Shadows In the Jungle (34 page)

“What's the ground like around the camp?”

“As bad as we were told,” Nellist said. “It's a wide-open plain of low grass and cultivated fields. So far, we haven't been able to get close enough to see a lot of detail. We can't see inside the camp.”

“But you're sure the prisoners are still there?”

“Yes, sir,” Nellist replied. “Pajota has assured us they are. They're too weak and sick to be transported.”

“What about Jap troops?” Mucci asked.

“The Dokuko 359 Battalion is bivouacked at the Cabu River, half a mile away to the northeast,” he said. “Inside the camp itself, we figure about seventy guards and maybe another one hundred to two hundred transients who stopped for the night. Four tanks went into the camp, none came back out.”

Mucci sat quietly for a few moments.

“All right,” he said firmly. “We'll reschedule the attack for nineteen thirty on Tuesday. But the info you've supplied me with is not good enough, Lieutenant. I need more, a lot more. I need to know the number of sentries, how many guard towers they have and their location, are there any machine-gun emplacements, where are the prisoners housed, where are the guards housed, are there tanks, how is the fence constructed and does the gate swing in or out. That is vital information. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Nellist acknowledged. “We'll get it.”

* * *

Nellist had made that pledge to Mucci without knowing how he would go about delivering on it. For the rest of the night, the Scouts watched the stream of Japanese vehicles roll by the camp, moving north in the direction of Bongabon. At dawn, as expected, the traffic stopped. The Scouts also watched for any sign that the Japanese were about to kill the prisoners, but Nellist felt that, with just the few guards, and the fact that the main gate remained closed, this seemed unlikely.

Nellist discussed the challenge of gathering more information with Rounsaville.

“There's only one way I can think of,” he said, watching a few farmers work the fields between him and the camp. Then he pointed to a solitary nipa hut, mounted on stilts, that sat some two hundred yards from the camp's main gate, just on the other side of the highway. “We need to get into that hut.”

“Well, you can't go out there dressed like that,” Rounsaville said. Then he turned to one of his men, Rufo Vaquilar. “Pontiac, see if you can borrow some farmers' clothes.”

While the American-born Filipino went about his assignment, Nellist informed Pajota of his plan. The guerrilla leader assured them that word would be gotten to the farmers to ignore the two strangers and added a warning that should there be any betrayal, the guilty person would have more to fear from him than from the Japanese.

A short time later, two farmers slowly walked across the fields, making their way to the lone hut, where, they had been told, farm implements were stored. The two—Nellist and Vaquilar—wore peasant garb, baggy to help conceal the Colt .45 automatics hidden underneath, and large, wide-brimmed straw buri hats. Nellist also had slipped his carbine inside his trouser leg, causing him to walk with a limp that he hoped would not attract attention.

The two men kept about a hundred yards distance between them to avoid the appearance of being together. Nellist, who was taller than the average Filipino, walked stooped and would occasionally stop and bend down, as if inspecting the crops growing around his feet. As promised, the other farmers kept working, not acknowledging the men walking past them.

Reaching the hut, first Nellist, then Vaquilar, they climbed the ladder. Inside, both men collapsed to the floor briefly to rest their taut nerves. They expected at any time to hear warning shouts, but none came. A battered rocking chair stood by an open window that faced the compound just two hundred yards away. Nellist drew the carbine from his trousers and sat in the chair, carefully peeking out the window. His eyes lit up as the entire camp was spread out before him. Beyond the wire he could see weary prisoners shuffling around and could count the number of guards at the gatehouse and in the guard tower at the northeast corner of the camp.

“Yes, Pontiac, there is a God,” Nellist beamed.

Referring to an aerial photograph of the camp, Nellist began using his carbine to sight in on various buildings as a means of gauging distances and elevations. By that means, he drew a rough map of the camp in his notebook. When he identified a building, he labeled it with a number on the aerial photo, with the building's description written on a paper overlay.

Pajota helped the Scouts collect more detail. A number of his guerrillas, also dressed as farmers, moved freely around the fields near the camp, observing and making mental notes. Then they meandered into the “tool hut” to report. One young boy mounted on the back of a hulking caraboa rode the beast around the entire perimeter of the camp, noting terrain features and Japanese defensive positions. Vaquilar, meanwhile, left the hut and located some of the Filipino farmers who had worked inside the camp. He questioned them in detail.

From his observations and from reports coming to him from the locals and the guerrillas, Nellist knew that the compound was eight hundred yards deep and six hundred wide. The camp was bisected by a dirt road, with the prisoners billeted on the left of the road and the guards and camp officers to the right. Additional barracks buildings to the rear of the camp behind the prisoners' huts were used to house transient troops. The buildings were mostly constructed of bamboo with thatched roofs. The ground inside the camp sloped upward slightly as one walked from front to back. The main gate was eight feet tall and consisted of two doors constructed of lumber and barbed wire, and secured by a single padlock. When opened, the gates swung either in or out. The compound was surrounded by three rows of barbed wire ten feet high and guarded by two guard towers, one at the northeast corner and the other at the rear of the camp, and four pillboxes, although the pillboxes did not appear to be manned. Nellist saw no sign of the tanks that had rolled in the day before, but he did note a large galvanized metal building that could serve as a garage three hundred yards inside the main gate. On a grimmer note, a large makeshift cemetery was at the camp's southeast corner.

He estimated the camp garrison at 75 men with possibly another 150 transient troops inside, although they might be gone by dark.

About one thirty in the afternoon—Nellist and Vaquilar had been in the hut for some two hours—Vaquilar spotted Gil Cox, Harold Hard, and Franklin Fox crawling toward them. They had taken the circuitous route back to the Pampanga River, then snaked their way across the field undetected. When they reached the bottom of the ladder leading up into the hut, Nellist glared down at them.

“What the hell is this, a convention?” he snarled. “Where are the others?”

“Spread out all over,” Fox said.

“Stay there,” Nellist ordered. Then he folded up his notes and the map and dropped them down to Fox. “Get that back to Mucci before he blows his cork.”

After the Scouts departed, Nellist and Vaquilar hung around to continue their observation. About four p.m., Nellist said it was time to go.

As they prepared to depart, Vaquilar, alarm in his voice, said, “Bill.”

Nellist saw Vaquilar peeking out the window and joined him.

A young native girl had approached the main gate to the camp and began talking to the guards. She handed something to one of the Japanese soldiers, causing Nellist, as he later noted, to become “damned concerned” lest she betray them.

“Goddamn it,” Nellist cursed. “I thought Pajota warned the civvies to keep the hell away from the camp.”

“I'm sure she didn't spot us,” Vaquilar said. “Do you think she saw the Rangers?”

“I don't know,” Nellist replied.

After a while, the girl left and the Scouts continued watching.

Vaquilar said, “Why don't I go out there and walk around and see if the Nips are wise to anything?”

“OK,” Nellist said. “Go ahead, but I can't cover you from here.”

“I know,” he said.

Vaquilar slipped two pistols under his clothes and left, walking away to the right. When he reached the road, he strolled along the shoulder, passing the camp and the guards within no more than forty feet. As he walked by the guards, he respectfully tipped his straw hat. The guards nodded sullenly in reply. As he acknowledged the guards, Vaquilar used the opportunity to scan the camp with his eyes. All seemed quiet. Twenty minutes later he was back in the hut.

“Everything seems normal,” he reported.

“Good. Let's get the hell out of here,” Nellist said, and they departed, satisfied that whatever the girl had told the Japanese, it had nothing to do with the impending attack. The two men breathed easier.

What Nellist did not know was that the girl was trying to sell the Japanese fresh fruit, and that she had been sent by Pajota to spy.

Satisfied the Japanese were none the wiser, the two Scouts climbed down the ladder. They walked back along the road, then cut across the fields and soon rejoined Rounsaville and the rest of the men.

* * *

That night, in a nipa hut in Platero, Mucci, Prince, Pajota, Joson, Nellist, Rounsaville, Dove, and Prince's platoon leaders, Lts. John Murphy, Melville H. Schmidt, and William J. O'Connell, were gathered around a small table formulating their plan of attack. By the light of an oil lantern, Mucci spread out Nellist's sketch. Mucci immediately noted that the biggest threat to the operation were the Japanese at the Cabu bridge. Pajota said he and his men would tie the enemy down with small-arms fire to prevent them from crossing over the river, while Joson and some more guerrillas would establish a roadblock west of the camp to prevent any help coming from Cabanatuan City.

“We will need thirty minutes to get in there and get the POWs out,” Mucci said.

“We understand,” Pajota agreed.

The next problem was crossing the seven hundred yards of open field undetected. Even crawling, as they would need to do, there was a high probability of being spotted by Japanese in the guard tower. A diversion was needed, and at Pajota's suggestion a request was radioed back for a plane to fly low over the camp. Pajota had told Mucci that flyovers by U.S. planes irritated the Japanese and drew their undivided attention.

Prince next addressed the actual attack on the compound.

“When we get to this depression near the road,” Prince said, “Murphy, I want you to take your platoon and swing left and make your way to the rear gate. O'Connell, Schmidt, your platoons will go through the main gate once we've opened it. When we get inside, O'Connell, your men sweep the camp to the right of the road. That's where the Japs are. Schmidt, your platoon will follow me to the left and free the prisoners. You Scouts can go in with me.”

He next assigned the unit's bazooka team to head at the double-quick for the corrugated shed and knock out any tanks that might roll out.

“The main thing is to get the prisoners moving,” Prince said. “Herd them, shove them, carry them, I don't care. But we have to get them back to the Pampanga River, where the Filipinos will have caraboa carts waiting to carry the weakest.

“Murphy, you start the show,” Prince ordered. “At nineteen thirty, you fire a single shot. That's the signal. When we've cleared out all of the POWs, I will fire a red flare. That means the raid is over, and everyone should be pulling back.”

“Remember, all of the prisoners go,” Mucci said. “No one is left behind.”

* * *

As the sun rose on the morning of January 30, the Rangers breakfasted on coffee, eggs, and fruit supplied by Platero villagers. Ahead of them, the Scouts downed K rations. Nellist and Rounsaville had returned from Platero and briefed their men on the plan and their role in it. Then, like the Rangers, they sat and waited.

Throughout the day, the Scouts kept an eye on the camp, watching for any unusual activity, but all remained quiet.

With the sinking of the sun late that afternoon, Prince and his men, less Mucci and Dove, who remained in Platero, joined the Scouts. And as the evening deepened, 121 Rangers and 13 Alamo Scouts were crawling across the field, nose to boot heel. Initially, the grass was tall, affording adequate concealment, but the closer the men drew to the road, the shorter the grass. Prince signaled a halt, and everyone stopped.

Where the hell was the flyover?

As if on signal, at about six thirty p.m., a Northrup P-61 Black Widow from the 547th Night Fighter Squadron came roaring out of the sky and skimmed over the camp. Out in the field, the attackers could hear the prisoners cheer as the twin-tailed night fighter, named
Hard to Get
and flown by twenty-six-year-old Kenneth Schreiber, buzzed overhead, its twin Wasp engines resounding across the landscape. All eyes in the camp, Allied and Japanese, were pointed skyward, some in joy, others in anger as the aircraft made several low passes overhead, often turning and twisting and climbing and diving.

With the Japanese guards focused on the aerial acrobatics overhead, Prince signaled forward, and everyone resumed crawling.

The plane made several passes, during which Schreiber could see the Rangers crawling across the field, before flying off into the rapidly darkening sky.

As the Rangers approached the camp, a bell began tolling from somewhere inside the wire. The attackers froze where they were and waited, expecting that at any moment the field would be swept by searchlights. But nothing happened. Prince later learned that the bell was rung by a navy POW who insisted on sounding the watch. The men crawled on.

The last two hundred yards of field were the worst. The grass was lowest here, and though it was pitch dark now, a full moon would soon be rising from behind the Sierra Madres and would bathe the landscape in its eerie glow. Time was of the essence.