I recently bought a copy of "Too Dead to Die", a memoir of Bataan and life as a POW, by Steve Raymond and co-author Mike Pride. Mr. Raymond, who passed away in 2008, was a sergeant in the 48th Materiel Squadron, 27th Bomb Group, Army Air Corps. During the war he began a diary of his experiences. When Raymond left Cabanatuan to board the hellship Taga Maru for Japan, he turned his diary over to another POW for safekeeping. Unfortunately that POW, 1Lt. Milton Geissman, later perished on the Enoura Maru.
Mr. Raymond resumed his diary in Japan. In 1946, after being discharged from the army, he reconstructed from memory the portion of his diary that had been lost. In 2006, he teamed up with Mr. Pride to write this memoir. The well-written book deals mainly with Raymond's experiences on the Death March and afterwards. For the combat record of the 48th Materiel Squadron I would recommend the privately printed "Barksdale to Bataan" by Frank Emile McGlothlin.
Raymond survived the Death March, arriving at Camp O'Donnell on April 17th. When the Japanese requested 100 volunteers for a work detail on May 1st, he was so apalled by the conditions at O'Donnell that he stepped forward. See chapter 4, "Rebirth".
The truck convoy of POWs wound its way to the southwestern corner of Bataan, ending up at a small site on the Agloloma River, only a short distance from the Quinauan Point battlefield. Raymond does not mention the route that was driven, but given the date, I doubt that the convoy would have traveled down the Death March Road to Mariveles and then up the west coast road. The invasion of Corregidor was slated to begin the evening of May 5th, and the DM road would have been heavily occupied by the buildup of Japanese troops and equipment. There would also have been intense artillery fire aimed at Corregidor from Japanese guns on the SE-S part of the peninsula. Raymond would surely have noticed the firing and the buildup, but mentions nothing of the sort in his book.
Another possible route the convoy could have taken would have been across the Pilar-Bagac road to Trail 15, just west of the Pantingan River, and then south to intercept Trail 7. But the legend on the April 1942 trail map, reproduced in Captain Paul Ashton's excellent book "Bataan Diary", shows Trail 7 to be only a foot trail. I doubt the trucks would have gone this way.
I will SWAG that the convoy drove all the way to Bagac, and then went south on the west coast road until it crossed the Agloloma River. Why am I making such a big deal about the route? Because Raymond writes that after crossing the Agloloma River, the trucks turned left, and came to a small work camp on the south side of the river. The significance of this will be seen shortly.
Below is a current google map of the area. I have labeled some prominent places of interest.
The camp was already occupied by a small working party, and had two tents. A large tent housed about 40 sick men, unfit for further work. A small tent was the quarters for a US Army major who supervised the camp under the direction of nearby Japanese guards. There was no tent shelter for the fit workers- they slept in wrecked vehicles, under pieces of metal, or lean-tos. The purpose of the work party was to recover caches of 75mm rounds that were at the bottom of a deep ravine. My guess is that the shells were tossed down there by USAFFE forces when Bataan surrendered. The work party was also tasked to collect scrap metal and anything else significant.
During Raymond's first week of work, five men died. Their bodies were simply carried to a nearby ravine and thrown in. The major ordered that no time was to be spent digging graves for them. He may have worried that the resulting loss of work would have raised the ire of the Japanese. Raymond portrays him as harboring an extremely callous attitude towards his men.
Later in the chapter, after he has been at the Agloloma River work camp for about a month, Raymond writes that 41 men have died. All the bodies were dumped into the ravine. Wild dogs and buzzards made quick work of the remains, leaving only white bones. Just before the camp closed down, a final POW died. This time the men ignored the major and buried him. Raymond did not reveal the identity of the major, calling him only by the fictitious name of "Gahris". The work party left for Cabanatuan, arriving on June 5th. Raymond never saw Gahris again.
Shown below is the 1945-46 Bataan disinterment map posted by Bob Hudson (see his link at the beginning of this thread). It is a most remarkable piece of history. I believe Abie Abraham had much to do with it, as he was leading many of the recovery efforts at this time.
(map courtesy of Bob Hudson)
The above cropped portion of the map shows the area surrounding the Agloloma River. I have drawn a line pointing to a dark circle with the number 13 in parenthesis. The legend in the lower right corner of the full size map says this means it is a "discovered" site ("new discoveries" has been penciled in on the legend) and that 13 sets of remains have been found. Note that no other remains were recovered in the near vicinity. I have included an expanded view of the legend above.
This dark circle is on the Agloloma River and is just east of the west coast road. If the POW truck convoy had driven south from Bagac along the west coast road and turned left after crossing the river, as Raymond stated, this would be the location it would have arrived at. I will SWAG that the 13 sets of remains that had so far been recovered when the map was drawn belonged to the deceased POWs in Raymond's work party. Although I have read beforehand about work details from O'Donnell that went back to Bataan, I did not realize that any had returned to the Agloloma River area, and that over 40 POWs had died there.
Below is a google map expanded view of the territory today. The upper right portion is the place where the camp site would probably have been (see also my first pic above). Areas of likely ravines can be seen, where the remains would have been dumped. There seems to be four branches of the Agloloma River that cross under the road here. The 1942 trail map is rough and shows only three branches, with two crossing the road; the furthest left branch does not. The camp site, and the ravine the remains were cast into, was probably along one of the branches other than the furthest left one.
Those of you with a copy of the late John Olson's great book "O'Donnell, Andersonville of the Pacific" may note that his tables for the daily strength reports do not show any men departing Camp O'Donnell on May 1st. However, if you read the preceding pages concerning "strength reporting" you will find that there is doubt about some of the data, especially with regard to the headcounts of Air Corps personnel. There also seems to be differences with some of the information contained in the chapter titled "The Crucible (April 11-June 4, 1942)". I noted that Mr. Olson made several remarks about POW details that were sent to the Bagac area.
Mr. Raymond retired from the
Tampa Tribune in 1978. He was twice commander of the Florida chapter of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor. The final words in his book are: "I turned ninety years old on June 30, 2006. Getting
Too Dead to Die into print has been a race against time. Finally, the race is won".
Steve Raymond passed away on September 7, 2008.
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Late edit 25 March 2019.
During a recent trip to the National Archives I was able to locate the Disinterment Map of Bataan, which the staff graciously scanned for me. In the same box was another Bataan map, drawn during February 1945 by QMC Colonel Chester H. Elmes while he was a POW at Hoten, showing trails and known burial sites from the 1942 battles (Elmes' map also notes the deaths of POWs on the Oryoku Maru which sank near Olongapo on 15 December 1944). I will post sections from both maps below.
The Elmes map shows that he and the surviving members of the QMC at Hoten were not aware of a burial site where Raymond's POW work party lost 42 men during May-June 1942. The disinterment map shows that 13 remains were, however, recovered in this area after the war. This would seem to corroborate Raymond's claims and suggest that those 13 remains were not battle casualties.
(from Elmes' February 1945 map)
The legend for Elmes' map:
(from the postwar disinterment map)
Here is a clearer image of the postwar disinterment map legend:
For more on these maps see the next post.