Chapter VII AMERICANS!
We kept getting reports on our little radio that MacArthur was winning battles in many places, some of which we'd never heard of:
March, 1944 - Palau;
April - Hollandia;
June - Saipan.
In July, we heard that MacArthur met Roosevelt in Hawaii, and that he was finally able to convince the President that it was necessary to take the Philippines in order to have a base from which to attack Japan.
In August it was reported that 30,000 Japs had been killed don't
know where. .
September 15, 1944: Two-hundred aircraft had bombed Cebu, Negros
and Panay.
U.S. Navy Dive-Bombers! On Sept. 21-suddenly-out of a clear blue sky-some thousand planes flew over camp from the east-they had to be carrier planes. They continued west to an hour. Then the planes returned coming down low over camp.
We could make out U.S. Navy markings on them. The Jap guards were all crouching down in foxholes.
"Don't lose your head now! Don't show any emotion! The Nips are all trigger-happy, just waiting for an incident to happen
before shooting up the camp."
A big Jap bomber tried to sneak off the local airfield that we had built with prisoner labor. It was flying low-barely over the treetops. A Navy dive bomber saw it, dropped down right over it and strafed it with incendiaries. In seconds there was a big explosion and tremendous orange flames as the bomber plowed into the ground. This was followed by billows of black smoke lasting several hours.
It was a great show! It was tough trying to repress our elation. There was no food served that day - a typical Japanese reaction.
We all believed that freedom must be close that the Americans would be making landings soon. That night morale was high; the camp literally buzzed with rumors. A few Navy planes appeared almost daily.
October, 1944: MacArthur invaded Leyte producing 100,000 Japanese casualties. The attitude of the Nip guards changed very markedly; they lost the arrogance they had when they were winning the battles; some became sadistic; some became friendly.
A big Jap "shakedown." Every prisoner had to display all his possessions. Japs picked up all mosquito netting and tropical helmets, saying, "You vill not need these in Japan! You vill be sent to Japan!"
The camp began to buzz with rumors again. U.S. Medical officers were ordered to examine all prisoners to determine the ones well enough to make a trip to Japan and the ones too disabled to travel. The Japanese did not want any amoebic dysentery cases in Japan. Suddenly, there was a new commodity "warm stools." Prisoners, who feared a "hell ship" cruise to Japan, bartered for a "hot specimen" from a known amoebic to present to the laboratory for examination hoping against hope, that it would be "positive."
Japan Detail: Before our Japan Detail departed for Manila, I asked Major Stephen Sitter, the camp psychiatrist, "Why is it that very few of the 12,000 prisoners spending time in the Cabanatuan camp ever made any attempt to take their own lives when they were starving, suffering from many diseases and were frequently in unpleasant and uncomfortable situations?"
He answered, "They were all too busy figuring out ways to survive; they didn't have time to think about suicide."
Between October 21 and 27, about 1600 prisoners, the Japan
Detail, were loaded on trucks to be delivered to the old Spanish prison in Manila-Bilibid. Before leaving, several of us prisoners buried diaries, notes, sketches, etc., near the buildings in which we lived, hoping to retrieve them after the war. My 110 sketches were placed in a Mason jar and buried near Bldg. #12. On our way to Manila, our truck had to stop frequently under big trees-to hide from the numerous U.S. planes passing overhead.
Cabanatuan Rescue: After the exodus of the Japan Detail (the so-called healthy prisoners) in late October, there were only 511 unhealthy prisoners remaining in camp.
Things were rather quiet until about 2000 hours on January 30, 1945, when sudden gunfire from outside the camp wiped out all of the Japanese guards in the towers. It was MacArthur's 6th Ranger Battalion under the command of Lt. Col. Henry Mucci - aided by guerrillas - walking into camp. They quickly obtained carabao carts and sleds for the bedridden prisoners.
That evening 511 internees were moved many miles down the road to the west in the moonlight with hardly a shot fired. Early the next morning they arrived at a transportation center, where prisoners were placed aboard trucks and ambulances and taken to Lingayen Gulf; then they were transferred to planes and flown to Manila. After suffering from more than three years of intentional neglect by the Japanese Imperial Army, they were finally "free men."
No prisoners were lost in the operation; there were two casualties among the Rangers: Capt. James Fischer, the doctor, was killed by mortar fire near the main gate of camp. Cpl. Sweezy died from wounds.