Cars, Cigars and Sugar Cane (52)

After being stuck in the New Guinea jungle for a while, Gene is enjoying the cars, towns, and markets.  He is interested in learning about how things are done in the Philippines and is able to do this because there isn't much threat from the Japanese in this area.

13 Feb. '45
Beloved,
     This afternoon Steve, our Red Cross man, asked me if I wanted to go with him to a town about 15 or 20 miles from here.  I'd spoken to him about going some time.  McDaniels went along.  Steve bought this '38 Chevrolet from a civilian, or rather the Red Cross bought it a la Steve.  Ordnance worked it over and it went OK until a few days ago when it took to stopping - vapor lock, defective fuel pump or something.  He thought he had it fixed.  We left about 1:30.  Just a mile from our destination it began its old tricks.  If allowed to cool down it would start.  We got into town and walked around to see the sights.  Practically all the buildings (business and so forth) had been burned by the Japs.  In some places there were the bodies of as many as a dozen cars.  They must have been late models from the looks of them.  There was one street of buildings (poor ones) still standing and doing some business.  I priced some cigars - 30 centavos each [about 14¢; in U.S prices ranged from 4¢ to $1 each, but the Philippines produced lots of tobacco, and even women there smoked large cigars].  I laughed at them! 

Filipina woman smoking a cigar

And the wooden sole slippers the women wear - 13 pesos [about $6]!  We asked F.'s [Filipinos] how much such things were worth - cigars 5 centavos and the slippers P1 - were the proper prices.  But no doubt some Yanks are fools enough to pay it.
     There were still Jap handbills plastered on the walls.  The market was some market.  Originally it was a good block long, though some of it had been destroyed.  The people say that under the Japs, they seldom held market days because the Japs would just take what they wanted.  Even though this was afternoon part of the market was still crowded.  Such a display (and smell!) of food.  Numerous large trays of dried shrimp (all [parts] of the shrimp!) ranging from about 1 inch to 6 inches in length, a dried flat fish resembling shiners, fresh meat, leaf and root vegetables, peanuts, dried corn and various confection things.  There were a few small stalls of dry goods.  I took a picture of one corner of the thing. 


Sugar cane press near Guimba

     Then we went on Steve's errand and the car [vapor] locked some more.  We stopped in at a hospital motor pool and their mechanic couldn't decide what it was.  So we borrowed a jeep and came home in that, for we had no yen to sit out on the "lone prairie" all night, especially since a few stray Japs wander around at night.  I spotted several "cane squeezin' " places on the way up so on the way back I took a picture of a carabao-powered press.  The press is really just two heavy steel rollers about a foot wide between which the cane is fed three or four stalks at a time with an arrangement to catch the juice.  But I think I messed up the picture for I didn't turn it all the way and took another picture over [it].  So I shall borrow a jeep some other time and go back for some picturesque rice stacks of which I want a picture.
     The fellows who went to the grand opening of the nightclub figure they got a yenzzing [were hoodwinked or deceived]!  For their 10 P they had a good chop suey dinner , a drink of rum and some sort of wine in plenty and some dancing!  They said the gals were nice (apparently too nice).  All the guys were home by 9:30 which is our curfew hour.  They say they'll mark that 10 pesos to charity.  I had a nip of F. scotch - it is really brandy, I think.  Not bad, but not good!  Some of our men have helped other outfits move to a city (Manila [either Beth guessed and wrote it when she copied the letter, or the censor missed it]) and report they are glad we aren't there.  They drove trucks.  They say they were all sniped at but that the Japs are punk shots!  The men who know (I mean they've been on the receiving end) say that the Jap equipment - guns, tanks, artillery, and etc. - on this island is much better stuff than the Japs had in New Guinea.  Steve went to a city on business one day.  That night he stayed with an F. family.  They took him upstairs to sleep.  He slept well.  In the morning he looked around - no one upstairs or downstairs.  The family all slept in foxholes that night!

Sunday in the Philippines (51)

     Roman Catholicism arrived in the Philippines with the Spanish in the sixteenth century, and various Protestant religions came with the Americans at the turn of the twentieth century.  In 1945, the country was overwhelmingly Catholic, but there were various other Christian churches around.

Church (Catholic?) in Guimba

11 Feb. '45
Beloved,
     No mail today, but I've had so much lately I can't complain!  This morning McDaniels and I went to church in town - a Methodist Church.  I was amazed to learn that almost every village and town has its protestant church - mission supported, of course. It was scheduled for 8:40.  When we arrived there were about 12 soldiers, and only 4 F.'s [Filipinos]. It didn't start until about 8:50.  After that the F.'s kept coming in until the place was crowded.  There were lots of entire families. Sunday School was to follow.  The piano was sadly out of tune.  They hymns were sung very slowly and with some surprising accents, but with a great deal of enthusiasm.  Just before the benediction the minister asked if anyone wished to give thanksgiving.  Two young fellows and a girl went forward to the altar and knelt during the singing of the last hymn, prayer and benediction.  The one young man was dressed in a spotless white something-finer-than-dinner pants and blouse shirt.  He carefully took out a white handkerchief on which to kneel.  The other one was dressed [in] a similar outfit of a delicate purple-red.  They must have been real dandies!  I enjoyed the service very much.  There must have been 20 GI's in all.  We walked back to the hospital with a very Americanized youth who works on one of the wards, and whose home was in a large city [note that he couldn't name the city because of censoring] where he attended the Baptist Church.

Filipino patient (father behind?) and nurse, with Gene on the left, and
Reese (a ward man?) on the right

     Sunday afternoon you'd think you were back in the States on a visiting day.  There are dozens of F. men, women and children who come to visit the civilian and guerrilla patients.  It adds color!
     At long last I obtained a .45.  Now I hope I can keep it.  An officer patient gave it to me as he was being transferred.  What firepower I'll have!  We still have to pack guns with us wherever we go.  It does seem peculiar to carry a gun to church - pilgrim father style!  But the F.'s probably wouldn't like it if we snagged a pig or chicken on the way home.  We are having ice to put in our battery acid drinking mixture [presumably he means the powdered drink they get with rations].  It makes it more palatable (besides being good, as Hi [Armstrong] would say).

February 12, 1945  [Maj. Cy] Burroughs [not a favorite!] and I work together.  Maj. Nigg joined us.  There goes my majority [chance for advancement to major]!

12 Feb. '45
Beloved,
     ...  I amputated the arm of a poor boy.  It had become gangrenous.  He was wounded a week ago.  He's not in good shape, despite maximum doses of penicillin and five blood transfusions.  We didn't even tell him what we were going to do for he was in low spirits anyway and doesn't realize any too well what is going on.  These war casualties are pathetic, but they are usually cheerful and uncomplaining.  What brave lads.  Maybe I'm a bit depressed tonight.  We had a notice today that no one will be considered for rotation [for leave home] until after 30 months continuous overseas service.  [Gene and most of the other original 92nd Evac. docs had only been there 20 months.] That means not until next year for us, and then we probably won't send [but] one officer in more than 2 or 3 months.  So I guess we may as well pray for an early peace!  There is some kind of deal afoot tonight.  There is going to be an opening of a "nightclub" with a cover charge of P 10 [about $4.60]!  That's a lot of dinero for a chicken dinner and some drinks!  It seems to me there must be some added attraction, though no one seems to know what to expect.  Quite a few of the officers are going.  Now if it was a chicken for a P 2 [about $1] and maybe some drinks I'd be tempted to go.  Hi [Armstrong], Sparky [Adams], and I will hang back and see what comes of it. [As you will see in my next post, that was sensible!]

Barber shop set up in a tent in Guimba for the GI's and guerrillas

     Neeb has been over here 36 months.  He's been with us since Mac [Maj. Richard McIlroy] and [Capt.] Roy [Swanson?] left, but we still haven't had a quota that will allow him to go home - he's really in a mood tonight!  He's engaged but not married.  I know what these hills look like - more like some of the groups of hills out on the California desert!  Now if they were clear of Japs I'd be tempted to do some mountain climbing.  But don't worry I shan't.  Some of the fellows (4 to a tent) hire a F. a peso a day [46¢] to clean up their tent, shine their shoes and so forth.  How they keep them busy I don't know.  But I'll be darned if I like the idea!  The F. promptly considers you and all your things his property!  He lies on your bed, looks thru your stuff, etc.  I saw one of them drinking from Varley's water bag today.  It reminds me of Rochester and Jack Benny!  Which makes me think - usually we've had movies long before this on our invasions.  No doubt there are too many base section commandos [rear echelon, who usually don't have to face the enemy] already in.  But those fellows also had a taste of Jap infiltration tactics in some spots.  An officer on my ward today asked where I lived.  He's from Enid, Oklahoma and has been to Monument Lake [Colorado] fishing a number of times.  Imagine that!  He certainly admires out country!

Letter from Guimba (50)

     The fighting was fierce for Munõz and the operating rooms in the school were busy for the 92nd Evacuation Hospital, but now the hostilities have moved elsewhere.  The doctors and ward men can breathe easier for a time and just care for their patients, and Gene can write letters home.

The officers' ward set up in the Guimba school

10 Feb. '45
Beloved,
     Here I sit at some school marm's desk - a fancy hardwood job with drawers and everything (the desk I mean, not the school marm).  I'm O.D. (officer of the day).  I hope it will be quiet.  Our casualties have fallen off.  They cleared the town [Munõz, but Gene can't mention it in a letter or the censor's will cut it out] at last.  The radio said our patch of fighting was the fiercest so far.  Wouldn't we get the spot!  But thank goodness, they haven't bothered us yet.  Our working hours have been without disturbance by Jap planes, air alerts, artillery shelling or anything!  Certainly not like out other affairs.


Guimba carabao grazing



Guimba women washing clothes

Guimba man "dunking" carabao and cart

    This morning about 10 I took a look at the sky and mountains and loaded some color film and tore out.  The sun was bright, but with a bank of clouds rising.  I'd been watching for days for the conditions to be right to photograph some rice stacks with the mountains clear enough to show.  Well, in about 20 minutes I'd taken a whole roll.  One was of a carabao grazing near us (I leaned over the fence).  Then some F.'s [Filipinos] coming up a path.  Then some women washing clothes at a little stream a few hundred yards away.  Then a man "dunking" his carabao in the stream, still yoked to the cart and his little boy sitting in the cart, then two of the rice stacks.  Then one toward the hospital.  Then one of a lady and her possessions with some cute girls in a carabao cart.  I talked to her a while.  She is the wife of a physician who is with some guerrilla outfit.  Her home at ------- [censored] had been burned by shellfire.  She had things done up in straw bags.  But she was happy - the Americans are back!  "We can build another house!"  Her husband's father and brother are both doctors.  The father was in another cart.  He was a nice-looking elderly gentleman but spoke no English.  He spoke Spanish!  The daughters were about 7 and 8, very cute and bright-eyed.  They each wore small gold earrings.  Later - I was just over to Cohen's ward to see a patient.  He's a ward man now..  Back to the (this will be interrupted frequently!) photography.  I have hopes that it will be a very good roll - the sky was quite blue. Usually there is a good deal of haze in the sky.


Physician's wife in Guimba

     It's interesting to have the officers' ward.  I find out lots of things that are going on that I wouldn't otherwise.  Did you notice on the rim of the [artillery] shell ashtray the indentation?  That was where a shell fragment hit the shell.  I had to smooth it down with a file so it wouldn't dig into the table.  You've no idea the number of days we sat on that blank blank boat!  But golly I was tired of it.  Remember Harper?  He came around today and we found he was on the boat ahead of us.  It was the one we had trouble with at night!  It was always dropping back and we'd be just a short distance from them and it made their skipper jittery and mad.  The men at the bridges [of the two boats] would hurl insults at each other in great style.  It was funny!  Harper looks the same though much grayer.  He's with a malaria control unit.
     Yes, that's right about the Jap planes being practically non-existent here and I'm glad!  I was a darn sight more scared to have to be in a tent operating and not able to see the - - planes than I was the night the Nips visited us!  This afternoon we had a 10-piece orchestra (F.) playing for the patients.  One guitarist had a very nice voice and sang some Spanish and American songs.  The men especially liked one song that had "Pom Pom" in it [in WWII, pom poms were bombs and also slang for women's breasts].  I'm certain it didn't mean the same as it does among the N.G.'s [Pom Pom Valley is in New Guinea]!
     We had a wounded Jap in one of the wards.  A GI patient saw him, grabbed a stick and began to beat him!  He's apt to be court marshaled for such an act and he should be.  The poor devil [the prisoner] (rather a big one - he's a whopper!) hid out for 4 or 5 days waiting for an American Patrol.  He knew better than to try to surrender to the guerrillas.  When he did find one and came out with his hands up, they thought he was a decoy so dumped a bunch of mortar shells behind him to clean out any lurkers.  The Jap flopped but had a piece of fragment in his leg.  They got a lot of information out of him.
     I laughed at Mary X's remark re the pictures of coral, "What a lot of handsome table centerpiece material goes to waste in the Pacific!"  I'll never forget the odds and ends she picked up in the woods one day and made the cleverest item.
     All my love, Eugene

The Aftermath of the Cabanatuan Raid (49)

     When Gene finally gets a breather, he puts two and two together and realizes why the 92nd Evacuation Hospital moved to Guimba, and belatedly recognizes the danger involved in that move.  He also mentions a new development in saving lives, and the types of wounds the doctors are seeing that are different from the New Guinea campaign.  Since the Filipinos were more involved in fighting with the Japanese, there are more civilian casualties, too.

One of the post-op wards of the 92nd Evacuation Hospital in Guimba

February 3, 1945  Working days and late at night.  I got a 45 automatic!

February 4, 1945
     Every campaign my diary gets shorter and shorter!  We set up and began operating 30 Jan. but had few patients until Feb. 1st.  Since then it has been 11:30 P.M. to 2:30 A.M. every night and all day, doing surgery.  Jan. 31st we had the 500 liberated POW's.  In fact, I believe that is why we set up here and then they decided to use us for casualties [from the nearby heavy fighting].
     It was amazing and pathetic to see and talk to these men.  The improvising they had done - lived on rice, grass, anything!  One officer was filling a Red Cross pipe (they had made their own!) with tobacco from a cigarette.  I offered him my pipe pouch.  He began carefully to knock out the tobacco and save it.  Then he laughed at himself!  They thought our C rations were wonderful.  They'd had no bread for 3 years.  I never saw so many photographers and correspondents before in my life.  Their [the POW] rescue was an amazing feat.  MacArthur came [the] next day to see them. but I was busy in surgery and didn't see him.  Heard about Art Fouret [he was one of Gene's Trinidad patients, and in December was on one of the Japanese POW ships going to Japan that was sunk by US forces].
     Our census is running over 500, even with most of the POW gone.  We have a lot of F's [Filipinos] - guerrillas and civilians.  Most of our casualties are coming from Munõz where the Japs are fighting bitterly to keep us from taking San Jose and thus block them from the south.  They are using dug-in tanks as pill boxes, and all the Infantry has to knock them out is hand and rifle grenades.

Modified Rand McNally map showing Guimba,
Munõz and San Jose

     We are using prepared whole blood.  It was taken and processed Jan. 9 in Frisco [San Francisco] and is good for 21 days or so.  It is a real life saver, to be able to give whole blood at a few minutes notice, without [blood] typing.
     On Biak we saw many mortar shell wounds.  Here most are high velocity Jap 47 mm tank shells and other artillery.  Smaller fragments seem to do the same amount of damage.
     We have guerrillas guarding our perimeter.  There are alarms at times, but mostly we are too busy to notice.  The help the F.'s give us around the hosp. and the Red Cross (girls) is mighty fine and takes quite a load off the ward men.
     I had my first mail Jan. 31st.  It was wonderful to hear from Beth.

Gene had written on the following unidentified newspaper article: "He told me this story, for I had him on my ward"

PRISONER TAKES TIME IN LEAVING JAP CAMP

     United States Army Base, Luzon, Feb. 6 - (I.N.S.) - Here is the story of one Allied prisoner who did not get out of the Cabanatuan camp when American Rangers raided it - at least not until a few days later.  He is Edwin Rose, 65, of Toronto, Canada, who said he had "heard all the shooting and knew the Americans had arrived," but thought they were there to stay so he simply turned over in his prison bunk and went back to sleep again.

     Rose, who was a purser on a ship plying the Singapore to Hong Kong run, and was caught in Manila when war broke out, declared he awakened the morning following the Rangers' dramatic midnight rescue to fine "Cabanatuan all my own."

     He methodically dressed and shaved and then contacted some Filipinos for an escort and strolled casually into the Sixth army headquarters, a cane tucked under his arm, a few days later.

February 8, 1945

     We continue busy with casualties, mostly from Munõz near San Jose.  For Infantry to take such positions is costly.

     We did 60 cases on our busiest day - not as busy as Biak, but still marked.  We've been at it a little over a week

     I received 30 letters and cards yesterday, and 25 2 days before.

     The Japs use their 47 mm tank guns to fire point blank at individual soldiers.  One fellow said he dodged 3 times, but the 4th time the shell came thru 1 1/2 feet of earth to wound him moderately.  Most wounds are HE [high explosive] shell fragments.  How they shatter bones! [Note all of the casts on the men in the photo above.]

     In a very heavy rain 3 nights ago, some of the officers' tents went down.  The water just stands in these rice paddies.  We have a lot of F. civilians and guerrillas with old and new wounds.

8 Feb. '45

Beloved,

     Will wonders never cease!  Yesterday evening I received 30 letters and cards!  I read between operations all evening!

     Alleene quotes little Pete, "I sure want to be a soldier when I get big, Daddy, but I'm going to be a soldier like Doc Pfile."  Pete senior said, "Oh, a soldier doctor?"  "No, I'm going to be a soldier like Doc Pfile and not get killed!"  He has the proper outlook I'd say.

     Later - Nothing to do my foot!  We admitted patients anyway and I worked all afternoon.  Perhaps it will be quieter this evening.

     Later - We just looked into the arm of a very sick boy, but it doesn't seem that he has gas gangrene.  That is encouraging.  We have two new second looies [second lieutenants], MAC's [medical administrative corps] promoted from the ranks.  They really were outstanding fellows.  That was one of the boards on which I was.

     That was so good of Dick and Doris [Gaines] to meet you [at the train station] when you arrived in Trinidad [Colorado] from Freeport [Illinois] and again with the Workmans when you returned from Denver.  Very thoughtful.  Gee but I laugh about your surprise at the phone.  I'm so glad you have it.  Mmmm!  How good it would feel to climb into a tub of hot water and take a good soaking bath.  Did I ever tell you there are beauty shops here even in little towns!  Amazing!

     All my love, Eugene

February 9, 1945
     1162 patients admitted, not counting the POW (except 42 entered as patients).  Our census is well over 600.  I just not found out that the first night we were here, a Recon [reconnaissance] outfit reached here a few hours before us and that this was their farthest penetration toward Munõz!  A Maj. came up to the school that midnight and was highly surprised to find a hospital here before the Infantry.  Golly, I wouldn't have slept well that night if I'd known!  No wonder we had no patients for 2 days - there was no one ahead of us, to do any fighting!

9 Feb. '45
Beloved,
     Things are quiet today.  I guess someone else is taking them to give us a breathing spell.  I meant for you to indicate nothing of troubles we have had.  It was just that one night when we had a brush with a few Japs and they (paragraph cut by censor).  Panic and wild shooting and that is always bad.  But it won't happen again for we won't be caught napping.  It is too long a story to write.  I'll just have to tell it some day (8 wounded - 4 killed).
     Last evening I heard this one for the first time.  It seems that the evening we pulled in here we were ahead of the Infantry!  A Reco patrol had arrived that afternoon and set up a perimeter but didn't know what was ahead.  Of course there was no real danger for the guerrillas had held this town for weeks.  I heard a Major challenged by our guards about midnight and how surprised he was to find a hospital here but thought nothing of it at the time.  The army is full of surprises.  Now I understand it.  Maybe I wouldn't have slept so well had I known we were ahead of the Infantry.  To make it worse, that afternoon three trucks of us (officer with each) were separated from the rest.  I was in the last of the three.  We breezed thru this town and I thought it was the one.  We went about a mile of so beyond and I was about ready to stop, having heard about people blundering into the enemy's lines!  Then the lead truck stopped and we came back.  Some of our crazy MAC's and the Chaplain were driving around in a jeep, seeing the country last week, when they saw a bunch of men hugging the ground.  They stopped and flopped also.  A sergeant told them with plenty of embellishments what they should do, and take the jeep with them and that the Japs had been firing with artillery at everything that moved!  So they got and quickly!  It's good I'm busy most of the time, then I don't get into trouble!  But I realize now what a golden opportunity our first landing (Hollandia) was for souvenirs.  I thought they'd all be like that!
     None of the days lately have been clear enough for good pictures.  I don't get much chance to pick and choose, either the time or the place.  Now if I had a car and plenty of spare time, I might do better.  But really, honey, if you like the pictures that's all I care about.
     Some of the boys are hanging out of the window looking at a comely F. gal!  They seem to like what they see!

A photo of Zariff

     Say, that picture of Zariff is a dandy.  And he is a dandy.  I can almost hear and smell the fresh pine breeze!  Also horse!  That certainly was nice of Sibyl [the horse's owner] to take you in [I think this was in Denver] especially with hotel rooms so hard to get.  Well, one of the "borrowed" fellows in surgery just saw the picture of Zariff on the table.  It developed that he worked one summer on the Hayden Ranch at Greenhorn [near Glenwood Springs in Colorado].  How he likes our country!
     Too bad so many can't get penicillin. [Penicillin was discovered in 1928, but it wasn't until 1940 that it was made into a stable powder and could be mass produced.] But it is all overseas.  We practically have barrels of it.  Only the forward hospitals get it, but we get all we want.  It definitely helps.  I was thinking just recently that if we amputated like they did in the Civil War, we'd have a heap of arms and legs window high.  As it is, it takes much longer to save a leg than it is to cut it off, but the results are gratifying.  I amputated a testicle but he had two!
     Some break there.  I just helped a sad case.  The boy had a chunk of shell that cut his spinal cord at the level of the 2nd lumbar vertebrae [the vertebra that is at the waist; damage at this level will probably cause paralysis in one or both legs, and loss of control of the bowels and bladder].

February 10, 1945  No casualties.

The 92nd Evac and the Great Raid (48)

     The daring raid of Cabanatuan was over.  All of the prisoners, even the deaf, bewildered British man discovered alone in the compound the morning after the raid (and one other that I'll tell you about Friday!), were safe.  The heroes, brave Filipino guerrillas who had borne the brunt of the Japanese assault and provided rear guard protection, and American Rangers and Alamo Scouts who had planned and carried out the raid, could take their well-earned rest.  The work was just beginning for the 92nd Evacuation Hospital.  Here is their story, as reported in the Trinidad (Colorado) Chronicle News:

Gene's photo of the arrival of the trucks with the prisoners freed from Cabanatuan

Trinidad Doctor With Army Medics Who Treated Americans Freed From Jap Prison In Philippines: Capt. (Dr.) E. F. Pfile With Staff of 92nd Evacuation Hospital On Luzon Who Helped Fill Heroic Episode Of Rescue Of Long Imprisoned Men

     When the now famous Sixth army rangers had liberated the hundreds of American prisoners from Cabanatuan prison in the Philippines some time ago, and the liberated soldiers and civilians had reached Guimba, Luzon - the end of the route in its 23-mile journey to freedom - one of the small staff of army doctors attached to the 92nd Evacuation hospital who were waiting there to administer to the ill and exhausted heroes of the tragic surrender at Bataan and Corregidor three years ago, was Capt. (Dr. ) Eugene F. Pfile, well-known Trinidad physician.  He was one of a group of Colorado doctors who gave these erst while internees clean beds and expert medical care.

     Capt. Pfile has been in the Pacific for a considerable period.  He had earlier been in service with the 92nd Evacuation Hospital when the American landings were made.  Now this small group of Colorado doctors of the medical staff were giving these wretched looking mortals the care and comfort they had been denied thru almost three years of confinement in the vile Japanese prison pens.  Capt. Pfile was the only Trinidad member of the medical group.  Others were from Denver, Pueblo, and one from Lamar.

     Today was received direct from the scene of that pathetic rescue, a detailed story of the heroic episode.

     The sensational melodramatic raid and the freeing of the first American prisoners of the war far overshadowed all other aspects of the event; but the story of how this hospital moved in a few hours to play a part in the swiftly planned, lightning executed operation, is the story of how the Army's Medical Corps, no matter where or when, is always there ready to "deliver the goods."

     On the morning before the raid came off, the unit, which was staying near Lingayen Gulf and slated to service Sixth Army troops spearheading into Manila, was given the order by Brigadier General William A. Hagins, Sixth Army Surgeon - "Pack up and get down to Guimba by this afternoon.  Set up and be ready to take patients immediately!"

     So a several-hundred bed hospital "took off" down the road to a town nearly 50 miles distant - within a few miles of our forward infantry elements; to be ready for, exactly what, most of them did not know - though the basic details had rumorized themselves around the hospital [Gene hadn't heard any rumors, so they mustn't have been widespread].

     They quickly picked out the sprawling frame buildings of the town's elementary school as their spot, and started unpacking a few tons of equipment.  That night they had power, a supply room, operating room, laboratory, and wards with sheeted cots in neat rows - all marking time.  They were ready.

     Next day [actually two days later] about noon the trucks, which had been sent out to meet the caravan - half in native carabao carts - half staggering along on foot - rolled in with their cargo of gaunt, ragged men.

Gene's photo of the Filipina women assembling the Red Cross ditty bags

    The litter cases were taken to the wards.  Those with lesser injuries and sickness were diagnosed and taken care of.  The Red Cross, attached to the hospital, was there with hot coffee and doughnuts and "ditty" bags full of comforts - toilet articles, writing equipment, smokes, candy, gum - to further bolster the already soaring spirits of the men.

     And it was all done with such dispatch and dexterity, it seemed impossible that the hospital could have been there for any less than a couple of weeks.

     "That hospital did a great job - and took care of many functions such as securing new clothes for the liberated prisoners, processing them through registration, etc. - that were not part of their regular duties at all," points out General Hagins.

     The original staff of surgeons of the 92nd, which was originally designated the 7th Surgical Hospital, was organized by Lieutenant Colonel Paul M. Ireland, son of Major General Merit W. Ireland, former Surgeon General of the U.S. Army, early in 1940 [1942], with doctors from Denver, Pueblo, and other Colorado hospitals.

     Activated at Fort Ord, Cal., in September 1940 [actually it was withdrawn from the reserves in 1940, but not staffed until August 1942], where it was redesignated the 92nd Evacuation Hospital and drew its detachment cadre; it shortly after left for a year of intensive training in the Mojave desert.  According to detachment men, this training in the States was tougher than anything they have yet encountered overseas [but not according to the doctors!].  And they had some plenty rugged going here in the Southwest Pacific.

     They landed in Brisbane, Australia, in June 1943, operated in Australia for a few months, and then pushed off for New Guinea where they serviced Lieutenant General Walter Krueger's Sixth Army troops, leapfrogging along the north New Guinea coast.

     At Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea, where they landed on D-1, they handled, in addition to our troops, the pitifully emaciated missionaries of diverse nationality which we had recovered from the Japs.

     Biak Island, where they also landed on D-1, was their roughest campaign.  There they were operating about 250 yards in back of the front lines - in front of our own artillery.  Ack ack was continually falling on the hospital, and on one occasion a Jap pilot parachuted down within its confines.

     Throughout its experience in these jungle campaigns, the hospital had often had to set up its own perimeter defense, manned by detachment men.  Its record of having had four men killed and several wounded through enemy action testifies to its continuous proximity to the actual fighting.

     Many of the original Colorado officer-doctors, who brought the outfit overseas and were with it through its earlier campaigns, have been transferred to other hospitals where their talents were needed or given higher echelon jobs because of demonstrated ability.

     List of personnel of 92nd Evacuation Hospital from Colorado:

     Major Francis S. Adams, Pueblo; Major Edwin W. Varley, Jr., Pueblo; Captain John Mihelick, Pueblo; Captain Raymond A. Netherly [sic], Denver; Captain Eugene F. Pfile, Trinidad; Captain Carl W. Swartz, Jr., Pueblo; Major Hiram E. Armstrong, Pueblo; Major Arnold C. Niemeyer, Pueblo; Sergeant Jack Hall, Lamar; PFC Louis Cohen, Denver; Pvt. William B. Rogers, Denver.

February 1. 1945  MacArthur visited.  I didn't get to see him.

The Great Cabanatuan Raid, II (47)

     It is January 30th, 1945, and the rescue troops are moving into place.  The members of the 92nd Evac Hospital don't even have a rumor about it, and assume it is business as usual.

January 30, 1945  Begin receiving.  Hardly any business.

School in Guimba set up for the 92nd Evac, complete with sign:

     The article from the Saturday Evening Post, April 7, 1945, "We Swore We'd Die or Do It" by Henry A. Mucci, Lieutenant Colonel, USA Army (with the home towns of the soldiers taken out for smoother reading) continues:

     
     Finally, we were hiding on a little hill about 700 yards from the main gate of the prison, where we could get a pretty good view.  We could see there was only one tower with a Jap sentry on it.  The other guards probably had gone to supper.  Between us and the prison, the ground was pretty flat - rice paddies most of the way.  As night came, Lt. William J. O'Connell ... began crawling toward that gate with thirty men.  Lt. Melville H. Schmidt ... began crawling up with another thirty.  Lt. John F. Murphy and his men got into position back of the camp about 7:30 P.M.
     Here is the way our plan of action went:  The attack was to begin when Murphy's men opened fire on the guards at the rear gate.  Lieutenant O'Connell's men were then to sweep the entire open area on the right side of the camp with fire from their automatic weapons.  One squad of five men was to break down the main gate and kill the Jap guards there.  Another, going right in with them, was to cut some barbed-wire fencing and set up a cross fire over the right side of the camp.  Bazooka and grenade teams were to rush in and knock out those tanks and trucks.
     Lieutenant Schmidt's platoon was to enter the main gate and swing to the left, raking the left side of the camp with automatic fire, and one squad of Murphy's men was to swing left, too, to give them cross fire.  There was a third squad in reserve under Capt. Robert W. Prince ...  .  They  were to get the prisoners out as fast as they could be rounded up.  They were told to order all prisoners to dash for the main gate, and they were to help those who couldn't make it on foot on their own.  Twenty-five yards in front of the main gate, I stationed some Rangers to round up the rescued in batches of fifty and start them back toward Plateros, where we would meet our carabao carts.  I also moved up my sixty unarmed Filipinos to help carry the sick and the wounded.  Capt. James C. Fisher ... was our medical officer, and he came up to the main gate to help the wounded.  Captain Fisher, son of the novelist, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, was a fine man, one of the best.
     Everything went off exactly as we had planned, by luck and by the grace of God.  The prison camp itself was a big one.  It was an enclosure about 600 yards long, front to rear, and about 400 yards wide.  I hear that it once had held about 10,000 Americans.  There was a barbed-wire fence about ten feet high running around the outside, and two more lines of barbed-wire fence running across it, separating the Jap soldiers from the American prisoners, and the Jap enlisted men from the officers.  There certainly was an awful lot of barbed wire. 
      There were two main guardhouses at the front and rear gates and two pillboxes at the northeast and northwest corners along the main road leading to Cabanatuan on the sets and Cabu on the east.  There wee a whole lot of barracks within the camp - a hundred or more.  But we had all the Jap officers' quarters, all the enlisted men's quarters, all of the American prisoners' quarters and the buildings housing the tanks spotted, and correctly.
     Our attack began exactly at 7:30 P.M., when Lieutenant Murphy's men opened fire at the rear gate.  Then everybody rushed forward and began shooting.  The next twenty minutes were pandemonium.  The fight itself must have been over in about twenty minutes.  By this time, we had killed every Jap in the place, and we were herding the American prisoners through the main gate.  The element of surprise was complete.  We killed about 225 Japs in all.
     The minute Murphy's men began firing from the rear, S/Sgt. Theodore Richardson ... rushed across the main highway and battered at the lock of the main gate with the butt of his submachine gun.  The clip fell out.  Then he pulled out his pistol.  A Jap sentry shot it out of his hand.  Richardson retrieved his pistol, killed the Jap and opened the gate.  Everybody poured through.
     Reconstructing it now, I can see how well our squad leaders carried out their assignments.  There was one squad under the leadership of S/Sgt. Homer E. Britzius ... .  That one crossed the main road on the Cabu side and raked all one side of the camp with fire.  The squad led by Sgt. Preston W. Jensen ... went through the main gate, cut the wire leading to the Jap enlisted men's quarters and went in, firing all the time.  The bazooka and antitank-grenade squads, led by Sgt. Manton P. Stesart ... took care of those tanks and all the Jap trucks in a matter of minutes.  A squad led by Sgt. Cleatus G. Norton ... knocked out the sentry tower.  There was a whole section led by Sgt. Charles W. Brown ... which kept up fire on one corner of the camp.  Then we had the job of cutting the telephone wires and knocking out the radios, so that no appeal could be made by the Jap garrison for reinforcements from anywhere.  Squads led by Sgts. James V. Millican ... and James O. White ... did that job quickly in the darkness.
     Lieutenant Schmidt's men directed the actual rounding up of our American prisoners of war in their barracks.  The sergeants who went through the barracks, hustling everybody out, were August T. Stern ...; Clifton R. Harris ...; and Lester L. Malone ... .
     There were some Englishmen in that prison, too = eighteen of them - a Norwegian and a Canadian.  Of the 512 prisoners we freed, 490 were Americans.  When Lieutenant Schmidt's men started yelling "All American prisoners head for the main gate!" one of the Englishmen yelled, "We ain't Americans, but we're coming too!"  There was one Englishman of about sixty-five, deaf as a post, and sick, who slept through all the excitement.  He wasn't rescued until the morning, when some of the Alamo Scouts who stayed behind went through the place and found that all the Japs were dead - any who weren't had pulled out.
     Getting those prisoners out was quite a job.  Some were dazed.  Some couldn't believe it was true.  Some tried to take their belongings, and we had to tell them they had to leave their stuff behind, as there was a tough march ahead.  One old United States marine who had been a prisoner all the time wrapped his arms around the neck of one of the Rangers and kissed him.  All he could say was, "Oh, boy!  Oh, boy!  Oh, boy!"
     We were just clearing the last of our prisoners through the main gate when we heard a fight begin where Jap reinforcements were being rushed up to Pajota's guerrilla road block, down toward Cabu.  The Japs came down that road in a column of trucks, and they were singing some kind of weird song - or perhaps simply howling there in the night.  They jumped out of their trucks when they reached the bridge, and Pajota's men, shooting at twenty to twenty-five yard range, piled up the Jap dead on that bridge neck high.  They must have killed about 400 of them.  The Japs brought up eight tanks, Pajota's men stopped them, too.
      As we were starting our prisoners along the road - mind you, many were barefooted and hardly clothed - shells, mortar and small-arm fire began to drop in our midst.  One shell killed Captain Fisher, our doctor, and wounded a couple of our men, one fatally.  That was Cpl. Roy F. Sweezy ... .  Sweezy's buddy, Corporal Schilli ... was holding Sweezy in his arms, trying to lift him up, when he saw he was dying, and Schilli baptized him just before he died.  He didn't know what religion his buddy believed in, but he thought that was the right thing to do.
     That was a pretty bad march over to our rendezvous with the carabao carts.  Some of the Rangers gave their shoes and most of their clothes to the men who needed them.  They gave them cigarettes and held them up when they needed it.  The spirit of some of the old-timers was wonderful.  There was an old man who could hardly hobble, but he insisted on walking alone.  He said, "I made the death march from Bataan, and I can certainly make this one."
     It took us about a half hour to get to our carts.  All that time Pajota's men were fighting around the bridge.  Once we got to the carts, there was no time to stop.  We had to cross the Pampanga River, and some of the carts tipped over into the water.  We had some morphine syrettes, and that helped some of the sick men.  We also had some benzadrine for ourselves, just to keep us awake and give us that last needed bit of energy.
     After what seemed like an age, we got to the little town called Plateros.  While we were there, Pajota sent me a runner, asking for instructions.  I had him act as a rear guard for us on the right flank, with Captain Prince and our Rangers in the center, and Captain Joson's Filipinos as a rear guard on our left.  There was one pretty bad stretch on that return march, but we couldn't avoid it.  We had to move our slow column down the main Rizal highway for a mile, and that was a main traffic artery for the Japs going north in strength.  Lieutenant O'Connell and some of our men went up ahead to set up a road block a half mile ahead of where we could leave the road and swing out into open country.  We also sent Rangers, on some ponies we found, two miles up the road and two miles down to warn us if the Japs were coming.  Luckily, they didn't come.  It still took us a whole hour to cover that mile, and it was the longest hour I've ever seated out in all my life.
     There was a little village called Sibul our across the field when we left the road.  There the Filipinos helped us to round up about twenty more carts.  We had to have them.  All our prisoners were quite exhausted.  We got to Sibul about nine o'clock that night, and we heard that the main body of the American forces had come up to the Talavera River.  We got in touch with them by radio.  I asked for food and ambulances.  We pushed on.  We reached our junction point with the main forces shortly before midnight, the night of January thirty-first, and that was victory.  Not one of the prisoners we had freed was hurt during the operation.  Two of our men had been killed and three wounded.  There were 107 Rangers, fourteen scouts and 150 armed Filipino guerrillas in the whole action.  The Filipinos listed twenty-six of their number as missing.
     There were both funny and pathetic incidents during that raid.  One was on the night of January thirtieth, the night before the attack, when five little Filipino girls came to the barrio where we were hiding out.  they asked permission to sing songs.  They brought leis made of freshly picked flowers and hung them around the necks of several of us.  I told them they might sing if they would do it very softly.  So they sang The Star Spangled Banner and God Bless America.  Then we all joined in , and there in the semidarkness, singing very low, we sang God Bless the Philippines.
     Then there was the mayor of Cabanatuan, who came to the barrio.  I was pretty suspicious of him, because he had been mayor all through the Jap occupation.  He brought us a bottle of prewar whisky.  It was Scotch, and it was good.  We passed it around, so that a lot of the boys could get just a little sip, just a taste.  Then I held the mayor under guard until the operation was ended.  He later was released.
     There was another thing we worried about - and that was the barking of dogs.  I sent two guerrillas to all the near-by barrios to see that every dog was tied up the night of the thirtieth when we were moving forward.  Not a dog barked, by some miracle.  Our march out was about twenty-nine miles, and the long march back was about twenty-one. 
     It should be mentioned that Lieutenants Dove and Nellist, of the Alamo Scouts, spent two days before the attack within a few hundred yards of the prison camp with the other scouts and a Filipino guerrilla named Tobmo, whom they sent back with the information about the prison layout on which I acted.  All one day they were in two rocking chairs in a little shack within 200 yards of the prison, directing scouts who were getting detailed information.
     Some of the scouts stayed behind to bring in the last nine of the prisoners who were freed, and the wounded Rangers.  They saw the Filipinos bury Captain Fisher.  There was a Filipino doctor who stayed with Captain Fisher, trying to help him, and who gave him plasma.  But the captain died near Plateros about eleven o'clock on the morning after the attack.  His spirit won the admiration of all of us.
     Filipino guerrillas with escort scouts took him to a little knoll where there was a palm grove about 100 yards square.  There was a Catholic chaplain, 1st Lt. Hugh F. Kennedy ... who was one of the prisoners set free at the camp.  Father Kennedy stayed behind with the scouts and conducted a funeral service for Captain Fisher in the grove.  The Filipinos attached his tags to a little cross and put up a sign at the entrance to his grave, naming it Doctor Fisher memorial. 

The field behind the school at Guimba

January 31, 1945  Received the 500 P.O.W. released by Rangers and guerrillas from Cabanatuan.

The Great Cabanatuan Raid (46)

     I hope you saw the 2005 movie, The Great Raid,  or better yet, read William B. Breuer's The Great Raid: Rescuing the Doomed Ghosts of Bataan and Corregidor.   The Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission by Hampton Sides tells the same epic tale.  Capt. Eugene F. Pfile played a part in that heroic adventure.  His unit, the 92nd Evacuation Hospital, was brought behind Japanese lines (unbeknownst to them!), to an area held by the guerrillas in order to treat the weary and sick survivors rescued from the unbelievably cruel treatment and almost certain death at the Cabanatuan prisoner of war camp.  The American commanders knew they had to get these prisoners out of the camp before taking it from Japan because as they fled an area, the Japanese modus operandi was to execute the POW's rather than let them fall into the hands of the Americans.  The story unfolds on two fronts.

Gene's photograph of some of the POW's rescued from Cabanatuan

     First, we'll get the 92nd established, then I am going to print the first part of an article written by one of the main players in the drama.  Friday I will finish the article, and next week will present an article about the part the 92nd Evac played.  I will intersperse it all with Gene's photos and comments.

Below is a modified Rand McNally map showing Guimba across the valley from Cabanatuan :

January 28, 1945

     We moved to Guimba, NE of Tarlac - about 60 miles from Malasiqui.  We had some cement highway thru a wide valley.  Some irrigated patches.  Rice, corn, sugar cane, tobacco, camotes (sweet potatoes), tomatoes.  The wide valley, lines of trees and mountains beyond, made it resemble Colorado valleys.  Some rough and dusty roads.  We spent 2 hours waiting to cross the Agno river over a pontoon bridge, the highway one having been bombed and under repair.  Arrived at about 4:30 P.M. and went to the primary school.  Main building has 16 rooms, house for Hq and lab and pharmacy, building for the kitchen and another building with 4 large rooms.  Marvelous!  We've never had a thing like it.  The school is at the east edge of a small town.  Rice paddies, and railroad beyond.  The guerrillas took the town Jan. 9 - D day.  It is now their HQ.  We set up a perimeter as usual.  Rooms have very high ceilings.  There is usually a nice breeze from the east.

A view of Guimba with the flat fields 
and the mountains beyond
 (Cabanatuanis across those fields)

  
Meanwhile, secret plans were already being formulated for the rescue of the prisoners.  Here is the story from the Saturday Evening Post, April 7, 1945 with the home towns of the soldiers taken out for smoother reading:

WE SWORE WE'D DIE OR DO IT

By Henry A. Mucci, Lieutenant Colonel, USA

The commanding officer's own story of a famous raid to free American prisoners caged thirty miles behind the Japanese lines.

 HQ, Lieutenant General Krueger's 6th Army, Luzon

     This is the story of how a small group of American soldiers swore an oath that they would die in battle rather than let any harm befall 512 prisoners of war - almost all sick and undernourished American veterans of Bataan and Corregidor - whom they had been ordered to rescue from a prison camp thirty miles behind Japanese lines.  It is, too, the record of how, by luck and God's grace, we were able to fulfill the oath we took.  As their commanding officer, I cannot say too much for the courage and skill of the men who did the job against great odds.

     The story begins on the morning of January twenty-seventh, when General Krueger's forces, on our way to Manila, reached the little town of Guimba, where General Krueger himself, as an enlisted man in the United States Army, was in combat on January 30, 1901, before winning his commission as a second lieutenant.  Forty-four years later in the general's life, a Filipino came to his headquarters with the word that the Americans were confined in a camp at Pangatian, near a town called Cabanatuan, directly in the path of  our advancing forces.  Col. Morton White ... and General Krueger's staff, immediately set in motion a plan for the rescue.

     As commander of the 6th Ranger Infantry Battalion, I was called to headquarters, along with Lts. John E. Dove ... and William E. Nellist, ... who were to command two teams of five Alamo Scouts each in the operation.  The overall plan also involved the use of two groups of guerrillas led by former soldiers in the United States Army.

     We were to use 107 of our Rangers.  I received some airplane photographs of the prison camp and its surroundings.

     I chose C Company, under Capt. Robert W. Prince ... and one platoon from F Company, commanded by Lt. Robert J. Murphy ... to do the job.
     It was decided to send out the Alamo Scout teams twenty-four hours in advance of the operation to scout the area, and it was planned to attack on the night of the twenty-ninth.  The scouts left on their mission.  I went back to the Rangers and briefed the men who were going to take part in this action.  One of the first things I did then was to tell all the men who were going on this expedition that we would all go to church.  When I got there, I made a little speech in which I asked every man to swear he would die fighting rather than let any harm come to the prisoners of war under our care.  I did that because I believe in it.  Everybody on the mission took that oath.
     At five o'clock on the morning of the twenty-eighth, I went to Guimba.  There I met Major Lapham, the former Army officer who is now in charge of a group of guerrillas.  He told me that the reports that morning showed there were four tanks in the camp and that more Japanese troops had been moving in.  The main road of the camp was the main artery for communications and supply for the Japanese troops who were moving in considerable strength toward the mountains in the north.
     To deal with those tanks, we got our Filipino guide and marched to the headquarters of the guerrilla leader named Captain Joson.  This man Joson also once was an American soldier.  His headquarters at that moment was in a little barrio - meaning a cluster of Filipino huts - a few miles north of Santo Domingo.  Once we left Guimba, we were in Jap-held territory.  I asked him to send some men with me, as we had found that the road from Balak [sic] to the Talavera River was being used extensively by Japs.  There was a battle going on around Baloc which was pretty near the prison camp, and we had to avoid all that.  Captain Joson said he would give me seventy-five men and that he would go with them.  We had to cross two main highways, Taboc and Rizal, before we got to the prison camp.
     We left Captain Joson's headquarters at six-thirty A.M. under the cover of darkness.  We went northeast across country, avoiding all barrios until we got about 500 yards from the first highway.  Then I sent out scouting parties to find suitable crossing.  They reported that the Jap column had recently passed down the road to Cabanatuan, but the road was clear at that time.  We edged up to the road.  While we hid near it in ditches and rice paddies, we heard some trucks coming along.  When they passed, we got across that highway fast.  When about half our men were across, six more Jap trucks came by.  Our men took cover.
     Finally, we all got across without discovery, and double-timed for two miles across pretty open country.  There wasn't much cover, and we had to move fast.  We skirted a road with a bridge which was guarded by a Jap tank and two Jap sentries.  After a few miles, we came to the Rizal road.  Our scouts reported that the traffic over it was light.  Once again we edged up to the road, crawling, and then ran for another mile on the other side.  Finally, we came to another guerrilla stronghold, where we met a force of Filipinos headed by a Captain Pajota.  He also had once fought in the United States Army of the Far East.  He told us that the Alamo Scouts had been there, but they hadn't sent back word yet from the prison camp.
     The light was then coming, and it was forty minutes of marching to Plateros, where we originally had  intended to have the rendezvous.  Instead of going farther, we all holed in under cover of some busses [sic bushes].  Natives brought us rice and water.  We didn't carry much food, only K rations.  We didn't carry packs.  About all we did carry was arms, ammunition and some cigarettes and candy to give to the prisoners when we got to them.
     We lay there all day.  We were near a little village called Balinkari, where a few days before, the Japs went in with nine tanks and killed about 100 people in reprisal for guerrilla activities.  At four P.M. we split up into two groups and marched to Plateros.  An hour later we left.  Pajota's seventy-five men came along.  They got there about seven o'clock.  I put out some scouting parties, and we met a Filipino guerrilla who had been through the camp area disguised as a civilian.  He said there were about 1000 Japs at Cabu, which was about half a mile from the prison camp.  There were a lot of troops moving past it, and there were probably about 800 Japs in the prison camp itself, just resting.  Tanks were  moving all day along the road.
     The guerrilla believed the Japs were moving up into the mountains, but couldn't be sure.  He said he wasn't positive of the exact location of the houses in which our prisoners were being kept or where the tanks were.  I decided not to attack that night, in view of the lack of complete information and the strength of the Jap forces around us.  I sent out some Filipino scouts with our own Alamo Scouts to get more information about that camp.  At three the next morning , they came back and gave me the answers to the seven questions I had asked them.
     They told me how many Japs were in the camp and where they were.  They told me what buildings held the tanks.  They told me how the main gate was locked,and how many gates were occupied by Japs, and how many Japs there were at Cabu, and what were the best ways of approach to the camp from the north and east sides.

Gene's photo of a carabao cart

     I had the camp mapped and, after drawing up the plan of action, we decided to attack that night.  I then had the No. 1 man at a little Filipino barrio round up some carabao carts in which to bring back our American prisoners, who would be pretty weak - some would be sick and unable to make such a march.  These carts were to be at the Pampananga River at 8 P.M.  I also asked our Filipino friend to bring along fifty or sixty unarmed men to help carry out our prisoners who were sick.  At four P.M. we began creeping or crawling over the two kilomerters to the camp.  It was pretty open territory, but there were hills and bushes and a few dikes among the rice paddies, and we were pretty well strung out.  At one point we had to cross the river, which was about 300 yards wide and waist deep in spots and had a fair current.  I prayed that there wouldn't be any rain before we got back, because it was the kind of river that could rise a couple of feet in a very short time, and on the return we would have to cross it with carabao carts full of our sick men, and maybe wounded.
      We traveled in three columns, with Captain Joson's seventy-five guerrillas on our right, Rangers in the middle and Captain Pajota's seventy-five guerrillas on our left.  I had Pajota take his men to the south side of the bridge leading toward Cabu, where the main strength of the Japs was, and ordered him to set up a road block there.  He agreed not to pull out except under two conditions.  He could withdraw if he saw two flares from our Very pistols in the camp.  That would mean we had all our prisoners out.  It he withdrew, he would leaver in a northwesterly direction, pulling the Japs after him and widening the gap through which we'd bring out rescued prisoners.
     Captain Joson and his Filipinos were to set up another road block about 800 yards south of the main gate with about the same instructions.  They were to stop any Jap reinforcements from coming up on  that side.  And if there was a fight before Joson saw our flares and he had to withdraw, he would pull out in a southwesterly direction to widen the gap through which we would make our return march.

To be continued on Friday.