FP-POW-EW

            Ed graduated in the first class of Navigators trained at Miami University in 1940. He was assigned to the 19^th BG March Field CA training with them until the Group was sent to the Philippines.  Ed flew as a B-17 navigators when 30^th, 93^rd and Hdqs Sqd of the 19^th BG flew their B-17s from the US to Clark Field Nov 1941.  Ed’s plane was lost Dec 8 when Japanese bombers hit Clark Field.  With his plane lost, Ed was assigned to communications at Clark and when Clark was abandon and some sent to Mindanao Ed was assigned to help defend Bataan.  His story continues:

Bataan

War Plan Orange III

            Three of my classmates whose planes had been destroyed on the ground remained with me (Ed Whitcomb) at Clark Field when the 19th Group departed for Del Monte Field on Mindanao.  With me were Jay Horowitz, William Warner, and Jack Jones.  Since we did not have planes to navigate, we assumed other positions.  I took a job in the communications section, encoding and decoding radio messages at the mobile radio station.  Members of the communications section ate from a field kitchen which had been set up under the trees.  Because I was on duty 24 hours a day, I slept on the ground outside the radio trailer.  We endured air raids day after day, with the Japanese bombers coming over so low at times that we could see into the bomb bays as their bombs fell about us.  The bombers were virtually unopposed. since we had no fighter planes at Clark Field.

Even though I was working in the communications section, I was unaware that the 19th Bombardment Group had evacuated Del Monte Field and moved to Batchelor Field, Australia, on 17 December 1941, only nine days after the first attack on Clark Field.

I was training to encode and decode messages.  It seemed strange to me that there was not someone there who was already trained for such duty until I learned that the regular cryptographers had been moved to Corregidor or to bomb group headquarters.

There were code books which were very simple to use; but I suspected that the Japanese had the same books and were much handier with them than I. There were a set of disks about the size of checkers.  On the outside of each disk were letters of the alphabet.  The disks rotated on a spindle.  It was like a puzzle.  My job was to take the letters of the alphabet that came in on the radio and rotate the disks until all of the letters from the radio were in a row.  Then I would rotate the thing until I could make out a sentence that made sense.  The trouble with that was that the sender was using code words that were only understandable to the officer to whom I delivered the message.

On 24 December, the staff in the communications section packed equipment and prepared for a move.  We had no idea of our destination: however, we were all glad to be leaving Clark Field, where we had been pounded so mercilessly by enemy bombers.

Shortly after noon, we found ourselves to be a part of an unbelievable convoy made up of every kind of military vehicle.  At first, we headed toward Manila, about 56 miles to the south; but when we reached the city of San Fernando, we turned westward.  The convoy moved slowly, with long delays from time to time.  The farther we traveled, the more disabled vehicles we saw along the side of the road.  The numbers grew into dozens, then hundreds, of abandoned vehicles of every description.  Instead of an orderly withdrawal, it appeared to be more of a rout.  If anything went wrong with a vehicle, it was abandoned.  There was not time, or even inclination, to repair anything that was out of order.

Although we had traveled only about 70 miles, it was well after dark when we pulled off the main road.  Then we followed a trail about one-quarter of a mile before we stopped for the night.  It had been an unceremonious Christmas Eve for us confused and weary travelers.

On Christmas Day 1941, we arose and looked out across the waters of Manila Bay to the isle of Corregidor, to the south of us. In the distance to the southeast, we could see the radio towers of the Cavite Naval Base; to the east, we could make out a part of the skyline of Manila.  We were on the peninsula of Bataan, just to the north of a coastal village by the name of Cabcaben.

Though we had no way of knowing it, this was the refuge provided for us under War Plan Orange III (WPO 111).  The plan had been worked out over past years, and it was said that it was well known to all US Army officers who had been in the Philippines six months or more.  But I had been there less than two months.  I knew nothing of it.  Note{1}

We were there even though it had been well established by competent authority that the Philippine Islands could not be defended by the United States in the event of war with Japan.  As late as 1937, just four years before the outbreak of World War II, Gen Stanley D. Embick, then chief of the War Plans Division of the US Army, believed that in case of war with Japan, the United States should withdraw behind its natural strategic peacetime frontier in the Pacific-the line of Alaska, Oahu, and the Panama Canal.  He knew the territory well.  As a colonel on the General Staff after World War I, he had opposed the 1924 Orange Plan.  Later, as commander of the army garrison on Corregidor, he had written a critique labeling "Orange" an "act of madness." Those of us who became victims of War Plan Orange III would wholeheartedly agree with Colonel Embick.  The planners certainly never envisioned a situation where 80,000 troops would endeavor to fight a war with no reinforcements whatsoever against a Japanese army of 200,000 soldiers who were being regularly reinforced with fresh troops and supplies. Note {2}

            Gen Leonard Wood, a former chief of staff of the US Army and later governor-general of the Philippines, had said that war with Japan would require "the abandonment of American posts, American soldiers, an American fleet, and American citizens in the Far East."3 General Wood was right-that is exactly what happened!

            Within three months after the outbreak of the war in the Pacific, all of the American military posts in the Philippines had been abandoned except the tiny island of Corregidor and some forces on Mindanao.  The naval station at Subic Bay, Cavite Naval Base, Fort McKinley, Clark Field, Nichols Field, and Nielson Field lay in ruins and in the hands of the Japanese.  Part of the American Pacific Fleet had been unable to escape from the islands, and had been captured or sent to the bottom of the sea; and 3,000 American citizens were languishing in Japanese internment camps at Santo Thomas University in Manila or at Baguio, 200 miles to the north.  Almost every prediction by Gen Leonard Wood had come true!

            Those troops who survived the first three months of the war had retreated to the peninsula of Bataan and the mighty fortress of Corregidor Island, protecting Manila Bay as contemplated under War Plan Orange III.

            Medical supplies were depleted so that less than minimal care was available for the sick and wounded.  Sick and wounded patients in the hospitals were spread out across the jungle, many without any shelter whatsoever. The southern end of the Bataan peninsula was a beautiful place with tall mahogany trees and cool mountain streams, but the beauty was meaningless to us.  We wanted so much to believe that reinforcements were on the way that we actually believed it would happen.  We never gave up hope.

            I set up a radio in the center of our camp area under four towering mango trees so that we could hear the shortwave newscasts from station KGEI San Francisco, 7,000 miles away.  Evening after evening we heard President Roosevelt promising that the US was going to produce thousands of new planes this year and thousands more next year, thousands of new tanks this year and thousands more next year.  That was encouraging to us and we never really gave up hope that those reinforcements would reach us in time to be effective.

Engineers scraped a dirt runway across the rice paddies next to the village of Cabcaben on the shore of Manila Bay.  They also built revetments with banks of dirt 20 feet high around them to protect the new planes, which would be coming from the states.  We set up the communications system with a wooden scaffolding; it would be the control tower when Cabcaben Field became operational.

During the daytime, several of us trained our aircrew members on jungle warfare.  At night, we would make trips to the shore of Manila Bay and deploy our forces in beach defense exercises.  Japanese forces were hammering at our defense lines about eight miles to the north of us, and we could hear the roar from the heavy artillery day and night.  Japanese aircraft from Manila across the bay made numerous strafing and bombing attacks on us daily.  Throughout the days and nights of January, February, and March, we waited for those supplies and reinforcements from the United States.  Many of us had no more protection from the elements than a shelter half spread above our bunks.  Everyone lived in tents or outdoors since there were no permanent structures of any kind in the jungle.

            Our rations were reduced by half and later to half rations again until men were scrounging over the hills for eatable roots or animals.  Some tried iguana, others captured and ate monkeys.  There was never enough extra food to overcome the hunger that we suffered constantly.

Malaria, dysentery, and a variety of tropical diseases took their toll until about half of our units were not able to function.  When orders came for us to go to the front lines as artillery spotters, Jack Jones and I were flat on our backs with malaria fever.  Jay Horowitz and Scott Warner did spot for the artillery until our lines were pushed back, and they were ordered back to our camp.

            We continued to live in hope for the arrival of reinforcements to rescue us.  There was no other way out.  There was no way for us to escape from Bataan, with its barbed wire and bamboo barricades all along the shores and the battle lines across the neck of the peninsula.  Bataan was jokingly referred to as the greatest concentration camp in the world.  We were captives of our own War Plan Orange III.

            US Navy planners had predicted long before World War II that, in the event of war with Japan, it would take two or three years for the US to fight its way across the Pacific to bring relief to the Philippines. Note {4} Fortunately for us, none of us knew that.  But again, that is exactly what happened.  It took more than three years for the United States to fight its way back through the Marshall, the Gilbert, and the Mariana islands.  These islands, previously occupied by Germany, were given to Japan after World War I under a mandate whereby the Japanese were prohibited from building any military fortifications.

            It took three years and four months to rescue the thousands of American soldiers, sailors, and marines who had become victims of WPO III.  We had been placed in a totally helpless position because the planners who had developed and supported War Plan Orange III had disregarded the warnings of Generals Embick and Wood.

            In retrospect, the only thing that could happen under the circumstances did happen.  Our defensive lines finally gave way to the Japanese forces who had hammered them relentlessly for more than three months.

            At Cabcaben Field, on the night of 8 April (Philippine time), we were ordered to withdraw to kilometer post 182, north of Mariveles on the southwestern tip of the Bataan peninsula.  We were glad to make the move when we learned that our own heavy artillery guns had taken up positions behind us.  It took all night to traverse the eight miles from Cabcaben Field to Mariveles.  Again, the road was clogged with vehicles moving very slowly and then stopping for long, unexplained periods of time.

At dawn on 9 April, as we were approaching kilometer post 182, we observed vehicles passing us in the opposite direction and displaying white bedsheets fastened to poles.  At first, we could not comprehend.  Then we were shocked to realize that the bedshects were white flags of surrender.  In a way, it seemed to bring some relief from the long days, weeks, and months of waiting and worrying.  We had endured disease and starvation with no words of encouragement except those repeated promises from President Roosevelt that help was on the way with thousands of planes and tanks.  Not one new plane reached us from the United States during the months that we were on Bataan.  Not one supply ship reached us from the United States.  As the war-weary stragglers made their way into the area where we were ordered to surrender, it appeared to me that it might be feasible to get away from the surrender area and avoid being taken prisoner.  I found a couple of my friends, John I. Renka, a B-17 pilot, and Jim Dey, a bombardier, and proposed to them that we try to get away. They both agreed without hesitation.

It was much easier than we anticipated.  We casually walked to the road, found a vehicle with the keys still in it, and drove straight to Mariveles harbor without any problem.  There we found a small launch with several soldiers aboard and ready to set out to sea.  They welcomed us aboard, and we set out for the island of Corregidor, about seven and one-half miles away.  It was so easy that I could not believe it was really happening.  It was too good to be true.  We were escaping from the Bataan peninsula where we had spent more than three months living on hope until we had run out of hope.  There were Japanese planes in the sky, but they took no notice of us or our little boat making its way to freedom.

            From the dense, malaria-ridden jungles of Bataan, we were headed for Corregidor, that island fortress, bastion of steel and concrete.  There was food enough to last for five years and big guns enough to ward off any enemy.  There, we would be secure until reinforcements arrived from the United States.

A new problem developed just as we were approaching the shore, however.  We observed a flight of Japanese bombers coming from the east like a dark storm blowing up on a sunny day, and it appeared that we would arrive on Corregidor at the same time.  Our skipper gave the engine full throttle in the hope that we would make our landing and find shelter just before the bombs exploded on the island.

Notes

            {1}  In the years before World War I, the War and Navy Departments devised a series of contingency plans wherein a certain color identified the specific plan to be implemented in the event of war with a given country.  War Plan Orange CWPO) denoted hostilities with Japan.

From the early 1920s, both the US Army and Navy agreed that the Philippines would prove an early and easy target for a Japanese invasion force.  When it came to a Pacific strategy, they agreed upon little else.  For its part, the Army urged redeployment of all American forces stationed in the Philippines to a defensive line running from Alaska to Oahu to Panama.  Anticipating major sea battles in the Western Pacific and stressing the strategic importance of a Philippine base for offensive operations, the Navy strongly opposed such a move.  Following certain other concessions desired by the Army, planners agreed that WPO III would provide at least for the defense of Manila Bay.  The authors of VVTO III envisioned the defenders of Manila Bay holding out on Bataan and Corregidor for four to six months while the Navy steamed to their relief across the Central Pacific.  Significantly, nothing was said about reinforcement of the Army garrison or how long it might take the Navy to fight its way back to the Philippines.

Shortly after WPO III went into effect, the "color plans," each of which envisioned US hostilities with only a single country, were transformed into the Rainbow series which more realistically assumed the existence of various combinations of alliances and multiple theaters of war.  The terms of Rainbow 5 most closely approximated the situation that existed when the US entered World War II.  However, although VTPO III had been superseded by Rainbow 5, the provisions and assumptions of the former were incorporated into the latter.  Thus, as a practical matter, the third revision of VVTO III, written in 1938, was in effect when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and attacked the Philippines.  More importantly, although no one in Washington cared to admit it, there was no change in the prevailing assumption that the Philippines could not be held against a determined Japanese foe.  Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, eds., The Army Air Forces in World War II, vol. 1, Plans and Early Operations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948-1958), 139-48: D. Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur, 1941-1945, vol. 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975), 13, 26-30, 34-37, 86-, and Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan (New York: Free Press, 1985), chap. 3. See also Louis Morton, 'War Plan Orange: Evolution of a Strategy," World Politics 11 (January 1959): 221-50 (see especially P. 248).

{2}   Embick's opposition to defending the Philippines is discussed in Morton, 237, and in Spector, 58-59.

            {3}  Spector, 56.

{4]  Contemporary estimates of the time it would take in the event of war with Japan to establish US naval supremacy in the Western Pacific and ship reinforcements to the Philippines are noted in Morton, 241.

Corregidor

            We (Whitcomb, Renka, and Dey) took shelter in the ruins of an old stone building as bombs from the high-flying planes pounded Malinta Hill, about 100 yards to the southeast of us. We felt the shock waves from each exploding bomb.  As soon as the raid was over, all of us from the boat raced through the rubble to the western entrance to Malinta Tunnel.  A warm feeling of security came over me the moment we entered the big arch of the tunnel.

Malinta Tunnel was 1,400 feet long and 30 feet wide.  From where we stood, we could not see the other end.  It seemed gigantic.  We saw officers and men who were casual and relaxed, and dressed in freshly washed uniforms.  They were not like the shaggy, haggard men we had left back in the field on Bataan.  It seemed that we were in a different world, a secure place where life would be more peaceable.

We found an officer and explained that we were aircrew members and that we had just arrived from Bataan.  He quickly put us in touch with an Air Corps colonel by the name of Newman R. Laughinghouse.

            The colonel greeted us warmly and explained that we would be taken to Australia by submarine very soon.  He carefully took our names in a notebook he carried:

John Ivan Renka, Pilot; Edgar D. Whitcomb, Navigator; James Dey, Bombardier

            Aircrew members were needed in Australia as more and more new bombers arrived from the United States.  Getting our names in the colonel's book seemed to make it official.  Soon we would be on our way back to our bombardment group in Australia.  What a break for us!

            We had taken a big gamble in leaving the area at kilometer 182, where the surrender was taking place.  We could have been shot at any moment by the hoards of Japanese soldiers who came streaming over the hills.  We could have been strafed by enemy planes as we made our way across the seven miles from Mariveles to Corregidor.  The high-flying bombers that arrived at Corregidor at the same time we arrived could have snuffed us out had their bombardiers made a slightly different setting on their bombsights.  None of those things had happened.  We had gambled and we had won.  We were overjoyed at the prospect of soon being back with the guys in the 19th Bombardment Group.  It seemed like a dream come true.  It had been more than three months since I (Ed Whitcomb) had seen an American bomber.  I was ready to go to Australia.

"Now, while we are waiting for the arrival of the submarine, you will be assigned to the 4th Marine Regiment on beach defense," the colonel explained.  That seemed reasonable enough.  We would not have to be in the tunnel while we were waiting for our transportation.

The next morning I was having breakfast with a group of husky marine officers, outdoors on the south side of Malinta Hill.  Col Samuel L. Howard was there with some of his high ranking officers.  I was amazed that they did not run for cover when a barrage of artillery fire erupted from the Bataan shore.  Being on the south side of the hill, they apparently felt secure.  I did not.

After the breakfast my new commander, Capt Austin Shofner, escorted me to the eastern end of the island and explained that I would be in charge of an artillery piece.  It was said to be a British 75. I had heard of French 75s before, but never a British 75.  Under my command was a young Filipino 3d lieutenant, a graduate of the Philippine Military Academy. {1} After we became acquainted, I learned that the crew of five Filipinos were very familiar with the gun.  Upon my command, they would load and aim the gun and do everything but fire it.  We seemed to enjoy a good relationship as I used every possible means to avoid letting my command know that I knew absolutely nothing about the weapon.  I was helped in this by the fact that we were under siege from artillery fire and from bombing and strafing airplanes from the first moment.

            Renka and Dey had assignments on other parts of the island and I had no occasion to see them.  In their place another old friend appeared.  As I looked down the road near my gun position, I was surprised to see Dayton L. Drachenberg.  A native of Rosenberg, Texas, he was a photographic officer from the 19th Group.  We had been close friends from the time we had arrived at Clark Field six months before.  After that, we had been together at Cabcaben Field on Bataan for three months.  It was good to have someone from the bombardment group to visit with.  The only time I had an opportunity to visit with anyone other than the Filipino gun crew was when the chow truck came around at about 11 o'clock at night.  Some of the marines from nearby gun positions would then congregate for a visit while we ate.  We also met at the same place at dawn, when a Navy corpsman boiled some pretty terrible coffee in a pan over an open fire.

We were frequently entertained by a family of monkeys that came in the mornings begging for crusts of bread.  We assumed that they were longtime residents of the area since our location was known as Monkey Point.

            The Japanese set up more than 100 artillery pieces on Bataan, two and one-half miles across the channel to the north.  Artillery attacks and aerial bombing raids were a way of life from that first day at Monkey Point.

            During lulls in the bombing and shelling, Drachenberg and I were able to salvage a number of useful items from the debris where officers' quarters once stood.  We found a footlocker, an innerspring mattress, a can of Kentucky Club tobacco, a pipe, a silver spoon, and a number of other useful items.  We dragged the mattress to a spot near our gun position, then dug deep trenches on each side so that at the first sound of artillery fire we could roll into the trenches for protection from the hours of shelling which would follow.

Artillery barrages were so frequent and intense that the area all about us was sprinkled with jagged pieces of steel shrapnel.  Within a few days the footlocker located about 20 feet from our trenches took a direct hit.  My can of Kentucky Club tobacco, the pipe, and other treasures were blown to smithereens so that not a shred of any item was salvageable.

            One of the delightful features of Corregidor was that it was free from the mosquitoes that had plagued us all through those miserable months in the jungles of Bataan.  Another good feature of our new home was that we could slip over to the south side of the island, where it was relatively safe from the shelling and bombing, for a cool refreshing swim.

After little more than a week on Corregidor, we were heartened by radio news that American planes had bombed Tokyo, Japan.  I had no idea that two members of Charlie Lunn's first class were navigating those planes.  Our spirits were raised and we began to believe that maybe the Americans had at last gained the offensive.  Maybe reinforcements would be coming so that we could defend Corregidor.

There was never any word of a submarine to take us off the island, though we waited patiently.  There was no doubt in anyone's mind that a Japanese invasion of the island was imminent as the bombing and shelling became more and more intense.  It was especially severe on 2 May, after I had been on Corregidor for three weeks.  Gen Jonathan Wainwright later wrote that the Japanese had hit Corregidor with 1,800,000 pounds of artillery shells on that date.  It was estimated that the 240-mm howitzers delivered 12 shells a minute onto the tiny island.  In addition, there had been 13 air raids that day.  Two days later, Corregidor was hit by 16,000 shells in twenty-four hours.  We survived it all, with no idea that the Japanese were targeting our sector for a planned landing on the island.  My one hope was that I would hear from Colonel Laughinghouse before the invasion came.

On the night of 5 May at about 1100, there was an unusual amount of firing to the north of my position.  As it became more and more intense, we became aware that the moment had come.  Dark streaks of clouds blotted out the moon, presenting a sinister atmosphere.  The artillery fire stopped as abruptly as it had begun.  Then came the chatter of machine-gun and small-arms fire.

Drachenberg was away at his duty station and I was alone with my Filipino gun crew.  From the flares and the flashes I saw, it was apparent that the Japanese were landing on the north shore of the island about 400 yards from my gun position.  There was nothing we could do but wait.  Our gun was mounted on a semicircular track and pointed in a southeasterly direction.  There was no way that we could participate in the battle unless the Japanese swept around the eastern tip of Corregidor.

            We waited throughout the night, with gunfire all about us.  Then, at first light of the new day, we disengaged the breech-block from the gun and threw it over the cliff so that it would not be available to the enemy.  After that, we moved to a position on a ridge to the northwest of the Navy communications tunnel.  There I joined Drachenberg and others in forming a defense position along the ridge.

            History tells that Monkey Point was overrun by the Japanese as of 0100 on 6 May.  It seems to disregard the stalwart crew of an antiquated British 75 field gun that held out until dawn on that date.  According to the historical account, we were behind the enemy lines from 0100 until dawn.

            We moved to a point near Denver Hill and organized a line of riflemen on the ridge.  A .30-caliber machine gun next to me was firing in the direction of the oncoming enemy until a sniper drilled the machine-gun operator through the upper right arm.  Another shot put the gun out of commission.  We were unable to tell where the shot came from.  It may have come from a sniper somewhere behind a tree stump.  We never learned where.

            As Drachenberg and I, and a couple of other officers, were in a huddle trying to establish some strategy, a mortar shell landed between us.  Drachenberg and the other two fell.  Drachenberg had a hole the size of a silver dollar in the top of his steel helmet, and blood was running down his face.

            I ran down the hill to the Navy tunnel and procured a couple of stretchers along with some people to help move the injured men to the tunnel.  It turned out that Drachenbergs serious injury was shrapnel in the intestines.  The wound to his head was only superficial.  One of the other wounded officers later died.

            The real tragedy was that it all happened about an hour before Gen Jonathan Wainwright and his party rode east from Malinta Tunnel to Denver Hill in a Chevrolet automobile to meet with the Japanese and surrender.  Before that trip, the general had sent a radio message to the president of the United States.  It read in part:

With broken heart and head bowed in sadness but not in shame I report that today I must arrange terms for the surrender of the fortified islands of Manila Bay Please say to the nation that my troops and I have accomplished all that is humanly possible and that we have upheld the best traditions of the United States and its army With profound regret and with continued pride in my gallant troops, I go to meet the Japanese commander. {2}

            Five long months after the Japanese had dropped their bombs on Clark Field, we became prisoners of war.  It seemed as if all sense of emotion had been drained from my body by the events of the past days, weeks, and months.  I was no longer afraid.  There was no reason to be afraid.  Nothing could happen that was worse than what we had endured.  We were helpless and it seemed that all hope was gone.

            The Japanese soldiers ordered a couple hundred of us to form in a column of fours.  We then marched to the north a couple hundred yards to the Corregidor airstrip known as Kindley Field.  Somewhere along the way, the Japanese halted our column and searched each of us.  Watches, fountain pens, wallets, bracelets-all things of value-were extracted from us by Japanese soldiers.

            From Kindley Field we were marched westward past the middle of the island known as Middle Sides.  We had no idea where we were going.  At some point we turned around and headed back toward the east.  It was growing dark when we finally halted.  At that moment we were located on a section of the old Corregidor electric rail line.  We were ordered to sit down.  Then we were ordered to sleep.  Sleep?  How could we sleep?  We were in such a close formation that when we lay back we were each lying on the legs of the person behind us.

            We had not eaten food of any kind for more than 48 hours because the invasion of the island had come at our mealtime the night before.  No food was offered to us.  That was of no concern because there was no feeling of hunger.  There was little feeling of any kind.  All hopes were gone for getting a submarine back to Australia.  All hopes were gone for getting back to my outfit.  All that remained was the vague possibility that there might be an exchange of prisoners or that the American forces would retake the Philippines.  No one dreamed that it would be more than three years before the American forces would return to the Philippines to free the prisoners.

Notes

            {1}   Newly commissioned officers in the Philippine Army served in the grade of 3d lieutenant.  Ricardo T. Jose, The Philippine Army (Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1992), 57-63.

{2}   Gen Jonathan Wainwright to President Roosevelt, radio message, subject: Surrender of Manila Bay, 6 May 1942 in Jonathan M. Wainwright, General Wainwright's Story (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1946), 122-23.

New Hope

            After a weary night of numbness, a quiet dawn came over Corregidor.  Across the waters, I (Ed Whitcomb) could see the outline of Mt.  Mariveles against the distant sky with its ever-present ring of clouds hanging above its peak.  The weary bodies of the men began to move as first one and then another became conscious that a new day was upon us.

A Japanese soldier broke the silence of the morning with a command, "Standing!"

We struggled to our feet and followed instructions to march to the airstrip where we had been the day before.  There the Japanese furnished a variety of yard and garden implements shovels, hoes, rakes, and picks.  Our assignment was to fill in the bomb craters on the airstrip to make it useable for Japanese planes.

We toiled in the boiling hot sun until noon as we filled in the bomb craters and smoothed off the airfield.  Then came good news.  We were going to eat.  I had no idea of the last time I had eaten.  It had surely been a long time ago.  The Japanese guard handed each of us a can of American Army C rations.  I wondered where they had been kept all of that time because I could not remember having seen such rations before.

During our break for food, someone said something to the guard about international law.  The arrogant little guard blurted out, "Japanese law is international law!" He then continued to express his unfavorable opinion of Americans in very explicit terms.

The Japanese soldiers were jubilant at their victory over us.  It somehow seemed that they had not expected it to happen.  It had happened and they were in control.  There was no question about that.  They were all smaller in size than their American prisoners, but they were tough jungle warriors.  They had fought a long and hard battle in the jungles of Bataan.  Many had perished there from gunfire, malaria fever, and other tropical diseases.  They had also suffered great losses when they invaded Corregidor.  That was all in the past.  Now they were enjoying power and authority beyond anything they could have ever imagined.

We continued our work until late in the evening.  Then again we were given the order to sleep.  This time several hundred of us laid on the level ground of the runway and had no trouble in finding rest.  The following day we continued leveling the airfield runway.  Toward evening we observed a small Japanese plane winging in over Manila Bay to make a perfect landing on the newly resurrected Kindley Field.  Corregidor belonged to the Japanese.

With our work completed, we marched in a column of fours back toward Malinta Tunnel.  There we entered a crescent shaped area on the south shore of the island where we joined thousands of other American and Filipino prisoners.  It was the 92d garage area and it was to be our home as long as we remained on the island of Corregidor.  Midst the teeming crowd I found John Renka and Jim Dey, my friends who had escaped from Bataan with me a month before.  I had not seen them since our arrival on the island.  At that time we had been elated because we thought we were going to Australia by submarine to get back to our outfit.  At this meeting we were sad and dejected because we knew there was no longer any hope for getting back into the war.  For us the war had ended.

The total number of people in the 92d garage area was 11,000 soldiers, sailors, and marines.  We were confined into an area about the size of one city block with hardly room to move about.  At night when we laid down on the ground to sleep, it was impossible to keep paths open to move from one part of the area to another without stepping on outstretched arms or legs.

We took up quarters with some Marine officers outside the northwest comer of one of the two large metal buildings.  They had been small seaplane hangers in days gone by.  Being on the south side of the island along the coast, the hangars had been protected from the artillery fire from Bataan.  A clinic was set up just inside the building where the sick and dying were laid out on the cement floor.  The outside wall of the building had been torn away so the people in the sick bay were plainly visible.

            The hills around the camp gave the area the atmosphere of an oven as the May sun blazed down on the unprotected bodies of the prisoners.  There were no tents and no protection whatsoever from the elements except for the small percentage of prisoners in the hangars.  Some few of us found relief from the heat by going into the water at the edge of the camp.  There, armed guards along the shore watched our every move.

For relief from the sweltering heat of the prison camp area, it was possible to volunteer for work details outside the area.  We would ordinarily go in groups of 50 or 60 men.  Much of the labor entailed carrying stores of American food to Japanese ships.  The stores included rice, cornmeal, and a large variety of canned goods.  It was possible to poke a hole in a bag and fill our pockets with rice or cornmeal.  We could also try to pry a board off a crate, get a can of food, and hide it inside our shirts.  We knew that the penalty for getting caught was very severe.  We had seen other prisoners being punished in a variety of ways for such misconduct.  Some were required to stand in the sun holding a rock high above their heads for hours at a time.  Stealing was a chance we had to take for survival, however.  During the time I was in the 92d garage area, I never knew of any food being provided by the Japanese for our area of the camp.  We would pool our resources with the marines.  Then we would cook the food over an open fire in rusty cans, or whatever else we could find.

Nobody escaped dysentery or "Guam blisters," which gathered in clusters under our arms and on our legs.  With the heat and the ever-present flies, we surely existed in a dazed condition of weakness and lethargy.

            There were rumors of prisoner exchange and of escape rumors that are always present among men when there is nothing more to hope for.  I made the acquaintance of a young marine by the name of William Harris, who was from Versailles, Kentucky.  Bill was a graduate of the US Naval Academy, Class of 1939, and he had been commander of a rifle company during the Japanese invasion of Corregidor.  Tall and thin, he gave the appearance of being a very resourceful person.  I was impressed with him for the reason that he was dead serious about escaping from Corregidor.

            Our problem was that we were on an island with water all around us.  We could see the shore of Cavite eight miles to the south of us, and we knew that it was about two and one-half miles back to Bataan on the north of the island.  Swimming the eight miles to Cavite was out of the question for us, but we considered that it would be possible to swim to Bataan.  We would first have to find a way to get out of camp and to the north shore of Corregidor.

I talked with Harris at length about how we might be able to get away.  We discussed it and pondered the problems, over and over.  Other people I talked to included John Renka, Jim Dey, and a marine by the name of Jack Hawkins.  At night, Bill would insist to me that we attempt to slip out of camp past the guards and up over the hill to the north shore.  We both knew of the machine-gun nests and guard posts as well as the barbed wire fence strewn about our area.  "We can make it," he would insist.  "Let's go tonight."

We were desperate.  We wanted to go, but I felt that the odds were too great against us on any effort to slip past the sentries at night.  We would surely be shot.  On the other hand, there was a question about how long we could survive in the prison camp.  More and more wretched bodies were being brought to the makeshift aid station next to us.  The death rate in camp was on the increase.

Bill and I walked to the water's edge and looked far across the south channel to the Cavite shore.  Then we waded out into the water to swim back and forth within the limits the watchful guards had prescribed.  We did it for several days with the hope of developing our swimming strength.

In the evening back in our camp area, I happened to be gazing into the sick bay area near our location when I noticed that one of the patients had stopped breathing.  It all happened so quietly and peaceably that nobody else seemed to notice it.  He was lying on his back on the cement floor surrounded by about 11,000 prisoners, and he had left them.  His body and soul had found peace, and I thought for a moment that he was one of the lucky ones.  His cares had come to an end.  There would be no more starvation for him, no more fretting under the steaming hot Corregidor sun.  Soon his body was taken away as dozens of others had been taken away.  For him the war had ended.  For us it seemed that we must make a move while we still had the strength to do it-or die!

May 22d was a happy and exciting day for me because that was the day we were going to try to make our getaway.  At about 2:00 P.M. 60 officers and men filed out of the barbed wire barricade past the machine-gun nests to go out on a wood gathering detail.  We were accompanied by an armed Japanese guard.  At a point about 200 yards from camp, Bill dropped down into a deep foxhole when no one was looking.  He called for me and seeing that the guard was not looking our way, I joined him in the underground hideaway.  Apparently, nobody noticed our disappearance from the group.  We waited almost breathlessly while our comrades swept across the hillside gathering sticks.

            We waited.  Would the Japanese soldiers come looking for us? Would they miss us back in camp?  Many worries crossed our minds as we hid, waiting for darkness.  The afternoon was an eternity.  The sun seemed to hang in the sky as if it would never go down.  Then, when darkness came, it seemed as if everything had happened quickly.  The sun was gone.  Darkness came and it was time for us to make our move.

            We stealthily made our way down the hill to the north shore, watching and listening for the calamity which would bring an end to our trip.  Where was that sentry or machine-gun nest?  Our eyes and ears strained, waiting to hear a Japanese screaming at us-or a shot which would bring it all to an end.  It was as if the world was ours.  All was quiet except for the sound of the waves lapping against the shore.  We crept down to the shore, lowered ourselves into the water, and started the long two and one-half mile swim back to Bataan and to our freedom.

            Swimming was good.  Our progress was good.  A light far across the water on Bataan would guide us to our destination.  We made our way toward that light with a feeling that we were making good progress.  We had swum for about two hours when the waves began to get choppier and larger.  The atmosphere thickened until we were no longer able to see our guiding light.  After a while longer, it started to sprinkle.  Then it started to rain.  The waves became so high and so violent that I was unable to communicate with Bill.  I screamed and screamed in the darkness of the storm, with a feeling that our long battle for survival had been lost.

Then, at long last, the rain ceased-almost as suddenly as it had started.  I could hear Bill's voice in the distance.  We swam until we were closer together and then vowed that we would not get far enough apart to get lost from each other again.  But we had no sense of direction.  We could not see our light.  There was nothing to do but tread water until we could find out which way to go.

            After awhile, we were again able to see a light-and the best part about it was that it seemed to be much closer.  We swam with a new enthusiasm until suddenly we both became aware of the outline of a large ship.  The light was on the ship and the ship was tied up in the North Mine Dock of Corregidor.

We estimated that we had been in the water more than two hours, and we were no more than one-fourth of a mile from where we had started.  The demoralizing thing was the knowledge that we were not more than a couple hundred yards from shore.  The strong tide had carried us westward toward the China Sea.  We had a choice.  We could swim back to shore and rest before taking a fresh start, or we could go on.  The choice was easy for us.  We again turned to the north and started swimming with a new determination.  Swimming became mechanical.  On and on and on, like walking, hour after hour.  We did not swim hard or fast but we kept a steady gait.

At long last, we sighted a barge in the water off to the right of our course.  It seemed to be anchored, and we considered swimming to it with the hope that we could rest for awhile.  However, as we drew near, we realized that we were much closer to the Bataan shore than we had thought.  It was then growing light, and we were able to clearly see bushes and trees on the shoreline.  It gave us new energy, and we struggled on until we were able to crawl out of the water and onto the shores of Bataan.  We dragged ourselves into a clump of bushes and collapsed, wet and exhausted-and happy that our battle against the sea was over.

When we awoke, the sun was low in the western sky.  We had slept all day.  We looked back across the waters of the channel to Corregidor and rejoiced that we had freed ourselves from that terrible prison camp.  We were free and it was a great feeling.

            This should be the happy end of a story, but it is only the beginning of difficulties beyond anything we could have foreseen.  We learned what a lot of other escapees learned: Getting out of prison camp was the easiest part of all.  That is where the real battle begins.  From there, we had to cope with the jungle, starvation, malaria fever, hostile and treacherous natives, and, of course, the Japanese.  We had our battles and victories and defeats with all of them.

Bataan to Santo Tomas

            Our ultimate destination was China.  The plan was to walk north across the middle of the Bataan Peninsula.  Thus we (Harris and Whitcomb) would avoid Japanese soldiers who occupied the coastal areas.  The main obstacle in our proposed route was 4,000 foot Mt.  Mariveles, which we knew would be difficult to cross.

            The night grew dark as we made our way along the trail to the village of Cabcaben.  There we found some friendly Filipinos and persuaded them to provide us with a meal of rice and fish.  They were nervous and urged us to leave quickly because a Japanese patrol would be coming through the village soon.  We carried the food with us and quickly slipped into the dark jungle.

            The unfamiliar area increased our anxiety as we pushed our way into the dark night.  After a couple of hours we became so ensnared in the tropical jungle that we were unable to move very far in any direction.  We had no choice but to lie down on the ground and sleep until daylight.  It was of no concern to us that adventurer Frank Buck was said to have captured his largest python snake there in the jungles of Bataan.

            At dawn we were able to continue the climb up the mountain.  Toward evening we became concerned because we had walked all day without finding anything to eat.  We had expected to find tropical fruit, but there was none.  Hunger and exertion began to weaken us.  That night a cold misting rain peppered our perch on the side of a ledge.  By morning, we were desperate for food.  We decided to take a chance at going back down to the coastal road on the western shore.  We cautiously hedged downhill in search for something to eat.  We found a banana plantation, but the bananas were not yet ripe.  They were about the size of a piece of chalk-and less tasty, but we each ate a couple and moved on up the road.  By midmorning we stumbled into an area that previously had been an army camp.  There were clothing of all kinds, rifles, ammunition, and bolo knives, but no food!

Hungry and hunted men can become irrational.  Even common events bulge out of proportion.  Sounds become alarm bells.  Panic borders every event.  We were in that condition when a rustling in the bushes sent chills through our skinny bodies.  With wide eyes we looked up to see a skinny old horse ambling toward us-food at last!  Bill immediately proposed that we shoot the horse and cut off a couple of steaks.  We shot him and sliced off several generous steaks for ourselves.  We were so engrossed in our efforts that we failed to give any thought to the Japanese.  We were busy trying to build a fire when three shots came ringing through the jungle.

We dropped everything and like a couple of scared rabbits dived into the jungle.  Sure that we were being pursued, we clawed, scratched, and ripped through the jungle until we were breathless and totally exhausted.  We stopped and threw ourselves into a clump of bushes.  There we waited and listened for a sound of our pursuers.  We remained hidden for the rest of the day, all night, and all the next day.

As darkness again fell, we quietly made our way down to the coastal road and headed to the north toward Subic Bay.  By this time, we were so exhausted that we could walk only one kilometer at a time.  Then we would drop to the ground to revive our strength.

The next morning, we found a cashew tree with delicious cashew fruit. it was the first real food we had partaken since our dinner with the Filipinos four days previously.  Later that day, in the town of Moron, another family provided us with a beautiful meal of Filipino food.

We waited until dark, then walked along the hilly trail until we reached Subic Bay.  There, we were distressed to learn that the Japanese had commandeered or destroyed all boats suitable for a trip across the China Sea.  Therefore, we changed our plans and began looking for a suitable craft for sailing to Australia more than 2,000 miles away.

Our ill-fated journey came to a sudden halt some days later when Bill Harris and I became separated.  I found a couple of mining engineers with a boat ready to sail to Australia.  They invited me to join them, but our sailing trip ended abruptly.

            We were captured by a group of hostile Filipinos.  They tied our hands behind us with a rope from our own boat.  Then we were escorted by armed guard with drawn weapons to the local civilian jail.  Our captors explained that they were turning us over to the Japanese for our own protection.  It was not the kind of protection we were looking for, but we had no choice.

We were transported to Manila and lodged in a dungeon in ancient Spanish Fort Santiago.  My new companions were Ralph Conrad of Oakland, California, and Frank Bacon from El Paso, Texas.  They were mining engineers who had wandered from Baguio in the northern part of Luzon to the southern end of the island.  When we were captured, I also claimed to be from the mines in Baguio.  I told the Japanese that my name was Robert Fred Johnson and that I was the son of a mine superintendent in Baguio.  I knew that torture and death awaited me if I disclosed that I was an escaped US Air Corps officer.

The three of us were lodged in separate cells so that we had no opportunity to communicate.  All I had was a name and a city.  I desperately needed more information about the real Robert Johnson if I were to impersonate him.

Soon the Japanese moved me.  A big wooden door swung open and I was pushed into a wooden cage approximately 12 feet by 12 feet.  The room seemed large enough except that there were already 12 people in it!

In one of the rear comers was a water spigot in a box at about floor level so that by resting on my hands and knees I could get a drink of water.  In the other rear comer was a hole in the floor with a bucket below it to be used as a toilet.

From the middle of the ceiling hung a light bulb (of approximately 25 watts) that was illuminated night and day.  On the wall in three languages were the house rules.

1.         We were not to talk to one another.

2.         During the daytime we were to sit with our back to the wall.

3.         At night we were to lie on the floor to sleep.

There were no bunks or pillows or covers.  We had the hard floor for a bed. By whispering, we learned about each other: Roy C. Bennett, an American, the former editor of the Manila Daily Bulletin, McCullough Dick, the former editor of the Manila Times; two Frenchmen who were said to be members of a Free French Organization; several Filipinos; and one Chinese boy.

Three of the walls were of plywood construction; but the front of the cell was made of three-inch by three-inch wooden bars placed about one-half inch apart.  In the center of the front of the cell was a small opening about four feet above the floor.  This was a serving window where, three times a day, a little Japanese soldier appeared with a bucket and generously rationed each of us with a heaping saucer of rice.  Sometimes he would put some green leaves on the rice.  Other times there would be bony pieces of fish.  On Sundays and Thursdays, we got a special treat when, instead of the rice, we got a saucer of milk with some sugar and a small cube of bread.  No other food was served to us at anytime.  No utensils were provided.  The skinny bodies lined up before the serving window.  They grabbed their saucer and ran back to sit on the floor and gobble up their rice, pushing it in their mouths with their fingers.

The monotony of our routine was broken several times each day and night by roll call.  We could hear it start at the other end of the row, 13 cells away from us.  When we heard the command, 'Ro Col" we each jumped up and stood facing the front of the cell.  Then, when the guard appeared before our cell, we would count off in Japanese.  Bennett, my American friend, prompted me so I would say the correct number.

So, for about a half-hour at each roll call, we would hear ringing up and down the halls outside, "ichi, ne, san, shi, go, roku, hichi, hachi, ku, ju, ju-ne, ju-san, etc." Sometimes there would be no roll call for three or four hours, then we might have one followed by another and then another.  There seemed to be no rhyme nor reason to the way it was done.

From Bennett I learned that the people in the cell had each been arrested by the military police.  The Japanese practice was to go to the home of the person in the middle of the night.  If the one who answered the door was the person they wanted, he would be taken immediately, with no opportunity to communicate with members of his family.  For that reason, many of the prisoners wore very few clothes.  Bennett himself wore only a pair of BVDS, the only clothing he had for several months.

            From time to time, the guard would appear at the front of the cell and call the name of an individual prisoner.  The big wooden door would be opened and the prisoner would be taken away.  Sometimes they would return to the cell badly beaten and lie on the floor in a heap, moaning and groaning until they were sufficiently revived to sit along the wall.

Sometimes a prisoner would go for interrogation and never return to the cell.  Authorities estimated after the war that only one of 10 people who entered Fort Santiago came out alive.

My concern that I might be taken out for questioning was short-lived.  I heard the guard calling a name, but it meant nothing to me.  Bennett nudged me and beckoned for me to stand in front of the window.  The guard was calling, "Roberto Johnson" -- my new name.

The door opened.  I stepped down out of the cell and put on my shoes to follow the little guard down the long corridor.  We passed the cells of Ralph and Frank, whom I had not seen for several days.  With the little guard, I hiked across the inner court of Fort Santiago to a room in another building.

There was a table, three chairs, an officer, and an interpreter.  In the comer stood a wooden pick handle and a piece of pipe about three feet long and about three-fourths of an inch thick.  The officer spoke in Japanese and the interpreter translated his questions into English.  Each question and each answer were written on a scroll.

I gave my name as Robert Fred Johnson and said that I was the son of the superintendent of Le Panto Mine near Baguio.  I was from Miami, Arizona, and I had come to the Philippines on a ship before the war to work at the mine with my father.

Because I was an escaped prisoner of war, I knew I could not say anything that would identify me with the military.  I was a soldier in civilian clothes in enemy territory.  Had they known of my flight to the Philippines with the B-17s or of my activities on Bataan or Corregidor, I would have been executed.

After a long session of questioning, I was taken back to my cell.  After that first session, I was called for questioning each day.  The officer started each session from the beginning and asked all of the same questions that he had asked the day before.

I told of how Bacon, Conrad, and I had left the mine at the outbreak of war and spent eight months walking south.  It was more than 200 miles from Baguio to the south coast, where our trip ended.  Questioning went well for me until the interpreter started finding fault with my story.  My answers to the questions were not the same as the answers of my comrades.  It became very difficult.  If only I could talk with my friends, I could get the right answers.  The problem was that they were in separate cells and there was no way to communicate.

After a few days, my questioning period was interrupted when I fell sick with malaria.  I lay on the hard floor with fever, racked with pain, asking for a doctor.  Each time the Japanese response was, "By and by the doctor come." However, the doctor never came.

When I had recovered enough to sit up, I was again taken for questioning.  The officers attitude was different now.  He was very genial.  He pulled out a package of American Lucky Strike cigarettes and offered me one.  My first thought was that the cigarettes had come from Red Cross packages intended for the prisoners.  I took one and inhaled deeply.  The Japanese officer said, "You tell the truth -- it is very good for you.  You lie and you will be killed.  Yesterday you lie.  Today you lie, you will be killed." The session ended, and I was taken back to my cell.

When I was taken for questioning the next day, the officer flew into a rage as I stepped into the room.  It was all in Japanese, but the interpreter let me know that I was not fit to sit on a chair.  I must get on my knees on the floor.  The officer raged on, and pointed to the pipe in the corner.  The interpreter handed it to him and he struck me across the back time and again.  After the first couple of blows, I was numb and felt only dull thuds as the pipe struck my body.

I was then taken back to my cell where I felt like dropping to the floor as I had seen others do.  Instead I made my way over to the wall and sat beside Bennett.  I did not have to tell him what had happened.  He knew.  The next day I was on the floor again with malaria, but there was still no doctor.

When I was returned for questioning a few days later, the session went on and on into the night.  'You tell the truth, it is very good for you.  You can go to Santo Tomas Internment Camp with your friends.  It is very nice.  You lie, you will be killed."

Then came questions about a town called Lusud where Ralph and Frank had spent some time.  My description of the place was not satisfactory.  Finally, the officer produced a paper and asked me to draw a map.  I did it.  I drew a map of a typical Filipino barrio but I could not please the officer.  He tore up the paper and threw it to the floor.

It was near midnight after about six hours of grueling questioning when he gave me a paper and pencil and told me to take them back to my cell.  I was to have a proper map of the town of Lusud when I came for questioning again.

With a heavy heart, I followed the guard back across the courtyard and down the long corridor past the cells of sleeping prisoners.  As I leaned over to remove my shoes, I looked up to see the guard unlocking the wrong cell.  I started to blurt out, "Wrong cell," but I remained silent.  The guard was unlocking the cell of my friend, Ralph Conrad.  I could not believe it as the big door swung open and I stepped in.  I held my breath while the door slammed behind me, and the bolt was jammed into its place.

            I climbed over the bodies stretched out on the floor to my friend, Ralph.  He had been asleep and he seemed bewildered by my presence in his cell.  I crowded in beside him on the floor and related my plight.  Quickly, and quietly as possible, I asked him questions and had him draw my map.  We needed to act quickly before the guard learned of his mistake.  Fortunately, the guard did not return and we had a long session.  Then I called the guard to report the mistake.  By this time, a new guard was on duty and he did not understand.

Now outside the cell, I pointed to the name tags by the door to my cell.  They were in Japanese, but I assumed one of them said Robert Johnson.  Ignoring my efforts to explain, he reached out his hand and demanded that I give him my map.  I refused and, unbelievably, he let me keep it.  He then locked me in my own cell.  Following those nervous moments, there came two roll calls in succession.  Then all was quiet.  I lay on the floor pondering over the events of the past few hours.  I could not believe what had happened.

            The next day, I presented my map to the officer when I was taken for questioning.  He was satisfied and I felt as if I had passed the most important test of my life.  I had the right answers for the officer's questions for a couple of succeeding sessions before getting into trouble again.  There seemed to be no way out and I was worried.  I did not know the answers to the questions, and I had no way to talk to either of my companions.

Then, one morning when I was called, I stepped out of my cell to see the haggard figures of my two companions, Bacon and Conrad.  They were also out of their cells.  I was certain we were being taken out for execution.  I could tell they were worried too.  We were led across the courtyard without a word between us to a different building.  Then the guard took each of us inside one at a time . I was shown a map and asked to point out the route we had traveled for the past eight months.  I did the best I could and was taken out to join the other two.  Then the guard loaded us into a military staff car, and we were driven out of the gate of Fort Santiago.  We rode on across Manila for about a mile and through a big gate into a compound.  There we saw hundreds of American and British people.  They looked at us curiously as we unloaded from the staff car.  Much to our surprise and delight, we learned that we had arrived at the Santo Tomas Civilian Internment Camp.

Deliverance

            Carl Mydans was one of the original photographers employed by Life magazine when it first brought to the American scene a pictorial review of world news.  He covered the Russian invasion of Finland in the frigid winter of 1940 with pictures of a war unlike any that had been witnessed before.  Then he and his pretty wife, Shelley, were transferred to Chungking to cover the Japanese war in China.

The year of 1941 found Carl and Shelley in the Philippine Islands reporting the tragic plight of the Americans after the attack by the Japanese.  In the early days of that war, the editor of Life had requested a story about Americans on the offensive.  Shelley's reply had been short and to the point: "Bitterly regret your request unavailable here," she reported.

It was true.  The American forces were suffering defeat at every turn.  Manila was declared an open city, but that did not deter the Japanese from continuing their bombing attacks on the city.  Within days, the Mydans found themselves interned with 3,500 other Americans, British, and Dutch in Santo Tomas University.  The stately complex within the city of Manila would be the residence of most of the civilians for the duration of the war.

The war had gone much better for the Japanese than they had anticipated.  Within six months after the war began, they faced the problem of providing food and shelter for a tremendous number of prisoners of war and civilian internees.  Included were the 80,000 prisoners from Corregidor and Bataan, together with 3,700 civilian internees in Santo Tomas and Baguio.

Many of the Santo Tomas internees desired to be moved to Shanghai, where they had relatives and friends.  But there was no internment in Shanghai, so the civilians would have to provide their own food and shelter.  The Japanese officials determined that such a move would be to their own benefit.  Such a move would help solve the food shortage in the Philippines.

            Carl and Shelley Mydans applied for transfer to Shanghai, along with 42 other Americans and a number of Dutch and British. I, too, applied for transfer to Shanghai.  On my first evening in Santo Tomas Internment Camp, I had gone to the barber for a haircut.  Somebody there mentioned that a number of internees were being transferred to Shanghai.  It was the first time I had heard anything about it.  That started me thinking and asking questions.  My head started to swim.  Could it be possible that I might get on that ship, too?  I could not believe it.  It seemed totally unreal to me that the Japanese would transfer me to China.  China had been our destination when Bill Harris and I had escaped from Corregidor more than four months before.  I thought about what a strange thing it would be if I could get to China after all of the difficulties we had endured over those past four months.  I decided to give it a try.

The next morning, as soon as I thought he would be in his office, I went to see the commandant.  I introduced myself as Robert Fred Johnson, a mine employee from the area of Baguio and told him that I had been wandering about the islands since the beginning of the war.  I told him that I had arrived in camp and had learned about the trip just the day before.  I also told him that I wanted to be transferred to Shanghai, where I had relatives and friends.

"I am sorry, Mr Johnson," the commandant replied tersely.  "The list has been made up.  There will be no names added and no names taken off the list."

That seemed final enough, but I made one more try before I left his office.  "If there is any chance that my name could be added to the list, I would surely appreciate it," I pleaded.

The wild dream had faded.  I had tried and failed.  Somehow I knew that it could not happen that easily, so I gave up the idea of getting on the ship to Shanghai and spent the next few days trying to find a way to escape over the wall of the internment camp.

I was housed in a big gymnasium with a camp cot, a mosquito net, sheets, and a pillow.  The internees wore clean clothes and ate their meals at tables, with plates, knives, forks, and spoons.  Those were luxuries that I had not enjoyed for months.  I took the job of washing pots and pans in the kitchen and, in general, found life relatively enjoyable.  With it all, however, I knew that I had to get away from that place before my identity became known.  There were many people in camp from the Baguio mines, and they all knew that I had nothing to do with the mines.  There was no doubt in my mind that I would be executed if the Japanese learned the truth about me.

Before I was able to work out a way to escape, a miraculous thing happened.  The sailing list was posted and the name of Robert Fred Johnson was among the people who would be transferred to Shanghai.  It was as if I were in a dream world. I, a lieutenant in the United States Army Air Corps, was being assisted by the Japanese in my escape from their prison camp, and I was being transported on a Japanese ship to Shanghai.

Within 10 days from the time I had arrived in Santo Tomas, I was on the way.  We went first by bus to the port, then boarded the Maya Maru for Shanghai.  Things had happened so quickly that I was having a hard time putting my thoughts together.

During the past few days I had been obsessed with escape, and the Japanese had solved. that problem for me.  Now I faced an equally perplexing problem.  In the event I reached Shanghai, how could I make my way across 1,343 miles of China to Chungking?  When I had been with Bill Harris, that had not seemed such a problem.  Bill had been stationed in Shanghai with the Fourth Marine Regiment and was acquainted with the countryside.  I knew nothing about China and had no idea of what to do.

I needed to talk to somebody who could help me-somebody I could trust.  I learned about Carl and Shelley Mydans, and decided to try to get their help.  I saw them and watched them.  I wondered how I might be able to get acquainted with them, and how much I could say about myself.  Late on the first day of the trip, I saw them on deck.  It was just as our ship was passing through the north channel between Corregidor and Bataan.  Suddenly, on impulse, I found myself saying to them: "There's old Cabcaben Field." The Mydans turned to me and Mr Mydans said sharply, "That's not the kind of talk to have on this ship."

Embarrassed, I left them.  I worried about what had happened but I desperately needed help.  I found them again when they were alone.  "I'm sorry about what I said," I told them.  "I know how unwise I was to have said it.  But I need to talk to someone and I need help."

            Carl Mydans said, "Alright!  If you will give us Your word that you will not tell anyone else about your background-not a single soul-we'll do all we can to help you."

The day after our conversation I suffered a relapse of malaria fever.  The disease had plagued me from the days in the jungles of Bataan.  I was confined to my cot in the hold of the ship for several days, unable to move about.  At long last, the Maya Maru made its way into the Yangtze estuary and up the Huangpu River to the Bund on the Shanghai waterfront.  It was night when we arrived, and we were unceremoniously unloaded from the ship.  Friends and relatives enjoyed tearful reunions, laughing and crying all around us.  Faithful Chinese friends came with great joy as people rushed to get back to their Shanghai homes.

I watched and waited, and then was bewildered when I came to the realization that I was free to go wherever I wanted to go.  The problem was that I did not have any place to go.  There was no one to talk to.  Then I heard someone shout, “Transportation to the American School.  Transportation to the American School." That sounded good to me.  Some people were climbing on board a truck with their belongings, so I joined them.  My only worldly possessions at the time were the clothes I was wearing -- a sport shirt, a pair of trousers, and a pair of tennis shoes.  I was delighted to learn that an American Association of Shanghai assisted people who were in need of help.  The organization had provided the truck to haul homeless passengers to the American School in the French Quarter of the city.  In addition to the transportation, there was food and a place to sleep.  It was comfortable, clean, and quiet-and a long way from the horrible scenes of Bataan, Corregidor, Fort Santiago, and that wall that had surrounded Santo Tomas.

            I did not see the Mydans for several days after we landed in Shanghai.  I wanted desperately to see them and talk with them, but I did not know where they were and did not know how to find them.  Then, one day, they appeared at the American School library where they had come to get reading material.  When the opportunity came, I asked when I could talk with them.  They told me they were staying at the Palace Hotel on the Bund and I could come to see them at any time.  The next day I took the street car into the business area of the city and went nervously knocking on their door.  This would be the first time I could tell anyone about my problems.

I started first by telling them that I was a navigator in the US Army Air Corps.  With that, Carl indicated that we should move to the middle of the room where the three of us sat on the floor while I quietly told them of the past nine months.  I explained that I wanted to get to Chungking and back to my outfit in the South Pacific.

Carl said, “The government has spent a lot of money training you.  The best thing for you to do is talk to Anker B. Henningsen.  He works with the American Association here in Shanghai.  He is reliable and you can trust him." I was greatly relieved.  I now had friends with whom I could share my worries and my plans.  I felt much better after my visit with the Mydans.

When I made my way to Henningsen's office, a new fear gripped me.  Sitting at the reception desk in the hall was an oriental gentleman who looked very Japanese to me.  I decided that I would tell Henningsen nothing until I learned why he had a Japanese for a receptionist.  I was blunt and came straight to the point.  "Who is that fellow sitting outside your office?" I inquired.

"Oh," Henningsen laughed.  'That is Peter Kim.  He is Korean and he hates the Japanese just as much as we do.  Don't worry about him.  What can I do for you?"

I told him my story and of my desire to go to Chungking.  He looked worried and warned me sternly.  He told me of six US Marines who had attempted to escape from Shanghai and make their way back to Chungking.  Their effort had ended in disaster even though some of them could speak Chinese and knew the territory well.  The Japanese captured them and lodged them in the Bridge House Prison.  That was the Shanghai counterpart of Fort Santiago in Manila, where I had been held and beaten by the Japanese.

Before I departed, Henningsen noticed the clothes I was wearing.  He asked me if I had any others.  I let him know that the clothes on my back represented my entire wardrobe.  With that, he said, "Lets take a walk."

We went down to the street on the elevator.  It took a lively step to keep stride with him as we wound our way through streets and alleys until we arrived at his downtown apartment.  He opened a wardrobe and took out a fine Hart, Schaffner & Marks suit.

"Here, try this on," he said as he handed it to me.  It fit me perfectly.  Then there was a shirt, a tie, and a pair of Florshiem shoes which were also my exact size.  I felt like a new person, and I was very grateful to the generous gentleman.  Back at the American School, the disappointing news about chances to escape from Shanghai mellowed as I enjoyed a new feeling of respectability in my new attire.

The Japanese required all American citizens to wear a red arm band with a large letter "A” with a number.  British citizens' arm bands bore a "B." My number happened to be 1215 which provided a constant reminder of the approximate time of day that the Japanese had carried out their devastating raid against Clark Field back in the Philippines.  In addition to the arm bands, we were provided individual identification cards with our picture and a message explaining our status as enemy aliens (fig. 4).  There were no other restrictions upon us.  We were able to travel freely about the fascinating oriental city of Shanghai.

Just when I felt comfortably settled into my new surroundings, a disconcerting thing happened.  I was summoned to the Swiss Consulate in downtown Shanghai to answer questions about my identity.  As a neutral nation, the Swiss had the responsibility of taking care of matters concerning the Americans in China.  I was told that they were unable to confirm my American citizenship.  I had no passport or any other identification.  In Fort Santiago, I had told the Japanese that my parents, Fred and Betty Johnson, lived in Miami, Arizona.  US State Department people were unable to locate anyone by that name in Miami, Arizona.  I was in trouble.

Author's Identification as Civilian Internee

At that time I had to confess that my middle name was Doud.  I told the Swiss that my father, Fred Johnson, had been disappointed that I had not been named after him, so I had adopted his name as my middle name.

"I have a sister named Laura Showalter living in Columbus, Indiana, who can identify me as Robert Doud Johnson, I told the Swiss counsel.  The message was sent through Berne, Switzerland, to the US State Department.  My citizenship was confirmed, and I was issued an identification card by the Swiss Consulate Embassy.

            Life in my new environment was pleasant beyond all expectations.  I made friends and attended parties.  There were horse races at a splendid race course on Nanking Road.  I learned years later that some members of the American community in Shanghai had been suspicious of me.  The expression was that I was "unknown," a person with no passport or credible identification.

            My activities came to an abrupt end when I was stricken with a recurrence of malaria fever.  Dr Hyla S. Watters, the missionary doctor at the American School, became alarmed at my condition.  She said that it was malignant malaria and could be fatal.  Dr Watters, a longtime medical missionary in China, gave me a stringent prescription.  She had studied tropical diseases in London and she knew of a possible cure.  If I would consent, she would give me a shot of salvarsan, a medicine used on syphilis patients.  After lying in bed for days with fever and misery, I was willing to try anything.  She administered the medicine.  The results were phenomenal.  In a few days, the fever was gone-and I never had a recurrence of the dreaded disease.

            The Mydans continued to stop by the American School from time to time to renew their stock of reading material.  On one such visit, they suggested that I might enjoy moving to the Palace Hotel on the Bund where they lived.  What was more, they offered to provide me with money to make the move possible.  In a short time, I was living in a private room at the hotel with a fireplace and a view up the Huangpu River from the front window.  It was cozy and comfortable.  Evenings, the local radio station XMHA played its sweet theme song at sign-off time.  Sometimes, in moments of deep nostalgia, I would gaze out the window and wonder if someday I might be sailing out that river and back home to America.  But it seemed very much like an impossible dream.

On a cold and dreary November morning in 1942, the American and British communities were shocked to learn that a number of the leading members of their community had been interned.  Among them was Anker B. Henningsen.  They were confined in Potung, a compound across the Huangpu River.  There were rumors that more would be taken.  Then, in late January, it became official.  All American, British, and Dutch citizens in Shanghai were to be interned.  Those of us who had come from Manila had enjoyed five months of semi-freedom in a phenomenal, enchanting, and mysterious city known as -- The Pearl of the Orient." We were ordered to report to the Columbia Country Club on 3 February 1943 to be assigned to an internment camp.  From there, we moved to a war-torn and abandoned Chinese university on the outskirts of the city.  It came to be known as Chapei Internment Camp.

The grounds at Chapei were some five acres, with few trees and little shrubbery.  I was again living in a compound surrounded by barbed wire.  I looked longingly at the broad, open fields to the west and wondered if it might be possible to escape.  How could I get away and make it over the 1,343 miles to Chungking?  As far as I knew, I was the only military person in the Shanghai internment camp, which housed about 1,000 American, British, and Dutch civilian internees.  I would have to do all of the planning myself.

            A thousand men, women, and children crowded into former classrooms at Chapei Internment Camp.  I shared a rather large room with 14 other men.  There were bunks with rectangular, box-type mosquito nets covering each one.  There was no room for furniture other than a chest for personal belongings placed at the foot of each bunk.

            Carl Mydans occupied another dormitory-style room down the hall in the same building.  Shelley spent a lot of time out of camp for medical treatment because Japanese and German doctors confined that she was losing the sight in one of her eyes.

As always, there was the persistent rumor of repatriation for the internees.  There had been one previous exchange of civilians from Shanghai and, even though it occurred early in the war, it was plausible that there might be another.  The rumors did not excite me because I was certain that I would be among the last to go even if there were another repatriation.  I was more concerned about the possibility of getting through that barbed wire fence and to Chungking.  I had no passport or other citizenship papers.  There was only the identification card which the Swiss had furnished.  One thing was certain, I did not want the Japanese officials to start asking questions about my identity.

One evening when Carl and I were talking, he hinted that I might have a chance to be repatriated.  Because of my special circumstances, a request had been made to the US State Department.  The request was that all people who had come from Manila to Shanghai be repatriated in a block.  That would include me if my real identity had not been exposed before that time.  Repatriation seemed to be developing into a sure thing, and excitement grew in camp as we were waiting for the list to be posted.  It was then that the unexpected happened.

After long, anxious days, the list was finally published on the bulletin board amidst much excitement.  Carl, with a broad smile across his face, announced, 'You're there!" I was shocked!  It was beyond belief.  I looked at the list and read the name, "Robert F. Johnson." It could not be true, but there it was.  I was going home.  Yet I could not think of home.  It was in another world.  Too many things could happen.  So many things had already happened that I was afraid to think this was real.

Carl and Shelley Mydans were there by my side.  They had put their own security in jeopardy to help a fellow they knew needed help.  I knew that they had succeeded when I stepped off the exchange ship Grisholm in New York Harbor on 8 December 1943, free to go back to my unit in the Air Corps.

Ed would later become a lawyer and Indiana State legislator before becoming Governor of Indiana for one term.  After retirement at age 65 Ed sailed almost all the way about the Earth solo in a sail boat using his celestial navigation skills. He had started from the Mediterranean and wreaked in the Red sea before making back  into the Mediterranean. DL