As Good As Dead

by Stephen L. Moore

The coastwatchers shoved off from the submarine, which got under way and quickly disappeared into the darkness. Austin’s Redfin sailors took the chance to lob deck gun shells into a Japanese ship anchored off Brooke’s Point during their departure. Belowdecks, the escapees were overjoyed to be heading toward safety. Charlie Watkins enjoyed a well-done steak, French fries, corn on the cob, vegetable salad, and pie and ice cream for his first meal.16

  Redfin reached Darwin, Australia, six days later. Watkins had spent two years and two months on the run since escaping from the Japanese. Joe Little had preceded him in making it back to the States, but Watkins was finally reunited with his mother on October 3. It would be many months later before the U.S. Navy allowed Watkins to tell his incredible story to newspaper journalists.

  Following Joe Little, Bruce Elliott, and Bill Swift, Watkins became the fourth American POW from the Japanese compound at Puerto Princesa to make his way back home.

  11

  THE WEASEL AND THE BUZZARD

  AS ERNIE KOBLOS climbed out of the work truck at the entrance to the Puerto Princesa compound after another grueling day, he noticed an unusual number of guards standing by. At once he knew something was up. Twenty-two months of backbreaking labor had sapped much of his will to live, but even now, his spirits broken and his body battered, any change to his routine put him on high alert. He and his fellow prisoners marched through the tall stone archway and headed for their barracks, but instead of filing inside, they were ordered by Kinoshita to line up in two ranks, ten paces apart, as they were assigned to either Company A or Company B.

  Three days earlier, on August 19, the four Robalo prisoners had been marched from camp, bringing the camp roster down to 309, of which nine men were currently off work detail due to being on Doc Mango’s sick list. Mango had been forced to stand his ground while treating one private for blood in his urine, requiring him to be sent to a Japanese hospital for additional treatment. When the Japanese challenged his call, Mango snapped, “Bring your own damn doctor in!” They did, confirmed the diagnosis, and put the soldier on the sick list.1

  Now, on August 22, the remaining three hundred men were split into two equal groups. Only a few knew the reason: The Japanese were planning to reduce their work force on Palawan. With the airfield in good order, Kinoshita could get by with half the prisoners to maintain it, while the other “workers” could better serve Japan by being shipped to the homeland. Those assigned to Company A were bound for Bilibid Prison in Manila.

  Hubert Hough had helped organize the list of departing men. Captain Harry Hickman, tabbed to depart, selected Phil Brodsky and Russell Lash from his medical unit to go with him, leaving three medics behind: Everett Bancroft, Charles Bartle, and Charles Schubert. With them would remain First Lieutenant Mango for medical needs and Dr. Henry Knight, the dentist.2 Bob Russell would join Hickman. Hough tried to include Warrant Officer Glenn Turner because he could not see eye to eye with Doc Mango or Captain Bruni, but the Japanese would not allow any more officers to go. Interpreter Shorty Sumida promised to ship Turner out on the next detail. Hough was willing to stay, but something compelled him to add his own name to the list of those departing Palawan.3

  The newly designated men of Company A were ordered inside the barracks to gather their belongings before being marched to the pier. Mac McDole said good-bye to his Iowa friend, camp cobbler Don Thomas, who found himself on the outbound roster. Francis Galligan, who had been on the island since the beginning in August 1942, wanted to remain with a group of close friends from his home state of Massachusetts, but guards denied the request. Galligan quickly said his good-byes and joined the line of men heading for the water’s edge.4

  The 159 departing prisoners boarded a rusting transport ship, Maru Hachi, just arrived with companies of fresh khaki-clad Japanese soldiers. Instead of embarking right away, the Americans were put to work as stevedores, unloading and partially reloading the ship. Twenty trucks were moved into the vessel’s forward hold, as well as hundreds of empty metal drums and several hundred twenty-five-foot logs into an afterhold in the rear of the ship’s superstructure. Maru Hachi remained only half-loaded with cargo, fully capable of carrying another 150 POWs.5

  For weeks, the outgoing prisoners slept on board the ship at night and worked the docks during the day, wondering if they would ever sail. Meanwhile, Hubert Hough worried about the underground communications system he had run the past two years in conjunction with Filipino guerrillas. He had sent numerous typewritten documents out to be transmitted by radio to the Allies, and as Maru Hachi lingered, he fretted that the Japanese would discover his spying. Each arriving boat induced cold chills as he imagined guards coming for him.6

  When Maru Hachi finally sailed on September 22, 1944, the Japanese sailors and prisoner guards, terrified of submarine attacks, never took off their life jackets during the entire voyage to Manila. Despite that risk, Hough could breathe easier only when the green treetops of Palawan faded into the sparkling blue horizon.7

  Several days later, guards informed the remaining Americans that Maru Hachi had been torpedoed and that all men were dead. For several days, a deep gloom set in over the camp before a Filipino informant brought news that it was all a lie: Their comrades had indeed made it safely back to Manila.8

  *

  SMITTY WAS DISHEARTENED by the half-empty barracks. Of the 150 Americans left behind at Puerto Princesa, only three dozen were fellow marines, including his best friend, Mac McDole, and Doug Bogue. The Navy prisoners now numbered only fifteen, including Smitty’s Southern friend C. C. Smith and radioman Joe Barta. The balance of the Palawan camp comprised U.S. Army soldiers and a few Army Air Corps men. The departing close friends and clique-mates left the remaining prisoners feeling as broken as if they had lost family members.

  On September 8, while the departing prisoners still lingered in the harbor, the Japanese camp personnel underwent a major change. The 111 Land Duty Company, which had supervised construction of the Puerto Princesa airfield, was relieved by the 131st Airfield Battalion, which was under command of the 11th Air Sector of the 4th Air Army.9

  Incredibly, Palawan’s POWs found that each new camp commandant was even crueler and more lethal than his predecessor. After the comparatively lenient Kishimoto was relieved, Kinoshita had taken over; during his sixteen-plus months, three Americans had died from work-related mishaps, and another two had been executed for trying to escape. Unfortunately, Kinoshita’s replacement would prove to be the most vicious.

  Captain Nagayoshi Kojima, commander of the incoming 131st, took over as the new commandant of Palawan’s Camp 10-A. The Americans, always quick with a derogatory nickname for their tormentors, tagged the sly, aggressive Kojima as “the Weasel.” Kojima had taught primary school before he first entered infantry service, and as his prisoners would soon discover, he brought a sadistic headmaster’s approach to his new job. The Weasel’s 342-man company, which had arrived on Palawan in August, ruled over their POWs with an iron fist within weeks.10

  Second in command of Camp 10-A was “the Buzzard.” First Lieutenant Yoshikazu Sato, a short man with beady eyes that seemed to peer right through people, had a thin frame and weighed no more than 120 pounds, but the Buzzard was fierce in his role as base executive officer, in charge of the guard force. Under him, Lieutenant Sho Yoshiwara now commanded the three-platoon garrison company. Lieutenant Ryoji Ozawa became the new officer in charge of supply at Puerto Princesa, while Lieutenant Toru Ogawa’s company was tasked with maintaining the vehicle repair shop, the airfield repair work, and the refueling of planes.11

  While the docile Blinky had departed with Kinoshita, remaining behind were two of the worst guards from the former regime—Master Sergeant Deguchi, in charge of the Kempei Tai, and Manishi “Buckteeth” Nishitani, the mess sergeant who took great pleasure in beating Americans nearly to death. Among the new group of Japanese soldiers, several particularly mean ones stood out. Private Takeo Kawakami was an ex-fighter who enjoyed using his boxing skil
ls to beat prisoners senseless. A small man named Shubakii carried brass knuckles, which he used to punch men squarely in the mouth.12

  The Americans could feel change in the air. Through their guerrilla “jungle telegraph,” they gradually heard news of the approach of Allied forces. On August 9, U.S. Navy carrier planes had bombed Japanese installations in Davao, and days later, waves of American aircraft attacked the Visayas. On September 11, just after the Weasel and the Buzzard arrived, American planes bombed Japanese vessels in Manila Bay and airstrips around the city. Because of these raids, President José P. Laurel—head of the Japanese puppet state labeled the Second Philippine Republic—proclaimed martial law to protect lives and property, as invasion of the Philippines appeared imminent.13

  *

  BETO PACHECO COULD feel his body wasting away. After the 159 Americans had set sail on September 22, Captain Kojima cut the remaining prisoners’ rations. Work hours stretched from dawn to dusk, seven days a week, without the usual Sundays off, and noon chow on work detail had to be gobbled down in only fifteen to twenty minutes, with no break from the midday sun. Pacheco’s already lean frame became dangerously thin. He had shed more than thirty pounds during his two years on Palawan, but he was a survivor by nature, born to rugged parents of mixed Spanish and Mexican heritage. His earliest ancestor in America was Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco, a military engineer and cartographer who created the first maps of the New World area of present New Mexico, where generations of the Pacheco family had lived and ranched since 1734. Beto’s upbringing had prepared him for living lean and working hard, but the suffering he endured on Palawan was beyond anything he had experienced during his family’s rugged early existence.

  Under Captain Kojima’s new orders, Pacheco and his comrades received only three-quarters of a mess kit of rice per day and a meager serving of a greenish-colored soup consisting of camote vines boiled in salt water. Pacheco’s fellow prisoner Gene Nielsen became disgusted with what he called “whistle weed” soup, so watery and bitter that many prisoners ended up with diarrhea. The hollow stalks of the camote, a Philippine sweet potato, were more edible when the plants were young. With older plants, the stalks grew larger, forming a hollow middle that earned them their nickname. About once a month, the men would receive the bones of a caribou to boil into a broth, but only after the Japanese guards picked off all the decent meat. The decreasing calories only drove prisoners like Nielsen to take more risks, sneaking into the jungle for papayas and coconuts when the guards weren’t looking.14

  In late September, General Shiyoku Kou, in charge of all POWs in the Philippines, ordered the remaining 150 Americans returned to Manila. Though transportation was available, the order was never carried out. Instead, Captain Kojima’s men took up residence in the abandoned homes in Puerto Princesa. As the Allies inched closer to the Philippines, Japanese soldiers began digging revetments for artillery pieces along the shoreline and installing antiaircraft guns around the docks and the airfield.

  Mac McDole soon noticed a new Filipino turncoat who seemed far too cozy with the Japanese guards. Pedro Paje, superintendent of the nearby Iwahig Penal Colony, was a small forty-one-year-old whose face sported a large scar that ran from his left cheekbone down to his chin. Nearly every day he brought sake, rice cookies, and other gifts for the Japanese guards, and as he walked the camp, he would cruelly laugh and spit on the Americans.

  McDole had no reason to suspect that Paje’s actions might actually be part of a larger plan.

  *

  ON THE MORNING of October 19, less than a month after half the POWs were sent to Manila, a heavy rain stopped all progress at the airfield, and the prisoners were returned to camp. Smitty and Mac McDole were in their barracks around 1500, awaiting their rice rations, when they heard a strange noise growing louder in the distance.

  “That don’t sound like a Jap plane,” said Smitty.

  McDole agreed. As the rumble increased, Smitty looked out toward the bay and spotted a lone four-engine bomber soar out of the clouds, skimming low over the water toward the prison camp. To the two prisoners, it looked to be a foreign warplane, sporting a shiny twin tail and a bulky frame loaded with bombs and machine guns. As it roared low across the Puerto Princesa compound, Smitty and McDole could clearly see blue-and-white U.S. Navy star emblems on the underside of the plane’s wings.15

  Prisoners throughout the camp whooped and hollered, throwing their dented pith helmets into the sky with joy. Some laughed and others broke down in tears as the Army Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber waggled its wings while passing over at a mere three hundred feet. The Americans watched the pilot climb back to altitude and settle into the business of making an attack.

  Commander Justin Albert Miller could not resist signaling a greeting to the POWs below. He was the skipper of Patrol Bombing Squadron 101 (VPB-101), based on Morotai in the Maluku Islands. Earlier that day, he and his crew had taken off in his Miller’s High Life on a thousand-mile patrol of the South China Sea. During his return to Morotai, Miller diverted his bomber to hit the Japanese seaplane base at Puerto Princesa. He came in low at a hundred feet to attack the dock, where two small interisland ships were moored along with six nestled seaplanes.16

  Miller dumped ten hundred-pound bombs that destroyed the vessels and set the seaplanes on fire. The POWs could hear the drone of the B-24’s four Pratt & Whitney engines as the pilot circled to come in for another run. His Miller’s High Life roared along the runway, just right of center, so low that Miller’s navigator claimed to see mud hit the windshield as they attacked an estimated forty Japanese planes parked on the strip.17

  Smitty and McDole watched the bombs tumble free from the Liberator and were proud to see the destruction, fires, and chaos created by the American aviators. Many other POWs remained out in the open, exposed to shrapnel, to witness the attack. These included Ed Petry, who enjoyed watching terrified Japanese soldiers dive into shelters for protection.18

  Miller’s crew had less to celebrate. As his Liberator retired low over Puerto Princesa Bay, it was stitched with antiaircraft fire and one engine burst into flames. Miller and his copilot fought their damaged controls for several minutes but lost the battle when their B-24 slammed into the ocean about ten miles off Palawan. Miller was ejected through the windscreen while still strapped into his seat, and three crewmen were killed on impact. The seven survivors of the crash, several seriously injured, clung to a bomb-bay fuel tank until the current carried them to tiny Ramesamey Island, about seven miles from Puerto Princesa. The next day, the crewmen encountered an enemy officer whose own plane had crash-landed. Outnumbered, the Japanese aviator splashed into the ocean, grabbed the Liberator’s discarded fuel cell for a flotation device, and paddled away. The Americans feared that they would eventually be discovered on their tiny speck of land, which was only about three thousand yards in circumference.19

  Many Filipinos, including Triny Mendoza, had witnessed Miller’s attack on Puerto Princesa. Now back at her late husband’s plantation despite the danger of being apprehended by the Kempei Tai, Mrs. Mendoza felt sure the flaming bomber that she saw crash into the ocean across the bay from her home was American, so she called for two men to sail to Ramesamey Island to look for survivors. They paddled along the coast but returned to Palawan, reporting that they had seen no one. This left the widow to reluctantly write off the hero airmen as lost.20

  *

  AMERICAN WARPLANES BECAME a regular sight after Miller’s attack. From that day forward, the Palawan prisoners saw at least one American bomber almost every day as more B-24s dodged antiaircraft fire to deliver loads of ordnance. One lone Liberator began making regular noontime runs on the Puerto Princesa area, his arrival so routine that the Americans nicknamed the pilot “Hysterical Harry,” in honor of the chaos he created each day as the Japanese sprinted for their air-raid shelters.21

  The Puerto Princesa prisoners were unaware that American troops began landing on Leyte on October 20 as the retaking of the Philipp
ines commenced. General MacArthur waded ashore that afternoon on Red Beach, just south of Leyte’s largest city of Tacloban. Photographers were on hand to capture his triumphant arrival as he sloshed through the waves with staff officers and Philippine president Sergio Osmeña, who had been ruling from exile. By radio, he announced, “People of the Philippines, I have returned.”

  More island invasions would follow in the weeks and months ahead as ground troops secured the main airfields on Leyte. The Japanese on Palawan, seeing more and more U.S. warplanes passing overhead, realized it was only a matter of time before they might encounter American combat troops on their island. MacArthur warned the Japanese commander in chief in the Philippines, Field Marshal Count Hisaichi Terauchi, that the prisoners should be taken care of or he would be held personally accountable. Leaflets to this effect were dropped by air on enemy positions throughout the Philippines on November 25.22

  The Palawan airfield, capable of supporting as many as two hundred planes, began slowly emptying as aircraft were moved to safer fields. On October 28, the largest raid yet struck midmorning, when prisoners counted seventeen B-24s glide overhead. Ed Petry was again among many of the prisoners caught in the open, unable to take cover until their Japanese guards fled to their air-raid shelters. With just seconds to spare, Petry and others scrambled to the only nearby protection, a drainage ditch alongside the runway.23

  The first B-24 bombs exploded a short distance away. One made a direct hit on a four-car garage and lubrication pit, destroying a gasoline truck and the Japanese soldier attempting to start it. Bombs heavily cratered the runway, destroyed dozens of parked planes, and even damaged many of the aircraft tucked away in the jungle revetments. This large raid, as well as smaller ones on subsequent days, disrupted air operations and created plenty of work for the American prisoners to repair with hand tools.

  Joe Barta and his friend John Stanley were among the teams charged with refilling the bomb holes one afternoon as black smoke still belched skyward from mangled machines of war. Sergeant Deguchi approached and barked at Stanley to pick up his pace. The prisoner simply replied that there were too many rocks in the way for him to move any faster. Deguchi responded by knocking Stanley to the ground with a blow to the head from a pick handle. His life had been spared only by his hard sun helmet, now smashed flat. Stanley was helped to sick bay with a three-inch gash in his head.24