Escape From Davao (25 page)

Stealing chickens, however, was proving easier than recruiting an escape team. There was already a smal pool of potential trustworthy candidates, and al seemed hesitant even to discuss escape, let alone participate. One evening, Mel nik approached Maurice Shoss, a young officer he had known on Corregidor. Shoss’s reply was representative: “You must be joking, Steve. No one can escape from here!” Having disclosed their plans to Abrina, who was now actively seeking guides on their behalf, the plotters had passed the proverbial point of no return. A sense of urgency dictated that they move on to the next phase of planning. McCoy ordered that efforts to round out their party be redoubled.

“They must be wil ing to fol ow orders, risk their lives, and keep their mouths shut. If they have those qualities, I’l make sailors out of them. Keep your eyes open for such men.”

Thanks to Shofner, the Marines had been permanently assigned to the plowing detail. During their rest period, they napped, played bridge, hunted wild pigs, and scavenged fruit for sumptuous banquets cooked in a bamboo clubhouse lodged deep in the banana groves and nearly invisible to the nearest guardhouse.

This idyl ic existence was made possible because many labor details at Dapecol were unsupervised.

Because of Japanese combat losses elsewhere, only a fraction of the 3rd Iwanaka Unit remained to garrison Dapecol. Steadfast in their belief that the swamp made Dapecol escape-proof, Maeda and Hozumi only employed roving patrols to maintain order.

Even so, there was an ominous sign that these halcyon days would not last. Maeda had reduced the prisoners’ rations fol owing the arrival of the Red Cross packages and though these supplies were soon exhausted, the rations were not raised. Accordingly, the Marines began making contingency plans.

Huddled together as cold rains drummed the tin roof of Barracks Five, they secretly pored over a map of the Pacific and charted distances and terrain. After each session, their focus returned to Australia. Like McCoy’s group, this group, too, had deduced that Australia was the closest Al ied-held territory. They also possessed McCoy’s moxie, believing that only one portion of a sea voyage, the final 400-mile leg from Timor to Darwin, was laden with potential danger. What they did not possess, though, was McCoy’s seafaring experience or the necessary Filipino contacts that could turn their plan into reality.

Reaching an impasse with their planning, they nevertheless began to squirrel away cans of food for future developments—though they never actual y al owed themselves to discuss just what kind. “We avoided any actual direct conversation about escape,” said Hawkins. “We did not formulate any definite plans, but we were thinking. Every night I went to sleep with escape on my mind. Once awakened, the dormant thoughts could not be quieted.”

Austin Shofner was doing more than thinking about escape. It was a Thursday night in mid-February.

After an hour-long talk in relative seclusion in Barracks Five, Shofner and Ed Dyess had reached an agreement on a tentative joint escape plan: that they would sleep on it. It remains lost to history just who contacted whom first, but the fact remains that both had decided that the timing was right for an escape, that the odds would likely never be more in their favor, and that they could not go it alone. “It stil looked good the next night, and we decided to give it a try even if we lost our lives,” said Dyess.

“When do we go? Right now? Sure!” exclaimed a breathless Sam Grashio when approached by Dyess. “If we tried to escape and were executed, so what? It would only be faster than staying on to expire of disease or starvation,” he explained. “If the escape was successful, I would save my life.”

Escape had been a regular topic of conversation for Dyess and Boelens, so when Boelens detailed what he could contribute, it became obvious that he had only been awaiting the order to proceed.

Hawkins and Dobervich were intrigued by the proposed interservice partnership, yet characteristical y apprehensive at the same time. They were wel acquainted with Dyess and Grashio, but Dyess’s glowing recommendation of Boelens would not suffice. Before signing on to any venture, especial y one with life-or-death consequences, they would have to meet with Dyess’s entire team. And the sooner the better. “I felt I was already dead,” Hawkins would later say. “I felt I was living on borrowed time.” With the clock ticking, a conference was scheduled.

At nightfal , the Marines left Bay 10 singly, at intervals so as not to arouse suspicion, for the rendezvous point: the shed located some fifty feet behind the barracks that served as the prisoners’

barbershop. They believed that the shack’s proximity to the latrines, more specifical y to the odor, would give them the privacy and security they needed.

They had just pul ed up three stools when Leo Boelens appeared. Perfunctory handshakes and a few minutes of smal talk provided the Marines with al they needed to know. Boelens exuded a quiet confidence and his “rugged, bronzed” face, said Hawkins, revealed “depths of strength and character….

I liked what I saw and what I learned.”

As soon as Dyess and Grashio arrived, Shofner rose to survey the surrounding area. Satisfied that there were no eavesdroppers, he returned and signaled for the meeting to proceed.

Leaning his angular frame against a post, Dyess struck a match to light a cigarette; the flame il uminated his hunger-chiseled features and serious demeanor. After a whispering sizzle of glowing red tobacco and burning paper, he exhaled his thoughts in hushed tones.

“I’ve always planned to get away from these little bastards, and I think the time has come to do something about it. I don’t have anything definite in mind yet, but if we can get out of here we can try to get to the south by boat. I say the time wil be right pretty soon, because things are going to get tougher around here. Look at the chow we’re getting now—just like Cabanatuan.”

“And we never know when they might start the shooting squad idea here either,” interjected Hawkins.

“That would stop the whole idea for good.”

Dyess nodded in assent. “I’ve been thinking about that angle, too. We would have to give it up altogether if there was a chance of anything happening to the boys left behind.”

Though there was no precedent by which to predict Maeda’s response and no accounting for the mercurial Japanese temperament, they al agreed that reprisals would be unlikely.

“I don’t believe Maeda would do anything serious,” said Dobervich. “If Hozumi were in command, I might have a different opinion.”

Their ethical reservations addressed, they next discussed the physical obstacles to an escape, namely, how to leave Mindanao. Dyess outlined two proposals, the first of which cal ed for the escapees to steal an enemy plane, which either Dyess or Grashio could fly to freedom. Capturing a plane, concurred the Marines, was highly unlikely.

“Wel , how about the boat?” asked Dyess. “Is there anyone here who could get us to Australia? How about you, Hawk? You studied navigation at the [Naval] Academy, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did, but this is a different problem,” said Hawkins, explaining that not only did he have little practical experience, but that he would also be hampered by the lack of charts and instruments. “I’m wil ing to try, but I want you to know that I don’t claim to be an expert.”

They needed more than a navigational expert. They needed someone knowledgeable, experienced, and shrewd enough to shepherd the operation. It was Shofner who voiced the name on everyone’s lips: McCoy.

“I guarantee he’s shrewd. I’ve been playing poker on the cuff with that boy and I know.”

Whether McCoy would throw in his lot with the group was a matter of conjecture, but their mission was clear. “We even went so far as to state exactly what our mission was,” said Hawkins. “It was our intention to bring America and the whole world the awful true story of what the Japanese had done and were doing to the survivors of Bataan and

Corregidor.”

Though their plans were born out of an innate desire for self-preservation, there was more riding on their mission than their own lives. On Christmas Day, the Marines had prepared a huge fruit salad from their stash and taken it to the hospital. The sight of the diseased, emaciated patients had served, by Hawkins’s recol ections, as a “sobering” impetus to action. By February 1, more than one-third of the POWs occupied a special “sick” compound apart from the main hospital, which had long since reached capacity. They could not have known that the tide of war was slowly turning in America’s favor, but they did know that if someone did not do something, the empirical evidence suggested that there would likely be no Americans left in the Philippines to greet MacArthur should he ever fulfil his promise. That

“someone,” they realized, was them.

“There are a lot of other camps and a lot of lives that could be saved,” Shofner reminded the others.

“Who knows how many men are in the same rotten boat we’re in right now?”

They had kin in misery al over the Far East. The same monstrous ideological momentum that had propel ed them into O’Donnel , Cabanatuan, and Dapecol had driven countless Al ied prisoners to other levels of hel everywhere from Borneo to mainland Japan. Thousands would continue to die on other death marches, in other camps, and on voyages undertaken in the holds of hel ships inconceivably worse than that of the
Erie Maru
. And tens of thousands more had been destined to reach Japan, Manchuria, Burma, and Thailand to toil on docks and in mines and factories owned by companies such as Mitsubishi and Mitsui and on projects with ominous names like the “Death Railway.”

“We hoped that by our efforts we might serve in some way to relieve the suffering of those men we left behind, and at the same time arouse the righteous fury of the American people for the punishment of Japan,” Hawkins would write. At the very least, they believed that through a startling revelation

“tremendous international pressure would be brought to bear on the Japanese,” forcing their enemy to make some improvements in their prison camps in order “to regain some of their ‘face’ lost in the eyes of the civilized world.”

They might not have had a complete plan, but they had a powerful purpose. As the meeting adjourned, there was one last important order of business to discuss.

“Don’t forget the bal game,” said Dyess, “I’m depending on you to play tomorrow, Shof, and you too, Hawk. We’ve got to beat those Japs if it’s the last thing we ever do.”

The Japanese had chal enged the prisoners to a basebal game, and though few Americans were capable of strenuous activity, the chal enge had been accepted. Basebal was, after al , the
American
national pastime. More important, the game was an opportunity for redemption. “This was another Bataan,” noted Hawkins, “but this time we were going to be on the winning team.”

By Sunday afternoon, excitement had reached a fever pitch. Punctuated by the sounds of bal s popping leather, chatter rippled the standing-room-only crowd at the bal field. Hundreds of POWs, civilians, and guards mil ed along the crowded baselines as a five-piece Filipino prisoners band blared “Take Me Out to the Bal Game.” Hawkins, scratched from the lineup due to an upset stomach, watched with Dobervich from the rickety grandstand as Hozumi and Maeda took their seats in the front row.

Cal ing the teams together, the umpire, Lieutenant Yuki, tossed a silver peso into the air. Ed Dyess won the toss and elected to bat last. Dyess trotted out to left field and Yuki, his sword dangling from his side, hunched behind Lt. Col. Charles “Pol y” Humber, Jr., a former West Point letterman, who sizzled warm-up pitches into Shofner’s catcher’s mitt. As soon as Yuki commenced the game in accented English

—“Batter Up!”—the pro-American crowd launched into a fusil ade of applause and throaty cheers, turning the hardscrabble field into Yankee Stadium. “Geeve eet to heem, Colonel,” yel ed a New Mexican POW.

Humber did. Out of an elongated wind-up, he rifled a pitch past the ear of the first batter that sent the Japanese diving to the dirt. The crowd roared in approval. “Bal one,” said Yuki, waving a finger. No sooner had the batter returned to his feet than Humber’s next offering struck him in the head. Exploding with pent-up emotion, the crowd cheered lustily as Shofner, feigning concern, helped the woozy Japanese off the field. Adding to the surreal scene, the band spontaneously struck up “Stars and Stripes Forever.” “Hozumi’s countenance, always forbidding, darkened like a threatening thundercloud,” recal ed Hawkins. Despite the overwhelming crowd support, the Americans finished the first inning down 4–0.

A few innings later, the Americans’ lead-off hitter, Austin Shofner, hustled to beat out an infield hit. He attempted to steal second base on the next pitch, but malnutrition had siphoned his speed. Seeing the bal arrive before him, he lowered his shoulder and barreled into the second baseman like a freight train.

When the dust settled, Shofner was standing proudly atop the base amid of cascade of “hurrays” from the raucous crowd. The Japanese fielder, having dropped the bal in the col ision, was covered in dirt and bleeding profusely from the mouth.

The Japanese held a 14–10 advantage heading into the final inning. Humber beaned another enemy batter and then proceeded to strike out the next three. In the bottom half of the inning, a ral y knocked in two runs and loaded the bases with just one out, launching the crowd into a frenzy. But consecutive strike outs ended the game for the Americans. “We’l get ’em next time,” promised one dejected prisoner as the crowd filed back to the barracks. There would be no rematch; the Americans had come too close to winning.