Shadows In the Jungle (30 page)

One stop on the trail to Mount Naguang was near the village of Valencia, five miles west of a Japanese airfield. There, the irascible radio broke down again and seemed beyond repair. Unbelievably, a day or two later, a Japanese airplane droning overhead, the pilot obviously disoriented, released a wicker supply basket attached to a parachute, which drifted down on the Americans' position. The guerrillas retrieved it. Opening it, Sumner's jaw dropped. Inside was a Japanese radio with spare tubes.

“What the hell?” he muttered. He turned to Blaise. “A gift from Tojo, Bill. Can you cannibalize this stuff and get our goddamned piece of junk working again?”

“I think so,” Blaise replied.

He and the three Filipino radiomen, Lt. Inoconcio F. Cabrido, Pvt. Trinidad Sison, and Pvt. Agapito Amano, went to work and soon had Sumner back in radio communications.

The radio would break down again about a week later, and would incredibly be repaired thanks to yet another misdropped Japanese radio.

* * *

Sumner's new CP on Mount Naguang was in the village of Cagdaat. His base of operations was a large house tucked into the trees with a spring-fed pool some thirty feet beyond. The radio shack was about a hundred feet away, sited for direct communication with 6th Army headquarters across the island. The Filipinos created a drop zone about a thousand yards to the east and north. With the help of Nazareno, a native intelligence network was established to report on Japanese movements, troop strength, and locations. Often, the guerrillas attacked Japanese outposts and patrols.

During the trek, Sumner had also picked up five downed American pilots, some of whom were enjoying a life of leisure among the grateful natives. These men he sent back to San Isidro in the company of guerrillas.

“Time to get you boys back to work,” he said as he packed the fliers off.

* * *

In early December, about a month into the lengthy mission, Sumner received a radio report about well-camouflaged Japanese warehouses on the outskirts of Ormoc City that reportedly contained stores of food and ammunition. The 6th Army had called in air strikes, but the planes had been unable to spot the buildings beneath their camouflage netting. The task of knocking out the warehouses was thus passed on to Sumner and his men. He sat down with Nazareno and drew up plans to form a special contact company.

After laying out the mission, he said, “In your command you have a number of Philippine Scouts. I need enough men to make up three platoons of three squads each. I want veterans, men with good, solid combat experience.”

Nazareno agreed and word went out. Within days, highly trained Philippine Scouts, some with as many as twenty years in the army, began trickling in to Sumner's CP. He quickly divided them into squads with nine riflemen and one automatic weapon, either a BAR or a submachine gun. Sumner would also take with him a captured Japanese 82mm mortar, and parachute flares to light up the area if needed. Should they be discovered and attacked and have to get out in a hurry, the mortar was considered expendable.

Before departing, Sumner requested another airdrop, this time to supply him with not just small-arms ammo but incendiary grenades and quarter-pound blocks of TNT.

After taking a day or two to rehearse his ad hoc company on how to function as a unit, the column struck off toward Ormoc City, arriving at their objective in the early evening hours. There they settled down in the underbrush to wait for darkness. Sumner knew the layout. While the Scouts had been assembling, he had made several personal reconnaissance trips to the area and discovered three expertly hidden warehouses. He had also dispatched his most reliable guerrilla agents to creep to within just a few yards of the buildings. There they took detailed notes of the number of guards, the size of the structures, the distances to the doors from the nearest cover, and the distances between buildings, including the guard shack.

As he waited for nightfall, Sumner called in his team, Renhols, Weiland, Blaise, and Jones (who had since rejoined the team from Abijao), and his three platoon leaders for a final briefing.

“Third platoon will provide our base of fire,” he told the group.

Addressing the third platoon leader, Sumner continued.

“You will set up your line about two hundred yards from the main gate. Deploy in two-man positions, but do not dig in. As for the rest of us, first and second platoons will go with me into the warehouse area. There's about a squad of Japs stationed there, but only about three or four are on duty at a time. We will take them out quickly and silently. Under no circumstances is anyone to fire his weapon. Stress that to your men. If any shot is fired, we will abort the mission and fall back on third platoon. Clear?” Everyone nodded. “OK. We go at twenty-two hundred.”

* * *

Slipping into the warehouse at ten p.m. as planned, the Filipinos went about, knives in hand, dispatching the Japanese guards. The enemy soldiers in the guard shack were not disturbed; however, one squad of Philippine scouts was posted outside with orders to cut them down should they suddenly emerge.

With the sentries dead, the platoons split up and entered their assigned warehouse. Entering one building, which measured thirty by sixty feet, Sumner—by the eerie glow of a red-hooded flashlight—found the place stacked with fifty-kilo bags of rice and crates of canned goods piled eight feet high. Working rapidly, the men began placing TNT charges with five-minute fuses, pushing them back into the stacks of supplies. Sumner knew that in the other warehouses his men were doing the same thing. With the TNT in place, the fuses were ignited.

“Let's go,” Sumner said in a loud whisper.

As they fled, Sumner sent a runner to alert the guardhouse squad to withdraw. It was ten fifteen; the entire operation had taken just fifteen minutes. They now had four minutes to get away. Confirming all present, Sumner assigned one squad as rear guard and they all headed back up into the hills. By the time the charges were to blow, the group was about five hundred yards from the warehouses. Sumner called a halt so the men could watch their handiwork. Moments later, a series of blasts rocked the night, sending shock waves through the air as the warehouses were blown apart. Flames ignited the camouflage netting, adding to the inferno. Then another, bigger explosion erupted as fuel drums in one of the warehouses began detonating, sending balls of fire hundreds of feet into the air. Burning embers descended around Sumner's force, starting small fires.

The rolling explosions continued as more fuel drums and ammo ignited, and in the glow of the fires, Sumner felt he and his men were naked and exposed to “every Jap on western Leyte.”

“Let's get the hell out of here,” he yelled, and the group fled quickly for the concealing safety of the jungles and mountains.

Pursuit was not long in coming. From behind them came angry shouts and the sound of weapons being fired into the underbrush. Sumner knew the Japanese had not spotted them, and that the shooting was random, but that made it even more dangerous. Yet despite the hot pursuit, the raiders slipped away and returned to the safety of their CP around four a.m.

The foray came with a price, however. The Japanese called on the local civilians, as well as guerrilla bands and even bandits, to turn over to them the raiders of the supply dump or face retaliation. In surrounding villages, natives were tortured to death by the enemy bent on finding the Americans. Many were bound and used for bayonet practice and one man was skinned alive. Yet Sumner and his men were never betrayed by the loyal Filipinos.

* * *

At six a.m. on December 7, 1944, Sumner received a radio message from 6th Army HQ that the 77th Infantry Division would be landing at Ormoc at seven a.m. He quickly moved his team to a vantage point overlooking the beach. It was like having the best seats in the house for a spectacular show.

That same morning, a Japanese convoy arrived bearing five thousand infantry replacements from Yamashita on Luzon. The simultaneous arrival of the two forces at the same spot led to a spectacular collision. Aircraft from both sides tangled in the air overhead as fifty-six P-47 Thunderbolt fighters from Tacloban bombed and strafed the Japanese surface fleet. Planes began falling from the sky and enemy ships erupted in flames, many either capsizing or rearing up in the water and sliding below the waves. American ships were hit as well, and two destroyers went down, their spines broken by kamikazes. The Japanese finally withdrew, but not before losing most of their ships and what proved to be two-thirds of their remaining bombers.

On the beaches below the Scouts' position, large naval guns pummeled the landing zone, tearing up jungle and the Japanese defenses. The prelanding bombardment was brief, then the Higgins boats and amtracs, swarming like water bugs, moved in, beached themselves, and disgorged their human contents: battle-toughened veterans of the 77th Division who had gotten their baptism of fire on Guam and Tinian.

With American troops overrunning their only local supply base, the Japanese were quickly driven back, although once they recovered from the shock, they managed to launch several violent counterattacks over the next few days. On December 10, after a fierce fight, Ormoc City fell into American hands. A huge pall of smoke hung over the city and the air was gray with concrete dust from buildings pulverized by artillery fire.

Sumner and his men were ordered to assist the incoming troops by furnishing them with guerrillas to serve as scouts and for guarding supply dumps.

The invasion presented Sumner with a new problem. With the 77th Division pushing the Japanese from the south and the 1st Cavalry, which had driven across Leyte from the October invasion beaches and were now pressing down from the north, the enemy was being driven back on Sumner's position. Skirmishes between the guerrillas and enemy units became more frequent, sometimes as many as three or four times a day, but the guerrillas and Scouts had enough firepower to keep the Japanese at bay.

About ten days after the 77th Division came ashore, Sumner received a radio message from its commander, Maj. Gen. Andrew D. Bruce. He wanted to meet with Sumner as soon as possible. Taking his team and a platoon of guerrillas, Sumner headed for one of the division's regimental CPs as instructed, arriving the next day.

The Scouts, with their camouflage gear, soft hats, airborne M1A1 carbines, and painted faces, were a source of curiosity, not just to the soldiers of the 77th but to their commander as well, and he interrogated Sumner at length.

“What are you men doing out here?” General Bruce asked.

“Monitoring Japanese troop and barge movements in conjunction with the local guerrillas,” Sumner replied, giving a simplified answer.

“How long have you been out here?”

“About six weeks, sir.”

“Are you men survivors of Bataan and Corregidor?”

“No, sir. We're Alamo Scouts attached to General Krueger,” Sumner said, and went on to explain the Scouts' function. Bruce listened with intense interest. The 77th had served mostly in the central Pacific, so Bruce had never heard of the Scouts.

Bruce then began asking detailed questions about the beach area and terrain at Palompan. Sumner turned the questions over to his guerrilla intelligence officer, who used maps and aerial photos Bruce's staff provided to answer the general's questions. The discussion lasted about half an hour, after which Bruce told Sumner that he was planning an amphibious landing, an end run, at Palompan on Christmas Day.

Bruce thanked Sumner, and he and his men returned to their mountain lair.

As the American advance continued, Sumner's area of operations was increasingly constricted, and the guerrillas were constantly engaging Japanese stragglers in fierce firefights that resulted in casualties on both sides. It was plain to see the time had come to leave. After bringing Renhols back to the CP from Abijao, Sumner radioed 6th Army HQ with his decision.

“Leave the radio and the Filipino crew, and enough guerrillas to serve as a guard detachment with the 77th Division,” Sumner was instructed.

Once back inside U.S. lines, Sumner was directed to contact Gen. John R. Hodge's 14th Corps for transport back to 6th Army HQ.

With a guerrilla escort, the team reached the village of Morgen, a short distance from the 307th Infantry Regiment's lines. The team cautiously approached the line on December 20, but were fired on by a nervous sentry. Sumner quickly pulled his men back. After all they had been through, the last thing he wanted was for one of them to get shot by a jumpy GI.

Retreating back to the village for the night, Sumner thought that perhaps the reason they were fired on was that they were unrecognizable. The Scouts were dirty, their clothes were grungy, and they did not look at all like American troops. Even the normally neat Bill Blaise, a stickler on appearance, looked terrible.

“Let's clean up,” he told the men. “I want everyone to bathe, wash his uniform, clean his boots and equipment and get a haircut. I want us to look as if we're coming off the parade field, and go in with pride, heads high, looking as if this little jaunt we've been on has been a piece of cake.”

The Sumner Team passed through lines of the 393rd Infantry Regiment the morning of December 21, forty-seven days after setting out, the Scout record to date. By six p.m., Sumner was reporting to General Hodges, nicknamed “the Mayor of Ormoc,” who insisted Sumner and his men join him for dinner in the officers' mess tent. Sumner accepted the invitation, and that evening, as they ate, he was amused to find that Hodge dined on standard, no-frills army rations. He did not tell the general that he and his men ate better food during their lengthy mission, thanks to the grateful Philippine people.

Sumner was put on an L-5 scout plane and flown back to the ASTC ahead of his men to report to 6th Army G2, arriving back on December 23. His men followed a day later, where Coleman, stitches mending his injured hand, rejoined them.