As Good As Dead

by Stephen L. Moore

  Barber John Warren’s package contained empty shotgun shell boxes packed with chewing tobacco—something he had longed for during his months of imprisonment. Japanese guards watched Warren stuff a considerable chaw in his mouth and became curious to try it, so he gave each a chunk, telling them to chew on it, fill their mouths with juice, and swallow. The guards did as instructed and soon were doubled over, vomiting. Warren escaped a serious beating by pretending to swallow his own juice and telling them it was merely a matter of acquiring a taste for the tobacco.

  Other prisoners received basic Red Cross packages that included canned corned beef, liver pâté, Spam, and American cigarettes. The parcels boosted morale considerably and gave the men ample trading opportunities with guards willing to swap twice as many of their own smokes for the American brands. The men were allowed to write return postcards to be sent home to their families, but many, assuming the cards would never be sent, addressed them to Shirley Temple or Mickey Mouse.10

  Smitty’s new bedsheets went to good use. He ripped them apart and used old cable wire to sew four pairs of shorts, two each for himself and his best friend, McDole. Shortly after Christmas, Mac received his first and only letter from home via the Red Cross. His younger sister, Dolores, wrote that she was praying for him and would have pancakes waiting on the griddle when he made it back to Iowa.11

  *

  THROUGHOUT 1943, THE Palawan guerrilla network kept tabs on the condition of the American prisoners at Puerto Princesa. Nazario Mayor had been promoted to command of the Brooke’s Point unit, Company D, when the original commander, Sergeant Tumbaga, drowned while trying to save a comrade.12

  The reputation of Mayor’s company spread quickly, both to the locals and to the Japanese. Bombing raids were made on the town of Caramay on August 29 and September 2, 1943, and in both attacks, the Japanese dropped leaflets asking senior guerrilla leader Major Manigque, Captain Mayor, and all of their men to surrender. Manigque instead moved his men north on Palawan, while Mayor had his company relocate to Tinitian, north of Puerto Princesa, for a while. Another Palawan resistance leader, Dr. Higinio Mendoza, similarly continued in his efforts despite a bounty placed upon his head by the Japanese military.

  Such threats did not sway Mayor or Mendoza from continuing to assist the prisoners of war held on their island. The last Americans to escape the Palawan camp successfully had done so on February 2, 1943. By that summer, those still alive had made their way onto other islands. Bruce Elliott and four others from the original August 1942 escape group had reached TawiTawi Island on August 10, 1943. There, they met Captain Jordan A. Hamner, eight or nine Australian officers, and a U.S. Army officer.

  Hamner, a mining engineer before the war who escaped to Australia in January 1943, had returned to TawiTawi by submarine in March with a six-man team to establish a coastwatching post to report shipping intelligence by radio back to Australia. Hodges and Davis, deciding to attempt a sailing to Australia, soon departed on their own in a well-stocked boat, never to be seen again. Kellam opted to stay behind when Elliott and Wright left TawiTawi around November 2, 1943, on a boat with several Filipinos and two Australians. They eventually sailed past Jolo Island, and made their way to the western tip of Zamboanga Province.13

  They were greeted by the local guerrillas, who had electricity and a radio, and received orders to report to Colonel Robert V. Bowler—an American who had not surrendered but stayed on Mindanao. Wright, Elliott, and their Aussie comrades survived a dangerous passage in a double-masted seventy-foot boat, finally reaching the northern coast of Mindanao in January 1944. There, they related their long story of escape and evasion to the local guerrillas—whom Wright and Aussie Rex Blow decided to join. Wright met with the American commander, Colonel Wendell Fertig, and asked permission to remain in the islands, where he hoped to seek vengeance for slain marine Buddy Henderson. Sid Wright was given a commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army—quite a jump for a private in the Marine Corps—and he would continue fighting with Fertig’s guerrillas until his liberation in 1945.14

  Bruce Elliott remained with several Australians in early 1944, hoping to find rescue. From his Palawan escape group, Bruce was now on his own, holding out for rescue on an American submarine. He could only hope his two-year ordeal would soon end, and that his seemingly endless good luck streak could continue a bit longer.

  *

  ON JANUARY 7, 1944, Dr. Higinio Mendoza was sitting down to breakfast with his family in the small settlement of Jolo, located in the jungle about thirty miles north of Puerto Princesa. It was a memorable day, his eleventh wedding anniversary.

  Jolo had been relatively peaceful in late 1943. The locals accumulated what rice they could and learned to eat curot, a poisonous root that required tedious and careful treatment to remove the toxins before cooking it in coconut milk to produce a local delicacy. Jolo was visited at times during 1943 by men who were fleeing the Japanese military. Among them were Palawan escapees Ray Pryor and Bill Swift, and other men, such as George Marquez and Bob Johnston, who moved through Palawan at various times after their previous escape from other Philippine islands.15

  Despite the bounty on his head, Mendoza and his guerrilla Company A were instrumental in aiding such escapees. He managed to evade all efforts to seize him during 1943, including one made by his friend Donato Manga, whom the Japanese had sent to convince him to surrender. Mendoza placed Manga under custody of his men and later released him. “I will never surrender to the Japanese,” he told Manga.16

  The good doctor’s luck ran out in early 1944. In a firefight at Tarabangan, Japanese troops captured a guerrilla named Namia and brought him to Puerto Princesa for interrogation. They learned the whereabouts of Mendoza and on January 6 sent a force of about sixty armed men to capture him. The troops were moved by a launch towing two barges that landed at Tulariquin, a coastal barrio north of Tinitian, where they seized guards of the local Bolo Battalion, and used members Talim and Namia to guide them toward the Mendoza residence. Another Bolo guard named Dindin escaped and raced ahead to warn the Mendozas of the approaching Japanese.

  Trinidad “Triny” Mendoza urged her husband to vacate immediately. He refused, instead inviting Dindin to take shelter in his home for the night. On the morning of January 7, Mendoza went about his usual activities, listening to the radio and jotting down notes regarding the war. He also typed a letter to Lieutenant Felix Rafols to alert him to the presence of Japanese soldiers in the area while Triny spent the early morning hours preparing to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Captain Mendoza was just raising a spoonful of breakfast to his mouth when a single rifle shot shattered the morning silence.17

  Other shots followed. Mendoza ran to his bedroom to fetch his rifle and his long bolo. His gathered family watched as he cocked the firearm, opened his bedroom door, and was greeted by Japanese soldiers aiming their own rifles at his family. With only two bullets to his name, Mendoza calmly gave himself up in hopes that his family might be spared. As they led him downstairs, his wife, Triny, pleaded, “What shall we do?”

  “Sweetheart, be brave,” he said. “We can die for our country.”

  Several soldiers hit Mendoza and used the butts of their rifles against him as they led him away. When Triny rushed forward, she was also struck in the arms with rifle butts and kicked in the abdomen. She and her four children were tied together and separated from Mendoza as the family was marched from Jolo to Tinitian. Mendoza’s wife and children were left behind at Tinitian, where they were recovered by guerrillas in pursuit of the retreating Japanese.18

  Mendoza remained in Tinitian for several days under interrogation before being forced into a motor launch and then beaten during the trip to Puerto Princesa, where he was held in the custody of Watanabe’s Kempei Tai military police. The remaining citizens there were overjoyed to see their beloved captain and even threw a dance in his honor. He was allowed to see other family members in Puerto Princesa, including a brief reunion with his oldest son,
John. The last words the elder Mendoza said to his boy were, “Take care of Mama.”19

  As a gimmick to pacify the Palaweños, the Japanese allowed Mendoza to deliver a speech at the public plaza in Puerto Princesa. His sister Agustina and her sons walked nearly forty-five miles from Aborlan just to be near him.

  “It is a lucky day, for they came upon me in a house with my family,” he told the small crowd. “If I were in camp with my soldiers, there would be much bloodshed, as I will never surrender.”

  Mendoza held firmly to his beliefs. Japanese command offered him the governorship of Palawan if he would surrender to them, but he refused, saying he could not betray his country. On the morning of January 24, 1944, Lieutenant Shinobu Nakahara appeared at the Kempei Tai headquarters with a telegram. He informed Watanabe and his second in command, Taichi Deguchi, that he had been ordered to execute the guerrilla doctor. Watanabe objected, but Nakahara said that nothing could be done to change a directive from high headquarters.20

  Nakahara led Mendoza from Puerto Princesa, along with two other Filipinos captured by the Japanese, Renato Marcelo and Bruno Rodriquez. Mendoza’s family tried to remain calm while they awaited news. Triny Mendoza confronted Captain Yamagochi, the local Japanese commander, on February 1, demanding to know where her husband was being held. He told her that the doctor had been flown to Fort Santiago in Manila, but she suspected this to be a lie, as not one local had seen her husband taken to any airplane. Six weeks later, Renato Marcelo, released by the Japanese, reappeared in the Jolo settlement bearing cigarettes, candies, and antimalarial pills. Captain Mendoza was still nowhere to be found as his family continued to hear conflicting stories from Japanese officials. Elizabeth Clark Alba, Mendoza’s sister-in-law, heard from one Japanese leader that he had been taken to treat sick soldiers near the village of Canigaran, while another said the doctor had been taken to Japan for medical studies.21

  Evidence would later show that Nakahara had acted upon orders from the 22nd Air Brigade to execute Mendoza for conducting guerrilla activities. A half-dozen soldiers took him by truck to a point near Canigaran Beach and led him into a coconut plantation owned by his in-laws, the Clarks. Several Tagbanua natives, including one named Timod—who happened to be picking shellfish near the beach as the truck approached—crouched in the bushes to watch. Mendoza’s hands were untied, and he was made to dig his own grave before he was shot three times by a firing squad. The Japanese removed a woven crocheted belt, adorned with a University of Iowa buckle given to him by his sister-in-law before the war. They left it hanging beside his shallow grave as a crude marker of sorts. The murder of Higinio Mendoza would remain covered up for more than a year.22

  For the time being, Triny Mendoza and her children were left in despair, ignorant of his fate. Instead of falling into self-pity, Mrs. Mendoza only strengthened her resolve to aid the guerrilla movement and the imprisoned American soldiers near Puerto Princesa.

  The disappearance of Captain Mendoza did not sway the efforts of the Filipino guerrillas of Palawan.

  Captain Bonife, the senior inspector for the Philippine Constabulary on the island, advocated beating and mistreating the local Palawan people to force cooperation. He took further steps to help eradicate the guerrilla movement by targeting businessman Thomas Loudon, known to oppose the Japanese. Bonife asked the military to force Loudon to go to Balabac and bring back the family of Nazario Mayor, his son-in-law and the leader of the Brooke’s Point area guerrillas. The idea was to intern Mayor’s wife, Mary, to force him into submission.

  Captain Mayor’s Company D of the “Palawan Special Battalion” had been raising hell with the Japanese since the guerrilla corps had been more formally organized in October 1943. Mayor’s Sector D, by far the largest guerrilla region, included all areas from Puerto Princesa south to Balabac Island. Although undermanned and ill-equipped, his company was efficient during 1943 and early 1944. His men had killed dozens of Japanese soldiers in several attacks, suffering only one of their own wounded in the process. Mayor’s guerrillas had seized weapons and ammunition and had been the first unit to make contact with American submarines supporting the resistance effort.23

  The Japanese PC thus had good reason to want to dispose of Mayor, as they had done with Mendoza. When they sent Thomas Loudon to Balabac to ask his son-in-law to surrender, Loudon was comforted with prior intel from the guerrilla network that Mary, his daughter, her husband, and Loudon’s grandchildren had already vacated Balabac to hide elsewhere. Loudon was thereafter suspected of aiding the Palawan guerrillas and placed under arrest. He was allowed a certain amount of freedom because of his age while he was held for months in Puerto Princesa. Instead of being holed up in a brig, Loudon moved about freely within the largely abandoned capital city and observed the American POWs as they moved to and from their airfield work area. He passed along intelligence to Filipino guerrillas when he could, and he steadfastly refused all further proddings from the Japanese military to help force his son-in-law to surrender.

  Loudon quietly planned to make a break from the city when the time was right.

  *

  TWO FORMER PALAWAN POWs were making their way to freedom at the time that Thomas Loudon lost his.

  Navy Yeoman Bruce Elliott, who had busted out of Puerto Princesa in August 1942, had made his way to northern Mindanao by February 1944. His rescue ship came on March 2 in the form of the submarine USS Narwhal, skippered by Commander Frank Latta. He eased his boat near the coast to deliver ammunition and supplies for the guerrillas and took on twenty servicemen and eight civilians, including two women. Among the Americans finally leaving the Philippines were Elliott and two other Navy veterans who had been working on the medical staff at Colonel Fertig’s headquarters. Elliott was taken below to receive his first real American food in two years, and to settle in for the blissful voyage home.24

  Only two days later, March 5, Latta’s Narwhal made another stop to deliver additional cargo to the guerrillas on TawiTawi Island. The submarine took on eight passengers, including Captain Jordan Hamner and Palawan escapee Bill Swift. As Narwhal’s crew and passengers were unloading ammunition, they had a sudden scare when four Japanese destroyers and two cruisers were spotted bearing down on them. A blaring diving alarm sent everyone scrambling below, including two unintended Filipino guerrillas. Narwhal settled on the bottom while depth charges cascaded around it, rocking the boat. Lights and fuses were blown and cork rained down, making Bruce Elliott feel that perhaps his escape via submarine had been a mistake. Latta’s boat narrowly escaped tragedy when one of the depth charges landed on its deck but failed to explode.

  Two weeks later, Narwhal—having attacked several ships with its passengers on board—reached Australia on March 11 and rendezvoused with the Australian fleet tug Chinampa. The thirty-eight passengers, including Palawan escapees Elliott and Swift, were transferred over for the trip into Port Darwin. Swift and Elliott were next flown to Brisbane on a C-47 and transferred into Mobile Hospital No. 9. After years on the run from the Japanese, Elliott was unable to sleep in the soft hospital bunk, so he stretched out on the firm floor and drifted right off.

  Swift and Elliott made the most of their recovery time in Australia before being flown to Pearl Harbor on a Pan Am China Clipper. Their journey continued to Washington, DC, where they collected back pay, underwent further debriefing, and were finally sent home on leave. The men were treated like heroes, but felt slighted in that they were never given consideration for any medals for all that they had endured. Of some twenty-five thousand POWs held by the Japanese in the Philippines, only a few dozen would ever manage to escape from a prison camp.

  Another Palawan prisoner, Joe Little, had already hitched a ride off Negros Island on the Narwhal in early February. His fellow escapee, Charlie Watkins, was still on the run in early 1944, traveling by sailboat on a six-month journey in hopes of finding better luck on other islands. During his first stop on Cuyo Island, he encountered two other American servicemen, George Marquez
and William “Red” Wigfield, who had escaped from Bataan in April 1942. Japanese troops became too abundant on Cuyo Island, forcing the Americans to take to the ocean again to travel between other Philippine Islands into the fall of 1943. As fate would have it, their journey brought them back to Brooke’s Point on Palawan in December 1943, a rude homecoming of sorts for Charlie. It feels like I’m just moving around in circles, he thought.25

  Watkins spent some of January 1944 fighting off a nasty case of malaria while in the care of the Edwards family, but Captain Mayor’s guerrillas helped furnish him with quinine to help shake his ailment. Charlie never gave up, but he was beginning to feel that he would either die on Palawan at some point or get himself killed by the Japanese. As the months ticked away, Watkins could only pray for a miracle rescue like that of Bill Swift and Bruce Elliott.

  *

  THE GUERRILLA NETWORK was powerless to prevent the abuse of the American POWs still held on Palawan. Navy prisoner Harold McKee, forced by a Japanese guard to climb a tall coconut tree to shake down the nuts, fell thirty feet, breaking his back and a leg. He lingered for a week before dying on January 2. The number of makeshift crosses created for fallen American POWs in the local Philippine cemetery was becoming alarming.26

  Prisoners were falling gravely ill from the long months of hard labor and their meager rice diet. Camp barber John Warren began losing his eyesight. His comrades tried to fashion a pair of wire-frame glasses from scrap materials they scavenged. Another prisoner kept his spirits up by sleeping with a smuggled American flag that he kept buried away in his sea bag. He knew that possessing the prized U.S. keepsake could be his own death sentence, so he was careful to show it only to those whom he deeply trusted.27