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Post by dmether on Jan 20, 2011 10:59:56 GMT 8
6 March 1945 Attachments:
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Post by westernaus on Jan 20, 2011 11:22:43 GMT 8
welcome as a member dmether , the tunnel entrance is certainly a mess and if you have visited the island or seen the photos of recent times in regards to the tunnel it is hard to imagine that it was pulverised to that state but I guess that is war . It has taken a lot of work to get it back somewhere near its former state.
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Post by dmether on Jan 20, 2011 11:25:00 GMT 8
I've never visited Corregidor although I've lived in the Philippines since 2006. Was on Bataan yesterday going over some of the WWII trails though.
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Post by westernaus on Jan 20, 2011 11:29:58 GMT 8
Gee I wish I was there doing the same . Maybe you could pal up with EXO , Fots , or Karl .
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Post by dmether on Jan 20, 2011 11:37:58 GMT 8
Sounds like fun. I've read some of their reports. There is a small group of us here (Angeles City) both American and Filipino who are interested in WWII, we go around to the different battlefields and museums.
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Post by westernaus on Jan 20, 2011 11:50:22 GMT 8
The only research I have done in the philippines was on the island of Leyte at the city of Tacloban . Researching a military cover up in regards to a POW camp at Tacloban which had one American serviceman and 200 odd Aussie servicemen and about 28 British in capivity. Military wise the Japanese POW camp didnt exist but I have interveiwed many local Philippinos from WW2 times and they swear the POW camp did exist . What started me on that trail was a book written by the son of the captive American , it is called HOTEL TACLOBAN for those interested .
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Post by okla on Jan 20, 2011 23:21:12 GMT 8
Hey West Aussie....The fact that a sizeable number of Brit and Aussie folks were being held at Leyte is very interesting to me. Were they civilian (if so where did they come from???) or survivors of a Brit/Australian vessel that was maybe sunk during the retreat of the Allies down to the Malay Barrier in early 1942. POWS from Singapore, brought to the PI for God knows what? Maybe something similar to the American survivors of the USS Houston ending up POWs in Dutch territory and some eventually doing slave labor on the "Railway to Hell" in Thailand. Hope you are successful in determining the true story concerning these "unfortunates". Keep us posted. Cheers.
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Post by westernaus on Jan 21, 2011 0:23:01 GMT 8
Hi Okla , Somewhere near the end of the war civilians were transferred to Tacloban , But the pow camp I am referring to was set up by the japs for military prisoners . The word I got from the Filipinos who lived in that region during WW2 was that there was a Japanese Pow camp which was dubbed Hotel Tacloban , where the occupants received the standard Japanese hospitality of starvation and beatings and refusal to supply medicines, hence there were many deaths. I have had the area where it was located described to me but it is difficult to pin down the exact spot because of progress over time ( expansion of Tacloban city ). The whole thing was covered up after the war because of a death of a British officer who was the most senior officer and was looking after his own sole and not sticking up for the allied soldiers . When a few tried to escape the japs caught them and beheaded them at the insistence of the British officer . He,s own men turned on him and spat in his face after the executions and it was decided he had to go so one night he suffocated in his sleep. when the allies finally took Leyte and found the Japanese pow camp the story came out and that's when the cover up began.
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Post by EXO on Jan 21, 2011 5:13:34 GMT 8
I don't want to go further off-topic but through working with him over the years I developed a healthy respect for the expertise of Roger Mansell, who turned his research into Allied POWS under the Japanese into a fine website. Mansell's website is clearly the best on the web relative to the topic of POW's of the Japanese. This is what Mansell wrote about "Hotel Tacloban":- Pure fiction made for Hollywood- author repeatedly tries to pass off as truthful. All copies should be burned. It is a grotesque story written with obvious hatred toward the American military, especially officers. and also:- As an historian who had devoted some 15,000 hours researching and documention the Pacific POWs, I can say, unequivacably (sic), the the story is PURE fiction.
Valentine conflates numerous actual events to this make believe story about a POW. No record exists, any where, that his father was on such a patrol, that such a POW camp existed or that any of the named POWs existed.
It is a good "yarn" but don't ever call it history. It demeans the valor and honor of thousand of American and allied POWS who suffered and died for your freedom. To even infer it is true is disgraceful.
Mansell isn't alone. "...a pathetic, misleading blot on the broad canvas of POW history..." - James Oglethorpe
"...Is it eyewitness to history, a fascinatingly and cunningly crafted fictional masterpiece, or the dark broodings of a man with deep psychological problems of some sort? It is a remarkable example of whichever one of those it is..." - D.E. Mowrer
"...Pure garbage. It is disturbing that a book like this can go out masquerading as truth ....it is only when you finish the book and then you go back to the front and carefully analyse the back of the cover etc that you realise you have been had, but that everyone has covered their backs..." - B. S. Dawson I have, I admit, quoted only from those reviewers who were negative. But even Valentine's own publishers have placed a "Publisher's Note" on the book. It's a tempting, but somewhat shoddy literary device to tell a yarn, and give the reason for the lack of documentary proof of the yarn as being a "cover-up." The more that people cry "there is no documentary support!" the more an author can respond, "See, this just proves the cover-up!" Hotel Tacloban was, I understand, its author's first book. Valentine went on to question the assassination of Martin Luther King, political assassination programs of the US Army in Vietnam, the CIA infiltration of federal drug law enforcement, and torture and detention in Iraq. Here's the blurb for another one of his books, "TDY"- In 1967 a young Air Force photojournalist volunteers for a temporary duty mission in the Philippines, but finds himself in Laos, caught in the secret and deadly intrigues of CIA drug smugglers. During the mission he learns the true meaning of good and evil, while nearly losing his life in the process. A crescendo of action and awakening, TDY exposes the US Government's complicity in international drug smuggling. (cue the "A" Team music?)There's good money in peddling "Hidden and Secret Histories," yarns and conspiracies, and Valentine is making good money. History not quite, though. Dispelling the fog of WWII Japanese POW camps by producing verifiable proof, he is definitely not.
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Post by westernaus on Jan 22, 2011 22:53:19 GMT 8
Hi EXO, Douglas Valentine probably is making good money out of his books . As far as Hotel Tacloban go,s when I bought the book there was a entry from the publisher in the book regarding authenticity . ( At that stage he didn't have any critics regarding the book ) Seeing I was going to Leyte passing through Tacloban . I thought I might prove or disprove the story . It took several trips to Tacloban leyte and finding people by word of mouth to learn their was a Japanese POW camp at Tacloban Leyte in fact one kind old fellow in Tacloban I interviewed who was about 90 years of age actually gave me directions to the area where the POW camp was . I wrote the information down on a piece of paper in pencil which I had for a number of years zipped up in a tourist money belt , but I lost the paper . That same old fellow had also witnessed some japs burying gold near the steps of a church some where in Tacloban . This information he passed on to my Nephew who teaches Law at Uni in the philippines . My Nephews spare time hobby is fossicking for gold at old gold mines with metal detectors . With some of his mates they checked out the the grounds of the church they found one small bar of gold buried near the steps of the church. Like Valentines critics I have tried to match names of dead in his book with the Australian war graves commission but they came up zero. The only thing that appears to have existed in fact is the POW camp which is on Roger Mansells web site - List of all Japanese PW Camps ( POW Camps Page 2. Listed as The recognised pow camps in the Philippine islands NARA DATA BASE for RETURNED POWs. Something I have noticed is that Valentine has never answered his critics . AS for myself I have given up trying to prove or disprove the story a few years ago . Regards.
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