Conduct Under Fire Read online

  The navy did its best to prevent the Japanese from seizing American supplies in Manila. More than 100 tons of supplies and field equipment were shipped from the Cañacao Naval Medical Supply Depot alone. One complete battalion field unit was sent to Mariveles, where it was set up in an area behind the Navy Section Base known as Camp Dewey to treat an overflow of patients from the dispensary. Another partial battalion field unit was assigned to the 1st Separate Battalion in Mariveles and then moved to Corregidor.

  But the dispersal of medical equipment throughout the eight annexes of the Manila Hospital Center made a complete evacuation impossible. Major Orion V. “Pete” Kempf, Sternberg’s medical supply officer, worked day and night to move stocks by truck to the Philippine Medical Supply Depot near Hospital No. 1 on the Bataan-Mariveles road and by barge to Corregidor. Further efforts were hampered once Filipino crews abandoned the railroads and transportation by train screeched to a halt. As a result, substantial stores were left behind at Clark Field, at Fort McKinley, and at Fort Stotsenberg, which had been prematurely abandoned by American officers and fell prey to looting. Red Cross warehouses in Santa Ana and Santa Mesa were vandalized; depots at Tarlac and Los Baños were sacked. Rizal Stadium was stacked high with food and supplies that never made it to Bataan or Corregidor. What had miraculously survived the bombings of the Cavite Navy Yard and Sangley Point, but couldn’t be removed on time to Mariveles and the Rock, now had to be destroyed.

  On December 24 at his office in the Marsman Building, Admiral Hart informed Rear Admiral Rockwell that MacArthur was planning on declaring Manila an “Open City” on Christmas Day. Hart himself had just learned the news, which gave him twenty-four hours to remove all ships, submarines, and supplies from Manila. Under the Geneva Convention, military activity was prohibited in an “open city.” The intention, as the proclamation stated, was “to spare the Metropolitan area from the possible ravages of attack, either by air or ground.” The Japanese used it as an open invitation to step up bombing.

  Since Hart was transferring headquarters south, Rockwell would assume command of all naval forces in the Philippines, which amounted to six PT boats, two submarine tenders, three minesweepers, three river gunboats, two district and two civilian tugs, and two converted yachts. Headquarters of the 16th Naval District would be relocated in one of the four navy tunnels on Corregidor. It was Rockwell’s last meeting with Hart, and it was interrupted three times by air raids.

  In a separate meeting Rockwell instructed Colonel Howard to mine the Olongapo Naval Station and incorporate the 1st Separate Battalion into the 4th Regiment. Before Olongapo was demolished, Fred Berley ventured into the abandoned PBY barracks, where in one of the lockers he found a few towels, a Gem razor, a toothbrush, and eighty pesos. He took down the locker owner’s name and left him a note saying he’d return the money when he got back to the States.

  There was no time to lose. The Canopus was hit that day, bomb fragments spattering its decks. The naval medical supply depot was demolished. Depth charges were placed in the forward torpedo room and conning tower of the Sealion to scuttle it. Manila’s waterfront was about to go up in flames.

  That same morning Hayes arrived in Mariveles with Lieutenant ( j.g.) Robert G. Herthneck of the Dental Corps, and Pharmacist’s Mate Jeremiah V. Crews. On his way in he met Lieutenant John Edward Nardini at his aid station in the Cabulog River valley, “a gentleman and a scholar.” Then he went to the Section Base dispensary to introduce himself to John Bookman, “another excellent medical officer.” They were in the midst of a conversation when an air raid siren sounded. Bookman and Hayes took cover in one of the tunnels under construction. Explosions rolled like thunder into the hills.

  The Japanese had spotted the Free French freighter SS Si Kiang fifty yards offshore in Mariveles Harbor. Bound for Indochina, she had been intercepted and detained by the Americans. Colonel Otto Harwood, an army quartermaster officer, decided to seize her valuable cargo of gasoline, kerosene, and flour for the Camp Limay depot and requested a marine guard. Harwood had spent the past ten days dispersing stocks from Limay for the supply of troops along the East Road. The bulk of the work took place at night to avoid aerial detection, but the Si Kiang was unloaded in broad daylight. It was an invitation to disaster. Enemy planes plastered the ship with bombs before targeting the Section Base and moving on to Manila Bay installations. The fuel had already been salvaged, but five million pounds of flour were lost.

  A PT boat sped out to the sinking vessel. Ambulances and litter parties rushed down to the dock. John Bookman and George Ferguson stood by to receive the wounded at the Camp Dewey aid station. It was the first bombing of Mariveles and their first medical emergency together. The two doctors worked coolly, quickly, professionally. George, who had years of experience over John, demonstrated keen judgment without ever being judgmental, without ever pulling rank. He was colorful, colloquial, and always made the best of a bad situation, and this one wasn’t too bad. John liked him immediately. A few of the wounded were evacuated to Hospital No. 1 in Limay. Overflow patients from the Section Base were bedded down in Nardini’s aid station. But it was clear that the Section Base dispensary would also have to be evacuated. In a broad, open meadow, it stood in the crosshairs of enemy bombers.

  Hayes saw at first hand the smooth, well-oiled operation the junior medical officers ran in Mariveles, and it filled him with pride. The air raid was over by 1600, but the flames from the ship burned through the night, lighting the way for bombers along the East Road. “Just why they didn’t come back that night and blow hell out of us is difficult to understand,” Hayes later wrote. Eight marines from the 1st Battalion were on board the Si Kiang. Two were killed, and three were injured along with a dozen or so crew members. They were the first losses sustained by the 1st Battalion, the first men in his unit George had seen die.

  As Hayes put it, “Life was a matter of staying under cover in the bamboo jungle, no canvas was permitted, the camps were constantly moving, bathing facilities were the stream beds, and one slept on the ground near a foxhole or some convenient ditch into which one could roll in the event of an air attack.”

  On Christmas Eve, MacArthur, President Quezon, High Commissioner Sayre, and their respective families and staffs evacuated Manila for Corregidor. Manila’s gold, silver, paper money, and securities were packed into trunks, lockers, and whiskey crates to be deposited in the government vault in Corregidor’s Government Ravine. Brigadier General Richard J. Marshall, USAFFE deputy chief of staff, was instructed to stay behind until the withdrawal of men and matériel was complete. Quezon ordered his executive secretary, Jorge Vargas, and his secretary of justice, José Laurel, to remain in Manila “to deal with the Japanese.”

  The Port Area was deserted. The Sealion exploded at midnight. Pillars of fire illuminated the sky in the absence of moonlight. The Canopus steamed toward Mariveles, “with great columns of smoke astern of us,”13 said Captain E. L. Sackett, “as evidence that the army was scorching the earth as they prepared to withdraw into Bataan.”

  Manila awoke to “a strange Christmas Day,” remarked the Manila Bulletin, “facing with fortitude the peril of enemy bombs and alien invasion, besieged with false rumor and seeking comfort in the 2,000-year-old observance of the birth of Christ.” Bing Crosby’s “Adeste Fidelis” was playing from the loudspeakers in Manila’s City Hall tower when it was interrupted by the wail of an air raid siren. The bombing of the docks and harbor installations intensified.

  The Sangley Point radio station, marine railway, and ammunition depot were detonated with depth charges and dynamite by the demolition detail of the 1st Separate Battalion at Cavite before they left for Mariveles. The district naval intelligence officer, Lieutenant Mike Cheek, destroyed confidential documents and nonessential files. One million gallons of oil were sent up in flames. The city was ringed with fire. The last directive of Rear Admiral Rockwell, 16th Naval District commandant, to Captain Davis was “to maintain a naval hospital in the Manila area.�
�� But the army viewed Balintawak, where the Cañacao medical staff were in residence at Philippine Union College, as a potential battleground. So the naval hospital unit and its patients were moved again—the third time in as many weeks—to Santa Scholastica College. Murray’s orders were changed as well.

  Around noon Murray was dispatched by Colonel Carroll and Captain Davis to Philippine Union College. There he joined two medical officers, one dental officer, and fifteen corpsmen preparing to leave for Mariveles. But only one truck was available, so Murray and seven corpsmen returned to Manila, where he was instructed by Admiral Hart’s office to leave by boat at 1600. No boat was available. He quartered his men in the White House Hotel.

  Christmas carolers strolled through the streets, their songs punctuated by explosions. The gasoline and oil stores of Caltex, Mobil, and Shell were being jettisoned in the Pandacan district, sending flames hundreds of feet into the air. It was Murray’s last night in the city, and he asked Galia, one of the White Russian women from Shanghai, if she would spend it with him. She was visibly nervous when they checked into the Manila Hotel. He had registered her as his wife. But it was a romantic evening, and from their bed they watched the nighttime sky streaked with mysterious red flares and intermittent gunfire. The war seemed far away, unreal, its sounds muffled by distance and desire. He would be gone in the morning, and he knew he would never see Galia again. She must have known the same, must have been used to it, too. But she wanted him to understand why she had been so uncomfortable at first. He was Jewish, and she hadn’t ever thought she could marry a Jewish man.

  In the early morning hours of December 26, Admiral Hart stole away from Manila Bay aboard the submarine Shark. A banner was strung across City Hall that declared Manila an “Open City” and implored “No Shooting.” The newspapers carried the text of the proclamation and reported that Hong Kong had fallen. A column of smoke from the bombing of the waterfront eclipsed the sun. Every boat and banca in the Pasig River, it seemed, had been sunk. Masts of doomed ships poked through the water like so many dead branches. It was time to say goodbye.

  From Manila the road to Bataan runs north on Route 3, swings southwest at San Fernando on Route 7, then goes down the coast on the East Road—the old National Road—past the steep zigzag below “Little Baguio,” and on to Mariveles. When two vehicles met head on, you had to creep over to the shoulder or backtrack until you found a cutout to let the other pass. When an enemy plane flew overhead, you pulled under a tree, and dove into a trench or a foxhole if you could find one.

  This was the main artery for thousands of Fil-American troops en route to positions and encampments, and for days it was choked with traffic—army jeeps, Bren gun carriers, Pambusco buses, cars, caretelas, and carabao-driven carts. The dust and fumes from tanks, trucks, trailers, and half-tracks were nearly asphyxiating to the foot soldiers and civilians. The dirt tracks leading back into the hills—bundok, the Filipinos called them, or boondocks, as the Americans interpreted them—were “black with people striving to reach their native villages before the murderous armies overwhelmed them,” wrote AP correspondent Clark Lee.

  Philippine Army soldiers held up two fingers to signal “V for Victory Joe.” To which the wiseacres of the 192nd Tank Battalion replied, toward the end of the retreat: “V for vacate, Joe.” Drivers lost their way, tempers frayed, engines overheated, fuel was depleted, and vehicles broke down. Philippine Army engineers stopped traffic and blew bridges, sometimes too soon, leaving marching men stranded on the wrong side of a river. Soldiers were separated from their units; units were separated from their food and supplies. Along the way the army could be seen digging in defensive positions and gun emplacements.

  The Japanese had breached the second line of defense in northern Luzon. They had crossed the Agno River, bypassed the exhausted 26th Cavalry of the Philippine Scouts, and broken through Highway 3, which runs south of San Miguel down to San Fernando. They had forced the 11th Division of the Philippine Army back, elements of which had been cut off by the Lingayen landings. In southern Luzon two Japanese columns were moving west from Lamon Bay, grinding toward the capital city. The noose around Manila was tightening.

  Murray and his corpsmen slipped through by truck. The corpsmen were armed to the teeth with pistols and daggers and looked more like a band of brigands than medical personnel. Hostile planes threatened the exodus, but their efforts were sporadic. When the men reached Mariveles, it was obvious something was wrong. The place was a ghost town. Where the hell was everybody? Murray wondered.

  Suddenly the commanding officer of the Section Base, W. H. Harrington, came barreling up and bellowing at the top of his lungs: “Godammit! I told you guys to take cover when an air raid siren goes off, and the next one who doesn’t, I’m going to shoot!”

  Murray explained that they had just come from Manila, hadn’t heard the alarm, and certainly would have taken cover if they had. They hid in the woods, and once the all-clear sounded, Harrington proudly showed off the Mariveles Harbor defenses. By accident, he fired a .50-caliber machine gun, which sent a stream of bullets skittering across the water.

  Killing your own men, Murray thought. The idea was absurd.

  6

  Rendezvous

  YOU NEVER KNEW how you were going to react under fire. Some men were stoic, some hysterical. Some men saw a job to be done, some couldn’t help but run. Some men soiled themselves, some kept a stiff upper lip. Some saw the air compress before their eyes, some tasted metal in their mouths. The bomb craters became graves, and the graves left gaping holes in the lives of loved ones back home that were never filled in, not really, not completely. As Chaplain William Thomas Cummings is alleged to have said in one of his field sermons on Bataan: “There are no atheists in foxholes.”

  George Ferguson would turn twenty-eight on New Year’s Day. It was a time of reckoning, to be sure. Two and a half years in the navy, three weeks of war. Five hundred dead at Cavite, four hundred injured, one suicide. Fourteen dead at Sangley Point, seventeen wounded. Two and a half years of marriage, and not one Christmas or New Year’s with Lucy. He was about to become a full lieutenant.

  He keenly felt her absence, imagined the void he had created in her life, which had changed dramatically since she returned from Shanghai to the States. Going back to Wausau must have felt like walking into an old bedroom you hadn’t slept in for years. Lucy decided to move in with a friend in Evanston, Illinois, where she taught first grade at Highland Park.

  George couldn’t complain. Life at the Section Base in Mariveles had been pretty good. The rooms were small, but the view was swell. There were showers, laundry service, even a hole in a nearby rock for a bomb shelter. Hell, the place was a palace compared to that pothole he had hidden out in near Cañacao. Like the rest of the marines concentrated in Mariveles, the doctors were already on rations of two meals a day. They supplemented their diet with crackers, hardtack, canned meat, and whatever provisions they could find. Unlike Fred, who had no Christmas meal during the arduous retreat from Olongapo, George enjoyed a little holiday ham and turkey in his supper. “What a Christmas but glad I’m alive,” he penned in his diary. “Wounded all okay.”

  The Section Base was protected by Lieutenant William F. Hogaboom’s Battery A, which surveilled harbor facilities from lookout points on Pucot and High Ridge. Up the East Road in a dried-out rice paddy surrounded by bushes was Willy Holdredge’s Battery C, insulated with several thousand sandbags. A small mountain stream nearby was used for cooking, cleaning, and bathing.

  To the southeast were seven tunnels that had been blasted out of a hillside with jackhammers and dynamite for a naval ammunition and mine depot, diesel oil and fuel storage, headquarters and personnel. Two more tunnels were excavated at the Mariveles airstrip. The tailings were dumped into rice paddies to lay a base foundation for the roads.

  Mariveles was now the temporary headquarters of the 4th Marines. With the exceptions of Batteries A and C and the radar detachment of the 1st Separa
te Battalion, the regiment would move to Corregidor on the nights of December 27 and 28. Most of the marines were bivouacked in the bamboo jungle because of the danger of air raids. George replaced John Nardini as battalion surgeon of the 1st Separate Battalion—or “Desperate Bat,” as he called them. He took command of the aid station in the Cabulog River valley, which relieved the Section Base dispensary of further care for them.

  John and Murray would remain behind to oversee all medical activities in Mariveles, assisted by Lieutenant (j.g.) Bernard Cohen, who had arrived from Balintawak and set up shop at the Quarantine Station. Murray was amazed at the change that had come over John since he’d last seen him in Manila. Sociability had replaced shyness, and confidence had won out over insecurity. John seemed to know everyone at the Section Base, down to the mining engineers. His position as medical officer conferred a certain authority, but it was the manner in which he interacted with officers, enlisted men, staff, and Filipino laborers that earned him their respect. Every once in a while he could even get those cowboys in MTB Squadron 3, Captain John Bulkeley and Lieutenant Robert B. Kelly, to listen to him. What had initially appeared to Murray as a pale personality bloomed into full color. Murray couldn’t have imagined such a profound transformation. He found himself far more at ease with John now that John seemed more comfortable with himself, more open to the idea of friendship. Perhaps what was most surprising was Murray’s own surprise at how quickly people can change.