As Good As Dead Read online

  McDole could not resist stealing a look as well: Japanese soldiers poured more fuel into the air-raid shelters and tossed in burning torches. Men screamed in agony, and any who escaped the shelters were shot down.

  “Mac, get your head down!” Smitty shouted. “You’ll get it shot off!”

  A burst of machine-gun fire sent Mac diving back into the tunnel. He shouted to Smitty, “Pull the sandbag out of the wall!”

  Smitty pushed his way back toward the far end of the tunnel, intent on reaching the escape hatch that led to the beach. All he needed to do was to clear away the brush that concealed the passage, remove the coral rock and sandbag, and the men would at least have a chance to avoid being burned alive. When he got to the back, Smitty found no one at work clearing the hatch. His warnings had failed to get his companions moving.18

  “They’re killing everybody out there! Let’s go!” Smitty screamed. He slung the debris aside and tugged at the heavy rock, then hoisted out the sandbag. Several other men joined in and began clawing through the last inches of soil. Fingers poked through, followed by fists rammed into the open daylight beyond. The men frantically scooped more soil out of the way, trying to make the exit just wide enough for the malnourished frames of the POWs to wriggle through.

  Outside their trench, men were dying by the dozens.

  *

  THE GUARDS MOVED from Shelter A to Shelter B, repeating their sadistic process. Petry heard the soldiers approaching as he crouched below the entrance. He could feel a knot on his head where he had been hit with the rifle butt. As the voices grew louder, Petry retreated deeper into the tunnel, the spicy odor of aviation fuel tingling his nostrils. As fuel splashed into the opening, he elbowed his way back toward the other end, which lay closer to the cliffs and the barbed wire fencing.

  Japanese guards fired their rifles into the entrance as fuel was poured. The Americans were packed in so tight that Petry knew they could not miss. Flaming torches and rags were tossed into the opening he had just vacated. There was an explosion behind him, and an orange ball of flame swept through Shelter B. Consumed in flames, men near the entrance fell to the ground, writhing in pain. Ernie Koblos, deeper in the tunnel, was uncertain what to do. As the fireball flashed past him, he saw a prisoner dart out of the opening ahead of him. Koblos knew that if he stayed below ground, he would soon be a dead man.

  The fire was burning his bottom as he jumped out of the far end of the tunnel and made a dash for the fencing a short distance away. By some miracle, the bullets zinging past his head missed. As he crawled through the barbed wire, Koblos thought briefly about trying to help his comrades escape. Glancing back, he saw men cut down by rifles and machine guns, and he knew he could do nothing. He cleared the barbed wire, jumped over the cliff, and tumbled down the steep embankment toward the rocky shoreline below. He was one of the first to reach the beach, but he had no idea what to do next. He splashed around in the shallow water, looking for someplace to take shelter. He finally spotted a small cove in the edge of the rocks and ran over to hide.19

  Inside Shelter B, the men bunched near the entrance closest to the veranda had no chance. Five or six charged out in desperation, their clothing and skin ablaze. Yoshiwara ordered the dozen soldiers standing on the veranda to hold their fire since there was danger of hitting their own men. But another noncommissioned officer screamed at them to shoot, and many did. Private Sawa cracked off three shots from his rifle and felt sure that his bullets hit home.20

  The veranda machine gun, manned by Superior Private Hakaru Yamaguchi and Private First Class Keiichi Ogata, ensured that no one escaped from the main entrances of the first two shelters. Most of the dozen or so Americans who fled from shelters A and B made it only yards before they were cut down. Yoshiwara and a noncommissioned officer tossed two hand grenades inside the blazing shelters to finish the execution.21

  Other guards resorted to more hands-on methods to murder prisoners. Superior privates Minoru Onuki and Hiroshi Yamada stood over two Americans who had collapsed with bullet wounds and burns and finished them off with bayonets. Lieutenant Haruo Chino, whom the Americans had nicknamed “Robert Young” after the movie star, seemed greatly aroused by the killing as he shouted encouragement to his men.

  Ernie Koblos was already gone by the time Ed Petry reached the end of Shelter B closest to the cliffs. There, Petry encountered several others he knew: Johnny Diaz, Julio Smith, and Beto Pacheco. They quickly discussed their options. They figured more Japanese guards would be dousing their end of the tunnel and torching it within a minute.22

  “When they set that gas off, they will have to back up,” Pacheco said. “We should run and make a break for it then.”

  As soon as the fuel splashed in, Diaz took off first, racing toward the fence line in hopes of making it to the cliff. Petry was next. As he felt the heat sweeping through the shelter, he leaped from the hole and ran for the double strands of barbed wire. A bullet slammed into his left anklebone and sent him sprawling into the dirt. Other bullets kicked up sand and rocks all around him amid the roar of guns and screams. Pacheco charged past Petry, who jumped up and hobbled to the barbed wire. The sharp prongs sliced his flesh as he tore through it and raced to the edge of the cliff. He tried to slide down but instead plunged over the side.23

  Pacheco and Petry jumped, crawled, and fell down the sixty-foot incline. Once they reached the beach, they saw several others following them. Japanese guards quickly scrambled to the bluff’s edge and opened fire on the escapees. As he and Petry ran, a bullet tore through Pacheco’s upper left arm, just inches away from his heart. He was caught on the open beach, lead zipping all around him. He felt a sharp pain as another bullet ripped into his upper left thigh, but he didn’t stop. He and the other POWs zigzagged across the beach, frantically searching for cover.

  *

  IN SHELTER C, men huddled around the far end of the dugout, closest to the Japanese guards on the veranda. McDole and Joe Barta each poked their heads up and saw shelters A and B engulfed in flames. Several men were running, their bodies on fire. Mac spotted a fellow marine, Corporal Rob Hubbard, emerge from a nearby bunker, his body in flames. Hubbard made it only a few steps before a machine gun cut him down. Barta had seen enough. It was time to go. He scrambled through the length of the underground bunker toward the rearmost point. Just short of the end, he came upon the men digging out the last inches of soil in the emergency exit.24

  Mac lingered at the main entrance, transfixed by the slaughter playing out before him. Men charged from various bunkers, each racing toward the cliffside barbed wire. He spotted Doug Bogue, Petry, Pacheco, Don Martyn, Doug Burnett, and Jesse Simpson all making their breaks for freedom. Burning prisoners writhed on the ground as Japanese soldiers murdered them with swords and bayonets.25

  McDole saw little chance for anyone to make it very far. The prisoners were unarmed, many were injured, and those who did make it from the shelters faced unknown odds of fleeing across an island occupied by the Japanese.

  We’re as good as dead, he thought.

  *

  DOUG BOGUE KNEW he would die if he remained in his small dugout. He was huddled next to Gabriel Sierra and Stephen Kozuch in the shelter they had dug close to the fencing on the edge of the bluff, directly south of the Company B shelter. Their pit was covered, leaving an opening large enough for only one man at a time to enter or exit.

  Bogue rose up for quick glances as the first minutes of the massacre unfolded, reporting what he saw to Sierra and Kozuch. A short distance away, he saw James Stidham lying on his stretcher near the entrance to Shelter C. The paralyzed man was helpless to fend off the guards who pierced his body with bayonets before they turned their guns on him.26

  To the right and farther south of Bogue’s shelter was the small bunker reserved for the four remaining American officers, Captain Fred Bruni, First Lieutenant Carl Mango, Lieutenant Henry Knight, and Warrant Officer Glenn Turner. Bogue saw Japanese soldiers soak the shelter in fuel and toss in a
torch. Doc Mango charged from the entrance, his clothing ablaze. He raised his arms in the air as he staggered toward the Japanese, begging them to have mercy on the prisoners. A guard riddled his body with bullets from a light machine gun. Other soldiers, including Lieutenant Sato, doused Mango with gasoline and torched him again.

  One prisoner charged from his shelter, attacked a Japanese guard, pulled the rifle from his hands, and shot his opponent. The American was quickly taken down by a bayonet plunged into his back. Bogue had seen more than enough. Guards were laying down a steady stream of bullets over the tops of the shelter exits, hoping to keep men below ground until fuel could be dumped into each opening. Bogue ducked as bullets thumped into the wood and soil around his head.27

  “They’re killing everyone!” he shouted to Sierra and Kozuch. “Our only chance is to make a run for it, one at a time. If we can get through the fence, we might have a chance to hide down on the beach!”

  Steeling his nerves, Bogue sprang from his cramped shelter. In two quick strides, he reached the six-foot-high rows of barbed wire and plunged through. The spiked prongs tore at his bare hands, flesh, and tattered clothing, but he ripped through the fencing in a flash. He paused at the edge of the bluff to yell back at his two buddies.

  “Come on! You can make it now!”

  Then he felt a sharp stab of pain as a bullet tore into his right leg. He saw Kozuch charge from the pit with Sierra right on his heels. Both men convulsed as bullets perforated their bodies. Sierra made it through the barbed wire, but Kozuch slumped over the top row of wire, dead.

  Sierra disappeared over the bluff as Bogue paused for a last look back. The bullet wound in his leg was throbbing, and other prisoners in the compound were making for the cliff. It was time for him to get moving. He rolled over the top, jumping, bouncing, and stumbling down the brushy embankment toward the beach below.

  *

  A SHORT DISTANCE away, Mo Deal and Willie Balchus were pressed tightly into a five-man foxhole with Leo Lampshire, Erving Evans, and Mike Giuffreda. As gunfire and explosions rang out all around them, a hand grenade plopped into their hole. Balchus quickly flung it back out before it could explode. As he popped up to lob the grenade, he saw Japanese soldiers dumping fuel into another shelter.28

  “They’re trying to kill us off!” he shouted.

  Lampshire leaped out of the foxhole and took off toward the barbed wire. Balchus charged out in pursuit, following him toward the nearest large shelter. They had just reached the dugout when a bullet struck the back of Lampshire’s head. Balchus pushed him into the opening of Shelter C and jumped in behind him.

  Lampshire was dead, so Balchus jumped out of the shelter and scrambled through the barbed wire to the cliff. Behind him, Giuffreda and Evans were following through a barrage of gunfire. Mo Deal remained hidden until guards torched his small shelter. As the pit burst into flames that seared his flesh, he sprang from the bunker and raced under fire toward the barbed wire with Giuffreda and Evans. A bullet slammed into Deal’s shoulder, but he kept moving. Each of the three was shot while charging past the Japanese guards, but they plunged over the bluff and tumbled to the beach below.29

  The group splintered, all in search of cover. Deal and Balchus scurried about for a moment before ducking into a small cave along the coast to hide.

  *

  SHELTER C WAS the last tunnel to burn. In its far end nearest the beach, several men had finished punching their way through the secret escape tunnel toward the open air. One man wriggled through and made the short dash to the barbed wire fencing just beyond. Dozens of Japanese soldiers were gathering near the veranda-side entrance as other POWs began crawling out the escape tunnel. Some survived the quick dash to the top of the bluff, but others were shot down as they wriggled through the fence.

  Medic Everett Bancroft tried to flee out the main entrance past the Japanese guards. He made it only a few steps before he was doused with gasoline and lit on fire. He jumped back into Shelter C, trying to smother his burning clothes, screaming in pain, and warning everyone that they were about to be murdered.30

  Joe Barta had seen and heard enough. He had retreated past McDole and Bancroft seconds before as he made his way to the escape exit. Several men squeezed out ahead of him and Barta followed. He forced his way through the hole, with other men right behind him, and scurried under the barbed wire and through an enlarged drain that dumped over the cliff toward the beach below. Once under the fencing, he looked back long enough to see a Japanese soldier throwing buckets of gasoline onto the roof and into the entrance to Shelter C. A second guard tossed a flaming torch into the tunnel opening, and the shelter burst into flames with a roar. Screams filled the air as Barta went over the edge of the cliff toward the beach sixty feet below.31

  McDole lingered at the Shelter C entrance only a moment longer than Barta. He was pushing his way back toward the beachside exit as the guards approached. One of them tossed in a torch before the gasoline had been poured. Other guards began sloshing buckets of fuel onto the roof of the shelter and into the entrance. Corpsman Bancroft, still smoldering from being lit on fire a moment before, was drenched by the incoming aviation fuel. Some of the fuel splashed onto McDole’s backside and shorts as he made his way toward the secret hole. There, he found only two men left near the side exit—Smitty and Pop Daniels.

  At that instant, the Japanese heaved torches into the shelter entrance. Fire snaked through the tunnel, engulfing terrified men. Bancroft, covered with fuel, burst into flames and fell to the ground, screaming. McDole’s shorts, soaked in fuel, ignited. He ripped the burning fabric from his body, leaving himself naked.

  Gene Nielsen had smelled gasoline as he retreated toward the cliffside exit. He was ahead of McDole when the fireball swept through. He was not burned, and he charged past Smitty and the other men wriggling through the hole. He paused just beyond them at the far end. Behind him, he heard the blast of two hand grenades tossed into the other entrance.32

  He couldn’t make up his mind what to do. To his left, just a few yards away, was the barbed wire fence. To his right were dozens of Japanese with rifles, killing anybody they encountered. He saw friends burning to death, running for their lives as bullets and bayonets cut them down.

  Charles Street acted first. He plowed out past Nielsen and jumped through the barbed wire. Nielsen made a running leap and dived through the opening, landing flat on his stomach in the prison yard. Pulling his hands and feet under his stomach, he sprang like a bullfrog through the nearby barbed wire. He kept low to the ground, crawling through the razor wire to the edge of the cliff. He glanced back and saw two other men—Doug Burnett and the horribly burned Everett Bancroft—escaping with him.33

  Nielsen’s next leap sent him over the bluff toward the rocky shore below. He clawed the air like a falling cat and latched onto a limber tree after plunging several feet. It bent under his weight and helped break his fall enough to prevent any serious injury. He scrambled down to the beach and ran back and forth on the coastline, hesitating.

  Back in the tunnel, McDole decided he would rather use the escape exit instead of following Nielsen’s group. He and Smitty were about to dive through the opening when he spotted Pop Daniels. The gray-haired airman squatted on the ground, paralyzed with fear.34

  “Come on, Pop!” Mac yelled.

  When Daniels didn’t move, he grabbed him and shoved him into the opening. He pushed on Pop’s rear, propelling him out the exit hole and sending him tumbling toward the beach below. McDole leaped through the hole right behind him.

  That left Smitty. Wearing only a tattered pair of shorts, he squeezed through the opening and plunged down the cliff toward the ocean. He felt certain he was the last man to leave Shelter C, although McDole was equally sure no one followed him. It was a point the two could debate later if they survived.35

  PART THREE

  ESCAPE

  14

  HUNTED

  BELOW THE STEEP bluffs bordering the camp, the green c
oastline was rocky and narrow, with a thin strip of beach only a few yards wide in places, and heavily sprinkled with jagged black boulders. The turquoise waters had carved deep pockets into the rocky cliffs where they protruded into Puerto Princesa Bay. Ragged undergrowth, small trees, and snaking vines covered the sheer sixty-foot escarpment.

  The journey from the precipice to the meager beach below Camp 10-A was perilous. For those few dozen men fortunate enough to make the descent, their odds of survival were even lower. John Stanley and another American made it to the edge of the water before Japanese guards standing along the barbed wire fence far above cut them down. Shot in the back, the men collapsed into the shallow water.1

  Two others—George Eyre and Waldo Hale—joined Doug Bogue near the water. He told them he planned to follow closely the large rocks southwest along the beach toward the dock area. With luck, Bogue hoped he could slip into the underbrush and circle from there into the jungle. Eyre and Hale disagreed with this plan, figuring they had better odds simply swimming for their lives. Both plunged into the ocean.

  Eyre swam only a few yards before guards above laced him with bullets. Hale made it about thirty yards farther, and Bogue watched as lead churned up the water’s surface all around the swimmer. He had no chance. “They got me!” Hale cried out, bullets tearing into him. He rolled onto his back and died.

  Bogue’s right leg ached from a bullet in his thigh, and his bare feet were torn and bleeding from hobbling along the jagged coral. But there was no time to fret over his wounds. He took off like a broken field runner, dodging right and left around the large rocks on the beach.

  He headed toward the dock area, but he made it only a hundred feet before stumbling onto three Japanese sailors in their white uniforms with anchor insignias. They were setting up a Lewis gun—a World War I–era light machine gun that fired .30-06-caliber bullets from a top-mounted drum-pan magazine. His path was blocked. If he turned back, they would certainly cut him down in a hail of bullets.