“Here,” Pedro offered, giving each brother one sip from his canteen.
“They’re stopping us. They’re letting men fill the canteens!” Lucian turned his swollen face to Norman. “Thank God in Heaven! We’re gonna make it now, Norm.”
“Thank God,” Norman weakly offered. “And you,” he whispered through cracked dry lips. “Thank God for you,” he said collasping into Lucian’s arms.
CHAPTER 52
Present Day, American Military Cemetery, Manila
Aged Lucian Parker from Warm Springs sighed and relaxed his voice for several minutes as Vincente waited. The cemetery didn’t seem so ghostly now, to Vincente. These crosses with names were suddenly taking the form of faces and personalities. The names had strengths, human weakness, hopes, and dreams.
Mead, Bogan, Martinez, Stiles, Parker. All names until now. The Filipino had sat at the feet of the American in rapt attention as a schoolboy does upon hearing a tale weaved by a master storyteller.
“It was there I was reunited with your father, Manuelito,” the aged Parker brother said. “San Fernando. The march lasted six more days from the time Bogan and Villalobos picked us up, rescued us from certain bayoneting, until we reached the rail-head town of San Fernando. The one we had retreated from with the train loads of supplies four months earlier. It was there the Japs were registering the POW’s names and then herding us into ovenlike metal boxcars so tight men had to stand. Many died that day.”
“How did you survive the next six days? I hear thousands died. Maybe ten thousand Filipinos, many thousand Americanos. No?”
“The prayers of loved ones and the grace of God I suppose. The unwillingness of my brother, Bogan, and Villalobos to let me fall to the ground. I love those men more than I can say. More than I can find words to describe.
“The Japs were butchers, you know. But our minds were numb, our bodies sore, heads blistered, lips swollen, minds gone. It was a nightmare we couldn’t wake from. The Japs even killed each other.
“One time, I don’t recall which day, one Jap soldier dropped out from heat exhaustion. A Jap sergeant makes some grunt to two of his men and they drag this sick Jap soldier into the bushes. We hear a shot. Then we knew for sure life meant nothing to them.”
Lengthy silence followed as the gazing eyes of the old veteran were suddenly transported to the land of dreams, where nothing makes sense but everything seems real.
“Most died because they gave up,” he abruptly started again.
“They either fell down and were bayoneted, left for dead, or shot. There was zero tolerance or mercy given us. Prisoners, men who surrendered, were considered worse than dogs by the Japs.
“A lot of Filipinos marching with us died drinking the ditch scum, the diseased filth in the water found in puddles created by feces-filled carabao tracks. It was awful. Awful,” he said quietly, almost reverently, as he hung his head in reverie. “Just more terrible than I can describe. They would fall over in fits of pain and agony and die along the roads soon after drinking it. Hundreds of them every mile,” he said, eyes moistening. “Probably ten Filipinos for every American.”
Silence reigned again.
“The clouds are coming but I don’t think they bring monsoon.” Vincente pointed to the moonlit sky momentarily bringing the old man Parker back to the present.
“A little rain then would have saved us. The dust along the road choked us, as if the sun didn’t almost bake us. We were walking zombies covered in our own filth, excrement, needing desperately to lay down, find some water, food. Most men hadn’t eaten for nine days. It was a miracle anyone was alive,” he continued, oblivious to the younger man’s comment.
“We found ourselves standing near the edge of the clearing we had been herded into at San Fernando. There was jungle, shade, trees. A few men ventured to sit under the shade. The guards apparently were as beat as we were. There Manuelito, your father, appeared. Our salvation!”
CHAPTER 53
Ninth Day, Bataan Death March
The Parkers, Bogan, and Villalobos waited for a chance to make a break into the jungle. The Japanese guards had not yet herded their group of resting men into the boxcars.
“Psst. Señores Parker,” Manuelito whispered from the jungle underbrush. “I got food. Remember, we buried food,” he rolled several cans their way. “Peaches. Beans.” He threw a knife.
Bogan scrambled on hands and knees for it and scooped up the cans under him. He gathered the men in a tight little group.
“We got to look out for ourselves. We got four cans here. We got no choice,” he said. “I’m gonna open them and then you guys eat it as fast as you can. We share each can, then the next, and so on. We won’t get another chance. No one is payin’ attention. Norman you first, then Lucian, then Pedro, then me.”
Manuelito remained hidden with two other Filipinos in a ravine, a small dip in the landscape in the trees just feet beyond the prisoners. Bogan popped the lids off the cans quickly with the small pocket knife then sliced a flap into the side of one of his boots and slid the knife in to hide it. The men gorged themselves and tossed the cans into the bushes before anyone paid attention.
A table was set up in the clearing and soon a Japanese officer appeared shouting instructions.
“We got to sign our names in some book,” Bogan ascertained for the group now laying prostrate in the shade. “Once they got our names there is no turning back. They’ll count us. If we turn up missing they may shoot some of the others just to teach a lesson. It’s now or never,” he said and as he did he and Pedro rolled off into the bushes for their escape.
A Jap guard seeing the commotion in the bushes yelled and soon the two were being pursued. Shots rang out and the excitement had the guards distracted by the jungle chase of the two escapees, away from the brothers.
“Norman. This is where you get off,” Lucian said, revived from the fruit and protein, and pushed his brother as hard as he could down the small incline into the ravine where Manuelito waited. “Go with Manuelito. Keep the faith.”
The men gathered themselves with the guards and were herded like cattle to the metal boxcars. Lucian looked toward the jungle one last time before stepping up into the train where more death followed the band of prisoners. Norman weakly gazed at the scene, too tired to move, waiting for dark to make his move with Manuelito.
He followed his Filipino rescuers into the bushes and crawled to a stream and small carved out cavern barely large enough for the four men. But it was heaven. He fed upon the canned goods, drank the water and then found himself carried, exhausted beyond anything he understood a living man could know, into the mountains and the camps of American and Filipino guerillas.
Manuelito had escaped a Japanese attack on a patrol he was on with a Filipino scout platoon one month before the surrender of Bataan. All ten of the other men had been killed.
“I thought you were dead, Manuelito,” an exhausted Norman Parker finally said after having slept for two days straight.
“Here. Take. Eat.” He smiled, handing Norman a piece of wild boar meat and a bowl of rice. “Sorry, no forks.” He grinned.
Norman Parker ate with abandon. He downed the mild tea Manuelito had prepared and lay back on the rugged grass mat that had served as his bed.
“You smell pretty bad, lieutenant,” Manuelito said, nodding to his clothes stacked in the corner. “We cleaned those in the stream two days ago. You ready for a bath? I take you there.”
“Yeah, I stink. I need a bath, a shave. Any razors around here?”
“Sure thing, Lieutenant Parker. We buried all kinds of goodies that day. Remember?”
Norman let out a hearty laugh. “Any Wrigleys chewing gum? Some Colgate toothpaste? A toothbrush maybe?”
“I see what I can do.” He smiled. “Come. Let’s go. I show you around.”
He soothed his aching, bruised body under a trickling clear stream of water falling over rocks from above him and showered with a bar of Lux soap for hours. Simple,
clear, plain, everyday jungle stream water. Something he had never considered a luxury. A pure and simple gift from the Almighty, he thought to himself.
The Filipinos enjoyed watching him revel in it. Allowing his mouth to be filled, his body soothed, the soap to slowly take its time as he carefully scrubbed every inch of crusted filth from himself.
Cleaned, smiling, he dressed and went back to camp. A roasted chicken, some rice, comotes—sweet potatoes—he felt new strength surge through him.
“Manuelito. Do you know where they took Lucian?” Norman asked, as he gorged on a drumstick.
“Yes. Old army camp named O’Donnell. It is not good. Hundreds of men dying every day. No food, little water. Sickness. Executions. I very sorry for you Joes. But the Filipinos dropping like flies too. A real crime. Now we organize. Tomorrow we fight.”
Lucian had survived the first year. Surviving the daily sickness, lack of food, beatings, and arbitrary executions was a miracle in itself. Now the men survived by their wits and learned the art of bartering, trading, stealing, and bribing guards for survival.
He had hidden his final valuable, the one thing that really mattered, the family heirloom. When being stripped of all personal items during the Death March, he at first had hid the gold ring in his mouth, determined to swallow it and look for it later during a latrine stop. He was fortunate to scrounge some thread and sewed the ring into his shorts. He was sure the Jap guards wouldn’t check there.
He had tried to give it to Norman but Norman was so far gone, delirious. Norman couldn’t entertain any thought except telling one foot to move, then the next.
On the fourth day of the Death March he mustered up all the energy he had to string enough words together under the torture of the broiling and brutal sun, waterless and foodless days, telling his brother as they limped along: “Norm, if something happens to me, toss my body off the side of the road but keep my underwear. I’ll explain later.”
He smiled now recalling how Norman almost died from the convulsions the unintended humor had created. Norman, his mouth dry, his throat parched, laughed uncontrollably with a high-pitched squeak that caused them to hug each other to keep from falling to the ground. They both cried that day, tears of hysteria.
The superstitious Jap guards left them alone, sure they were crazy for laughing under the conditions. It was one solitary bright spot of the ordeal.
The ring meant he was alive. Making sure Norm got it if something happened to him meant the vow to keep the faith of the Parker clan would live.
He had wormed his way onto a work crew shortly after being sent from O’Donnell to Cabanatuan. Getting out of the camp meant possibilities. Smuggling a banana or a sweet potato could mean the difference between life and death. Now at the Cabanatuan POW camp he was a few hours train ride from Manila.
“Hey! American stop now!” a Jap guard had yelled. He had walked toward a stalled train at a crossing during a road trip to work on a bridge repair outside the camp with fellow prisoners.
“Fix train. I fix train.” He motioned with his hands to the guards. After some time trying to communicate driving and fixing the train, the guards relented. In thirty minutes he had it going and was from then on an engineer. Well fed, but working sixteen hour days, he still was half the man of his former self.
Now he wrangled ways to get supplies into Cabanatuan. Two Jap guards, intent on getting rich off their jobs, worked well with him. He looked out for them, and they looked out for him by turning their backs. They got hard currency supplied by the underground in Manila. He got the supplies siphoned off from each load the Japs shipped north to Cabanatuan, a junction for enemy troops stationed throughout northeast Luzon.
It worked well until the two cooperative Jap guards were transferred. Now he had to use skills of subterfuge. If he was ever caught he’d be a dead man. He couldn’t find a friendly Jap in the whole company that guarded the train and camp now. Maybe in time, but not a greedy enemy soldier had surfaced yet.
Escape wasn’t an option. He would love to join Norman. He had opportunities since being on the train. But the Japs had proved they were serious when they threatened they would kill ten Americans for every one who escaped.
They did. More than once. He had been in a group that five men were picked out of for execution in the first days of internment. The experience had cured any idea of escape from then on.
Today he was being permanently transferred to a prison at Fort Santiago. A three-hundred-year-old dungeon—everyone knew someone who had gone there. No one knew of any who had come out.
He was still a train man though. Valuable. He had to survive long enough for MacArthur to keep his promise, to return to the Philippines. He’d seen American planes recently. Had heard bombings. It couldn’t be long before Norman made a move and liberated him, before American troops actually stormed ashore to their rescue.
He knew of one thing he wanted above all others. To get the ring to Norman. To see his face once more. To tell him he loved him. To make sure Mary Jane understood he had done his best. The ring would assure that.
“American. Get up. Go now!” he was urged at the point of bayonet. He was aboard the train for Manila but for the first time since the Death March ride from San Fernando to the old U.S. Army Camp O’Donnell two years ago he was in a boxcar filled with other men, not in the cab as engineer.
CHAPTER 54
February 1945, Raid on Cabanatuan
Norman had waited two and one half years for this moment. The last news from Manuelito was that Lucian had gotten back to the camp after a week of work detail under Jap guard on the north/ south rail-run from the POW camp at Cabanatuan to Manila.
Rumor was spreading like wildfire throughout the Philippines. “The Japs are killing their prisoners before the Americans get here.”
It had happened so often, the wanton killing, the senseless spur of the moment murder of POWs by guards. He knew it could easily be true. He had to find Lucian and get him out.
The Americans had landed in Leyte Gulf far to the south of Luzon and MacArthur, his old boss, had returned as promised. Surviving with guerillas in the hills, following Lucian from Camp O’Donnell to this camp, then making forays with guerilla protection as far as the outskirts of Manila, Norman had kept an eye on his brother as best he could. Through Manuelito he had gotten messages to Lucian and much-needed quinine for malaria, money to buy food on the black market, and sulfa for wounded Americans.
Norman knew Lucian had developed a rapport with two greedy Jap guards, one at the camp, and one who rode the train with him. He’d pay them off. They eagerly accepted and secretly were friendly to prisoners. But two guards out of two hundred couldn’t assure that Lucian wouldn’t be hurt or murdered on the spot for the smallest infraction. Especially if he was found smuggling food and medicine in to the Cabanatuan hellhole.
Only five hundred POW’s remained now at the camp. The thousands formerly living here, survivors of the Bataan Death March and the disease-ridden Camp O’Donnell had been shipped to other work camps in the Philippines, Japan, and Manchuria. Thousands had died since those days on Bataan and they continued dying daily en route to other camps, or they were executed, or disease finally caught up with them, or they were drowned at sea during transfers in Japanese “hell ships” unwittingly torpedoed by American submarines.
These few living prisoners represented the embodiment of a promise MacArthur had made. “I shall return” meant he wouldn’t abandon them. The American army was now determined to get the five hundred or so American men remaining at Cabanatuan home safely before the Japanese carried out their plans for massacres.
Norman checked his watch. He was in the company of the 6th Rangers, a special army battalion assigned the task of rescuing these prisoners of war before the Japanese slaughter commenced. And although it was not unusual for Norman to be behind enemy lines after thirty months of it, there had never been this many Americans sneaking through the jungle on a forced march sixty-five kilometers behin
d the lines.
Their job was simple. Kill all two hundred or so Japanese camped at Cabanatuan and bring the prisoners out on their backs if necessary. Leave no one behind.
Norman’s job was simpler. Find Lucian and bring him home. If he could find his brother the war would be over for them. Maybe as early as tomorrow.
This rescue was being effected by roughly one hundred and twenty men of the 6th Rangers. They were highly trained and motivated jungle fighters who were eager and ready for action. All of them knew the odds. No one would be able to come to their aid if detected. They would have to fight their way out or be killed.
There had never before been a rescue attempt of this magnitude in the history of American combat. This was one of historic proportions which, if successful, would go down in the books as the greatest mass POW escape of all time.
“Lieutenant Parker!” the ranger captain whispered in an urgent tone. He motioned with his hand for the veteran guerilla fighter to aid him in his study of the map.
“Approximately five kilometers past this point on the river. The river is only feet deep now. But if a monsoon hits suddenly, the water level could be up to our necks in no time. We can’t delay,” Norman told him.
“Delay isn’t part of the ranger motto. Look, Lieutenant. There is going to be a lot of gunfire. A lot of killing. You have been through hell. You’ve done more than your part in this war. There is no need for you to risk yourself in the raid. We’ll be able to get your brother. I’m sure of it.”
“Well, I appreciate that, sir, but those men are in hell still. I got to go for my brother. He’d do the same.”
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