Conduct Under Fire Read online

  Shortly after MacArthur’s visit to Bataan, the Japanese sneaked around opposite sides of Mt. Silanganan in the Natib mountain massif, infiltrating Parker’s left flank and Wainwright’s right. II Corps fell back north of Abucay, rallied, then launched a counterattack on January 12, aided by the 21st Infantry. On January 16 Nara’s 65th Brigade went after the 41st and 51st Divisions on the left side of II Corps. The 41st Division held despite the beating it took from the Japanese. But the Filipino captain of Company G in the 51st Division panicked and his troops scattered, as did the 53rd and 52nd Reserve Regiments. Machine guns and rifles, ammunition and equipment were abandoned, seized by the Japanese, and turned against the fleeing Philippine Army. Jones’s 51st Division was in tatters. Wainwright’s 31st Infantry was called in to reclaim the west flank of II Corps, and fierce fighting followed over the next five days.

  The men were hungry, tired, and sick. Communications with corps headquarters frequently broke down. Some had been on the front lines for two weeks, averaging only three to four hours of sleep a night. There was no quinine for malaria prophylaxis, so if they were infected, they drank liquid quinine straight out of a shot glass. They had little water and food and resorted to eating raw sugarcane. Or they fingered the bodies of dead Japanese soldiers—for crackers, fish bouillon, and rice balls.

  Army Chief of Staff Marshall had assured MacArthur that “the President [has] personally directed the Navy to make every effort to support you.” MacArthur did his rhetorical best to invigorate American and Filipino forces. In a proclamation issued on January 15 he announced:Help is on the way. . . . Thousands of troops and hundreds of planes are being dispatched. The exact time of arrival of reinforcements is unknown. . . . No further retreat is possible. . . . If we fight we will win; if we retreat we will be destroyed.

  West of Mt. Natib, the Japanese launched attacks on January 16 against Wainwright’s I Corps, which was exposed on three sides—north, east, and from the South China Sea. Wainwright’s men were thinly stretched, and on January 21 a Japanese battalion led by Lieutenant Colonel Nakanishi Hiroshi infiltrated the right flank of the Philippine Army’s 1st Regular Division, gaining access to the West Road.

  Acting on Sutherland’s recommendation of January 22, MacArthur ordered a withdrawal to the Bagac-Orion line of defense. In the haste of retreat, the medical detachments lost valuable equipment as the line troops deserted them.

  Hospital No. 1 was inundated with casualties. Enemy planes flew overhead almost hourly. In one twenty-four-hour period 182 major surgical operations were performed. Twelve hundred patients were treated in twenty-nine days. But the inexorable Japanese advance forced a relocation south, and on January 26, the facility moved to Little Baguio at Kilometer 155. The very next day the old hospital, clearly marked with red and white crosses, was leveled by Japanese pilots dropping incendiary bombs.

  The Japanese knew what the emblems signified. The red cross had been formally adopted in the first Geneva Convention of 1864. Indeed Japan, along with Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, was one of the first countries to join the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in 1919.

  Wainwright’s front was twenty miles north of Mariveles. The coastline in between was notched like a jigsaw puzzle with coves and points that gave rise to steep cliffs crowned by thick vegetation. The jungle was so dense, you couldn’t see more than two arms’ lengths in front of you. The heat was unbearable—the hottest dry season ever on Bataan, some said. Exhaustion and dehydration were constant dangers, and the drone of insects an unnerving annoyance.

  Parts of the West Road, which extended from Mauban in the north down to the peninsula’s tip, ran perilously close to the sea. An amphibious attack could jeopardize the supply line of I Corps. But General Allen C. McBride’s Service Command had few men to protect it, so on January 9 Rockwell directed Captain Dessez to create a naval battalion for ground combat. Dessez assigned Commander Francis J. Bridget of Patrol Wing 10, the ranking naval aviator in the Philippines, to organize the fighting force. Navy corpsmen provided medical support. The seriously injured would be removed to the only functioning aid station in the Service Command Area: Tunnel No. 4 where John, Murray, and Bernard Cohen were standing by.

  Short and fiery, “Fidgety Frank” (as the army nicknamed Bridget) set up a command post near the old Quarantine Station and selected 150 of his own men from Air, Asiatic Fleet, 130 crewmen from the Canopus, roughly 120 marines from Batteries A and C, 120 general duty men from Cavite and Mariveles, and 80 men from the Cavite naval ammunition depot. Lieutenant Commander Henry “Hap” Goodall of the Canopus was second in command.

  A motley crew it was, and Bridget turned to the marines to make soldiers out of the lot of them. In a two-day crash course they offered instruction in guns and grenades, weapons and tactics. The marines of course were outfitted for land operations; the navy men weren’t. They used coffee to dye their whites, hoping it would turn them khaki, but instead they emerged a ghastly mustard yellow. They pilfered arms, cadged ammunition, and wrapped themselves in bandoliers like Pancho Villa’s men. Some bluejackets could barely tell the difference between the muzzle of a rifle and its butt. Others admitted they had no idea how to load the damned things. There was one canteen for every third man, so the rest carried cans that doubled as pots. As yet no wire had been strung for field telephones, no radios were available, and most of the newly trained men were unversed in hand and arm signals. They spoke openly on patrols; some even smoked cigarettes. But what they lacked in experience they more than made up for with enthusiasm: they were hunting Japs.

  So was Bulkeley’s MTB Squadron 3, except that four men and one vessel had already been lost to the enemy. The squadron was also without Bob Kelly, who had commanded PT-34 and nearly lost his arm. Kelly suffered a gash in his hand nearly three inches long and an inch wide that left the tendons exposed. He had resisted John’s attempts to treat it, and sepsis had set in. The hand blew up to the size of a catcher’s mitt. John shipped the lieutenant off to the Malinta Tunnel hospital on Corregidor, where he was cooped up for two weeks and dropped thirty-five pounds.

  “We need you,” Bulkeley said to Kelly, bleary-eyed from exhaustion.

  Kelly appealed to his doctor, who agreed to have him discharged if he promised to come back every other day for treatment.

  On the night of January 22 Bulkeley and Kelly were charging up toward Subic Bay in PT-34 when they spotted a vessel lying low in the water. It signaled in dots and dashes; then, when it was twenty-five yards away, its light suddenly went out.

  “Boat ahoy!” Bulkeley called out on his megaphone.

  A blast of machine gun fire answered, and Bulkeley cut loose with his .50 calibers. Tracers illuminated the nocturnal seascape, revealing the steel-plated bow and stern of a landing barge with helmeted Japanese soldiers on board. The PT-34 circled it like a shark. Bulkeley and his men grabbed their automatic rifles and started pumping bullets into it. Another burst of machine gun fire whirred by, and Ensign Barron Chandler was “bleeding like a pig,” shot in both ankles. Reynolds, the boat’s cook, played Pharmacist’s Mate and poured iodine onto the wounds, which Bulkeley wrapped in tourniquets. It was near dawn when the Japanese barge went under the waves.

  PT-34 was heading back to Sisiman Cove when Bulkeley turned around and spotted another landing vessel. They raced toward it, opened fire at 300 yards, and approached within 50 feet. Bullets bounced off the barge’s plated armor until a tracer hit the fuel tank and it burst into flames. Bulkeley pulled up alongside, lobbed in a few grenades, and then jumped into the sinking craft, tommy gun in hand. There were only three Japanese on board; one was dead; two were wounded, a captain and a private. The captain fell to his knees and pleaded, “Me surrender! Me surrender!”

  Bulkeley hoisted them aboard PT-34, where they were placed under armed guard. Staring at the American with the ragged beard and holstered pistols at his sides, the captain feared he would be executed. But as they sped bac
k to Sisiman Cove, Bulkeley wiped the oil from his eyes and examined his head wound. The private, who had been shot five times, asked for a smoke, and one of the crewmen held a cigarette to his mouth while he inhaled. Kelly couldn’t get over it.

  “Ten minutes before, we’d all been pumping steel, hating every Jap in the world. Now we were sorry for these two, they were so abject, sitting there on the deck—little half-pint guys—the youngest boy in our crew looked like a full-grown man beside them. Our crew all came up to take a look. People had been scared of these guys? It seemed impossible!”

  Two barges of Lieutenant Colonel Tsunehiro Nariyoshi’s 2nd Battalion, 20th Infantry, had been lost. The survivors split into two groups. One party of 300 men ended up along the coast at Lapiay, Longoskawayan, and Naiklec Points, bearing machine guns, mortars, and artillery. The remaining 600 soldiers landed seven miles to the north at Quinauan Point. The front had come to the rear.

  On the morning of January 23 marines from Battery A were standing watch in a lookout tower on Mt. Pucot when they spotted an enemy landing at Longoskawayan Point, a mere 2,000 yards from Mariveles. At 617 feet, Mt. Pucot was due west of Mariveles Harbor, and whoever controlled it would control southern Bataan. They notified Commander Bridget, who immediately ordered Holdredge and Hogaboom to confirm the reports, but he failed to inform either of the other’s activities.

  Platoon Sergeant Robert “Duke” Clement led a patrol of thirty-six sailors to support Holdredge and Hogaboom. Lieutenant ( j.g.) Hohn “Swede” Janson was his backup. They scoured the shoreline between Lapiay and Longoskawayan Points looking for signs of infiltration, but by the time they got there, the coast was clear; there was no sign of enemy activity. Clement led his men up a game trail at the end of Longoskawayan Point, and at the top of it they stumbled upon a Japanese command post. It was deserted except for two Japanese cooks dressed in loincloths—fundoshi—who went scurrying off in the opposite direction. Two cauldrons of rice were steaming on a fire. Stacks of enemy rifles were theirs for the taking, as were maps, even a pair of binoculars. They loaded up on arms and were planning their ambush when two Japanese officers and two enlisted men appeared out of the brush. Clement’s men killed two of them instantly, but the other two got away. Then Lieutenant Janson was shot in the middle of the forehead. The bullet went clean through his skull and exited the parietal bone. Still conscious, he asked Clement which patrol was on the next ridge to Mt. Pucot.

  “First Lieutenant William F. Hogaboom’s,” Clement replied.

  “Hey, Hogey,” Janson said. “We have found a Jap CP.”

  His voice was faint.

  “Hey, Hogey,” he whispered. “We have found a Jap CP.”

  Then, ever so quietly, “Hey, Hogey. We have found a Jap CP.”

  His voice faded into silence.

  Clement had sent a runner back to Bridget’s command post to request a stretcher and corpsman for Janson. A machine gun suddenly opened fire, shredding a young mahagony tree in front of his eyes. Clement pulled out his .45 and fired three times; the enemy gun went silent. The Japanese had been reconnoitering and digging in positions on the Mariveles side of the ridgeline. Unarmed Japanese protected by a covering guard fanned out over the ridge, scattering into a valley at the right. Clement’s men picked off a few more of them, and a firefight ensued. When the shooting stopped, he saw blood spurting from his wrist. He placed a flat object against the wound, tightened his bandolier over it, and was able to stanch the bleeding. But fragments had also hit him in the arm and face.

  The firing alerted Holdredge, as well as Hogaboom, who arrived with his platoon. Janson was in a coma. Hogaboom had a corpsman check on him first, then dress Clement’s wounds. The bandages were white, which made him a more conspicuous target. Hogaboom himself had been hit. Soon four sailors arrived with a stretcher to evacuate Janson. The two marine patrols withdrew to a blocking position between Mariveles and Longoskawayan while Bridget gathered reinforcements at the Section Base. A diary found later on the corpse of a Japanese officer marveled at “the new type of suicide squads, which thrashed about in the jungle, wearing bright-colored uniforms and making plenty of noise. Whenever these apparitions reached an open space, they would attempt to draw Japanese fire by sitting down, talking loudly, and lighting cigarettes.”

  On January 25 Holdredge sent a patrol of twenty-two men out for reconnaissance on Longoskawayan Point. It was a Sunday morning, hot and clear. Private 1st Class Wilfred “Chick” Mensching of Gun 3 wore his khaki shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow, someone else’s khaki pants that were too big for him, leggings, high-top shoes, and a doughboy helmet. They were going down a small incline on Mt. Pucot when a Japanese machine gun nest opened fire. Mensching felt his left arm shake. He fell on the ground, covered in blood. He couldn’t hear or see anything until he discovered Private 1st Class Stephen J. Treskon, also of Gun 3, bending over him. Treskon removed the belt from Mensching’s trousers and tied a tourniquet onto his leg to stop the bleeding.

  Holdredge’s platoon had been hit hard. Private 1st Class Warren I. Carver of Battery C was killed. Six navy men from the Canopus lay dead. Eleven marines were wounded. Corpsman Ernie Irvin maintained a first aid station a hundred yards behind the lines. When Mensching was brought in, he was laid down next to another wounded marine, whom Irvin began to work on immediately.

  “Take care of Mensching first,” the wounded marine said. “He doesn’t look like he’s going to make it.”

  Mensching recognized the voice. It was Holdredge, who had been shot in the hip. Irvin flushed Mensching’s leg wound with a bottle of iodine, which burned like the devil.

  “The hell I’m going to go,” the nineteen-year-old Mensching insisted. “I’m going to make it.”

  The naval battalion needed help. Commander Bridget had already received two 81mm mortars from the 4th Marines on Corregidor and a machine gun platoon. The mortars, set up on a saddle northwest of Mt. Pucot, blasted Lapiay and Longoskawayan Points, forcing the Japanese to evacuate Lapiay.

  That same day Bridget contacted USAFFE Headquarters in Malinta Tunnel. Longoskawayan Point was 12,000 yards from Battery Geary on Corregidor, which had eight 12-inch mortars with a 14,000-yard range and a 360-degree field of fire. The 670-pound antipersonnel shells had a bursting radius of 500 feet. Just after midnight on January 26, Battery Geary concentrated eight rounds on the enemy.

  It was “the first firing by major caliber artillery guns at an enemy since the Civil War,” noted Major General George F. Moore. Four rounds hit the shoreline; the other four were wide of the mark. The fires were so intense, it was impossible for Lieutenant Richard P. Fulmer to “spot” for accuracy and orientation. Over the next two days Geary fired another twenty-four rounds, and when the battery was on target, the effects were shattering.

  The descending shells sounded like boxcars in the sky. “Tōjō,” the marines would holler, “count your men—we’re going to take a few.” Flames blackened the jungle floor, leaving Japanese positions completely exposed. Colonel Paul D. Bunker, who was in charge of Corregidor’s Seaward Defense Command, supervised Geary’s “shoot.” Bunker wished “that we could see what that Langoskawayan [sic] Point looks like, after all our shelling—and we’re wondering how anybody could be left alive on it.” One wounded Japanese prisoner later told an interrogator for G-2, MacArthur’s intelligence section:We were terrified. We could not know where the big shells or bombs were coming from; they seemed to be falling from the sky. Before I was wounded, my head was going round and round, and I did not know what to do. Some of my companions jumped off the cliff to escape the terrible fire.

  But other Japanese soldiers were undaunted. They climbed into trees so they could shoot marines in the back. They burrowed into caves, where they were safe until they faced the deadly ingenuity of the naval battalion.

  Hap Goodall of the Canopus had had the brilliant idea of equipping three motor launches with .50-caliber machines each and reinforcing them with boiler plate. “Mickey Mouse bat
tleships,” they were called, but the purpose for which they were suited was no laughing matter. The miniature fleet churned eight miles up the coast, took aim at the cliffs where the Japanese were holed up, and fired directly into the rocky orifices. The Japanese never stood a chance. It was as easy as shooting ducks in a barrel.

  On the dawn of January 27, marine mortars and Filipino artillery pummeled Longoskawayan Point. But a disorganized attack by the naval battalion led to a Japanese counterattack, forcing the Americans to withdraw. Hogaboom knew they couldn’t hold their ground without reinforcements. They were tired and hungry, and their ranks were stretched thin.

  Corpsman Ernie Irvin was pressed into service to help hold the line. His chest crisscrossed with bandoliers of bullets, he carried five grenades in his first aid kit and stood guard at a trail leading up to a ridge, two hours on, two hours off. He had eaten only two sandwiches in four days and was so low on water, he joked, he didn’t need toilet paper; he used a whisk broom. In the early morning hours of January 28, 500 men from the 2nd Battalion of 57th Infantry, Philippine Scouts, relieved the naval battalion.