually we got some, but we drank it
all. It wouldn’t have been enough to charge a battery, anyway.
Nile Sattem and I
were engaged in a hot cribbage game, George left the room. I assumed that he was going out to
"wring out his sock." "Bob," he said when he returned,
"the general sent you a present." "OK." He was disturbing
my concentration on the game.
"A
new cook."
"What's
wrong with the old one?"
"Nothing. But he thought you’d like this one
better."
With that he
beckoned to someone beyond the doorway.
In stepped the general's concubine!-the young girl who had sat at the
end of the desk in the schoolhouse.
"What
the hell's going on here?" I exploded.
"Say
hello to Maria, your new cook."
With all my other
concerns when I met the general at the schoolhouse, I had not really looked at
her. I had noted that she was better
looking than his wives, but that was all.
Now here she stood. About
sixteen years old, five feet, two inches tall, about one hundred well arranged
pounds – a dark-haired, light-skinned dream.
This was just the kind of trouble I didn’t need in my camp!
I
gulped. "Hello, Maria. Welcome to S3L. Glad to have you here."
What the hell else could I say?
This was no dowdy,
rotund Mrs. McGuire, who had lived with us on Palapag Mesa. This was a voluptuous young thing who would
have all of my men at each other's throats trying to get next to her. Now I had a reason to find Verds camp tomorrow, to thank him profusely for his
kindness, but to refuse his generosity.
What
did I ever do to have General Vera thrust upon me?
Later,
when I was safely inside the netting separating me from the flying insects,
Maria appeared at the side of my bed.
"Lieutenant,"
she whispered, "I come in?"
"No,
Maria. I've walked a long way today,
and I'm very tired. Perhaps tomorrow
night."
"Please,
Sair. The mosquitoes. Very bad, and I have no net." What's a gentleman to do? Let a lady be eaten alive by mosquitoes?
At
dawn, Dominador "Doming" Trafalla brought my toothbrush, razor, soap,
towel, and a mess cup of hot water for my morning toilette. Doming was my houseboy. I don't know where he came from. He just sort of appeared in our midst one
day, and gradually attached himself to me.
The arrangement was sealed when I fitted him with a pair of jungle
boots. Now he was mine forever! Fourteen or fifteen years old, short and
skinny, he was surprisingly strong and very eager to please me. We got along well. Our only problem was that his English was practically
nonexistent, as was my Tagalog. We
communicated in sign language or by having one of the other Filipinos serve as
an interpreter. This arrangement became
somewhat exasperating at times, but all in all he was a good kid and I was glad
to have him with me. Gradually he
learned a smattering of English, which helped considerably.
After breakfast,
Maria, Doming, George, and I set out to find Verds present camp. I felt that I might need George's diplomatic
skills when talking to the general. I
knew about where Vera was located-some twenty crow's-flight miles north of our
camp, several miles inland from Ragay Gulf near Buenavista. It would be a circuitous thirty-mile hike a
ten-hour walk I wasn't anxious to take.
Barefoot Maria kept
pace with us on the hike, although she was reluctant to return to Vera's
camp. When we stopped to rest along the
trail, she said to me, "I am afraid to go to that place, Sair. The general he will punish me."
"Why? You did nothing wrong."
"Oh, but Sair,
he will think I not try to please you in bed.
He will tie me to tree again.
"Tie
you to a tree?"
" Yes,
Sair. He is very mean to me. Many times he say I do not obey. Sometime he say I sleep with soldier. But I not do that! But he punish me anyway.
He tie me to tree with no clothes on!
Everyone look. He makes me
shame!"
I began to have
second thoughts. Should we return to
S3L? Was there a way to keep her in our
camp without creating havoc?
Impossible. With a camp full of
horny males? Inconceivable. She had to go back. But, she also had to be protected from the
general. I hoped that "diplomat
George" could pacify Lt. Gen. Gaudencio V. Vera.
As we neared Vera’s
camp, a guard with very military bearing stopped us on the trail. With his rifle at port arms, he told us we
must await permission to approach the camp.
This soldier recognized McGowan and Marfa, but, unlike our approach to
Robles's radio station several weeks earlier when a rather lax guard recognized
George and allowed us to pass, he did not have the authority to allow anyone past him. He had to send a runner to Verd’s camp to
get that permission.
The runner
returned, and we proceeded. As we
approached the camp I found myself sniffing the air expecting the stench I had
encountered at the general's previous camps.
My nose encountered no discomforting smells.
Vera had come down
the trail to meet and greet us. George
and I shook hands with him, and Maria faded into the bushes.
"It is good to
see you, Lieutenant Stahl," he said.
"And George. Do you like
being with the lieutenant?"
"Sure do,
General. But we ain't eatin' as good as
we did in your camp." George always knew the right thing to say. He had a career awaiting him back in the
States-as a politician.
"We will eat
good tonight," said the general, "And tomorrow I will show you my
camp."
And eat good we
did. In addition to the ever-present
rice, we had baked camotes, barbecued manck, and a dessert of grated coconut
covered with a sweet syrup.
We sat around the
table after dinner drinking nipa wine.
Tired and well fed, the booze got to me rather quickly. Meanwhile, Verd’s wife number one had moved
to a spot next to me, while wife number two sat near George. Maria was present and stayed near the
general. She dodged my glances, as I
did hers. I was worried about her, but
figured no harm would come to her – at least overnight.
Doming had prepared
a place for me to sleep. I was woozy
from the drinks, and he led me to my bed.
He had help from wife number one, who wanted to, or had been ordered to,
join me. Whether she did or not I don’t
know, for I passed out. I couldn’t ask
Doming; after all, he didn't speak much English.
An excess of nipa
wine will guarantee one the granddaddy of all hangovers. That is what I had when we sat down to
breakfast. Obviously, Vera had pulled
out all the stops for the previous night's dinner; in the morning we had a weak
slurry of rice – with no trimmings. He
had wiped out his larder.
Vera led George and
me through his camp. It was
different. There were no soldiers
lolling about doing nothing, as had been the case in the previous camps I had
seen. Everyone in sight seemed to be
engaged in a chore of one sort or another.
He had, as Mayor Medenifla had said, cleaned up his act.
Through the fog that
surrounded my brain I noticed that this camp was clean and well organized, and
the general made sure he pointed out all the improvements he had made in the
living conditions. He made a special
effort to show me the straddle trenches, which he now thought were an excellent
idea.
Back in his
headquarters we sat to talk. Gradually
my mind was getting back in focus, but it wasn’t easy.
“General,”
I said, "I'm impressed by your camp.
It is so different."
I
didn’t want to say that he was no longer living in a pigsty. Yes, this was a different camp-and this was
a different man than I had met a month or so ago. No longer was he a braggart, a boor, a horse's ass. He appeared to be interested in preparing to
fight a war rather than in killing his family's political enemies and robbing
the civilians. Quite a large order!
Then
he chopped me off at the knees with flat-out truth.
"Lieutenant,"
he said, "I have thought a lot about our first meeting. I was going to wipe out your little group
and take your guns. You did not fool me
with your message to General MacArthur and his answer to me."
I
gulped, and had nothing to say.
He continued,
"When the war began I was in the Philippine Scouts. Sure, I was not a soldier with a gun. I was a cook." The Philippine Scouts,
formed in 1899, was a part of the U.S. Army.
The Philippine Army was created in 1935, with General MacArthur as
military advisor. In 1936 MacArthur
became field marshal of all Philippine military forces. As tension mounted in the years following, MacArthur’s
command was expanded to include the Philippine Department of the U.S. Army, the
U.S. Forces in the Philippines (USFIP).
MacArthur's command became the U.S. Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) in
1941, encompassing all the U.S. and Filipino military forces in the
Pacific. Many of the American troops
became a cadre assigned the task of expanding the Philippine Army by training
raw recruits in a hurry. War against
Japan was imminent.
"When the
Japanese overran my country," Vera continued, "my Scout battalion was
wiped out. I ran to my relatives in
Lucena. Then the Japanese came there,
and we all ran to the hills. We would
be a guerrilla army. But with no money
we soon became bandits in order to survive."
This conversation
was getting a bit heady for me, and it was rapidly clearing the fog from my
brain. I began to feel like a priest
must feel when hearing a confession.
"You made a
fool of me in front of everybody with your fake messages. I was very angry then and I really wanted to kill you! But I couldn’t, because everyone would know
I did it because you made me a-ho", do you say it?-a dunce."
“General,"
I began, "I did not mean to-"
He held up his hand
and continued, "You also ended my career as a bandit, for no one would
take me seriously any longer. I had to
change my army into a real guerrilla army."
He went on with
hardly a pause. "That was
good. I want to get back at the
Japanese for what they have done. After
all, I am a Philippine Scout! I will
fight them."
One of my
assignments on this mission was to try to organize the guerrillas into
resistance forces. Here was one falling
into my lap. Don't louse it up now, Bob! "General,
you made a wise decision," I blurted.
I didn't know what to say next.
George bailed me
out. "General Vera," he said,
"how can we help you? And how can
you help us?"
Before Vera could
answer, I said, "If you really want
to help, fighting the few Japanese in the area is not important right now. This will make them mad and send them
patrolling to find us. Then I will have
to go on the run with my station. That
would not be good, because we would be off the air a lot. Spying and getting information is much more
important. Can your men do this?"
"Oh, yes,
Lieutenant. But they need to know that
they have support. They need evidence
that General MacArthur is behind them.
The only evidence they will understand is arms."
"I
will get you arms. Not tomorrow, but
soon. I will give you whatever arms I
can spare, but they are only a few. And
I will try to get more."
I could see that my
statement did not sit well with Vera.
He was not happy with an unsecured promise.
Filipino
and American guerrillas
"General. Do you have a man you can really trust – one
with courage – to go on a mission?”
"Colonel
Figueras will go."
"Good. Send him to Samar, to Major Smith. I will ask the major to supply him with arms
for you, and if he has none I will arrange for Figueras to go to Mindanao to
get some from General Fertig."
I didn’t know if I
could come through on this promise, but why not take a chance? There was, however, one promise I could make
and keep.
"If you are
willing to have your men gather information, you will need a radio
station. I will send a man and a radio to
you, to send the information to me, and then to Australia."
Now
the general was happy.
"And General,
when the time comes to fight the Japanese and help the Americans return, we
will have plenty of arms, I promise you."
The subject of
Maria still remained. This was a
ticklish problem I dreaded to face, but face it I must.
After dinner, a
meager meal much like breakfast had been, I said to Vera in a confidential way,
"Thank you, General, for sending Maria to me. She was delightful."
This I said with a knowing leer.
"But, I have an eye on one of the Medenilla girls in San
Narciso." I hadn’t yet seen the
Medenilla girls. "She would be
very unhappy if she knew I had a beautiful young woman like Maria in camp with
me. Don’t you agree?"
The general, with a
leer better than mine, said, "Oh, yes!
But if that does not work out, you can take Maria back."
I
felt relieved. Maria was safe-at least
for the time being.
By
mid-July we were hurting for many of the essentials of our existence: food,
clothing, medicine, money-not to mention everything needed to keep a radio
station operating and an espionage network going. These problems would not begin to be fully resolved until
November, following the landing at Leyte on 20 October.
Obviously, no one,
guerrilla or Japanese, knew the timing or the location of the American return
to the Philippines. Some submarine
supply runs went to Fertig in northeast Mindanao; others went to the guerrilla
groups located along the east coast of central Luzon, led by Col. Bernard Anderson, Col. Russell Volckmann, and Maj. Richard
Lapham. These were diversionary tactics
to keep the Japanese thinking that these might be the landing sites. I was directed to go to the east coast of
Luzon, near Alabat Island, and take soundings of the depth of the offshore
waters, not a pleasant assignment because of the Japanese presence extending
there from the Manila area. I was
certain to be seen; just what GHQ wanted, I later learned. This was another diversionary tactic.
The heavy shipments
of arms and ammunition went to the guerrillas on Leyte and Samar. None came to us. We were not supposed to be actively engaged in warfare against
the Japanese. Our mission was still one
of gathering intelligence information, reporting ship, aircraft, and troop
movements, and pinpointing military installations. It would have been nice, however, to get some non-combative
supplies, which we desperately needed.
Somehow, however,
we managed to muddle through. Many
times, when I became most depressed and was certain we could not continue to
operate because of some shortage or equipment failure, we would find a way to
circumvent the problem-a substitute or an ersatz material that filled the
need. My NCS was never off the air, not
for one day! Most of the credit for
this feat belongs to my American POW friends and to the high-class Filipinos
working with me.
Many months later,
when I was back on our side of the line, I greeted with mixed emotions the news
that we had intentionally been omitted from the supply operations to keep our
activities low key in the eyes of the Japanese. It was small consolation to learn that we had purposely been left
high and dry – that our miserable existence had been planned by the top brass because, they alibied, we were doing
such a fine job on our assigned mission.
I couldn’t help thinking: With
friends like that, who needs enemies?
Remaining
low key and avoiding physical contact with the Japanese, while very desirable,
was not possible. I recognized our
limited ability to carry out an armed confrontation, and the occasional threat
of enemy action against us gave me spates of emotion. Fortunately, these events were not frequent.
We would undergo
occasional days of turmoil when the Japanese would try to put us out of
operation. With a pair of launches
equipped with their "Chinese clotheslines," they would try to
determine our location by reading directional azimuths from each launch. By plotting these on a map, they could
pinpoint the location of our station.
Usually we spotted these rigs when they moved into position, so we would
go off the air at the main station until the launches departed, temporarily
turning the net control activities over to one of our other stations.
Occasionally,
however, we were not as diligent as we should have been, and before we shut
down our station they would zero in on us and put ashore a party of Japanese
troops, perhaps twenty or thirty in number, to seek us out. When this happened we would call on General
Vera (fortunately I had supplied him with a radio), and his men would
"discourage" the Japanese, sending them packing. When Vera's men were
not nearby, it fell upon me and my small "army' to set up an ambush. Always in our favor was the reluctance of
the Japanese troops to penetrate very far into the jungles. The Japanese occupation army was made up of
conscripts, not regular army troops, and they were not the bravest of
soldiers. A few bursts of rifle and
submachine gunfire from a concealed position would disperse them quickly
On one occasion, however,
they came after us in force and routed us completely. We were able to hide our main station equipment quickly, albeit
effectively, and then we scattered in many directions. Doming and I went with one of our Igorot
guards to his tribe's barrio, a full day's hike away, where we spent the
night. Primitive is primitive, but this
was unbelievable! Situated along a
small stream similar to the one that ran through our camp on Palapag Mesa were
lean-tos that would barely afford shelter to a small animal. Only one was of decent size. It was the home of the tribe's leader, and
it served as the cooking, eating, and social center.
When we arrived, I
was quickly surrounded by a horde of nearly nude pygmies who stared at and
touched my white skin and felt the clothing I was wearing. The chief, probably the patriarch of a very
inbred family, did a lot of talking and made much fuss over the tribesman who
had led me there.
Eventually we
ate. I have no idea of what the food
was. All I know was that it tasted good
to someone who was very hungry, as was 1. Added to the food was a drink that
wasn’t bad and had a great alcohol content.
There was much revelry, and I smiled, not knowing why, and ate and ate. Not understanding their language did not
assuage my hunger.
Doming was able to
understand their dialect with help from our guide, but with difficulty. He tried to keep me aware of the gist of the
conversation, but, as usual, Doming and I had problems "in the translation."
It came time to
retire, and I told Doming to sling my jungle hammock between a couple of trees.
Doming said,
"But Sair. The teniente [head of the barrio] say you
sleep in house."
"No,
Doming. I will sleep in the woods in my
hammock."
“But, Sair,"
he continued. "The teniente say
you to sleep with she," pointing to the chief's daughter. "You make white sanggdl for he!"
Now I had a
problem. His daughter's face, shape,
and size were anything but enticing.
More important, this was headhunter territory. Was this an offer meant only as a gesture, one that was to be
politely refused? Was it a sincere
request, perhaps even an order, which could not
be refused? Did he really want a
mestizo grandchild? A wrong guess could
result in the loss of one's head – mine!
We left the barrio
early the next morning, heading back to see what was left of S3L. I pondered the decision I had made the
previous night. Obviously, I had made
the right choice.
Our Cupboard Is Gettin Bare
CHAPTER
12
Our
supply shortages grew more serious. Fuel
for our battery charger was a major headache.
I had brought from Samar one fifty-five gallon drum of gasoline-enough
for two months of operation, at most.
That drum took on a hollower sound each day.
I was awaiting a
sailboat from Samar with more supplies, including gasoline, which Colonel Smith (yes, he had been
promoted) had promised to send to me. I
doubted it would ever come, for Smith was being chased all over Samar by the
Japanese. He would have great difficulty
getting the supplies through enemy lines to the coast and into a sailboat. I began to look for alternate sources.
Whenever I wearied
over the pauper like existence we were leading depression sessions that were
becoming more frequent by the week-I would take a long walk to try to get my
thinking straight. Doming and I took
one of these strolls along the black sands of Tayabas Bay, north of the town of
Catanauan, in mid-July. We spent the
day checking the stash of fermenting coconuts we had planted along this beach
from time to time on previous hikes.
"Drinking whiske " made this way is really not too hard on the
taste buds. It's not as smooth as
Kentucky bourbon, but not nearly as harsh as nipa wine.
The recipe is
simple. Take one well-matured
coconut. Strip off the husk down to the
hard shell. Locate the spots that
indicate where its three umbilical cords had connected it to the mother
tree. Punch small holes at these spots,
penetrating the shell and the meat to the liquid filled center. Blow into one of the holes while allowing
the air to escape from the others to ensure the presence of air inside. Insert a small amount of sugar (a
tablespoonful does the job nicely) into the center. Fashion three plugs and fit
them snugly into the holes. Bury the
coconut six inches below the surface of the warm sands. Wait at least a week before removing it from
its "oven." Remove the plugs and pour. Or, if you are in a hurry, drink directly from the container. Voila!
You have a cupful of sweet-tasting alcohol not unlike Southern Comfort
(if you have enough imagination).
We dug up several
of the well-aged nuts to take back to camp, replacing them with a new
batch. Then we continued to walk along
the beach. We were opposite the north
end of Mompog Passage, a portion of the seaway traversed almost daily by
Japanese merchant and naval ships and frequented with regularity by our
submarines. Apparently a ship had been
sunk there recently, for I spotted two drums floating offshore that looked
suspiciously like gasoline containers.
One was quite far out in the deep water; the other was close to shore in
the shallows. I waded out to the nearer
one, floated it to shore, and rolled it up on the beach. We had no trouble concealing it in the
underbrush, and I was elated when I found that it was what we
needed-gasoline. We now had a reserve
supply.
Not a half hour
later we met a Filipino carrying a one-gallon can on a pole over his shoulder.
"What
have you there?" I asked him.
"Gasolina,"
was his reply.
"Where
did you get it?"
"It was given
to me by the Japanese, Sair, my pay for my work for them, Sair."
"But
what will you use it for?"
"I do not
know, Sair, but I will take it home because this is my pay and perhaps I can
trade it for some rice for my family, Sair." It seemed that every sentence
a Filipino said to me contained a liberal sprinkling of the word
"Sair."
"I
will give you five pesos for it.'
"Japanese
pesos or Philippine pesos, Sair?"
"Either
kind."
"Then, Sair, I
will sell it to you for five Philippine pesos or fifty Japanese pesos,
Sair."
That
was about the going rate of exchange, although a very high price for
gasoline. I bought it.
Our fuel problem
now seemed to be settled, for that Filipino passed the word, and soon other
natives who worked for the Japanese sold their gasoline to us. I was overjoyed at the stockpile of fuel we
were collecting.
Before
long we were forced to use the Japanese gasoline.
"God
dammit!" I heard Sattem say as the charger sputtered and stopped. Soon he came into the radio shack.
"Bob," he
said, "Remember the guy that brought two cans of gas in the other
day?"
"Yeah,
I remember. We said he must have worked
extra hard."
"Well,"
said Sattem, "That so-and-so didn’t work hard. He just took his gas and poured half of it into an empty can, and
topped both of 'em off with water."
We
had been conned by an illiterate native.
Our
cache of gasoline helped for only a short while. Unfortunately, it was 100-octane gasoline – airplane gasoline –
and not suitable for our battery charger.
It was too powerful. Result: A
blown head gasket. Problem: We had no
spare gaskets.
We were forced to
fall back on an emergency steam-powered charger, which I despised because it
was such a problem to transport. I
would gladly have had it captured by the Japanese. Smith, over my objections, had insisted I bring it with me. I had a disloyal suspicion that he wanted
someone to take it off his hands,
The copper boiler
was about eighteen inches in diameter and stood five feet tall. To a Kentucky moonshiner it would have been
a dandy part for a still. The bottom
housed the firebox; a copper tube ran from the top to an independent steam
turbine connected by a direct-drive shaft to the charger. A steam-powered pump sucked water from a
bucket and forced it into the boiler to maintain the water level. Attached to the top of the boiler was a
safety valve-which never worked. A
pressure-controlled, steam-driven blower was supposed to keep the fire at the
proper intensity to maintain constant steam pressure. It, too, never worked.
A complex piece of
poorly conceived machinery, this abomination, although it did the job of
charging the batteries after a fashion, required constant manual control of the
fire and, when the pressure got too great, of the safety valve. I had visions of it blowing up. Eventually it did.
Sattem, meanwhile,
went off in search of gasket material.
This seems to be such a common item in our present society. But in an area without roads, cars, engines? We found engine gasket material nonexistent
in our local neighborhood jungle. In
Catanauan, Sattem found a Chinese merchant who had a source of asbestos. In his bodega,
warehouse, he had a kitchen range – a gas stove! Like the "porcelain pony' I had found on Samar, here was
another true Oriental anomaly. Why would
anyone have a gas stove a hundred miles from the nearest gas line? Bottled propane was not exactly a household
item in the jungles, either. Sattem
negotiated a price of one hundred Philippine pesos for the stove. He didn't even remove it from the premises. He just tore it apart and brought all of the
asbestos back to camp.
At best, this was a
poor solution to the gasket problem.
The asbestos was more or less laminated, but it lacked a strong binder
and did not lend itself to use as a gasket.
Sattem, though, would not be defeated.
He carefully cut gasket after gasket of the shape needed, and when one
blew he would pull the head of the charger's engine and replace the
gasket. This was a daily
chore-sometimes requiring two replacements for each charging. Konka pitched in to help him.
Bernard
Anderson was an Air Corps officer who had been around when the islands
fell. He now had a guerrilla
organization in the Sierra Madre mountains in east-central Luzon. Bob Ball was with him, or at least nearby,
but he could not send messages directly to Smith on Samar or to Fertig on
Mindanao, and reaching Australia was impossible. Ball's 3BZ radio had died, and he was limited to using one of the
small radios-an ATR4. We took over
relaying for him.
Anderson promised
to send me gasoline, for Ball's radio was Anderson's connection with the
outside world, and he depended on us for relay services. Like the gasoline promised by Smith, it
never arrived. Over a period of three
months, each shipment from one or the other was lost to the Japanese or to
hostile guerrillas-usually the Hukbalahaps, a growing Communist third party-or
was purposely ditched by couriers, who were, justifiably, afraid to try to move
so bulky a material past the Japanese.
Maj. Richard Barros
had been with Anderson almost continuously since the surrender to the Japanese
in 1942. Recently he had moved from the
Baler area in east-central Luzon to the Bicol Peninsula in southern Luzon,
there to set up a guerrilla unit under Anderson's command. He had selected a location directly east
across Ragay Gulf from my station on Bondoc Peninsula.
From
there, he and his group of six guerrillas, former Philippine Scouts, ranged
along the coast as far south as Balacan.
They made hit-and-run forays against the Japanese moving along the
highway and railroad in the vicinity of Naga, one of the larger towns in the
Bicol area.
Anderson had
received a submarine load of supplies in early August-a rendezvous we had been
instrumental in arranging-and sent some supplies to Barros. Among these supplies was a radio with which
he planned to set up a coastwatcher station, with messages to be relayed by
us. Barros sent an operator to my
station to arrange codes and schedules.
Several days after
Barros's operator left us, we still had not established radio contact. I considered visiting his camp to help him
get the station in operation.
Naturally, I had an ulterior motive.
He had supplies, food I should hope.
Perhaps even some cigarettes! I
might as well see what I could scrounge from him. While I contemplated this visit, Barros sent a guide to my camp
with a message asking me to come to his camp to help his radio men get on the
air.
Sattem and I hired
a banca and crew in San Narciso and, with Barros's guide, set sail for the east
across Ragay Gulf. A favorable wind
from the northwest put us across the bay, some fifteen or twenty miles under
the darkness of night, to a sheltered cove on the Bicol side of Ragay Gulf. As the sun appeared over the mountains we
were already hiking down the beach to "Ohio Headquarters, Calayan
Command." I never did learn the source of this moniker for Barros's
hangout. As we neared a particularly
rocky scarp pressing on the beach, Pablo Montalvo, our guide, said, "We
will go up here, Sair."
And up we
went! Straight up the side of the
cliff, hundreds of yards up and up, winding through the boulders that formed
this rocky crag. We had not had
breakfast. In fact, missing meals was
almost a daily occurrence during this period, and physical stamina was not my
long suit. We hadn’t climbed very far
before I had to take a rest break. I
peered over the edge of the cliff to see how much progress we had made. I couldn't see the beach from which we had
started the climb, for the cliff extended out over the bay. All I could see was shallow water with rocky
ledges showing mere inches below the surface-sure and sudden death if one
should slip and fall. I shrank from the
edge, and for the rest of the climb the wall of the trail and I became one.
Two more intervals
of climbing, broken by short rest pauses, brought us to the top of the cliff
and onto a small plateau boasting a cornfield, a fast-moving stream, and a
small hut.
"Whew! What a climb!" I exclaimed. "That's enough work for me for this
day!"
"But
Sair," panted Pablo, who, besides being our guide, was Barros's number one
agent, "We are not yet there, Sair.
We must go farther."
"How much
farther is this place?" I couldn’t see anything but clouds above us, and
surrounding the field where we stood were what looked like impenetrable
jungles. Surely this must be the end of
the trail.
"It is very
near now, Sair." Pablo could see that I was worn out, and I'm sure he knew
that if he told me we still had more than a mile to go I would surely give up. "Perhaps we can get some food here,
Sair."
The hut-a guard
post on the only trail into the camp-was occupied by some guerrilla
soldiers. They had breakfast rice on
the stove, and we invited ourselves in for a helping. Then out into the jungles we headed, following a trail through
vines, bushes, trees, and dense undergrowth.
It was, however, less steep and only a mile long, and all at once we
were out of the jungle and into another clearing, which proved to be our
destination. Here, at last, was
"Ohio Headquarters."
At the door we were
greeted by Barros-six feet, four inches of man thinned down by the privations
of the jungles to a bony framework. But
even without the weight he had lost during the past three years, he was big.
With him was a much smaller, elderly American, Ted Sutdes, who had
been held prisoner by the Japanese for a long time at Naga but had been among a
group that was sprung from the prison by guerrillas. He had been employed by a mining company in Camarines Norte when
the surrender came. Along with many
others, Americans and Filipinos, he had been sure it would be only a question
of a month or so until the Stars and Stripes would again fly over the
Philippines. That was more than two
years ago.
Our walking into
this camp was like Stanley meeting Livingstone, only there were two Stanleys
and two Livingstones. Handshakes and
greetings-all of us taking unsurpassed delight in seeing fellow
countrymen. We sat there most of the
morning swapping stories about our escapades and accomplishments over some
day-old tuba. Barros broke out a pack
of Luckies, and Sattem and I both vowed to ourselves that as long as there was
a cigarette in that pack we were staying. The smokes alone made our trip
worthwhile, climbing the cliff included.
Our conversation
drifted to the main purpose of my visit, and my use of the word
"radio" triggered Barros to action.
He was all for heading out to his radio shack then and there. He obviously was irritated.
"Why does GHQ
send half-trained radiomen from Australia?" he griped. "They might be good code clerks, but
what's the good of that if they can’t get the damned radio going?"
"Let's wait
awhile until I rest up," I said.
There were still some cigarettes in the pack. "Then we'll see what's wrong.,,
So we sat and
chinned some more. To a stranger it
would have appeared to be an old lady’s sewing circle. Barros told us of having just picked up a
native who had turned information about his location over to the Japanese and
that he was expecting trouble soon. About
a week later the Japanese did come after him, and even though he had set up in
this seemingly perfectly defendable location, he had to abandon it and make
several quick moves until the enemy patrols gave up the search.
After having a bit
of rice for lunch, Barros said, "Now, let's get up to the shack and see if
you can get us on the air."
"Did
you say up'?"
"Yes. The station is on top of that hill behind
us. It's only about a mile."
Another mile of
hiking and climbing, if anything like what we had done earlier in the day,
would do me in, I feared. But off we
went, climbing and crawling through more jungles until at last we reached the
pinnacle. I was sure there wasn't a higher
spot on the entire island of Luzon. For
a defensive position this was 11 the tops," I told myself, and laughed to
myself at the pun.
The radio station
was situated at a perfect spot for coastwatching. It commanded a view of the eastern portion of the Sibuyan Sea and
many of its islands: Burias, Romblon, Sibuyan, Tablas, and, in clear weather, a
portion of Mindoro. In fact, from this
vantage point they would be reporting many of the convoys we were
reporting. Also, from here one could
see where we had sent a Japanese launch to its doom in the Sibuyan Sea on
Memorial Day.
The radio operators
were trying to make some contacts, but with no success. It wasn’t their fault. They hadn’t been schooled in proper
operation of the type of equipment they were using. In fact, they had never even seen this kind of equipment in their
training, nor had I ever seen a radio like this before. This was not an unusual situation, for the
Army sent a lot of equipment to us that might be classified as junk-equipment
long ago labeled unfit for combat use.
Here was a perfect spot to dispose of these purchasing mistakes, for we
were not in a position to complain.
This radio was a
low-output field radio powered by a hand-cranked generator. After tinkering with it for a short while, I
found that both the transmitter and the receiver would drift off frequency
without warning, and radio contact would be lost. I had learned with "The Dutch Set" on Samar that it was
necessary to maintain a steady speed when operating the bicycle-powered
generator, or else a similar frequency fade would result. As soon as we had mastered the equipment's
idiosyncracies and established the steady cranking rate for the hand-powered
generator, we were able to get it working fairly reliably. I was satisfied after I contacted Nery at
S3L and later reached Ball, who was up north with Anderson. These were the two stations Barros would
need to contact with regularity.
Now it was late
afternoon. Time for us to head
home. We had had our cigarettes. Barros's station was on the air. The purpose of our trip was fulfilled. With a couple of packs of cigarettes and
precious few packs of Army field rations in our possession, Barros sent us on
our way. I had hoped his generosity
would extend to include a tommy gun or two, or perhaps a new pair of shoes, but
that was wishful thinking.
Now we had to climb
down those dangerous cliffs. I hoped I
would be surefooted on the trail, because in my mind I could still see those
shallow waters below the Cliff, and failing into them was not exactly how I would
like to die. Pablo skillfully led the
way, though, and soon we were back to our sailboat.
Night was well upon
us. The wind had shifted and was now
coming from the northeast. The boat's
skipper said that was good-almost perfect for the return trip.
We moved out from
shore. The night grew darker. The stars disappeared behind a bank of
clouds. The wind grew stronger and
quite chilly. I grew sleepy, and was
soon slumbering in the hold, stretched out on a board, with a buri mat for a
blanket.
I don't know how
long I slept before I was suddenly awakened by a loud "Crrraack!" I
heard the Filipinos shouting to each other, and louder than the rest was
Satte’s voice yelling to them in English.
They understood very little English, but he must have thought that by
yelling louder than they he could make them understand him. I scrambled out of the hold and onto the
deck by the mainmast.
"What's
up!" I shouted to Sattem. He
didn’t have to answer, for no sooner were the words out of my mouth than a
great wave rolled across the deck. I
grabbed the mast to keep from being washed overboard.
"Typhoon! Typhoon!" I heard someone shout. And it was.
The rain was coming down in torrents, and the monstrous waves were picking
up our boat and tossing it at will across the heavy seas. I dived back down into the hold to see what
had made the noise d= awakened me. Two
large beams ran from each outrigger, connecting it to the boat, but the forward
beam of one was no longer fastened. The
waves had pounded it loose from the supports.
I knew we would capsize immediately without outriggers, so I grabbed
some heavy rattan and worked furiously to lash the beam fast, then searched out
some stout rope with which I fastened it even more securely.
This done, I went
back topside. The wind was bending the
mast almost to the breaking point, the supports creaking under the strain. Sattem was aft on the tiller with one of the
natives, while two other natives held the boom into the wind.
"Crrraack!"
Another outrigger support let loose.
Again I jumped down into the hold, grabbing a piece of rope as I went,
and lashed another beam fast.
But in the hold I
was now knee-deep in water. She’s going to be swamped! I said aloud to myself. I went back up on deck to man the pump-an
inefficient gadget consisting of a bamboo tube with a smaller bamboo pole
inside and some sort of makeshift flapper on its end to suck up the water. I pumped feverishly while two natives lay on
and clung to the outriggers to keep the boat balanced as she rolled over the
crests of the waves.
And the rain
continued its downpour. The sky was
black, the water was black. It was
impossible to see anything even from one side of the sailboat to the other. Keep
pumping! I told myself Keep pumping! Tell them to run free.
No. Save your breath. They can't
hear you anyway. Save your breath and
keep pumping! Look at those outriggers
bending. They're going to break and we'll capsize-sure. But keep pumping! Keep her afloat! The
sail’s ripping. Hang on! Here comes an
other wave!
After an eternity
the rain stopped, but the waves rolled and the wind blew gales. I pumped and pumped-how long I don’t know,
but I wasn’t tired any more. I was too
scared to be tired. Then the wind began
to subside, the waves ebbed. The sky
began to clear. Dawn was approaching.
I looked aft and
could see Sattem and the native-it was Pablo-frozen to the tiller. Both were too tired to move-too tired to
care if they moved or not. The natives
came in from the outriggers and fell on the deck, exhausted. My pump sucked wind, and I, too, fell on the
deck.
The sun rose, and
we all crept out of the stupor we were in.
There to the west, was Bondoc Point.
We were forty miles off our course.
The sail was ripped to shreds, and the outriggers were barely hanging
on, but the storm was gone and we were still afloat. Thank God!
All morning long we
lay fitfully sleeping on the deck of the boat, adrift in the middle of the
mouth of Ragay Gulf. One by one we
stirred to life and surveyed the damage.
Without a sail we were powerless.
The captain put the leo-leo oar off the stern, and we took turns
applying the back-and-forth motion that moved us ever so slowly toward the
shore. When we ran aground on the
shoals, we were still a quarter mile from the beach. Here we spent the night.
When morning came,
Sattem and I waded ashore and began the long trek north to San Narciso, where
we stayed the night. This had been my
first move over water since my encounter with the Japanese launch on 30 May. I vowed to stay off boats – a vow I didn’t
keep.
The
bamboo telegraph told me that another radio station, not of my network, had
been established at Bondoc Point.
Although I had made an unscheduled landing near the Point at the end of
the ill-fated trip to Barros's station a month previously, I had not seen or
heard of this intrusion on my territory.
I had developed a possessive attitude toward Bondoc Peninsula. It was m domain, and I didn't take kindly to
inter lopers. I decided to go there to
investigate.
This was in early
October, just a few weeks before MacArthur's landing at Leyte. The Army and Navy were flooding the area
with radio stations. Security needs
kept us oldsters from knowing of the impending landing. The station at the Point was a part of a new
network based on Negros Island and specifically a part of the Leyte landing
operation. They weren't anxious to tell
me what they were doing, although they admitted they knew of the existence of
station S3L and had been told to relay through my station in an emergency. I told them there was a fat chance of that
happening unless I got a battery charger somewhere.
They had a spare
gasoline battery charger they lent me-insurance that my emergency relay service
would be available if they needed it. I
sometimes think they gave it to me to get me out of their hair. With it and a drum of regular gasoline, I
headed back to my station.
We were to be back
in business soon. But not as soon as I
expected. En route to the Point, Doming
and I had been able to "book space," that is, hitch a n-de, on a banca
headed our way out of San Narciso-this despite my vow to stay off of
boats. We were not so lucky on the
return and had to hike the forty-mile trip.
In itself that would not be so bad, for hiking was our one dependable
mode of transportation, but we encountered bad weather. The wind coming from the northeast carried
with it torrential rains, which promised to be our weather for some time. With this storm, I was glad we had not been
able to get a boat for the return trip.
I
had hired four cargadores to tote the generator and the gasoline. We planned to take an existing path that was
more or less on a straight line inland from the coast between Bondoc Point and
barrio San Andres to eliminate a roundabout shore route and shorten this leg of
our journey. From there we would follow
the shore, passing Alibijaban Island to barrio Sabang, then to San Narciso, and
finally to our camp. We were hoping for
a decent meal in each of the stopovers.
We set out on the
hike to San Andres. In dry weather this
would be an easy half-day's walk. The
rain made it slightly more difficult.
It created a sucking mud that grabbed the foot on each stride, making it
slow going. Normally small streams had
become swamps, knee to hip deep, that we had to cross. Bypassing them would require hacking a new
trail – for who knows how far? -- to round the swamp and get back to the
existing trail. By late afternoon we
had finally reached San Andres – muddy, wet, and weary.
The barrio's
teniente took Doming and me into his home, sending the cargadores to a nearby
house. Doming rigged rattan
clotheslines around the firebox to hang our clothes to dry. Our backpacks were relatively waterproof and
our spare clothes dry. Packing like
this was an art we had learned the hard way a long time before.
I stripped off my
clothes and began to towel off Then I saw them. Leeches! I had heard
about these slimy, slithery, blood-sucking bastards, but never met up with them
before. They had latched onto me in the
damned swamps we had waded through earlier.
I grabbed my jungle knife and began to shave them off my legs.
"Alto! Alto!
Stop, Sair!" Doming cried.
No Tagalog here. His shouts were
in Spanish and English.
He tore my knife
from my hand. Never had I been disarmed
by anyone before, but he did it so quickly I didn’t realize it happened. He threw the blade to the side and took a
small stick from the fire, one end glowing, and touched it to a leech. I could feel the burning on my skin under
it. Slowly the leech withdrew its head
from the hole it had burrowed into my hide and fell to the floor. Again and again Doming repeated this act
until I was free of them. They had gotten
into my pants and attached themselves to my legs, my ass, and to other more personal
and pain-sensitive parts. And how the
spots where they had taken up residence stung – burned – bled!
I took some
sulfanilamide powder and dusted it onto the spots as best I could. I did the same for Doming after he had
removed them from his body. Now he
showed me what I had been doing wrong with my knife. I had been decapitating them, leaving the problem part, the head,
embedded in my flesh. Now there was no
way to extract the head. The infecting
germs were there to stay.
By the time we
reached San Narciso two days later I had more than thirty boil-like sores to
contend with. Most healed, eventually,
but I still had some of the sores when I got to the Army medics in Manila,
months later.
I stayed with the
Medenilla family in San Narciso for several days while Doming took command of
the four cargadores to transport the
charger and gasoline to our camp. I was
a pretty sick pup, but good food and rest made for a fast recuperation, except
for the boils, which by now had become tropical ulcers.
Seven
thousand islands and rocks make up the Philippine Islands. Of these, less than half have names, and
only four hundred are occupied. In the
1940s there were few urban centers: Manila, the capital, on Luzon; Zamboanga
and Davao on Mindanao; and Iloilo on Panay.
This list might be stretched to include
Cebu on Cebu Island, and Baguio, the resort city located high in the mountains
130 miles north of Manila. In these
metropolitan areas, modern buildings, paved streets, utilities, public
transportation, and a host of other conveniences were the rule, and cultural
and social activities were as varied and interesting as those of modern cities
of comparable size throughout the world.
Away from these urban centers was "the great beyond," where 90
percent of the population resided.
There these amenities did not exist.
San Narciso, the
town I most liked to visit, was a typical ma)or center in a rural, remote
location. To call it a commercial hub
would be stretching the truth, yet it was the only place where trading took
place on the western shore of Ragay Gulf.
There stood forty to fifty houses, some built of milled lumber, but most
framed with bamboo. All had thatched
roofs. Set quite far apart and randomly
scattered, they formed two erratic streets paralleling the shore. The only public utility was a water supply
font in the center of the town, the water piped in from a mountain stream a
half mile away.
A one-room,
wood-framed schoolhouse with a corrugated-steel roof was the site for education
for all grades through high school, but without extracurricular
activities. Desks and benches would be
moved to positions along the walls to provide a hall for social activities.
The town boasted a
Roman Catholic church with a full-time priest, who was always available for
confessions and other pastoral duties.
The church observed all religious holidays, including, I suspect, some
conceived locally, for they usually concluded with a fiesta.
Along
the shore was a rickety municipal pier where, on occasion, a passing merchant
in a parao would stop to vend his merchandise.
I can only remember one sailboat tied up there regularly, available for
rental if someone could afford it.
Surrounding the
town were small farms where rice, corn, pineapples, and vegetables were grown. One of these tracts was a cattle
"rancw' where a few scrawny cows and an equally decrepit bull were penned
in a small area. The bull had long
since lost the desire to copulate and no longer needed to be separated from the
females. There, also, were several
carabao available for hire for moving cargo.
There were no
stores. Manufactured items such as
clothing and furniture were supplied by cottage industry. There was one restaurant, a house where the
mistress provided meals for travelers, and it was there one could rent a space
to sleep for the night. Money did not
change hands, except for the services provided the travelers or for dealing
with the vendors who brought goods to the dock. By bartering, goods and services were traded. We, of course, had little with which to
barter, so people accepted money from us.
Few could remember
when Mayor Medenilla first took office.
The citizens of the town, and of the surrounding barrios under the
town's jurisdiction, found him to be a fair and impartial leader. Thus, he served as mayor, secretary,
treasurer, tax collector, and justice of the peace, all without pay. His tenure was limitless.
Social life
consisted of visiting with friends and neighbors, an activity that can become
tedious in a hurry, so to break the monotony people would visit friends or
relatives in adjacent barrios from time to time. However, this was a major undertaking, for there was no public
transportation available. To make such
a visit, one must walk, or else paddle a baroto along the coast to get
there. With luck, one could get a ride
on a sailboat that happened to be going in the right direction, or ride a
carabao that was returning home after toting a load to some distant location. Such luck was a rarity.
Small wonder, then,
that a fiesta was the big thing in the lives of these people. These simple get-togethers added a semblance
of zest to an otherwise extremely boring life.
Any excuse at all was ample reason for a fiesta.
First came the
food: rice, camotes, exotic coconut dishes, papaya, pineapple, bananas both
fried and raw, surrounding a suckling pig roasted on a spit, complete with
uniquely flavored herbal sauces. Next
came the entertainment: surprisingly
good home-grown talent sang, danced, and played solo instrumental offerings. One young man played classical guitar
selections on what would be considered, anywhere, a professional level. Proud parents would steal sly glances at us
to sense what we Americanos thought of their children's talents.
Then it was time
for the dancing. A live band played
tunes for the native dances, one involving jumping over bamboo poles to a
rhythm I could never master. They also
played waltz music and American jazz of sorts.
We soon learned that, while dancing with the local girls, it was not wise to hold them too
closely. The parents on the sidelines
liked to see a bit of daylight between the partners. Married couples did not join in the dancing; they did not partake
of displays of this nature.
While there was
much comic by-play between the young Filipinos and us Americans, we were not
beyond being observed with suspicion by the mothers of the maidens in our
corner of the hall. They needn’t have
worried, for we were just there for a chance to relax from the everyday stress
of the times.
Assignations were
not a part of the game. The young
ladies were under constant surveillance, for their mothers considered virginity
the principal participant in a wedding procession to the altar. In a town so small, it would be nearly
impossible to carry out a tryst. But,
young love being what it is, there were some unexpected pregnancies on
occasion. Fortunately, none of my men
were involved.
At the fiestas, we
Americans gravitated to a cluster of girls who were the socialites of the
town-the mayor's daughters, Fe, Nacling, and Esther, their cousin Polly, and
several others. We were joined by a few
young males who, had we not been there, would have been considered the local
swains and the eligible bachelors. Fe,
sweet sixteen, was the standout, for she was a vivacious coquette whom everyone
admired. George McGowan was her
choice. Nacling, a bit older but only
slightly less comely, liked Sattem.
Esther was a child. The rest of
us played the field, although I was attracted to cousin Polly, who seemed to be
an enigma. Perhaps I was the one who
sought a challenge.
Policronia
"Polly" Fontanilla was several years older than her cousins. She had gone to college and was now the local schoolmarm. While her skin was a darker brown than that
of her cousins, she was, nevertheless, very attractive. Quiet and demure, she was overshadowed in a
crowd by her more effervescent
cousins. Yet, she displayed a certain
coolness and poise that no doubt came from having spent several years in the
urban atmosphere of the University of Manila.
I enjoyed her company because we were able to converse about things
other than the earth-shattering events of the day in San Narciso. Since leaving Mrs. Victoria, the doctor's
wife at Borongan, Samar, Polly was the first woman I had met who had been
educated beyond the three Rs in a rural school. We spent hours together in conversations on subjects sometimes
far beyond my comprehension. To me,
this was a purely platonic friendship, and I never came close to making a move
on her, for I feared that such an approach might queer our good
relationship. Besides, she showed no
indication that she considered me more than a pleasant conversationalist who
would be moving out of her life as soon as the war was over.
How wrong could I
be? In Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, NankiPoo laments that
Katisha "misconstrued my customary affability into expressions of
affection." Polly, too, did this.
As a result, she gave me a silver ring much like a wedding ring. How was I to know that this was a Filipino
custom in which, by accepting the ring, I was indicating that we were engaged,
and that I was to give her this ring when we were wed! I had been stateside for a while when I
received a letter from a cousin of hers explaining all this to me and asking me
to return the ring.
Food
and clothing shortages, too, became a major problem. In June I had looked on five hundred pounds of rice as a goodly
supply. It wasn’t. By mid-July we were getting close to the
bottom of the pile. Though we had
previously been able to purchase small amounts of this staple, we could no
longer buy rice even at highly inflated prices. We augmented our food supply with camotes and some edible roots,
and on rare occasions with overpriced chicken or fish purchased in one of the
nearby towns. A salad delicacy in
today's markets was a staple for us-coconut palm heart. Yet, every tree chopped down for its heart
was one less to supply both green and ripe coconuts, which were also a large
part of our diet.
Green coconuts were
an especially good source of sustenance on the trail. You could quickly quench your thirst by chopping off the end with
a bolo and drinking the sweet liquid inside.
Then, splitting the nut with a whack of the bolo, you could scrape out
the thin layer of soft pulp beneath the shelf and fill your stomach with
it. This pulp made a satisfying lunch,
but it would not be very long before the hunger pangs returned. The meat from mature coconuts, the kind used
for grating and baking, stayed with you much longer, but mature coconuts were
scarce.
The food shortage
became more widespread in the region.
The locals raised barely enough food for their families, they said, and
grew more reluctant to sell some to us.
Yet, for a fiesta, abundant food seemed to appear like magic. I had many mouths to feed-the number varied
depending on who was sent where and who arrived in camp unexpectedly-so I faced
a major problem. We needed a
"procurement officer," someone to roam far and wide to find food for
us.
But who should it
be? I couldn’t send a native from a
nearby village, for natives had a habit of straying from a mission for personal
reasons. (I once had a native guide take me on a circuitous three-day hike to
reach a destination about a half-days walk from the starting point. He had decided he wanted to visit some of
his relatives on the way.) My Filipino soldiers and radio operators could not
be spared from their regular tasks, nor could I do without Satte’s mechanical
skills or Konids cryptographic capability.
This left McGowan as the one to go far afield to seek food for us.
George was not
reluctant to take on this assignment.
In fact, he relished it. He was itching to get out of camp and circulate
around the peninsula. More than the
rest of us, he was, one might say, socially oriented. He enjoyed being with the Filipinos, especially the women, and
was not against drinking all the tuba he could find. With his charm-and a pocket full of money he might well be able
to locate food supplies better than anyone else in our group.
This he did, but it
took some time. Meanwhile, our rations
in camp got smaller and smaller. I took
to sending one of the Americans with a couple of the Filipinos on short but
unnecessary missions to the nearby towns and barrios. There they would be fed by the citizens, because it was a matter
of pride to feed visitors as well as possible.
Nearly a month went
by before small amounts of food started to trickle into camp, sent by George
from quite distant places. Meanwhile, 1
appealed for a shipment of rice from Colonel Smith. Like the gasoline, it was promised but never arrived. I also sent a man to Vera's camp to see if
the general had food to spare. The man
returned with about twenty pounds of palay and an equal amount of corn. Corn was the lowest item on the food chain,
except for unknown roots grubbed from the forest. He told me that Vera had given him every grain of rice he had,
and a goodly portion of his corn supply.
This from the man I had considered my enemy at one time, the man who had
planned to kill my party for its guns.
We took to shooting
large birds, then small birds-any wildlife that moved-and roasting them on a
spit. We tried to hunt wild cattle
descendants of domesticated herds that were turned loose there years ago after
efforts to establish a ranching industry failed. These animals, now scrawny, degenerated runts, had become jungle
wise and were quite elusive. We had
little success in bagging them. Monkeys
were easier to shoot and quite tasty, although, in my mind, this came close to
cannibalism.
We were desperate
for food during late July, August, and
part of September. Then George's
efforts started to pay off. He returned
in mid September with a pig in tow, and rice to go with it! And, George had also hired a procurer who
continued to send a minimal, but certainly appreciated, supply of food to
us. By this time I probably weighed
less than a hundred pounds. I had
weighed 155 pounds when I got off the submarine on Mindanao.
We
had just finished stuffing ourselves with roast pig and rice. I wanted to hear George tell of his travels
during the last two months.
“Bob, there ain't
much food out there. I covered the
whole damned peninsula all the way to the Point, and the little bit I sent you
was all I could find.
"But I
shoulda’ gone to Aurora first." Aurora was a small town on the west coast
of the peninsula, about forty miles south of our camp. "The Puyal family there fixed me up
with most of the food I sent you.
They’re nice folks-especially the daughter, Loring." Half
facetiously, half seriously, he added, "I wanta' marry that gal."
The Puyals had
lived in the Luneta section of Manila, one of the most exclusive areas, before
they "buckwheated" to Aurora.
Months later, after I got to Manila, I looked for their home. It had been destroyed, as had been all of
the area of the city lying south of the Pasig River.
"I stayed
there with them for a couple of weeks.
That's where I got this." He pointed to a scar below his left ear.
He continued,
anticipating the question I was about to pose.
"Nah. I didn't get this at
the Puyal house. I was settin' there
drinkin tuba in a coconut grove along the shore, and a Jap launch pulled into
the bay. It dropped anchor about a half
kilometer out."
He paused, and it
was easy to see that he was rerunning the events of that day through his mind,
even to the extent of changing his facial expressions as he did so. Then he continued.
"Soon as the
Japs dropped anchor, the guerrillas brought a machine gun – one they’d captured
from some Japs in a skirmish-down to the shore and aimed it at the launch.
"Well, they
weren’t doing nothin’ on the boat, just anchored there, so I sent some guys to
get a big baroto.
"Now
it was almost dark, so we got in the baroto with the machine gun and a couple
other guns-two guys paddling, two with the machine gun, and four of us with
carbines. I figured in the dark we
could get close enough to throw a hand grenade or two at 'em."
Again he paused,
grinned, then said, "I guess I had too much tuba."
He went on: "I
guess I figured that if they saw us coming we could open up on 'em with the
machine gun to keep 'em from firing back at us. We were about in pitchin' range
with a grenade when they started shootin' at us. We opened up with the machine gun, but it jammed. Everybody in our boat panicked and went
overboard but me. I stood up with my
rifle and started shootin' at the Japs.
Some lucky son of a bitch hit me in the neck."
He
laughed. It was a funny event now that
it was over.
"Knocked me outta
the boat, and I hadda swim to shore.
Never did throw the hand grenade.
But we sure scared the bastards away.”
The
slug had entered his neck under his ear and exited about two inches
behind. It was just a deep flesh wound,
but it was worth a Purple Heart. He
treated it with sulfanilamide powder and had no trouble from it.
They
say an army travels on its stomach. I
disagree. An army travels on its feet,
and those feet need shoes. The men who
journeyed from Samar to Bondoc Peninsula with me each had two pairs of GI shoes
and one pair of jungle boots. I had the
same. In addition, I had brought along
a small assortment of boots of both kinds in several sizes, and these were
stashed away as future replacements.
That assortment disappeared in a hurry.
I supplied a pair to Robles, who had been on Bondoc since January and
was practically shoeless when we arrived.
Several pairs went to the three POWs, who had been shod with worn-out
Japanese army sandals when we met. Some
went to local Filipinos who were barefoot when they joined our group, although
many could not find a pair small enough to fit and decided to continue to go
without.
In a short time the
many miles of hiking and the sloshing around in the mud began to take its toll
on the footwear. The leather in the GI
boots rotted because we were never able to completely dry them; the canvas tops
of the jungle boots wore out quickly, as did the sneaker like soles. We took to saving our shoes and boots by wearing
hand-fashioned wooden clogs around the campsite. And socks were soon only a memory.
Worn-out khaki
trousers became cutoffs, to go with a tattered GI undershirt. The only time we were attired in a chino
uniform was when we dressed formally to go to town. Shoes were only worn when we were on the trails or in fancy
dress.
While the lack of
clothing was an inconvenience, and we griped and bitched about the shortage, it
was not a deterrent to our operations.
We could have done our job in loincloths if necessary. Fortunately, we did receive some supplies
before we were reduced to that kind of attire.
Nevertheless, we presented a ragtag appearance in our fatigues and
combat gear. There could be no doubt
that we were irregulars, and not all the sort you would want to invite home to
meet Mother or chance upon in a dark alley.
A Different Kind of War
PART
4
The Leyte Landing
CHAPTER
13
When
I think of the period from June to October 1944, I consider it to be analogous
to a three-ring circus. All of us in
that circus had a common purpose-the defeat of the Japanese forces in the
Philippine Islands. But, like circus
performers, we each had a distinct "act" leading toward that end, and
that is what we did, ignoring for the most part the other acts going on around
us.
For example, I
would send a message to Charlie Smith saying that a courier was on his way to
him with some important papers. Once
that courier departed my station, he was on his own. I was not with him, could not help him, could not rescue him if
the need arose. I had to put him out of
my mind for the time being. I had other
priorities. The main priority was
survival-mine, that of my men, and that of S3L. Our part of the show had one prime objective: to keep the
information flowing to GHQ in Australia, assuming that GHQ was still where I
left it.
A month later I
would send Smith another message asking if the courier had arrived yet. My message would usually end, "I am
worried." Not infrequently Smith would respond, "Courier arrived a
week ago." Smith had been busy with his
priorities. Informing me of the
arrival of the courier and the materials was not important to him.
Sometimes the
priorities of one of us stepped on the toes of another of US. For example, when
Lieutenant Labrador departed Samar the day after our rendezvous with the Narwhal in May, Smith ordered him to
sail up the east coast of Luzon to carry supplies to Bob Ball, who was located
in the guerrilla sector controlled by Bernard Anderson. On completion of that mission Smith would
have another important job for him.
Four months passed before Labrador arrived at my camp on Bondoc
Peninsula. I advised Smith of his
arrival, and received the following message in response:
LABRADOR ARRIVED
TOO LATE, AS JOB DONE SINCE YANKS LANDED.
HAVE HAD NOTHING BUT TROUBLE FROM ANDY.
TRIED TO GET LABRADOR FOR THREE MONTHS TO DO SPECIAL JOB FOR GHQ FOR
WHICH HE IS SUITED. ANDY PROMISED TO
SEND HIM TO YOU SEPTEMBER 20. NO USE
FOR HIM NOW. PLEASE HAVE HIM MAKE
REPORT OF ACTIVITIES SINCE JUNE 20.
Labrador's report:
We landed at the
rendezvous point on June 2. We were attacked by hostile guerrillas there, but
pacified them and they contacted Major Anderson for me.
Anderson came, took
over all the supplies and equipment and told me Ball was in the Bicol
region. Ball's agents arrived five days
later and took Lieutenant Ancheta, two operators and one radio to Ball.
I
was put in charge of communications at Anderson's headquarters.
During the last
week in July I was sent to Ball with one radio and my spare parts. Ball did not need me and sent me back to
Anderson four days later, where I stayed until September 11 when I left for
Bondoc Peninsula.
I was delayed south
of Infanta because there was no banca available for me, and because of a
Japanese raid on the camp. I left there
September 20 for Tayabas, a five day trip by trail and banca.
I departed Tayabas
September 30 for Pagbilao, arriving October 10, thence by banca to Robles four
days later and arrived at S3L October 17.
Smith and GHQ had
had far different plans for using Labrador's talents, but once he was out of
Smith’s sight he was a pawn to be used by others. As it was, Labradof's skills as an undercover agent went unused
as he ran from place to place serving as a courier and a radio operator. I have no idea what Labrador's special
talents might have been. An individuals
safety and security dictated that such information was only available on a
need-to-know basis, and I didn’t need to know.
It would be safe to
say that each of us operated on a day-to-day basis inside imaginary plastic
domes, ignoring the others. just like circus performers, each did his job – or
tried to.
Despite
our problems – primarily, failing equipment and lack of food and supplies-our
workload increased by leaps and bounds during the summer of 1944. My network of watcher stations reported more
shipping movements; agents' stations were sending in more information and
collecting more documents to be sent to the south; the guerrillas to the north
had more information traffic to be relayed; and Vera's station was overwhelming
us with reports of troop movements and Japanese defenses. Many of the last I took with a grain of
salt, but my orders were to send all information, be it seen, heard, or
rumored. I was not to try to assess and
evaluate it-just send it along.
Sergeants Herreria
and Cardenas, my "Men in Manila," brought extremely useful
information out of the city. Not only
did they report on the activities there, but they had also established rapport
with some Filipinos working for the Japanese-Puppet Government officials who
were secretly loyal to the Americans.
From them they obtained information of activities on the Japanese
homeland gathered while the officials were on goodwill trips to Tokyo.
On one of their
early trips into Manila, Herreria and Cardenas had taken with them one of
several radios we had that were designed, supposedly, for espionage use in
close quarters. We called them
"suitcase sets." Packed inside a container a bit larger than a briefcase,
these units consisted of a transmitter that emitted a one- or two-watt signal
(sufficient to broadcast across town, perhaps, but only under perfect
atmospheric conditions), a receiver, and a clear-glass, acid-filled, wet-cell
battery with a woefully weak 110-volt converter to charge it. They bore no resemblance to the suitcases
and briefcases toted by businessmen in Manila – or any other city, I would
guess. Heavy and clumsy, like a
suitcase full of bricks would be, they could have drawn more attention only if
they had borne a sign: "Nab me! I'm
a spy!"
Before
they reached the populated suburbs, Herreria and Cardenas put the radio to a
test. As a communications tool, it
failed miserably. After considering
what it might do to their security, they dropped it into Manila Bay.
We distributed the rest
of these sets to several of our watcher stations, there to be used as decoys,
purposely left behind (although they had been rendered inoperable) if the
station was located and overrun by the Japanese, in hopes that the enemy would
think they had successfully eliminated the station and would abandon the chase.
Sergeant Nery and
two operators spent day after endless day sending and receiving message
traffic, sometimes operating two radios side by side to clear the backlog of
messages. Often I spelled them to ease
the pressure. When we thought we were
caught up on the work, a piece of equipment would break down and cause another
logjam. To say it was hectic would be a
gross understatement.
By September,
Japanese air traffic was plentiful. It
was obvious that MacArthur, Nimitz, and party were approaching the
islands. Large flights of Japanese
planes were ranging out in search of the U.S. Navy ships. Now we were given the additional chore of
reporting these flights, a high-priority assignment. The reports were sent in a brevity code, which needed no
enciphering, but they had to be passed to GHQ within ten minutes of the
sighting or they were useless.
Early in October we
were told that all messages to and from Anderson, Lapham, and Volckmann were
"extremely urgent." This could only mean one thing-submarine
rendezvous. Around 16 October, the
submarine Sero missed contact with
Volckmann, and his thirty-five tons of gear was taken, instead, to
Anderson. Within a day or so the Nautilus successfully met Lapham and put
ashore a demolition team to destroy roads, railroads, and bridges leading to
Manila from the northeast. The same
submarine dropped off a similar team at Anderson's location to destroy like
facilities east of the city. The time
had come for the guerrillas to go into action in force against the enemy.
Suddenly all was
quiet. What is more noticeable than the
sudden cessation of din? Aside from the
dits and dahs of far-distant stations, there wasn't a sound on the air. The silence was broken on the afternoon of
19 October with this message from GHQ-
DESIRE THAT YOU
ALERT ALL RADIO STATIONS AND COAST WATCHER STATIONS TO MAXIMUM VIGILANCE FOR
DETECTION AND IMMEDIATE REPORT ANY NAVAL OR AIR MOVEMENT DURING PRESENT
OPERATIONS.
I tuned in the
Voice of Freedom (VOF) station. Nothing
there, but I decided to just sit on that frequency for a while.
I awoke before dawn
on Friday, 20 October, the radio still tuned to America's propaganda
frequency. Still nothing. I stepped outside, stretched, urinated, and
got a drink of water. I thought 1 heard
the drone of many airplanes. No. It's
too early. The Japanese don’t start
flying until daylight. But the sound
grew louder Soon, though still concealed by the darkness, formation after
formation of Japanese planes was passing overhead, the noise saying they were
coming from the northwest-Manila heading toward the southeast. We could distinguish between the sounds of
American and Japanese planes. We had
also developed the ability to guess with accuracy the number of planes in a
flight by the sound if the planes were not visible. I had never guessed numbers of this magnitude.
I ran to George's
lean-to, which was next to mine, awakened him, and told him to get everybody
up. Then I went back to the radio,
switched to the AWAW (air warning) frequency, and started to bang out a
message. I couldn't give any details on
the makeup of the flights, but at least I could let someone know there were
flights of Japanese planes on their way.
We had a busy
day. Radio operators Advincula and
Ramos took our standby sets and headed to two of our lookout posts. Nery and I stayed by the main set and
relayed anything we could. I don’t remember
having taken time to eat anything that day.
Our efforts were
rewarded. Late in the day, far to the
south of us, we saw a flight of American planes-Navy Hellcats, I presumed, take
on a flight of Japanese bombers with Zeros in escort. We whooped it up when we saw two bombers and three Zeros go down
in flames. Sadly, two of our planes
were also shot down.
In the evening we
all sat around the radio listening to the VOF station. Its silence was now broken. It told of the American beachhead being
established – not on northeastern Mindanao, as I would have guessed, but on
Leyte Island. We cheered, drank any
alcohol we could find, toasted everybody we could think of, and got gloriously
drunk. Soon we would be going home!
The Filipinos were
not about to let a little thing like the Leyte landing interfere with their
plans for a fiesta. On 23 October 1944,
men, women, and children, about fifty families in all, arrived in the area of
station S3L and established temporary campsites in the surrounding woods. For the next three days and nights we
enjoyed good food – barbecued pig on a spit, baked and fried chicken, fried and
boiled fish, rice, camotes, and many desserts; good drinks – Japanese beer,
nipa wine, tuba gathered fresh each day; dancing to live music; and general good family fun. My favorite young man with classical
gttitar-picking skills entertained us for hours. On the morning of the twenty-sixth, the Roman Catholic priest
from San Narciso arrived and invoked a blessing on the festivities and on the
one being honored. No matter that the
honoree was not a Catholic. The people
had gathered to join with me in celebrating my twenty-fourth birthday. 1 stiff
treasure the memories of that affair, and still have some of the gifts I
received that day. It was, without
doubt, my most wonderful "surprise" party.
Search and Rescue
CHAPTER
14
Our
lives and our operations changed dramatically after GHQ was established on
Leyte. The Philippine campaign was far
from over, and much was to be done before the Japanese were driven from the
islands. Forward echelons of GHQs
communications units were promptly established after Leyte was recaptured. No longer was there a need for us to relay
messages from the coastwatcher, weather, and air warning stations to KAZ, since
all were within range of direct contact with these advanced units. True, we still had the important job of
collecting information from our agents, and of protecting them from detection
by the Japanese. This task consumed
much of our time and effort.
However, many of
our sustenance problems simply ceased to exist. For example, we soon had an adequate food supply-in far less time
than would have been required for a new crop of rice or other viands to grow to
maturity. As others before me have
rationalized one of Jesus' miracles-"The Feeding of the
Multitudes"-what might have happened there in Biblical times could have
been happening here. One or two
families reached into their hidden stashes of food and offered some to their
neighbors. Others followed suit. Island citizens suddenly stopped hoarding
food, for the fear of starvation was no longer present. Now food was plentiful, and was shared.
Rescued
pilots are taken to a PBY for evacuation
The mercenary
guerrillas who had ambushed couriers en route to me and stolen whatever it was
they were carrying now wanted to get on the bandwagon. They came to me seeking "recognition'
so that we would supply them with arms.
Most I ignored, secretly hoping they would get their just due from their
peers after the war was over.
Since the Japanese
were occupied elsewhere, we had little trouble moving supplies and equipment
around. Now, instead of being a part of
an advance warning system, we became a part of the operations in a war zone.
Our primary task
became search-and-rescue missions, hunting for Allied pilots who had to ditch
their planes in our area. On 21
November we received the first of many requests for this service from KAZ:
DESIRE YOU TO MAKE
EVERY EFFORT TO RESCUE NAVAL FLIER FORCED DOWN 19 NOVEMBER. LAST SEEN ON RAFT NORTH OF MARINDUQUE
ISLAND, 13 DEGREES 43 MINUTES NORTH, 121 DEGREES 51 MINUTES EAST.
This was soon
followed by another message:
IMMEDIATELY DESIRE
INFORMATION AS FOLLOWS: NUMBER OF AMERICAN FLIERS NOW IN YOUR AREA SPECIFYING
THOSE WHO SHOULD BE EVACUATED IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE OF PHYSICAL CONDITION. ALSO TWO RENDEZVOUS POINTS WHERE ALL
PERSONNEL COULD BE ASSEMBLED FOR SEAPLANE PICKUP ON FIVE DAYS' NOTICE. NOTIFICATION WILL BE SENT YOU OF- RENDEZVOUS
SITE CHOSEN AND ETA OF RESCUE PLANE.
NANIE, RANK, SERIAL NUMBER AND PHYSICAL CONDITION AND EXACT WHEREABOUTS
OF EVERY RESCUED FLIER IN YOUR AREA AT PRESENT SHOULD BE SENT AS AVAILABLE IN A SEPARATE MESSAGE
I followed this on
24 November with the following:
SIX NAVY FLIERS
SHOT DOWN AT BONDOC POINT ARE IN MY AREA.
PHYSICAL CONDITION OK. BEST
RENDEZVOUS SITE IS IN RAGAY GULF OFF BARRIO ABUYON, FIVE MILES NORTHWEST OF SAN
NARCISO, TAYABAS. APPROXIMATE POSITION
13 DEGREES 37 MINUTES NORTH 122 DEGREES 43 MINUTES EAST. HAVE THREE YANKS FORMERLY POW ESCAPED FROM
JAPS WHO NEED MEDICAL CARE BADLY.
REQUEST THEY BE INCLUDED AS PASSENGERS ON RESCUE PLANE.
Then this from
GHQ-.
PLEASE ADVISE NAME,
SERIAL NUMBER AND CARRIER OF FLIERS.
CIRCUMSTANCES DO NOT PERMIT EVACUATION IMMEDIATELY. ADVISE IF FLIERS AND FORMER POW COULD SAFELY
BE TAKEN TO MARINDUQUE FOR EVACUATION.
STAND BY TILL DEFINITE RENDEZVOUS CAN BE A GED.
I did not
participate in or witness this, the first of many pickups, for it took place
near Bondoc Point and was arranged by the "interloper" radio station
I had visited months ago. Sattem,
Konka, and McGowan were not on the passenger manifest. It would be several months before they were
evacuated.
Probably the most
interesting of the rescue operations was the evacuation of Lt. Willard Davis of the Twenty-fifth Photo
Reconnaissance Squadron. Davis was a
Photo Joe, flying a P-38 made light, fast, long range, and high flying by
stripping it of its armament. The plane
carried only a pilot, cameras, and lots of gasoline.
Davis and I were
sipping nipa wine with Mayor Medenilla on his veranda in San Narciso. It was mid-January 1945.'I'he Americans had
conquered Leyte, Mindoro, and lesser islands, had landed at Lingayen Gulf and
other strategic points, and were now engaged in an all-out assault on
Manila. The Japanese had no troops to
assign to seeking out and destroying station S3L. I was small potatoes. I
was able to spend practically all of my time in town with little fear of
capture, maintaining contact with Nery at S3L by radio. This I appreciated, for I was in sad
physical shape. Now weighing less than
a hundred pounds, I had constant stomach cramps, full-fledged dysentery,
tropical ulcers, scabies, and occasional bouts of malaria-fortunately not of
the malignant variety.
Davis described his
ordeal: "I had flown out of Mindoro on a photo mission over Formosa. I had no trouble getting the pictures-just
went there over the top of everyone else, swooped down and made a couple of
low-level runs over the island, then climbed up and out and headed home. But then I encountered bad weather, got
lost, began to run out of daylight. T
was so low on fuel, I knew I had to ditch."
He
paused. We sipped and all lit
cigarettes.
"Well,"
he continued, "I dropped down out of the overcast and saw a small island
with an inviting beach that looked like a great landing strip. I went around, cut back to stall speed,
prepared to land. But the ground was
going by so fast I had visions of me and my plane being scattered from hell to
breakfast if the wheels should dig into soft sand.
"I figured
jumping might be better, so I went back upstairs to about a thousand feet. I was back in the clouds and couldn't see
where my parachute might take me. I
chickened and came back down to the island.
"Now I had no
choice. I was down to a teaspoon of
fuel. I did a wheels-up landing, slid
across the beach, and veered into the water.
I was bounced around a bit, but I wasn’t hurt.
"The plane
settled in about three feet of water. I
crawled out, grabbed my cameras and survival gear, and went up on the
beach. Your guys saw me go in and
picked me up the next day."
All
this had taken place on Templo Island, 18 January 1945.
At high noon, 28
January, a PBY-A Catalina flying boat-came to Ragay Gulf opposite barrio
Abuyon. While it circled afloat on the
water a short distance offshore, two natives took Davis, his cameras, and me to
its side in a baroto.
We had received an
airdrop of supplies about a week previously, which had included several
.50-caliber machine guns.
Unfortunately, they were useless to us, for there was no oil in their
buffers-and no containers of oil in the shipment. Without buffer oil the guns would jam immediately.
I crawled up into
the PBY and told the captain of my useless buffers, hoping he would have some
spare oil on board to give me. He had
none-but he gave me the buffers out of
his own guns!
"Don't worry
about it," he shouted over the noise of the engines. We’ve got two escorts
up there who'll get me home."
I protested, but
not much. I needed those buffers.
Being overgenerous
can sometimes get one in trouble, and this was one of those times.
The PBY circled, breaking up the smooth
surface of the water to make takeoff easier, then headed out into the slight
breeze coming from the northeast. The
plane was no more than a hundred feet above the water when three Zeros appeared
from over the mountains behind us. The
escort planes each took out after one of the Japanese planes, leaving the third
Zero to attack the flying boat.
The PBY dropped
down until it was barely above the surface of the water. Had there been any chop, it would have been
splashing in the waves. The captain
reduced speed and maneuvered the plane in a large circle. The Zero climbed, then dove with guns
blazing. Missed. Again and again the Zero climbed, dove,
blazed, missed. The Japanese pilot
couldn't dive low enough to get an accurate shot at the PBY and still pull out
of his dive before crashing into the drink.
After what seemed
to me to be an interminably long time, but was only a few minutes, the fighters
returned. One went after the Zero, and
the other went off as escort as the PBY climbed out and disappeared from our
view toward Mindoro.
I know they made it
back to base safely. I was evacuated to
Mindoro in the same manner several weeks later, and I met up with Lieutenant
Davis again. To show his appreciation
for what we had done, he took me for a ride, piggyback, in his P-38. He climbed, dove, looped, spun --
"wrung it out, " as the
pilots used to say. It was a real
thrill for me, although I popped my cookies.
Not
all our search missions had pleasant endings.
We received the following message from KAZ:
LT. JOHN WOLF AND
LT. EDWIN ROBINSON MARINE PILOTS
BELIEVED TO HAVE CRASHED VICINITY OF NORTHERN BURLAS ISLAND 13 DEGPEES 10
MINUTES NORTH 123 DECPEES 00 MINUTES FAST AFTERNOON JANUARY 6. DESIRE YOUR
FORCES BE NOTIFIED AND REPORT IMMEDIATELY ANY INFO RECEIVED REGARDING ABOVE
PERSONNEL.
We located their
crash site some sixty miles northwest of Burias Island, near the town of
Catanauan, close to our station. The
following is an eyewitness account:
The
pilot apparently tried to land on the shore but the plane was out of control
with the right wing burned away. At
first contact with the ground the body of the pilot was thrown clear of the
wreckage. Identification could not be
made as the body was mutilated beyond recognition and no identification was
found. The plane proceeded into the bay
and sank to 30 feet. The body of
Robinson was recovered from there, definitely identified by dog tag. He also was wearing a pistol, serial number
909823. Robinson was buried in
Catanauan cemetery and Wolf was buried at spot where his body was found. The plane was numbered 313.
Airdrop--Finally
CHAPTER
15
Although
our food supply problem eased dramatically with the Leyte landing, we still
needed military supplies, and we weren’t getting them in any effective
quantity. I couldn't understand
why. No AIB penetration party anywhere
in the islands could match our record for consistency of operation. Since our first radio broadcast to Charlie
Smith on 31 May 1944, the day we arrived on Bondoc Peninsula, we had not been
off the air for one single day.
Whenever we were forced to move, we hopped, skipped, and jumped while
operating temporary stations in order to maintain radio contact of some sort
(admittedly not always the most efficient operations) until the move was
completed. Even Fertig's station, KUS,
on Mindanao, the most efficient of the guerrilla stations, had closed down for
at least one period of twenty-four hours during a Japanese siege. Surely our performance should count for
something.
Instead,
we were being treated like the poor country cousins, forced to mooch supplies
by the handful. It seemed we were being
given no choice but to kiss the butts of the Johnny-come-latelies. These relative newcomers to the neighborhood
had landed on the Bicol Peninsula on the opposite side of Ragay Gulf less than
two weeks before the Leyte invasion.
Worse, we were called upon to be the go-betweens to arrange further
supply runs for the Bicol bunch, with none coming to us.
We
needed supplies-and lots of them. Vera
now had a well-trained, well-disciplined guerrilla army. He claimed a force numbering close to a
-thousand men, and I don't believe that number was much inflated.
Where
Bondoc Peninsula joins the mainland 'in the area around Lopez, the mountains
press close to the sea, forcing the only road and railroad connecting the Bicol
region to the Manila area to traverse a very narrow coastal plain for some
thirty miles. Here, in the Atimonan
bottleneck, Vera's army could be extremely useful. Properly armed and equipped, they could effectively cut off the
movement of Japanese troops and supplies from the Bicols to the ManHa
area-troops now moving through freely to reinforce the besieged Japanese
defenders of the capital city. In
return for his cooperation in gathering
intelligence information for the past several months, I had promised Vera
plenty of arms when the time came for his army to fight. He had kept his side of the bargain
extremely well, and now I couldn't fulfill my part of the deal. He and his men were itching for action, and
the U.S. Army was letting them, and me, down.
It
became increasingly obvious that GHQs intelligence-gathering unit was not
talking to the services of supply unit.
We kept getting requests for intelligence information and suggestions
for sabotage operations from G-2, but received no weaponry to carry through on
them.
I received the following message from GHQ-.
CHECK ON RADAR
STATION REPORTED AT BOAC MARINDUQUE.
UNI-I'WOULD BE LOCATED ON HIGH GROUND AND PROBABLY CONSISTS OF THREE
TRUCKS, ONE WITH ANTENNA BEHIND CAB, SECOND WITH EQUIPMENT, THIRD WITH ELECTRIC
PLANT.
My
reply:
EQUIPMENT FITTING
DESCRIPTION OF THREE TRUCK RADAR UNIT LOCATED AT TAYABAS, TAYABAS. TWO OF TRUCKS IN COCONUT SHED 100 YARDS
NORTH EAST OF CATHOLIC CHURCH AND 300 YARDS NORTH OF MUNICIPAL PARK WITH
GENERATOR UNIT 50 YARDSWEST UNDER MANGO TREE.
I
figured this information was sufficient to lead a plane loaded with bombs to
the site. Perhaps so, but I received
the following message in reply:
DESIRE THAT YOU
DESTROY RADAR UNIT IF POSSIBLE. OUR
INTERCEPT INFO
INDICATES THERE MAY BE A SECOND RADAR IN CLOSE PROXIMITY. IF SUCH IS THE CASE NECESSARY TO ALSO
DESTROY SAME. ADVISE.
I
was livid! How in the hell were we
supposed to do this? Tear it apart with
our bare hands? I had pleaded, begged,
cajoled-whatever I thought might work-to get supplies. Ranting and raving, too, had come to
naught. I turned to sarcasm and sent
GHQ the following:
IS TOUGH JOB
WITHOUT DEMOLITION EQUIPMENT BUT WILL
TRY. ALSO LOOKING FOR OTHER UNIT MENTIONED.
A week later
I followed up:
GENERAL VERA’S
TROOPS FOUND BOTH UNITS AND DESTROYED THEM-WITH NO HELP AND NO THANKS FROM THE
U.S. ARMY.
My
chagrin apparently registered with one or more of the fat-butted, easy-chaired
men in GHQ Along came this message:
ATTEMPTING TO
ARRANGE AIR DROP FOR YOU IN NEAR FUTURE.
DESIGNATE AREA NEAR COAST IF POSSIBLE WHICH COULD BE EASILY IDENTIFIED
FROM AIR. FOLLOWING SIGNALS WILL BE
DISPLAYED BY YOU ON DATE TO BE SENT LATER.
EACH OF THREE BAROTOs 200 YARDS APART IN FORM OF TRIANGLE 'WITH WHITE
FLAG AT POINT OFF SHORE IMMEDIATELY OPPOSITE DROP POINT. FIAVE THREE SMOKE FIRES BURNING IN FORM OF
TRIANGLE AT DROP SITE. ADVISE.
American
airmen and Filipinos transfer supplies from a PBY to a baroto.
Finally,
GHQ set 26 December 1944 as the drop date.
The site would be inland from barrio Abuyon in the cogon grass field we
traversed so often when hiking between San Narciso and S3L. We set the barotos, the white flag, and the
smoke fires. Like the young lady whose
suitor chickened out just before the first date, we were stood up. After three more tries-the first drop
arrived on 2 January 1945-two C-47 cargo planes dropped about a hundred parachute
loads of supplies, which, to us, were manna from heaven. Less than an hour later, another C-47 came
along with about thirty more parachute loads.
Now we could continue to fight a war.
American
airman and Filipinos transfer supplies from a PBY to a baroto. (National Archives)
My
euphoria was short-lived, however, when I saw how few supplies we actually
received. GHQ had recognized a fact I
had overlooked. Without mechanized
vehicles to handle the materials when the parachutes hit the ground, each bundle
would have to be toted or dragged by hand to the assembly and distribution
area. Each parachute bore a load
weighing less than a hundred pounds, a weight that could be handled, with some
difficulty, by one or two men, depending on the bulk of the package. Most of the shipment consisted of rifles and
ammunition-certainly the priority items.
In addition, we received forty-eight cases of assorted rations, a case
ofATR4 radio batteries, two bundles of assorted clothing, and some much-needed
medicine. The latter I turned over to
Dr. Mariano N. Morales, who had come to us from Manila.
As
it turned out, we had more than enough men to handle the supplies. Anticipating many more bundles and crates
than we actually received, I had arranged for General Vera to send a hundred of
his soldiers to assist us in gathering up the materials. Vera himself had led his "army' to the
drop site. I gave him practically all
of the rifles and ammunition: I had finally been able to keep my part of the
bargain made many months previously.
Four
days later, 6 January 1945, I received the following message from GHQ-
STARTING
IMMEDIATELY UPON RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE IS THE TIME ALL PATRIOTIC MOVEMENTS OF
THE PEOPLE HAVE THUS, UNDER LOCAL LEADERSHIP, THE OPPORTUNITY TO UNLEASH MAXIMUM
POSSIBLE VIOLENCE AGAINST THE ENEMY TO ASSIST OUR LIBERATION CAMPAIGN. EMPLOY ALL MEANS AVAILABLE TO RESTRICT THE
MOVEMENTS OF ENEMY FORCES ON LUZON.
The
Tayabas Guerrilla Vera's Party lost no time in making use of the arms I had
just supplied. By 9 January, when the
American forces landed at Lingayen Gulf, Vera’s army was in position in the
Atimonan bottleneck, where they were very effective in preventing the free
movement of Japanese troops.
Meanwhile,
I sent a new shopping list to GHQ, asking for the things they had forgotten to
send in the drop just received. I
wanted more-more-more!
The Abuyon Airfield
CHAPTEIZ
16
GHQ
never gave anything without extracting the extra ounce of flesh. Even before
the first airdrop was accomplished, I received this message:
WILL AIRDROP SITE
AT BARRIO ABUYON MAKE A FEASIBLE CRASH LANDING FIELD? IF SO DESIRE APPROACH TOPOGRAPHY, POSSIBLE LENGTH AND @DTH OF
STRIP, SOIL CONDITIONS.
My
reply:
ABUYON WOULD MAKE
FEASIBLE CRASH LANDING SPOT. TOPOGRAPHY. RANGE OF
MOUNTAINS RUNNING PARALLEL TO COAST LINE, FORMING COASTAL PLAIN APPROXIMATELY
ONE MILE WIDE. APPROACHING SITE FROM
SOUTH EAST FOLLOW GRADING FOR PROPOSED PROVINCIAL ROAD FROM SAN NARCISO RUNNING
NORTH WEST. GRADING SHOULD BE VISIBLE
RUNNING THRU COCONUT GROVE TWO MILES LONG.
IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING GROVE IS LARGE COGON GRASS FIELD ON RIGHT SIDE OF
ROAD AT BASE OF MOUNTAINS. FIELD ONE
MILE LONG, 500 YARDS WIDE WITH HEAVY COGON GRASS COVER. SOIL IS HARD AND LEVEL. ADVISE IF NECESSARY TO CLEAR GRASS.
As
you can see, I knew very little about airfields. Why cut the grass if the field
was to be nothing more than a place to crash an airplane? GHQ responded:
GRASS MUST BE
CLEARED TO MAKE SITE SUITABLE FOR CRASH STRIP.
ADVISE EXACT GEOGRAPHICAL COORDINATES OF SITE, CLEARED LENGTH AND
DIRECTION OF LONG AXIS. PLEASE NOTIFY
WHEN READY FOR POSSIBLE USE.
Sattem
went to work clearing the field. He
sent out a call for laborers, and the fascination of building an airfield drew
a large assemblage. We hadn't figured
out how we would pay the laborers for their toil, but, since they didn't ask,
we didn't worry about it at the time.
We provided three meals a day, and for the time being everyone was
happy.
We
encountered several snags. Our trail between
barrio Abuyon and station S3L crossed this field diagonally. About midway through the tall grass we would
encounter a small wet area. '"en
we stripped the grass, we found that the trail crossed the only narrow spot in
a swamp. Hidden in the tall grass to
either side of the trail were areas of deep, gooey muck, a hundred feet or more
in diameter. Here, dead center in our
contribution to the safety of our airmen comrades, was a hazard.
Chopping
and removing the cogon grass had been easily accomplished with bolos. When we cut the grass close to the ground,
however, we found the surface to be a series of hummocks that would certainly
give a landing plane fits. We had no
picks, no shovels, and no grading equipment.
Creating a smooth landing strip posed a problem. The natives, however, were skilled in
creating the tools they needed. They
went into the nearby woods and cut saplings, which they trimmed to a chisel
point on one end. With these they
chopped away at the clods of earth, spreading the dirt to fill in the low
spots. Then they brought in several
carabao and paraded them back and forth, back and forth, tamping the loose dirt
into a compact surface. Like the sheeps-foot
rollers used to compact mounds of fill on highway construction projects, we had
carabao-foot compactors.
We
had completed clearing and leveling a bit more than two thousand feet of runway
in this manner. Draining the swamp and
regarding the area would require equipment of a different kind. We stopped the clearing operation and
pondered a solution, but we didn’t let that deter us from reporting the field
ready for use.
I
sent more information to GHQ-
CRASH STRIP 2,200
FEET LONG AND 80 FEET VQDE WILL BE READY FOR USE ON OR BEFORE JANUARY 20. LONG AXIS RUNS 50 DEGREES WEST OF
NORTH. COORDINATES 13 DEGPEES 36
MINUTES 10 SECONDS NORTH LATITUDE, 122 DEGREES 31 MINUTES 02 SECONDS EAST
LONGITUDE. PLEASE ADVISE IF SIZE IS
SUITABLE FOR PURPOSE. CAN MAKE IT THREE
TIMES AS LARGE IF DESIRED, BUT I HAVE NO MORE FUNDS AND ALL FUTURE WORK WOULD
BE SLOW DUE TO BEING VOLUNTEER LABOR WITH NO MODERN TOOLS.
Again,
GHQ was very demanding:
DESIRE STRIP
LENGTHENED TO MINIMUM OF 3500 FEET PICKS, SHOVELS, SUPPLIES AND FUNDS WILL BE
DROPPED IN NEAP, FUTURE.
We
continued with the lengthening of the field as requested, not waiting for the
promised airdrop of tools for the work.
But, before the work was completed, an unfortunate event took
place. On 20 January, the day I had
told GHQ the short field would be
completed, three American fighter planes, escorting eight bombers, dropped
below the formation, swept down the crash strip in the middle of the day, and
let go with several strafing bursts.
This may have been a salute from pilots who knew that an emergency field
for their use was being built – a thank – you in advance-but it was not
received in that way. The laborers took
this to be the starting gun for a footrace for home.
Two
days later we received another airdrop, which convinced the laborers of the
importance of the field and brought them back to work. This drop included what GHQ thought was a
goodly supply of tools for airfield construction. They sent us forty entrenching shovels!
Oh,
yes-the swamp in the middle of the field.
Sattem had a narrow drainage ditch dug across the field through the
swamp and beyond the edge of the field toward the ocean. Then he had the ditch sides shored with
bamboo poles, bridged it with more bamboo poles to form a makeshift culvert,
and covered it with dirt carried in from a nearby hillside in buri baskets on
the backs of the laborers. Voila! The swamp was drained.
We made a feeble attempt at camouflage,
although this could be self-defeating.
Certainly, we did not want the Japanese to discover and destroy this
oasis for disabled American aircraft.
Yet, we wanted it to be highly visible to our pilots, for in an
emergency they would not have time to study maps and charts on which the
location may or may not have been pinpointed.
They needed to be able to recognize the strip and get down on the ground
in a hurry. Knowing that the Japanese
air arm was busy with other matters and did not have time to reconnoiter for
fields such as this, we tended to err on the side of visibility.
Actually,
not much camouflage was needed. We did
not make neatly trimmed edges when we cut the cogon grass, and the stubble that
remained on the landing strip itself blended, more or less, into the serrated
edges of taller grass. From the air, I
reasoned, the field would not be detected unless the pilot knew about it. I was bugged, however, by the drainage
culvert area. Here was a rather large
expanse of freshly churned and compacted dirt.
Certainly this abrupt change in the appearance of the land would be
highly visible to all. We solved this
problem by scattering several small and easily moved huts around this
area. The squad of soldiers assigned to
guarding this field could quickly move the huts out of the way if a plane
attempted a landing.
No
matter. The Japanese never bothered us,
and, to my knowledge, no pilot ever found it necessary to make an emergency
landing on the "Abuyon Airstrip."
On
8 February I sent the following message to GHQ-.
AIRFIELD COMPLETED
3700 FEET LONG 70 FEET WIDE. BEST
APPROACH FROM NORTH WEST DUE TO SLOPE OF FIELD. HAVE A SURGEON, TRAINED NURSE AND HOSPITAL READY FOR EMERGENCY AT
ALL TIMES.
The
surgeon was Dr. Morales.
Still,
we had the problem of paying the natives for the month or so of labor they had
contributed. Our counterfeit Japanese
money was not acceptable, for it was no longer being used. We didn't have enough real money to cover
the bill. We did, however, have
something else of value – parachutes.
During
the 1930s, a group of enterprising sewing machine salesmen had peddled their
wares throughout the islands. Every
town and most barrios had a seamstress or two with a treadle-operated Singer
sewing machine. Our nylon parachutes
were very acceptable barter items. Here
was the cloth for sorely needed shirts, shorts, underwear, blouses, skirts, and
dresses. The parachute cords could be
unwound, stripped, and spooled to provide the needed thread. The parachutes, color coded to indicate the
type of cargo they held, were dyed in brilliant, but ugly, harsh colors so that
they were easily spotted when they landed.
Soon everyone was strutting around in new clothing of red, yellow, blue,
and white, although the predominant color could best be described as
"atrocious green, the basic cargo chute color.
Many
of the native women were dexterous embroideries, and they added intricate decorations
with herb- and vegetable-dyed threads to draw attention away from the ugly
green color. One woman, not skilled in
needlework art (and apparently not skilled in the English language, either),
selected for a design on the front of her skirt the panel of a parachute on
which was stenciled in black ink the Army's supply number, nomenclature, and
other military information. It carried
this admonition: "Capacity: 200 pounds at 125 miles per hour."
Like
the sacramental wine and flour I had carried for a specific purpose, I now
found out why I was carrying a small packet deep inside my toiletries
case. Before leaving Australia, I had
been given several packages of sewing machine needles. "They might come in handy for
trade," I was told. They were the
piece de resistance in a very successful bartering operation.
The
airdrop we received on 22 January, after the planes had strafed the crash
strip, was a biggie. Twelve thousand
pounds! When GHQ told me to expect a load of this magnitude, I wondered if it
might include a bulldozer to speed completion of the airfield. Such was not the case.
Arms
and ammo were what GHQ had available, and that is what they sent. Great!
But we still needed more than munitions if we were to keep sending
intelligence information, which was still my primary mission. Vera's army was fast becoming the
best-equipped guerrilla force, for its size, on Luzon. But we continued to have shortages of
everything except arms.
I
thanked GHQ for their generosity, but complained that the drop had not included
a battery charger, battery acid, tools, and funds. I added to this message a long list of medicines, medical
supplies, and surgical instruments.
With these Dr. Morales would be able to set up a dispensary to treat my
men and Vera's guerrillas. He planned
to treat the native noncombatants as well, for they had been without anything
remotely resembling medical care since the Japanese had taken over.
My
message concluded with the information that airdrops could be made anytime,
since guards were posted at the landing strip day and night. During the next months we received several
unscheduled drops of sundry items. Most
important, they included my radio station needs and Dr. Morales's supplies.
About
this time, Sattem and McGowan were itching for some action-or for
evacuation. Konka had already left us
to work his way to Leyte and, he hoped, to the United States. He had every reason to do so, for his health
was really bad. I'm sure he would have
stayed with us until the end, except that he was bothered by a kidney stone-not
a pleasant problem in a Luzon jungle. I
had sat with him and agonized with him many times when it got lodged in the
wrong place.
On
one of the airdrops we had received a small supply of plastic explosive, caps,
and fuses. Although I had been given a
short but thorough course in the use of explosives and had used them to get rid
of the launch in the Sibuyan Sea, I liked to separate myself from them as far
as possible.
I
gained my fear of explosives as a child.
At age ten or so I used to buy candy from a sidewalk stand operated by a
blind man who had lost his sight by accident when, with some friends, he was
firing off homemade firecrackers, short lengths of dynamite fuse attached to
fuse caps-a Fourth of July caper. One
exploded in his face.
George
and Eldred decided to help General Vera disrupt the Japanese railroad
operations in the Atimonan area by blowing up some bridges. My fear of
explosives told me to decline their invitation to join them. When they returned to camp, Sattem described
their adventure.
"We
found this small bridge that carried both the railroad and the highway, and
rigged some explosives under the ends of two of the beams. We put a good, long fuse on it so we'd have
plenty of time to get outta the way.
Then we lit it and walked down the tracks a ways and sat down on the
rails – waitin' for it to go off.
"While
we was settin' there – there was about six of Vera’s soldiers with us – some Japs came up the tracks on the other
side of the bridge. We ducked down the
bank to one side before they could see us.
"George, here, he said, 'Wouldn’t it be
funny if they got to the bridge just when it let go?' But just about then the
bridge blew up. A real loud 'Bang' that
sent pieces of it a hundred feet in the air.
When the smoke cleared away, there wasn’t a Jap within sight. Scared the shit outta them, I guess."
That
was the last mission for George and Eldred as a part of my team. A few days later they decided they had had
enough jungle life and headed for Mindoro, which was then secured by the
American forces. From there they would
go to GHQ, wherever it might be at the time, and try to get sent home. Like Konka, they were in horrible physical shape
and needed much care and treatment.
My
last scheduled airdrop arrived on 24 February.
As if they were trying to atone for treating us so shabbily back in
October, November, and December, we were becoming overloaded with supplies of
all kinds, to the point we couldn't find room to store them. I had Nery move the supplies into the
jungle, there to be cached for later use when needed. I ordered each cache rigged with explosives so that it could be
blown up in a hurry if necessary, for I had a fear of Bondoc Peninsula being
overrun by the Japanese should they decide they wanted to use it as a refuge of
last resort. I didn't want them to get
these supplies.
Some
of my men were puzzled as to why I was giving this duty to Nery, for I had
always handled storing and distribution of supplies personally. Nery was the only one who knew that he would
be in charge of S3L in two days.
I
would be leaving.
Out of the Jungles
PART
5
To Manila
CHAPTER
17
Late
in January 1945, I received the following message from Lt. Clinton B. McFarland, chief of the Sixth
Army NCS, JD2M:
DESIRE TO EVACUATE
YOU IN NEAR FUTURE. WHO IS YOUR SECOND
IN COMMAND AND IS HE CAPABLE OF HANDLING JOB?
NOTIFY WHEN YOU ARE READY FOR EVACUATION. DESIGNATE LOCATION WHEPE CATALINA CAN LAND.
Leaving
Bondoc Peninsula and station S3L brought me face-to-face with a gut-wrenching
decision.
Colonel
Smith and Lieutenant Royer were no longer in the hills. They had long since left Samar and were
safely settled at Sixth Army headquarters.
Captain Ball was still with the guerrillas on the east coast of Luzon,
with Anderson and many other Americans.
U.S. Army troops had joined up with them, and they were on the
offensive. Intruding Japanese were not
a great threat. Doc Evans was with a
massive force of many thousands of American and guerrilla troops on Mindanao
who were also on the offensive, so he was not in peril.
My
situation was very different. I was the
lone American in my area. Units of the
Eleventh Airborne Division had landed at Lake Taal, south of Manila but north
of Bondoc Peninsula, and were driving the Japanese in my direction. Some might
move down the peninsula. If they
did, the Filipinos could ditch their uniforms and equipment and fade into the
civilian population. But where could I
go? Even with my dark tan I could not
pass for a native, and besides, the Filipinos have very little facial
hair. I had a fall beard. My assignment
was completed. My part of the war was
over. I was sick weary – and I'll admit
that I was more than a little homesick.
Why
risk getting killed for no good reason?
Why try to be a hero? I had
nothing else to prove, and decided to accept the offer of evacuation. I procrastinated, but finally sent the
following message to JD2M late in February.
SECOND IN COMMAND
IS STAFF SERGEANT GERARDO NERY OF U.S. ARMY.
STATION UNDER SERGEANT RAYMUNDO AGCAOILI, ALSO U.S. ARMY. BOTH CAPABLE OF HANDLING WORK COMPLETELY. AM READY FOR EVACUATION IMMEDIATELY IF NOT
SOONER. CATALINA CAN LAND AT 13 DEGREES
38 MINUTES NORTH 122 DECRFFS 31 MINUTES EAST
The
twenty-sixth of February dawned wet, cold (for the tropics), rainy, windy, and
generally miserable. Although the plane
was scheduled to arrive between 10 A.M. and 3 PM., I was on the beach by eight
in the morning. I had told Major Barros
of my planned departure, and he provided a boat for Ted Suttles, the former
mining engineer and former POW I had met at Barros's camp several months
previously. The boat would bring him to
my side of Ragay Gulf. He wanted out,
and I decided to get him on the
plane with me.
With me on
the beach, awaiting the plane's arrival, were a few of my many loyal companions
from S3L, some of the many men who had made my operations possible: Gerardo
Nery and Raymundo Agcaoili, radio operators who would now take command; the
ever-faithful Ochigue and Madeja, whose courage and marksmanship had kept me
out of harm's way; and, especially, Doming, who had been my faithful personal
servant for so many months, making the lack of the amenities of civilization
bearable. There were others who had
sacrificed so much to contribute to my operations but who could not be there
because they were still on intelligence gathering missions. I had purposely kept the local citizens in
the dark about my departure, and I felt guilty for sneaking away without saying
"Goodbye" and "Thank you." However, security was still a
concern, and I wasn’t in the mood for a fiesta, which could screw up the
pickup.
Also
on the beach, waiting to be shoved off the sand, was the pride and joy of the
local baroto fleet. Twenty feet
long-twice as long as most barotos-and needing four oarsmen to keep it moving,
it was loaded with my backpack, a duffel bag of souvenirs, several bags of my
personal gear, and a small kit belonging to Mr. Suttles.
I
was attired in a sleeveless, collarless khaki shirt, a pair of Australian
Army-issue khaki shorts, my last pair of shoes, and a native wide-brimmed
hat. And, of course, I was wearing my
side arm. I suddenly realized that,
except for the souvenirs and the personal trinkets in the backpack, I could
replace everything else in those bags once I got back to the AIB office back to
the Army. Everything in those bags was
army issue.
"Doming,"
I said, "I will take only my backpack and that bag with me,"
indicating the bag of souvenirs.
"You keep the rest, and put those things to good use!"
His
boyish face lit up. He now owned the
things he had taken care of so carefully for me for a year. Meager as these possessions were, they gave
him wealth he had never dreamed of having.
"Oh! Thank you, Sair! I will keep them forever!"
I
suspect that while he thanked me he was already thinking of which items he
could trade away for things he really wanted-a
wife, perhaps.
When
the PBY appeared, the wind was blowing up a storm. The big baroto sat low in the water, and the waves swamped it
almost immediately when we tried to move out.
Fortunately, there were several smaller canoes nearby canoes my men
planned to use to escort me to the plane.
I waded back to shore with my backpack and bag of souvenirs and
clambered into one of the smaller boats.
Mr. Suttles used another. By now
the PBY was on the water, circling as it awaited us. I knew it wouldn’t wait long.
Again
we set out from shore. But the wind was
against us, and we made little progress.
Soon the oarsmen jumped overboard, grabbed hold of the outriggers, and,
with the strong strokes of natives accustomed to fighting the seas, pushed our
two small boats toward the airplane.
Still,
we were in danger of having the PBY take off without us. I jumped overboard and swam ahead of the
barotos. That damned airplane is not leaving here without me! I told myself
The
crew of the PBY fished me out of the water.
The baroto carrying my backpack and precious duffel bag of souvenirs
arrived in time, as did the one carrying Mr. Suttles.
We
had made it.
A
crewman on the PBY, Sgt. George J.
Buiytendiyk, took a series of photographs of this pickup. He and I made elaborate plans for my getting
prints, for we discovered during the flight to Mindoro that people, indeed, do
live in a small world. We had a common
bond – a connection with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, Inc. Our connections were on slightly different
levels in the company, for I had been a lowly tire and appliance salesman in
retail stores, while the sergeant was the adopted son of P. W. Litchfield, at
that time the corporation's top banana.
Apparently, during Litchfield's earlier years he had spent time around
the rubber plantations in the Dutch East Indies. He had adopted Buiytendiyk, who lived there.
As
the PBY skimmed the surface of the seas toward Mindoro, a maneuver necessary
because the mission had no fighter cover, our plans were laid. The sergeant would send prints of the photos
to Mr. Litchfield's office in Akron, Ohio, from which I would retrieve them
once I returned to the United States.
Unfortunately, the plan did not work, and the photos never reached me.
Except
for my piggyback ride with Willard Davis in his P-38, I draw an almost complete
blank when I try to recall Mindoro. I
remember that there was a small office that handled people such as Ted Suttles
and me when they came out of the hills.
Apparently the guys in this department had seen many guerrillas by now,
and the novelty was gone. They didn't
seem to give a damn about us. Ted and I
split almost immediately, never to meet again.
I
managed to hitch a ride on a bomber going to Clark Field, on Luzon. From there I would work my way to Manila, where
GHQ, the AIB, and the PRS were now located.
When the bomber landed at Clark, it parked along a taxiway across the
landing strip, far from the control tower and the operations building. The crew jumped aboard a six-by-six truck to
be taken to their quarters, while I was ignored completely. I took the most direct route toward the
tower, walking across the active runway.
I hadn't walked far until, with sirens wailing, an MP jeep intercepted
me and I was placed under arrest. It is
not hard to understand why. With my
duffel bag of souvenirs – the hilt of a Japanese saber sticking out of the top
– and my attire, I was certainly a suspicious-looking character
After
being grilled by an MP lieutenant for an intolerably long time, I was
released. When I asked about
transportation to Manila, still seventy miles away, I was told, "Tough
shit, guy. Walk."
They
didn’t make me walk to the main gate, however.
The MPs were anxious to get me out of the way, and escorted me that
far. Then afoot, I tried to hitch a
ride toward the city. A steady stream
of military vehicles moved in my direction.
All the drivers gave me a shout or a wave, but few put a foot on the
brake pedal. I did get a couple of
short rides from GIs in jeeps, and some longer rides with Filipinos in oxcarts,
but I walked about half of the seventy miles, arriving in Manila three days
later.
I
rapidly developed a hatred for all U.S. servicemen. life with the Filipinos was
so, so much better.
When,
back in 1942, it became evident that America could not hold off the Japanese
invaders, we declared Manila an "open city' to protect the civilians there
from the carnage of war. When the
Japanese moved in, the city and all its buildings were intact and ready for the
invader's use.
Not
so when we returned. The Japanese
barricaded themselves throughout the city, setting up defensive positions in
the midst of the populated areas in hope that we, out of concern for the
civilians, would use aerial bombs and artillery firepower sparingly. This would force the battle into the only
strength remaining for the Japanese-hand-to hand, building-to-building,
infantry-style combat.
Reluctantly,
but necessarily, America blasted, bombed, and strafed the Japanese positions,
devastating the city. Only one major
structure in the downtown area remained upright-heavily damaged, but still
habitable. Erasing the Japanese
defenses in the residential areas resulted in the leveling of square miles of
homes.
Soon
after I arrived in Manila, I went to an area south of the Pasig River-the
Luneta residential area, where many of the holders of Manilds wealth had lived
in splendor. Now it was rubble. Few streets were passable, and getting
through required maneuvering around decaying bodies. The stench was unbelievable.
I
stopped my "borrowed" (i.e., stolen) jeep beside a pile of lumber
that had once been a home. A man was
carefully picking through the debris, raising, then casting aside, charred
board after charred board. I was about
to climb over the ruins to speak to him when he screamed and fell sobbing onto
the object of his search. He had found
the body of one of his children.
The
shambles that was Manila, 12 February 1945. (U.S.
Army Military History Institute)
I
had no trouble finding the AIB office in Manila. It and MacArthur's headquarters were in that one building still
standing in the Manila business district.
The building was one of several belonging to Sam Wilson, an American who
had lived in the Philippines for many years and had made a fortune through real
estate and other investments. When the
war began, he and his Filipina wife went separate ways, she fading into the
native population while he went to the hills.
He eventually reached Mindanao, where he became finance officer for
Fertig's guerrillas. From the time they
separated until they met again after the Americans returned to Manila, neither
knew if the other was alive or dead.
At
the AIB I was greeted cordially – albeit not enthusiastically – by the men I
had worked with in the code room in Brisbane fifteen months previously. Our common bond had broken.
I
sought out a supply room to get some clothing.
Everything I needed was there.
The problem was that the supply sergeant would not issue equipment to me
since my records as an enlisted man were somewhere else – God knows where. If my guerrilla commission was valid, I was
now an officer, and he couldn’t furnish me with anything unless I paid with
cash, and I had no money. Captain
Ferguson, who had been my commander in Brisbane and who still was in charge of
the AIB message center, came to my rescue.
He bankrolled me so that I could buy something decent to wear. I'm sure the supply sergeant pocketed the
money.
Although
Ferguson helped me out with money to buy clothing, that didn’t put money in my
pockets. Had I known the financial
straits I was to encounter in Manila, I would have kept some of the funds I
left with Nery to pay S3L’s expenses.
As it was, I was broke, and the prospects of altering that situation lay
somewhere between doubtful and impossible.
I
was "A Man Without an Army." I didn’t exist. No one was interested in what I was doing or
where I was doing it, so long as I didn't get in the way. Everyone I knew at AIB headquarters was
engaged in his own little part of the war, and since I didn't figure in their
present operations they didn't want to talk to me. Somewhere to the south, in Australia or New Guinea, my outfit,
the 978th Signal Service Company, First Reconnaissance Battalion (Special), was
headquartered. No one seemed to know
exactly where. There seemed to be no
way for me to get reconnected to the U.S. Army. And without that connection, and proof that I really was in the
Army, I was unable to get even a small advance on my pay. As for rations and quarters, I ate and slept
wherever I happened to be, bluffing my way as I went along, all the while
mooching cigarettes and cadging drinks.
I decided to try to find Colonel Smith to see if he could help me.
Locating
him was not easy. Charlie had friends
in high places, and when he decided he needed a rest from his labors (the most
recent being with the First Cavalry Division to free the American internees at
Santo Tomas University) he was placed on "special assignment," and
information as to his whereabouts was not available to any but a select
few. This group did not include me.
I
remembered our usual evening chats in one of our huts on Palapag Mesa a year
previously. The radio would be quiet
for the night, and we would be enjoying a nightcap of Mount Vernon whiskey and
water. He frequently related some of
the details of life in prewar Manila.
During his reminiscing he often mentioned his good friend Pete Grimm, an
American who made it big by creating the Luzon Stevedoring Company long before
the war began. Perhaps if I found Pete
Grimm I would also find Charlie Smith.
I
located Charlie living in Pete's hacienda on the Pasig River, east of the
city. Here, with cooks, maids,
houseboys, and limitless food and beverages, they were enjoying complete
relaxation – well deserved, to be sure.
Frankly, I had hoped that my close relationship with Charlie would
warrant an invitation from him and Pete to move in and enjoy some of these
pleasures. When I look back on that
period, I shake my head at my own naivete.
Within an hour of our meeting, it was evident that our common bond was
gone. No longer were we dependent on
each other for the success of a mission, or for our very survival. We were already reverting to our own, vastly
different worlds.
However,
Charlie was gracious enough to offer me a drink on the afternoon we met. And when I explained my problem – being
completely ignored and not being able to reestablish myself with the AIB and
the Army – he solved it with one telephone call, I know not to whom. The next day I was officially confirmed as a
first lieutenant, Signal Corps, Army of the United States, with official orders
to prove it for the edification of the Army Finance Office, where I collected
my back pay.
But
Smith, too, had a problem about money.
We had taken thousands and thousands of pesos with us from Australia,
all neatly packed in tin cans full of sand and water, cans like those I had
buried on Palapag Mesa. When the Narwhal brought men and more supplies to
us on Samar, there were more cans of money included in the cargo. And when airdrops were made to me on Luzon,
even more money arrived.
Clandestine
operations survive on money. One
doesn’t dicker with a recruited agent who is going to risk his life on a
mission. Espionage is expensive, and
one has to pay the piper.
"Bob,"
Charlie said to me, "Do you have any records of the money you spent? Did you get any receipts?"
"Charlie,
you've got to be kidding."
"Kidding
or not, the Army wants me to account for all the money they gave us."
"Shit,
Colonel. I got a few receipts for
things I bought for the station so that the Chinese merchants couldn’t try to
collect a second time. But the money I
gave to Herreria, Cardenas, Sanchez, and others who were going into
Manila? Forget it. Hell!
That was just “Take a handful”. “Ain’t no way I can tell what that
cost. Fifty thousands hundred thousand
pesos. Who knows?"
"Well,
the Army wants me to tell them where it went.
If you can come up with some numbers, I can use them."
Thus
started a bit of Army training that would serve me well later in civilian life
– the creative writing of expense accounts.
A
few weeks later I met with Smith again, to give him whatever information I
could about the money I had spent. This, however, was not my main purpose in seeking
him out once more. He had "hung me
out on a line" a long time ago, and I wanted to let him know that he had
not done me a favor.
"Colonel,"
I said, showing my respect, "soon after the Leyte invasion you were
transferred from MACA on Samar to GHQ.
Have you any idea of why, after you got back there, I was left high and
dry and not given any supplies for more than two months?"
"Sure,
Bob. I thought you were having trouble
with Vera. I thought he was a loose
cannon beyond control. At least beyond
your control. I told them to hold off
on equipment for you."
"Whatever
gave you that idea? Sure, we started
off with a problem, but that got straightened out in a hurry. He was a big help to me."
"Hoff
told me you were in trouble with Vera."
I
didn’t then, nor do I now, recognize the name "Hoff." He must have
been some guy who happened to pass through my camp. Many strangers did. He
was certainly not an authority on my relationship with Vera.
"But,"
I persisted, "I kept telling you I had a good thing going with Vera. I sent his man to you asking for arms for
him. Why didn't you believe me? I thought you and I were on the same side."
Charlie
had nothing to say.
"Perhaps
that explains this," I said, withdrawing from my pocket a folded, beat-up
piece of paper.
Near
the southern tip of Luzon is the town of Sorsogon. Here the land narrows, and anyone crossing the San Bernardino
Strait from Samar and heading north must pass through this town. Maj. Licerio Lapus was the local politician,
and he had developed a guerrilla unit of sorts that was, more or less, a
constabulary devoted to keeping peace during the chaotic times of occupation
and resistance. Lapus was not a
mercenary. He, like Mayor Medenilla of
San Narciso, was an intelligent and forthright person, interested only in
maintaining calm in the midst of turmoil until this mess was over. No one entered or passed through this town
unless cleared by Major Lapus.
Lapus
intercepted and read a letter Smith had sent to me by courier. He deleted one paragraph that he thought
might cause trouble for me if it fell into the wrong hands, and sent the rest
of the letter on its way with the courier.
Lapus then traveled some 150 miles over land and bay to deliver a
"True Copy' of that paragraph to me personally. It read:
I
am afraid your Lt. Gen. may become a problem in the future. Handle him the best that you can. GHQ cannot consider such an outfit so just
spread on the soft soap until such a time that it is possible for us to all get
together in Manila or some other place.
Next month I will send sufficient guns for you to cope with any
emergency that might arise.
Had
this letter fallen into Vera's hands, who knows how tragic the results would
have been for me? What in the hell good
would guns have done me without someone to carry and shoot them?
Charlie
looked at the "True Copy," recognized his words, I'm sure, but said
nothing. No denial. Nothing.
If
he had responded – any response at all – I would have been satisfied, I
suppose. But his silence made me very
angry.
"For
Christ's sake, Charlie," I said.
"What in the hell ever
made you do such a stupid thing? What
in the hell were you drinking when
you wrote that?"
During
our entire relationship, beginning at Heindorf House in Brisbane, I had never
raised my voice to him in anger. I
couldn't believe I was doing it now.
He
folded the paper and handed it back to me.
"I
don't know, Bob. I don’t know why – I
have nothing to say. All I can say is,
'Yes, it was stupid, but – ."'
I
returned to my quarters in Manila, stopping in the Officers Club en route for
more than one drink. My respect for
someone I had glorified perhaps even deified – had been shattered. He was just another guy.
Would You Like Another Mission?
CHAPTER
18
Although
I had no assignments, no duties, nothing at all to do, I hung around AIB
headquarters much of each day. At
night, however, I found plenty to do.
Carousing and drinking with whoever was interested in carousing and
drinking became my routine. I boozed it
up with dog faces, swabbies, marines, natives-I wasn't very selective. How I kept from being blinded by the wood
alcohol-based "Scotch whiskey" the Filipinos were mixing by day and
selling by night I don't know. just lucky, I guess. It wasn't hard to find someone who was going to a party
somewhere, and it seemed there were never any guest lists.
But I wanted to get shipped back to the
States, and that seemed to be an impossibility, because I didn't have anyone
who would take it upon himself to be my commanding officer. I didn't exist in anyone’s table of
organization. The only person who might
be able to do some good for me was Colonel Smith – witness his getting my commission
confirmed with one telephone call – but I had shot that possibility when I told
him off the last time we met.
Charlie
Ferguson had a message for me one day.
"Major
Brown wants to see you," he told me.
Major
Brown was a member of the G-2 hierarchy.
He was the man who sent people on missions. He was probably the one person I avoided most when I was around
AIB headquarters.
I
stopped by his office and was given an appointment time: 9 A.M. the following
day.
Step into my parlor, said the spider
to the fly. These
were the words that ran through my mind as I walked into Major Brown's office.
"Lieutenant
Stahl, meet Capt. George Davis," said the major, introducing me to an
Infantry officer wearing the insignia of a Ranger. "Captain Davis is taking his company ashore at Lucena and
moving down to your old peninsula. He
wants you to go with him."
Wham! This guy Brown doesn't pull his punches! I said to myself
"Why me?" I asked. "I'm
no Ranger. I'm not even an
Infantryman. What good would I be to
you?"
"You've
been there before," said Davis.
"You could be our guide."
"But
Vera's guerrillas are already there.
They've cleaned up the area – gotten rid of the Japs in the
bottleneck."
"Not
quite. There are several pockets of Jap
troops that must be wiped out. That's
our mission," said Davis.
I
pictured myself guiding a company of Rangers along the jungle trails in the
area. Actually, I was not familiar with
the territory around Lucena. My
activities had been further to the south.
I envisioned myself at the head of a column – the first target for the
Japanese – on trails on which I would have to toss a three-headed coin to
decide which way to go – right, left, or straight ahead – at each
intersection. I did not like what I saw
in that vision. I was terrified! MacArthur had told me "You're no good
to me dead" – to avoid contact with the enemy – and now these bastards
were trying to get me to walk into who knows what? Yet, I couldn't appear to be a coward. My operations had brought me some semblance of respect as being a
man of courage, at least in my opinion, and I couldn’t toss that away now.
"OK,"
I said. "I don’t know if I'll do
you any good, but I'm willing to try.
I
received two days of indoctrination into the operations of the Rangers-two days
which gave me sleepless nights. Then,
on the third day, before the date for our departure was set, Captain Davis and
his company were given different orders.
The incursion at Lucena was scrubbed.
I was home free. Somebody up
there liked me.
I
decided to try to take advantage of my newfound acquaintance with Major Brown. Perhaps he would "adopt" me and
arrange for me to be sent home. I
scheduled another meeting with him.
"Major,"
I said, "could you get someone, somewhere, to send me back to the
States? I may not have contributed much
to your operations, but I've had enough.
I want to go home!"
"Bob. I agree.
You deserve a leave."
What's that bullshit – a leave? I asked myself.
"I
don't mean a leave. I mean go home.
Go home to stay.”
"I
can't fix that for you. But I can make
a deal with you."
Now how is he going to try to screw
me?
"What
kind of a deal?" I asked.
"In
a couple of months we are going to want someone like you to air-drop into the
Batan Islands to set up a station to report Japanese air flights out of
Formosa. Would you do that for a
forty-five-day leave to the States?"
This guy never lets go of a pigeon, I
thought.
"You
mean I can have a 'last supper' with my family if I agree to take this
mission?"
"That's
it. That's the best I can do for
you."
I
was desperate. I wanted to get as far
as possible from the war. Perhaps, if I
was lucky, I would be hit by a car in Shamokin, Pennsylvania. Not killed, but maimed enough that the Army
wouldn’t want me anymore.
"OK. You've got a deal."
HomeAgain
CHAPTER
19
The
Military Air Transport Service C-87 that brought me home touched down at
Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base, in California, on 12 April 1945. My elation at being back in the United
States once more was dampened, however.
The nation was mourning the death of President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt.
I shared transportation to San Francisco with
a lieutenant colonel I met on the plane.
We each checked into the Fairmont Hotel and then shared a taxi to the
Presidio, where I was outfitted with my first semblance of a true Army
officer's uniform. Apparently, so many
returning soldiers stopped there to purchase clothing that they had an assembly
fine of tailors making while-you-wait alterations. We returned to the hotel, then went our separate ways, for the
"light colonel" had friends to visit.
That evening I stepped out into the big city
with a head full of plans for a stateside meal and a wild night. At the first intersection I encountered, I
panicked. I could not force myself to
step off the curb and cross the street.
All those cars! I had been
through too much to get myself struck and killed as a pedestrian. If this were to happen, 1, at least, wanted
it to occur at home. I retreated to the
block in which the Fairmont was located and made the rounds of the bars in that
block. And then to bed.
The next day I met the colonel again, and we
shared transportation back to the air base.
"Did
you find your friends last night?" I asked him.
"Yes. We had a good get-together. What did
you do?"
"Man! I had a big night on the town!" I lied.
On
19 April I arrived in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, via Fort Dix, New Jersey, due to
return to Dix in forty-five days for transportation back to the
Philippines. I cast from my mind all
thoughts of what would happen then. For
the present, I wanted to enjoy my family and friends. To bell with the future!
I was shocked when I saw my father and
mother, for the combined stress of my being "lost" and of one of my
brothers being in combat in Europe seemed to have aged both of them at least
ten years. However, they showed a
positive reaction to my being home; at least half of their worries were
over. They did not know of my future
plans.
Mother was a calm,
solid, staid person with very firm convictions, one of which was being
anti-alcohol. No alcoholic beverages
could cross the threshold of our home, save for the bottle she stored in hiding
to spike her mince pies-hidden because my dad was known to enjoy a wee bit of
the juice. However, she showed her
elation over my return by bringing out her supply and pouring small drinks for
all to toast, before dinner, my first day home.
Ruth, my
girlfriend, who had also received a letter from the War Department along with
my last letter to her from Australia, was there. We found that the ardor between us had not diminished, and we
were married five days later, this in spite of my having told her that I would
be going overseas again. (That ardor has continued, and we have been married
for fifty years as of this writing.)
We had a whirlwind wedding and
honeymoon. During the latter we visited
a cousin of mine, a psychiatrist, who entertained us royally in New York
City. I'm sure he did so only to have
the opportunity to delve into the inner workings of my brain-to see if he could
locate the short circuit responsible for my choice of military activities.
There have been few
events in my life more traumatic than leaving home and returning to Fort Dix
for transportation back to the Philippines.
I was certain that the past forty-five days had afforded us one of the
shortest marriages in history, for I was convinced that I would not survive my
next mission. But good news awaited me
at Fort Dix. The war in Europe had
ended, and all orders to return to overseas assignments had been canceled. I would go on no more missions. I would remain stateside. My war was over.
Confusion
reigned at Fort Dix and, I'm sure, at all the rest of the reception and
distribution centers throughout the country.
With the war in Europe over, the Army and Navy brass in Washington were
engaged in a major revision of the master plan for conducting the war against
Japan. To clear the decks for this
operation, practically everyone's orders were being changed. Most of us who had returned to the States
for rest, recuperation, and recovery (RR&R) understood that we would be
returned to our overseas stations upon the expiration of the leave. With the transferring of whole divisions and
fleets from Europe to the Pacific, individual assignments such as mine were,
happily, insignificant. It was 8 June
1945.
1 must say that this was the first time I saw
the Army do anything efficiently in my nearly three years of service. I sat at some captain's desk at Fort Dix and
showed him a copy of my orders. He
picked up the phone, called someone at the Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base in
California, and told them I was not coming back. Then he called someone at Camp Butner, in North Carolina, and
told them to expect me. Within an hour
I was on my way to the Trenton, New Jersey, train station with a ticket to
Raleigh, North Carolina.
At Camp Butner they let me play around for
several weeks, then sent me to the Signal Corps Replacement Pool at Fort
Monmouth, New Jersey. It was 25 June
1945. On the train to New Jersey I met
an officer who told me about the Army’s Bureau of Public Relations. This sounded like an easy way to make a
living, so I applied for a transfer to the Speaker's Bureau the very next day.
This assignment
took me to Baltimore, Maryland, where a Capt.
Joseph H. McGinty held forth with a one-person staff-a civilian
secretary-in a one-room office. I was
sent out to factories in the area to give the employees pep talks, urge them to
buy more war bonds, tell them what a great job they were doing, and, at the
same time, ask them to quit their jobs and go to work for the western
railroads. With this mass movement of
troops from Europe to the Pacific, the Union Pacific, Santa Fe, and other
railroads were hurting for manpower to conduct their operations.
The Bureau of
Public Relations put together a road show to demonstrate military arms and
equipment, displaying tanks, amphibious vehicles, armored vehicles, artillery
pieces, antiaircraft weapons, personnel carriers, and an assortment of command
cars, jeeps, and the like. Mortars
fired rockets into the air, while machine guns and cannon fired blanks, adding
to the excitement. I emceed this show
as it toured fairgrounds and athletic fields in several cities in Pennsylvania
and Maryland, seeking recruits for industries in need of manpower.
As
part of the festivities, several soldiers who had been awarded medals for
bravery appeared onstage. Most told the
audience of their exploits. One man who
had been awarded the Medal of Honor, a rangy southern farm boy, would appear on
the stage but would not talk of his exploits.
However, he carried his medal in his pocket and would show it to anyone
who asked to see it. The medal was
stained and dented, and the light blue ribbon was so dirty it was difficult to
tell its color or to find its thirteen white stars.
On 14 August 1945,
while putting on our exhibition in Hancock, Maryland, we learned of the
Japanese surrender. We blew away every
rocket, artillery shell, machine gun cartridge, and anything else we had that
would make noise that night, for this would be our last show.
My next assignment
was to the Provost Marshal's Office at Fort Monmouth, where I pulled exciting
duty apprehending drivers who exceeded the fifteen-mile-per-hour speed limit,
investigating thefts, and serving for a while as adjutant for a stockade full
of German POWs. Meanwhile, the Army was
releasing personnel to civilian life on the basis of points, which were awarded
for length of service, length of overseas service, and battle
participation. I had enough points to
get out with the first wave. The
trouble was, I couldn’t find my records, and without that proof I was
pointless." I began to fear that I would remain in the service forever.
My status as a
member of the armed forces of the United States began to gel in September
1945. The Adjutant General's Office at
GHQ in the Pacific Theater discovered that I had never been discharged as an
enlisted man when I was commissioned.
They also found that somewhere along the line I had been appointed a warrant
officer, junior grade, a status I had never known of I was, in effect, three
soldiers, and two of them had to be disposed of After much correspondence, I
received a Certificate of Honorable Discharge as an enlisted man, dated 8
November 1945, effective 15 December 1943. 1 know not what happened to the
warrant officer appointment, but I was never separated from that position.
My problems were
not yet over. Although I had not drawn
pay as an enlisted man from the date of my commission, the Army had continued
to send allotments and bonds to my home, and to pay insurance premiums as well,
out of my nonexistent enlisted man's pay.
I was finally able to get the Army to accept reimbursement for these
items by calling on a chaplain for help.
No one else was interested.
On 6 January 1946 I departed from Fort
Monmouth, separated from the service except for terminal leave until
mid-March. That precious diary of
military service, my "201 File," never did catch up with me, and I'd
had all that trouble getting out of the service because I couldn’t prove that I
was ever in the service.
Although I was
separated from the service, I was not separated from the Army Finance
Office. For years I was dunned for
reimbursement of the back pay I received in Manila for the time I had spent in
the islands. Their complaint: They had
no record of my ever having been ordered to active duty. As with other matters military, I ignored
the dunning, and eventually the problem disappeared.
About
five years ago I sought a copy of my service record from the National Personnel
Records Center. I was told that if I ever had been in the service, any
proof of such service had been destroyed in a giant conflagration at the
Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri.
Officially, I remain a soldier without an Army.
There exists,
however, one item of documentation of my having been on Bondoc Peninsula,
Luzon, Philippine Islands, during World War 11. It is a personal letter written to me by Dr. Mariano N. Morales
immediately prior to my departing the area.
To me, it attests to my accomplishments more than any of the citations
accompanying any decorations I received or that remain unawarded. It reads:
Mulanay,
Tayabas
February 13,
1945
My Dear Lt.
Stahl,
When a man enters
our back door he is either a burglar or one close to the household. You are one among the few who entered our
home country via the back door. Any
casual observer, however, can say offhand that you are anything but a
burglar. Verily you are a friend and a
benefactor of our people.
I am not a military expert to pass judgment
on your achievements as a military man.
But as one who has been and is still ministering to the health and
medical problems of the people of the Peninsula, with easily 100,000
inhabitants who for the last three years have been suffering from acute want of
medicine, I can say that what you have done and are still doing to help our
people in the way of medicine has elevated you to the highest and most secure
pedestal of the people's love and gratitude.
We
will surely regret it very deeply if you will leave us through the same door
where you entered without giving us a chance to open to you what is in the
hearts of our people for the Americano of whom they hear so much and yet know
so little. I am speaking not for
myself. I am speaking for the people of
the whole Peninsula whose people I have known intimately for the few months I
have been in the field. I assure you
when you leave our shore you will carry back to your dear old home, to your
mother and dear one, the loyalty, the love, and the gratitude of no less than
100,000 Filipinos whom you have liberated from fear of disease, from want of
medicine, and from actual ravages of malaria and tropical ulcers, not to speak
of their liberation from the Nips.
Wishing
you continued health and success, I am,
M.
N. Morales, M.D.
Epilogue
The
First Reconnaissance Battalion (Special) was disbanded 15 August 1945. The battalion had an authorized strength of
85 officers and 445 enlisted men.
Although it never reached its authorized strength, some 330 of its
members went on secret missions to the Philippines.
Members of the
battalion received 304 medals for bravery, as follows: 4 received the
Distinguished Service Cross, 6 received the Silver Star Medal, 13 received the Legion
of Merit, and 281 received the Bronze Star Medal. In addition, the Combat Infantry Badge was awarded to
approximately two hundred men, while the battalion itself received many
commendations from both the Army and the Navy.
Navy "Well Dones" were numerous. This high number of medals and awards makes the First
Reconnaissance Battalion (Special), for its size, one of the most decorated
units in U.S. Army history.
Despite the extreme
danger of the missions, only nine men were lost in action. This extremely low casualty rate is
testimony to the excellent training the men received before embarking on their
missions. (In my case it was pure luck, for I had not undergone the training
sessions. I moved directly from the
jungles of Brisbane, Australia, to those of the Philippines.) Seventeen more
died en route to their assigned posts when the submarine Seawolf was sunk by the Japanese, and four died of other causes.
Nineteen submarines
carried out forty-one missions to the islands.
Author
receiving Bronze Star Medal from Col.
Leon E. Ryder at Fort Monmouth, N.J.
(Signal Corps photo)
The
Seawolf was the only submarine lost. The submarines carried approximately 1,325
tons of supplies to us. No estimate is
available for the tonnage air-dropped by the Air Force.
These statistics,
however, are misleading. The cost in
human lives was infinitely greater, for no consideration has yet been given to
the hundreds of Filipinos and Filipinas who undertook espionage missions for
us, never to return. Nor have we
counted the number of brave men and women who lost their lives as fighting
guerrillas protecting our operations.
There were also the civilian Filipino martyrs, who suffered torture and
death rather than reveal information that would have led to our capture. Heroes all, they will never be known and
recognized for their bravery.
The U.S. and
Philippine governments treated the guerrillas badly. For many years after the war I was besieged by requests from many
of them for statements attesting to the help they had given me. I responded, but to no avail, sadly. Most got no recognition-and no compensation.
I
was able to follow the lives of only a few of my Filipino comrades. Gerardo Nery reenlisted in the Army. He married Nacling Medenilla, one of the
daughters of the mayor of San Narciso.
Madcja, Ochigue, and Doming also married girls from San Narciso and
settled there. Madeja made a point of
writing to tell me that his firstborn had been named Roberto. Crispolo Robles died soon after the war, in
Manila. Of the rest, I have no
knowledge.
The three Americans
who had escaped from the Japanese and were so instrumental in the success of my
mission made safe returns to America.
Chester Konka made a career of service in the U.S. Air Force. George McGowan took up civilian life in his
native Reno, Nevada, area, where, due to physical problems resulting from
military service, he spent much time in Veterans Administration hospitals. Eldred Sattem returned to civilian life in
his hometown of Escanaba, Michigan.
Gerald S. Chapman
continued his career in the U.S. Air Force, and followed this honorable service
with many years as a mover/shaker with the Air Force Association. Charles M. Smith Joined his family in
Nacogdoches, Texas, where he became a gentleman farmer. James L. Evans JL, M.D., established a
psychiatry practice in Englewood, New Jersey.
And I went off to
college.
Born
26 October 1920 in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, Bob Stahl lived in the foothills of
the Appalachian Mountains through the boom of the 1920s and the depression of
the 1930s. After his military service
he enrolled at Lehigh University, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and graduated in
1949 with a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering. He spent the next thirty-five years engaged
in the project-development, design, and construction of major highways and
bridges throughout the United States and abroad. Now retired, he lives with his wife, Ruth, in Baltimore,
Maryland. They have two grown children.
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