Escape From Davao (36 page)

But neither the POWs nor the Japanese had any way of knowing. Maeda was flustered. Prison camp commanders were given some autonomy, but since he had been unable to clean up his own mess and since mass escape was such a rare event, he had to report the matter to the Prisoner of War Bureau in Manila, under the command of Maj. Gen. Iichiro Morimoto, and await official instructions.

In the meantime, the Japanese, in keeping with their belief in mass punishment, had placed the entire camp on a diet of rice and salt and removed approximately 560 prisoners, more than one-fourth of the camp’s total population, from the main POW enclosure into a special compound on April 11. In addition to the twenty prisoners who had slept next to the escapees, the Japanese had added the barracks’ leaders, the American camp leadership, men who worked on the same details as the escapees, and others who had eaten, conversed, or associated with the escaped POWs—in short, anyone even remotely connected to the escape.

Tucked away in a banana grove almost 800 yards apart from the main compound on the other side of the railroad tracks, the special compound was a bestial relic from Dapecol’s earliest days: five thatch-roofed barracks surrounded by three concentric barbed wire fences. The barracks, which radiated out from a central space, contained cages made of wood and wire mesh. These double-decked cages were seven feet long, three feet wide, and seven feet high, and predictably uncomfortable. “When we were al instal ed, crouching in our cages with heads poked out of the upper and lower ‘apartments,’ it …

resembled nothing so much as the Bronx Zoo,” wrote POW Alan McCracken.

Nothing, not even patchwork repairs of the mesh screens or homemade insecticides made of wood ash, water, and boiled tobacco stems could combat the colonies of bedbugs that infested the cages. The Japanese had placed severe restrictions on the entire camp. There was to be no smoking, no reading, no card playing. As Maeda had told al of the POWs in an address on April 15, they have “a moral obligation and must be penitent.” But they were not going to be penitent in the camp chapel; church services were suspended. Less surprisingly, hard labor was deemed a suitable penance, but now, POWs headed out to the fields wore only G-strings. The Japanese believed that additional escapes could be discouraged if the prisoners were not permitted to wear pants, shoes, or other clothing crucial for jungle survival.

Another consequence was that Lieutenant Yuki’s influence was al but eliminated since many of the Japanese believed that it was his liberal policies that had made the escape possible. Guards became correspondingly meaner, and beatings and incidences of physical violence committed against prisoners more commonplace. The interrogations continued unabated, too. “Why did they want to run away?” the Japanese repeatedly asked, with a frustratingly bizarre naïveté. “Because the prisoners are being starved,” came the exasperated answer. Even so, rations were further slashed.

Guards patrol ed inside the special compound to make sure that the Americans were not engaging in any restricted activities. When a guard was spotted, a code phrase alarm—“Heigh-ho Silver”—passed from cage to cage to curtail clandestine card games and conversations.

Though there had been little mention of shooting squads since Wada’s impassioned speech on the night of the escape, most, if not al , of the men in the special compound considered themselves condemned. There was no way, they believed, that the Japanese would let something as monumental as a mass escape slide. And so they waited. The period was so mental y taxing, Bert Bank would later write that the ordeal lasted an entire month. It was, in actuality, slightly less than one week. “We real y lived in agony,” Bank said, “and prayed that they would come and shoot us right away instead of letting us suffer.”

Not surprisingly, the debate about the escapees had hardly cooled. “To some they were heroes,” said one POW. “To others names unprintable.” Jack Donohoe, one of those awaiting his fate in the special compound, was both pessimistic and philosophical. “The way I felt was, you never knew, al of us might’ve been dead and they’d been the only ones to stay alive. At least somebody got to live.”

Most notable, and perhaps peculiar, of the Japanese rules was that the imprisoned were not to exhibit any signs of emotion. “No hilarity” had been the decree. Bank had decided that he was going to do his best to violate that rule. After al , what else could the Japanese do to a condemned man? “Every individual has got their own idiosyncracies,” he would say. “I never lost my sense of humor. While we were waiting for them to come and execute us, I told the guys, ‘Hel , in the States, before they kil a guy, they give him a nice meal. Maybe they’re going to bring us a steak tonight.’ They didn’t think it was funny. I thought it was funny as hel .”

There was no steak that night, but no blindfolds or cigarettes were distributed in the morning, either. Al of the special compound’s occupants watched with apprehension as Maeda and Wada ascended to a smal box from which they could address the crowd.

The first order sentenced the entire group to confinement for a period of one month. Then a list of names was read: the American camp commander and his assistants; the barracks and bay leaders whose charges had escaped. Final y, the names of those who had slept next to the escapees were read.

They were ordered to step forward twenty paces and salute. It was peculiar protocol, but, remembered Alan McCracken, “we who were about to only-Heaven-and-the-major-knew what, saluted.” Maeda then took a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed the

document—in al probability the official order from Manila—to Wada.

“You wil now hear your punishment,” announced the interpreter.

To Bank, it seemed as though Wada was unfolding the paper in slow motion; the ordeal truly was never-ending. “Between the time he said this to the time he read the punishment, I think twenty years elapsed.”

Twenty paces behind them, feet—some shod, most bare—kicked and shuffled nervously in the dirt.

Otherwise, not a sound was heard. Every eye was focused on Wada’s lips, every head turned, every ear strained to hear the verdict. Final y, Wada began to read.

“Men cal ed here,” he droned, “due to insufficient control and supervision of their men, neglecting their duties, causing the escape of war prisoners, which is the major crime, have been given the fol owing punishments …”

Eyelids shuttered. Throats instinctively swal owed.

“… And are directed to reflect their faults. They shal thereby spend the number of days indicated in meditation of the past incident and observing modest and model conduct at al times.”

Individual sentences were read, but few heard them. Al that those twenty men could hear were the words reverberating in their minds:
Directed to reflect their faults … Meditation.

Rendered immobile, trembling and trying to corral their disjointed emotions, Bank and the others opened their eyes to an unexpected, inexplicable reprieve and, for the time being, a new life.

SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1943

Kapungagan, Davao Province

Despite their improved circumstances, the escapees were not total y free men. “We had escaped from Dapecol,” admitted McCoy, “but never from the memory that [our friends] were stil there.” “Al ten of us would have been consoled immensely had it been possible for us to know,” Grashio would write, “that

[Maeda] would not slaughter others for what we had done.” They could not have known what had just taken place at Dapecol, nor could they refuse their hosts’ hospitality. Feelings of guilt would hang over them like storm clouds, despite the fiestas and feasts.

The effects of the fiesta on the evening of April 12 had just about faded when two aides to the mysterious Captain Laureta, Lts. Jose Tuvil a and Teofilo Rivera, arrived to examine the escapees’

credentials. “In cold, formal terms, they demanded to know who we were, where we came from and where we were going,” said Mel nik. Both officers were spit-and-polish and menacingly serious—Tuvil a angular, Rivera muscular and bearded—as they went about their task with official efficiency.

“Which of you are Grashio and Shofner?” asked Rivera.

Evidently, Laureta had not discarded the notion that the Japanese were employing their Axis al ies to dupe the guerril as. That anyone could successful y traverse the swamp was apparently stil too baffling to believe. “Grashio and Shofner were understandably indignant as they presented their papers showing they were officers in the United States Army and Marine Corps, despite their names,” recal ed McCoy.

To suggest that they were anything but Americans, that their sores and cuts were not real, that their bodies did not ache and shake with pain and malaria, was an insult to the two men.

The escapees had little choice but to comply. Once satisfied that the escapees were who they represented themselves to be, Tuvil a and Rivera notified Laureta that it was safe to return to Kapungagan. Trailed by heavily armed bodyguards, Laureta final y emerged from the jungle at noon, as contrite as he was cautious, on April 17.

“My apologies, gentlemen, for being so suspicious,” he said as they retired to his office. “But there is a price on my head and the Japanese have employed tricks before to get me.”

Claro G. Laureta, compact with tightly shorn black hair, was in his mid-thirties. Barely five feet tal , he wore a Japanese uniform shirt, carried a .45 automatic pistol and a sheathed bolo, and had the feverish look of a man who was weighed down by malaria attacks and the responsibilities of a sprawling command. As Laureta and the escapees shared their stories, mutual respect and admiration replaced the awkward hostility. Shofner described Laureta best: “A strange, paradoxical personalty, he had a sentimentality which could set his eyes brimming with tears over a patriotic song, and a streak of granite toughness which could bring summary beheading for a guerril a who transgressed his iron-clad rules.”

While the Americans had been struggling to survive in prison camp, Laureta and his men had been struggling to survive in the jungle. The constabulary officer had arrived from western Mindanao in the midst of the panic that ensued after the civilian evacuation. Shortages of food, medicine, and clothing led to massive civil unrest, enabling bandits to seize power and Japanese spies and informants to proliferate. The erstwhile policeman labored instinctively and intensively to restore order. Once the intimidating, iron-wil ed dynamo had effectively turned the Davao area into his own district, he focused on the invader. His motivation was simple: to avenge the likely deaths of his wife and children.

“I do not know if they are dead or alive,” he said tearful y, his black eyes flashing. “For months I have searched for them but I can find no trace. You can see why I hate these Japs and why I have devoted myself to kil ing as many of them as I can.”

Though their presence was another burden on his shoulders, Laureta was sympathetic to the Americans’ mission. He agreed with their stated desire to reach friendly forces and tel America the truth about what was happening to its men in the Philippines. Professing his loyalty to the United States, he readily volunteered whatever assistance he could provide. But first, he needed their advice.

Laureta unfolded a letter that had arrived by courier from Medina, a town on the coast of northeast Mindanao, several days earlier. Dated the 31st of March, it had been written by an American Army officer named Lt. Col. Ernest McClish, who claimed to command a sizable guerril a operation in Agusan Province, north of Davao. McClish possessed 500 rifles, plenty of uniforms and supplies, and three diesel-powered boats. Most important, at least to the escapees, was McClish’s brief mention that he was in radio contact with Al ied forces in Australia. The letter was an invitation for Laureta to link up with McClish’s outfit.

“I’d like to team up with a man like that,” said Laureta, “but the Japs have hit me from so many directions that I’m afraid this letter is another trick.”

Mel nik examined the letter. It was no trick, he told Laureta—he knew of McClish.

“In fact, I helped brief him on PA [Philippine Army] matters prior to his departure for Mindanao in November 1941. You can take that letter at face value.”

“Wel ,” added McCoy, “the letter seems genuine … Why don’t you try contacting him?”

“Yes, that’s what I had in mind,” said Laureta thoughtful y. “Perhaps you gentlemen would be interested in this mission.”

Laureta suggested that the Americans, traveling under an armed, ful y provisioned escort, journey to Medina. There now were two options on the table in Laureta’s office. The escapees could continue on to Cateel, a seven-day hike, and attempt to procure a vessel for a sea voyage to New Guinea and Australia. Or they could try to meet McClish in Medina, a chal enging jungle journey of nearly 100 miles, with tough mountain trails and river navigation.

As McCoy saw it, despite the difference in distances and inherent risks, Laureta’s plan was the better for two reasons: “our eagerness to repay Laureta for his kindness and the reference in McClish’s letter about radio contact he had with Australia.” McCoy was confident that if there was a radio, he could contact the Navy and arrange for a submarine to rescue them. Laureta concluded his pitch by promising that if they failed to reach Medina, or if McClish could do nothing for them, he would help them execute their original plan. It was put to a vote.

“What do you think, Shof?” asked Dobervich.