News-Info-Alerts

Re: Palawan Massacre

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: October 10, 2003

"New marker tells story of World War II massacre victims


ST. LOUIS -- Glenn McDole lives to tell of the suffering he endured as a prisoner of war on the Philippine island of Palawan. But for those who didn't survive, he hopes a new historical marker will help tell their stories.
The 150 American servicemen had been taken prisoner in 1942 by the Japanese at Corregidor and Bataan in the Philippines, then a U.S. possession. Malnourished, injured and ill, the American captives reported to work Dec. 14, 1944. Only 11 survived.

After working through the day, the men were herded into three air-raid trenches at the Puerto Princesa Prison Camp. Survivors say the captors poured fuel into the pits and ignited it with torches and grenades. Prisoners trying to escape were killed with machine-gun fire or bayonets.

Of the 139 killed, 123 were brought to south St. Louis County for burial in a mass grave at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in 1952. Families of the other captives opted for burial elsewhere.

The Palawan grave is the largest mass grave site at the cemetery, but until recently it was marked only with a large, flat, gray stone with nothing more than the names, ranks and service branches of the men buried there and the day they all died.

On Saturday, the three remaining survivors will be among the veterans at the cemetery as a new historical marker is dedicated, with more details of what happened to the men that December day. The survivors hope the marker will help pass along the story, which they believe has been ignored by most history books.

McDole, 82, of Ankeny, Iowa, has told the story of his escape at high schools across his home state.

"They've got to know in history exactly what happened," McDole said.
McDole tells of how he escaped through a hatch the prisoners had fashioned in the trench, then made his way naked down a cliff below. For two days the Marine Corps sergeant hid in a mound of trash and then behind some coral before he swam into the bay to escape.

He recalls leaving behind a friend whose arm had been shot off before finally being taken to safety after Philippine fishermen found him atop a fishing trap.
Dan Crowley of Simsbury, Conn., was a member of the 4th Marine Regiment at Corregidor in the Philippines and was among 1,000 U.S. prisoners of war who surrendered to the Japanese in May 1942, he said.

The memorial is a "long overdue dedication," said Crowley, 81.

Eugene Nielsen, 87, recalls forcing his way through barbed wire outside the trench to get free.

"It was hard to believe what was going on," Nielsen said. "I realized it was either get out or die."

Like McDole, he took refuge in a heap of trash and then a coral reef. But Nielsen was spotted and fired upon by Japanese guards as he worked his way down a beach. He was hit in the leg and the armpit, and a third bullet grazed his temple.

Nielsen says he lost a lot of blood and was temporarily knocked out, but managed to go on. He swam some nine hours in the dark, landed on a sandbar, then navigated through a mangrove swamp and a field of grass that cut into his skin like serrated knives. He says he finally came across a Filipino who led him to three other survivors. Another escapee showed up later.

Nielsen, who was an Army private at the time, said his escape was extremely unlikely.

"It's like taking a handful of wheat and throwing it at a can 30 yards away," Nielsen said. "One of those grains might drop in the can."

Joseph E. Dupont Jr., who successfully faked a case of malaria and was taken off Palawan before the massacre, spearheaded a fund-raising effort for the new marker after a reunion at the cemetery two years ago.

Cemetery personnel installed the brass marker atop a marble stone in the spring.

"The Japanese tortured them ... and nothing was told to anyone," said Dupont, 82, of Plaquemine, La. "That's what upsets us _ that the world doesn't know. We hope that this will be a steppingstone for more information to come out."

On the Net:
http://www.redearth.webtol.com/bataan.html

©2003 The Associated Press "