I was deeply concerned about the thousands of prisoners who had been interned at the various camps on Luzon since the early days of the war. Shortly after the Japanese had taken over the islands, they had gathered Americans, British and other Allied Nationals, including women and children, in concentration centers without regard to whether they were actual combatants or simply civilians. I had been receiving reports from my various underground sources long before the actual landing on Luzon, but the latest information was most alarming. With every step that our soldiers took toward Santo Tomas University, Bilibid, Cabanatuan, and Los Baños, where these prisoners were held, the Japanese soldiers guarding them had become more and more sadistic. I knew that many of these half-starved and ill-treated people would die unless we rescued them promptly. (Cited in Captured: The Japanese Internment of American Civilians in the Philippines., Frances B. Cogan, 1941-45, University of Georgia Press, 2000, page 262.)
~ * ~
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
≈ At eight o’clock on the morning of January 28, George Louis (on whom the character Donnelly is based) returned to the camp from the villages. He staggered a bit, as if he’d been drinking. Arthur, in Deliverance at Los Baños, page 145, calls Louis a “hard-luck guy,” describing him as a former Pan Am mechanic who’d spent much of his time in Los Baños trying to scrounge enough penicillin for his “good dose of clap.” Upon his return to the camp, Louis walked into the sights of a sentry, who shot him in the arm. He collapsed against the fence. Despite pleas from the internee committee and Dr. Nance, Louis was rolled onto a door, carried into the jungle on the orders of Commandant Iwanaka, and shot through the head.
Again, the committee protested vigorously. The commandant responded with the standard line that all internees caught attempting to escape would be executed.
The diarist George Mora observed, “Well, murder was done today and the Japanese will do it again if they can find the slightest excuse.”
≈ The deep pit dug by the Japanese in the southwest portion of the camp carried no explanation. In light of the news of massacres creeping closer to the camp and the worsening war situation for the Japanese, the internees and guerrillas alike were reasonable in their fears that this trench was being prepared to conceal evidence of a coming slaughter.
~ * ~
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
≈ Bolick is a composite of two actual soldiers: Staff Sergeant John Fulton, age twenty-four, 511th Signal Company, 11th Airborne Division, sent into the field to relay messages back and forth to the Filipino guerrillas; and Major Jay Vanderpool, the representative of General MacArthur to the guerrillas of southern Luzon. Vanderpool established the General Guerrilla Command (GGC) to coordinate the activities of the several guerrilla bands.
≈ Sergeant Fulton’s initial journey to join the guerrillas was in the smelly hold of a banca, clutching a pair of grenades in case of a Japanese patrol boat or perfidy by the guerrillas.
≈ Gusto is based on the Filipino guerrilla leader Lieutenant Colonel Gustavo “Tabo” Ingles. In the winter of 1941, when the war began, Ingles was a first-year student at the Philippine Military Academy, class of 1945. He, with several fellow cadets of the academy, formed the core of the Hunters ROTC (to “hunt” the Japanese). Major Vanderpool used Ingles as a go-between for the GGC and the guerrilla bands in the area of Los Baños.
≈ On February 12, at Vanderpool’s instruction, Tabo Ingles arranged a meeting of all five guerrilla groups in the town hall of Santa Cruz, in guerrilla-held territory. The gathering discussed the feasibility of conducting an all-guerrilla assault on the camp to free the internees. The guerrilla chiefs argued their various points and interests, including access to American-supplied weapons. Though a fractious meeting, in the end it was determined they would support one another, so long as Tabo Ingles made good on a promise to requisition enough guns and ammo for all of them.
One guerrilla leader, Colonel Romeo “Price” Espino (the basis for the character Romeo), raised a stern objection. Price, who before the war had been a biology student at Los Baños, questioned who would protect the villagers around the internment camp after such a rescue. The other guerrilla chiefs in the room viewed this as an attack on their loyalty and courage, until cooler heads prevailed. According to Flanagan, page 84, “only after Ingles assured him (Price) that raids on Japanese concentrations after the mission would be integrated in the recommended plan did the ‘Colonel’ agree to participate in the mission.”
~ * ~
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
≈ Inexplicably, the February 3 rescue of the Santo Tomas internees was not announced on the Voice of Freedom until the end of the month. The internees of Los Baños did not know that their compatriots in Manila were safe. This news would have greatly cheered—and worried—the endangered people at Los Baños.
~ * ~
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
≈ The night of February 12th, the internee Freddie Zervoulakos (one of the inspirations for Talbot Tuck) slipped under the barbed wire. He made his way a mile and a half to the home of Helen Espino, wife of Colonel “Price” Espino, for a meeting with Tabo Ingles of the Hunters ROTC. Freddie, half Filipino, half Greek, was answering the call to attend the meeting from his brother, a captain in the Hunters who’d gotten word to him inside the camp.
At Helen Espino’s home, Freddie received from Tabo Ingles a copy of a letter from the guerrilla coordinator Major Vanderpool, and a few packets of American cigarettes to certify that the Army was, in fact, nearby. Tabo also instructed Freddie to select a “reputable” member of the internee community and bring him back to the Espino home in two nights.
≈ George Gray (Lucas in the novel) was the youngest member of the internee committee. The night of February 14, Gray followed Freddie Zervoulakos under the wire and through the ravine, to the Faculty Hill home of Helen Espino and a rendezvous with the guerrilla leader Tabo Ingles. The meeting lasted almost until dawn. During their long talk, Tabo suggested the guerrillas could arm the internees in order for them to assist in their own liberation. Gray refused the offer absolutely. In departing, Tabo handed Gray several gleaming American dimes that he’d been given by American soldiers as proof that they were near. He requested Gray to return for another meeting four nights later, on the eighteenth. Gray did not agree that he would come back, saying only that he would take up the issue with the internee committee.
~ * ~
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
≈ On February 15, the internee committee instructed George Gray to have no more contact with the guerrillas. Gray did not agree, and secretly recruited Freddie Zervoulakos, Ben Edwards, and Pete Miles to keep the rendezvous requested by Tabo Ingles for the night of the eighteenth.
Pete Miles (an inspiration for Remy Tuck) was a rough-and-tumble Texan. Arthur, in Deliverance at Los Baños, page 116, describes Miles:
Nobody knew as much about animals as Pete Miles. Though an engineer by training, he’d been sent to the Philippines before the war by the St. Louis zoo to collect animals. He remained there after his assignment was over to work as a bouncer in a Manila nightclub, though with his clean cut F. Scott Fitzgerald profile and easy manners he relied more on charm than on muscle to send boisterous customers on their way.
Before his capture, Miles had also blown up an important bridge for the American army to stem the advance of the Japanese on Manila. He was wounded in a skirmish with the Japanese, and hid out around Manila for months until betrayed by makipilis.
Ben Edwards (along with Freddie Zervoulakos, the basis for Talbot Tuck) was known in the camp as a husky fellow with a blazing fastball in the early days of the camp when the guards and internees played softball. Edwards was one of the leaders of barracks 11.
≈ After dark on the eighteenth, at eleven o’clock, Pete Miles faked an illness. He was assisted to the infirmary, despite the strict curfew, by Edwards and Zervoulakos. They snuck under the wire behind the infirmary and made their way to the gully. There they were met by PQOG
guerrillas, then led south to the camp of Colonel Price at Barrio Tranca. They encountered Sergeant John Fulton (Bolick in the novel). The following day, the three split up: Miles was sent with guerrilla escorts to 11th Airborne headquarters in Parañaque; Edwards and Zervoulakos were taken to Nanhaya on the east shore of the bay, to await word that Pete Miles had reached the U.S. Army safely.
~ * ~
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
≈ At eleven a.m. on February 19, Pete Miles arrived at the 11th Airborne’s headquarters in Parañaque. He brought with him a map hand-drawn by Ben Edwards and a wealth of knowledge about the layout of the camp, the routines of the Japanese—including the pivotal piece of information regarding the guards morning exercise ritual—and the physical condition of the internees.
≈ Miles was debriefed in Parañaque by Lieutenant Colonel Henry “Butch” Muller, age twenty-six, G-2 (Intel) officer for the 11th Division. (Muller is one of the models for Major Willcox.)
When the debriefing was done, Pete Miles insisted he be allowed to return to the camp. Colonel Muller forbade it, but did promise Miles he would be in on the coming raid.
≈ Lieutenant George Skau (the basis for Kraft), 11th Airborne recon platoon leader, was a rugged fighter and outdoorsman. He headed a unit of some of the toughest and most resourceful paratroopers in the division. Skau personally made several reconnoiters behind enemy lines in preparation for the assault on Los Baños.
≈ The actual radio message read as follows:
21 February 1945
To: Sgt. J. Fulton—please transmit this communication upon receipt
URGENT
ESPINO TO VANDERPOOL. HAVE RECEIVED RELIABLE INFORMATION THAT JAPS HAVE LOS BAÑOS SCHEDULED FOR MASSACRE PD SUGGEST THAT ENEMY POSITIONS IN LOS BAÑOS PROPER AS EXPLAINED MILLER (sic-meaning Col Muller) BE BOMBED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE PD
W.C. PRICE
Col. GSC (Guer)
Chief of Staff
~ * ~
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
≈ In the early hours of February 19, Lieutenant Skau of the 11th Airborne recon platoon, along with the engineer Lieutenant Haggerty, crawled through the ravine and brush surrounding the camp, guided by the internees Freddie Zervoulakos and Ben Edwards.
One of their discoveries was a newly dug trench outside the wire, in the open field beside the animal husbandry building.
~ * ~
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
≈ The night before the assault, Colonel Price’s wife, Helen Espino, arrived in her husband’s guerrilla camp. She’d spent her day warning the residents of the villages around the camp to leave and head for the hills, where they would be safe. Few believed her warnings of danger.
≈ On the eve of the raid, Skau met one last time with his recon platoon and the guerrilla chiefs to go over the plan of attack. He had at his disposal thirty-one recon platoon troopers and approximately 190 guerrillas. He divided his squad and the guerrilla force into teams, each with a distinct assignment for the opening moments of the assault on the camp.
Skau also had the two internees, Ben Edwards and Freddie Zervoulakos, to assign. He attached Ben to the team of six recon men and twenty guerrillas to hit the guard posts on the northwestern portion of the fence. Freddy was teamed with the radioman Sergeant Fulton and seven guerrillas to block any Japanese who might flee south out of the camp. One team drew the assignment of breaking through the fence in the opening moments of the raid, then racing the exercising guards to their gun lockers. Skau, armed with a bazooka, picked for his own squad the toughest assignment: knocking out the pillboxes at the main entrance to the camp.
~ * ~
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
≈ After landing by banca, Ben Edwards and his recon team and guerrillas made their way through two miles of flooded rice paddies. They dodged Japanese patrols until dawn. Nearing the camp, with H-hour approaching, the leader of Ben’s team, Sergeant Squires, made a startling discovery: four of his six recon troopers and all but four of his guerrillas had disappeared behind him in the dark paddies.
Squires gave Ben his Colt .45 sidearm and shoulder harness, and sent him ahead to the camp with the lone recon soldier and remaining guerrillas. This reduced squad made it into the ravine and to their assigned position on time. They were one of only two recon and guerrilla teams in position when the first parachute popped and the raid began at exactly 7:00 a.m. The rest of the recon troopers and guerrillas sprinted to join the action, only seconds behind.
~ * ~
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
≈ The 1st Battalion of the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment was commanded by Major Henry Burgess, age twenty-six (a source for the character of Major Willcox). While not the ranking officer on the rescue, he was in absolute command of the assault on the camp.
Burgess, on the day of the raid, had been in command of 1st Battalion for only twenty days. Prior to that, he’d served as assistant G-3 (operations and plans) for the 11th Airborne under General Joseph Swing. Burgess led the way for his three hundred paratroopers, riding in the first amtrac to burst into Los Baños.
≈ On the approach to the camp, the amtracs passed a hut near the road. A Japanese officer bolted out, trousers loose, gripping a samurai sword. A machine-gun volley from the lead amtrac cut the running soldier down.
≈ Ben Edwards was given a smoke bomb and instructed to place it in a barracks full of elderly men and women slow to pack up and leave. While setting the canister, a woman shouted for Ben to shoot a fellow internee. The man she indicated was Harry Sniffen (the character Lazlo), making his way with his wife, Genevieve, to the waiting amtracs. They carried two stuffed suitcases and their obese cat. Sniffen was a hated man in the camp, a hoarder and a black marketeer. Just as bad, Sniffen, his wife, and their cat were all overweight while others died of malnutrition.
~ * ~
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
≈ Almost an hour into the raid, Major Burgess had heard nothing from Soule’s task force, either by radio contact or reports from the 188ths artillery. The original plan called for the Soule force to fight its way into Los Baños from the west, arriving with sufficient trucks to transport the sick and lame. The remainder of the internees would be escorted out on foot, while guerrillas and the task force protected the escape route against Japanese counterattack.
With no information regarding the location or condition of the 188th, Burgess made the command decision to alter the plan.
He informed Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Gibbs (Colonel Thibeaux in the novel), the commander of the amtrac fleet and his superior officer, that they would not wait for the arrival of the task force. Gibbs was instructed to load the infirm, children, and women onto his amtracs and evacuate them to Mamatid. When they were delivered to Mamatid, Gibbs was to turn around and come back for the rest of the internees and the remaining troops.
≈ At 7:45, Lieutenant John Ringler—the officer in charge of the parachute jump— and Lieutenant Skau reported to Major Burgess that the camp was secure. Ringler made the observation that the guards’ barracks was aflame from tracer fire during the fight for the main gate. The internees in that area, he noted, were staying ahead of the flames and moving toward the amtracs inside the camp.
Burgess, searching for a way to get the internees to move faster—every passing minute raised the threat of the Japanese Tiger Division getting the raiders’ scent and turning in their direction—ordered Skau and Ringler to torch the barracks at the south end of the camp, and let the wind do the rest.
~ * ~
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
≈ Pete Miles, the man who’d reached 11th Airborne’s headquarters and returned with the paratroopers across Laguna de Bay, left Los Baños on a stretcher. He’d finally succumbed to exhaustion.
~ * ~
CHAPTER FIFTY
≈ On San Antonio beach, while awaiting the return of Colonel Gibbs and the amtracs, Major Burgess made contact with a Piper Cub L-4 spotter plane cruising along the shore. Aboard the plane was General Joseph Sw
ing, CO of the 11th Airborne Division.
After giving the general an update of the conditions on the ground, Swing asked Burgess if he could put the internees on the amtracs when they returned, then stay behind, take and hold the village of Los Baños, and link up with the missing 188th.
Burgess did a quick assessment of the situation. Without answering the general, Burgess told his radioman to stow the set. General Swing would have to assume they had lost contact.
Flanagan, Angels at Dawn, page 209, provides an excellent analysis:
In “losing” radio contact with the commanding general, Burgess violated one of the fundamental laws of the military: a subordinate does not knowingly or deliberately cut off contact with his superior officer in any situation. It is particularly hazardous to one’s future in a combat situation. But Burgess got away with it for two reasons: 1) he was right; 2) in this particular case, the commanding general was a very understanding man.
Broken Jewel - [World War II 05] Page 46