As Good As Dead Read online

  The Japanese guards scampered for cover each day as bombers arrived, but they returned to beat their prisoners with a vengeance once the air raiders departed. McDole took the abuse with some pleasure. To him, the sight of any American bomber raising hell with the Japanese was a thing of great joy, as the end was now in sight. But Captain Kojima cut rations even further, and allowed his soldiers to abuse the POWs at will, even rousing them from their barracks at night for random beatings.25

  The Americans usually took shelter in the nearby coconut grove when air raids commenced, and they suffered few injuries as a result. One exception occurred during a strafing attack when a bullet ricocheted off a tree and lodged in the right shoulder of marine Earl Joyner. Doc Mango patched him up but did not have proper medical facilities to remove the fragment without seriously endangering his patient.26

  Such strafing attacks drove many Japanese guards to seek retribution. Private Tomisaburo Sawa, a twenty-one-year-old former fisherman from Hokkaido, grew so fearful of an American landing on Palawan that he took out his frustration on the prisoners, hammering defenseless men with his rifle butt, and at times even his fists. Although married with young children at home, Sawa displayed a frighteningly sadistic temperament, often dropping a POW to his knees and using a bayonet to slice up the soft skin on his face.27

  American bombers attacked the Palawan airfield with increasing frequency throughout late 1944. POWs working on the field were forced to quickly scramble to whatever cover they could find.

  NATIONAL ARCHIVES

  After each air strike, prisoners faced the exhausting task of repairing damage to the runway. The white ovals seen dotting the airstrip and jungle floor are bomb craters partially filled with water.

  NATIONAL ARCHIVE

  Ed Petry did his best to create diversions with the guards to offer some rest to his fellow prisoners. Assigned to drive a gravel truck each day to a nearby settlement, he rode under the eye of a Japanese guard to the gravel pit, where Filipino prisoners from the Iwahig Penal Colony loaded his vehicle before he returned to the airstrip for American POWs to unload.

  Petry was supposed to make five trips per day, but he rigged the ignition switch near the accelerator so he could easily turn off the engine with his foot while driving. When the truck rolled to a stop, Petry would jump out and pretend to tinker with the engine for long periods of time. His Japanese guard, ignorant of mechanics, could only watch with frustration as he fumbled with wires and spark plugs. When Petry was ready, he would simply flip on his secret ignition switch and announce that he had cured the problem. The Japanese never caught on to his trick, and Petry was proud to offer the boys at the airfield some much-needed rest until the delivery of the next load of gravel. Petry was surprised the Japanese never realized that his work truck somehow never broke down when he made the noontime chow delivery to his comrades at the airfield.

  Hysterical Harry continued to bring mayhem to the Puerto Princesa airfield well into November. The prisoners endured endless beatings from clubs and pick handles each time, and they spent untold hours refilling bomb craters. Captain Bruni requested permission for the POWs to mark the roof of their four-winged barracks as a POW camp for their protection after the first air strikes began on October 19. Captain Kojima angrily refused the request until the large raid made on October 28, after which he allowed them to paint “American Prisoner of War Camp 10-A” on the roof—but only on the wing of the barracks in which the Japanese stored rice and other food.28

  Rumors of the end of Japan’s reign circulated around camp. Mac McDole, who had learned enough Japanese to understand some of what he heard, listened one day to two guards talking about the surrender of Italy and that Germany was about to quit the war. He passed the word, enhancing the tale to help boost morale by adding that Japan would be the next country to surrender.29

  He was soon hauled to the Kempei Tai brig after the Japanese learned who was spreading the story. Mac believed that Paje, often lurking about with Kojima’s guards, was the one who had ratted him out. McDole tried explaining to Deguchi’s military police that it was all a joke meant to increase prisoner morale, but the Kempei Tai was not buying it. They quizzed him on how he was getting information from the local guerrillas and threatened to beat him until he confessed. With his hands behind his back, Mac was hoisted from the rafters, and guards took turns beating him like a piñata with a strap and three-foot sticks.

  The abuse continued all afternoon and into the night, but the bloodied marine stuck to his story. It was all a joke, he said, and he was not in communication with any outside Filipinos. Deguchi’s men finally cut him down and allowed McDole to lie in the dirt for several minutes as he tried to regain his senses. He made it to all fours and was struggling to his feet when a new guard entered the brig. Lieutenant Toru Ogawa was a short, stocky man with a thick neck and gold teeth. He doesn’t appear to have a sense of humor, thought Mac. He looks like a sumo wrestler.

  “Huh, some joke!” growled Ogawa.

  He lashed out with his fist and caught McDole square in the jaw, knocking him backward over tables and chairs. Mac was out cold. When he regained his senses for the second time that day, he was being dragged back into his barracks. The guards dumped him on the floor and stomped out as Smitty hustled over to help his buddy onto his sleeping mat.

  The prisoners could not help but think there might be an ounce of truth to McDole’s rumors about Japan’s demise.

  12

  “ANNIHILATE THEM ALL”

  TWO DAYS AFTER Miller’s High Life crashed into the ocean, Ensign Hector McDaniel stood on the beach of tiny Ramesamey Island and decided to swim for Palawan. Of the ten-man crew on board the B-24, only seven had survived, but stuck on this speck of sand with little food or fresh water, their hopes of remaining alive much longer dwindled with each passing hour. Palawan lay only seven miles away, seven miles of seawater and God knew what, but at least there he could scrounge for food and rendezvous with Filipino guerrillas. Splashing through the surf, he threw himself into the water and began swimming. Exhaustion soon overtook him, and he had to turn back.1

  Undeterred by his crew member’s failure, pilot Justin Miller went to work building a crude raft. On October 27, more than a week after his attack on Puerto Princesa, he and McDaniel set out paddling for Palawan, leaving their five comrades behind. Forced to rest on another deserted island for several days en route, the two men finally reached Palawan on November 2. Haggard and sunburned, the Americans encountered a Filipino fisherman on the beach. News of their arrival flashed through the underground network to Triny Mendoza, who had given them up for dead two weeks earlier. To recover the five airmen still stranded on Ramesamey, some too injured to walk, Mendoza organized a crew to paddle dugout canoes to the island that evening.2

  The wounded men were soon carried ashore at Palawan on bamboo stretchers, and Mendoza hosted the seven aviators for the next four days, treating their wounds before Sergeant Jacinto Cutaran’s Filipino fighters moved them north along the coast. By late November, Miller’s crew, still awaiting rescue from Palawan, had been joined by four other naval aviators from the carrier Intrepid who had been lost in action on September 24.3

  After an attempt to recover the Americans with an amphibious PBY Catalina was foiled by the Japanese, General MacArthur’s staff called upon Admiral Ralph Christie’s submarine force to help. Orders were sent on December 1 to Lieutenant Commander Guy E. O’Neill’s USS Gunnel to attempt the rescue of eleven naval aviators.4

  By dusk the next day, Gunnel was slipping through the waters ten miles off Palawan’s Flechas Point. Two guerrilla leaders delivered the American fliers by boat to Cutaran. They boarded the submarine for ice cream, pie, chocolate cake, and other treats they had not enjoyed in years. For their service, Sergeant Cutaran’s men were gifted two .50-caliber machine guns along with considerable ammunition, hand grenades, clothing, binoculars, canned food, and medical supplies.

  Gunnel skipper O’Neill would receive a Na
vy Cross for his successful war patrol off Palawan. Justin Miller, Hector McDaniel, and their bow gunner, Lieutenant Bill Read, also received Navy Crosses for their attack on the Puerto Princesa airfield and for the sinking of two ships. No awards were handed out to Palawan’s guerrilla network, who had proved essential to safeguarding and coordinating the rescue of eleven Americans.

  The remaining Americans imprisoned at Puerto Princesa would not be so fortunate.

  *

  AMERICAN WARPLANES CONTINUED to visit the Puerto Princesa airfield with bomb loads throughout November 1944. After each attack, the POWs were herded onto the runways to fill the craters. Captain Kojima also put his prisoners to work digging proper bomb shelters in the center of the camp compound, reportedly for their own protection against strafing and shrapnel. The three longest trenches were about four feet wide and one hundred fifty feet long. Once the men had dug down to a depth of four feet, they were ordered to construct a roof over each shelter consisting of coconut tree logs and old boards. They then heaped dirt along the entire length of each roof for further protection from flying splinters. The three largest shelters were designated A, B, and C.

  Shelter C was located west of the prisoner barracks. The end of the tunnel stopped just near the barbed wire fencing that stood above the cliff’s edge, overlooking the rocky coastline below. Shelter B, running parallel to C, hooked toward the bluffs so that one entrance was also near the fencing. Shelter A, on the east side of camp, was slightly larger than the other two and could hold about fifty men. In addition to these three, five smaller holes were dug in areas scattered throughout the compound. Each was little more than a deep foxhole that could hold no more than three to four men in cramped fashion. The Americans tried to convince their guards that a second entrance to each large tunnel was needed in case a direct bomb hit sealed off the main entrance, but their pleas went unheeded. In time, Captain Bruni protested enough that men received permission to dig a secondary entrance to some of the shelters.5

  McDole, Smitty, and several others took it upon themselves to secretly construct an alternative emergency exit from Shelter C. They began digging into the sidewall of their bunker a few yards from the secondary exit near the barbed wire fence. In the process, they hit a large coral rock, which they had to dig out of the way. They shoveled the excess dirt into a large sandbag as they tunneled toward the edge of the cliff, until just six inches of earth remained. To hide their project, they shoved the sandbag into the hole and forced the sizable coral rock back over the opening, which they camouflaged with limbs and debris. The men knew they could punch through the last bit of earth by removing the rock and the sandbag and make it down the sixty-foot incline to the rocky beach below.

  During one November air raid, McDole was filling bomb craters on the airfield when he counted seven waves of seven bombers each flying in low over the ocean. He scrambled into the jungle for cover as the planes tore up the airfield and swung around to attack ships in the harbor. The prisoners had grown used to such attacks and feared little, as their barracks area had never been directly hit. In all of the raids, Private First Class Aubrey Johnson was only the second American to be wounded, hit in the right shoulder by a .50-caliber fragment on October 28.

  Two other POWs were injured in the November 29 air strike. Private Robert Stevenson was hit in the left shoulder and suffered a scalp laceration, but Sergeant James Stidham was seriously wounded. A rock blasted from a bomb explosion left him paralyzed with a brain injury. The sergeant was rendered immobilized, only able to lie on a stretcher, staring at the barracks ceiling.6

  The B-24 Liberators made the most of their regular noontime raids against Puerto Princesa, inflicting much damage and hindering Japanese operations. On less frequent occasions, the bombers would attack around midnight, when they faced no aerial opposition. One afternoon, Mac McDole and Joseph Uballe watched two Zeros land after attacking the American bombers. The two briefly discussed the possibility of stealing one of the Japanese fighters, but they soon dismissed the idea as suicide and returned to their never-ending job of filling in bomb craters.7

  *

  GENERAL MACARTHUR’S AUDACIOUS return to the Philippines had gotten the attention of the Japanese command. The Americans’ landings on Leyte and ever-increasing bomb raids on other islands compelled the Japanese to begin moving their prisoners of war toward their homeland.

  During September and October, thousands of American, British, and Australian POWs were herded into transport ships for the voyage out of the Philippines. Locked in cargo holds with little food, water, fresh air, or proper toilet facilities, the men dubbed the vessels “hellships” for the inhumane suffering they endured. Some ships broke down, leaving the POWs stranded for long periods as men agonized within their holds. Other hellships, unmarked as carrying prisoners of war, were torpedoed by American submarines and sunk en route to other bases.

  On October 1, more than eleven hundred Americans were moved out of Bilibid Prison on Luzon and shoved into two cargo holds on board the freighter Hokusen Maru. Its name was blacked out, leaving many to remember it as only the “Horror Maru.” Among the men were some of the former Palawan prisoners who had been returned to Manila the previous week, including camp cobbler Don Thomas and marine George Burlage. The forward hold was packed with coal, and the hot clouds of black dust made it difficult to breathe. Burlage found that the coal was at least useful in soaking up the urine and feces dropped by his fellow captives.8

  Hokusen Maru joined with eight other hellships and several warships for the long voyage to Japan. On October 6, two prisoner vessels were torpedoed and sunk, and carrier planes and submarines continued to prey on the convoy until only four transport ships remained afloat when they reached Hong Kong on October 11. For five days, the convoy remained anchored off the city’s coast, where some prisoners, trapped in the increasingly slimy and odorous holds, lost their sanity. By the time they reached Japan on October 24, dozens of men were dead.

  The Hokusen Maru survivors were fortunate in comparison to those aboard other hellships. The Japanese were emptying the Philippines of all foreigners, and on October 11, some 1,782 POWs were jammed into the cargo ship Arisan Maru. Among them were twenty-seven former Puerto Princesa Camp 10-A prisoners, including Captain Harry Hickman and two of his medics, Phil Brodsky and Russell Lash. Arisan Maru departed Manila but was soon forced to take shelter off the coast of Palawan for several days to escape air attacks. The ship returned to Manila, where it spent more days forming up with other vessels until the convoy departed for the large Japanese port of Takao in Taiwan on October 21.9

  Nine American submarines lay in wait. Their torpedoes slammed into the convoy on the afternoon of October 23, and by early afternoon the next day, seven hellships were sunk, carrying thousands of Allied POWs to their deaths. The remaining ships scattered, leaving the slow-moving Arisan Maru on her own, and in the crosshairs of the aptly named USS Shark.

  Three torpedoes ripped into the transport. As it began slowly sinking, most of the Japanese abandoned ship, but not before cutting the rope ladders into the holds so that the trapped POWs would drown. The men managed to repair the ladders, and many foraged through the doomed ship, helping themselves to supplies. Phil Brodsky thought it was comical to see men smoking two cigarettes at a time, drinking bottles of ketchup, and eating sugar. He sat on deck with hundreds of others who had survived the torpedo explosions, waiting until the passenger ship slowly settled under fifteen-foot waves. Most men drowned, or died of exposure to sun and cold water, during the next few days, but Brodsky managed to climb aboard flotsam that sustained him and another man for days until they were hauled on board a Japanese escort ship. Brodsky was one of only nine POWs to survive the sinking of the Arisan Maru. Some 1,770 other Americans—including another two dozen former Palawan POWs—perished.10

  Brodsky was taken to Takao, interrogated, and placed on board Hokusan Maru with other former Palawan prisoners for passage to another Japanese-controlled port on Nove
mber 8. Many more American POWs would be lost before the war’s end. The Oryoku Maru departed Manila for Japan on December 13, hauling 1,620 prisoners of war, including a number of former Palawan enlisted prisoners and three officers from the Puerto Princesa camp: Phil Golden, John Janson, and Bob Russell.

  As the unmarked Oryoku Maru neared the naval base at Olongapo in Subic Bay, the aircraft from the carrier Hornet attacked, doing heavy damage. More carrier planes returned on December 15 to finish off the hellship. Nearly two hundred prisoners of war died in the bombing, or were shot in the water by Japanese as they tried to escape. Survivors were held ashore on an open tennis court at Olongapo Naval Base with abysmal sanitary conditions before being moved to another port for further transfer. Fifteen of those too weak or wounded for slave labor were beheaded and dumped into a mass grave.

  About one thousand of the original Oryoku Maru prisoners were loaded onto two other hellships, Enoura Maru and Brazil Maru, for passage to Takao Harbor in Taiwan. Enoura Maru was bombed on January 9, 1945, causing 350 more POW deaths. Only 403 of the 1,620 original Oryoku Maru passengers survived their passage on the hellships and their subsequent prison camps in Japan. Ensign Russell and Private Fred Ludwig survived Oryoku Maru, but ten former Palawan prisoners perished.

  *

  FOR THE AMERICANS who remained on Palawan, there would be no hellship voyages.

  Unbeknownst to the prisoners, the Japanese high command had already given approval for their disposal. In August, the war ministry in Tokyo issued orders to POW camp commandants to kill all American and civilian internees before they could be liberated. Prisoners were to be destroyed individually or in groups—using poisons, decapitations, mass bombings, or whatever the situation might dictate. The directive stated, “It is the aim not to allow the escape of a single one, to annihilate them all, and not to leave any trace.”11