* * *
Since the invasion at Leyte, the 24th Division had been engaged in heavy fighting near the city of Palo on the coast of San Pedro Bay. The division’s goal was to move south and link up with the 96th Division, and the 24th’s commander now requested a reconnaissance mission between Palo and Tanauan. Sixth Army HQ selected Bill Littlefield for the job, and he arrived for a briefing on October 22. Sleeping near the HQ tent that night, the Scouts, jolted awake by gunfire, grabbed their weapons and dashed outside. Japanese soldiers were attacking the camp and a wild melee broke out. When it was over, Littlefield found dead enemy soldiers within thirty yards of his tent.
The team moved out at ten a.m. the next day, passing through American lines. Cherokee Indian Zeke McConnell recalled, “The Japs were on both sides of us all the way. Between the Japs, the American bombing, strafing, and navy shelling, we were all plenty scared.”
The Americans lucked out. Tanauan was unoccupied. Littlefield radioed the information back to army HQ and the next day, the American 381st Regiment arrived and the advance continued. Returning to the PT tender Wachapreague, Littlefield and his team were dispatched to Samar by PT boat to spot enemy activity, but there was none to be seen.
* * *
On November 9, the Lutz Team was alerted for its first Philippines mission since they had watched MacArthur slosh ashore, although by now they were no longer the Lutz Team. Bill Lutz had come down with a jungle rash that required his being sent back to the States for treatment. In addition, Glendale Watson was gone and Bob Shullaw had been transferred to George Thompson’s team. Thus only Jack Geiger, Bob Ross, and Oliver Roesler remained, and they were now led by John McGowen. This was a happy move, Geiger recalled. McGowen was not just the most experienced of all Scout team leaders but he had won a Soldier’s Medal and two Silver Stars. He was an easygoing man and not a stickler for military protocol.
The three-day mission involved contacting Filipino guerrillas in the mountainous region of Burauren and obtaining information on Japanese supply routes between Burauren and Dagami. Infiltrating through Japanese lines was easy. Getting cooperation from the Filipinos was more difficult. When the Scouts reached Burauren, the town’s mayor told them that the guerrillas had moved farther up into the hills.
“Can we hire a guide to take us there?” McGowen asked.
“No, no,” the mayor said. “There are many Japs and you are just four men.”
“Then we’ll find them on our own,” McGowen resolved. “We won’t turn back.”
The next day a guide agreed to take them as far as Malaihaw, the next town to the west. They saw no Japanese, but the cratered landscape, splintered trees, and shattered huts gave proof that American artillery had been at work.
The team moved to the San Joaquin River, which skirted the densely forested mountain range that runs the length of Leyte. There they crossed the river and moved inland, where they discovered several abandoned Japanese pillboxes. They saw no Japanese but the soft earth was heavily scarred with footprints and hoof prints.
“The Japs are using pack animals,” McGowen muttered.
Approaching the town of Camire the next day—it was October 24—the Americans froze at the sound of small-arms fire off in the distance and to their rear. After waiting silently in place for about fifteen minutes, the team pressed on into the town. Finding it empty, they passed on through. The source of the gunfire remained a mystery.
Moving into the mountains, the team’s trek became steep and difficult. Reaching the lip of a precipitous gorge that offered no way across, they backtracked, soon coming upon an elderly Filipino man with a water buffalo, or caraboa, harvesting rice. Unable to understand the heavily armed men with the fiercely painted faces, he led them to the nipa hut he shared with his granddaughter and her husband. Luckily, the girl spoke English.
“You fooled my grandfather with your uniforms,” she said. “He thought you were Japanese.”
McGowen explained his mission and his need to contact the guerrillas. She told McGowen the guerrillas were camped just a few miles away, and invited them into the hut to eat. As they downed a meal of black beans and rice, the door to the hut burst open and in barged a guerrilla brandishing a Tommy gun in both hands and wildly shouting orders. The woman spoke rapidly to the man and calmed him down. She explained who the strangers were, then she turned to McGowen.
“This man thought you were Germans,” she explained.
“Germans?” McGowen said. “Why in the hell would he think that?”
“He heard that Germans had landed by submarine to help the Japs,” she replied.
Once the confusion was straightened out, the guerrilla agreed to lead McGowen and his men to his headquarters. Picking their way into a jungle ravine, they passed through several checkpoints, and, as darkness descended, reached a small bamboo hut lit by a single candle. By the flickering light, McGowen outlined his mission to the guerrilla commander, who refused to cooperate, saying it was impossible. He then left the hut carrying the candle so the Scouts could get some sleep.
He awoke them at daybreak, and while he still would not lead the Scouts into the mountains, he agreed to have men escort them east to the mouth of the Kabugnan River, where the Scouts could obtain two native canoes. From there, their reconnaissance would be by water.
Escorted by a few guerrillas, they reached the river by mid-afternoon and found the dugout canoes waiting. As they skimmed over the water, they passed makeshift shelters occupied by refugees who had fled inland from the Leyte invasion beaches in response to American leaflets warning them of the upcoming landings.
Stopping to talk to the refugees, McGowen learned that the Japanese were short on food and that they had abandoned their prepared positions along the highway running between Tanauan and San Joaquin, to take up new ones inland.
With this information in hand, McGowen decided to return to base even though his main goal of locating Japanese supply routes in the mountains had not been accomplished. The reluctance of the guerrillas to help him left McGowen with a bitter taste in his mouth for their fighting ability.
McGowen’s bad luck as leader of the former Lutz Team would continue.
On November 19, seven days after their unhappy experience in the hills above Burauren, McGowen, Geiger, Ross, and Roesler were headed on a new assignment. They were to load up supplies, including stretchers and medical gear, on a PT boat and rendezvous with George Thompson and his team on Ponson Island, where Ormoc Bay meets the Camotes Sea, off Leyte’s western coast. Thompson and his men had been there since November 6, watching Japanese shipping activity in the bay, and had picked up two wounded airmen.
The team would hop a ride with three PT boats from Squadron 33, which were scheduled to conduct a patrol of the bay. During the course of this patrol, their boat, PT-495, the Gentleman Jim, would stop at Ponson so McGowen’s men could unload the supplies and evacuate the wounded fliers.
The boats cruised along the western coast of Leyte. Onshore the Scouts could see lights, possibly fires lit by GIs. At about twelve fifteen a.m., the boats intercepted several wooden Japanese barges, eighty to ninety feet in length and armed with machine guns. The PTs circled, then swarmed in for the attack and a wild firefight ensued. Japanese 7.7mm machine guns and American .50 calibers blazed and flaming tracers cast their reflections on the black water as they streamed to and fro. American 20- and 40mm guns joined the melee.
A Japanese barge, burning and badly holed, nudged into the Gentleman Jim, and the PT boat’s starboard .50-caliber machine gunner riddled it. A man screamed in the darkness, and Roesler recalled the barge dissolving under the heavy fire “like a sugar cube in a hot cup of coffee.” The barge disappeared into the sea. Three more barges were burning and sinking.
Then, in the confusion, the skipper of the second PT boat in the formation, a new officer with little night patrol experience, cut his wheel to port and took his boat out of position. The 20mm gunner on board the PT, his adrenaline flowing and unaware that his boat was
out of line, spotted a large shadow two hundred yards to starboard. He swung his gun around and opened fire.
The shadow was the PT-495.
Rounds from the errant PT boat peppered the 40mm gun position on the Gentleman Jim’s fantail, and men screamed in pain and shock. The executive officer of the wayward boat saw the mistake and immediately ordered the gunner to cease fire, but the damage was done. At least five sailors were hit, and one would shortly die. Of the wounded, one sailor suffered a bad leg wound and another had an arm blown off, while a third seaman was down with a head wound. A young sailor, his arm badly mangled, staggered forward from the carnage and told his skipper, “Get the hell out. We’re all hit back here.”
He did not have to tell the skipper of the Gentleman Jim that news. He was one of the seven men who received minor wounds, having been nicked in the shin by shrapnel. Another of the wounded was Alamo Scout Oliver Roesler, who had a piece of an exploded 20mm shell lodged in his neck.
No one on board knew the fire came from another PT boat, and initially no one cared. Help for the wounded was now the job that needed to be done and everyone pitched in. Geiger, who said he would never forget the sight of the bloodied men, helped the XO navigate the boat, while everyone else, including the Scouts, assisted in first aid. Even Roesler, his neck and uniform bloodied from his own wound, helped Ross, who was tending the boy with the mangled arm. As they dumped sulfa powder on his wounds and hit him with morphine before applying a tourniquet, they spoke to him to get his attention off his injury.
“What’s your name, son,” Ross asked as he worked on the boy.
“Wilbur,” the sailor muttered.
“Wilbur, huh?” Ross said. “We got a couple of Wilburs in the Scouts. Nice name. Been with this boat long?”
“No,” he replied, groggily. “This is my first cruise.”
“Well, you’re gonna spend some time in a nice clean hospital, with good food and pretty nurses,” Ross said. “Maybe you might even get to go home and see your family. Would you like that?”
The youth smiled through his pain and the two Scouts looked at each other, certain he would lose the arm. Whether it was the sight of the crippled boy, or the effects of his wound, or both, Roesler was soon sickened and had to go below. Geiger relieved Ross.
“Take a break, Bob,” he told his friend. “Grab a smoke.”
“Thanks, Geig,” Ross replied. “This has me fuckin’ unnerved.”
Of the twenty-two men on board the 495 boat, twelve had been hit. Still, things could have been a lot worse. Two of the 20mm shells had struck near the Gentleman Jim’s fuel tanks. Had they been a bit closer to the mark, they would have touched off the boat’s high-octane aviation gasoline and the boat would have been blown into matchsticks.
Then the rain began to fall. Blankets were brought up from below to cover the wounded and make them comfortable. It was about three thirty a.m. by now, and PT-495 had lost contact with the other two boats. Suddenly one of the PTs, probably the same one that had shot them up, piloted by the same disoriented skipper, materialized out of the darkness, heading for the 495 boat. The Gentleman Jim’s injured commander tried to wheel his boat out of the way, but the oncoming craft struck the 495’s stern. Smoke billowed from the rear of the 495 and someone yelled, “Fire!” However, it was quickly discovered that the smoke was coming from the smokescreen generator on the fantail, which was damaged in the collision.
The third PT boat soon pulled up. The badly injured men were carefully transferred and the boat sent on its way toward its base at Linoan. The PT-495 and the boat that rammed it limped home together, so badly damaged that the men wore life vests just in case.
Safely back at Linoan, McGowen, Ross, and Geiger helped the PT- 495 crew clean the bloodied deck. Roesler was sent to the army hospital at Hollandia, New Guinea, and would be out of action for three months, returning on November 21.
The mission to resupply the Thompson Team was scrubbed. It was also the last mission for the Lutz Team. With its leader gone, the team was dispersed. Ross was sent to the Dove Team. Geiger and Roesler would be recalled by their original units.
* * *
Keeping tabs on Japanese troop movements within Leyte’s mountainous interior was a priority for American planners.
On November 12, the Dove Team, under the command of Lt. Woodrow Hobbs since Jack Dove’s wounding, along with Bob Sumner’s team, were sent to watch Highway 2, the main road from Ormoc north through the Ormoc Valley to Carigara Bay. Sumner’s team was to watch the southern stretch of road from Ormoc City to Valencia, while Hobbs and his men kept an eye on the northern leg of the highway from Valencia to Cananga, as well as the road rolling eastward to Carigara, thus putting the entire highway under surveillance.
Hobbs, along with Staff Sgt. John G. Fisher, Sgts. John E. Philips, John E. Hidalgo, Denny Chapman, Irv Ray, William R. Watson, and Ray W. Wangrud—these last two formerly with the Reynolds Team—left the PT tender Oyster Bay that afternoon, arriving at San Isidro at three a.m. Met by natives, they were rowed ashore by canoe and spent the night in a nearby house.
On November 15, the team was ferried seventeen miles to the south to the village of Abijao, where they linked up with Maj. Jose Nazareno and his 96th Philippine Regiment, who led them on a mountainous trek eastward to the village of Maulayan, which overlooked the Ormoc-Carigara road. There they set up a radio station and spent the next two weeks reporting enemy activity. Arriving at Maulayan, Hobbs got word through a civilian scouting unit called the Volunteer Guards that three thousand Japanese were massing at Cananga, with another thousand congregated some five miles to the east.
Hobbs radioed that there was a strong possibility that the Japanese were preparing to evacuate across the Camotes Sea to Cebu, adding a report he had received that the enemy already on Cebu were slaughtering entire villages in retaliation for their own losses on Leyte. The lightly armed guerrillas on Cebu were unable to prevent it.
Even before Hobbs radioed his disturbing news, on November 14, Lt. George S. Thompson’s Team, which consisted of Thompson, Sgts. Leonard Scott and Charley Hill, Cpl. Gordon Butler, Pfcs. Joseph Moon and Joseph Johnson, and Pvt. Robert Shullaw, formerly of the Lutz Team, along with Vincent Nuivedo, a Filipino radio operator, were dispatched to Poro Island in the Camotes Island group, to watch for enemy barge traffic between Leyte and Cebu.
Landing in rubber boats on the island’s northeast coast, they were met by guerrillas, who told them as many as one thousand Japanese were in the vicinity. The Scouts set up a radio station and interviewed civilians. Thompson established a civilian information network as a means of conveying news to the scattered villages. Results weren’t long in coming, as the Scouts were informed about enemy barges ferrying troops from Talang Point on Pacijan Island to Ormoc. Japanese forces also reinforced Ponson Island, just northeast of Poro, where they ruthlessly raped, tortured, and bayoneted civilians.
Enemy presence among the Camotes Islands was intense, causing the Scouts to keep on the move, and it was amid this busy time that the Japanese found the Thompson Team.
On the night of December 7, Thompson and his men had settled among a small seaside collection of shanties on Poro Island. Selecting a two-story house right at the water’s edge, the men bedded down.
“Indoor accommodations,” Charley Hill said as he stretched out beside Thompson. “That is a rare luxury indeed for us Scouts.”
“Yeah,” Thompson said. “When word gets out to the other teams, we’ll be regular celebrities. They’ll be wanting autographs and asking to touch us.”
Hill chuckled, then said, “Tommy, can I see your fancy pistol?”
Thompson reached into a shoulder holster and slid out his .38-caliber revolver. He handed it to Hill, who held it lovingly. He especially admired the wooden pistol grips, with Thompson’s name carved on one side and “Alamo Scouts” on the other.
“Who carved the grips for you?” Hill asked.
“Bob Ross,” Thompson replied. “He�
��s handy as hell. It’s native wood—ash, I think.”
“No shit? Big Bob Ross of the Lutz Team?” Hill asked, then handed the gun back. “But how come you use a thirty-eight? Where’s your forty-five?”
“I could never hit shit with a forty-five,” Thompson replied, slipping the revolver back into his holster. He then rolled over to get some sleep.
In the dark of the night, the team was awakened by engine noises. Six barges loaded with Japanese soldiers were landing just outside. At Thompson’s signal, the men slipped quietly up to the second floor and kept silent vigil. They watched in growing concern as some of the enemy troops approached the two-story hiding place and a few men went inside.
As the enemy tromped around the ground floor, Thompson said quietly, “Hold your fire.”
Then the sound of boots on the steps was heard as two Japanese climbed the stairway.
“Let’s get the fuck outta here,” Thompson said, then he and three of the team leaped from the window and splashed into the sea. Sergeant Scott and the remaining three rushed down the back stairs, pushed past the startled Japanese on the steps, ran out of the house and into the surrounding jungle, gunshots and shouts of surprise and outrage following them.
Reaching dense underbrush, the men dove for cover. Before long, Japanese soldiers approached, and with bayonets mounted on their Arisaka rifles began probing the bushes. The tip of a bayonet nicked Scott in the stomach, drawing blood, but he did not flinch. Soon satisfied that the Americans had escaped, the enemy withdrew back to the village.
Miraculously, the entire team escaped unscathed except for Scott’s slight wound, and the men reassembled. However, they had lost their radio and most of their supplies. They eventually linked up with Company I of the 88th Infantry Cebu Command, the only native military group in the Camotes. The Filipinos in this unit were armed with eight carbines, ten Japanese Arisaka rifles, and twelve sidearms. Thompson, using the guerrillas’ radio, arranged to supply them with seventy-five M1 rifles, two .30-caliber machine guns, and plenty of ammunition.
Shadows In the Jungle Page 20