As Good As Dead

by Stephen L. Moore

  Kishimoto showed mercy by allowing his prisoners to take three days off for Christmas and the final two days of 1942 for New Year’s. Then it was back to airfield work as usual on January 1, 1943. Another supply ship arrived at Puerto Princesa on January 6, bringing with it one new prisoner—Lieutenant Henry Knight, a Navy dentist who would soon work on the teeth of both the Japanese guards and his fellow prisoners.

  Days later, Captain Kishimoto ordered the prisoners to get their camp into top shape. The whispered word was that Red Cross officials were coming to make an inspection, requiring the Americans to scrub their barracks and clean the courtyard. Men who had worn only jock straps, homemade shorts, or tattered dungarees were issued blue denim shirts and trousers. The prisoners were even allowed to shower and shave for the inspection. Normally, bathing consisted of swimming in the ocean once a week, at best under armed guard.

  Joe Barta was optimistic about change as he stood at attention in the courtyard on January 9. Red Cross officials entered camp, inspected the barracks, and walked up and down the rows of clean, blue-clad prisoners. Barta’s optimism fell when the inspectors barely paused to look closely at any man. The POWs were not allowed to speak, and a mere half hour later, the Red Cross men filed out the front stone archway without another word.

  As soon as they had departed, camp guards rushed into the barracks and demanded that the prisoners return their borrowed clothing. The POWs quickly realized the whole inspection was a mere matter of official paperwork. Nothing had been done to improve their situation other than the delivery of the prisoners’ first Red Cross care packages. Barta and his friend Rob Hubbard were going through their packages when interpreter Oguri approached. “John the Baptist” grabbed a pack of cigarettes from Hubbard’s bundle, stuffed them in his pocket, and walked off with only a simple, “Thanks.”4

  The prisoners, bored with their endless airfield labor during the early weeks of 1943, found ways to pass the time. Smitty mentioned to Mac McDole in the barracks one night that he would love to play poker. Mac suddenly remembered all the empty cardboard vitamin boxes he had been hoarding. He decided they could be cut down into small playing cards, so the next morning as they were herded toward their work trucks, Mac signaled the guards that he needed to relieve himself. The column stopped marching, and he ran into an abandoned schoolhouse in Puerto Princesa.5

  Mac searched frantically through the old building, rummaging through discarded items until he found three old ink pens of different colors, shoved them in his pocket, and raced back out to the prisoner line. That night, he excitedly went to work illustrating his cardboard pillbox scraps into a full deck of poker cards. He carefully drew diamonds, hearts, clubs, and spades and numbered each one. Jokers were drawn to look like Japanese guards, and the kings were each U.S. marines. Poker games began in earnest, with men gambling off rations, cigarettes, or other items. Mac claimed a percentage off the top of the gambling proceeds and kept his buddy Smitty well stocked with cigarettes.

  The ten cigarettes each POW earned per week were the highest priority item for trading. The scarcity of tobacco made it worth its weight in gold in terms of swapping for clothes, shoes, blankets, and a surprising variety of equipment. Gambling was an entirely different issue that faced Captain Ted Pulos and Ensign Bob Russell. Gambling led to stealing, and men soon learned to carry anything of value with them at all times. The senior officers, as a last resort, would deprive a fellow prisoner of food or cigarettes to remedy any serious offense of theft.6

  Some men still quietly contemplated escape attempts. Medic Phil Brodsky was approached by several who came into the dispensary, requesting medications before they made their break. Each time, Brodsky tried to discourage their thoughts. “There is nowhere you’re going to go,” he lectured. “You’re on an island here. The island is occupied by Japanese, and you don’t know whether all these Filipinos are friendly.”7

  *

  THE EIGHT AMERICANS who had escaped the Puerto Princesa camp were still on the run.

  Navy Yeoman Bruce Elliott and his five comrades—Bob Kellam, Bobby Hodges, Buddy Henderson, George Davis, and Sid Wright—had been the first to break out on August 10, 1942. After making their way to Brooke’s Point via a small banca, they had thereafter spent several weeks in the company of Harry Edwards’s family, hidden in the nearby mountains.

  Elliott was still suffering from malaria when two more American escapees reached Brooke’s Point around September 5. Lieutenant Damon J. “Rocky” Gause, an Army Air Force pilot, had escaped from Corregidor by boat in April 1942, and months later he made his way to Palawan with Lieutenant William L. Osborne. They stayed at the Edwards home for a week while repairs were made to their leaking escape boat, and they provided some rifles to Edwards and the local guerrillas before they sailed for Australia. Their boat could not hold six more Americans, so marine Sid Wright took the chance to write a long letter to his family. Gause and Osborne, finally reaching Australia on October 11, turned over a number of letters to General MacArthur’s staff to have them sent to the families of the six Palawan escapees.8

  Wright, Elliott, and company armed themselves and moved out from Brooke’s Point in a banca south down the coast, about seventy miles from Puerto Princesa. They were aided by a local Moro chief, Datu Jolkipli, and narrowly escaped an enemy force that approached the Moro village. Elliott killed a Japanese officer and his comrades subdued a mestizo collaborator, but, their position compromised, it was time to flee once again. Chief Jolkipli sent them on with two of his best warriors as guides.9

  In early October 1942, the American escapees, their two Moros, and a small group of Filipino guerrillas made a surprise attack on a party of Japanese soldiers stationed at a schoolhouse near the Brooke’s Point lighthouse. They killed an estimated twenty enemy combatants and a collaborator, and disabled a motor launch with a hailstorm of bullets. Only about seven Japanese managed to escape the assault in a second motor launch and flee toward Puerto Princesa.

  Bruce Elliott’s party remained near Brooke’s Point for several more weeks, confident that the Japanese would not attack them again. Buddy Henderson decided to go north to the village of Aborlan, where they had landed their boat soon after escaping their prison camp. He was met by a Filipino who claimed to be friendly but who was instead a turncoat collaborating with the Japanese. A few days later, Sid Wright received word that Henderson had been shot and killed by the Filipino. Wright headed north with two cousins of the traitor and, after a seven-day manhunt, eliminated the turncoat who had killed his Marine comrade.10

  Elliott realized that they were in danger of being discovered and that they must keep moving in order to survive. Bob Kellam, suffering from malaria, remained behind with the Edwards family to recover. Elliott, Wright, Davis, and Hodges moved out, intent on fleeing to Balabac Island in early November with their two Moro guides.

  *

  THE FILIPINOS OF Palawan Island who aided such American escapees did so at great personal risk.

  Major Pedro Manigque became the undisputed senior commander of all guerrilla outfits on the island, shortly after the Japanese invaded Palawan in the spring of 1942. Manigque learned his enemy had slaughtered dozens of innocent Filipino citizens, so the desire for vengeance was strong. His organized companies spread the latest intelligence and worked hard to disrupt the Japanese military. One guerrilla officer, captured by Japanese soldiers in late 1942, was burned alive. In return, raids made by Palaweño rebels killed more than five dozen Japanese troops, prevented important shipments from arriving, and resulted in the capture of valuable food stores and firearms for future resistance use.11

  The southern Palawan guerrillas, based out of Brooke’s Point, were originally commanded by First Sergeant Emilio Tumbaga. Nazario Mayor was instrumental in recruiting new men in this region during 1942, in training them in jungle warfare, and in gathering food supplies. Datu Jolkipli assisted their unit, providing financial aid and offering some of his followers to join the local guerrillas. Supe
rintendent Pedro Paje, head of the nearby Iwahig Penal Colony, helped supply Mayor and Tumbaga’s rebels with food, clothing, medicine, and intelligence gathered from the American POW camp at Puerto Princesa.12

  The Japanese military put pressure on the acting Palawan government officials to hand over the senior leaders of the island’s guerrilla network during the fall of 1942. Dr. Higinio Mendoza, as one of the earliest organizers of the resistance movement, was singled out. A bounty of five thousand dollars was offered for the capture of the former governor, who was now instigating actions against the occupying military, but most Filipinos suffered through abuse and imprisonment to protect their own.13

  Valentin Macaset, a Palawan resident known to have a close association with Mendoza, was arrested by the Puerto Princesa Kempei Tai on November 22. Lieutenant Watanabe placed Macaset in the brig for interrogation, where he was tortured for information on Mendoza’s guerrillas for seventy-two days. Macaset was frequently beaten, abused, and hung from the ceiling by his wrists, which were tied behind him. He was finally released on February 1, 1943.14

  The Kempei Tai failed in this attempt to bring in Dr. Mendoza. His men, and those under leaders like Emilio Tambaga and Nazario Mayor, were not swayed by threats of capture or even death.

  *

  SEVEN OF THE eight Puerto Princesa camp escapees were still seeking freedom in early 1943. Charlie Watkins and Joe Little, from the second escape group, had remained together as they moved across Palawan during late 1942. Along their journey, they were assisted by Paul Cobb’s guerrillas and even encountered another American at Danlig on the northern end of Palawan—Corporal Robert T. Johnston Jr.—who had fled from Mindoro when the Japanese invaded the Philippines, and had made his way to Palawan in September 1942.15

  Little parted company with Watkins in January 1943, as he opted to sail between other islands during the ensuing months. He joined with guerrilla forces on Panay from April to June 1943 before finally making his way to Negros Island in July. Little and twenty-seven others were eventually evacuated from Balatong Point on Negros on February 7, 1944, by the submarine Narwhal.16

  Watkins had many close calls with recapture and received a knife wound in the leg while battling a Japanese sympathizer. He remained on Palawan until June 1943, when he obtained a sailboat and journeyed on toward other islands. Watkins was the sixth American POW from the Japanese camp to leave Palawan Island. Joe Little had preceded him in early 1943, and four members of the original Puerto Princesa escape group had previously departed in November 1942.

  Bruce Elliott, Bobby Hodges, George Davis, Sid Wright, and their two Moro guides first sailed to Balabac Island for several weeks. The group conducted a guerrilla raid against Japanese soldiers on Kudat, the northernmost point of Borneo, but returned to Balabac. Bob Kellam, recovered from his malaria, came down from Brooke’s Point in a motor launch with an Army captain to join them in early 1943.17

  The escapees eventually heard word that some Americans were manning a radio outpost on the island of TawiTawi in contact with General MacArthur in Australia. The men set out southeast on a sailboat on August 1, using a small map for guidance and dead reckoning with their compass. Elliott used the alarm clock given to him by the Puerto Princesa priest as a timer for tacking into the wind. Setting the alarm, the crew would sail for a fixed time until the alarm sounded, and then they tacked back an equal time the other direction. During their journey, they made another commando raid against Japanese soldiers stationed at a Moro fishing village on Cagayan Island, killing them before sailing on to TawiTawi.

  They arrived on the morning of August 10, 1943—exactly one year after their prison break from Puerto Princesa. Elliott saw that TawiTawi was only nine miles by twenty miles in area—a mere speck in the ocean. He felt that his rudimentary seamanship had been sufficient and just lucky enough. Seven of the eight Camp 10-A escapees had thus made their way from Palawan to other islands of the Philippines chain. Time would tell if any would see their homeland again.

  *

  CAPTAIN KISHIMOTO’S POOR attempts at containing his American prisoners continued in early 1943. On the night of February 2—after six months of internment in the Puerto Princesa compound—a third group of prisoners made its break: marine William Dewey Swift, Navy machinist Ray Sherman Pryor, and Army privates Don Thomson Schloat and Richard Charles Hanson.

  Bill Swift, who had manned a machine gun on Corregidor with the 4th Marines, was fed up with the abuse he had endured on Palawan. He and a dozen others thus conspired to escape the prison camp, but in the end, everyone backed out except for three men. Swift and Pryor climbed out a window and crawled under the barbed wire fences. Schloat and Hanson eased under the barbed wire in the back of the compound under cover of darkness and descended to the beach front below the cliffs.18

  Japanese guards became aware of missing prisoners during roll call the following morning, and an intensive manhunt commenced. Soldiers found footprints in the sand that led into a nearby coconut grove, and armed guards tracked the escapees through the jungle on February 3 until they caught up with the group. Swift and Pryor evaded their pursuers and fled deeper into the jungle, but Schloat and Hanson were apprehended and brought back to camp.

  The Kempei Tai refused to feed the two, forcing them to stand all night and into the next day. Schloat was beaten and body-slammed onto the concrete floor of the brig when he gave unsatisfactory answers on where the other escapees were located. During another session, he was forced to kneel in front of one of his guards while he was repeatedly punched in the face. Hanson and Schloat were terribly abused for more than a month before the military police moved them out of the brig on March 22 for a return voyage to Bilibid Prison.19

  The remaining prisoners at Puerto Princesa were kept confined to their barracks for two days following the latest escape. The men fell in and fell out for muster all day on February 4 as the frustrated Japanese continued searching for the two other escapees. Those in the camp picked up only fleeting details of what might have happened to the four from the friendly Filipino guerrilla network. Rumor had it that Schloat and Hanson had been recaptured and sent to Manila. The underground news eventually related that Ray Pryor was later captured and beheaded, his head placed on display in a northern Palawan village. As for the fourth escapee, Bill Swift, the men heard nothing more about him after he faded into the jungle.20

  Swift and Pryor had been caught in a heavy rainstorm soon after their escape. They became so lost in the downpour and darkness that they moved right through Puerto Princesa and continued north on the morning of February 3. Two days later, they made contact with two natives who gave them food and directed them to the care of Dr. Higinio Mendoza and the local Cobb brothers. Mendoza helped the escapees during the next month as they slowly made their way south toward Brooke’s Point.

  Swift and Pryor spent time there in the care of Harry Edwards’s family, where they encountered Navy escapee Bob Kellam. Pryor and Swift sailed from Palawan without him on April 23, 1943, moving north and east through the Philippines until reaching Tablas Island in June. There, Pryor obtained a thirty-foot Moro vinta-type sailboat, and the pair met with other escapees. Senior among them was Captain A. Kenneth Whitehead of the 26th U.S. Cavalry, sent out by the Japanese after the surrender of Panay to deliver orders for other Americans to give up. The captain was determined to sail for Australia with anyone willing to join him in Pryor’s vinta.

  Whitehead set out from Tablas in the sailboat on August 22, although Pryor and several others—including Aviation Machinist’s Mate William F. Young and Private First Class George E. Lear—chose to remain behind. The Tablas group was soon found by Japanese troops and most of them were killed. Bob Johnston, the Mindoro escapee who had moved from Palawan to Coyo Island by this point in 1943, learned that Pryor was beheaded, along with Lear and others.21

  Palawan escapee Bill Swift sailed with Whitehead and four others: two American servicemen, a Filipino, and guerrilla Alfred Cobb, a thirty-seven-year-old
mestizo American rancher with a Palaweña mother and a Texan father. Whitehead’s party sailed through the islands near Palawan, narrowly surviving a typhoon. Along their journey, they gathered charts, a compass, and even a barometer that Swift obtained by trading a shotgun. By November 28, 1943, they had reached Batu Batu on TawiTawi Island.22

  Swift had had enough ocean adventure to last him, so he and Corporal McVea Vigoroux decided to cast their die with the Filipino guerrillas when Whitehead’s group sailed once again toward Australia. Nearly three weeks later, on January 6, 1944, a U.S. plane spotted Whitehead’s vinta as it approached the Australian coast. Their epic voyage came to an end when they were finally greeted by a minesweeper and flown to Brisbane to report to General MacArthur.

  Escape from Palawan came with no guarantee of long-term survival. The “Fighting One Thousand” of the island did everything in their power to assist any Americans who busted out of the Puerto Princesa prisoner camp. By late 1943, twelve POWs had gotten away. Of these twelve, Henderson and Pryor had been murdered during their flight. Two others, Schloat and Hanson, had been recaptured, tortured, and returned to Bilibid Prison.

  Eight of the dozen were still defying the odds, giving hope to future Palawan escapees that evading recapture by their Japanese oppressors was possible.

  8

  CHANGING OF THE GUARD

  WITH EACH PRISON break, the Japanese put the remaining Americans on one-third rations and inflicted even more abuse. The reduction of nutrition wreaked severe effects on the men, whose health was already poor. Their thin, sun-bronzed skin tore easily, and any open wound led to infections. Mac McDole developed skin ulcers on his legs and buttocks, which he treated by rubbing salt water into the sores. Others stood in downpours to wash grime and disease from their bodies, scrubbing in the rainfall as if they were in their own bathroom showers back home. Raymond Seagraves, a once-stocky man from Lewisville, Texas, grew so thin from his rice diet that his skin hung from him like a living blanket, allowing him to pull loose flesh away from his belly and knead it like dough. Fellow prisoners nicknamed Seagraves “Rubber,” but the guards called him baka, or crazy.1