Capt. Jesse Funchess - How did he get off The Rock?
Jan 2, 2019 18:02:09 GMT 8
Karl Welteke, chadhill, and 2 more like this
Post by Richard King on Jan 2, 2019 18:02:09 GMT 8
A Facebook (FB) friend wrote an article which he published to FB about my father, Capt. Ben Ewing King. I will copy and paste the article as I believe it relevant to discussion here. During the back and forth between us I sent some pictures and documents. Some included photos of dad's best friend Capt. Jesse Funchess. LSMS during the writing of the article I asked if he knew if Jesse survived as a POW. To my surprise Jesse got off Corregidor perhaps as late as February or March '42 and somehow ended up being stationed at a CA unit in Puerto Rico.
Here is the article Norman Grossman wrote about my father:
by Norman Grossman
Ben Ewing King an Army Reserve officer was married to Marie Lee King and residing in Austin, Texas while working for the Austin National Bank and part-time for the Travis County Sheriff’s Office as a deputy. He was called to active duty in August 1940 as a 1st LT. and ordered to report to the Coast Artillery Replacement Center at Ft Crockett TX in Galveston.
After going through extensive training he received a promotion as a captain in the Coast Artillery. At that time (January 3 1941) he was given orders to proceed to San Francisco CA for deployment to the Philippines on January 24 1941. His daughter Gail was born in December of 1940 in Galveston.
Upon his arrival in the Philippines in February 1941 he was assigned to the 59th Coast artillery at Ft Mills (Corregidor).
Captain Ben Ewing and his best friend Captain Jesse B "Salty" Funchess
in front of officers quarters Ft Mills Corregidor Island 1941. Both men survived the war
During the 10 months prior to the Japanese attacking the Philippines Ben was given the command of HQ Battery. Besides the daily training of his men he was also given a conglomeration of other duties by his commanding officer as regimental supply officer, camouflage and gas officer (for the whole Island). He was also operations officer for the middle section of the Island for the 59th Coast artillery beach and seaward defense. He was also the commandant of HQ for Harbor defense. So Ben’s leadership and paperwork skills were apparent to his superiors.
When the Japanese attacked the Philippines on December 8 1941 Ben was in command of Battery Geary a battery of eight 13 ton 12 inch mortars. They battery was defiladed in a hollow on Corregidor’s southern coast. Its’ location on the opposite side of a hill from Bataan made it fairly well protected from Japanese shelling from land. But on January 6 1942 Battery Geary was attacked from the air and a bomb landed in a temporary makeshift bunker being built by Capt. King’s men. The blast killed 31 NCO’s and cannoneers. The loss of men affected Ben very deeply. This was Capt.King’s first run in with his commanding officer Col. Paul D Bunker, a graduate of West Point (who was over all commander of all artillery on Corregidor/Fort Mills). Col. Bunker was very critical and negative towards King as he thought King was much too emotional about losing these men.
On January 23 1942 a company of Japanese soldiers landed on the west side of Bataan at Longaskawayan Point trying to outflank the American lines precipitating what is known as the” Battle of the Points”. These Japanese were within range of Corregidor’s and Battery Geary’s heavy guns. King and his crews on the 12 inch motors eagerly awaited permission to open fire on the Japanese which had been denied. Finally at 10:00 PM on January 25th General Edward P King who at the time was the senior USAFEE artillery officer gave the OK to open fire on the Japanese to support the American forces trying to dislodge the Japanese. At midnight Capt. King ordered his crews at Battery Geary to open fire on them. This was the first time since the American Civil War that fixed coastal artillery had fired on land forces. King had ordered his crews to use 67 pound land attack projectiles with super quick fuses which in his words “worked beautifully”. Battery Geary fired 16 rounds at a range of 12,000 yards (which was only 2,000 yards short of the motors extreme range).
The results were most gratifying. After the fourth round the bombardment caused huge fires on Longaskawayan Point. The bombardment made a huge impression on the Japanese troops. One of the captured Japanes troops later declared that they could not see were the shells were coming from because of the fires and this caused confusion among their troops. As the fires raged many of the Japanese jumped off the cliffs of the point committing suicide rather than being burned alive.
The fire from Battery Geary was considered accurate and effective but King’s commanding officer Col. Paul D Bunker did not see it that way.
Again in a conflict of personalities Bunker was critical of King’s handling of the action. Instead of bringing up formal judicial charges against Capt. King, Col. Bunker decided to relieve him of commanded of Battery Geary and transfer him to Ft Drum as XO ( second in command) under Lt. Col. Lewis Kirkpatrick, Fort Commander and King commanded HQ battery on the Fort. Capt. Thomas Davis assumed the command of Battery Geary from that point onward. Later Col. Bunker noted in his diary which he kept as a POW that in retrospect he had probably made a mistake in judging Capt. King too harshly in this matter.
So in February 1942 King spent the last four months of the Bataan-Corregidor Campaign on FT Drum (Concrete Battleship).
The following paragraphs are about the actions at Ft Drum from December 8 1941 to May 7 1942 when it was ordered by General Wainwright to surrender.
War came to Fort Drum on 10 December when its decks were cleared of peace time temporary barracks, thus permitting all around fire for Battery Marshall, Even the cage-mast seen in many of the photographs of Fort Drum was eventually removed to allow unobstructed fire from the turreted 14 inch guns. On 13 January a small Japanese vessel approached Ternate on the Cavite shore but retreated promptly when Fort Drum opened fire with a 3-in gun (Battery Hoyle. Ed.) installed that morning on the stern of the ship. Between 31 January and 5 February some of the seacoast batteries which could fire on the south mainland were in action almost daily, especially those at Forts Frank, Drum and Hughes. Observation was very difficult from the fortified islands but Captain Ivey, 60th CA (AA), with a small party of enlisted men, using a walkie-talkie radio at an OP on the mainland, gave spotting data until his detail was attacked and driven out.
At 0812 hours on 6 February 1942 the first enemy artillery fire against the fortified islands fell on Forts Drum and Hughes and Corregidor shortly after 0800. The bombardment came from 105-mm batteries on the Cavite mainland and lasted until about 1100. The principal concentration was against Fort Drum which received approximately 100 hits without, however, impairing its main fighting strength.
Observation to locate enemy batteries was difficult as most observers were looking directly at the sun. Based on the best information obtainable, the enemy fire was returned during the day by Battery Roberts (6-in) at Fort Drum and Batteries Koehler and Frank North at Fort Frank. Results were unknown.
Corregidor was the enemy objective of all attacks except that on 2 January, Fort Drum and on 5 January, Fort Frank were included objectives, and on 2 March the latter was the sole objective attacked.
The Pico de Lora hills on the adjacent Cavite shore, rising to a height of 2225 feet, completely dominated Fort Frank and the surrounding terrain. Under current war plans this area was to have been occupied by an infantry battalion and one battery of field artillery when the main forces found it necessary to withdraw to Bataan. However this plan was not followed and the Japanese were able to occupy this important observation post early in January 1942, and from it to adjust heavy concentrations of artillery fire on Forts Frank and Drum.
On 16 February, all fortified islands were shelled from Cavite Province beginning with Fort Drum at 2403. Exeter was damaged.
On 17 February was a repetition of previous artillery action. The enemy opened fire on Fort Drum at 0615, and again on Corregidor at 0854 switching to Fort Hughes at noon. Although sporadic, this harassing fire was nonetheless annoying.
The enemy opened fire promptly at 0730 on 15 March 1942 against Corregidor and Fort Frank, shifting to Fort Hughes at 0800, and Fort Drum at 0900. During the day Forts Frank and Drum received the brunt of the bombardment, each being under a heavy concentration of 240-mm howitzer fire for the first time. Shells falling on Corregidor and Fort Hughes were still of 105-mm or 15cm caliber. About 5% were duds. At Fort Drum one 240-mm shell penetrated the casemate shield at Battery Roberts disabling one gun temporarily. A fire was started but was extinguished before it reached the powder. Several men were burned and gassed by the fumes in the casemate. There were approximately 100 hits on Fort Drum. In each instance, the damage was light and was repaired within a few hours.
Almost every day thereafter various seacoast batteries at Forts Hughes, Drum, and Frank engaged every reasonable target on the Cavite mainland with artillery fire.
Later in March (or early in April) Exeter was put out of commission permanently by enemy artillery fire from Cavite and Fort Drum's available means of active anti-aircraft defense was reduced to a few machine guns. However, the enemy had never succeeded in bombing Fort Drum effectively from the air - in fact the Japanese made very few attempts to bomb that fort either before or after Exeter's destruction so the loss of the battery was not keenly felt as it might otherwise have been. Exeter's M-1 height finder and power plant were transferred to Idaho. Such other parts of its equipment as might be of use in toto or in repairing damages sustained by other batteries, including its M-4 Director were transferred to Corregidor.
Enemy artillery fire from the Cavite shore in mid-March resulted in serious damage to the electrical control system of Albany's searchlight unit on Fort Drum. The light, however, was continued in service by manual control.
The Searchlight Defense picked up and carried the enemy every time he came within the range of the lights. Usually illumination by the lights appeared to confuse the aviators. In numerous instances the attackers would, when picked up and carried, turn away; sometimes to renew their efforts from another direction, sometimes abandoning their attempts altogether. Their bombing accuracy under illumination was extremely poor as compared to daylight bombings. The use of Bataan and Corregidor lights on some attacks and the Drum, Hughes, and Corregidor lights on other attacks caused the enemy aviators difficulty in keeping their bombing runs oriented and usually resulted in their dropping their bombs in the water.
Fort Drum was an additional objective on 20, 23, 29 April when 4 aircraft attacked it, without causing any damage.
Every day various seacoast batteries at Forts Hughes, Drum, and Frank engaged every reasonable target on the Cavite mainland with artillery fire.
At some point during the shelling of Fort Drum, the ammonia based air conditioning of the fort was disabled. This caused the internal temperature within the fort to rise to near 100 degrees. The effect on the powder stored in the magazines was to make it more volatile and added range to the 14 inch shells. As the japs were forming troops near Cabcaben for the final assault on Corregidor, the extra volatility put them within the range of Fort Drum’s big guns. Drum’s 14-inchers made Swiss cheese of a number of their thin-skinned landing barges, sending many of the Emperor’s best troops to the bottom of the Bay.
On May 6, 1942, when General Wainwright surrendered Corregidor, he included the harbor forts in his order. Although still capable of fighting, the defenders of the fort obeyed orders, smashed their generators, burned their codebooks, spiked their weapons, turned the fire-hoses loose in the interior– paying special attention to the powder rooms, and raised a white flag at noon.
Although the 240~ soldiers and Marines of the garrison did not suffer any deaths in direct combat, their time in Japanese prison camps was by no means easy. A number of their unit, to include Kirkpatrick, did not live to see the end of the war. Only one officer, battery commander Capt. Ben E. King, survived. Casualties among the enlisted were likewise horrific.
In the end, they were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation and that of the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation, which the 59th carries to this day (as the 59th Air Defense Artillery Regiment).
On 7 May 1942, when the Corregidor garrison surrendered, Drum was still in fighting condition. The captured Fort Hughes garrison was transferred to the 92d CA Garage Concentration Camp on 8 May. Except for a small detachment, the prisoners were detained without drinking water in the 92nd Garage area until removed to Manila by Japanese authorities, the majority being evacuated on 24 May. During this time Capt. King distinguished himself by tirelessly collecting canteens from the injured men and spending every waking hour obtaining water from the single spigot available to the captured troops. Troops at Fort Drum and Fort Frank were consolidated at Wawa, Nasugbu, Batangas by the Japanese and were also evacuated to Manila on 24 May.
So Captain Ben Ewing King becomes a POW of the Empire of Japan for the next 34 months. He ends up at the POW camp at Cabanatuan. During his time there he endured countless beatings, was diagnosed with a serious heart condition and suffered from various tropical diseases and the lack of food. His weight drops to 90 pounds which may have been a blessing in disguise as only the strongest and healthiest POW’s were sent on the “hell ships” to other parts of the Japanese empire to be used as forced labor.
Liberation comes on January 30 1945 when the 6th US Ranger Battalion makes a daring raid on Cabanatuan POW camp (which was still behind enemy lines) and freed the 511 allied prisoners left in the camp. This daring raid is the subject of countless books and the 2005 movie “The great Raid”. Ben was the only officer of FT Drum that survived the POW camps.
After getting back to the American Lines on February 1 1945 many of the POW’s were taken to American hospitals near Manila. While in the hospital King got to meet General MacArthur and was able to shake his hand. King was heard to say to the General a request for him to allow for his immediate return him to active duty so that he could continue the fight. But Ben’s fight was over. Soon afterwards he is promoted to the rank of major. The plan for these men is to get them back to the USA as quickly as possible. Many went by plane but some were returned by ship. Ben was one of these and most likely was one of the 280 men that left on February 11 1945 from Leyte aboard the transport ship USS General AE Anderson bound for San Francisco with a stop in New Guinea. The Anderson reaches San Francisco safely on March 8 1945.
Captain Ben Ewing King earns the following decorations and citations for serving in WWII.
Philippine Liberation Medal, Philippine Defense Service Medal, Asiatic Pacific Service Medal, American Defense Service Medal, Silver Star Medal, Presidential Unit Citation with Two Oak Leaf Clusters, World War II Victory Medal, Purple Heart Medal.
After spending some time in San Francisco he moves on to his home in Austin Texas to be reunited with his wife Marie Lee King and his daughter Gail . After some time spent with his family he then has to report to the Ft Sam Houston Hospital to recuperate and for evaluation.
During this period Maj. King wrote a report/ testimony for the War Crimes office about what happened during his time at Cabanatuan so they could find and prosecute the Japanese officers and guards that had inflicted pain and suffering on the POW’s. Also during this period as the senior surviving officer of Ft Drum he wrote a detailed 10 page report/ history on the workings and performance of the “Concrete Battleship” during the time period of December 1941-May 1942. King's report was incorporated into The Wainwright Papers which was a written history/report of the performance of the USAFFE in the Philippines from December 1941-May 1942.
Maj. King is placed back on active duty and assigned to Ft Monroe VA. In late 1945.
In early 1946 Marie Lee King who was pregnant with their second child was involved in a car accident on the Ft Monroe base. Her car was struck by a military jeep which had spun out of control on an icy bridge. Luckily she didn’t suffer any major injuries but was taken to the local military hospital to be checked out. She was being interviewed by a junior military officer about the accident whose questioning became somewhat unprofessional. At this point Maj. King arrived and a heated argument occurred between the two over the type of questions and the officer’s unprofessional attitude. The result became physical. A formal judicial inquiry convened and Maj. King was sent back to Texas. At this point Major Ben Ewing King decided to retire from the US Army. On September 14, 1947 after being promoted to Lt Col. Coast Artillery his retirement becomes official.
Ben eventually becomes a real estate appraiser in Austin and does quite well. He also taught classes on becoming an appraiser for many years through the Master Appraiser’s Institute.
Ben Ewing King passes away on December 10 1966 and is interned at Ft Sam Houston Texas.
A huge thanks for the majority of this information and personal photos from Richard Henry King (middle name Henry in honor of Col. Henry Mucci of the 6th Rangers) who is Ben and Marie Lee King’s son. Respects for his father’s service to our country.
Here is the article Norman Grossman wrote about my father:
B E N E W I N G K I N G
( 1 9 0 8 - 1 9 9 6 )
by Norman Grossman
Ben Ewing King an Army Reserve officer was married to Marie Lee King and residing in Austin, Texas while working for the Austin National Bank and part-time for the Travis County Sheriff’s Office as a deputy. He was called to active duty in August 1940 as a 1st LT. and ordered to report to the Coast Artillery Replacement Center at Ft Crockett TX in Galveston.
After going through extensive training he received a promotion as a captain in the Coast Artillery. At that time (January 3 1941) he was given orders to proceed to San Francisco CA for deployment to the Philippines on January 24 1941. His daughter Gail was born in December of 1940 in Galveston.
Upon his arrival in the Philippines in February 1941 he was assigned to the 59th Coast artillery at Ft Mills (Corregidor).
Captain Ben Ewing and his best friend Captain Jesse B "Salty" Funchess
in front of officers quarters Ft Mills Corregidor Island 1941. Both men survived the war
During the 10 months prior to the Japanese attacking the Philippines Ben was given the command of HQ Battery. Besides the daily training of his men he was also given a conglomeration of other duties by his commanding officer as regimental supply officer, camouflage and gas officer (for the whole Island). He was also operations officer for the middle section of the Island for the 59th Coast artillery beach and seaward defense. He was also the commandant of HQ for Harbor defense. So Ben’s leadership and paperwork skills were apparent to his superiors.
When the Japanese attacked the Philippines on December 8 1941 Ben was in command of Battery Geary a battery of eight 13 ton 12 inch mortars. They battery was defiladed in a hollow on Corregidor’s southern coast. Its’ location on the opposite side of a hill from Bataan made it fairly well protected from Japanese shelling from land. But on January 6 1942 Battery Geary was attacked from the air and a bomb landed in a temporary makeshift bunker being built by Capt. King’s men. The blast killed 31 NCO’s and cannoneers. The loss of men affected Ben very deeply. This was Capt.King’s first run in with his commanding officer Col. Paul D Bunker, a graduate of West Point (who was over all commander of all artillery on Corregidor/Fort Mills). Col. Bunker was very critical and negative towards King as he thought King was much too emotional about losing these men.
On January 23 1942 a company of Japanese soldiers landed on the west side of Bataan at Longaskawayan Point trying to outflank the American lines precipitating what is known as the” Battle of the Points”. These Japanese were within range of Corregidor’s and Battery Geary’s heavy guns. King and his crews on the 12 inch motors eagerly awaited permission to open fire on the Japanese which had been denied. Finally at 10:00 PM on January 25th General Edward P King who at the time was the senior USAFEE artillery officer gave the OK to open fire on the Japanese to support the American forces trying to dislodge the Japanese. At midnight Capt. King ordered his crews at Battery Geary to open fire on them. This was the first time since the American Civil War that fixed coastal artillery had fired on land forces. King had ordered his crews to use 67 pound land attack projectiles with super quick fuses which in his words “worked beautifully”. Battery Geary fired 16 rounds at a range of 12,000 yards (which was only 2,000 yards short of the motors extreme range).
The results were most gratifying. After the fourth round the bombardment caused huge fires on Longaskawayan Point. The bombardment made a huge impression on the Japanese troops. One of the captured Japanes troops later declared that they could not see were the shells were coming from because of the fires and this caused confusion among their troops. As the fires raged many of the Japanese jumped off the cliffs of the point committing suicide rather than being burned alive.
The fire from Battery Geary was considered accurate and effective but King’s commanding officer Col. Paul D Bunker did not see it that way.
Again in a conflict of personalities Bunker was critical of King’s handling of the action. Instead of bringing up formal judicial charges against Capt. King, Col. Bunker decided to relieve him of commanded of Battery Geary and transfer him to Ft Drum as XO ( second in command) under Lt. Col. Lewis Kirkpatrick, Fort Commander and King commanded HQ battery on the Fort. Capt. Thomas Davis assumed the command of Battery Geary from that point onward. Later Col. Bunker noted in his diary which he kept as a POW that in retrospect he had probably made a mistake in judging Capt. King too harshly in this matter.
So in February 1942 King spent the last four months of the Bataan-Corregidor Campaign on FT Drum (Concrete Battleship).
The following paragraphs are about the actions at Ft Drum from December 8 1941 to May 7 1942 when it was ordered by General Wainwright to surrender.
War came to Fort Drum on 10 December when its decks were cleared of peace time temporary barracks, thus permitting all around fire for Battery Marshall, Even the cage-mast seen in many of the photographs of Fort Drum was eventually removed to allow unobstructed fire from the turreted 14 inch guns. On 13 January a small Japanese vessel approached Ternate on the Cavite shore but retreated promptly when Fort Drum opened fire with a 3-in gun (Battery Hoyle. Ed.) installed that morning on the stern of the ship. Between 31 January and 5 February some of the seacoast batteries which could fire on the south mainland were in action almost daily, especially those at Forts Frank, Drum and Hughes. Observation was very difficult from the fortified islands but Captain Ivey, 60th CA (AA), with a small party of enlisted men, using a walkie-talkie radio at an OP on the mainland, gave spotting data until his detail was attacked and driven out.
At 0812 hours on 6 February 1942 the first enemy artillery fire against the fortified islands fell on Forts Drum and Hughes and Corregidor shortly after 0800. The bombardment came from 105-mm batteries on the Cavite mainland and lasted until about 1100. The principal concentration was against Fort Drum which received approximately 100 hits without, however, impairing its main fighting strength.
Observation to locate enemy batteries was difficult as most observers were looking directly at the sun. Based on the best information obtainable, the enemy fire was returned during the day by Battery Roberts (6-in) at Fort Drum and Batteries Koehler and Frank North at Fort Frank. Results were unknown.
Corregidor was the enemy objective of all attacks except that on 2 January, Fort Drum and on 5 January, Fort Frank were included objectives, and on 2 March the latter was the sole objective attacked.
The Pico de Lora hills on the adjacent Cavite shore, rising to a height of 2225 feet, completely dominated Fort Frank and the surrounding terrain. Under current war plans this area was to have been occupied by an infantry battalion and one battery of field artillery when the main forces found it necessary to withdraw to Bataan. However this plan was not followed and the Japanese were able to occupy this important observation post early in January 1942, and from it to adjust heavy concentrations of artillery fire on Forts Frank and Drum.
On 16 February, all fortified islands were shelled from Cavite Province beginning with Fort Drum at 2403. Exeter was damaged.
On 17 February was a repetition of previous artillery action. The enemy opened fire on Fort Drum at 0615, and again on Corregidor at 0854 switching to Fort Hughes at noon. Although sporadic, this harassing fire was nonetheless annoying.
The enemy opened fire promptly at 0730 on 15 March 1942 against Corregidor and Fort Frank, shifting to Fort Hughes at 0800, and Fort Drum at 0900. During the day Forts Frank and Drum received the brunt of the bombardment, each being under a heavy concentration of 240-mm howitzer fire for the first time. Shells falling on Corregidor and Fort Hughes were still of 105-mm or 15cm caliber. About 5% were duds. At Fort Drum one 240-mm shell penetrated the casemate shield at Battery Roberts disabling one gun temporarily. A fire was started but was extinguished before it reached the powder. Several men were burned and gassed by the fumes in the casemate. There were approximately 100 hits on Fort Drum. In each instance, the damage was light and was repaired within a few hours.
Almost every day thereafter various seacoast batteries at Forts Hughes, Drum, and Frank engaged every reasonable target on the Cavite mainland with artillery fire.
Later in March (or early in April) Exeter was put out of commission permanently by enemy artillery fire from Cavite and Fort Drum's available means of active anti-aircraft defense was reduced to a few machine guns. However, the enemy had never succeeded in bombing Fort Drum effectively from the air - in fact the Japanese made very few attempts to bomb that fort either before or after Exeter's destruction so the loss of the battery was not keenly felt as it might otherwise have been. Exeter's M-1 height finder and power plant were transferred to Idaho. Such other parts of its equipment as might be of use in toto or in repairing damages sustained by other batteries, including its M-4 Director were transferred to Corregidor.
Enemy artillery fire from the Cavite shore in mid-March resulted in serious damage to the electrical control system of Albany's searchlight unit on Fort Drum. The light, however, was continued in service by manual control.
The Searchlight Defense picked up and carried the enemy every time he came within the range of the lights. Usually illumination by the lights appeared to confuse the aviators. In numerous instances the attackers would, when picked up and carried, turn away; sometimes to renew their efforts from another direction, sometimes abandoning their attempts altogether. Their bombing accuracy under illumination was extremely poor as compared to daylight bombings. The use of Bataan and Corregidor lights on some attacks and the Drum, Hughes, and Corregidor lights on other attacks caused the enemy aviators difficulty in keeping their bombing runs oriented and usually resulted in their dropping their bombs in the water.
Fort Drum was an additional objective on 20, 23, 29 April when 4 aircraft attacked it, without causing any damage.
Every day various seacoast batteries at Forts Hughes, Drum, and Frank engaged every reasonable target on the Cavite mainland with artillery fire.
At some point during the shelling of Fort Drum, the ammonia based air conditioning of the fort was disabled. This caused the internal temperature within the fort to rise to near 100 degrees. The effect on the powder stored in the magazines was to make it more volatile and added range to the 14 inch shells. As the japs were forming troops near Cabcaben for the final assault on Corregidor, the extra volatility put them within the range of Fort Drum’s big guns. Drum’s 14-inchers made Swiss cheese of a number of their thin-skinned landing barges, sending many of the Emperor’s best troops to the bottom of the Bay.
On May 6, 1942, when General Wainwright surrendered Corregidor, he included the harbor forts in his order. Although still capable of fighting, the defenders of the fort obeyed orders, smashed their generators, burned their codebooks, spiked their weapons, turned the fire-hoses loose in the interior– paying special attention to the powder rooms, and raised a white flag at noon.
Although the 240~ soldiers and Marines of the garrison did not suffer any deaths in direct combat, their time in Japanese prison camps was by no means easy. A number of their unit, to include Kirkpatrick, did not live to see the end of the war. Only one officer, battery commander Capt. Ben E. King, survived. Casualties among the enlisted were likewise horrific.
In the end, they were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation and that of the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation, which the 59th carries to this day (as the 59th Air Defense Artillery Regiment).
On 7 May 1942, when the Corregidor garrison surrendered, Drum was still in fighting condition. The captured Fort Hughes garrison was transferred to the 92d CA Garage Concentration Camp on 8 May. Except for a small detachment, the prisoners were detained without drinking water in the 92nd Garage area until removed to Manila by Japanese authorities, the majority being evacuated on 24 May. During this time Capt. King distinguished himself by tirelessly collecting canteens from the injured men and spending every waking hour obtaining water from the single spigot available to the captured troops. Troops at Fort Drum and Fort Frank were consolidated at Wawa, Nasugbu, Batangas by the Japanese and were also evacuated to Manila on 24 May.
So Captain Ben Ewing King becomes a POW of the Empire of Japan for the next 34 months. He ends up at the POW camp at Cabanatuan. During his time there he endured countless beatings, was diagnosed with a serious heart condition and suffered from various tropical diseases and the lack of food. His weight drops to 90 pounds which may have been a blessing in disguise as only the strongest and healthiest POW’s were sent on the “hell ships” to other parts of the Japanese empire to be used as forced labor.
Liberation comes on January 30 1945 when the 6th US Ranger Battalion makes a daring raid on Cabanatuan POW camp (which was still behind enemy lines) and freed the 511 allied prisoners left in the camp. This daring raid is the subject of countless books and the 2005 movie “The great Raid”. Ben was the only officer of FT Drum that survived the POW camps.
After getting back to the American Lines on February 1 1945 many of the POW’s were taken to American hospitals near Manila. While in the hospital King got to meet General MacArthur and was able to shake his hand. King was heard to say to the General a request for him to allow for his immediate return him to active duty so that he could continue the fight. But Ben’s fight was over. Soon afterwards he is promoted to the rank of major. The plan for these men is to get them back to the USA as quickly as possible. Many went by plane but some were returned by ship. Ben was one of these and most likely was one of the 280 men that left on February 11 1945 from Leyte aboard the transport ship USS General AE Anderson bound for San Francisco with a stop in New Guinea. The Anderson reaches San Francisco safely on March 8 1945.
Captain Ben Ewing King earns the following decorations and citations for serving in WWII.
Philippine Liberation Medal, Philippine Defense Service Medal, Asiatic Pacific Service Medal, American Defense Service Medal, Silver Star Medal, Presidential Unit Citation with Two Oak Leaf Clusters, World War II Victory Medal, Purple Heart Medal.
After spending some time in San Francisco he moves on to his home in Austin Texas to be reunited with his wife Marie Lee King and his daughter Gail . After some time spent with his family he then has to report to the Ft Sam Houston Hospital to recuperate and for evaluation.
During this period Maj. King wrote a report/ testimony for the War Crimes office about what happened during his time at Cabanatuan so they could find and prosecute the Japanese officers and guards that had inflicted pain and suffering on the POW’s. Also during this period as the senior surviving officer of Ft Drum he wrote a detailed 10 page report/ history on the workings and performance of the “Concrete Battleship” during the time period of December 1941-May 1942. King's report was incorporated into The Wainwright Papers which was a written history/report of the performance of the USAFFE in the Philippines from December 1941-May 1942.
Maj. King is placed back on active duty and assigned to Ft Monroe VA. In late 1945.
In early 1946 Marie Lee King who was pregnant with their second child was involved in a car accident on the Ft Monroe base. Her car was struck by a military jeep which had spun out of control on an icy bridge. Luckily she didn’t suffer any major injuries but was taken to the local military hospital to be checked out. She was being interviewed by a junior military officer about the accident whose questioning became somewhat unprofessional. At this point Maj. King arrived and a heated argument occurred between the two over the type of questions and the officer’s unprofessional attitude. The result became physical. A formal judicial inquiry convened and Maj. King was sent back to Texas. At this point Major Ben Ewing King decided to retire from the US Army. On September 14, 1947 after being promoted to Lt Col. Coast Artillery his retirement becomes official.
Ben eventually becomes a real estate appraiser in Austin and does quite well. He also taught classes on becoming an appraiser for many years through the Master Appraiser’s Institute.
Ben Ewing King passes away on December 10 1966 and is interned at Ft Sam Houston Texas.
A huge thanks for the majority of this information and personal photos from Richard Henry King (middle name Henry in honor of Col. Henry Mucci of the 6th Rangers) who is Ben and Marie Lee King’s son. Respects for his father’s service to our country.