When the songbird sings

From Fred of Battling Bastards of Bataan:

A Visit To Recaptured Camp O’Donnell Where Martyrs Of The Famous “March Of Death” From Fallen Bataan Now Sleep.

By Clark Lee – INS Staff Correspondent

Camp O’Donnell Prison Camp, Tarlac Province, Luzon – (INS) –

Here are the graves where they sleep – these martyrs in American uniforms who were victims of the cruelest mass atrocities in our country’s history.

Here are the crosses, the broken, charred, weather-beaten, rotted patches of pitiful wood – unmarked and unnumbered – that are scattered helter-skelter over the grass-covered mounds where at last, free of misery beyond human endurance, each man shares his final resting place with his comrades.

Here is their Calvary, these grass-grown slopes with the paths which dying men trod up to the graveyard with their lifeless burdens – paths up which soon-to-be-dead-men carried the unlettered crosses that now mark their own graves.

Here are the covered dugouts where, safe from sun and rain, the Japanese sentries thumbed triggers and their machine-guns and laughed at the living skeletons who wearily scooped out the shallow graves in which they were to lie.

Beer bottles are still there – beer bottles from which the Japanese drank while Americans and Filipinos fell to the ground gasping from thirst. Yellowed butts from their cigarettes are still there, and cans from which they ate while their prisoners collapsed from hunger.

It will take some days to determine the final ghastly toll of the dead in this prison camp where the men of Bataan lie.

Today alone, I counted the graves of more than 3,500 Filipinos and several hundred Americans.

There are the names of some of the Bataan heroes who came to the end of the road on these slopes – a few names on crosses and a few on metal identifications attached to broken crosses and thrown carelessly into clumps of grass by Japanese sightseers.

You read American and Filipino names – names that still can’t be announced because of the possibility their families have not been notified.

There is the name of a private of the 71st Philippine infantry regiment who died May 19, 1942.

There is the name of a Janesville, Wis., tank-man who died in the summer of 1942.

There are the names of boys from Hartford, Conn., from New York City, and from Pennsylvania towns.

Camp O’Donnell, formerly an American army installation and afterward the barracks for a Philippines division, stands on the grass-covered, uncultivated western Tarlac plains, a few miles from the Purple Zambales mountain range.

It was here that the Death March from Bataan ended in April of 1942. Prisoners were marched from Bataan to San Fernando with only scraps of food and those who fell by the wayside were bayoneted or shot. The sick, starved, thirsty, wounded men were forced to march northward to this camp. In O’Donnell, the real torment began.

Today the only buildings standing are those formerly occupied by the Japanese commandant and prison guards.

Most of the Filipinos were released, by September, 1942. Later, in a gesture of friendship, the Japanese puppet Republic of the Philippines was inaugurated.

The other buildings on the treeless slope were burned down, most of them apparently some time ago, but one was still smoldering when we arrived. All that remains is ashes and triple strands of barbed wire that surrounded each small weather-beaten gray-black shack where the prisoners were crowded together and slept on the floor.

The camp area was surrounded by double fences of barbed wire while around the Japanese quarters were circular dugouts with fire-ports pointing in all directions and barbed wire with tin cans tied to the strands to give warning if the prisoners attempted to attack.

From the Filipinos who were released, we already have the story of a deliberate program of starving prisoners to death. Crosses marking the graves show that some, already terribly weakened in the battle of Bataan, gave up the fight early while others, already human skeletons with each bone showing through near transparent skin, clung grimly to life for over two years The prisoners had no medicine. Emaciated and suffering from malnutrition, they fell easy victims to disease.

Much of their working time must have been taken up with digging graves, fifteen feet long, sixteen feet wide and only eighteen inches deep in which five bodies were laid crosswise.

Too weakened to do any unnecessary digging – or perhaps feeling that even in death each man’s body should not touch his neighbor – the prisoners left foot-long piles of earth projecting toward the center of the grave from the head and from the foot of each scooped out hole that now shelters an American or Filipino.

The Japanese obviously attempted to conceal evidence of their crimes. In addition to burning buildings which had housed the prisoners, and thus destroying any torture instruments that may have existed, they set fire to grass in the Filipino graveyard and most of the crosses were burned destroying records. They apparently hoped the American graveyard which is across a dirt road from the main camp would go unnoticed and accordingly allowed grass, weeds and tall reeds to grow to heights up to ten feet.

We sighted the American burial ground only when the wind blew back the reeds giving us a glimpse of a white monument. A path leads there from the ashes of the huts.

The site is so overgrown that it is impossible even to tell the size of the cemetery but is appears to be about 100 by 150 yards with the grass covered grave mounds separated from each other by about a foot. It is a mass of tangled graves completely untended and some graves are still unfilled.

The monument is a seven foot cross made of white cement and on the base of it in barely readable letters is inscribed: “In Memory of the American dead - O’Donnell War Personnel Enclosure.”

The wooden crosses are made of laths, two feet long by one foot wide and fastened together with two rusted nails. The crosses had apparently been ripped from the graves which they marked and thrown deliberately into the underbrush. A few of them had identification tags attached to the nails and were lying nearby.

These crosses appeared to have been broken off as if torn from the earth.

There were other crosses too, fifty newer ones lying awaiting victims near the monument which the Japanese built in memory of the helpless men they deliberately killed.

A large white monument arising from a twenty foot base with a low stone wall around it, attracted us to the Filipino burial ground a quarter of a mile across the fields from the main camp. Here some effort had been made to keep track of the total victims of Japan’s “Greater East Asia” program. The graves were in sections numbered in Roman characters. There were thirty sections, each four rows deep and up to fifteen plots wide. The whole covering more than a quarter of a mile in depth.

“The officers’ section” with individual graves is in front of the monument on which is written in Filipino: “In deep remembrance of the Filipinos who died in this place. The whole hearted thoughts of their friends and comrades are with them.”

Beyond the monument are row after row of common unmarked graves covered with burnt grass and each holding bodies of five Filipinos.

Several large graves were unfilled and besides one there were the wooden handles of two stretchers which were charred but not destroyed by fire.

It was easy to picture the living ghosts of men staggering out of the barracks with the bodies of their comrades who escaped from this tortured hell in death during the night and stumbling down the long, now, charred duck-board path, past the well kept Jap latrines, through the ten foot high wooden Jap “tori” gate, up past the monument and on across the field to the latest grave where the uncoffined remains were laid and dirt shoveled in the still faces.

In the ashes of a burned building we found three old style fire rusted helmets of the type Americans wore on Bataan. We found one battered American canteen cup, and one piece of leather from a shoe.

Those and the graves and the ashes and the monument which the imperial Jap army built and the one constructed by the Filipino soldiers were all that were left to tell of the terror and the torture and the torment…

Those things and one other. On one cross in the Filipino cemetery – a cross larger than most – was carved: “Men have died so that their country may live and only those who are willing to die…”

The sentence stops there where death stayed the hand of the man who was willing to die so his country might live.

(Clark Lee was an AP reporter who was on Bataan, before being evacuated to Australia. Lee was one of the few reporters who visited the front lines. Lee wrote a book titled, “They Call It the Pacific.” )

An adaptation of the book Flags of Our Fathers, the film explores the story surrounding one of World War II’s most enduring images and recounts the fates of the six men who raised the American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima island. Towards the end of the war, the American government needed to raise at least $14 billion worth of bonds from the public. And to do so, it needed an image that would reflect the nation’s victory, an image that would inspire public support for the war effort and the men to inspire the citizenry’s sense of patriotism.

On the fifth day of battle of Iwo Jima, six men were ordered to hoist a second larger American flag on the island’s highest point to declare that the island had been captured from the Japanese. However, the battle would still rage on for 31 days and 26,000 American lives were lost. As the men were raising the flag, Joe Rosenthal, a photographer for the Associated Press, took his lucky shot, which 17 hours later was picked up by publications around the United States. This image later won the Pulitzer Prize for photojournalism in 1945, but not without allegations that the scene had been staged..

The irony, however, lies in the tragic fates of the men who had somehow embodied the heroism and victory that their increasingly war-weary country was seeking. A few days after the flag was raised atop Suribachi, three of the six men–Michael Stark, Harlon Block and Franklin Sousley– lost their lives to either sniper bullets or friendly fire. The three survivors–Ira Hayes, Rene Gagnon and John Bradley–on the other hand, were shipped back to the United States to help sell bonds across the country. In the course of touring the country’s major cities, they are confronted with survivor’s guilt over the death of their comrades and being called heroes by the adoring public when they felt that they didn’t deserve such regard. The controversy over the identity of the sixth man in the photograph who was at first thought to be Hank Hansen didn’t help the soldiers either, particularly Hayes, who eventually revealed that the man in question was in fact Block.

The film does not romanticize heroism but adopts a no-holds-barred depiction of the brutality of war–decapitations, lost lives, someone losing his head quite literally and enemies blowing themselves up over the prospect of falling as prisoners in the hands of their enemies. And while a single photograph was able to capture a nation’s pride and catapulted its subjects to fame, the public which never witnessed war’s gruesome scenes easily lost interest in the people it had once put on the pedestal…or left cold upon a pedestal. Hayes, a native American, had it worst among the three survivors due in part to his race. Apart from alcoholism and poverty, he took frequent jail trips in the course of his short life, which ended in a questionable manner. Gagnon found it difficult to even hold a steady job when his celebrity had worn off. Only John Bradley, whose son would write the book on which the film was based, lived comfortably with his family for the rest of his life. He never talked about his involvement in the battle of Iwo Jima nor about his purple heart, which his son discovered after his death. The brutal demise of his best friend, Ralph “Iggy” Ignatowski, haunted him through old age.

“Flags” is another Steven Spielberg production that depicts World War II and looks like an extension–or a Pacific Theater rejoinder–to Saving Private Ryan and the mini-series, Band of Brothers. Moreover, it even looks like a reunion of sorts for some of the actors who figured in “Ryan” and “Brothers,” such as Barry Pepper who played the religious sniper in Saving Private Ryan and Neal McDonough who played Lt. Lynn Compton in Band of Brothers. They played Michael Strank and Capt. Dave Severance, respectively, in this movie.

I had a hard time digesting the flashbacks interspersed with tour scenes and interviews with the parties involved in promoting the bond drive. And while some critics declare that the film is Clint Eastwood’s take on the Iraq war, this is better seen as a lesson on how heroes are either made or unmade with media’s compliance. But more to the point, it paints a sad picture of how heroes had been discarded by the public which they sought to protect in the first place. At the end of the day, it seemed that the real heroes were those whose lives were lost in the battlefield. The ones who lived were merely survivors.

One of the images shown in a scene, an actual shot of an American POW shortly before being beheaded by a Japanese guard.

See actual Iwo Jima battle footages here.

Actual flag raising clip taken by Bill Genaust.

Original image taken by Joe Rosenthal

I had been curious about the Intramuros branch of Starbucks. So last Saturday afternoon, while waiting for my scheduled badminton games, I decided to hang out at the said coffee shop which was, luckily for me, a mere block from Feathers ‘n Strings, to have my favorite tall unsweetened hot latte. Located at Puerta Isabel II along Muralla St., this branch is one of the coziest and is in fact rather unique in the sense that it combines globalization and a bit of Philippine history. I’m not sure though if the dungeon where the shop is situated used to be a torture chamber for suspected criminals, spies and revolutinoaries. There are also talks of prisoners of war buried alive under the dungeon floors by the Japanese towards the end of their occupation of Manila.

Perhaps because it was a quiet afternoon, the absence of chattering students and noisy hangers-on added to the place’s charm.

Here be the pictures:

Starbucks is indeed everywhere.

No longer does the Filipina stand with her head bowed nor does she spend her time on her knees, because she is quickened by hope in the future; no longer will the mother contribute to keeping her daughter in darkness and bring her up in contempt and moral annihilation. And no longer will the science of all sciences consist in blind submission to any unjust order, or in extreme complacency, nor will a courteous smile be deemed the only weapon against insult or humble tears the ineffable panacea for all tribulations, You know that the will of God is different from that of the priest; that religiousness does not consist of long periods spent on your knees, nor in endless prayers, big rosarios, and grimy scapularies, but in a spotless conduct, firm intention and upright judgment. You also know that prudence does not consist in blindly obeying any whim of the little tin god, but in obeying only that which is reasonable and just, because blind obedience is itself the cause and origin of those whims, and those guilty of it are really to be blamed. The official or friar can no longer assert that they alone are responsible for their unjust orders, because God gave each individual reason and a will of his or her own to distinguish the just from the unjust; all were born without shackles and free, and nobody has a right to subjugate the will and the spirit of another. And, why should you submit to another your thoughts, seeing that thought is noble and free?

It is cowardice and error to believe that saintliness consists in blind obedience and that prudence and the habit of thinking are presumption. Ignorance has never been ignorance, and never prudence and honor. God, the primal source of all wisdom, does not demand that man, created in his image and likeness, allow himself to be deceived and hoodwinked, but wants us to use and let shine the light of reason with which he has so mercifully endowed us.

— Jose Rizal, “A Letter to the Young Women of Malolos,” February 22, 1889

Good friend Fred Baldassarre of Battling Bastards of Bataan sent me yesterday a few images of the Doolittle Raid. Here are a few resized photos of the planes and crew aboard the USS Hornet.

Crew 16 was captured by the Japanese after bailing out. Lt. Farrow (front left) and Sgt. Spatz (extreme right) were executed on 15 Oct 1942 along with Lt. Hallmark from Crew 6.

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I watched this morning the National Geographic’s new documentary, The Gospel of Judas. It’s a fascinating subject, to say the least, and the discovery of the artifact will surely raise a lively debate among many Christian communities. But most importantly, it will dramatically affect Christianity’s view of Judas, who is one of the most reviled characters in history. The New York Times has an excerpt of The Gospel of Judas.

The 1700-year-old gospel written in papyrus portrays Judas not as a betrayer but as a willing collaborator and Jesus’s closest ally. The gospel claims that it was Judas who understood best among the twelve apostles the nature of Christ’s mission and his need to be freed from his human body in order to fulfill the prophecy. On the night of the Last Supper, Judas received instructions from his Rabbi to hand him to the Roman authorities; doing so would place the beleaguered apostle above his peers in the eyes of his Lord. However, human history has a different valuation for Iscariot’s actions which reverberated throughout the ages.

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I saw “The Great Raid” today as I finally convinced the honey to watch it with me.

The film, as everybody knows by now, chronicles the raid on the biggest prisoner of war (POW) camp in the Philippines during the Japanese Occupation, Cabanatuan POW Camp. It is nearly faithful to the historical accounts which I have read so far about the raid, except perhaps for the sub-plot involving Margaret Utinsky, an American woman posing as a Lithuanian nurse, and a POW in Cabanatuan, Daniel Gibson. That part, I have to consult my friend, Fred Baldassarre of the Battling Bastards of Bataan.

Similar to the book I have read about the raid (but upon which the film was not based), Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides, the film recounts the events that led to the eventual occupation of the Philippines by the Japanese Imperial Army, the surrender of Bataan after months of battle and the deadly Bataan Death March where thousands of Allied soldiers (not only Filipinos and Americans were involved in the battle, but also British, Canadians, etc.) perished during the 60-mile trek from Mariveles, Bataan to Capas, Tarlac. But the story begins with the mass murder of 150 POWs at a camp in Palawan days before the liberation of Cabanatuan POWs. All POWs must be annihilated as part of the plan of the Japanese Imperial Army to cover up its inhuman treatment of POWs. It was under this premise that the raid was executed and the film developed.

The US Army’s 6th Ranger Battalion under Col. Henry Mucci (Benjamin Bratt) must rescue the remaining 500 prisoners of war in Cabanatuan, or they would either be killed by the Japanese under the kill-all policy or die in the eventual cross-fire that would occur in a week during the re-capture of Luzon by American forces. Only one thing worked to the rangers’ advantage: the element of surprise. And even with a carefully crafted plan, the raid could still fail due to lack of information about the camp and its environs. Fortunately, the rangers met the guerilla group of Capts. Juan Pajota and Eduardo Joson on their way to Cabanatuan. The Filipino guerillas provided nearly all information about the camp necessary for staging the raid and were pivotal in preventing the thousands of Japanese foot soldiers from reaching the camp during the battle. Moreover, Pajota’s plan to move the sick POWs by carabao-driven carts proved helpful as many of the prisoners were too weak to walk, much less travel for miles on foot. (The books even recounts that the respect that local villagers accorded to Pajota also ensured the safety of the soldiers and the secrecy of the plan.)

The film nearly stayed true to the historical accounts of the rescue. It can be further appreciated by people who have read either of the books that told the its story. However, as some have already observed, it was dragging on some parts. Those dragging bits of the film could have been rendered better, but due perhaps to the lack of depth in acting (except for Cesar Montano as Juan Pajota, yay! Good Pinoy actor.) by its lead stars, some lines were not delivered in a way that would have touched the emotions of the viewers while neither sacrificing historical accuracy nor pretending to be too sugar-coated. Nothing about war and atrocity is sweet anyway, even those suffered by star-crossed lovers. As perhaps started by the “Titanic” formula of placing star-crossed lovers at the center of the story to signify loss and sacrifice, the filmmakers placed the characters Daniel Gibson (Joseph Fiennes) and Margaret Utinsky (Connie Nielsen) on the spotlight. Gibson represented the agonies that the POWs suffered at Cabanatuan: malaria, hunger, torture by Japanese guards, while Utinsky embodied the courage of underground supporters of guerillas and protectors of prisoners. Why the local population still did not warm up to the Japanese was explained by the cruelly they were treated by the Imperial Army. This was a generation that did not witness the Filipino-American war right after Spain handed over its rule of the Islands to the US. As most of today’s elders explain, the years under American rule were always regarded as “Peace Time”.

As a Pinoy, I am pleased with the way the film emphasised the participation of Pinoy guerrilas in the effort to liberate POWs and the risks that they took to help others. Entire villagers were pillaged, their men burned alive because the locals helped the guerillas. I couldn’t help either but feel shame for those who took advantage of those who needed help. Watch “The Great Raid” for your education and appreciation of history. Note: It is way better than “Pearl Harbor”. Thank God, Ben Affleck was notin it.

Recommended links:

Cabanatuan Raid account
Actual Cabanatuan Raid Photos
Battling Bastards of Bataan
Official “The Great Raid” website

I already had my humble new raffle-acquired Kimoni MP200 stringed at Shuttler’s Station. I had a hard time finding the shop and it took two expensive calls through my cell before I finally spotted it, situated in the middle of the mall’s tech section. It was like finding a shuttlecock among tons of cellphones.I thought the gift certificate covered the cost of the string and not just the stringing service. If I had known, I would have gone to my favorite stringer at Toby’s instead. At least now I’m using 22lbs tension. The RSL racquet can wait to be re-strung while I get used to my new tool.

While waiting for the staff to string the racquet and wrap the handle with an over-grip, I went around the shops for new shirts and was glad that I used up the 30 minutes allotted to me to spot the best finds. I realized that I already needed to update my wardrobe, make it less corporate and more kikay…not that it isn’t already one, but funkier perhaps? I look too serious with the current garb I usually put on and that isn’t me at all unless I feel like bitching about or when I’m harassed at work. God knows this girl loves to dress up.

In my three years of blogging (I celebrated my 3rd anniversary last week), I don’t think I have ever suffered blogging depression. I blog when I’m depressed, but blogging does not depress me. Still, it’s a cute poster to stick to your walls whenever you feel the urge to blog about how life is unfair and everybody else treats you like $h!t.

I know it looks like another shot at improving the American image and sell history from the eyes of Americans, but I will still watch The Great Raid when it comes out. The setting is Cabanatuan, my hometown, host to the biggest US POW camp in Asia. Towards the end of the war andwhen Dugout Doug had re-landed in the Philippines, some 500 American POWs were still waiting to be rescued in Cabanatuan. Failing to take them away from the camp could mean their death as the Japs were surely to burn them alive (like they did to the POWs in Palawan) to hide evidence of their crime. Members of the US Army’s 6th Rangers were tasked to accomplish this secret mission–so secret that only their leader knew what it was all about, Col. Henry Mucci–and bring back everyone alive. How my history teachers in both grade school and high school failed to teach us this part of our province’s history still baffles me. check the trailer here. Read Hampton Sides’s “Ghost Soldiers” for the touching account.

I learned from Fred, a Battling Bastard’s son, that the female character, Deep Pockets, slept with Japanese soldiers too. That wasn’t mentioned in the books and I don’t think it will be mentioned in the film. She and that character played by Joseph Fiennes didn’t have an affair, as the trailer suggests. His dad was one of the key witnesses who sent “The Tiger of Malaya” to his death. I miss Fred.