Shadows In the Jungle

by Larry Alexander

  “I pity them poor, damned chickens,” Jones said.

  Despite the pounding they were taking, the Japanese sent small-arms and mortar rounds at the PT boats.

  “Plucky bastards, aren’t they?” Weiland said.

  As the PTs lessened their fire, McGowen and Sumner descended below to the wardroom.

  “That was by far the best show I’ve ever seen,” McGowen said. “And your withdrawal from the island was brilliant. It took guts.”

  “There was no other way,” Sumner said.

  “True,” McGowen agreed. “I know it made Aguilar unhappy. He was crappin’ his pants at the prospect of rowing that rubber bull’s-eye to shore.”

  “But he still came,” Sumner observed.

  McGowen said, “The PT boats are going off in another direction, so we will be transferring to the frigate at twelve hundred—that’s about an hour from now. Meanwhile, tell me what you found onshore.”

  Sumner proceeded to brief McGowen on their movements after reaching the island, up to and including the moment they were spotted by the Japanese.

  “I’m convinced General Patrick was right,” he concluded. “Those men are dead. Had they been alive, they’d have tried to contact us, especially after we began mixing it up with the Nips.”

  An hour later, the team scrambled up cargo nets onto the frigate and, they felt, into the lap of luxury. Billeted in the sick bay for the eighteen-hour cruise back to Noemfoor, they had clean sheets, air-conditioning, showers, and the best food they had tasted in weeks.

  After dining and cleaning up, the men turned in and slept soundly.

  Not long afterward, the Australian fliers, Morgan and Cassidy, dropped by the Alamo Hotel, where they and the Scouts got happily sloshed.

  * * *

  Several nights after the Pegun Island mission, the propagandist Tokyo Rose broadcast that, “Imperial Marines have repulsed an Allied attack on the Mapia Islands with losses.”

  Jones guffawed at the report.

  “Hey, baby,” he said to the sultry voice on the radio. “We had no casualties, so it musta been your side who had the losses.”

  Three months later, on November 15, elements of the 2nd Battalion, 167th Infantry Regiment, Sumner’s old unit, landed on Pegun Island with no enemy resistance. The Japanese were gone.

  The commander, Lt. Col. Leon L. Matthews, reported that his troops had discovered the bodies of three enlisted men in a common grave. Two of them had their hands tied behind their backs with telephone wire and had been shot in the back of the head. Although none of them had dog tags, their uniforms bore markings of the army air corps.

  * * *

  On New Year’s Day 1945, in a ceremony on Leyte, Sumner’s men were each awarded the Bronze Star for their rescue attempt on Pegun Island.

  CHAPTER 9

  The Rescue at Cape Oransbari

  The Nellist and Rounsaville Teams: October 4-5, 1944

  On September 9, the ASTC graduated its fourth class, two teams under Lt. William E. Nellist of Eureka, California, and Lt. Thomas J. Rounsaville of Atoka, Oklahoma. Nellist, who had served with the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 11th Airborne during the fight at Buna, was an easygoing man. An avid duck hunter and fisherman since he was seven years old, he was at home in nature and had earned the nickname “the White Indian.” A California National Guard rifle champion, he was the best marksman among all of the Alamo Scouts.

  “Stud” Rounsaville, twenty-five, was also a rugged soldier, coming to the Scouts from the 187th Glider Infantry Regiment of the 11th Airborne. Tall and gangly, with a contagious sense of humor, the all-arms-and-legs Oklahoman was an exceptionally fine leader and tactician, as he was about to prove.

  Rounsaville was justly proud of the tough and diverse team he had assembled. There was the Hawaiian-born Tech Sgt. Alfred “Opu” Alfonso and Sgt. Harold N. Hard, a schoolteacher from Coldwater, Michigan, and Pfc. Franklin Fox of Dayton, Ohio. Pfc. Francis H. Laquier was a Chippewa Indian from the White Earth Reservation in Early, Minnesota, who, like Rounsaville, had been a paratrooper. Laquier had served with the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment and, to Rounsaville’s delight, had a keen eye for detail and could draw a map as well as any engineer. And last was Pfc. Rufo V. Vaquilar. Bearing the nickname “Pontiac,” the outbreak of the war had found Vaquilar in a Pontiac, Illinois, jail. He won a pardon when he volunteered for the military and served, for a while, with the 1st Filipino Regiment until, at the ripe old age of thirty-four, he joined the Alamo Scouts.

  Late September found the Rounsaville and Nellist teams attached to the Netherlands East Indies Administration on Roemberpon Island, three miles off the eastern coast of the Vogelkop. The Scouts had been keeping an eye on Japanese barge traffic and supply bases operating near the Maori River south of Manokwari. The duty had been relatively uneventful. They had spent the few weeks since their graduation “conducting small patrols on the mainland and with the navy riding around in PT boats,” Nellist recalled. Then, on September 28, Rounsaville was approached by a Dutch lieutenant decked out in jungle fatigues topped by an Australian bush hat with the brim characteristically turned up.

  Following up on Alamo Scout Bill Littlefield’s mission from August, Lt. Louie Rapmund of the Netherlands-Indies Civil Administration was using Roemberpon as an evacuation point for Indian prisoners and natives who had been released by the Japanese on the Vogelkop. Rapmund had been told by one of the native men that the former Dutch governor of the area, along with his family and a number of native servants, was being held by the Japanese in a small village at Cape Oransbari, near the Maori River. Rapmund, accompanied by the ex-prisoner, passed the information to Rounsaville, who was in daily contact with 6th Army G2.

  Although operations in New Guinea were nearing an end, so far as MacArthur and the top brass were concerned, there were still some 200,000 Japanese stranded on the big island and on smaller isles offshore in bypassed pockets of resistance. In several of these pockets the enemy held hostages, mostly Dutch, Melanesian, and Australian, usually serving as laborers for the emperor.

  Some two thousand of these stranded Japanese were holed up around Cape Oransbari, and about thirty of those were in a small village-turned-prison-camp near the Maori River, two and a half miles inland from the coast.

  Shortly after relaying the information to his headquarters, Rounsaville and his team, along with Rapmund and the former hostage, were paddling ashore at Cape Oransbari, landing at the mouth of the Wassoenger River, about six miles north of the village. The jungle terrain was difficult and it took several hours to pick their way through the tangled growth. Having finally arrived at the edge of the village, the Americans lay concealed as they observed and took notes. With his sharp eye and training, Rounsaville noted the approximate number of the enemy, the location of the huts, covered approaches leading to the village, and other details. Moving toward the coast, he mapped out an evacuation point, but found it guarded by a Japanese machine-gun emplacement. When Rounsaville felt he had all the information he needed, the men withdrew.

  This would be a two-team job.

  * * *

  Like Rounsaville, Bill Nellist was an excellent soldier and tactician. One of the few married Scouts, he and his wife, Jane, had wedded shortly before shipping out. He was “rough and tough,” she recalled in 2007.

  Nellist originally planned to become a sniper because of his excellent marksmanship. He could hit rocks thrown into the air, as well as targets, by shooting backward over his shoulder with the aid of a mirror. Instead, he volunteered for the Alamo Scouts, and he and Rounsaville had been the only two officers retained from the fourth training class. They knew each other very well—how the other man thought, his abilities and talents—and they had formed a close bond.

  Like Rounsaville, Nellist also felt he had assembled the best possible team. Twenty-four-year-old Sgt. Andy Smith was beyond tough. Voted the 6th Army’s top athlete, he was a superb basketball player and a deadly accurate knife thrower. Pvt. Gale
n C. “Kit” Kittleson, formerly of the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, was a top-notch soldier who had won the Silver Star for knocking out a Japanese machine-gun nest on Noemfoor. The team included two Filipinos in Pfc. Sabas A. Asis and Staff Sgt. Thomas A. Siason. Rounding out the group was Pfc. Gilbert Cox, a large man, built like a defensive football player, and Tech Sgt. Wilbert C. Wismer.

  When informed by Rounsaville about the mission, Nellist eagerly joined in, and they decided to ask Lt. Jack Dove to serve as the contact. Dove assembled a scratch team of Tech Sgt. William Watson, Pvt. Charley Hill, and Naval Machinist Mate 1st Class K. W. Sanders. In addition, the escaped prisoner would accompany Rapmund, and, once ashore, the group would be met by three native guides secured by Rapmund.

  On October 2, the teams arrived on Biak and held a briefing with 6th Army G2, laying out plans for the twelve-hour mission.

  “The boats will drop us here,” Rounsaville told the others as they bent over a map lying on a table in the briefing hut, “at the Wassoenger River. We will then have to walk about six miles to the village. Expect about thirty Japs there, but there are two thousand more some twenty miles away, so we get in, hit them, free the hostages, and get out as fast as possible. By the way, the guys holding the Dutch governor are Kempeitai, Jap secret police.”

  Using four PT boats, the flotilla slipped out of the base at Biak that evening, but were turned back by a heavy storm. The second attempt the next night was foiled when one of the PT boats hit a submerged log and bent a screw. On October 4, just after the tropical nightfall at five p.m., they tried again. Cruising across the black ocean on a moonless night, the PT boats slid to a halt off the dark coastline around midnight.

  “Get the boats over the side,” Rounsaville ordered.

  While loading into the dinghies, Rapmund lost his balance and would have tumbled overboard had Kittleson not grabbed his web belt. Within a few minutes, three rubber boats were silently gliding toward shore, their occupants somewhat disconcerted by the newly risen bloodred moon that rode low in the eastern sky.

  “Don’t worry too much about being spotted,” Rounsaville had told Nellist before departing. “Rapmund took the liberty of having all the native canoes in the area temporarily confiscated, so no night fishermen will see us and get a message to the Japs.”

  The beach was narrow—only about a yard wide—and as the Scouts came ashore forty-five minutes after leaving the PT boats, three dark-skinned natives, dressed in khaki shorts, materialized from the jungle.

  “Kit,” Rounsaville whispered to Kittleson. “You and one of the guides take the point. Everyone, stay together. It’s blacker than a witch’s heart in that jungle. Let’s go.”

  As the teams disappeared into the dark woods, Dove and Charley Hill lashed the three rubber boats together and rowed back to the PT boats.

  The dense canopy of foliage overhead blotted out what little moonlight there was, casting everything into pitch-darkness. The only natural light was the twinkling foxfire created by decaying vegetation. Despite the blackness, the natives quickly found the path that led away from the Wassoenger River toward their objective. The footpath was narrow and muddy, and Kittleson made his way forward by the red glow of a flashlight taped to the muzzle of his Tommy gun, its beam invisible fifty feet or more away. Others used red-hooded flashlights as well.

  “Hell, the last thing the Japs will be expecting is for an enemy patrol to be snooping around the jungle at night carrying flashlights,” Rounsaville said, when he OK’d their use.

  Flashlights aside, even though the guides assured the Scouts that Japanese security was lax, the GIs were taking nothing for granted, and Kittleson tested each step before putting his weight down. After picking their way through the jungle in this fashion for more than two hours, Rounsaville ordered all flashlights doused, after which, Kittleson later recalled, the trip grew “hairy.”

  The trail took the men south, across Cape Oransbari, to the Maori River. As they neared the dark waterway, the distant but distinct crack crack of two rifle shots rang out in the dark. The Scouts froze and dropped to a knee. One of the guides said something to Rapmund, who told Nellist and Rounsaville, “The Japs hunt wild pigs at night.” Rounsaville nodded, but the men waited unmoving in the brush for fifteen minutes. Then Nellist crept forward to tell Kittleson to move out. After reaching the bank of the Maori River, the Scouts held their weapons up and cautiously waded through the knee-deep water, just upstream of the village.

  The low moon was below the tree line when the Scouts arrived at the village at about three a.m. In the darkness, they dropped to their knees within reach of each other to observe and listen. The scent of smoke was in the air—hopefully, Rounsaville thought, from last night’s cook fires. The attack depended upon surprise.

  Rounsaville turned to Rapmund.

  “Think you could send one of the natives in to check things out?” he whispered, barely audible. “I need to confirm the number of Japs and where they are.”

  Rapmund nodded and then spoke softly to the former prisoner, who had served as an orderly for the Japanese garrison before he took flight. The man slipped away as quietly as a passing cloud. As they waited for the native’s return, the men sat silently in the night, watching the village. A dog barked somewhere off in the darkness and a rooster crowed, both sounds eerie in the stillness of the jungle. About an hour later, the native returned, carrying three Japanese rifles he had stolen. He spoke to Rapmund, who whispered to Rounsaville. Rounsaville then gathered the men around him and spoke in a low voice.

  “There are twenty-three Japs in the village and five manning the outpost,” Rounsaville began. “Eighteen of them are asleep in the long nipa hut, which is set up on stilts. There’s another hut about twenty yards beyond it with five more. That’s the Kempeitai HQ. I’m told they have the governor there. By the shoreline are shallow machine-gun emplacements—a heavy Dutch MG and a light Jap gun. There are four men there. But there are no sentries anywhere so they must feel pretty damned safe.”

  “The hostages are confined to various huts in the village, with orders to stay inside or be shot.”

  Rounsaville nodded.

  “We go at oh four hundred,” he said. “That will give us all time to get in position. My first shot will be the signal.”

  The assault had been laid out beforehand, based on Rounsaville’s earlier reconnaissance. It would be a three-prong attack with Rounsaville, his team, and Rapmund hitting the main barracks. Asis, Wismer, Smith, and one of the guides were to enter the Kempeitai hut, kill the soldiers, and take the commander prisoner if possible. Nellist, the rest of his team, and a guide were to trek to the coastline and knock out the gun emplacements. That was to be their exfiltration point, and Rounsaville needed the beach secured in order to call in Dove.

  “Let’s go,” Rounsaville said.

  The men split up and went about their assignments.

  * * *

  Rounsaville and his men slowly worked their way around the village through the underbrush and got into position near the long nipa hut. Palms and other vegetation grew around the outside of the makeshift barracks, so the space under the elevated hut was in total darkness. Signaling the others to follow, Rounsaville cautiously led his men up to the building, and then ducked under it, bending low so as not to bump their heads on the floor above. All was quiet from the room overhead except for the soft snoring of sleeping men.

  Splitting the team in two, Rounsaville led some of the men to the ladder at one end of the hut, while the rest of the team moved toward the ladder at the opposite end. There they waited, sweat pouring from their bodies, nerves taut. Rounsaville kept an eye on his watch for what seemed like an eternity. When four a.m. finally arrived, he crept out from under the hut and slowly climbed the ladder. At the other end of the building, his men did the same thing. The doorways to the hut, as well as all of the windows, were covered in mosquito netting. Rounsaville slid the netting back and peeked inside. An oil lamp glowed dimly, casting deep
shadows around the interior. A soldier wearing only a loincloth was putting a teapot on a woodstove. Rounsaville looked at Opu Alfonso, who was next to him, brandishing a Remington twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun with a flashlight, now minus its red hood, taped to the barrel, and nodded.

  Rounsaville looked at his watch again. It was four ten a.m.

  Taking a deep breath, he threw back the netting and stepped inside, flicking on his flashlight. He fired a lone round—the signal shot—into the man making the tea, then emptied his magazine at the sleeping forms. Scouts burst in from both doorways. The Japanese scrambled to get up as their peaceful slumber had suddenly been converted into a madhouse of gunfire, muzzle flashes, screams, and the blinding glare of flashlights. A few managed to reach for their weapons, but most died in their beds, cut down by the savage fire. A few dove through the windows, hit the ground, and scampered into the jungle. The Scouts fired after them as they ran. Two were hit and tried to seek shelter in a ditch, but the Scouts finished them off with quick, short bursts. Alfonso and Fox started chasing the other fugitives into the jungle.

  “Let them go,” Rounsaville called. “Let’s gather up the hostages and get the hell out of here before they bring back help.”

  * * *

  When Smith saw Rounsaville climb the ladder of the barracks twenty-five yards away, he, Asis, and Wismer gathered at the doorway to the Kempeitai hut. Inside, four Japanese were asleep, two in cots to the right of the door and two to the left. Another man, doubtless the Kempeitai officer, slept in a bed at the rear. Smith and Asis slipped inside, bumping into a bookcase in the dark. The thump did not wake the sleeping men. At the sound of Rounsaville’s signal shot, Smith leveled his carbine at the two on the left and fired. Emptying the fifteen-round clip, he dropped it, reloaded, and resumed firing until there was no more movement.

  “Sayonara, assholes. Pleasant dreams,” he snarled after the second magazine was empty.