Escape from Davao

by John D. Lukacs

  “Now don’t get excited, Shifty,” retorted Grashio. “Keep your shirt on. Wait ’til you have to hear what I have to tell you.”

  Grashio explained that while digging camotes near the dispensary he had struck up a conversation with a clean-cut, well-spoken colono who worked in the hospital. He made such a good impression that Grashio felt comfortable enough to broach the subject of escape.

  “We just talked in generalities,” Grashio assured the others.

  “Does he want to go with us?” asked Hawkins.

  “You bet he does. I began to feel him out after talking awhile, and he jumped at the idea. He’s ready to go anytime.”

  “What’s his name?” asked McCoy.

  “Benigno de la Cruz. I just call him Ben. And incidentally, he’s had training in first aid and pharmacy. That might come in handy.”

  “We could use a good first aid man,” agreed Hawkins. “By the way, what’s he in for?”

  “Homicide—like most of the others. He says he accidentally killed a fellow in a fight over a girl when he was just a kid.”

  Six feet tall with dark eyes, wavy black hair, and Spanish features, Ben de la Cruz spoke English, Tagalog, and Visayan, as well as several other Filipino dialects. Born in Bulacan Province, north of Manila in central Luzon, he was raised by a series of relatives, including a doctor who trained him to deliver babies and mend wounds. This knowledge had made him a valuable assistant to Dr. Victoriano Quizon in the Filipino hospital, where he worked with Fely Campo. Even so, he was in Dapecol because of his temper—after dodging a knife thrown by the brother of his paramour, he pulled the weapon from a tree and stabbed his assailant. There was no love lost between de la Cruz and the Japanese, either: he had been attacked by a bayonet-wielding guard and was lucky to have escaped the confrontation with only a broken nose.

  “What about the other one, Sam?” asked Shofner. “You said there were two.”

  “Yes, I’m coming to him. That’s Victor—Ben’s best friend here in the colony. Ben says he wouldn’t want to go without him. He’s an expert woodsman and knows all about living in the jungle. But here’s the important thing about Victor. He knows the trail to Lungaog! He did some work clearing it before the war.”

  Both men were potentially invaluable assets, but McCoy remained cautious.

  “I’d like to see these boys before we commit ourselves too far.”

  “It’s all arranged,” replied Grashio.

  He had instructed the Filipinos to walk by the coffee patch the next day so that McCoy’s group could evaluate them from afar. McCoy liked what he saw, as well as what he heard after conducting a follow-up interview. Victorio Jumarong, as it turned out, was almost the complete opposite of de la Cruz. Short, stumpy, and slightly older, the illiterate Ilocano spoke little English. Jumarong, too, had been sent to Dapecol for murder; he had killed two men, one in a bolo fencing bout. McCoy sensed that despite their youthful crimes, both were trustworthy. The Filipinos likewise trusted McCoy and they pledged their loyalty to the Americans. Thus the desperate, disparate outfit—consisting of a sailor, a mechanic, a priest, plus pilots, soldiers, Marines, and now murderers—became thirteen.

  Despite the portentous significance of their number, Grashio’s luck was running that week. One of the plowers had contracted malaria and Shofner arranged to substitute Grashio in his place. The impish practical joker also arranged for Grashio’s initiation into the plowing fraternity. Sensing that the city-raised pilot was tentative around the balky Brahma bulls, he conspired to assign Dobervich’s bull—the friendliest, but also the most lively and unpredictable of the herd—to Grashio. During the latter’s first day on the job, the grinning plowers gathered to watch as Shofner led a wary Grashio toward the tethered beast.

  “Now, Sam, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said, nudging Grashio. “All you have to do is watch his horns. They take a pass at you sometimes, but just keep away from the horns.”

  “He’ll kill me!” shouted a worried Grashio.

  Shofner, of course, had neglected to tell Grashio that Dobervich usually began each day by giving the bull a small pinch of salt. The bull, desiring its treat, eagerly trotted toward Grashio, who howled as he executed an about-face and raced through a camote field with his new friend lumbering after him. The plowers convulsed on the ground in laughter.

  What little free time the men had was devoted to the same leisure pursuits as in previous prison camps. When not talking about food, they held Bible classes, debates and lectures. Bridge, poker, and cribbage tournaments were popular. Chess, too. After 187 consecutive losses, Spielman finally bested a head-scratching McCoy.

  The prisoners’ library was off-limits to nonworkers, and since the prisoners who worked all day had no opportunity to use them, the books went largely unread. There was also a small commissary where the prisoners could purchase peanut brittle or moldy tobacco with the token pay they received for their labors. Field officers received 40 pesos; captains and lieutenants, 30 pesos; noncoms and privates received 15 and 10 centavos, respectively. Dyess recalled receiving the equivalent of $10 in occupation currency, but only after signing a statement certifying that he had received $250 in cash, plus food and clothing.

  Dyess daringly exacted a small amount of revenge following an event that would be rivaled in the minds of the Dapecol POWs only by the Christmas celebration. On one memorable day, the long-abused prisoners lived vicariously through one gutsy colono, a small Igorot with a long memory who had been flogged for selling tobacco to the Americans. After brooding for several days, he nearly decapitated a napping guard with an ax. As stunned POWs watched, he then diced the body with a bolo, took the guard’s rifle, and leapt into the jungle.

  Following an impressive funeral, the Japanese gathered the guard’s ashes in an urn, which, in keeping with their burial ritual, they placed in a shack along with some rice, meat, sweet cakes, and beer, sustenance for the departed’s spiritual journey to the afterworld. When the Japanese returned, however, they were astounded to find the food gone, and empty beer bottles. “It was the first beer I had had in many a day,” Dyess later confessed.

  • • •

  Austin Shofner was determined to execute this mission by the book, even though they were essentially writing their own escape manual. He suggested that they have what in Marine Corps terminology was called a dummy run, a rehearsal of the escape plan to verify the existence of the foot trail to Lungaog and also to see if the groups could be coordinated.

  On Sunday, March 14, Boelens, Father Carberry, Marshall, and Spielman remained in the compound while the Marines went out to tend their bulls, this time with Grashio alongside. Almost simultaneously, Dyess, McCoy, and Mellnik departed for the coffee fields. Despite avoiding the main camp thoroughfares and doubling back through the banana and coconut groves to avoid roving patrols, they reached the rendezvous point—the plowers’ shack on the opposite side of Dapecol—shortly after the plowers, out of breath but in high spirits, their dispositions congruent with the sunny morning.

  “Well, boys, it’s going to work,” said McCoy. “We had no problem getting here. No trouble at all!”

  Grashio and the Marines brightened when McCoy fished two chickens from his musette bag. Preparing lunch was Dobervich’s responsibility. “Mike was an enthusiastic cook,” said Hawkins. “In fact, enthusiasm was about his only qualification for the culinary art.”

  Dobervich’s pots had just begun to boil when de la Cruz and Jumarong arrived. Grashio made the introductions. It was the first time that the Americans and Filipinos had a chance to become acquainted face-to-face. Their appearances, Hawkins noted, were as dissimilar as their dress. The angular, twenty-five-year-old de la Cruz “was neatly dressed in immaculate blue duck trousers and a blue poplin shirt to match. He had that appearance of utter cleanliness peculiar to the Filipino people.” Jumarong stood out with his bright orange Dapecol pants and “look of serious determination in his oval Malayan face.”

  Leaving Do
bervich to cook, the party skulked, one at a time, across the road that led to the nearby guardhouse. After wading through the thick cogon that choked the neglected banana grove bordering the jungle edge for nearly a quarter of a mile, they stood at the imaginary fence line, the invisible boundary separating them from Dapecol and freedom. It did not take Jumarong long to find the mouth of the trail.

  “Have you been over this trail before?” McCoy asked.

  Jumarong’s response was channeled through de la Cruz: “Yes, sir. I know the way.”

  Wanting to be sure that there was more to the trail than just a beginning, they pressed through the undergrowth. They had penetrated only about 300 yards into the jungle, but the penal colony seemed miles—and hours—away. “Although it was a sunny morning, the darkness in the jungle gave the illusion of approaching nightfall,” said Hawkins. They peered up at the dense tropical foliage and with each step, the spongy, puddled jungle floor swallowed their feet. Squadrons of mosquitoes dove upon them and squirming leeches suckled at their legs.

  As the others optimistically retraced their steps back to the plowers’ shack, Hawkins and Shofner lingered behind to pick the leeches from their legs. Though accustomed to long marches through difficult terrain, the Marines had not seen anything like this.

  “It’s going to be rough, Jack,” said Shofner.

  “You said it. This won’t be any picnic.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Cat-and-Mouse

  All night I lie with eyes that ache to close

  And fight my mind which cannot find repose …

  MONDAY, MARCH 15–FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 1943

  Davao Penal Colony

  The POWs, so deeply immersed in their secret preparations—which, up until now had gone astoundingly well—were probably unaware of the date. The Marines, to have so brazenly, yet unintentionally, tempted fate, surely were not. They were tying up their bulls for the evening when Mike Dobervich turned a hungry gaze toward the onion patch.

  “Go ahead, Beaver,” said Jack Hawkins. “Get us a couple. There are no Japs around.”

  “May as well,” said Dobervich. “The Japs will eat ’em all anyway if we don’t get ’em.”

  Dobervich plucked a handful of green shoots and the Marines had no sooner started down the road toward the main compound when a red-haired American officer emerged from the coconut grove, his arms flailing as he charged toward them.

  “Put those onions down, you thief. What the hell do you mean going in my onions?”

  “Whadaya mean, your onions?” retorted Dobervich. “They’re just as much ours as they are yours or anybody else’s. After all, we’ve been working here all day to plant more.”

  “Hand ’em here, Goddamn it,” shouted the officer. “I’m in charge of these onions and if anybody pulls ’em, I’ll pull ’em.”

  “Well here, take ’em,” growled Dobervich defiantly, tossing them at the man’s feet.

  It was called chickenshit. The exchange was typical of the behavior in prison camp that sickened Hawkins. Though they were prisoners of war, Hawkins thought that men should still act like soldiers. And officers, he believed, should be held to a higher degree of accountability. In order to provide an example for the men, they needed to conduct themselves with discipline and dignity. Onion picking was not a court-martialable offense and should not be treated as such. Hawkins believed that there was a reason why the Marines had fared better in captivity than prisoners from other services. “They retained their military customs, their discipline, and their honor in dealing with each other. They tried to do the best they could, and I was proud of them,” he would say. Unable to endure the absurdity any longer, Hawkins joined the argument.

  “Control yourself. I don’t like your language. That’s no way to talk to your brother officers and you’d better calm down.”

  “Who’s talking to you?”

  At that point, before blows were exchanged, Shofner intervened.

  “Come on Hawk, Mike,” he reasoned, pushing his two fuming friends down the road.

  “You’ll hear about this,” the officer shouted in the distance.

  They did. That evening, they were summoned before the camp’s commanding officer, Army Lt. Col. Russell J. Nelson. Finding their antagonist present, they arrived to learn that they had, for all intents and purposes, already been tried for their “crime.”

  “It has been reported to me that you pulled up five dozen onions from the onion field today,” announced Nelson. “As you know this is against the Japanese regulations and I shall have to punish you. We cannot risk getting in trouble with the Japanese in such a way. Have you anything

  to say?”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Hawkins, scowling at the informant. “Our reporter here, in addition to being guilty of indecent language and improper conduct, seems to be unable to tell the truth. There were five onions pulled, not five dozen.”

  “That is immaterial,” snapped Nelson. “The Japanese rules were still broken.

  “I understand that you three have an enjoyable situation with your plowing—good food and so forth. Lieutenant Dobervich and Lieutenant Hawkins, you are suspended from the plowing detail until further notice. Captain Shofner, since you had nothing to do with this offense you will receive no punishment.”

  Realizing the consequences of the sentence, Dobervich immediately entered an appeal.

  “But sir, we’ve taken four months to learn plowing. If you put new men in our place they won’t get any work done. Why not give us some other punishment that won’t interfere with the farming?”

  “I realize all those things,” replied Nelson. “Possibly after you have had time to redeem yourselves, you will be allowed to return to the plowing detail. This is more of a gesture to pacify the Japanese should they learn about this thing.”

  Nelson’s words revealed that the antique command hierarchy that had been present in other prison camps, one that preferred appeasement of the Japanese to leading men and providing a strong representation for them to their captors, was in effect in Dapecol. There was nothing they could do. The incompetent “Committee of Colonels,” as one Dapecol POW mockingly referred to the prisoners’ leadership, was the highest court.

  “At any normal time this would have been no punishment at all,” Hawkins would say of those ominous events on that fateful Ides of March, “but now, when our plans were nearing their climax, it was the most undesirable blow we could have received.”

  Nonsense—that was Melvyn McCoy’s response. They had worked too hard, for too long to see their plans ruined by such a trivial incident. McCoy promised to discuss the matter with Nelson, whom he considered a friend. The Marines also approached Lt. Col. Polly Humber, the chief American agricultural supervisor. Sympathetic, Humber promised to intercede on their behalf, too. “Just wait about a week or two,” he reassured them. “I’ll talk to the colonel and I’m sure he’ll come around.”

  Two weeks would be cutting it extremely close, but that time frame would permit Dobervich and Hawkins to participate in the escape. Unfortunately, they would not be able to assist in the shuttling of equipment, a residual effect that would have major ramifications. The POWs knew that they could not expect to just walk past the sentries, their clothes bulging with gear, so they had decided to smuggle their supplies out of the compound prior to the escape and cache the items at a concealed location. After careful consideration, they settled on a dense thicket located in a neglected banana grove between the plowers’ shack and the jungle. The Japanese rarely patrolled the area, so the chance of their gear being discovered was minimal.

  On March 17, as Dobervich and Hawkins reported for work on a pigpen construction project, the others commenced their clandestine labors. Each escapee was largely responsible for smuggling his own gear out of the compound, a process not too difficult given the fact that the Japanese had become accustomed to seeing the prisoners departing for work details with musette bags, blankets, and shelter halves, which they used for comfort during r
est periods. But after several days, a predictable problem surfaced: the amount of gear brought out by the coffee pickers was too great and there was no way to safely transport it to the makeshift supply depot near the plowers’ shack on the other side of the camp. Too great a burden had been placed on the shoulders of Grashio and Shofner. It became apparent that they would not be able to complete the undertaking by March 28, or what Shofner had begun to refer to as

  “E-Day.”

  For McCoy and Mellnik, the problem threw a wet blanket on the party thrown by West Point graduates to celebrate Founders Day, the academy’s birthday, on March 21. With Japanese permission, the West Pointers had gathered with Annapolis alums near the coffee patch to share food, songs, speeches, and memories. The highlight was the recitation of fake telegrams that had been “delivered” to Dapecol to honor the occasion. There were messages from FDR, Adm. Chester Nimitz, even Joseph Stalin. The telegram “received” from General Hap Arnold, chief of the Army Air Forces, produced the most guffaws. It read: “Have air superiority over Kansas. Don’t give up. Help is on the way.”

  As reverent as they were to tradition, there were more pressing matters at hand; McCoy and Mellnik quietly excused themselves. After much deliberation, it was Ed Dyess, exhibiting his characteristic derring-do, who finally came up with a risky, eleventh-hour resolution.

  “Shof, you and Sam just handle the equipment for yourselves, Hawk, Mike and Leo,” he announced at conference on the evening of the 23. “I think I can handle it the rest of the way.”

  SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1943

  Davao Penal Colony

  On some level, it had to feel oddly familiar. With the late morning sun reflecting a brassy shimmer off the pilot’s wings pinned to his threadbare khaki shirt, Dyess climbed onto his bull cart. The only instruments to check were the crucifix and Saint Christopher medal hanging from his neck. In lieu of an ignition switch, he tugged Betsy’s reins and the carabao clopped forward, pulling him once again toward great peril and what would perhaps be the most important mission of his life.