Shadows In the Jungle (35 page)

It had taken an hour to crawl across the field, and by the time Prince's men reached the drainage ditch, night had taken over completely and lights burned inside the camp. The attackers were just across the road from the main gate, and twenty yards ahead they could see the glow of the guards' cigarettes. Inside, guards—some dressed only in loincloths in the evening heat—were seen lounging and chatting. Oriental music from an unseen record player or radio filtered through the night. Even the sentries in the towers seemed relaxed.

On reaching the ditch, Murphy's platoon split off to the left. As they made their way around the side of the camp some sound, real or imagined, spooked a guard. He shouted out a challenge, not once but several times, and took a few steps toward the crouching Americans. Cursing to himself, Murphy drew a bead on the man with his carbine, placed his finger on the trigger, and held his breath as he waited. His patience paid off, as the guard, seemingly satisfied that it was his imagination or a passing animal, withdrew.

Murphy's men finally reached their position, but Murphy, nervous at being the one to signal the attack, decided to wait beyond the seven thirty starting time to be sure everyone else was in position. At the front gate, the others waited, nerves as taut as cables, wondering about Murphy's delay. Then, at about seven forty, ten minutes behind schedule, Murphy took aim at a soldier in the camp who was seated on a bench and squeezed off a round. The sound of the carbine in the still night was ear-shattering. The soldier jerked, then toppled to the ground. A sentry in the guard tower yelled something, then gunfire instantly splintered the bamboo wall. The guard spun and dropped from the tower, landing on the roof of a barracks building.

At the sound of the first shot, the Rangers at the front gate opened fire. A sentry by the gatehouse fell dead. Kittleson and Ranger Sgt. Ted Richardson raced forward. Richardson's job was to get the gate open. He smacked it with the butt of his Thompson, but the lock refused to yield. He slipped his .45 automatic from its holster and aimed at the lock. Inside the camp, a Japanese guard fired at Richardson. The bullet struck the pistol and sent it flying. Kittleson, with his Tommy gun, and a BAR man fired on the soldier, who was thrown backward by the impact of the slugs. They then raked the camp as Richardson retrieved his pistol and shot off the lock. As he pushed the gate inward, it snagged on the body of the dead sentry just inside the wire.

“Pull it toward us,” Kittleson yelled.

They did and Rangers were soon streaming into the compound.

Bullets buzzed through the air. Rangers and Japanese alike were yelling and some screamed in pain as lead found flesh. Rangers kicked open the doors of the buildings identified as Japanese-occupied, sprayed the inside with their weapons, then tossed in grenades. Flames began to lick the walls of the bamboo structures.

* * *

By now the fight had also gotten under way at the Cabu bridge. The rattle of gunfire erupted, followed by a dull boom that rumbled across the landscape as Pajota's guerrillas exploded TNT under the bridge that separated the Japanese from the prison camp.

The bridge remained standing, but was badly holed, preventing tanks from crossing over. However, Japanese troops formed up on the far side and, with a shout of “Banzai,” stormed across the damaged span.

Pajota's men were ready for them.

Formed into an inverted V, they poured rifle and machine-gun fire into the screaming mass, driving them back. Outraged, the Japanese charged into the murderous fire again and again, with devastating results, their dead stacking up on the bridge three and four bodies deep.

A Japanese attempt to flank the guerrillas by wading across the river upstream from the bridge was also turned back.

* * *

The Rangers raced through the camp, blasting huts and spraying lead at enemy defenders. The Japanese, caught unaware by the sudden attack, had no plan of defense, and their bodies littered the ground.

Through this maelstrom, the Ranger bazooka team ran to their assigned position near the corrugated iron shed. As a loader slid a rocket into the tube, two trucks carrying infantrymen burst out of the garage door on the building and raced for the front gate. The bazooka man, Sergeant Stewart, lined up on the first truck and let fly. The rocket tore into the truck, which erupted in flame. The loader quickly fed in a new round and tapped Stewart on the shoulder to indicate “ready.” Stewart, aiming at the second truck, squeezed the trigger. The rocket closed the distance in a heartbeat. It hit the truck, which blew up. The force of the explosion drove it into the first truck, creating a massive pyre of burning junk. Stewart reloaded, turned, and sent a third rocket into the shed itself, which was torn apart with a roar of smoke and fire. The two bazooka men then took up their carbines and began shooting the Japanese, some with flaming clothes, who were jumping from the burning trucks.

* * *

Lieutenant Schmidt and his men had by now made it into the prisoner quarters and began herding POWs toward the gate. Frightened and thinking the Japanese were killing them, many refused to go and some even tried to hide or resist.

“Get to the front gate,” a Ranger yelled. “You're being rescued.”

Off to the side, the Rangers heard a man yell “Banzai” and turned to see a lone guard charging them. A few rounds from a carbine cut him down.

All of the prisoners were emaciated and weak, and a number had to be helped out of the camp. Some were carried on the backs of Rangers. Cpl. Jim Herrick, a Ranger, carried one man who died one hundred feet short of the gate, his frail health giving out even as liberation loomed.

“I'm not putting him down,” Kittleson heard him say. “No one gets left behind.”

A Japanese mortar began to fire, dropping rounds among the raiders and prisoners alike. The detonation of the first round sent metal shards flying, one of which caught Rounsaville in the buttocks. He grunted with pain and fell.

“I got him,” Nellist shouted, and ran to his friend.

Rolling Rounsaville over, he cut away the bloody trousers with his knife and saw a jagged piece of steel protruding from the flesh.

“The medic isn't here,” he said. “I'll operate on you.”

“Oh, great,” Rounsaville moaned, then winced as Nellist dug out the offending metal with a pliers.

“Goddamn it, Bill,” Rounsaville said through waves of pain. “You're all thumbs.”

“Hey,” Nellist said and grinned. “Just think how proud you'll be when they pin that Purple Heart on your ass.”

He patched the wound with a bandage and said, “Now get to the river.”

Shrapnel from another mortar round hit Alamo Scout Alfred Alfonso in the gut. He rolled in pain, his hands clutching his bloody midsection. A Ranger was hit by the same round and a medic raced over and began treating both men. He stabilized them and had them sent to the rear, Alfonso carried on a stretcher.

As it launched a third round, Nellist and others spotted the mortar and opened fire, silencing the gun. However, the last round seriously wounded the Rangers' only physician, Capt. James Fisher. Grievously injured, he was carried to the rear.

To Kittleson, it looked as if “the gates of hell had been thrown open” as these human skeletons, backlit by burning buildings, shuffled toward him, trancelike.

Not far from Kittleson, Ranger corporal Roy Sweezy, one of Murphy's squad leaders, was shot down. He was dead by the time his buddy, Cpl. Francis Schilli, got to his side. Schilli administered last rites with his canteen, then hoisted the body up onto his back and carried him out.

No one is left behind.

By the front gate, Scout Sgt. Harold Hard saw one prisoner, literally skin and bones, who seemed about to collapse. He reached out and took the man by the arm, horrified that his fingers and thumb reached the entire way around the skinny limb. He gently led the man rearward.

Kittleson helped another man toward the river. As he did, the man told him how the Japanese had made them work the fields, even when sick, and beat them if they looked up from the ground.

Many of the prisoners wore the tattered remains of uniforms, but some were clad only in white underwear. This drew sporadic Japanese fire, so Kittleson told the men to remove the underpants, which they did, continuing the trip naked until they reached the river and were out of range.

At the river, as promised by Pajota, twenty-five caraboa carts were waiting. The weakest and those who had to be carried were gently loaded onto the carts, lying on the grassy bedding of rice straw, until the carts were filled to capacity with five or six men apiece. Then, as a red flare fired by Prince arced up into the sky to signal the end of the raid, the caravan, which included 516 prisoners, headed for Balincarin.

The Scouts, meanwhile, covered the withdrawal by setting up a defensive perimeter, laying out their ammo clips and grenades in case they were needed. Waiting there in the dark, the river to their front, the Scouts, less Rounsaville and Alfonso, who were being treated by medics at Platero, watched the glow of the fires from the camp.

* * *

Back in the camp, one man remained. Edwin Cherry, an aging British soldier who had been captured at the fall of Singapore in 1942 and sent along with other British prisoners to the Philippines as a slave laborer, had been in the latrine, stricken with severe dysentery, when the raid went down. Almost stone deaf, he had never heard the battle raging outside. When he emerged, he walked back to his hut, aware of the dead Japanese littering the ground and the burning buildings in the guard area, but not knowing what to do. He stepped inside his barracks and he lay down on his bunk.

* * *

About an hour after the raid, Jack Dove joined the Nellist team, walking up from Balincarin.

“Any sign of the Nips?” he asked Nellist.

“Nope. All's quiet.”

“Good,” Dove said. “A British POW told me we missed a guy. Some old Brit whose elevator doesn't go all the way to the top. I'm going to try to find him.”

With that, Dove was moving quickly across the river and the field beyond. Arriving at the camp, he located Cherry, roused the man, and brought him back.

No one is left behind.

After about a two-hour wait, Nellist and his men pulled back toward Platero. The caravan's path was easy to follow, with ruts from the cart wheels and human and animal footprints. Local natives were busily shoveling dirt over the tracks in hopes of avoiding Japanese retaliation.

At the village, the Scouts found about one hundred of the sickest men lounging around the huts. Natives directed Nellist to the hut being used as a hospital. Pushing aside the blanket that covered the doorway to prevent light from escaping, Nellist found Alfonso and Rounsaville lying to one side. On a makeshift operating table, Doc Fisher was being worked on by a local physician, Dr. Carlos Layug, and two former POWs, Dr. Merle Mussleman and Dr. Herbert Ott, the latter an army veterinarian. POW Chaplain Hugh Kennedy stood nearby. Also watching the proceedings was Maj. Stephen Sitter, a Ranger who volunteered to remain behind.

“You guys OK?” Nellist asked Rounsaville.

“Yeah,” Rounsaville said. “I'm fine and Al here will be OK, too.”

“How's he?” Nellist asked Rounsaville, nodding toward the table. Rounsaville just shook his head.

Nellist went back outside.

Around one a.m. Dr. Mussleman and Chaplain Kennedy joined him.

“How's the patient?” Nellist asked. “We've got to get out of here before the Japs find us. The longer we stay, the more the danger.”

“I've done all I can for him,” Mussleman said. “It won't matter if we move him or not.”

“He's in God's hands now,” Kennedy added.

Nellist turned to Kittleson.

“Kit,” he said. “Get something we can use as a stretcher.”

Kittleson nodded, and with the help of some other Scouts located the fanciest house in town, which sported a heavy wooden Spanish door. Gently, Fisher was laid on the door, which took six men to carry, and the little column began the three-mile trek to Balincarin.

The trip took about an hour. When they arrived, Mucci's column had moved on, but a radio was left behind for the Scouts. Sitter suggested he contact 6th Army HQ for a plane to fly in and evacuate Fisher. Nellist agreed, and the call was made. A plane would arrive around dawn. All through the night, Filipino men, women, and children, with shovels, axes, and by hand, chopped out a landing strip. Meanwhile, a Scout provided Fisher with blood for a much-needed transfusion.

The landing strip was finished an hour before dawn, but the plane did not arrive. And it might not have mattered if it had, for Fisher rose up on his elbows and said weakly, “Good luck on the way out.” Then he lay back down and died.

The body was respectfully wrapped in canvas and placed in a hastily dug grave. Kennedy provided the eulogy and led the prayer, something he had grown proficient at after four years behind barbed wire. Then the Americans were off.

The trek would be easier. With the help of the civilians, Andy Smith had rustled up several more caraboa carts, so the sickest could ride back.

The sun was up by now, so Nellist led the column toward American lines, keeping them as close as possible to the edge of the forest, or in low-lying drainage areas, to cut down the chance of detection. Once, Kittleson and Sabas Asis, at the point, signaled everyone to get down. A Japanese patrol was moving left to right across their front, through a grassy field. The enemy eventually disappeared into the forest, and after a brief wait the pathetic column resumed its march.

By noon, the caravan was about ten miles from American lines. The Scouts tried to cheer the suffering men.