Battery James

[dmether]

Unidentified soldier sitting on Battery James.

Attachments:

[dmether]

Another guy.

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[dmether]

3rd and 4th guy, same picture.

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[okla]

Hey Dmether....Thanks for posting. Whenever I view these pre-war (probably)close up photos I can't help but wonder what fate awaited these guys. Whether they made it thru the ordeal that awaited them or they perished during the siege, in the POW pens, went down or died on a "Hell Ship", working as slave labor in Japan or Manchuria, or lived to see the Golden Gate Bridge again. The odds were surely against the latter ever coming to pass. Miraculously, about half of those taken prisoner did survive, as I understand it. Maybe more, but the quality of life of many who did make it back to the states would never be the same. Thanks again for this material.

[cbuehler]

They appear to be wearing the DI of the 59th CA. Were they assigned to Btry. James?

Conrad

[okla]

Hey cb....I would think it most probable that these guys are 59th CA Regiment. As I understand it, the 60th CA Regiment manned such Batteries as Hartford, Denver, etc which were Anti-Aircraft units. Battery James and her mates were in the ship sinking mode. Battery Boy may shoot holes in my feeble efforts to answer your query, but " that's my story and I am sticking to it" as that silly cowboy song says it. Seriously, though, 'ole Battery Boy is an authority on this type stuff, I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't able to give the Name, Rank, Serial Number, Blood Type, and Religion of any gunner who ever pulled a lanyard on "The Rock" ;D.Cheers.

[batteryboy]

During the pre-war years, the fixed seacoast batteries were manned by the 59th and also had rotation shifts with 91st and 92nd CAs (Philippine Scouts). There were even plans to place the scouts to permanently man the fixed sea coast guns and the 59th to man the searchlight batteries and mine casemates but it never materialized and the 59th was back manning most of the heavy seacoast fortifications.

The 91st and the 92nd then manned a mix of heavy coast artillery batteries, medium seacoast batteries, 155mm TD (tractor drawn) and PM (Panaman mount batteries), including a number of 75mm beach defense batteries. The smaller fixed coast batteries like James, Hanna, Cushing were given to the 1st Coast Artillery Regiment, PA (Philippine Army).

As for James, it was manned by Battery B of the 1st CA (PA) but attached under Battery B of t he 91st CA (PS) as part of its groupment fire during wartime.

[Karl Welteke]

Tom

In another input, on another thread, you said this in connection with the death of the 42 Filipino Soldiers at this battery that the tunnel digging was against orders. I also read it someplace else. The whole thing is implying that they died at their own fault!

I don’t understand the statement: “Dug a tunnel against orders”. I want to challenge that! Who said: “against orders”? Everybody on the island was digging tunnels, where were they supposed to take cover? That order would be hard for me to understand. And if it was against order why was the digging not stopped?

[Karl Welteke]

BATTERY JAMES CLEANED UP 2015-04-12

When visiting James Ravine one has to pass near Battery James and we got a glimpse that it was recently thoroughly cleaned up by the Corregidor Foundation Inc. (CFI). We changed our plan and had a close look and took advantage of this and shot a good round of pictures of the battery. We asked: “How come” and were told it was just a routine accomplishment.

I suspect it was it was cleaned up for the yearly anniversaries of remembering the surrender of Bataan and then Corregidor and the Philippines in April and May. This battery is remembered that during the Corregidor siege, 42 Filipino Soldiers died here serving on Battery James.

Let us remember them and all the other casualties and survivors in defending freedom is the Philippine Islands!

An album with 56 images has been established in my Photobucket account:

s74.photobucket.com/user/PI-Sailor/library/Corregidor%20by%20subject/Batteries-Coastal%20Artillery/Batt-James%202015-04-12?sort=9&page=1
or
tinyurl.com/oh2a9e2

12 sample images, much smaller, are presented here:




X388.This picture shows a 3 inch gun, like the 4 guns at Battery James, and it is manned by Filipino Soldiers. This picture came from the web pages of Corregidor.org, the Fort Wint pages. Fort Wint was located on Grande Island, Subic Bay and was mainly manned by the Philippine Scout Soldiers. Later Philippine Army Soldiers were trained here when the Philippine Army was established.
So this picture truly represent the Filipino Soldiers who fell at Battery James, we want to remember them!




X389. Standing near #4 Gun, Battery James, we have a complete view of the cleaned up battery.



X390. A graph of Battery James, Fort Mills, Corregidor Island, Manila Bay Harbor Defense I made. It is not to scale and is just meant to help you picture the location of the images in this album.



X391. The location of Battery James, Fort Mills, Corregidor Island, Manila Bay Harbor Defense on this section of the 1936 Fort Mills map.



X392. Gun #4 of Battery James and a Memorial Marker, established in 2009 by Philippine authorities. In the back is Bataan, looking across the Manila Bay North Channel.



X393. Close-up of the Memorial Marker Plaque which tells us the history of Battery James and who made this memorial marker possible.



X394. Gun #2 of Battery James, Ft. Mills, Corregidor Island in Manila Bay.



X395. Gun #3 of Battery James, Ft. Mills, Corregidor Island in Manila Bay.



X396. Damaged but it is still here, the engraved name of Battery James, Ft. Mills, Corregidor Island in Manila Bay.



X397. The space between the steps and the three magazines between #3 and #4 Gun of Battery James, Fort Mills, Corregidor Island, Manila Bay Harbor Defense.



X398. The magazine next to #4 Gun, there are two sets of Magazines, each having 3 bomb proof magazines.



X399. The 3 inch guns were pedestal mounted and here is a close-up shot of the studs holding down the gun. This one is from the #1 Gun.

[Registrar]

Great post, Karl.

My SWAG of digging a tunnel "against orders" is along the lines of "don't dig THERE" (ie "but you can dig elsewhere where it's safer"). Not so much a prohibition against all digging, but a prohibition against digging where there may not be sufficient soil overhead to cushion from the impact of incoming artillery. For example, to dig a tunnel where there is more than twelve or fifteen feet of soil above the tunnel may be safe, whereas if there's only ten feet or less of protection may be quite unsafe.

This is pure conjecture tough. Some time ago, we were wondering why tunnel for RJ43 was so far away from where the gun was. We came up with the theory that the tunnel was placed at the closest position to the gun which allowed for a ample protection overhead.

There's also the problem which is almost impossible to avoid, which is that a tunnel entrance dug almost anywhere along the road behind Btry James is still a direct target from Bataan., and thus prone to collapse if it suffers a hit or near miss.