Escape From Davao (60 page)

23
All around him:
Edward Dissette and H. C. Adamson,
Guerrilla Submarines
(New York: Bal antine, 1972), 42; John Toland,
But Not in Shame: The Six Months After Pearl Harbor
(New York: Random House, 1961), 115; Ind,
Bataan
, 188; Lee,
They Call It Pacific
, 135; Mel nik,
Philippine Diary
, 50; Morton,
The Fall of the Philippines
, 165, 179, 234.

23
Fired tanks containing millions of gallons:
Morton,
The Fall of the Pacific
, 164; Lee,
They
Call It Pacific
, 153; Toland,
But Not in Shame
, 142.

23
A rising tide of terror:
Morton,
The Fall of the Philippines
, 116, 232; Toland,
The Rising Sun
, 315.

23
a gifted prodigy:
Biography of Rear Admiral Melvyn H. McCoy, U.S.N. (Ret.), Navy Office of Information, Internal Relations Division, March 27, 1968, 1.

24
“It was as the Czar of Math”: The Lucky Bag
, 1928, Nimitz Library, U.S. Naval Academy, Special Col ections and Archives Division.

24
Though he could be coldly cerebral:
Jack Hawkins, author’s interview.

24
After assignments in Nicaragua:
Biography of McCoy, 1.

24
These lonely forays:
Lt. Commander Melvyn H. McCoy, Letters home from Canlaon, September 17, 1941, and Banahao, Philippines, November 6, 1941, Personal Papers.

24 “It doesn’t do her much justice”:
Evening Sun
(Baltimore), January 28, 1944.

24
The hands of 1st Lt. Austin Shofner’s wristwatch:
Lt. Austin C. Shofner, “Diary: 1941–1943”

(unpublished), 160.

25
Ordinarily, the Marine did not smoke:
Austin Shofner told Bil Smal wood that “I started smoking on Corregidor; you can’t believe the starvation we went through.”

25
He had brought that infectious optimism:
Shofner, “Diary: 1941–1943”, 160; Kenneth W.

Condit and Edwin T. Turnbladh,
Hold High the Torch: A History of the 4th Marines
(Washington, D.C.: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1960), 204.

25
It was not long after that:
Austin Shofner, Smal wood interview.

25
Located at the maw of Manila Bay:
Ibid., 206; Mel nik,
Philippine Diary
, 5–11;
Marine Corps
Gazette
, November 1946; Morton,
The Fall of the Philippines
, 471–78.

25
“Corregidor was indeed a mighty fortress”:
Clark Lee, “Everybody Knew When the Planes Were Coming,” in Samuel Hynes and Anne Matthews et al.,
Reporting World War II: Part One:
American Journalism, 1938–1944
(New York: Literary Classics of the United States Penguin, 1995), 303.

25
Most of the Marines:
J. Michael Mil er,
From Shanghai to Corregidor: Marines in the
Defense of the Philippines
(Washington, D.C., Marines in World War II Commemorative Series, Marine Corps Historical Center, 1997), 18.

25
Lieutenant Shofner jumped to his feet:
Shofner, “Diary: 1941–1943,” 160.

25
Corregidor’s “antiquity” up close:
Austin Shofner, Smal wood interview.

25
The soles of his spit-shined:
E-mail correspondence from Donald Versaw to the author, September 11, 2005.

26
“I wanted to go out and see”:
Shofner, “Guerril a Diary” (unpublished), 2.

26
Eighteen bombers:
Morton,
The Fall of the Philippines
, 480.

26
men and machine guns chattered away:
Shofner, “Guerril a Diary,” 2.

26
The twinkling of the metal bombs:
Shofner, “Diary: 1941–1943,” 160.

26
“I couldn’t tell what their targets were”:
Austin Shofner, Smal wood interview.

26
His father had always told him:
Shofner,
Nashville Banner
, May 28, 1984.

26
Shofner learned the values:
Ibid.; Stewart Shofner, author’s interview. Austin Shofner, Smal wood interview.

26
His gridiron prowess:
Austin Shofner, Smal wood interview.

26
“Football Maxims”:
As Austin Shofner and any Tennessee footbal player who played under legendary coach Robert Neyland would attest, Neyland’s famed “Footbal Maxims” were not just the foundation of Neyland’s highly successful eighteen-year coaching career in Knoxvil e, they were also an essential part of his plan for educating his charges to be successful in their endeavors away from the gridiron. According to the research of one of Neyland’s former players, 1950s ful back Andy Kozar, Neyland’s thirty-eight total maxims were derived from the six original axioms of another West Pointer who had a major impact on Neyland’s life and career, the Army footbal coach known as the “Godfather of West Point Footbal ,” Charles Daly.

Daly’s axioms were divided into two categories, “Footbal Axioms” and “Game Axioms.” Daly’s

“Footbal Axioms” were as fol ows: “1) Footbal is a battle. Go out to fight and keep it up al afternoon. 2) A man’s value to his team varies inversely as his distance from the bal . 3) If the line goes forward the team wins; if the line comes backward the team loses.” Daly’s “Game Axioms”: “1) Make and play for the breaks. When one comes your way, score. 2) If the game or a break goes against you, don’t lie down—put on more steam. 3) Don’t save yourself. Go the limit. There are good men on the side line, when you are exhausted.” For more information, see Robert Reese Neyland and Dr. Andrew Kozar,
Football as a War Game: The Annotated
Journals of General R. R. Neyland
(Knoxvil e, TN: Falcon 2002); Andy Kozar, “Neyland’s Maxims,”
College Football Historical Society
16, no. 2 (February 2003).

26
“There aren’t many like Neyland”:
Shofner,
Nashville Banner
, May 28, 1984.

27
His uncanny ability to motivate:
Stewart Shofner, author’s interview.

27
supposedly bombproof Middleside Barracks:
Condit and Turnbladh,
Hold High the Torch
, 204.

27
Shofner ordered a dentist:
Shofner, “Diary: 1941–1943”, 161.

27
“Suddenly,” Shofner would say:
Shofner, “Guerril a Diary,” 2.

27
Twenty-five miles in length:
Morton,
The Fall of the Philippines
, 245; Manchester,
American
Caesar
, 267.

27
nearly 80,000 American and Filipino troops:
Toland,
But Not in Shame
, 124–25.

27
They came from all corners:
Ibid., 124; Ind,
Bataan,
183; 28
swollen cataracts of men, animals and machines:
Ind,
Bataan,
179.

28
Following closely behind:
Toland,
But Not in Shame
, 118.

28
“small Dunkirk”:
Lt. John Posten of the 17th Pursuit Squadron, as quoted in Bartsch,
Doomed at the Start
, 197.

28
carrying with it large stores:
Whitman,
Bataan
, 49.

28
The abandonment of 5,000 tons of rice:
Despite the dire situation, overzealous Filipino officials adhered to commonwealth regulations that forbade the transfer of rice between provinces ibid., 46. Even more shockingly, nearly 2,000 cases of canned fish and corned beef were not confiscated from Japanese wholesalers because USAFFE had placed a prohibition on such seizures, ibid., 46–47.

28
MacArthur had also ordered:
Morton,
The Fall of the Philippines
, 255.

28
The madness of the retreat:
Ibid., 254.

29
On January 5, 1942:
Ibid., 257.

29
loaded with suspect ammunition:
Wil iam B. Breuer,
The Great Raid: Rescuing the
Doomed Ghosts of Bataan and Corregidor
(New York: Hyperion, 2002), 10, 26.

29
waiting … for help from the States:
Ibid., 238–42.

3. THE RAID

PAGE

30
“We only know our candle”:
Henry Lee, “Prison Camp Reverie (Three Years from Home),”

Nothing but Praise
, 45.

30
German forces controlled territory:
John Mosier,
Cross of Iron
(New York: Henry Holt, 2006), 180–81; Winston Groom,
1942: The Year that Tried Men’s Souls
(New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005), 157.

30
it was feared that:
James K. Eyre, Jr.,
The Roosevelt-MacArthur Conflict
(Chambersburg, PA: Craft Press, 1950), 68; David Brinkley,
Washington Goes to War: The
Extraordinary, Story of the Transformation of a City, and a Nation
(New York: Bal antine, 1988), 91–92.

30
gave way to mass hysteria:
Wil iam B. Breuer,
The Air-Raid Warden Was a Spy, and Other
Tales from Home-Front America in World War II
(Edison, NJ: Castle, 2005), 14–16.

30
Japanese submarines sank merchant vessels:
Ibid., 8; Richard Lingeman,
Don’t You Know
There’s a War On?: The American Homefront, 1941–1945
(New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2003), 44, 63, 169.

30
One elected official:
Toland,
The Rising Sun
, 297.

30
The original copies:
Groom,
1942
.

31
Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066:
Lingeman,
Don’t You Know There’s a War On?
, 337–42; Dower,
War Without Mercy
, 79–81.

31
America’s romantic fascination:
Condit and Turnbladh,
Hold High the Torch
, 195.

31
In an April panegyric: Life
, April 13, 1942.

31
war celebrities: New York Times
, January 30, 1942; 105;
Life
, March 16, 1942;
Time
, February, 23, 1942.

31
seemed heaven-sent to a nation:
Eyre,
The Roosevelt-MacArthur Conflict
, 60.

31
Streets in large cities and small towns: Life
, March 30, 1942.

31
Buoyed by messages from Washington:
Manchester,
American Caesar
, 270–71; Morton,
Strategy and Command
, 151; MacArthur,
Reminiscences
, 127.

32
“Help is on the way”:
MacArthur’s typed communiqué, issued by Col. Carl H. Seals, adjutant general, was distributed to al USAFFE commanders on Bataan on January 15, 1942. Col ege Park, MD: National Archives and Records Administration (cited hereafter as NARA), RG 407, Philippine Archives Col ection, Box 12.

32
And so the defenders:
Ray C. Hunt and Bernard Norling,
Behind Japanese Lines: An
American Guerrilla in the Philippines
(New York Pocket, 1988), 25; Whitman,
Bataan
, 452.

32
FDR had cabled President Quezon:
Manchester,
American Caesar
, 272.

32
With the German and Italian declarations of war:
Morton,
Strategy and Command
, 143.

32
America’s ill-prepared military: The World Almanac and Book of Facts
(New York: New York World-Telegram, 1939), 948.

32
According to Field Marshal Sir John Dill:
Field Marshal Alan Brooke (1st Viscount Alanbrooke),
Diaries
(London: Col ins, 1957–1958), 292–93.

32
At the end of the three-week Arcadia Conference:
Morton,
Strategy and Command
, 158–59.

32
In his fireside chat:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “On Progress of the War,” February 23, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, NY.

33
He was not told, however, that the convoys were not intended for the Philippines:
As Manchester explains in
American Caesar
, 275, “the White House and War Department were raising false hopes in the doomed Philippines, but they weren’t guilty of malice.” The most notable instance of this strategy regarding the Philippines concerns the
Pensacola
convoy, one of several American convoys that would sail from the United States for the Pacific in the early weeks of the war, but were instead destined for Australia or other outposts. The large convoy led by the heavy cruiser
Pensacola
was original y scheduled to arrive in the Philippines in the second week of December, but had been diverted to Brisbane shortly after the commencement of hostilities. The ships had been loaded with nearly 5,000 men, 9,000 gal ons of aviation fuel, hundreds of trucks and jeeps, four dozen 75 mil imeter guns, almost four mil ion rounds of machine gun ammunition, 600 tons of bombs, fifty-two A-24 dive bombers, and eighteen P-40s.

Although this matériel would serve a vital

role in the establishment of an operating base in Australia, one can only imagine what such a force could have meant in turning the tide of battle in the Philippines.

33
pull-out from the Philippines:
Eyre,
The Roosevelt-MacArthur Conflict
, 60, 66; a man who spent a considerable amount of time in the Philippines as MacArthur’s aide, General Dwight D.

Eisenhower, concurred, stating that the peoples of the Far East “wil be watching us. They may excuse failure but they wil not excuse abandonment.” Eisenhower,
Crusade in Europe: A
Personal Account of World War II
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1948), 22.

33
“There are times”:
Manchester,
American Caesar
, 274.

33
As mechanics on Bataan scrounged:
Lend-Lease records, NARA, Records of the Office of War Information, RG 208, Box 968.

33
In March, exports to the Soviet Union: Chicago Tribune
, February 14, 1944.