Post by Wayne on Nov 1, 2020 4:19:13 GMT 8
Greetings,
I'm the last living son of Captain John Mathias, who in 1942 was Sgt. Demetrio Matias, NCO in charge of the message center & postal section, HQ Battalion, Philippine Division. On the day of surrender he left Signal Hill with 3 privates & missed the Death March by hours. After a long & perilous journey disguised as a civilian refugee, he made it back to Manila & reunited with his wife & 4 kids. When he recovered his health, he joined remnants of the 21st Infantry (P.A.), was given a field promotion to Master Sgt. & spent the next 2 years undercover in the Resistance, gathering intel & training guerrillas. In Oct. 1944 he was promoted to Captain to train & lead a company of guerrillas for the liberation campaign. After WW2 he became a U.S. citizen and continued serving in the Army in Manila and postwar Tokyo until his retirement in 1960.
I only recently learned about his WW2 activities by obtaining his Army records from the National Archives, and now I'm writing a screenplay, "Escape From Bataan" with the help of my nephew, a filmmaker who's been wanting to make a movie about my Dad for years. In addition I plan to write a novel, "The Mustang Scout" to cover the whole 1942-1945 period -- in effect this can be the basis for a film trilogy. Naturally I have a lot of research to do, esp. to portray particular individuals and daily life in the Occupation period. While I have access to books, and I'll visit actual locations when travel is less restricted, a great deal of what happened was never written down. For that I'll have to play detective, speculate, imagine, and esp. listen to others who may have learned key details over the years, without realizing they were pieces to a larger puzzle.
So I appreciate this opportunity to explore history with you. At the very least I hope to raise new & interesting questions.