The Great Raid on Cabanatuan Read online

  THE GREAT

  RAID ON

  CABANATUAN

  Also by William B. Breuer

  An American Saga

  Bloody Clash at Sadzot

  Captain Cool

  They Jumped at Midnight

  Drop Zone Sicily

  Agony at Anzio

  Hitler’s Fortress Cherbourg

  Death of a Nazi Army

  Operation Torch

  Storming Hitler’s Rhine

  Retaking the Philippines

  Devil Boats

  Operation Dragoon

  The Secret War with Germany

  Sea Wolf

  Hitler’s Undercover War

  Geronimo!

  Hoodwinking Hitler

  Race to the Moon

  THE GREAT

  RAID ON

  CABANATUAN

  RESCUING THE DOOMED

  GHOSTS OF BATAAN AND

  CORREGIDOR

  WILLIAM B. BREUER

  John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

  New York • Chichester • Brisbane • Toronto • Singapore

  This text is printed on acid-free paper.

  Copyright © 1994 by William B. Breuer

  Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Published simultaneously in Canada.

  Reproduction or translation of any part of this work beyond that permitted by Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act without the permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Requests for permission or further information should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

  This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If legal, accounting, medical, psychological, or any other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  Breuer, William B.

  The great raid on Cabanatuan : rescuing the doomed ghosts of

  Bataan and Corregidor / William B. Breuer.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 0-471-03742-7 (cloth)

  1. World War, 1939-1945—Concentration camps—Philippines—

  Cabanatuan. 2. World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—Philippines—

  Cabanatuan. I. Title.

  D805.P6B67 1994

  940.54’25—dc20 94-7866

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Dedicated to

  Admiral Frank B. Kelso, II (Ret.),

  former Chief of Naval Operations,

  whose leadership, competence, skills,

  and vision have earned for him the enduring

  respect and admiration of tens of thousands

  of present and past members of the

  United States Navy

  No incident of the campaign in the Pacific has given me such satisfaction as the release of the POWs at Cabanatuan. The mission was brilliantly successful.

  —General Douglas MacArthur

  February 1, 1945

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  1.

  Deep in Hostile Territory

  2. Roosevelt Abandons the Philippines

  3. Legion of the Living Dead

  4. Sixty Miles of Atrocities

  5. “Situation Fast Becoming Desperate”

  6. “You Are Enemies of Japan!”

  7. Miss U and Her Underground

  8. Secret Radios and Boxcar Smugglers

  9. An Audacious Escape

  10. Manila’s Notorious Club Tsubaki

  11. Alamo Scouts and Rangers

  12. Thumbs Down on a POW Rescue Scheme

  13. Eagles Soar Over Cabanatuan

  14. Hell Ships and Vanishing Guards

  15. A Perilous Mission

  16. Cross-Country Dominos

  17. Creeping Up on a Dark Stockade

  18. Pandemonium Erupts in the Night

  19. Stealthy Trek by Carabao Caravan

  20. Hamburgers, Tears, and Freedom

  Epilogue

  Notes and Sources

  Index

  Maps

  The Manila Bay Region

  MacArthur’s Escape from Corregidor

  Japan and Dominated Areas

  Northern Leyte

  The Route to Cabanatuan Camp and Back

  The Layout of Cabanatuan Camp

  Acknowledgments

  Creating this book would have been impossible without the valuable help of 306 participants—those who fought on Bataan and Corregidor and in adjacent waters, Rangers, Alamo Scouts, guerilla leaders, Death March survivors, and prisoners of the Japanese army at Cabanatuan and elsewhere during World War II. They dug out old diaries, notes, letters, drawings, newspaper and magazine clippings, decoration citations, diagrams, combat maps, unit rosters, and photographs, and sent them to me.

  They probed their memories and provided recollections in face-toface and telephone interviews, and by correspondence, by audiotape, and by fax. Many of the former POWs were able to give remarkably detailed accounts because they referred to summaries of their experiences that they had compiled after returning home and in the years ahead.

  Regrettably, because of space limitations and the need to avoid repetition, many recollections had to be omitted. However, these were helpful in reconstructing the story.

  While all accounts were beneficial, special thanks go to the following participants:

  Leon D. Beck, Bill Begley, Robert J. Body, Charles H. Bosard, Commander Henry J. Brantingham (Ret.), Vice Admiral John D. Bulkeley (Ret.), Captain Malcolm N. Champlin (Ret.), Commander Barron Chandler (Ret.), Jerry L. Coty, Gilbert J. Cox, William Delich, Charles Di Maio, Colonel John M. Dove (Ret.), James Drewes, Cecil Easley, William R. Evans, L. Rumsey Ewing.

  David Foster, Franklin Fox, Thomas E. Gage, Colonel Robert W. Garrett (Ret.), Michael Gilewitch, Major Richard M. Gordon (Ret.), Colonel Samuel C. Grashio (Ret.), Russell E. Hamachek, Harold N. Hard, Neal Harrington, Clifton R. Harris, James B. Herrick, Dr. Ralph E. Hibbs, Lieutenant Colonel Ray C. Hunt (Ret.).

  Mrs. Dorothy Janson, Charles C. Jensen, Navy Captain Robert B. Kelly (Ret.), Robert W. Lapham, Captain Elmer E. Long, Jr. (Ret.), MCPO Darrell M. McGhee (Ret.), William Milne, Colonel Henry A. Mucci (Ret.), William E. Nellist, Colonel Gibson Niles (Ret.), Cleatus G. Norton, Robert W. Prince, Leland A. Provencher.

  Colonel Melvin Rosen (Ret.), Colonel Thomas Rounsaville (Ret.), Francis R. Schilli, Melville B. Schmidt, Brigadier General Austin C. Shofner (Ret.), Andy E. Smith, Colonel Henry J. Stempin (Ret.), Master Sergeant George R. Steiner (Ret.), August T. Stem, Jr., Leo V. Strausbaugh, Colonel Robert S. Sumner (Ret.), Alexander Troy (Truskowski), E. C. Witmer, Jr., Leon Wolf.

  Tracking down 306 participants was a daunting and time-consuming task, one that could not have been accomplished without the valuable assistance of the following:

  Captain Elmer E. Long, Jr. (Ret.), National Secretary, American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor; Joseph A. Vater, editor of Quart magazine, publication for former POWs of the Japanese; Ms. Clydie J. Morgan, National Adjutant, American Ex-Prisoners of War; Sue Langseth, editor, ExPOWBulletin) Mrs. Gregorio P. Chua, Filipino War Veterans of America; Leo V. Strausbaugh, president, U.S. 6th Ranger Battalion Association; Colonel Robert S. Sumner (Ret.), director, Alamo Scouts Association; Donald M. McKee; and former guerilla leader Lieutenant Colonel Ray C. Hunt (Ret.).

  Appreciation is expressed to other individuals and organizations who assisted the author in a variety of ways:

  Arc
hie DiFante, Historical Research Center, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama; Alyce Mary Guthrie, executive director, PT Boats, Inc., Memphis; Richard J. Sommers and his associates at the U.S. Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; Dean C. Allard and B. F. Calavante, historians, Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC; Colonel Lyman H. Hammond, Jr. (Ret.), director, Douglas MacArthur Memorial, Norfolk, Virginia; Bernard Norling of Notre Dame University, a foremost authority on Philippines guerilla actions; Colonel Samuel C. Grashio (Ret.); Kim B. Holien; and the authors wife, Vivien Breuer, for her dedicated research and coordination.

  Finally, a tip of my hat to numerous qualified men who read various chapters or portions of the manuscript with the critical eye of participants and provided the author with their expert critiques.

  William B. Breuer

  Lookout Mountain, Tennessee

  1

  Deep in Hostile Territory

  A broiling sun began its ascent into the cloudless blue skies over Luzon, the largest of the Philippine Islands, when Lieutenant Colonel Henry A. Mucci, the scrappy leader of the U.S. 6th Ranger Battalion, convened a powwow of his officers in the barrio (hamlet) of Plateros. Mucci and 107 of his Rangers were in a perilous situation, for they had infiltrated thirty miles behind Japanese lines on one of the most audacious missions of the war in the Pacific and had been holed up in Plateros for twenty-four hours. It was January 30, 1945.

  Only a mile and a half to the south of the barrio was the notorious Japanese prisoner-of-war camp known as Cabanatuan, named after the largest nearby town. Earlier in World War II, there had been as many as twelve thousand Americans penned up in the huge stockade under the most brutal and primitive conditions, but thousands of them had been shipped to Japan and Manchuria to provide slave labor for Japanese war production. Buried in shallow, unmarked graves just outside the camp’s barbed-wire fence were twenty-six hundred other American POWs—ones who had been murdered by Japanese guards or had died of starvation, disease, despair, or maltreatment.

  Now only 511 POWs, mostly Americans, who had endured thirty-three months of captivity, remained in the Cabanatuan hellhole. They were a pitiful lot. Most were living skeletons. Some were blind. Many could not walk. Others were missing one or more arms and legs. A few had taken leave of their senses.

  Three weeks before Colonel Mucci and his Rangers reached Plateros, General Douglas MacArthur’s forces had stormed ashore at Lingayen Gulf, sixty-five miles northwest of Cabanatuan. Soon, U.S. intelligence officers received frightening news from guerillas in the region: When MacArthur’s spearheads drove closer to the POW compound, vengeance-seeking Japanese soldiers would probably slaughter the helpless prisoners.

  As a result of this information, Mucci and his Ranger force had been given the daunting task of slipping through Japanese positions for thirty miles to assault the Cabanatuan stockade, kill the sizable number of enemy troops in the compound, rescue the POWs, and escort them back through Japanese territory to American positions.

  Among the officers now conferring with Henry Mucci in Plateros were twenty-five-year-old Captain Robert W. Prince, leader of the 6th Rangers’ Charley Company, who would be in direct charge of the stockade assault; Lieutenant John F. Murphy of Springfield, Massachusetts, who had been a star quarterback at Notre Dame University; Filipino guerilla Lieutenant Carlos Tombo; and three lieutenants of the Alamo Scouts, William E. Nellist of Eureka, California; Thomas J. Rounsaville of Atoka, Oklahoma; and John M. Dove of Hollywood, California.

  Few in number, the Alamo Scouts had been formed in New Guinea more than a year earlier to infiltrate Japanese territory and nail down facts about enemy troop strengths and movements. Nellist, Rounsaville, and Dove were veterans of numerous hair-raising reconnaissance raids in New Guinea and its offshore islands.

  “We’ve got to hit the Japs tonight!” Colonel Mucci declared grimly. “Intelligence says there are nine thousand Japs in this region. So we can’t stay right in the center of all this Jap activity indefinitely without being discovered.”1

  Despite the urgency, the thirty-three-year-old Mucci, a West Pointer and son of a Bridgeport, Connecticut, horse dealer, was convinced that more detailed information about the POW camp would have to be collected or the rescue operation could result in a catastrophe for the Rangers and the Alamo Scouts—and no doubt spell doom for the prisoners.

  “We’ve got to get someone up close to the front gate,” the Ranger commander declared. “We’re going to bolt through that entrance, so the gate is the key to the entire operation.”2

  Selected for this crucial snooping job were the Alamo Scouts lieutenants Bill Nellist and Tom Rounsaville. They had been handed a tall order. The terrain around the POW camp was flat and void of trees; it would be broad daylight, and Japanese sentries at the gate could see anyone approaching for a half mile.

  “I don’t care how you get the dope,” the colonel declared solemnly. “Just get it!”

  Compounding the seemingly impossible task was the strict time limitation. Mucci stressed that the Scouts would have to send back their intelligence no later than 3:00 P.M.—less than six hours away—in order to provide a couple of hours for Captain Prince to put the finishing touches on an assault plan.

  Two hours later, Bill Nellist and one of his Alamo Scouts, Private First Class Rufo Vaquilar of Fresno, California, were lying flat on a low knoll some seven hundred yards from the prison’s massive front gate. Between them and the stockade was a nipa hut that was less than three hundred yards from the camp entrance.

  William Nellist remembered: “The nipa hut would make an excellent observation post. From there we could get a clear view of the gate. But the problem was, how could Vaquilar and I get to the hut with Jap guards looking in our direction?”3

  Nellist and Vaquilar rustled up some native clothes and quickly donned them. A key feature of their disguise were the straw, wide-brimmed buri hats of the type worn by countless Filipinos. Their pistols were stuck in belts under the garments, and Nellist also concealed an aerial photograph of the camp layout.

  Three other Alamo Scouts watched their two comrades put on the native garb and were deeply concerned over their safety. If the Japanese captured them in civilian garb, the two Scouts most certainly would be tortured, then beheaded as spies.

  Private First Class Gilbert Cox, who had played football at Oregon State University, recalled: “The clothes fit Bill and Rufo okay, and so did the big hats. What worried us was that there were not many Filipinos as tall as our two fellows, so the Japanese might grow suspicious. There was no doubt that the Japs at the gate would see them, for Bill and Rufo would be in plain view.”4

  Between Nellist and Vaquilar and the targeted hut were large fields growing an assortment of plants. Strolling leisurely from a bamboo thicket, the two Scouts ambled across the fields, their wide-brimmed hats covering their faces, and pretended that they were farmers inspecting their crops. Adrenaline was pumping; hearts were beating faster. Nellist and Vaquilar could almost feel Japanese eyes boring into them.

  William Nellist remembered: “We finally reached the hut with no indication that the Japs were suspicious of us. It was not unusual for Filipino farmers to be strolling around the region. It was a little unsettling to be so close to the front gate, however.

  “Some distance to the rear of the spy hut were other shacks in which natives were living. I had Vaquilar, still wearing his native garb, bring me people who had worked in and around the camp. I had them point out things I wanted to know. How many guards? Where were they located? Which way the front gate swung to be opened? It seemed as though anything I wanted to know, Vaquilar found a native who could come up with the answer and explain it to me.”5

  When Bill Nellist and Rufo Vaquilar had been in the hut for about an hour, they spotted a young Filipina, her shiny black hair flowing in the breeze, sauntering along the road toward the front entrance. The two Scouts felt a surge of concern when the woman walked up to the gate and began talking with the guards
. Was she tipping them off that Nellist and Vaquilar were holed up in the hut only a short distance from the gate and that other Scouts were lying in rice paddies while keeping the camp under surveillance? Or was she telling them that the Rangers were encamped at nearby Plateros?

  William Nellist recalled the tense situation: “She seemed to be talking forever, but perhaps it had only been fifteen or twenty minutes. Rufo and I were watching intently and were worried. Finally, she left and walked on down the road and out of sight. After a half hour or so when we saw there was no stir among the Japs in the camp, we assumed that she had not spilled the beans.”6

  Only much later would the Alamo Scouts learn that the young woman had been sent to the front gate by guerilla Lieutenant Carlos Tombo to pick the Jap guards’ brains for the latest information on what was taking place inside the enclosure.

  Lieutenant Nellist scrawled on a pad detailed information about the front gate. It was wooden, about nine feet high, and opened in the middle, either frontward or backward. A huge padlock about four feet from the ground secured the gate. That padlock would play a crucial role if the impending raid were to be a success.

  As planned earlier, the Alamo Scouts and Lieutenant Tombo’s guerillas sent their up-to-the-minute intelligence back to Colonel Mucci in Plateros by 3:00 P.M., four and a half hours before the Rangers were to hit the stockade.

  Robert Prince recalled: “Our forward scouts did a magnificent job. They plotted the exact location of the watchtowers and found out how many Japs were in each one and the type of weapons they had, which buildings held the tanks, where two pillboxes were located, which barracks the transient Japanese troops were in, and which were the guards’ quarters. They also told us that there were two hundred and twenty-five to two hundred and fifty enemy soldiers in the enclosure.”7

  Within an hour of receiving the current intelligence, Captain Prince, along with Lieutenant John Murphy, the leader of a platoon, finalized details of the rescue operation. Each Ranger, Alamo Scout, and Filipino guerilla was briefed on his specific task, as well as on the overall plan. Total surprise, stealth, and speed would be crucial. When night fell, the Rangers would assault the compound—with fury and deadly skill. There would be no second chance should they fail.