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Post by okla on Dec 24, 2010 3:52:27 GMT 8
Hey Fots....This USAF guy won't be prowling any tunnels unless I know for sure that there are no varmints, snakes, spiders, crumbling ceilings,walls,etc Now, unless I am mistaken, that only leaves Malinta and the Hospital Complex that pass muster. I'd enter those confines in a mini second, given the chance.but, regretfully, never to be. Cheers
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Post by chadhill on Jan 11, 2011 2:59:22 GMT 8
"Intercept Station C" is a fascinating book; I bought a copy on Fots' recommendation. BTW, I've read that some of what "C" was involved in is still classified today.
On page 69, I found the March 5, 1942 message from COMINCH (Commander-in-Chief, US Fleet, Admiral King) interesting. It was sent to COM 16 (Commander 16th Naval District, Admiral Rockwell, in Tunnel Queen) and classified WAROPS SECRET:
EVACUATE PERSONNEL OF RADIO INTELLIGENCE UNIT SOON AS POSSIBLE X IF SPACE CANNOT BE MADE AVAILABLE IN SUBMARINES USE ANY MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION TO GET THEM AT LEAST TO SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES OR TAKE ALL STEPS POSSIBLE TO PREVENT LOSS OF PERSONNEL OF RADIO INTELLIGENCE UNIT.
"...take all steps possible..." is a powerful order subject to wide interpretation, I'd say.
The evacuation roster messages (p.75-80) are classified SECRET and state that the men were administered oaths of secrecy. According to the book, the last of three groups of Station C personnel were evacuated from Corregidor on April 8th.
Interestingly, at least three authors--the Belotes in "Saga", Duane Schultz in "Hero of Bataan" (about Wainwright) and John Glusman in "Conduct Under Fire", claim that radio intercept personnel, on orders from MacArthur, were among those evacuated from Corregidor to Australia by two PBYs on April 29th. There are a number of naval officers on the passenger lists that have been reconstructed from that event, but none of those names appear in the personnel roster that is reproduced in the "Intercept Station C" book. Another error that has been passed down, book after book?
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Post by okla on Jan 11, 2011 5:44:03 GMT 8
Hey Chad....Didn't one of those PBYs pile up on a submerged log on a lake down on Mindanao??? The personnel assigned to that particular aircraft were stranded in the PI and taken prisoner a short time later, if memory serves. None of these people were CAST personnel. I may be off base about this. Wife says that I am getting so old, nutty and so engrossed in WW 2, especially the PI campaigns of 41 and 42 that she would question anything I came up with from memory. Am I in error here. I am under the impression that some or maybe all were medical/nurses,etc.
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Post by EXO on Jan 11, 2011 6:12:24 GMT 8
Yes, it's unfortunate that errors in an early book can travel through several books -- uncorrected. I am not a revisionist, though. Early in the history of the website, I had the pleasure of corresponding with Captain Duane Whitlock, one of the last of Station C. It intrigued me greatly, and still does, that perhaps radio interception was not only going on, it may have been used as a "cover story" for what was even more shocking. Every country had developed signals intelligence and traffic analysis, and also codebreaking, but I learned that Corregidor had a secret purpose that was, in terms of international diplomacy, quite extraordinary. Manila was where a good number of international cables came ashore, and the US had snatched one and spliced into it, allowing it to tap into the international diplomatic cable traffic of all the foreign embassies in Manila, as well as all commercial traffic. So, when it comes to comments about some things which happened on Corregidor which are still secret, that's my personal bet. Towards the end of his life (I am presuming Whitlock is now deceased) Whitlock was adamant in correspondence to me that the US had failed to recognize the danger that China was to Pax Americana and US political and commercial interests. At the time I didn't pay much attention, but today I see that there was a lot in what he had to say, and to fear.
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Post by chadhill on Jan 12, 2011 1:31:05 GMT 8
I'll get back in a while with some more comments, EXO and Okla...am in the middle of a "honey-do" list.
However, this morning while browsing through "General Wainwright's Story" written, of course, by the man himself, I found the following paragraph concerning passenger selection for the two PBYs on April 29th. From chapter 7, page 86 of the paperback edition:
"Especially asked for by MacArthur was Colonel Stewart Wood, a well-trained staff officer who was my assistant chief of staff and who had a fine knowledge of Japanese. MACARTHUR ALSO ASKED FOR, AND GOT, SEVERAL CRYPTOGRAPHERS. With them I sent half a dozen officers, ranging from brigadier generals to lieutenant colonels, who were in no physical condition to take captivity.
(capitals mine)
Hmmm.....
More later.
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Post by okla on Jan 12, 2011 5:06:30 GMT 8
Hey Chad...I have found, if nothing else in my 78 years, that "Honey Doos" are the bane of mankind. As to the two PBYs leaving Corregidor in the final days of the siege, the one aircraft that hit the log/rock during taxiing for takeoff/landing was carrying passengers including Colonel Wood, the Japanese language expert/Asst Chief of Staff to Wainwright, 3 civilian women ( ), 10 Army nurses and one Naval Officer ( ). Could this Naval Officer have been a Cryptographer type from CAST. Can't help, but wonder. This info came from the book "We Band of Angels", by Elizabeth A. Norman. The passenger info came from Nurse Sally Blaine one of the stranded Nurses. Anyhow, all these passengers were left in the PI since the damaged PBY was repaired and left for "down under" without them. Another book, I would have to dig up the name and author, but I copied this info only yesterday, states that both PBYs carried a total of 30 nurses, those 3 civilian women, and 17 male personnel, these mostly pursuit pilots with no planes to fly. This, of course, doesn't include navy PBY crew members. According to this rundown no CAST people, or at lease very few could have been involved in the PBY rescue mission. Can't help but wonder about that single Navy Officer who went into captivity with the other stranded people. I am beginning to wonder what to think about the pullout of the Navy Crypto folks. How many, when, etc. Some of this mis- information has been around so long that it has evolved into accepted fact. doncha think???
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Post by chadhill on Jan 12, 2011 10:52:07 GMT 8
Wow EXO, that is quite an incredible story. Hmmm...I'll bet such a thing would still be classified...I'm guessing, then, that some of the purple messages may have been transmitted by cable.
A curiousity about the "Intercept Station C" book is that in one or two places that I've noticed so far, the editor has pointedly noted that such-and-such a passage was cleared for publication by a body known as the "Naval Security Group". NAVSECGRU, whose name was changed in 2005, dealt with crypto-intelligence and signal matters (among other things) and had ties to the NSA.
Note: "Intercept Station C" is subtitled "From Olongapo Through the Evacuation of Corregidor, 1929-1942". It was originally published in 1983. The current edition was published in 2003...
OK, enough of that--
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Post by chadhill on Jan 12, 2011 13:06:27 GMT 8
Okla, here is a link to a very interesting, detailed letter Thomas F. Pollock wrote about the April 29th mission. Pollock was the Patrol Plane Commander (PPC) of PBY # 21-P-1 (Plane # 1) that hit a submerged coral reef on Lake Lanao, Mindanao. Dwight Messimer's excellent book, "In the Hands of Fate", recounts the history of Patrol Wing Ten and covers the mission very well, also, if you can get it. lanbob.com/lanbob/H-42Auth/PT-PBY.htmHere is the crew list from Pollock's letter. Although Lieutenant Commander Neale was the mission commander, he apparently relinquished the flying to Pollock and NAP (Naval Aviation Pilot, enlisted) Chief Bounds: Here is the reconstructed passenger list that Pollock prepared for his letter: I've heard the number of 30 nurses before, too. Juanita Redmond, in her book "I Served on Bataan", said there were 22. Pollock's list shows 19 nurses. BTW, Redmond gave General Wainwright a kiss goodbye before boarding the PBY. Strangely, Colonel Wood's name is missing from either plane's list. Maybe it was just an oversight since the list is a reconstruction by Pollock. Messimer states that Wood, who was Wainwright's assistant chief of staff, was supposed to be a passenger, but does not mention which plane he boarded. At the bottom of the list for Plane # 1 is "unidentified passengers" from Corregidor. Hmmm... As you know, Pollock's plane hit the rocks in Lake Lanao and nearly sank. Commander Frank Bridgett, and apparently most (or all?) of the other passengers on that plane, headed for Del Monte to get on a B-17 that was supposed to take them to Australia. Unfortunately it did not show up, and when Mindinao surrendered a few days later, they became POWs. Bridgett, former CO of the Naval Battalion at Mariveles, was destined to perish on the Hell Ship Brazil Maru in January '45, probably from pneumonia. Lieutenant J.C. Weschler had brought the Dewey Dry Dock down from Subic Bay, and wound up scuttling her in Mariveles Harbor. I have not been able to track down his fate. I have not been able to learn the MOS or fate of any of the other Navy passengers from Corregidor on either PBY except for Chief Alvin Kall on # 21-P-7 (Plane # 7). Kall was a former crewman of pilot Ltjg Deeds. He showed up at the last minute and was "pulled" aboard. Talk about timing and who-you-know...unfortunately, Deeds was killed in an SBD crash in October '42. When Pollock's PBY was finally patched they had plenty of room for passengers now, so these lucky few got on in Mindanao. Note that several were from Lieutenant Bulkeley's PT Boat squadron (more good timing on somebody's part): So the question remains, what about those cryptographers that General Wainwright himself said MacArthur asked for, and got, on the PBYs? Why, then, doesn't the book "Intercept Station C" mention the cryptographers that left on April 29th? Again, the book states that all personel had been evacuated by April 8th. And none of the Navy passengers listed on either PBY are found on the personnel roster published in "Intercept Station C". Could those crytographers in question have been Army cryptographers? I am not a conspiracy type, but would like to ask all the obvious questions first before exploring the others- Maybe someone will know how a copy of MacArthur's message traffic with Wainwright on this subject could be located.
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Post by fots2 on Jan 12, 2011 22:06:41 GMT 8
Hi Chad,
Those are interesting details you are coming up with. Great research.
Speaking of “good timing”, I was at Monkey Point for a few hours today. So far I have located 12 of the big wooden antenna poles with the concrete rings at the bottom. Wood still remains in the concrete rings but the tall poles are gone.
The two officer’s quarters buildings were easy to find but I had never found the enlisted men’s quarters in the past. (Does the Navy use the tern “enlisted men” also?) Today I got lucky. It was one large building closer to Battery Maxwell Keyes than to the tunnel. (rectangular in shape, 100ft x 60 ft). I expected to find nothing left but concrete pedestals. It is actually one large concrete platform but tree and vegetation covered now.
I’ll post pictures when I can.
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Post by okla on Jan 13, 2011 0:15:55 GMT 8
Hey Chad....This is absolutely great stuff. Puts new light,etc on this, sometimes, foggy operation. I can't understand how Colonel Wood slipped thru the cracks and isn't mentioned in the lists of people assigned to the PBYs. That is kinda mind boggling. It isn't as if some Pfc or Seaman 3c was omitted. We're talking about Skinny Wainwright's Asst Chief of Staff, Japanese lanquage expert, etc. I'm wondering if some of the CAST people went out on the USS Seawolf on May 3, 1942. No mention, that I have found, is made of any of this type personnel being included in this last mini evacuation of people from the doomed "Rock". Evidently some left on earlier Submarines. Clay Blair, in his work, "Silent Victory" says that "Moon" Chapell, in USS Permit, evacuated 8 officers and 32 men, 36 of them Codebreakers (Among them was Thomas Mackie, the young linguist who believed he had picked up the "winds message"). If this is so, then I would think our questions are mostly answered. I am getting to the point, though, that I have my wonders about some of the varying accounts. Anyhow, thanks again for posting the account of the PBY operation. I know absolutely nada about the "catboats", but they were obviously were a fantastic aircraft. I don't know the specific range of those planes, but I have heard that they could remain airborn "forever". The only time that I was up close to one was on the troopship home from FEAF in 1953 and our vessel stopped for 12 hours hours at Adak in the Aleutians. There was one PBY moored near the dock. We sailed close by and got a good look at it. I do know that they "paid their dues", especially at Midway. Cheers.
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