Escape From Davao (62 page)

54
His pilots barely had enough strength:
Bartsch,
Doomed at the Start
, 343–44; Joe Moore, author’s interview.

54
In late March, the brass:
Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 61–62.

54
Dyess’s convoy motored into Mariveles:
Ibid., 65; Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 39; Bartsch,
Doomed at the Start
, 375.

55
As his two-jeep caravan:
Holt, “King of Bataan,” 155–73; Morton,
The Fall of the
Philippines
, 463–64.

55
On April 3, Japanese guns:
Morton,
The Fall of the Philippines
, 421–53; Toland,
But Not in
Shame
, 292.

56
King arrived at the town of Lamao:
Ibid., 303–5; Morton,
The Fall of the Philippines
, 464–66.

56
Ed Dyess was seeing otherwise:
Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 66–68; Grashio,
Return to
Freedom
, 39.

57
Luckily for the passengers:
Romulo,
I Saw the Fall of the Philippines
, 183–86.

58
“God help them”:
Boelens, Diary, 19

5. THE HIKE

PAGE

61
“There was a blazing road:
Lee, “Awakening,”
Nothing but Praise
, 38.

61
According to a witness.
Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 70–71.

62
“A Philippines Times Square”:
Ralph Levenberg, quoted in Donald Knox,
Death March: The
Survivors of Bataan
(New York: Harcourt Brace, 1981), 119; Jack Donohoe, author’s interview.

62
Some Japanese soldiers, similarly exhausted:
Knox,
Death March
, 114.

62
They had not conquered Bataan quickly:
Lawrence Taylor,
A Trial of Generals: Homma,
Yamashita, MacArthur
(South Bend, IN: Icarus, 1981), 96; Stanley L. Falk,
Bataan: The March
of Death
(New York: Jove, 1983), 64–66, 233.

62
And though they despised their adversaries:
Falk,
Bataan
, 230.

62
According to the code of
Bushido: Ibid., 230–32; Lamott,
Nippon
, 180; Grashio,
Return to
Freedom
, 58.

62
In the oppressive heat:
Dyess, EXPERIENCES and OBSERVATIONS as a P.O.W. in the P.I., Sworn statement of Major Wil iam E. Dyess, August 16, 1943 (Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwel Air Force Base, AL, 1; Daws,
Prisoners of the Japanese
, 74; Bert Bank,
Back from the Living Dead
(Tuscaloosa, AL: Self-published, 1945), 19; Falk,
Bataan
, 127–30.

62
Determined not to let his Randolph Field ring:
Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 40.

63
“There still was plenty of fight”:
Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 68.

63
Flanked by soldiers:
Manny Lawton,
Some Survived: An Eyewitness Account of the Bataan
Death March and the Men Who Lived Through It
(Chapel Hil , NC: Algonquin, 1984), 18. Mario Tonel i, author’s interview; Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 73; John Olson, author’s interview; Toland,
But Not in Shame
, 315–16; Falk,
Bataan
, 131–32.

63
But it was no sightseeing tour:
Jack Donohoe, author’s interview; Grashio,
Return to
Freedom
, 48; Hunt,
Behind Japanese Lines
, 37; Mario Tonel i, author’s interview; Knox,
Death
March
, 130; Daws,
Prisoners of the Japanese
, 78.

63
Even rest breaks:
Lawton,
Some Survived
, 19; Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 76; Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 49, Falk,
Bataan
, 133. The best description of the al -pervading heat on the Death March, in the author’s opinion, comes from Pvt. Leon Beck in Knox,
Death March
, 133:

“And the weather was hot, hot, hot. The sun comes up hot, and it goes down hot, and it stays hot al night. It was just plain hel hot.”

64
The passing motorized processions:
Toland,
But Not in Shame
, 312; Dyess,
The Dyess
Story
, 73, 75; Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 48; Bert Bank, author’s interview.

64
While most of these hapless prisoners:
Daws,
Prisoners of the Japanese
, 77; Knox,
Death
March
, 121.

64
One prisoner:
Mario Tonel i, author’s interview.

64
While their minds struggled to process:
Daws,
Prisoners of the Japanese
, 77; Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 49; Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 76.

65
The demoralized, dehydrated prisoners:
Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 46, 48; Mario Tonel i, author’s interview; Knox,
Death March
, 130–31; Bank,
Back from the Living Dead
, 21.

65
As morning melted into afternoon:
Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 71, 13–14.

65
they had been separated hours earlier:
Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 47, 50.

65
Though there was no logical explanation:
Ibid., 46–47, 52, 57.

66
Since it certainly seemed:
Jack Donohoe, author’s interview; Grashio,
Return to Freedom,
48.

66
There were, however, no absolute certainties:
Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 47–48.

66
Before the Japanese segregated the prisoners:
John Olson, author’s interview; Jack Donohoe, author’s interview; Bank,
Back from the Living Dead
, 20; Knox,
Death March
, 127; Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 71; Daws,
Prisoners of the Japanese
, 76–77; John Cowgil , author’s interview.

67
At least they could count on:
James Litton, author’s interview; Hampton Sides,
Ghost
Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II’s Most Dramatic Mission
(New York: Doubleday, 2001), 95; Bank,
Back from the Living Dead
, 23–24; Bert Bank, author’s interview; Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 52–53.

67
Often, the aid came:
Daws,
Prisoners of the Japanese
, 76; Bank, author’s interview; Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 52–53, 56; Groom,
1942
, 134; Taylor,
A Trial of Generals
, 100.

67
At midnight, after an exhausting:
EXPERIENCES OF 1st LT. SAMUEL C. GRASHIO

WHILE A PRISONER OF WAR OF THE JAPANESE FROM APRIL 9, 1942, to APRIL 4, 1943, October 26, 1943, MacArthur Memorial and Archives, Norfolk, VA, RG 53, Box 9, Folder 14, 2; Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 78–79.

68
a catastrophic
masakozi: Falk,
Bataan
; John Gunther,
The Riddle of MacArthur
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), 100.

68
As a military plan:
Taylor,
A Trial of Generals
, 92–95; Lord Russel of Liverpool,
The
Knights of Bushido
(New York: Berkley, 1959), 45–46; Falk,
Bataan
, 47–55; Grashio,
Return to
Freedom
, 58. For additional detailed reading on the Imperial Japanese Army’s written code of conduct (the
Senjin-kun
, or “Code of the Battlefield”) or the
Rikutatsu
(“Army Instruction”) concerning Japanese rules for the humane treatment of prisoners of war, see Falk,
Bataan
, 235–46.

68
Homma’s intentions:
Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 56; Taylor,
A Trial of Generals
, 40–49; F a lk,
Bataan,
224–25; Arthur Swinson,
Four Samurai: A Quartet of Japanese Army
Commanders in the Second World War
(London: Hutchinson, 1968), 36–44.

69
That flaw:
Falk,
Bataan
, 40, 46, 56–66. As Falk indicates, after the war, Homma himself admitted that in April 1942 his primary focus was not on the prisoners of war: “My first and last concern was how I could assault the impregnable fortress [of Corregidor] in the shortest time possible” (p. 46).

69
And despite the vaunted Japanese notions:
Ibid., 227–29; Maj. Eugene A. Wright, “The Jap Fighting Man,”
Infantry Journal
, February 1945.

69
Certainly, beheading:
Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 59–60; Taylor,
A Trial of
Generals
, 97; Toland,
The Rising Sun
, 367; Edwin P. Hoyt,
Japan’s War: the Great Pacific
Conflict
(New York: Cooper Square, 2001), 269.

69
A final rationalization:
As Lord Russel of Liverpool states in
The Knights of Bushido
, 56,

“those who committed these crimes had never expected that retribution would fol ow for, as one of them said ‘we shal be the victors and wil not have to answer questions.’ ”

70
And whether by impulse or design:
EXPERIENCES OF MAJOR S.M. MELLNIK FROM

THE FALL OF CORREGIDOR, MAY 6, 1942 TO ESCAPE FROM A JAPANESE PRISON

CAMP, APRIL 4, 1943, MAC, RG 30, Box 3, Folder 5, 10.

70
On April 24, a rancorous editorial:
Toland,
The Rising Sun
, 376.

70
For hours, Ed Dyess had stumbled:
Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 78–80.

70
One American had started counting:
Toland,
The Rising Sun
, 371.

70
“The bloodthirsty devils”:
Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, p. 78.

70
“the imaginations”:
Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 49.

70
For Dyess, the worst part:
Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 80–86; Mal onée,
The Naked
Flagpole
, 151; Lawton,
Some Survived
, 21–22; Dyess, EXPERIENCES, 3.

71
Finally, after being fed:
Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 87.

71
There, the train depot buzzed:
Falk, Bataan, 184–90; Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 54–55.

72
The train panted to a stop:
Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 90–97; Falk, Bataan, 197.

6. GOODBYE AND GOOD LUCK

PAGE

74
“Then came the bitter day”:
Lee, “Awakening,”
Nothing but Praise
, 38.

74
“Our flag still flies on this beleaguered”:
Jonathan Wainwright,
General Wainwright’s Story:
The Account of Four Years of Humiliating Defeat, Surrender and Captivity
(New York: Doubleday, 1946), 85.

74
And, as Hawkins had also seen:
Hawkins, film treatment, 9–11.

74
The resilient garrison:
Mel nik,
Philippine Diary
, 118; Morton,
The Fall of the Philippines
, 492, 535; Evans,
Soochow and the 4th Marines
, 59; Austin Shofner, Smal wood interview.

75
Hawkins, who rarely left his dugout:
Jack Hawkins, author’s interview.

75
Continuing to surveil:
Hawkins, film treatment, 10.

75
Not a single prisoner:
Michiel Dobervich, DESCRIPTION OF LIFE IN JAPANESE PRISON

CAMPS, ENCLOSURE “A,” Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington, D.C., 2.

75
Rumbling in a slow convoy:
Ibid., 2–3.

76
“The infuriating, obtuse guards”:
Mariano Vil arin,
We Remember Bataan and Corregidor
(Self-published, 1990), 154.

76
Dobervich was one of the first:
Dobervich, DESCRIPTION, ENCLOSURE

“A,” 3.

76
After a long wait:
Jack Donohoe, author’s interview; Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 98–99; John Olson,
O’Donnell: Andersonville of the Pacific
(Self-published, 1985), 44–47; Grashio,
Return
to Freedom
, 65.

76
“The captain, he say Nippon”:
Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 99; Dobervich, DESCRIPTION, ENCLOSURE “A,” 3.

77
“Words cannot describe”:
Dobervich, DESCRIPTION, ENCLOSURE “A,” 5.

77
The Japanese would attempt to cram:
Olson,
O’Donnell
, 8–9, 93–94, 97; E. Bartlett Kerr,
Surrender and Survival: The Experience of American POWs
in the Pacific, 1941–1945
(New York: Wil iam Morrow, 1985), 62; Dobervich, DESCRIPTION, ENCLOSURE “A,” 3–4; Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 100; Knox,
Death March
, 159.

77
The prisoners were fed tiny portions:
Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 101–2; Grashio,
Return to
Freedom
, 70; Lawton,
Some Survived
, 28–29.

77
The starvation diet:
Dyess,
The Dyess Story,
102–5; Olson,
O’Donnell
, 53, 117–19; Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 72–76.

78
Not content to let starvation:
Dobervich, DESCRIPTION, ENCLOSURE “A,” 5; Lawton,
Some Survived
, 26–27; Breuer,
The Great Raid
, 55; Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 100–101.

78
It was not long before the corpses:
Dyess,
The Dyess Story
, 101; Knox,
Death March
, 165, 169; Bank,
Back from the Living Dead
, 28–29; Olson,
O’Donnell
, 132.

78
The burial details:
Olson,
O’Donnell
, 139–45; Bank,
Back from the Living Dead,
34; Grashio,
Return to Freedom
, 77; Mario Tonel i, author’s interview.

79
Tales of men being buried alive:
Dobervich, DESCRIPTION, ENCLOSURE

“A,” 5.

79
Dogs and buzzards:
Bert Bank,
Back from the Living Dead
, 29; Olson,
O’Donnell
, 142, 145; Knox,
Death March
, 165.