As Good As Dead

by Stephen L. Moore

  By the second week of December, the question over the fate of American prisoners on Palawan was coming to a head. Captain Nagayoshi Kojima’s 131st Airfield Battalion, in charge of Camp 10-A at Puerto Princesa, fell under the command of Lieutenant General Seiichi Terada, commander of the 2nd Air Division, 4th Air Army. Terada’s headquarters was on Negros Island, located southeast of Palawan. On December 9, Terada discussed Palawan and other issues with a senior staff officer of Lieutenant General Kyoji Tominaga, who had been given command of all airfield construction units in the Philippines as of October 20.12

  The following day, December 10, a Japanese lookout post on Surigao, located on the northern tip of Mindanao, spotted an American convoy of more than three hundred ships heading toward Negros Island. Reconnaissance planes reported a huge trail of American troop transports, battleships, and aircraft carriers steaming west.13

  Uncertain where the Americans intended to strike, Terada sent out more scouting flights. His aviators returned with reports that the fleet had changed course and was moving northwest into the Sulu Sea. The general, believing the American force was intent on landing at Palawan, sent the following message to all units: “As a result of this morning’s reconnaissance, the enemy fleet is sailing northwest on the Sulu Sea. Division will not divert strength from the Leyte area and concentrate on the enemy fleet. Probable landing on Palawan Island expected.”

  On December 12, the American convoy was just south of the Cuyo Islands when General Terada received a top-secret dispatch from Captain Kojima on Palawan. Terada was then in conference with Major General Masami Kumabe of the 4th Air Army about who held jurisdiction over the Palawan battalion. One message they were studying indicated that the natives in that area held a “hostile attitude” and had made guerrilla attacks on the airfield area in recent weeks.14

  Terada was faced with a request of how to handle the American POWs if such a landing took place. Regardless of whether he had formal orders on how to act, the general decided to offer his advice, figuring the matter could be sorted out later. After discussions with General Kumabe, Terada sent a dispatch on the evening of December 12 to Tominaga. The general’s reply was received that evening, and General Terada sent his own dispatch to Palawan on December 13: “Jurisdiction over your unit is presently being investigated by the Army Chief of Staff and 2nd Air Division. In reference to your wireless request: 1) Pertaining to wiping out the natives, carry on as you see fit. 2) At the time of the enemy landing, if the POWs are harboring an enemy feeling, dispose of them at the appropriate time. The above mentioned lines of action are based on an army order.”

  Terada had just sent the approval needed to murder every American being held on Palawan.

  *

  THE PRISONERS COULD sense that something was wrong. Chatter overheard among the guards indicated that an American fleet had been spotted in their region. Work on the runways continued, the emaciated men toiling with shovels and wheelbarrows to haul dirt to each fresh bomb crater. Some guards, suspecting their time in the camp would soon be ending, sadistically shared the news with the POWs that if the United States invaded Palawan, every single prisoner would be executed.

  On December 13, the camp’s Japanese cook approached Willie Balchus with a strange question. He was a champion swimmer in Japan, he claimed, and asked Balchus if he thought he could swim across Puerto Princesa Bay, a distance of about four miles. Willie said that he thought he could. The cook asked how long it would take. “About a half hour,” Balchus joked. The cook then claimed that if American forces were to land on Palawan, all of the POWs would be killed, and then the Japanese would kill themselves. Balchus, having long since written the man off as crazy, paid little heed to the strange conversation.15

  That evening, camp commandant Kojima read Terada’s dispatch and assembled his senior lieutenants, Ryoji Ozawa, Sho Yoshiwara, Haruo Chino, Yoshiichi Yamamoto, Isao Abe, and Toru Ogawa. He explained that they believed an American invasion force was heading for Palawan and that immediate action was in order. They decided to cover all escape routes and set up fields of fire to prevent any escape. For further protection, Kojima ordered Ogawa to take a gun barge and patrol the waters off the beach of Puerto Princesa, just in case any prisoner slipped through the kill zone and arrived on the beach. All Americans would be exterminated by machine guns, grenades, rifles, clubs, or whatever means were necessary.

  More than twenty-seven months had passed since the first American POWs had been moved ashore to Puerto Princesa on August 1, 1942. Since that time, nearly six hundred men had been shuffled in and out of the camp, and many of the remaining one hundred fifty soldiers, sailors, and marines had endured the nightmare on Palawan since the beginning.

  Nestled on makeshift pallets on the dirty floors of the Puerto Princesa barracks, Balchus and his 149 comrades settled in for the night, expecting to dodge air raids and repair bomb damage the next day, as usual.

  13

  THE GAUNTLET

  TWO HOURS AFTER midnight, Japanese guards burst into the darkened barracks, shouting at the sleeping prisoners to get up and moving. The exhausted men were confused as they pulled on their work rags. They had labored late into the evening, patching holes on the airfield, and now they were being ushered out to work again, long before daylight.

  Ed Petry drove a truckload of prisoners to the field, where in darkness they returned to their endless routine of filling craters. When the new day dawned, Petry could finally see in the morning light that more guards than usual were standing by. Stranger still, helmet-clad gun crews were stationed at all the antiaircraft emplacements along the runway. Even McDole and Smitty felt tension in the air. Maybe the Americans were preparing to invade.1

  Gene Nielsen was accustomed to being hassled while he worked, but today was different. He noticed that one older guard, whose graying hair had earned him the nickname “Silver,” remained seated on a small mound, looking forward. Silver never turned his head and spoke to no one. Nielsen had never before seen such pacified guard behavior.2

  Around 1100, Lieutenant Yoshikazu Sato, “the Buzzard,” arrived at the airfield carrying a small box, which he placed on the ground. The guards hustled about, pushing and prodding the prisoners together while Sato whispered to his men. Then he climbed atop the box and addressed the prisoners: “Americans, your working days are over!”3

  That was it—no lengthy speech, no further details. As the Buzzard stepped off his box, the guards began herding the prisoners toward trucks for the ride back to their camp. Ed Petry climbed into the cab of his vehicle as his comrades clambered aboard. The men were still pondering the strange turn of events as the trucks bumped along the dusty roads that led back to the Puerto Princesa compound.

  When they arrived, Nielsen noticed more guards than usual inside the compound, but he figured they had simply beefed up their detail. The prisoners were not allowed to leave the main compound area, so most took seats on the ground near their air-raid shelters to await chow or further orders.

  Smitty was starving, so he suggested to McDole that they sneak into their barracks to grab some papayas they had recently stashed. They had just entered the barracks when the clanging of an old Puerto Princesa church bell announced an incoming air raid. The tolling continued as guards shoved the prisoners toward their air-raid shelters. It was just after noon.

  Ed Petry had slipped back to his truck with Sammy Glover to retrieve some strips of rubber they had stashed under the driver’s seat. The two had sliced the rubber off an airplane tire at the field in hopes of using it to make new sandals. They were just digging under the seat as the alarm resonated through the camp.4 As the two men raced back into the compound, Deguchi was startled to see them, and he swatted Petry with the flat of his saber as they ran toward their tunnels.

  Sergeant Doug Bogue was sitting with a group of friends near his small shelter as the commotion started. Within moments, he heard the drone of aircraft engines and squinted skyward, spotting two P-38 Lightning fighters app
roaching the island. Urged on by shouting Japanese guards, the men dutifully packed into their tunnels and waited for the all-clear signal.

  The P-38s circled high overhead and moved on. About a half hour later, guards rang the church bell to signal the Americans to emerge from their shelters. Petry crawled from Shelter B and took his plane in line for a lunch of rice and whistle weed soup. He was just beginning to eat when the air-raid alarm clanged again, a mere thirty-five minutes after the first alarm had sounded.

  Once again, the prisoners were urgently herded into their shelters, but this time, Petry saw only a lone Japanese seaplane buzzing over the compound. They waited until the church bell signaled all clear. Smitty and McDole crawled from Shelter C, hoping to slip back to their barracks for the papayas. But the Buzzard had other ideas. Lieutenant Sato yelled at the POWs, telling them that they were not allowed to return to their barracks.

  “You must stay near your shelters!” he ordered.

  Nielsen noticed that some sixty armed guards had been distributed throughout the camp. Riflemen and soldiers hoisting machine guns were at spaced intervals outside the double barbed wire enclosure and on the southeast corner of the POW barracks veranda. Other armed men stood between the galley and the barracks, and near shelters A, B, and C. Additional Japanese soldiers gathered along the fencing.5

  More American bombers were on their way, the prisoners were told. There was nothing to do but settle down on the ground and wait.

  *

  AROUND 1400, THE Puerto Princesa church bell rang out for the third time.

  Lieutenant Sato and his men began yelling at the Americans to get back in their bomb shelters. Hundreds of American planes were on their way, they said. Some of the prisoners, weary of the air-raid drills, took their time. Dozens of planes, they could believe—but hundreds?

  Smitty knew something was wrong. The young marine had loitered during past air raids, once even remaining in the barracks, content to take his chances just to watch the show. Now he had no such option, as angry soldiers prodded him toward his shelter. Others were trying to mill about, wanting to see an airplane before they went underground. The Buzzard, outraged, unsheathed his sword and screamed warnings at the men to get below.6

  Flustered, some POWs jumped into the wrong shelters. Nielsen had sat out in the open through much of the first air raid, and when the third alarm sounded, he was unable to make it past the sword-wielding guards to his normal dugout. Amid the chaos, he could only reach the closest, Shelter C, which lay nearest to the oceanside bluffs. Nielsen crammed into the entrance near Mac McDole, C. C. Smith, Everett Bancroft, and Willie Smith. Among others he noticed crouched near him were Charles Street, Joe Barta, Doug Burnett, and John Lyons. Nielsen had no idea what to expect next, so he crouched low near the tunnel entrance, his knees pressed close to his face.7

  Ed Petry remained in the open, avoiding the air-raid shelter, when an angry guard approached, shouting at him to get below. “I would just as soon stay out here,” said Petry.8

  The Japanese soldier slammed his rifle butt into Petry’s skull and yelled at him to get in. His head throbbing, Petry duly climbed down into his regular Shelter B, pausing only long enough to take in a disturbing sight: Lieutenant Ogawa was barking at soldiers to load their rifles. There were about forty men packed in. Petry couldn’t see them all, as they were jammed throughout the shelter’s seventy-five-foot length, but he could smell their sweat as they crammed against one another in the dark. He could just make out Army artillerymen Kenneth Smith, Delbert Thomas, and Sammy Glover; Army infantrymen Johnny Diaz and Robert Anderson; marines Orland Morris and Robert Adkins; and Joseph Uballe from the 28th Material Squadron. Petry also noticed John Harris, a torpedoman who had served on the submarine Seawolf before the war. Just outside the entrance, Sergeant James Stidham—paralyzed from the bombing attacks two weeks earlier—was left lying on his stretcher in the open.

  *

  THE SENSE OF urgency among the Japanese was simple—the Weasel had passed on the “kill” orders.

  Shortly after the first air raid, Kojima had summoned more guards to head to the prisoner camp. Tomisaburo Sawa, known to the Americans as one of the meanest sentries, noticed a sudden commotion, and then all the troops of his Yoshiwara Tai company were called together for an emergency meeting at Canigaran Beach. His 2nd Platoon leader, Warrant Officer Yuichi Yamamoto, came into the barracks shortly after noon on December 14.9 Yamamoto announced that he had direct orders to kill the POWs, and he ordered his men to bring their rifles, bayonets, and machine guns. At least forty soldiers from the platoon, including Sawa, Yamamoto, and section leader Sergeant Takihiko Shinoda, packed into the back of the transport truck for the bumpy drive to the compound. As he checked his bayonet and the thirty rounds of ammunition he had ready for his rifle, Sawa felt tense during the fifteen-minute ride toward the execution site.10

  The truck arrived in front of the Puerto Princesa headquarters around 1300. More than sixty soldiers lined up in two ranks facing west as Kojima stepped forward to address them. An American invasion of Palawan was imminent, he claimed. “I am sorry to say,” Kojima said, “but it is necessary at this time to kill all of the POWs.”

  He spoke briefly to company commander Yoshiwara, who then ordered his soldiers to load five rounds of ammunition into each rifle and fix their bayonets. The men were left at attention with loaded weapons, prepared to follow Yoshiwara quickly into the camp when they heard the air-raid alarm.11

  As the church bell tolled yet again, he led his guards through the main gate and into the middle of camp between the two main buildings. Yoshiwara directed the placement of various men and groups of men. Sawa was assigned a position on the prison camp veranda, on its southeast corner that led down to the latrine. One machine gun had already been set up on the porch, and the guards were ordered to fire at any POW who emerged from the shelters. Sawa noticed other soldiers enter the compound carrying torches and buckets of gasoline obtained from a storage place west of the vehicle repair shop.12

  It was just past 1400.

  Visit bit.ly/2dWygtT for a larger version of this map.

  *

  THE THIRD ALARM was ringing, guards were shouting threats, and in the dugout shelters, the American prisoners were puzzled—no one could hear aircraft engines.

  Smitty was packed into the entrance to Shelter C near Charles Carlyle Smith Jr., a signalman second class known as C.C. who had once served on the cruiser Houston. The unrelated Smith boys were both Southerners, and they had forged a bond during their time together. Smitty could tell that his friend was fed up with staying below ground. C.C. popped up through the shelter opening to see what was going on. Lieutenant Sato swung his sword around above his head and shouted in Japanese, “Get down and don’t look out!” Gene Nielsen, squatting near Smitty, watched as Sato then stepped over the opening, raised his sword high, then brought the blade down with full force into C. C. Smith’s head, splitting his skull wide open, and sending his body tumbling back into the pit.13

  Other men peeking from their bunkers witnessed the murder. In Shelter B, a stunned Ed Petry ducked back down. Soon he heard the crack of rifle fire. Doug Bogue, occupying one of the three-man foxholes, had also seen C.C.’s death. As soon as the sword struck, Bogue crouched down and told his two comrades, Gabriel Sierra and Stephen Kozuch.14

  “Take it easy,” one cautioned. “Let’s don’t get the Japs excited.”

  Seconds later, men in Shelter C heard a dull, muffled sound, a booming resonation unlike any bomb dropped by an American plane. Smitty would later remember that was the instant when “all hell broke loose.” The guards above were still in a screaming frenzy, and Smitty momentarily hoped that the chaos was the result of Filipino guerrillas raiding the camp.15

  But the screams of American voices and the pungent smell of gasoline drove home the sobering truth: Kojima had ordered the execution of all 150 American prisoners of war. Five soldiers approached Shelter A with buckets of gasoline and
dumped the contents onto the roof and into the entrance. Two other soldiers tossed lighted bamboo torches into the front of the trench. The gasoline erupted in a powerful gust, and flames spit from the tunnel’s opening.16

  Packed in like rats in a tube, the men of Shelter A at once began roasting alive. As the fires spread, at least seven Americans charged out from the opening, their clothing aflame as they screamed.

  “Shoot them!” shrieked Lieutenant Yoshiwara. “Shoot them!”

  A machine gun roared to life, mowing down the suffering Americans who were clawing their way from their underground shelter.

  At the entrance to Shelter B, Ed Petry poked his head up again. What he saw was a mass of flames, and burning men staggering out, only to be violently dropped to the dirt. Sergeant Henry Araujo, his clothing and skin ablaze, made it only a short distance before he stumbled, cut down by machine-gun fire from the veranda.17

  Petry watched in horror as guards fired their rifles into the blazing entrance of Shelter A. Beside him, Delbert Thomas hollered, “They are killing us!” The next instant, a pair of hand grenades sailed into the opening of their own tunnel. Thomas scooped them up and hurled them back out into the open compound. Petry looked out again, saw a guard drawing a bead on his head with his rifle, and ducked down just as bullets peppered the entrance to his dugout.

  *

  IN SHELTER C, Smitty squatted beside C.C.’s lifeless body. Despite the risk, he poked his head topside and saw men frantically scrambling from the A trench as their petrol-soaked clothing blazed brightly. Soldiers and sailors twisted and crumpled as machine-gun bullets and rifle slugs ripped into them. Some men, their flesh in flames, begged for mercy, asking to be shot and killed. The guards only laughed or jabbed them with bayonets. Smitty leaned down and shouted a warning to his forty-odd comrades: Japanese were approaching the B trench, and they would be coming to Shelter C in short order.