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Post by okla on Aug 28, 2012 23:02:31 GMT 8
Hey Patty....Well, you asked for it, so here is another tidbit that pertains to something I posted awhile back. Regarding the civilian POWs at Santo Tomas. I knew this guy (who was an older brother to a good buddy of mine while in High School) who served as a Platoon Sergeant in the First Cav Division). I have spoken of him several times in previous posts. Anyhow, when the Americans broke into Santo Tomas, of course, the internees were overjoyed. Some proclaimed (as is mentioned in more than one narrative) that the "young, healthy looking, GIs looked akin to Greek Gods to the haggard POWs. Roy, this First Cav veteran, told me in one of our many gabfests, that some of those young, caucasian girls, many of whom were only 14 and 15 ,etc years of age when they went behind the wire had matured into young women, "looked pretty damned good to us "dog faces", after months of slugging it out in the brutal island fighting. My friend died just recently. He never got a scratch in all the close combat he was involved in, but he couldn't beat cancer. Cheers.
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Post by pdh54 on Sept 11, 2012 0:34:28 GMT 8
Miss U by Margaret Utinsky
Page 40 Chapter IV
When the Americans were rounded up after the surrender of Corregidor, the Japanese began to release their Filipino prisoners. The Red Cross was on hand for each release date, to look after the Filipinos, and to bring those who were ill back to Manila in cattle cars.
Dr. Romeo Atienza, the Filipino doctor with whom I had worked on that second relief expedition to Bataan, had managed to establish himself at Capas, near Camp O'Donnell, and to make contact with the American prisoners, so I was all set to join the Red Cross nurses at Capas, my excuse being that I was on my way to help the Filipinos who were being liberated.
I did not know yet what kind of arrangements Dr. Atienza had made, but there must be some way of getting supplies into Camp O'Donnell. There had to be. Now at last I had found a use for the provisions with which I had stacked my apartment just before the fall of Manila. At least the food from the American commissary was going to feed Americans.
So that first trip of mine to Capas had all the earmarks of a minor evacuation. I filled sack after sack with groceries. I even stacked a trunk full of them. By the time my packing was done, there was a mountain of bundles which, somehow or other, I had to get to Capas.
Then came the labor of getting carts. The cochero lost enthusiasm when he took a look at the trunk, but by dint of persuasion, threats, and the flourishing of a few pesos, I finally got myself, my trunk, and my assortment of sacks, bags, and bundles to the train.
By one of those paradoxical chances that come up in wartime, I found a redcap, rushing around the platform among shouting and gesticulating travelers, crying children who had lost their parents, and scattered baggage. I collared him and though he was dismayed at the prospect of getting all my loot stowed away on the crowded train, he didn't have a chance to get away from me.
He decided the easiest way would be to shove the stuff in through the window, so I climbed on, pushed my way to a window, and pulled the sacks in while the redcap pushed from outside. I shoved the stuff anywhere, under my seat, under every seat in reach, while the Filipino passengers gaped and even the calm Indians watched me, their dark faces kindled with interest.
At length everything was safely on board except for the trunk. I called, “Take that to the baggage car,” and then raced through the train to make sure the trunk actually came aboard. The cochero edged his cart down the length of the train, the redcap heaved and I tugged, and the trunk came aboard just as the shriek of the whistles sounded. The train was on its was and so, thank God, was I.
The trunk was safe but there was no telling about the bags and bundles. I knew my travelers in the Philippine railroad coaches, so I hurried back through the train to my seat. A perfect barrage of questions greeted me, so I explained that I was a Lithuanian nurse on my way to Capas in Tarlac province, where I was going to look after the Filipino prisoners who were being released b the Japanese. Many of them were sick, all of the were hungry.
The Filipinos nodded their heads. Yes, they agreed, it was true. Thee was much sickness and hunger these days. And with their curiosity appeased, they retired to their own seats, pushing aside children, squawking chickens, and whatever livestock they might be transporting with them. The train settled down to its journey and so did I.
By the time the train was whistling for Capas, I had begun the Manila process in reverse. Capas was a whistle stop and I had to get my stuff off quickly or not at all. I enlisted the help of everyone in reach and got them to promise to put my things out of the window as soon as the train stopped. Then I ran back to the baggage car to look after my trunk.
I found it alright. Sitting on top of it was a fat Japanese. Even if I had known how to talk to him, I would not have been able to at that moment. I just grunted and pointed to the trunk. He looked me over, saw my Red Cross band. Then he grunted, He pointed at me and then at the trunk.
“You, you?” he asked.
I nodded my head nearly off. He pointed at about everything in the car and asked, “You, you?” I could have gone off with the whole carload of stuff. He pushed the heavy trunk off on the platform, grinning and hissing.
On the platform I found a cochero. While the Filipinos were poking things out of the window, the cochero reached over the barbed wire that ran along the tracks, hauling my baggage over the wire, loading it frantically into the carretela (two-wheeled box shaped cart); then he rushed from window to window, catching the last of the bundles just as the train began to lurch on its way.
Dr. Atienza, his wife, and some Filipino nurses were living in a little house which a teacher had turned over to the Red Cross. It did double duty as residence and Red Cross headquarters. A guest was no problem as there was no furniture and everybody slept on the floor anyhow.
The carretela, creaking under its load, drew up before the little house and Dr. Atienza looked out of the window and then rushed to the door.
“Miss Utinsky!” he exclaimed. “What on earth did you bring?”
“You said you needed things,” I told him, “and I brought some along.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “I knew you would come,” he said, “but not in such a big way.” and we got busy unloading the cart.
How great the need of the American prisoners was I did not learn until I had talked to Dr. Atienza. As a member of the Filipino Red Cross he was permitted to visit Camp O'Donnell, where he was allowed to look after the sick Filipino prisoners. They were not, of course, supposed to have any contact with the Americans or to give them any aid. But Dr. Atienza had managed to get in touch with Colonel Duckworth, Major Berry, and Chaplain Tiffany, inside the prison, and through them he was confident that he could get help to the Americans.
Our men, he said, were starving. The Japanese allowed a pittance to the soldiers, ten centavos (about five cents) a day, with which they had to buy their food. Officers were given twenty pesos (about ten dollars) a month. With the permission of the Japanese, the officers had pooled their money so as to provide food for all. But even this amount was cut, as a man was not paid if he was too sick or too weak from lack of food to work.
The men desperately needed food, money to buy food, drugs, clothing – and all of this would have to be smuggled in. But Dr. Atienza had discovered a way to do it. When the Filipino prisoners were released, those who were ill were brought out of the prison in ambulances or trucks to be loaded on cattle cares. These ambulances were carefully searched when they left the prison, lest someone should try to escape or blankets should be smuggled out, but no search was made when they returned to the prison.
We could hardly have asked for a better arrangement, since this meant that Dr. Atienza would be able to take in the supplies I had brought with me without any danger of having them confiscated.
Next morning, as he was preparing to pack my supplies in the ambulance, he asked suddenly, “Why don't you send in a note with these things, asking for a receipt? In that way, you may be sure that your supplies are actually reaching the American prisoners.”
I agreed and wrote the note. Then I hesitated. I did not know how to sign it. If it were found, there would be trouble for everyone, and trouble in a big way for me. So after a moment's thought, I signed the note “Miss U”. And with that signature, the Miss U organization came to hazy birth.
From that time on, all sorts of stories and rumors circulated about Miss U. I listened to all kinds of speculations about myself. I was Chinese. I was Russian. I was everything under the sun.
That day, Dr. Atienza came back from Camp O'Donnell bringing a receipt for the stuff I sent in. Well, at least we knew where we stood. Dr. Atienza could smuggle the stuff in if I could get it. I knew that as long as my commissary supplies lasted, I would have food to bring them. The problem was clothing, drugs and money.
I arranged with Dr. Atienza to go up to Capas for each release date, when Filipino prisoners were sent back to Manila. I began traveling back and forth to Capas like a commuter, each time loaded with all the food I could carry, but all I could carry was terribly little for so many men in desperate need. It did amuse me, though, to think that I was carrying it all on a Japanese railroad. There was a certain justice to that.
But food was not enough.. The men needed drugs. They needed clothing. And most of all they needed money.
In any conquered city, one commodity is prized above all else – money. And I needed it badly. I went back to Manila after that first trip and looked around the apartment to find what I could sell.................One by one, the possessions that had given meaning to my pre-war life were passing from me, but at least I was accumulating a sizable sum with which to buy drugs and clothing for starving men.
Buy as carefully as I could, however, the money dwindled away, just as the food cache, which had seemed so inexhaustible when I had first filled the apartment, shrank smaller and smaller.
Well, if I could not buy, I could beg.............I became a regular panhandler, I begged everywhere. In shops, in churches, in the houses of friends, in the offices of total strangers............There was so much to be done that I could not handle it alone, and there was always the risk of asking the wrong person for help. But I figured that unless I took risks I would get nothing done.
So I went to the people I knew best, to those I knew were loyal to the United States, and told them bluntly of the urgent and dire need of the sick and starving men at Camp O'Donnell.
They were afraid. Well, I could understand that. Live under enemy occupation long enough and you begin to breathe an air of suspicion. You don't trust your friends or your neighbors or your own relatives. And most of the time you are probably justified. But part of the hesitance of my friends was as much for my sake as for their own. I understood that too. Not simply because they feared I would be caught by the Japanese, but because they thought I might become involved with some unscrupulous group that would be vile enough to exploit even the unfortunates in the prison camps.
“How do you know, after all,” they demanded, “that the things actually reach the prisoners?”
“That's easy,” I explained. “Everything that I send in has a note with it, asking for a receipt. If you get a receipt, will you believe that you have really made contact with the American prisoners? Will you help them then?”
The notes turned the trick. Through Father Lalor, I was able to reach American sympathizers – Chinese, Swiss, Spanish, Filipino – whom I tapped ruthlessly, though few of them knew my identity. To most of those who helped me, except those who became a close part of the organization, I remained “Miss U”, a woman nobody knew.
Notes from prisoners were shown to anyone from whom we could beg a few pesos, or order food, or medical supplies. Soon the life-saving stuff was coming in to us in an ever increasing stream. We stored it at the convent until it could be delivered. And night after night, when I had gone to bed, I allowed myself to wonder whether any of the food was reaching Jack. I had not heard a word, yet somehow I knew he was a prisoner somewhere. Risks did not seem too dangerous when I thought of him inside those fences.
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Post by pdh54 on Sept 23, 2012 22:01:51 GMT 8
Miss U by Margaret Utinsky
page 52
Before long the task became too heavy for one person. I could not carry enough supplies at one time to be of sufficient use, and those constant trips, loaded down with bundles, were becoming too conspicuous. I needed helpers, and they appeared just at the time I needed them most: Naomi Flores and Evangeline Neibert, who dressed as Filipina vendors, with a cloth tied about their heads, could go bargaining for supplies even in Capas itself without arousing suspicion.
Naomi Flores was an Igorote girl, reared and schooled by an American family in Baguio, the mountain province. Less than five feet tall, quick and smiling, she had been a successful beauty operator whose owner had been interned. One day Naomi came to see me and said that she had overheard me talking in the shop, begging for clothing for the Filipinos who were being released. She asked whether she could help me with my work, wrapping packages and things like that. She proved to be so helpful, resourceful and trustworthy that she became my right-hand man.
I discovered before long that she did not have enough money to live on so I asked her to move in with me. She brought along some of her beauty equipment, a permanent waving machine, dryers, manicure outfits, which later, as the organization expanded, were useful to us in establishing a reason for people coming and going at the apartment. When we began to have code names, for the protection of the people who helped us, Naomi was call Looter.................................................
page 56….......................As time went on, we set up a regular banking business to get money for the soldiers. The prisoners themselves helped in these money making schemes. An organization inside the camp co-operated with the smugglers outside to receive pesos, distribute them where they would do the most good, and acknowledge receipt of all moneys received.
Some of the officers, who had been stationed in Manila, still had accounts in the banks there, and Manila people cashed checks for them to the amount of hundreds of badly needed pesos, while loans were floated on personal notes payable six months after release. Where the prisoners had no checks, they wrote on dirty, torn scraps of paper which were honored without hesitation. At first we smuggled in large denominations, but that proved to be too dangerous and after that we sent one-peso notes. On five cents a day, an enlisted man had no business with anything over a single peso. Even so, the Japanese marveled at the thrift of the Americans who, paid almost nothing, managed to have money to buy fruits and beans.
When I read General Wainwright's moving story, I was reminded that some of the burned money which he mentioned once came into my hands. While the bills were burning, some of them were blown away before they were entirely consumed. The men picked up the pieces and later one fifty-peso bill, a couple of twenties, an several tens and fives were sent out to me. I inquired of Mr. Byron Ford, manager of the Philippine Trust Company, who was interned in Santo Tomas, whether such bills were redeemable and was told that they were if enough of the serial numbers was left to identify them That was another break for some of the boys. I got bills cashed and sent the money back in to them.
So the work went on. Naomi finally moved out of my apartment and went to Capas to live, pretending to be related to one of the families there. She was in a better position to make contact with the prisoners and she became a distributing and contact agent there.
Evangeline Neibert, whom we called Sassie Susie, was the daughter of a former member of the Bureau of Education who had owned a large plantation, an American married to a mestiza school teacher. She was well educated and she had some nurse’s training. Sweet and infectiously gay, Sassie Susie was like a little Irish colleen. Her sweetheart was an American soldier in Cabanatuan Prison. She would dare anything and narrowly escaped capture several times. When the boy she loved was sent to Japan, she just dug in harder than ever.
We had fallen into a routine now. We collected money and supplies in Manila. We packed them, hiding the money and noted and drugs. We stored supplies at the Malate Convent. From the contact people in Capas to the contact people in the prison camp, messages and supplies must be taken and lists brought back out. Day in, day out, the game went on.
We would try anything. A short-sighted lieutenant wrote anxiously on a small dirty scrap of paper to say that his glasses had been broken when a Japanese sentry struck him in the face. Could Miss U, he wanted to know, figure a way to get them repaired? I did and after that there were a lot of requests from men whose glasses had been broken during the beatings to which they were subjected. They would save the pieces, smuggle them out to me and I would take them into Manila. One of the prisoners was a Major Willard H. Waterous, who had had an optical shop in Manila. Joining the Army after Pearl Harbor, he had later been in the hospital at Bataan when it was bombed. He was captured, but his office force still functioned and the glasses of the prisoners were mended there. Only one doctor, a Spaniard named Sabater, ever demanded money for this work.
“All right, I'll pay for them.” I told him.
Then he put the glasses into an envelope, with no protective covering, and to add insult to injury, reached for his advertising card to enclose.
“Never mind the card, doctor,” I said. “I won't forget you. Neither will the Army.”
One prisoner, Captain Sidney E. Seid, wrote to me saying he hoped I would not think he was crazy. But I seemed to be able to get anything into the prison. Could I possibly get him some oil paints to help while away the deadly prison hours? I did, too.
It was curious, at a time when life was stripped down to fundamentals, and the whole thin cut to a problem of keeping alive, that the hunger for art in one form or another remained as pressing, as acute as it did. Several times I encountered men whose longing for music became almost an obsession, so that heir dreams were filled with it.
As the weeks wore on, more and more thank-you notes were smuggled out. When my helpers had nothing else to do, I set them to writing to some of the boys whose names we had learned from the lists sent out to us, and they served an incalculable part as morale builders. Whenever one of these boys mentioned his date of birth, we made a point of doing something about it. And the response was enough to break our hearts.
“Dear Miss U,” one of the boys wrote. “Before I start to write this note, I want you to forgive me for my clumsy writing. I am writing this just a daybreak as we are leaving camp. They say we are going to Japan. When I opened your note and saw my birthday card, tears came to my eyes. I shall be indebted to you for the rest of my life for your kindness. I just can't say how I feel at this moment. My heart is full of joy that people can be so kind to me.
I can't say more; we are getting ready to leave.
GOD BLESS YOU. Your friend, Edward Mike”
Other notes like this came from Sergeant Robert Underwood, Sergeant Edward Smack, Sergeant Henry Vara, Sergeant A. L. Lawerence, Sergeant John Henry Poncio. Lieutenant Arnold W. Thompson, of their outfit, asked each man to write a note of thanks to Miss U. Some had sent out checks which I was able to cash.
One afternoon I was coming back from Capas to Manila with Naomi and Evangeline. Before we reached Manila a typhoon struck so violently that the train would hardly continue against it. Water poured in everywhere. When we got off at the station in Manila, the wind was still howling, and the rain coming down in a deluge.
As it happened, the blouse of my uniform was stuffed with documents, notes from General L. B. Stevens, Colonel Duckworth and Chaplain Tiffany, receipts from the men. Some of the boys had had the good luck to get some belated Government warrants.
I got off the train first and the girls, according to a system we had followed from the beginning, kept their distance. We never appeared to be traveling together.
A squad of Japanese soldiers was standing at the gate with drawn bayonets. I did not like it at all but I walked forward slowly. Promptly three Japanese fell in on either side of me, two in front, and two behind. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Salome Holland (her husband had died a few months earlier at O'Donnell), who had come to the station to bring me cash for a check I had given her the day before, move away unconcernedly without another glance at me. The Japanese could hardly have picked me up at a time when I had more damning evidence one me, and the worst of it was that implicated so many of the prisoners as well. My armed escort wheeled and turned into a room at the left of the station. Here there were more uniformed men. All I could see, in my terror, was that, compared with the Japanese, they were enormous. “My God,” I thought, “the Germans have landed.”
Then I heard an unmistakably American voice say, “Now, perhaps we'll get some action.”
My escorts and I halted with military precision ten paces outside the door. A tall American began to talk and a queer thing happened. I was so terrified at being surrounded by the Japanese with their drawn bayonets, my blouse filled with incriminating evidence, that I was stone deaf. The girls, who had followed at a discreet distance, said later I was so white they could not tell where my uniform ended and my skin began. I saw the American's lips opening and I could not hear a sound.
Then all of a sudden, as though water had run out of my ears, I heard the screaming of the typhoon, the downpour of rain, the whistles and noised of the station.
“I'm sorry,” I said, “For a moment I could not hear you. Will you tell me again?”
The American officer explained that he was Major General C. C. Heinrich. One of the men with him was Colonel John P. Horran, another Captain Allan Crosby. I did not get the names of the others. They were prisoners who were being brought down from the mountain province of Baguio in a truck. On the way, guerrilla forces had attacked and killed the six Japanese sentries. Now they were being taken to Cabanatuan prison camp by train and for two hours they had been waiting for someone who could speak English.
At last, as I understood the situation, I began to function normally. That armed escort with drawn bayonets was just the simple way in which the Japanese had picked out an interpreter.
“My wife and children are in Santo Tomas,” Heinrich explained. “I have been trying to tell these soldiers that all I ask is to call my wife and tell her that I am alive, that I am here. Do you know any officer you could ask?”
I wrote down the request and indicated my Red Cross band. A Japanese soldier took the paper and went away. While we waited for him to return, Captain Crosby asked me whether I could locate his brother for him and get word to him of his whereabouts.
The Japanese soldier came back and nodded to the telephone. I called Santo Tomas and got in touch with Mr. Bert Holland, who was a monitor, and arranged correspondence and calls for the internees. He said that Mrs. Heinrich and her children were at Holy Cross Convent and if I called a bit later he would let me know what could be done.
I sent out for coffee and food, which the men needed badly, and when I telephoned again I was able to tell Major Heinrich that his wife and children were on their way to have a short visit with him before he was sent on to Cabanatuan.
The typhoon was still raging when I left the station. At a safe distance, Mrs. Salome Holland was waiting for me. I gave her all the money I had. “Spend what you need for food and coffee for these men on the train,” I told her. “Get it to them somehow.”
Mrs. Holland nodded and set off. She got packages of food and jars of hot coffee and bought a ticket for Caloocan, the next stop on the train that was to carry the Americans to prison. On the train she found a reliable Filipino, who promised to get the food to the men.
Before leaving the Americans I told the men, “You'll hear from me again.” It worked very well. Mrs. Heinrich was able to keep in touch with her husband, and Crosby's brother managed to send money to him. So all in all it was a good hour's work.
Then at four o'clock on a December morning, when I was a Capas, I was awakened by singing.
“Good night ladies. Good night ladies,” drifted back to me. The prisoners were leaving Camp O'Donnell, marching off for Cabanatuan prison camp. They were going out singing.
They sang because they felt sure that whatever lay ahead would be better than what lay behind. How, they reasoned, could it be worse? Only 200 men were leaving O”Donnell. In the prison graveyard lay 1700 of their comrades who could not march with them. They had died since May. Only 200 saved. Somehow, in some way, I would have to operate on a bigger scale Cabanatuan.
I never saw the men again, but I knew I had to keep working for them and for others like them. And perhaps Jack might be where they were going.
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Post by pdh54 on Sept 24, 2012 1:14:07 GMT 8
I got caught up in wondering what happened to the men that Margaret mentioned in this excerpt, especially Major Heinrich and his family.
I found that six of them were returned to military control/liberated/repatriated:
2nd Lt Allen Crosby Inf 121st Inf Reg PA 611 Roburoshi
Col. John P. Horan Inf 21st Reg (PA) (CO) 709 Mukden (Horran in her book)
SSgt. John Poncio AC 27 BG (L) 91 BS 611 05-12B-Hirohata
Pvt. Edward Smack AC 27 BG (L) 91 BS 617 Sen-03B-Hasokura
Cpl. Henry Vara AC 27 BG (L) 91 BS 618 Tok-05B-Niigata
TechSgt. Robt. W Underwood AC 27 BG (L) 91 BS 611
I found another Robert Underwood listed also. He is on the MIA/Buried at Sea, on 24 Apr 45, listing on the ABMC website, Honolulu. He was a Sgt with the 330 BG (VH) 459 BS.
The other three are listed as having died.
SSgt Alonzo Lawrence AC 24 Purs Gp 34 Purs Sq 618 Tok-05B-Niigata (Lawerence in her book) He died on 6 Nov 43 and is buried in Manila American Cemetery
2nd Lt Arnold Thompson AC 27 BG (L) 91 BS 501 He died on the Oryoku Maru on 15 Dec 44 and is listed on the MIA/ Buried at Sea list in Manila
Major Clarence Heinrich NO 21st FA Reg (PA) 501 He died on 9 Jan 45 on the Enoura Maru and is listed on the MIA/ Buried at Sea list in Manila.
I found the probable listing of his family on Mansell's POW list.
The three were listed as CIV at 526, Santo Tomas
Mrs. Jean Lebens Heinrich Miss Dean Margaret Heinrich Val Katherine Heinrich
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Post by okla on Sept 24, 2012 9:25:05 GMT 8
Hey Patty....Great job of research. Whenever I see one of these lists of survivors, I always check to see if any of the few men that I served with in the AF during the early 1950s might be included. I came up empty once again. One time, though, I espied the name of one Corporal Leroy Beecraft listed as having been interviewed in the preparation of this book I was reading. No details, just that he was in the 31st Infantry(US), in the Abucay fighting. I have mentioned, on a past post on this forum, that I was proud to have participated in a Parade and the awarding of the Bronze Star to, then (1952), Sergeant Beecraft. This was at Great Falls AFB, Montana. This, also, was about the only full dress Parade that I ever took part in that I didn't belly ache. I, instead, was honored, and also proud to have been acquainted with Sgt Beecraft, an old Missouri farm boy who survived the Bataan fighting and the POW pens. I don't remember if he took part in "Hell Ship" horrors or was liberated at Cabanatuan/Bilibid,etc.
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Post by pdh54 on Sept 24, 2012 10:17:31 GMT 8
Okla, I found your friend listed on some of the POW lists. Pvt then Cpl Leroy Truman Becraft from Missouri He is on the Bilibid Transfer list as a Private going to Western Japan via the Clyde Maru. I think he boarded the ship on 23 Jul 43. He had been at Cabanatuan. He is on Mansell's list as a Corporal, belonging to the 31st Inf I, and at camp 601, Fuk-17-Omuta He is on NARA as being on the captive list on 7 May 42 and the freed list on 15 Oct 45. I think I am interpreting the info correctly. Patty
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Post by pdh54 on Sept 24, 2012 10:50:07 GMT 8
Okla,
Here is a little more.
From the book, Death on the Hellships Prisoners at Sea in the Pacific War by Gregory F. Michno, Naval Institute Press Annapolis Maryland 2001:
Page 118
"There was some POW movement from the Philippines. On 23 July (1943 my insert), 490 enlisted men and 10 officers boarded the 5,498 ton Clyde Maru in Manila Bay. Conditions at Cabanatuan had been horrible in 1942, but by 1943, the number of monthly deaths had slackened as men became acclimated to the situation. Daily routines had become bearable, and the Philippines always were thought to be, in the minds of many POWs, first in line for inevitable liberation by a returning Douglas MacArthur. The call for 500 men to go to Japan was not enthusiastically filled. The voyage of this group, known as A Detail, was typically uncomfortable, but it was not molested by submarines and there were no deaths en route. The ship pulled in to Moji on 9 August. Most of the men stayed at Omuta, Kyushu, at Fukuoka 17 Camp, and worked for the Mitsui Coal Mining Company in coal mines and zinc smelters."
Patty
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Post by okla on Sept 24, 2012 20:19:40 GMT 8
Hey Patty.....Thanks a bunch for the info on Sgt Becraft. You are very meticulous in your research. One would think that you were/are a Librarian,etc. I have always been amazed how the wheels of Government continue to turn, although very slowly, as in Leroy's case. He probably was recommended for the Bronze Star in 1945 or 46 for heroism at Abucay in 1942. The paperwork finally culminated with the award on a raw, chilly day on the tarmac at Great Falls AFB in early 1952. We were not close friends, but hoisted a few cold ones together with others in the NCO Club. I shipped to Korea in July of 1952, so our friendship ceased at that point, but I was pleased to see his name listed in the footnotes of that book I was reading, realizing that he was living as late as the 1980s. I gotta dig that volume up and re-read it. I have a couple more anecdotes I picked up from my ex-POW friends that I will bore you with sometime in the future. Thanks again for the poop on Sgt Becraft (I finally have the spelling of his name corrected). One more thing....He told me that he took his Honorable Discharge in late 1945, but could never settle down on that Missouri farm, re-enlisted during the Berlin Airlift Crisis period. Said he wanted no more Infantry duty, going into the USAF as did many of those guys. Cheers.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2012 0:21:37 GMT 8
I think I have to take back that identification of Dorothy Janson as the third woman in the photo with Margaret Utinsky and Claire Phillips. Edna Binkowski has a copy of this photo in her book and she identifies the woman as H. Brush, which would have been Helen Brush, the wife of a missionary. Brush is listed on the manifest for the John Lykes, but I haven't found Dorothy Janson's name on it.
I've also been spending considerable time getting additional information on the people Margaret Utinsky mentions in her book. Ancestry.com had been a really good starting place.
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Post by Bob Hudson on Sept 29, 2012 16:23:57 GMT 8
Glad you discovered the truth and I'm sorry I passed along some invalid information.
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