(photo of Malinta Hill courtesy armyjunk)
(newsclip courtesy Dana Ribble)
One item in this thread that has always held my interest is the tragic fate on April 29, 1942 of the “pom-pom” gun crew commanded by 23 year old First Lieutenant Stanley Friedline of Battery M, 60th CAC. During 1985 I read “Corregidor, the Saga of a Fortress” and became fascinated by the story of these Army men who operated a naval AA gun that had been intended for the USS Houston. The following year I climbed to the top of Malinta Hill and explored the site where the crew and their weapon had been stationed. According to the book this is what happened to the crew during the massive bombardment on Hirohito’s birthday:
“{The Japanese} wrecked the quadruple 1.1 inch pom-pom on top of the hill and damaged the adjacent tunnel for No. 8 searchlight- in which the pom-pom crew had taken refuge- roasting to death Lieutenant Stanley O. Friedline, the platoon commander, and five of his men. A great 240 mm shell had plunged from a steep angle squarely down the tunnel’s ventilation shaft into the gasoline tank of the searchlight’s 25 kw generator”.
- “Corregidor, The Saga of a Fortress” (1967), page 126
This account would seem to originate from the report written by Lieutenant Colonel Elvin L. Barr titled “Battery M, 60th Coast Artillery (A.A.)” which is included in The Moore Report. Barr probably wrote this unit history during 1943 while he was a POW in Cabanatuan. Here is an excerpt:
“The Battery commander Capt. Holmes and Lt. King set out for Malinta Hill as soon as the shelling ceased. We learned from some of our men in Malinta Tunnel that the pompom had been blasted out and that Lt. Friedline and some of our men had been burned to death in the fire that had swept through the searchlight tunnel. A 240 mm shell came down a ventilation shaft and exploded the gas tank of the 25 KW generator and the fire swept all through the tunnel. Lt. Friedline and four men died of burns that afternoon and four other men were seriously burned.
“We went up to inspect the damage immediately. The pompon and the other machine gun pit were totally destroyed. A crew of engineers was working to extricate some of the bodies caught in the wreckage of the SL tunnel. The lower section had not been hit but its morale was badly shaken”.
I have wondered what Barr meant by “the lower section” in the last sentence. Unfortunately, he did not survive the war. According to Chaplin John E. Duffy, Barr died January 30, 1945 on the docks at Moji, Japan after being evacuated from the hellship Brasil Maru.
Similar versions have been repeated in other histories of the battle, most recently in John Gordon’s excellent read “Fighting for MacArthur” (2011), page 261.
“The Navy 1.1- inch anti-aircraft gun atop the hill, which had performed such good service since it was installed in February, was destroyed. Its Army crew had taken shelter in a nearby searchlight tunnel, but a Japanese shell entered the tunnel by plunging steeply down its ventilation shaft. The gasoline supply for the searchlight’s generator added to the effect of the explosion; the entire Army crew was killed”.
On page 14 of this thread, armyjunk posted a remarkable diagram which showed that Searchlight 8 was originally powered by a 25 KW generator placed in the “old land defense magazine” south of the SL 8 airshaft. I have added captions for clarity, and the red X is where fots indicated he found the pom-pom mount.
(courtesy armyjunk)
This magazine was not on the 1936 map. Fots posted a similarly remarkable chart, called the Report of Completed Works, which also indicated that the SL generator was inside this magazine in October 1935.
(courtesy fots2)
Oozlefinch quickly responded:
“As an addendum to ArmyJunk's drawing, I believe this {the old land defense magazine} is where Lt. Friedline and his men were killed by an artillery strike, not in the back of the SL#8 tunnel, as popularly believed. This is where the SL (and probably other local positions) got its local power and thus, where the gasoline would have been stored”.
Trusting the history books, I SWAGGED that when the pom-pom gun was installed on top of Malinta Hill the generator and its fuel tanks must have then been relocated to the rear of the SL 8 tunnel. There is very little space on the northern ridge of the hill and by moving these things there would be room in the old land defense magazine for at least some of the 25,000 rounds of ammo supplied by the Navy for the gun. This would also explain why the crew was said to have been burned by exploding fuel in the SL 8 tunnel. Oozlefinch reasonably suggested:
“Chad - Maybe they didn't move the generator from the old land defense magazine to the SL-8 tunnel, and that was where Lt. Friedman and his men were killed by the 240 shell hit. The damage to the one entrance to the magazine might be consistent with a 240 hit. That magazine would also have been the most convenient shelter for the men manning the 1.1”.
This all made sense, and I began to have some doubt about the accepted accounts but lacked any positive info to prove them wrong. However, this recently changed when I received a copy of Charles Balaza’s splendid book, published in 2002, titled “Life as an American Prisoner of War of the Japanese”.
I first heard of Mr. Balaza’s book several years ago when wwalker referred to it in the SS Corregidor thread. Balaza, a corporal in Company K, 59th Harbor Defense Searchlight Command, commanded Searchlight 4 at Wheeler Point. But in early April 1942 he took over command of Searchlight 8 on Malinta Hill and was there until Corregidor surrendered on May 6. His book dedicates a chapter to the events of April 29.
I found out that Mr. Balaza was still in good health at the age of 93. He retired from the Army as a Master Sergeant in 1962 and then worked for New Jersey Turnpike as a heavy equipment operator until 1982. I was able to locate him and mailed him copies of several of fots’ photos of the SL 8 tunnel and the old land defense magazine, armyjunk’s magazine diagram and aerial photo of Malinta Hill, and Japanese photos of the pom-pom. I then talked with him several times over the telephone. He was very pleasant and still had a sharp memory of the events of April 29th. Here is what I learned from the phone calls, combined with information from his book.
Mr. Balaza was absolutely adamant that the SL 8 generator fuel tanks were on top of Malinta Hill and not inside the SL 8 tunnel. He said they were between the airshaft and the pom-pom gun and were protected by sandbags. When I asked him where the power plant generator for SL 8 was, he replied that it was “in a bunker on the other side of the pom-pom gun”. Refer to armyjunk’s diagram. This is the 25 KW inside the old land defense magazine.
The morning of April 29th began with an air raid. I checked the 4th Marines R-2 Journal and it also states that an air raid led off the day, beginning at 0720. The Wainwright Papers, Volume 2, Section 1 gives the time as 0730. Much of the bombing occurred on and near Malinta Hill.
Mr. Balaza was inside SL 8 tunnel with three other men when the air raid warning siren sounded. Before the first bombs fell, one of the men decided to leave the SL 8 tunnel and go to the “power plant bunker”. Balaza said it was his friend named “Ski”. I had a copy of the burial roster for that day on hand as I spoke to him, and it lists a Private Leonard A. Kozlowski from Battery K, 59th CAC. I asked him if Private Kozlowski was this man. He said yes, it was. Kozlowski was the power plant operator and wanted to be near the generator inside the old land defense magazine. Balaza asked him to remain inside the SL 8 tunnel, but he left anyway. The magazine may have been Kozlowski's battle duty station, and his decision to leave the SL 8 tunnel soon cost him his life.
(courtesy Bob Hudson)
After the air raid Mr. Balaza became very nauseated and left the SL 8 tunnel to relieve himself at a field latrine located about halfway from the tunnel to the top of the hill. It was then that an artillery barrage began. The 4th Marines R-2 Journal and the Wainwright Papers show that this occurred from 0925-1140 and sometime beyond. On his way back to the SL 8 tunnel Balaza was hit in the buttocks by a piece of shrapnel, and when he got inside the tunnel his two fellow soldiers painfully removed it with tweezers and pliers.
When Mr. Balaza returned to the top of Malinta Hill he found that Kozlowski had died inside the “bunker” with several men from the “anti-aircraft gun crew”. There had been a direct hit on the fuel tanks and the resulting explosion had twisted open the steel doors to the bunker, spraying flaming fuel inside and fatally burning the occupants. I asked him if anyone had been burned inside the SL 8 tunnel and he replied no.
Looking back to the burial roster above, we can see who the deceased members of the pom-pom crew were since they came from Battery M, 60th CAC. They were LT Friedline, PVT Russell Johnson, PVT Thomas Moore, and PVT Oliver O’Bryant.
I asked Mr. Balaza if a bomb had penetrated the SL 8 airshaft. He said that one had indeed done so but that he thought it was an aerial bomb and not a 240mm shell. He was not in the tunnel when it happened, but it did not destroy the searchlight or cause a fire. The power plant generator in the old land defense magazine was destroyed on April 29th and he told me that he tried unsuccessfully to find a replacement right up until the May 6th surrender. Volume 2 of The Wainwright Papers, Exhibit G, contains a table listing searchlights that were destroyed but the 60 inch SL 8 on Malinta Hill is not among them.
Mr. Balaza said that the power cable from the generator to SL 8 did not go down the airshaft but went down the side of the hill instead. This may explain the excessive 338 feet shown for the cable length in the Report of Completed Works. He also said he had been told that during its installation the 60 inch searchlight had been lowered down through the airshaft to the tunnel below.
Some of the following photos, courtesy of fots2, have been posted before but I feel they can be even further appreciated with the actual story of what happened being now known.
(courtesy fots2)
Above is the front entrance to the old land defense magazine. See armyjunk’s diagram.
(courtesy fots2)
Looking inside the front entrance to the old land defense magazine. On the upper right is the collapsed rear entrance to the magazine. Note the burned soot ceiling and the scorched wall. Mr. Balaza did not recognize the large metal part.
(courtesy fots2)
(courtesy fots2)
Seen above are two views of the collapsed rear entrance. Says fots, “Lots of vegetation grows up now where the steps down into it are located. It is difficult to get a good photo there even in the dry season. You cannot actually see the steps as they are covered by dirt and debris. A rear wall along the steps is visible. It is difficult to see in photos but when you are there you can just make out the top of the doorway. Some sunlight does filter inside the structure”.
(courtesy fots2 and phantom)
Phantom took this photo of fots2 sweeping the pom-pom gun mount. Says fots, “Notice the dark area behind me. That is the rear entrance staircase down into the old magazine. The entrance takes a turn to the right so the magazine would be approximately straight across from my head at the right side of the photo. The pom-pom was not on top of the magazine but beside it”.
(courtesy fots2)
Here is the stitched together panorama that fots made from several frames of the 1942 Japanese newsreel. We are looking north-northeast down the ridge. The photographer may well be standing on top of the old land defense magazine. Note the large rectangular object to the extreme right of the overturned pom-pom gun. Referencing armyjunk's diagram, this should be roughly the area where the stairs to the rear entrance of the magazine, or possibly the rear entrance itself, would be.
An enlarged view of the rectangular object, seen on the right. Note the rivets along the edge and the large chunk of concrete in front of it. I will SWAG that this is a steel door from the rear entrance of the old land defense magazine, and that the concrete chunk is also from the magazine. Recall that Barr's account said engineers were employed to extract remains from the wreckage. If the doors were not blown off the magazine the engineers may have removed them to get to the bodies. A 1.1 inch magazine for the pom-pom gun is at the lower left.
(courtesy fots2)
These are the steel doors to Battery Warwick at Fort Wint, Subic Bay. Note the rivets along the edges.
(courtesy fots2)
These are steel doors to Battery Way. Again, note the rivets along the edges.
(courtesy fots2)
This is a frame from the You-Tube video fots took of his trip on top of Malinta Hill. It is a concrete chunk near the rear entrance to the magazine and seems to resemble the concrete chunk seen in the Japanese newsreel.
The two views below of the Searchlight 8 tunnel show that the concrete liner is completely intact, even in the rear near the airshaft. There are no apparent signs of fire or smoke. There seems to be very little, if any, shrapnel damage to the tunnel's concrete liner.
(courtesy fots2)
(courtesy fots2)
The airshaft seen from inside the SL 8 tunnel. Mr. Balaza did not recall a platform, stand, ladder or screen inside the airshaft and could not suggest what the piping or rebar was for, unless it had to do with the original installation of the searchlight when it was lowered through the airshaft into the tunnel below (he was not on Corregidor at that time). It should be remembered that the Japanese occupied Corregidor for nearly three years and that they may have attempted to accomplish modifications or repairs at various locations during that time.
(courtesy fots2)
One of the final entries in the 4th Marines R-2 Journal for April 29th is from the Malinta Hill observation post. It states:
“Powerplant #8 light and pom-pom completely out of commission. B prime 23 out of commission. 2 75s temporarily out. 4 killed and one missing. Siren tower knocked down. No communication at Malinta OP” {observation post}. I would suggest that the word “for” should have been inserted between “Powerplant” and “#8”.
The Wainwright Papers, Volume 2, Exhibit F, section 52 paragraph c states:
“2nd Lt. Stanley Friedline of Mobile was fatally burned during a shelling of Malinta Hill on 29 April when a bursting shell ignited gasoline in drums stored near a seacoast searchlight power plant shelter in which he and a man of his platoon had taken cover. He died upon reaching the hospital that same day”. Other than stating an inaccurate number of fatalities, this entry appears to come the closest of any in providing the correct location of the tragic event. It would seem that some reports confused the SL 8 tunnel with the SL 8 power plant bunker, or old land defense magazine, and when the 240mm shell exploded near the stairs leading down to the magazine some mistook it for the SL 8 tunnel.
Many thanks to fots2 for supplying his wonderful photos and helpful information, to armyjunk for posting that fascinating magazine diagram and aerial photo of Malinta Hill, and of course to Charles Balaza himself. Without his book and testimony this piece of Corregidor history may have remained unknown forever. My congratulations to oozlefinch for his perseverance and for not accepting the inaccurate history he so correctly had suspicions of.
Finally, here again are the links to the great videos fots2 made of his trip on top of Malinta Hill:
(added photo of Malinta Hill courtesy armyjunk)
