The Great Raid on Cabanatuan, page 5
With the mass surrender on Bataan, the Japanese were confronted by a major logistics problem that had not been envisioned: Instead of capturing twenty-five thousand Americans and Filipinos, some seventy-two thousand of them were prisoners. This situation meant that General Kawane’s painstakingly conceived POW evacuation plan already had gone awry.
As soon as word spread through American and Filipino ranks that the war was over on Bataan, twenty-three-year-old Lieutenant Samuel C. Grashio of Spokane, Washington, a pilot with the U.S. 21st Pursuit Squadron, and four comrades climbed into a dusty staff car in southern Bataan and headed hell-bent for Mariveles. They had heard a report that a submarine might be waiting there to take the pilots off in order for them to continue the war from a base farther south. Reaching the chaos of Mariveles shortly after dawn on April 10, Grashio learned that the submarine was just another myth.
Unsure of their destination, Grashio and the others drove away and soon met a Japanese tank and staff car. The Americans halted, climbed out, threw up their hands, and waved white handkerchiefs. A Filipino turncoat with the Japanese contingent began hollering that the Americans were violating surrender instructions because they were wearing sidearms. Then a Japanese officer got out of the staff car, approached six-foot two-inch Lieutenant William “Ed” Dyess, and, without a word, began mercilessly beating him.
Samuel Grashio recalled how he first learned of the unpredictable and mercurial sides of the Japanese soldier: “After beating up Ed Dyess, our squadron commander, the Jap stole two rings of mine, a crash bracelet, and a pen-and-pencil set. Then he motioned for us to get back into our car and resume driving. As we proceeded, this same Jap caught up with us, pulled his car close to our vehicle, stuck his head through the open window, smiling broadly, and threw my jewelry back into the car. Minutes later, some other Japs halted us and stole my possessions all over again.”1
Not far away, an American major refused to give up his wedding ring to a pair of Japanese soldiers. They beat him to the ground, then stole his ring by cutting off his finger with a bolo knife.2
Nearby, a Japanese officer pilfered a ring from Sergeant Mario G. “Motts” Tonelli of Skokie, Illinois, who had been a star fullback at Notre Dame and later played professional football with the Chicago Tigers (which would become the Chicago Cardinals) in the late 1930s. Inscribed on the ring were the words “Notre Dame.”
“What year did you graduate?” the Japanese officer asked in perfect English.
“Nineteen thirty-five.”
“I graduated from the University of Southern California that same year,” the Japanese replied. As both men well knew, Notre Dame and Southern California long had had a fierce football rivalry. Without a word, the enemy officer handed back the ring to Tonelli.
Even before what would become known as the Bataan Death March began, Japanese soldiers were running amok with hardly any effort by superiors to control their excesses and brutalities. In one instance, twenty-year-old Leon D. Beck of the U.S. 31st Infantry Regiment and about twelve members of his antitank company were herded into a bare field near Mariveles. They were ordered to put all their personal possessions on the ground and strip down to their shorts. Then the captors stole everything they wanted, including used toothbrushes. Lieutenant Colonel Peter D. Calyer, executive officer of the 31st Infantry, foiled the captors, however. He tied his West Point class ring around his penis and testicles and let it hang down his shorts. This innovative hiding place resulted in his keeping the sentimental piece of jewelry.3
A short distance away, Japanese soldiers, wielding long bamboo sticks, burst into the U.S. Army’s Hospital Number 2, where there were six thousand ill and wounded men, mainly Filipinos. The captors drove the feeble patients from their cots, out the front gate, and along the road, where they were ordered to march. Many of the captives, some with only one leg, were on makeshift crutches. As they staggered along, bandages unwound, and the guards ripped off casts, causing massive hemorrhages. Large numbers of Filipinos keeled over and died in the ditches before they had gone a mile.
At Hospital Number 1, which the Japanese had bombed a few days earlier and now was charred ruins, sick and wounded Americans, clad in hospital pajamas, were wandering around in a daze. They were rounded up and prodded by rifle butts and bamboo sticks into a passing line of marching POWs. They tried to walk, but most fell by the wayside where they were left to their agonies and eventual death.
Seemingly endless columns of American and Filipino soldiers, along with U.S. sailors, airmen, and some forty-five marines—perhaps as many as seventy thousand altogether—were shambling northward along the east coast road on the first leg of a nightmarish sixty-five-mile trek to Camp O’Donnell. Already sapped by dysentery, beriberi, malaria, and starvation, the prisoners were scorched by the boiling sun. Almost constantly, they gasped for breath because of the exertion and the swirling clouds of choking dust. Eyes became glazed and vision blurry.
Major Richard M. Gordon, one of the marchers, recalled: “No design or plan for the exodus to prison camp ever materialized. Each sunrise the Japanese, shouting and shooting, would assemble anyone they could to make up marching groups of about one hundred men. As a result, individuals often found themselves among perfect strangers, even if they were fellow Americans. Consequently, a dog-eat-dog, every-man-for-himself attitude soon prevailed. Few helped one another.
“During the march, volunteers were sought to carry a stretcher containing an American colonel wounded in both legs and unable to walk. Four men offered to help. After hours of carrying the colonel in a blazing sun with no stops and no water, they asked for relief from other marchers. No one offered to pick up the stretcher. Soon, the original four bearers put down the man and continued on their own. The colonel was last seen by the side of the road, begging to be carried by anyone.”4
On the first day of the trek, Lieutenant William Galos, who had been assistant superintendent of a gold mine in Baguio when bombs started falling and volunteered for the army, was in a group halted and told to form alongside the road. A Japanese officer demanded that all engineers take a step forward, and Galos and eight or nine others identified themselves and were led off. Galos thought they were going to be murdered. Instead, the engineers were subjected to a brutal interrogation.
William Galos recalled: “The Japs thought there was a water line running from Bataan to Corregidor, and part of their plan, we learned much later, was to starve the garrison on the Rock and deny them water. So the Japs wanted us engineers to shut off the water. As it turned out, there was no such water line, but no amount of denials would convince the Japs.
“They kicked us and kicked us with their hobnailed boots so that by the time we got out of there, my shins were like raw hamburger. The blood stuck to my pants and dried, so by the time we reached Camp O’Donnell, I had a hard time taking the pants off.”5
Meanwhile, in the marching column, Sergeant Leon Wolf of the 14th Ordnance saw a Japanese lieutenant dash up to an American captain who was a tank commander. Wolf held his breath: It appeared that the captain had somehow offended the Japanese officer. To the sergeant’s astonishment, the Japanese, beaming broadly, hugged the American—they had been classmates at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). After chatting for a few minutes, much as they no doubt had done on campus in better times, each man moved off in opposite directions.6
As the prisoners hobbled on, the Japanese ferocity grew. Captives were clubbed brutally for halting briefly to drink muddy water from the footprints of carabao (water buffalo). Staff Sergeant Michael Gilewitch of Frackville, Pennsylvania, and the 31st Infantry Regiment, was among a group halted by the guards for yet another looting search.
Michael Gilewitch recalled: “Anything Jap found on a prisoner resulted in death or torture for the victim. On the man next to me, they found a cigarette lighter with ‘Made in Japan’ stamped into the metal. That was considered to be taken from a dead Jap soldier. My comrade was forced to hold his arms outstretched and shoulder high. One Jap pointed his rifle at the helpless American while another Jap drew his samurai sword and lopped off the man’s arm. Blood gushed from the stump. It was something of a game. The idea was to see if the swordwielding baboon could hack off the second arm before the pitiful wretch fell to the ground, where he died in excruciating agony.”7
Neither age nor rank was respected. For the first time in history, several American generals were trudging toward a prison camp. Pedaling ahead of them on a bicycle was a Japanese private who seemed to take delight in halting regularly and shouting at the American generals to hurry up.
At the whim of the captors, gray-haired chaplains were beaten, clubbed, and bayoneted along with teenage infantrymen. The guards were no longer content with merely mauling stragglers or pricking them in the buttocks with bayonets. Now the thrusts were intended to kill.
Michael Gilewitch remembered: “The first killing of a helpless victim I saw made me sick and it was all I could do to keep from rushing to his aid—which would have gotten me bayoneted or clubbed to death. To make more ‘sport’ of it, the Japs rolled the weak victim onto his back and bayoneted him once in the stomach. They didn’t want him to die too quick. This made the poor wretch scream and groan in agony in the blazing sun. The Japs laughed with glee and mimicked the writhings and contortions of the dying man.”8
Major Emil P. Reed, a thin, bespectacled native of Dallas, had to leap to one side numerous times to keep from getting hit by Japanese vehicles, which were moving southward toward Bataan along the same narrow road. Reed, whose father was a prominent Oklahoma City physician, was regimental surgeon of the 26th Cavalry. He recalled: “Many times I saw the Jap drivers try to run over our men as we marched along. Other Japs made great sport of leaning out of passing trucks and trying to knock off the prisoners’ hats with rifle butts or long poles. When their aim was poor, the soldier on the receiving end was usually knocked senseless, his face a bloody pulp.”9
While the POWs were trudging along, General Albert Jones, who had led a corps on Bataan, was brought back to near Mariveles. Soon he was ushered into the office of General Susumu Moiroka, his old foe who led the 16th Division. There were several minutes of conversation. Then Moiroka asked: “Who’s going to win the war, General Jones?”
“We are, of course,”
Moiroka smiled and replied, “Well, you won’t.”
“Not me, maybe,” the American replied. “But I have four boys at home who will!”10
As the long trail of atrocities continued, the roadside became littered with the corpses of Americans and Filipinos.
Michael Gilewitch remembered: “Some bodies were swollen to monstrous size by the heat, and they turned a blackish hue. Eyeballs popped out and hung by their cords. Many cadavers were pecked open by big birds (crows, I believe), and while feasting on the corpses, the birds were fighting with one another. Other bodies were covered with buzzing hordes of fat green flies and by swarms of maggots. Along one stretch, I counted thirty-two headless corpses, and since all of them had turned black from the boiling sun, the only way I could guess their nationalities was that the taller ones were probably Americans, the shorter ones, Filipinos.”11
William Begley, known to friends as Wild Bill, who had fought as an infantryman during the final days of Bataan when his 34th Pursuit Squadron was hurled into the front lines, recalled: “Some guys reached the end of their endurance and committed suicide. An American chaplain, who was delirious, jumped off a cliff. An officer rushed to help and a Jap bayoneted him.”12
Like many others in the march of death, Begley doubted if he could survive, so he hid in the underbrush when the guards’ backs were turned. Stumbling and crawling, he reached a turnip patch and holed up there for two days. Famished, he devoured raw turnips and drank great gulps of muddy, polluted water in a ditch. Although half crazed, he staggered inland, where he was intercepted by a group of Japanese who proceeded to “beat the hell out of me.” A few hours later, he was back in the marching columns.
Repeated horrors were witnessed by Bill Begley: “There was a little Filipino boy of about ten, ragged, skinny, and his ribs sticking out from hunger. As we passed, he gave the V for Victory sign. That infuriated the Japs. They ran a bayonet through the little boy. His crying mother tried to rush to his side as he lay bleeding to death, and the Japs bayoneted her, too. Both corpses were left to rot alongside the road.”13 Men began having hallucinations, conjuring up images of glistening springs of bubbling water at each side of the road. As the Legion of the Living Dead staggered and stumbled along, its members suffered from excruciating thirst, yet their guards refused to give them water.
Leon Beck recalled: “They’d deliberately halt us in front of the artesian wells along the road, and let us get close enough to see the water. But they kept us from drinking. Anyone who made a dash for the well risked being shot or bayoneted.”14
During the sixteen-mile trek between Orani and Lubao, a great number of prisoners reached the limit of their endurance at about the same time: They collapsed in twos and threes. Skulking along behind contingents of marchers were the “buzzard squads,” groups of Japanese whose job it was to murder those who had fallen. Members of these clean-up bands would stoop over each huddled form, then shoot the victim in the head, bayonet him, or kill him with rifle butts.
One marcher, Major Alvin C. Poweleit, was a medical officer in a tank unit, and he had once possessed an imposing physique—thick chest, broad shoulders, large biceps. He had worked his way through medical school as a professional boxer and had a knockout punch in each fist. Now, after long weeks of starvation on Bataan, he was a gaunt scarecrow. Only Poweleit’s flaming spirit remained intact. Jovial and placid by nature, Major Poweleit suddenly was infuriated when he spotted a limping American straggler being beaten viciously by a Japanese guard’s rifle butt.
Poweleit recalled: “I uncorked a right and caught the Jap flush on the jaw. It lifted him off his feet. He dropped to the ground without a sound. I dove for him and twisted his head until I could feel the cervical vertebrae grate and slide over each other. Then I tossed the body into a bamboo thicket, picked up the battered GI, and moved on up the road. It was my good fortune that there were no other Japs on the scene at that time.”15
News of the Death March had reached Lubao, a town of thirty thousand, by Bamboo Telegraph, the label Americans had given to the rapid spreading of information by Filipino couriers to outlying locales. When the shambling column struggled through the residential area, sympathetic Filipinos stood on the sidewalks, tossing scraps of bread, rice cookies, pieces of chocolate, and lumps of sugar—even cigarettes— into the POW ranks. The Japanese guards went berserk, slugging, beating, and lunging wildly with bayonets against the Good Samaritans. Then the captors turned their rage on the Americans.
There were occasional American minor triumphs. One Japanese, while conducting a “security search,” grabbed a bottle of sleeping pills that Captain Sidney Stewart had been given in a hospital.
“Yorishi (are they all right)?” he asked.
“Yes, indeed,” Stewart replied, “Very good!”
The Japanese gulped down two handfuls. A few minutes later, he went into convulsions and died in agony. His puzzled Japanese comrades were at a loss to understand what horrible affliction he had been stricken with.16
Leon Beck recalled: “I begged my buddies to escape with me because misery wants company. You need someone to help you. But what I kept hearing from them was, ‘Bullshit, the American army will be back here within six months and retake us, and well be free and gone. We can do six months in prison standing on our heads.’ It was just stupid bullheadedness, but I wasn’t going to be a prisoner any longer.”17
When Beck and his group reached Lubao, they were penned up in a stifling old warehouse. With escape in mind, Beck tried to crawl out through a sea of legs and was caught. The Japanese beat him unconscious. Later, his first sergeant saw that they had placed Beck in a row of American corpses that were being carried across the road by the Japanese and hurled into a mass grave.
Beck’s guardian angel was hovering overhead. Just before it was his turn to be picked up and buried alive, he regained consciousness and crawled away. Since groups of POWs were kept in Lubao for two or three days, Beck regained sufficient strength to rejoin the marching column.18
On the final leg from Lubao to San Fernando, there was virtually no shade and the road’s asphalt, churned by tanks and heavy trucks, had been melted into goo by the broiling sun. To thousands of men with no shoes, and countless others whose shoes were ripped to shreds, it was much like walking endlessly over hot coals.
During this stretch, a few thousand Filipino captives managed to escape, and the Japanese guards did nothing to stop them. For Americans, escape was a high-risk venture. Few, if any, knew the countryside, hardly any spoke Tagalog, and their height and white skin made them conspicuous.
Leon Beck remembered making his move: “My buddies said they’d watch the Japs for me, and then they said ‘hit it.’ I just rolled off the road and got under the first clump of small bushes. I just laid there until this group of prisoners marched away from me. Then I got up and said, ‘Dear Lord, don’t let my feet stick in the mud,’ and I started pickin’ ‘em up and layin’ ‘em down. Later, exhausted, I reached a shack with a lot of lumber in it, and I wriggled in under the wood and stayed there for two days—a free man.”19
Not far away, air corps Sergeant Ray C. Hunt, Jr., of St. Louis, Missouri, also decided to make a break, even if it meant his death. Disease and starvation had plummeted his weight from one hundred and sixty pounds to an estimated one hundred pounds. As his column of POWs crossed a bridge, Hunt dashed into a deep ditch and hid in some foliage. He remembered: “I heard a POW say, ‘Don’t look! Do you want him to get shot?’ The Japs didn’t see me, and soon the column was out of sight. I began crawling along the ditch and came upon two Americans, face down and scared to death. One was a captain and the other a corporal. Before too long, we spotted two Filipino farmers and they led us, at the risk of their lives, to a small shack from where we could watch other marchers go past. Some Filipinos brought us water, rice, and sugar. A few days later, they loaded us into a cart, covered us with hay, and a carabao pulled us up into the Zambales Mountains.”20
