Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2014 15:21:48 GMT 8
Xray: fully agreed!
|
|
|
Post by Registrar on Mar 11, 2014 17:13:01 GMT 8
I note that under the Hague Regulations (1899), the Hague Regulations (1907)and the Geneva Convention (1929) there is a specific Rule (R.153) dealing with Command responsibility for the Failure to Prevent, Punish or report War Crimes. The decision not to have an inquiry, even a secret one, was itself a crime. Often, it's the cover-up which is the greater crime than the act. What is also notable is the wide variation of hearsay attributable to witnesses and conduct of the organizations involved - the cover story in which the SS Corregidor entered the minefield because she was not escorted, the suggestion that she was not escorted because she arrived earlier than scheduled, conflict with the statement of a PT Boat crew member that his boat had met the SS Corregidor and had commenced to lead it, and of course the allegation by Steiger which places Bunker at a decision point. Rank has its privileges in the old Army, and Col. Bunker certainly was "Old Army." It is also noted that the "Japanese Submarine" cover story reduced the prospect that the shipping line might have been made liable for the actions of its employee. So, who, knowing the truth, falsified the record? It's a great - and convenient - tradition to assign full responsibility to a Captain who goes down with his ship, but sweeping the issue of command responsibility under the carpet (a truly great tradition here) only delays the judgment, it doesn't resolve the issue. It's also a curious approach too, for by the same logic, it is not necessary to investigate air disasters for there can be no cause for an aircraft to crash other than pilot error, because "the pilot, as captain of the vessel, has strict responsibility under all circumstances." Anyone who has thought about the list of Maritime Disasters in the Philippines and wondered why, can have good reason to opine whether "blaming the captain and thereby negating any effective investigation into industry custom and practice" has been used as a means to prevent liability attaching to the domestic shipping monopolies involved. Historically, the cost of a human life on a ferry in the Philippines is pathetically small. Ditto bus passengers.
|
|
|
Post by okla on Mar 12, 2014 0:42:57 GMT 8
Hey Xray....I, of course, see where you are coming from, but, surely Colonel Bunker, didn't fear that Admiral Kondo, was lurking in the waters off Manila Bay and would come charging thru if the minefield was "on hold", allowing the errant Filipino Skipper to clear the area, prior to "placing him in chains", lol. I realize I am over simplifying here, but it seems that not a few Officers who were aware of the situation, were of the opinion that Colonel Bunker made poor decisions, for whatever reason, that dark evening. The whole affair was just another calamity in a long line of such events during those hectic, early days of the Pacific War. Always great to kibitz with you. You, obviously "know your stuff". Cheers.
|
|
|
Post by xray on Mar 12, 2014 2:31:49 GMT 8
Hey Xray....I, of course, see where you are coming from, but, surely Colonel Bunker, didn't fear that Admiral Kondo, was lurking in the waters off Manila Bay and would come charging thru if the minefield was "on hold", allowing the errant Filipino Skipper to clear the area, prior to "placing him in chains", lol. I realize I am over simplifying here, but it seems that not a few Officers who were aware of the situation, were of the opinion that Colonel Bunker made poor decisions, for whatever reason, that dark evening. The whole affair was just another calamity in a long line of such events during those hectic, early days of the Pacific War. Always great to kibitz with you. You, obviously "know your stuff". Cheers. Truth probably is, he didn't know what was lurking - Mac didn't foresee Japanese planes swooping down and obliterating most of our airpower the 1st day or war either, yet it happened. Let me be clear, I have already stated it was a legit tragedy, and it was. I realize it is still an emotional issue for our Filipino friends, and I wish it had never happened. I am a stark realist with things like this, if it was a US captain with a boat packed full of US nurses and children, I'd feel exactly the same way. The captain of the ship sent the train of events in motion and had total responsibility for the safety of his ship, passengers and crew. He skedaddled, and his reckless disregard of proper procedures is the soul cause of this incident. Nearest civilian analogy I could think of is if a police car tries to pull me over and I speed away, the police chase me and ends up hitting a car full of people and killing them all ,,, The cop is not going to be charged with murder, I am. I initiated the series of events which resulted in a police car killing innocent people not the cop, and I am the one who would have to answer for my reckless, lawless behavior - And rightly so. I realize there are at least 1 US military man there at the time on record as feeling Bunker made a poor decision and he would have acted differently were he in charge, I think its safe to say the outlook of a lookout man or switchboard operator and a man like Bunker, who was an old school stickler for discipline, authority, chain of command & protocol even in 1941, would naturally be different. No one knows what they would have done in his position, not many have ever been in command responsibility for seaward defense of an already legendary US fortress in a hot war zone - And probably even less large passenger ships have tried to run the gauntlet of such a fortress. The captain knew what a terrible risk he was taking by deviating so far from proper procedures, he gambled and lost and unfortunately, many good, innocent people paid the price for his folly. edit: As far as war crimes & Geneva, if specifics could be pointed out it could be taken into consideration and debated. I have found this www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul_rule153 but don't have the time or inclination to sort out what may possibly relate to this incident, if someone else does I'd be much obliged. I doubt if anyone at the time or later thought it was a war crime, so why should it have been reported/investigated as such ? At a time when 1,000's and 10,000's were dying daily in many areas in many ways, the fate of 1 ship is not going to loom large in anyones calculations, sad but true. There probably should have been at least a cursory investigation into the circumstances, no doubt the military there had investigated incidents with lesser implications and consequences ,,, Wouldn't Mac have been the one to initiate such a procedure ?
|
|
|
Post by The Phantom on Mar 12, 2014 5:26:12 GMT 8
Chad, that was the quotation about Bunker's relative I was referring to, (I was trying to get the new folks to go mining deep into the sites cacophony of valuable information at their fingertips.)
What you can read into Bunker's character from what the edited Diary portrays as a bigoted, Navy Hating, spit and polish old soldier, leads to further speculation as to his true attitudes and reactions to events, that quickly spun out of his control. He was after all large and in charge of his own fiefdom.
What had he done in his early career that kept him from making General, along with most of his fellow West Point classmates? His bitterness at this exclusion, affecting him throughout his later career.
|
|
|
Post by Registrar on Mar 12, 2014 6:28:45 GMT 8
(I was trying to get the new folks to go mining deep into the sites cacophony of valuable information at their fingertips.) I couldn't have said it better, Phantom!
|
|
|
Post by okla on Mar 12, 2014 7:54:21 GMT 8
Hey Phantom.....Methinks, your statement holds more than just a glint of truth regarding Colonel Bunker. I can't argue with a thing you said. Cheers. XRay....True, Mac didn't foresee his Air Arm being decimated at Clark, but surely Paul Bunker could, on the other hand, clearly see that not "pulling the switch" on the minefield would result in a disaster, i.e. SS Corregidor.. A Helluva price to pay for not "bending" the rules. Letting the SS Corregidor pass thru, safely, and then "drawing and quartering" the Skipper would have been the proper and sensible course to have followed. I wonder if the Colonel ever questioned his actions during the remainder of his life? I am outta here as far as expounding on this intriguing subject.
|
|
|
Post by wwalker on Mar 12, 2014 9:29:39 GMT 8
Hello,
Interesting debate. Here is an eyewitness account to add to the mix from the Navy side:
They Were Expendable by W.L. White (published 1942)p.31-34
"About this time," said Kelly[Lt.Robert B. Kelly, USN],"I began hearing rumors that the whole air force had been wiped out, but in the face of all this optimistic stuff, I just couldn't believe them. The first influx of patients we had at my hospital were survivors from the interisland steamer Corregidor-full of refugees, mostly natives, leaving Manila. She'd run smack into one of our own mines and sunk like a rock. I don't know whose fault. Maybe she hadn't bothered to get a chart of the mine field. Maybe the chart the army gave her was inaccurate. Anyway we could hear the explosion even in the hospital."
"It came at eleven at night," Bulkeley went on. [then Lt. Commander John Bulkeley]
"I had my three boats out there by 11:30. Funny thing, that old ship had been an aircraft carrier in the battle of Jutland-first boat ever to launch a plane in actual battle. She survives the whole German Imperial fleet and more than twenty years later ends up on an American mine halfway round the world. When we got there, survivors were so thick we didn't have to zigzag to pick them up-just went straight ahead and we got all we could handle, although there were cries coming out of the darkness all around. Finally our shoulders got so weak pulling them up the sea ladder that we couldn't lift them. So we'd throw lines out into the dark-it was like casting for trout-and haul them back with a dozen people hanging on. We'd just pull them on in-scraping off a few ears, and now and then a nose and plenty of skin, on the side of our boat-but they were drowning every minute and it was the only way. Our boat managed to rescue as many as 196. Had 'em lying and standing every place."
"The passengers themselves would help. One American, a guy called Ellis, must have saved a dozen himself. His wife was good, too. When they pulled her out, she had on only a bra and panties, so a sailor took her down to the cabin to give her dungarees. 'Come back here, young man' she said,'this is no time for modesty-wipe off my back!' I forgot to say there was three inches of oil on the water. After she was wiped she got to work on the first-aid squad. But the queerest thing came at the end. The cries out in the darkness had almost stopped, and we were cruising for the crumbs when suddenly, out over the water, I heard someone whistling-a tune! I couldn't believe it. But we changed course, and presently came alongside an aviator. He'd been blown way out there along with three life belts. He'd put one of them under his feet, another under his head like a pillow, and the third under his behind. Had his hands comfortably folded on his stomach. He thanked us, said he couldn't swim, so he'd been whistling just to kill time until someone came along. Asked if there was anything he could do. That guy had plenty guts. Six of the survivors died before we could land them-exposure and burns."
"They began bringing them into my hospital before dawn," said Kelly. "One of them was a Filipino boy who'd been second engineer. He'd been burned all over except where his shorts had been, and he screamed horribly when they sprayed his burns. They'd put him in the stiff wagon, but an army doctor felt his pulse and said, 'Hell, that man's not dead,' so they sent him here. It hurt so bad to touch him when they had to turn him for spraying that he finally persuaded the nurses to lift him by the hair on his head. But the worst thing was a Filipino girl and her three-year-old baby in the bunk next to mine. She'd lost her husband, and another child who had slipped out of her arms in the water. Kept blaming herself because her arms had got so weak he'd slid away. 'My little boy, oh, my little boy,' she kept moaning over and over."
This book was a top seller in the U.S. when it was published in 1942. So it seems the incident should have been well known. This description gives the reader a sense of just how tragic the scene was, particularly the description from Lt. Kelly.
|
|
|
Post by xray on Mar 12, 2014 13:02:24 GMT 8
Hey Phantom.....Methinks, your statement holds more than just a glint of truth regarding Colonel Bunker. I can't argue with a thing you said. Cheers. XRay....True, Mac didn't foresee his Air Arm being decimated at Clark, but surely Paul Bunker could, on the other hand, clearly see that not "pulling the switch" on the minefield would result in a disaster, i.e. SS Corregidor.. A Helluva price to pay for not "bending" the rules. Letting the SS Corregidor pass thru, safely, and then "drawing and quartering" the Skipper would have been the proper and sensible course to have followed. I wonder if the Colonel ever questioned his actions during the remainder of his life? I am outta here as far as expounding on this intriguing subject. I'm done too, no one is going to substantially change anyones mind in lieu of any new factors, and I believe there is already a dedicated Bunker thread with the same people and same lines of reasoning expounded there. I am a strong believer in personal accountability, I think the captain is solely accountable. As for Bunker being a bigot, maybe he was, lots of folks were in those days many still are today. The implication is that he disdained Filipinos and this was a factor in his not safing the mines so the captain could skedaddle on his way ... Maybe thats true maybe not, and maybe he has personally seen things 1st hand many times which might justify his views to some and not to others, not for me or any of us really to pass judgement on that. Suffice it to say that any professional military man schooled in West Point seeing what he thinks are conscripts unfit for duty and apt to run at the 1st shot would show a certain measure of disdain regardless of race/nationality. The man paid with his life for his service, served in a very brutal epoch of human history, it is not pleasing to see a man like this disparaged 70 years down the road by people generations removed, in perfect comfort and safety [comfort and safety that was won with the blood, sweat & and tears of men like him] trying to step in his shoes and telling us what he should have done and not done.
|
|
|
Post by Registrar on Mar 12, 2014 16:33:59 GMT 8
What happened with the SS Corregidor will not be decided here. The whole SS Corregidor episode was swept under the carpet, and I think that Bunker was the man with the broom.
I am even uncomfortable with it being in this thread. It should be appended to a thread on the SS Corregidor.
It is an oft repeated rule of thumb that an officer's pre-war posting to the Philippine Islands might be characterized as of three types: (a) the undesired, being sent where they were far enough away from the US to be any further worry; (b) a cushy posting as a whole of career reward, generally on the eve of retirement; (c) the young mustang on rotation, those characterized by the Army as among their best and brightest, so they could get a high level of command responsibility in a relatively short period.
I will answer a question that was asked about Bunker, and which seems to have gone unanswered. (Thanks, Phantom, for asking!) Bunker had been involved in a hazing scandal at West Point (as a bully, not as a victim), though that was almost certainly not the reason. As a young officer in a hurry to get away to fight in WWI, he had cut corners relating to a full and correct ("old Army") accounting of regimental funds, for which he had been subject of disciplinary proceedings. There was no finding of dishonesty, but it was the sort of mark on a record that might keep one getting passed over for promotion to general officer rank. Detractors of Bunker felt he only got as high as he did because he was a football immortal, and the beneficial influence of the West Point Protection Association. But surely, the man had skill, talent and expertise.
I got into this discussion because I disagree with the process of expressing shallow opinions that are "put out there" but which are not supported by an examination of evidence (much in the way that trolls do.) So far, we seem to have avoided trolls. The study of history is not the place to accept memes and absolutist presumptions, it is the place that if you have a thesis, then you should fully argue that thesis. We should aspire to higher standards.
I also object to the Bunker Diary being considered as an authoritative history book. It is a good read, illustrative of the man, but the reader must always be aware that it is a book edited by a family member. I make no allegation against the editor, only that the book in its present form is incomplete, in that we have no way of ascertaining what was withheld from us, or of knowing the reasons for the incompleteness.
|
|