1 11 679
C 2
is
ii
Allied Intelligence Burean
Also by COLONEL ALLISON IND
BATAAN: THE JUDGMENT SEAT
THE FIRES OF TJEPO
AUSTRALIAN BRIDE
Our Secret Weapon
in the War
Against Japan
COLONEL ILIM ID
ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES
MAPS BY DONALD PITCHER
David McKay Company, Inc.
New York
COPYRIGHT 1958 BY ALLISON IND
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book, or parts thereof, in any form, except
for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-12259
Manufactured in the United States of America
Van Rees Press New York
To
"Connie" and "MJ.F."
Foreword and
Acknowledgment
K
iAPOLEON ESTIMATED THAT "A SPY IN THE
right place is worth twenty thousand troops."
Initially in the war against Japan, MacArthur had few troops
because of the holocaust raging over most of the globe; it was the
task of the newly created Allied Intelligence Bureau to get spies
into the right places, not only amid the bewildering island network
of the Philippine Archipelago, but in the whole vast area from
Singapore throughout the elongated tail of the Netherlands East
Indies into New Guinea, the Admiralties, New Britain, and down
into the Solomons. That area could be superimposed over the
greater part of the United States and Canada.
The Bureau was one of the several intelligence tools originated
and utilized by GHQ, Southwest Pacific Area, first for the collection
of information vital to the integrity of the Command as a fighting
machine, and then for the purposeful prosecution of the war by that
Command. The history of each of those tools is a story in itself.
This is "AIB's" story. But similarly, the sequences presented here
can in fact be only highlights of a complicated picture involving at
the end several thousand individuals performing allocated assign-
ments. Of these a total of 164 were known to have lost their lives
while the fate of 178 others remained a mystery. Seventy-five were
listed as captured. A measure of the esteem in which these men,
living and dead, have been held by the Allied governments con-
cerned may be seen in the fact that approximately 170 decorations
were awarded to all ranks and grades.
viii FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Official statistics credit the Bureau with a total of 264 missions,
exclusive of those operated into the Philippines from mid-1943
onward under the semi-autonomous Philippine Regional Section
springing from the original Philippine Special Section of the Bureau.
The greatly stepped-up, purely AIB, effort mainly against the
enemy-held Celebes islands and Borneo in the first seven months of
1945, mostly by the Services Reconnaissance Department of the
Bureau (SRD), alone accounted for 155 sorties, the majority by
aircraft. More than 300,000 pounds of supplies went in to agents,
guerrillas, and isolated civilians. While combat is not a function of
clandestine intelligence units, commando and other para-military
operations of the Bureau accounted for more than 7,000 enemy
killed and 150 captured, while still another 950 enemy surrendered
in consequence of propaganda efforts carried on largely by the
associated Far Eastern Liaison Office (FELO). Last, but certainly
not least, on the humanitarian side were the more than 1,000 indi-
viduals of all services rescued by AIB units throughout the area of
operations.
Just as the total effort in discharging the total intelligence re-
sponsibility is to be shared by all the intelligence organizations con-
cerned, both those under and associated with the "G-2" of GHQ
and those beyond SWPA, and just as the record of the specific AIB
achievement is to be shared by all who participated in one capacity
or another, similarly credit for the production of this single volume
must be shared among numerous individuals, military and civilian;
without their assistance, some over a period of more than a decade
in the collection and analysis of data and the review of successive
manuscripts, it is doubtful if the work could have been accom-
plished.
It is desired, therefore, to mention at least the following: Major
General C. A. Willoughby, retired; Brigadier K. A. Willis, retired;
Brigadier General Harry O. Paxon, retired; Colonel C. S. Myers,
retired; Master Sergeant Juan Dahilig; Professor L. H. Conrad,
Mary Jane Finke; R. C. Galang; Edith D. Johnson; Joan Corrigan;
Anastasia Stamathis; Lila Beehler; and then, throughout, my
patient, hard-typing wife.
Contents
Part 1 POINT OF NO RETREAT 1
Part 2 THE SOLOMONS 15
The Coast Watchers 17
Part 3 NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 65
New Britain Interlude 67
Buna 79
New Britain Toll 87
Gazelle Necklace 94
Fateful Hollandia 103
Part 4 THE PHILIPPINES 113
"Planet" Project 115
The "Man-Who-Walks-Like-a-Ghost" 146
"Carabao Bo/ 7 155
Chic Parsons, 'The Artful Dodger" 159
Sulu Sharpshooter 189
Philippine Snatch 198
Mindanao Mender 205
The Charlie Smith Way 223
The Captured Plans 230
Part 5 THE COMMANDOS 243
Limpets for Singapore 245
Tahoelandang 262
Sultan's Ransom 274
Part 6 FINALE 289
The Unspoken 291
Finale 293
INDEX 295
ix
Part I
POINT OF NO RETREAT
A/L
ELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, ON THE SOUTHERN-
most coast of the far-south continent. Beyond, only the relatively
small dab of land known as Tasmania. And then the wilderness of
the South Pacific Ocean congealing into the white reaches of Ant-
arctica. . . .
Melbourne, then, in early 1942; this far had the remnants of
those defending the Western way of life in the Orient been driven
from Singapore's sea-girt fortress, from the Netherlands East In-
dies, and the Great East, and from the stricken archipelago of the
Philippines.
The point of no retreat.
Northward of Australia, a broad arc over the globe's surface was
a sinister wartime secret. Forces moved there, gathered, and moved
again. The evil of their intent and their implacability went before
them like an infection. They knew no barriers, certainly none that
we in the Philippines, the Chinese on the Asia mainland, the British
in Malaya, or the Dutch in the Indies had been able to erect against
them. One by one the thin, uncertain lines of communication be-
tween General MacArthur's reconstituted headquarters in Mel-
bourne and the tortured Philippines three thousand miles to the
north were fading into silence.
Singapore was mute. Batavia, Bandoeng, Soerabaja. . . . Rabaul
in New Britain. New Ireland and the Admiralties. Paralysis was
creeping down the Solomons, too. Cryptic signals still were to be
picked up from a handful of Australian Coast Watchers who mirac-
ulously had survived the engulfing flood of invasion and now were
isolated radio voices far back of the enemy lines of advance; other
3
4 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
brief whispers came through the ether from ghost ships that hit
and ran and hit again far in some other direction to try to deceive
the enemy into a belief of strength when there was no strength after
Pearl Harbor; from the few air strips still in Allied hands young
pilots hardly more than out of flying school, yet suddenly old in the
ways of war, flew daring missions without escost, always at the
ragged edge of endurance, to bomb, strafe, and fight, and to collect
any bit of military information that would help.
On April 18, 1942, General Douglas MacArthur had formally
assumed his newly constituted command, Southwest Pacific Area,
or "SWPA." This gave him military authority there over all the
army, navy, and air elements of the Americans, the Australians,
British, Dutch, and any other remnant of the Allied nations rolled
back by the Japanese since the initial blows that had fallen
simultaneously at Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong, Malaya, and the
Philippines on December 7, 1941. The vast area of command re-
sponsibility ran westward to Singapore, ended at the Japanese
Ryukus north of the Philippines, and to the east shared the re-
mainder of the South Pacific with Admiral Chester Nimitz. It was
a tremendously impressive command on paper. There was only
one thing wrong: the Japanese high command had not concurred
in its planning; in the driver's seat of the most ruthless Asiatic mili-
tary machine since Genghis Khan, they were in a superb position
not only to contest its implementation but to smash it stillborn.
A month before GHQ SWPA was created, war-battered Flying
Fortresses had carried MacArthur and his staff out of the be-
leaguered Philippines on orders from Washington and put their
wheels down on the red, hot soil of northwestern Australia. And
now the needs of the new command were as endless as they were
adamant, for what MacArthur found in Australia was a monumen-
tal inadequacy to face even a fraction of the force he knew Tokyo
could bring against him. He needed whole convoys of troops, ship-
loads of vehicles, radios, guns, ammunition, aircraft, and fleets of
ships themselves. He needed parts, parts, parts. . . . But of all the
needs, none was more immediate than that of tactical intelligence
information about the enemy. The new Commander in Chief be-
lieved that the enemy's strategy was clear enough; it was not a
POINT OF NO RETREAT 5
question of "what," but rather "when," exactly "where," and "how
moving."
First and foremost, as he saw the broad picture, the Japanese
high command must see to it that at any cost Australia was not
permitted to be developed as an American base. Unless severed at
once, the vulnerable umbilical cord stretching thousands of miles
across open sea to the arsenal of mainland United States would
nourish that base into a giant's strength. Accordingly, that vital
link had to be destroyed now. Since the loss of Malaya and the
Indies by the Allies already had isolated the British in far-off
Ceylon and India, the parting of the two remaining principal ob-
stacles to Japanese control of the Pacific world would insure each
being dealt with separately. That should not prove difficult with
American naval power a shambles at Pearl Harbor and Allied air
strength cut to a few riddled, disorganized squadrons to cover a
fourth of the earth's surface.
Severing this umbilicus, then, could be reduced to a simple tac-
tical problem of gaining immediate control of a few key geographi-
cal spots north and northeast of Australia. That huge southern
continent, as large as all of mainland United States, was ringed in
those directions and to the east by a series of islands forming a
great, broken double chain. There was New Guinea to the north
and its satellite islands trailing southeastward from Milne Bay.
Beyond this was the New Ireland-Solomons-New Hebrides chain,
also stretching southeast. Bridging the two chains at the northerly
end was the sizable single island of New Britain. Every ship to and
from America would have to penetrate one or both of these island
screens, or sail far to the south to New Zealand. But if Japan con-
trolled the island screen and based naval and air raiders there,
even the long southern approaches would be impossibly costly to
slow Allied convoys either totally unescorted or given such scant
protection as the Allies could scrape together. In any case, neither
convoy nor escort could be expected to live long.
On the eighth floor of the tall bank building at 121 Collins
Street in Melbourne, MacArthur conferred with his chief of in-
telligence, tall, handsome Colonel (later Major General) Charles
Willoughby. That personification of genius and vitriol, Prussian
6 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
drillmaster and lecture-room academician, had just consulted his
huge situation map, had snatched from us in the G2 Section the
latest teletype reports, and had conned the newest estimates from
the Allied capitals. Brief reports from those magnificent Coast
Watchers, from the few defiant ships, and from the individual pilots
who performed as entire squadrons, provided new information to
strengthen the Commander in Chiefs concept of the enemy's
strategy: already he was moving down into the Solomons, he had
occupied Buka Passage, Faisi, and Bougainville. He had been
sighted in the New Hebrides, farther south. Down there was the
important French base of Noumea, on New Caledonia island.
As the two men studied the situation it appeared increasingly
that to control the island screen the enemy would need to anchor
his effort at two extremes: Port Moresby on the under belly of
New Guinea in the north, and Noumea, which lay due east of the
upper third of Australia.
Willoughby described the scene to us later, the general pacing
back and forth as he talked, striding with the energy of a man
quite unconcerned that at the end of each five paces hard walls
compelled him to about-face and stride the other way. He leaned
forward as he went and his chin was outthrust, his hands tightly
interlocked behind him. It was a familiar picture to Willoughby
and the others of us who had seen him on Corregidor where the
restraining walls of Malinta Tunnel laterals were uncounted tons
of solid black rock. The Commander in Chief suddenly faced Wil-
loughby and mentioned a name that was destined shortly to imprint
itself forever on the pages of American history: Guadalcanal.
The enemy would seize some portion, probably the central area,
soon; his creep down Buka Passage and Bougainville into the New
Georgia chain presaged it. Obviously, unless he could be prevented
from taking and developing a base in central Guadalcanal, where
the kunai grass plains along the eastern coast would prove reward-
ing to diligent airfield construction efforts, his air and sea raiders
soon would be enabled to range as far north and as far south as
they wished in order to convert the Coral Sea and the Solomons
Sea into Japanese lakes. He would have progressed far toward the
POINT OF NO RETREAT 7
absolute isolation of Australia, and America would likely be com-
pelled to fall back upon Hawaii.
Ever associated with the threat to the communication link with
America was the equally black possibility of the early invasion of
Australia itself from such an occupied island screen, including New
Guinea. Or the attack might even come sweeping down from the
occupied Philippines, or in from the occupied Netherlands East
Indies. (Already there had been devastating bombing attacks on
Australia's northwest and west coasts; on the east coast an Aus-
tralian military defense plan drawn up prior to the establishment
of GHQ SWPA envisioned the loss of everything north of a line
drawn across the country from some point midway between Bris-
bane and Sydney; a tremendous stand would be made to preserve
the steel works at New Castle, just north of Sydney, but Brisbane
would be gone.)
First things first. The threatened Solomons, then . . .
GHQ had no troops to send northeastward to meet any threat,
and very little air power. Obviously, the responsibility for meeting
it would be up to Admiral Robert Ghormley, Nimitz's wing man
assigned to protect the South Pacific (actually the line between
SWPA and "COMSOUPAC" the Navy's South Pacific Com-
mand bisected in the Solomons). Ghormley would need intelli-
gence to know how to husband his all-too-slender naval resources
in order to hit suddenly and crushingly and get out of it to hit
again. After they had met and beaten back this threat, said Mac-
Arthur, they could breathe, then they could dig their heels in and
prepare to take that first step back to the Indies, back to the
Philippines . . .
". . . to win this war, Charles."
Win the war! At a time when survival itself was a day-to-day
goal and some of us who had come down to Melbourne from
Bataan and Corregidor had not even unpacked the emergency
rations in our knapsacks because well, frankly, it seemed to
people who had been on the run since the first bombs crashed down
December 7 that such an act of confidence would constitute a fool-
hardy tempting of fate.
Willoughby, who had been told to "land on your feet running"
8 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
gave every appearance of having done so in his tremendous efforts
to overcome the dearth of intelligence information. In rapid order
he planned and secured approvals for half-a-dozen projects that
were to be of great importance. One was Allied Geographical Sec-
tion, to produce detailed terrain studies of vast tropical areas that
had not even been names to the great mass of American officers
and men. In an appallingly short time they would have to fight for
them, live in them, and die in them. Another was Allied Transla-
tor and Interpreter Section, which before the war was over would
produce solid bales of vital information from captured enemy
documents, diaries, and interrogations of prisoners. He created and
instilled efficiency into organizations for processing the strategic
information that came from all over the Allied world as well as the
meager bits and pieces that came from the immediate tactical front.
This tactical front was immense; fronts normally could be meas-
ured in thousands of yards; this one extended over thousands of
miles. Compared with the compressed areas of the European
theater, the enormous reaches involved in even the simplest opera-
tions in the Pacific staggered the imagination. The tactical and
strategical areas of responsibility for GHQ SWPA could quite
effortlessly be transposed over the whole of the United States and
Canada with the east and west extremes well out into the Pacific
and Atlantic oceans. With GHQ in Melbourne, the transportation
span required to reach the area of threat discussed by the Com-
mander in Chief and Willoughby that day can be envisioned by
transplanting GHQ to New Orleans and considering ways and
means of stopping an enemy expansion in the lower Hudson Bay
region gt Canada. Or if the Indies or Singapore were under study,
it would be necessary to think of points far off the west coast of
Oregon. Yet these were the immediate areas of concern; to men-
tion the Philippines from which we had been routed was to con-
sider points in northwest Canada and the Yukon region of Alaska.
And all this with practically no long-range air units and, at that
time, only half-a-dozen operational submarines that would have to
be based at a point similar to San Diego, California, on our trans-
posed situation map. Later, submarines would work out of Bris-
POINT OF NO RETREAT 9
bane, Australia, or, let us say, out of Norfolk, Virginia still a
devastating distance in hostile miles to Hudson Bay or Alaska.
Obviously all ordinary means of reconnaissance for intelligence
information either were hopelessly inadequate or would be consist-
ently dependable only as the Allies won control of ever-advancing
bases. This, then, was a job for ships and aircraft but more than
for either at this stage, it was a job for spies on the ground, send-
ing in their reports from far, secret places by special radio equip-
ment taken in by them. Before this could be accomplished, a
coordinating organization would be necessary for the training of
new agents, for the support of those already out, for communica-
tions, supplies, and equipment, transportation a thousand things.
The foundation bricks for such a structure already existed or,
more properly, the initial tools for the secret collection of intelli-
gence in denied areas were available in Australia by the time the
wheels of the B-17's set down there in March 1942. My own
acquaintanceship with these developments dated from mid-May,
when I transferred out of Air Corps intelligence and into the
incomparable "ulcer factory" of Willoughby's G2 Section, GHQ.
It was on a typical Melbourne winter day, cold, wet, gloomy,
rendered the more depressing by the pale filter of light through the
opaque windows of 121 Collins Street, that I reported to Wil-
loughby.
"Go through these." He handed me a bulk of top-secret files.
His left eyebrow was raised in a characteristic manner I had first
observed in Manila. Those close to him had learned to interpret
and evaluate that eyebrow; it was a barometer indicative of many
things besides storm but certainly storm. It might imply: this is
important. It did this time. He explained that these temperamen-
tal, unconventional tools of warfare saboteurs, secret agents, the
Coast Watchers, commandoes, and so on comprising the burden
of the secret files had been sources of worry and harassment to
the Australian commander in chief, General Thomas Blarney, a
silver-haired soldier of the orthodox school. MacArthur had agreed
to take them all over, Australian, British, Dutch, and a few others,
and Blarney had breathed a sigh of relief. We would have to find
a way to operate and control them to best advantage in some plan
10 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
to be jointly supported by the American, Australian, and Dutch
governments. Washington had suggested to GHQ that it accept the
services of General "Wild BUI" Donovan's OSS, or Office of
Strategic Services, to do this clandestine work. But while Mac-
Arthur was cordial enough to the OSS founder and chief, and
gladly accepted his offer of the services of the brilliant late Dr.
Joseph R. Hayden, former vice-governor of the Philippines, as a
confidential advisor, he declined OSS. General MacArthur felt that
the various unorthodox units he was taking over from General
Blarney and the Dutch might submit to a certain amount of con-
trol from him there on the spot, but he was convinced that an
attempt at domination by or absorption into another intelligence
unit based in Washington would prove to be unworkable. Besides,
he required something immediately responsive to his requirements
and command.
As stated, the files revealed that the "tools" were not exclusively
for gathering intelligence information. One file dealt with an outfit
that specialized in every phase of sabotage and silent killing. "Spe-
cial Operations Australia" was its classified name. It was a branch
of the world organization finely culled and sharpened in England
and called Special Operations England, or "SOE." Factories, ships,
power plants, arsenals persons anything and anyone valuable
to the enemy any place, were "SOE" targets. In Melbourne SOE's
headquarters was at "Airlie," a cold gray house behind a cold gray
stone wall in the fashionable Toorak section of the city. "Airlie"
was security tight and was personnelled by British, Dutch, and
Australian specialists. Singularly one-minded was its chief, Lieu-
tenant Colonel G. S. Mott of the British forces. Moody, dark,
saturnine, quick to anger and quick to act, he seemed to burn with
deep inward resentment because the Japanese had routed him out
of Burma and Java in turn. Yet his enmity was impersonal; he
wanted only to turn his people loose against the common enemy.
Before the end his "Services Reconnaissance Department," or SRD,
as was its eventual open name under successors to Mott, would
cover itself with glory, both as a sabotage unit and as a spy outfit.
A second file dealt with another British organization. This one
was as pedigreed as SRD was new. The antecedental line went
POINT OF NO RETREAT IT
back to the sixteenth century. The communication channel of this
unit still was direct from its own radio towers in Australia to
Number 10 Downing Street. London-born Commander Went-
worth, we shall call him was director, and a shrewd, capable,
imaginative dangerous man he was. When all other AIB efforts
would founder in a prolonged welter of agent casualties in Nether-
lands East Indies, his radio monitors at war's end would be copying
highly revealing cryptograms from spy operators under the very
noses of the Japanese in Java.
The subject of a third file, Netherlands Indies Forces Intelligence
Service headquarters, or "NEFIS," was coming into existence in
a dark-paneled house on Domain Road, Melbourne. There was
not much left after the rout from the Indies and Dutch New
Guinea: a handful of loyal Indonesians, a score of Netherlands
naval and army officers, and a lot of stubborn Dutch will. The
Dutch government-in-exile in London sent money, some old sub-
marines, and authority to participate in the new effort to the limit
of their resources. This they did.
Fourth, there was the nucleus of what was to burgeon into an
efficient propaganda service under the direction of Lieutenant Com-
mander J. C. R. Proud of the Australian forces. Early in the his-
tory of the new unit, however, it would become evident that this
specialized branch could operate more effectively under Australian
control at Canberra, the Commonwealth capital.
The Fifth Division was already doing a superb job. These were
the Australian "Coast Watchers." I had encountered them first in
a prewar survey of intelligence assets in Australia. Since the first
fateful days they, or those that still were alive, had been reporting
vital ship and air sightings and the movements of Japanese land
forces in the coastal areas of the islands to the north and east.
In June, when the Australian winter season was a damp, raw
reality, Willoughby's executive officer summoned me. The late
Colonel Van S. Merle-Smith of the prominent New York family
spoke in cool, deliberate words of the need to draw up an official
document to activate and operate what we agreed would be called
"Allied Intelligence Bureau." The "controller" would be the cur-
rent director of Military Intelligence for the Australian Army,
12 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Colonel C. G. Roberts. I would fill the slots of deputy controller
and finance officer. The decision to make an Australian the con-
troller was based on both diplomacy and foresight. The coopera-
tion of the Australians would be encouraged and when the time
should come that the United States forces would have won their
way back well north of the equator on their way to Manila and
Tokyo, it would facilitate returning the remaining sections of the
organization to full Australian control in the south. With an Ameri-
can finance officer, GHQ still had indirect but vital control: with-
out his approval, any proposed operation would die stillborn of
financial anemia. In Roberts GHQ had found a man of integrity,
tremendous energy, and fearless loyalty.
Throughout the month, Roberts and I met with Merle-Smith to
formulate the directive establishing "AIB." It was published in
orders July 6, 1942. The Bureau was to "obtain and report infor-
mation of the enemy in the Southwest Pacific Area, and in
addition, where practical . . . weaken the enemy by sabotage and
destruction of morale, and . . . render aid and assistance to local
efforts in the same end in enemy-occupied territories."
It was succinct, it was ambitious. Considering the general Allied
positions, it was in some ways a colossal presumption.
Space on the fifth floor of 121 Collins Street was assigned to us.
Like the G2 Section, AIB itself was to "land on its feet running."
Furniture, files, telephones, and short-tempered demands for im-
mediate espionage plans involving the threatened northeast area
arrived simultaneously. One of our first and most important visitors
was a slender individual in the neat, dark uniform and spotless
white cap of the Royal Australian Navy. His blue-gray eyes had
a youthful twinkle; they and his smooth, unlined face belied the
iron gray of the hair. This was Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt,
charged by the Australian director of Naval Intelligence with the
expansion and development of the Australian Coast Watcher sys-
tem. He unlocked a brief case and spread charts, maps, and statis-
tics on the barely dusted-off tables. There was an upward tilt to
his lips and an upward tilt to his words, but there was no nonsense
about him. So it was that in a surprisingly short time we had made
a compilation of names, check marks, and neat columns of nota-
POINT OF NO RETREAT 13
tions that constituted Allied Intelligence Project No. 1A: the col-
lection of all possible information about the enemy on the ground,
in the air, and on the seas surrounding Guadalcanal.
That was the first project. In rapid succession would be others
to cover Bougainville and the rest of the Solomons, New Ireland,
New Britain, and New Guinea. Other projects directed by other
men ultimately would aim for the Indies, Singapore, the islands of
the Great East, and the Philippines themselves until, by the time
Japanese officials were signing away their nation's sovereignty in
surrender ceremonies aboard an American warship in Tokyo Bay
some three years later, more than five thousand men and women
would have been engaged directly or indirectly in hundreds of in-
dividual projects. Some of the efforts would prove to be tragic,
many abortive despite the best that good men could give, some
enormously fruitful and all laced with the challenge of high ad-
venture. Yet there was something more: a tenuous moral connec-
tive fiber throughout, a dedication by free men whose faith was
made manifest in their actions during endless months of training,
of routine grind, and in sudden action in far places. Capriciously,
fate seemed to single out some for stellar roles. Two of these in
the early days were W. J. "Jack" Read and Paul Edward Mason.
On the day Lieutenant Commander Feldt spread his maps and
charts out at AIB in Melbourne, those two Australians were at
opposite ends of a mountainous, heat-bathed, tropical island in the
Solomons, approximately twenty-five hundred airline miles to the
northeast.
Part 2
THE SOLOMONS
The Coast Watchers
I T WAS NO ACCIDENT THAT AT THE MOMENT IN
history when their services would be most critically needed, Read
and Mason, together with a priceless handful of others of their
daring kind, were in the right places at the right times. Against
the unproud record of the democracies for bland unpreparedness
in the face of unmistakable warlike trumpetings there gleam a few
bright exceptions. One of these was the Australian Coast Watcher
organization which was born years before the outbreak of the
Japanese war at a time when to seek funds for military prepara-
tions was nothing short of heretical and quite unrewarding. The>
first suggestions that Australia organize such a system had come
as far back as 1919 from a Captain G J. Clare of the Australian
Navy. In consequence of World War I settlements, Australia was
assigned mandates over the eastern half of New Guinea Papua
and a large portion of the island screen that was to play such a
vital role in 1942-43. The area Australia did not control was for
the most part under the British Solomon Island Protectorate, ex-
cept that New Caledonia was French. Not only for the sake of
good colonial government communications but to provide an early
warning of sea or air raiders in case of war, it seemed to Captain
Clare advisable to establish a network composed chiefly of civil
servants, the managers of copra plantations, and other "islanders"
devoted to a remote way of life among the Melanesian native
peoples, many of whom were very primitive. A genuine affection
for the natives and a respect for their simple but solidly estab-
lished rights were essential ingredients of the successful "islander."
Fortunately indeed for the Coast Watchers of a later day, such
17
18 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
factors were pivotal in the colonial policy of the government at
Canberra a stern but fair guardianship which in turn won the
confidence and trust of the native. Without that, no watcher or-
ganization could have survived more than a few weeks at best
when the chips were down, for in its essentials this specialized
espionage was no different from other espionage activities: the
degree of success would be directly proportional to the receptive-
ness of the host peoples involved.
A civilian, Mr. Walter Brooksbank, was primarily responsible
for molding the foundations of the embryonic watcher organiza-
tion, and incorporating into it the office of the director of Naval
Intelligence in Melbourne. There, Commander R. B. M. Long,
a stocky man with a cupid's-bow mouth and a steel-trap mind,
added his official weight and skill. But it was a labor of love;
World War II would be casting its unmistakable shadow before
he would be able to generate even mild interest on the loftier levels
of the political and military. He went ahead anyway, appointing
Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt of the Naval Reserve to get
the detailed field work done.
Feldt did it in the far reaches where tropic seas creamed against
white beaches or soughed in the mangrove swamps of lonely coasts
with their spattering of latticed houses and atap huts amid ranked
coconut plantations. He consulted and recruited among the civil
servants, likely themselves "islanders" and probably also planters.
Feldt talked their language, for he was an "islander." He was
"right." They signed on. They heeded his suggestions of what to
look for, how to utilize "flash codes" in reporting air and ship
movements by radio to the net control station at Port Moresby
all at no salary. Moresby would relay to Townsville on the Queens-
land coast, and Townsville would push the messages farther south;
in a short time Commander Long would add another "flag" on
his situation map in the office on St. Kilda Road, Melbourne. It
was this organization and these "flags" that a military mission
from Manila, of which I was a member, studied with such interest
in November 1941 a month before Pearl Harbor. We would
shortly return to Manila and report that when war came as we
THE SOLOMONS 19
then knew was inevitable there would be some splendid ob-
servers already in key spots.
So it was that as the first projects were formulated that day in
the AIB office in Melbourne, Read and Mason were in such spots
on Bougainville at the head of the Solomon chain. I became per-
sonally acquainted with Read and some of the others as time
went on, and from their unadorned narratives filled out the cryptic
reports they prepared.
As a result of enemy action during the last days of January
1942, Read already had become a "gypsy" without a permanent
home. But he was within sight of what had been his home all too
briefly at the northern tip of Bougainville. It was quite evident
that the enemy landing parties had "taken over the lot," as he
told me many months later. "With the glasses we could make out
the whole of the Buka Passage area well enough, and especially
the buildings on the little island of Sohana." Read had been colo-
nial district officer on Sohana. He also had been a civilian Coast
Watcher. It would be some weeks later that he would become a
lieutenant in the Naval Reserve, a development resulting from
Long's tireless efforts in Melbourne to give military status to Coast
Watchers in order to prevent their being classified as civilian spies
and shot out of hand by a capturing enemy.
Read had developed an efficient "posi," or position, high above
Buka Passage. The fluted column of a gigantic rain tree gave him
flank protection while affording an unobstructed view to the north-
west. He had arranged a support for his binoculars. On this par-
ticular day in early 1942 he had been observing the Japanese on
Sohana. The shore parties once more were engaged in looting and
smashing on Sohana.
He slowly shifted the glass so that the field of vision crept across
the indigo blue of the Passage itself into the shallower green water,
and then up along the hard coral ribs of Buka Island as it lay
opposite him.
There was no sign of activity on the shore line. Carefully he
examined the atap fiber huts of the Melanesian natives of Buka
village. The few huts that had been burned in the bombings prior
to the landings by the enemy had been replaced. Everything looked
20 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
peaceful enough there, but Read had no illusions about these
natives; they were realists. Throughout history they always had
been dominated by someone stronger. Until recently it had been
Australian colonial government. Now it was the Japanese. There
would be no real affiliation, not even a nominal one, but that vil-
lage would serve strength and it had seen the white man run out
by the Japanese.
Read glanced at his own Melanesian "boys" with their glisten-
ing black bodies partly covered by travel-stained calico lava-lavas,
or wraparounds. Was it dangerous wishful thinking or a sound
appraisal based on his ten years' experience with Melanesians that
induced him to place implicit faith in the trustworthiness of this
little group? They had seen him prepare to abandon Sohana shortly
after the two Royal Australian Air Force Catalinas that had been
based at Soraken, just to the south, departed one day, their crews
taking possessions that normally they left until their return from
routine patrols. Then news of the fall of Rabaul on the north
tip of New Britain had come in through Read's radio receiver.
The jungle telegraph had got it, too. Provident and calculating,
Read previously had reconnoitered for a position on the high basalt
upthrust country of interior Bougainville that would enable him if
necessary to "hole up" with supplies and maintain active obser-
vation; it simply never occurred to him to try to escape, even
though he was convinced that the tide of invasion would sweep
beyond him as it then was sweeping over the islands just to the
northwest of him. Out there on Taber Island had been Coast
Watcher C. L. Page, who shortly after the outbreak of war had
broadcast the warning of a four-motor Japanese flying boat that
had soared over his lonely outpost to take sights on Rabaul. Soon
Page had been run out. Then Allen on Duke of York Island went
silent, and Chambers on Anir abruptly stopped sending. C. C.
Jervis of Nissan, just off to the northwest from Buka, quietly men-
tioned that a Japanese warship had hove to off his tiny atoll,
which he had described as being "as flat as your hand and just
as bare of places to hide in." Silence again. . . . But there were
others that the enemy had not found, and because of this over-
sight, the enemy would pay. Read was wiry of build, rather than
THE SOLOMONS 21
big or solid, but within him was a solidness of spirit, a steely de-
termination, and a capacity for careful planning; it was altogether
likely that in his own way he, himself, would extract payment.
His loyal native police sergeant, Yauwika, asked permission to
use the field glasses. His voice was hoarse and his pidgin English
a little hard to understand. Yauwika frowned fiercely as he put the
glasses to his eyes and stared toward Buka village. Read thought
he knew what Yauwika sought: through his own devious means
and loyal native missionary workers Yauwika had instituted a
native "pipeline" and along it detailed information flowed in a
mysterious current; now he knew exactly which of those atap huts
he could see with their fiber-woven roofs concealed Japanese sup-
plies, and which were serving as barracks. Read's cryptic messages
to the Royal Australian Air Force RAAF made good, ex-
plicit bombing objective data.
Read studied the stocky, black native police sergeant. He decided
that Yauwika could be completely trusted and probably those he
worked with. Yet power impressed Yauwika, too, and Read had
been both disappointed and secretly amazed at the effect news of
the Battle of the Coral Sea had had upon the natives of Bougainville.
Read had heard of Coral Sea both from news casts and official com-
muniques. The jungle telegraph of the natives had been almost as
prompt. The naval collision had occurred in May in consequence of
the Japanese attempt to clear the way for an attack against Port
Moresby, which the Allied high command had foreseen as part of
the strategy to control the island screen. Read was able to glean that
the victory had been a tactical one for the Allies in that the enemy
effort had been beaten down. But in the fight the enemy had inflicted
more damage than he had received. Just how the native assessment
had arrived at the truth was a puzzle which Read ascribed to the
white man's general ignorance of native shrewdness. In any event,
Coral Sea had been disappointing in its propaganda effects and
Midway was too distant to have any effect at all.
In addition, Read was apprehensive that the jungle telegraph had
scored another local beat. A Japanese force had since landed on
Guadalcanal and was preparing an air base on the kunai grass
plains. What was needed urgently to avoid deterioration of general
22 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
native support was a spectacular Allied victory in the Solomons with
the results heaped up for all to see. If it did not come soon, he could
foresee trouble of another sort on Bougainville. Here and there on
the island were groups of defenseless civilians and some of the mis-
sionary personnel, including Catholic sisters, who previously had
declined to heed his advice and that of others who had no illusions
either to go overseas to safer areas while they could, or at least
head for the mountains and avoid contact with Japanese patrols led
by cooperating coastal natives. All told there were perhaps a hun-
dred. They had been recalcitrant but Read had no doubt they would
be demanding a protection there would be no way of according
them when the bulk of the coastal natives should really turn against
them.
Beside him Sergeant Yauwika had grunted excitedly and pointed.
Read wiped the moisture from his brow and squinted. Sohana was
still quiet enough. But something was stirring in Buka village.
Yauwika fired an explosive torrent in his own dialect and his black-
skinned comrades rolled excited eyes. Read rapped Yauwika's arm
for the glasses and peered.
The scene was too confused to enable him to get the exact pat-
tern but apparently the Japanese once more were resorting to harsh-
ness, even brutality, in enforcing demands upon the villagers. The
Solomon Islander was not long out of the Stone Age, and from
there he had come direct into the Steel Age. But he had brought
with him almost intact his superstitions, his tribal customs, and his
curiously well-developed sense of property. Of the latter, his most
potent single symbol was his pig. Possession thereof marked him a
man of means; possession accorded him bargaining position for all
things in his social scheme, from food gardens or a seat in the village
council to his fancy in a wife. Coral Sea had upset the Japanese sup-
ply communications and here at Buka a levy was being made upon
native resources to make up for the fish and rice that had failed to
arrive. Not content with a diet confined to tropical yams, taro, and
sago, the enemy soldiers and sailors demanded pigs. They refused
to penetrate far into the unknown jungles to hunt for them; the al-
ternate was to commandeer the native's prize possession.
Read could see a body on the ground of the village street. Nearby
THE SOLOMONS 23
an enemy wiped a bayonet. Two others carried off a kicking pig. Sul-
len natives opened a way for them, then closed in after them. A
cloud of dust slowly subsided. This execution of a villager who had
resisted doubtless was what Sergeant Yauwika had witnessed.
Read felt a grim satisfaction. Word of that kind of treatment
would get around. Of course it could terrify the native into a kind of
cooperation that would be dangerous to him, but with some military
development favorable to the Allies the enemy would soon know
what it meant to alienate the natives. Read's own meticulous adher-
ence to a code of recognition of the small rights of the native in a
white man's world was the key to their loyalty to him. There was
one other related item of influence: the Solomon native's apprecia-
tion of money. Read had taken all the money from the office at
Sohana and could and did pay the fair price for their services and
goods. After all, it required a carrier force of from fifteen to thirty
"boys" to carry the radio gear and all, to say nothing of essential
scouts and runners.
While Read was reflecting on all this, there was a sudden poising
of weapons. Someone was moving in the giant ferns to the left. Then
Yauwika grunted. It was one of their own lookout boys. He was
breathing hard. He spoke fast in his own dialect. Yauwika converted
it into mangled pidgin. Three ships, warships, were approaching
Buka Passage from the west. Read questioned him. Apparently a
cruiser and two destroyers.
Read signaled and the party moved off over a barely discernible
trail so that he could verify the report. If true, and if the ships an-
chored, they would comprise a target worthy of any bombing mis-
sion or if not, simply the knowledge of their exact whereabouts
would be of importance to Allied planners moving their invaluable
pieces on the chessboard of the South Pacific. An hour later Read
and his natives were squelching over sodden trails to the base. Just
in time the confirmatory sighting had been made before the rain
streamed down into a jungle already steaming with dank heat. Read
clumped into a hut; he hated the rains. He motioned for Tamti, a
native who had been taught wireless signaling. Tamti warmed up the
tubes of the Australian-built "Teleradio," a splendid piece of equip-
ment that originally had been designed to service Australian "out-
24 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
back" sheep stations and the "flying doctors" who administered to
their needs in response to radio summons for help. While he worked
over the three steel-gray cases of the combined receiver and trans-
mitter, Read enciphered. He wondered if the signal would reach
distant Port Moresby on New Guinea nearly seven hundred airline
miles. It would be another eight hundred from Port Moresby to
Townsville where the Intelligence Center was located. It was another
fifteen hundred to Melbourne. He was considering the unpredictable
behavior of Hertzian waves in the ether. The present saturated sky
was certainly bad in theory for transmission, yet already Tamti had
registered acknowledgment from Port Moresby. Another time the
sky could be clear as crystal and Moresby might be off the planet as
far as their capability of reaching the control station was concerned.
Moresby confirmed receipt of the data and signaled no more traffic.
Tamti moved aside and Read played with the vernier dial of the
receiver. Familiar voices came to being, for now he was on the fre-
quencies assigned to the Coast Watchers, and where distances were
short, radio phone, or "voice," was often used. Brief, staccato barks
for the most part, because, after all, a radio transmission was a voice
for all to hear and the enemy missed few of them, day or night.
For instance, he had all-too-clearly heard the enormously foolish
newscast out of Melbourne not long ago stating that Japanese war-
ships had landed reconnaissance forces not too far from Read's posi-
tion. Immediately the enemy was interested. No aircraft had sighted
that landing. A Coast Watcher, then? They knew of only one man
that could have radioed such a report, a really harmless old chap
named Percy Good whom they had put on parole. Two days later
they landed again and despite his protestations of innocence for
innocent he was, since he was not a Coast Watcher and the report
had been filed elsewhere by one who was summarily executed him.
In Australia prompt steps were taken to insure that henceforth
no such revealing information would reach the air.
Read often spent a part of the night hours this way, although he
had always to be sensitive to the drain of his batteries. The Tele-
radio was powered by heavy wet cells that had to be charged by a
petrol engine charger, even heavier. Petrol itself was no small prob-
lem. There were caches
THE SOLOMONS 25
Meanwhile GHQ had moved bodily from Melbourne eight hun-
dred miles north to Brisbane, and with it the headquarters of AIB.
In one of the big insurance buildings on Queen Street, exciting mat-
ters concerning the Solomons were occupying the high command.
But the cards were being held very closely to official chests and in
general very few who had no "need to know" possessed the knowl-
edge that soon there would be launched the first Allied attempt, not
only to halt the enemy drive down the Solomons, but eventually to
reverse it. It would be a combined navy, air, and land assault to an-
nul the Japanese landings at Lunga on Guadalcanal and other stra-
tegic points in the central Solomons. GHQ was playing a support
role this time, for the show primarily would be one of COMSOU-
PAC's with the American First Marine Division scheduled for the
actual landings. The concentration was being effected in the New
Hebrides with Noumea as the hub.
"I didn't know anything specific," Read said later. "But I became
properly suspicious that something was up, just by listening to the
ear bashing over the air."
Lieutenant (later Commander) Hugh Mackenzie was AIB's
Coast Watcher coordinator stationed with COMSOUPAC head-
quarters in the Solomons. Read often tuned in to see what Hugh had
to say. It was not much. But from the same quarter came many
broad American accents. Mackenzie had helped the Marines to or-
ganize their own local watchers. "Not a doubt of it the Yanks were
zealous," commented Read. "But they were too ruddy voluble on
the air. Obviously something was up."
Another whom Read monitored was D. S. Macfarlan. One of the
best was Macfarlan, with a gift for accurate observation and a
matching ability to describe what he saw. Later in Brisbane we were
to benefit from these talents to get vivid word pictures of what oc-
curred at Guadalcanal largely in consequence of the roles that Read
and Mason soon were destined to play.
Assigned to Guadalcanal to watch the Japanese at close hand,
Macfarlan had insisted on a grandstand seat to enable him to ac-
complish the task with aplomb. He fairly looked down into their
rice bowls from a lofty, beautifully hidden spot on Gold Ridge. He
reported every inch of progress on the air strip the enemy was build-
26 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
ing below him at Lunga. Just to the east of Lunga was Tulagi, the
former center of British colonial administration for the area. The
enemy held that place, too. Macfarlan's boys had been reporting in
detail defense strong points, stores, and barracks. He encoded the
data and sent them two ways: to Mackenzie for use by appreciative
COMSOUPAC authorities and those who were to lead the assault,
and to AIB via Port Moresby.
Other Coast Watchers hidden on Guadalcanal were contributing
to this vital build-up of information. There were taciturn F. A.
"Snowy" Rhoades and A. M. Andersen. Martin Clemens was farther
north. And off on the dreary basalt upthrust of tiny Savo Island was
another, frail elderly L. Schroeder. On one occasion while Read
monitored, Macfarlan was reporting the estimated strength of a
Japanese force north of the partly finished airfield. Read was
amused. He knew Macfarlan's method: send in natives who would
come back and tell him how long the mess line extended. It was as
good as any and better than most, for natives were notoriously un-
able to estimate numbers of men. "You'd get anything from a thou-
sand to twenty times that number," Read would explain. "The true
count was probably five hundred."
Guadalcanal was a somewhat fatter island than most in the Solo-
mons. To the north was a spattering of small islands comprising the
New Georgia group, between it and Bougainville. Other Coast
Watchers were there. And they were important, for while Read was
the farthest northwest of the whole series of Watchers and therefore
could give maximum warning of raids that he might detect coming
south to hit American concentrations, enemy ships and aircraft
might not touch within his eyesight. Then it would be up to Paul
Mason, a hundred and thirty miles south of him on the opposite end
of long, thin Bougainville, to warn. After Mason came the watch-
ers in the New Georgia group, and finally those on Guadalcanal.
Thus there was observer strength "in depth."
On one night while Read monitored, Paul Mason was acknowl-
edging receipt of a successful air drop, containing desperately needed
supplies. Read chuckled explosively. The black boys squatting on
their haunches in the opposite corner of the hut rolled eyes whitely
toward him. In turn they grinned. They appreciated it when the kiap
THE SOLOMONS 27
was amused. He was a good kiap, stern and quick, but a proper "big
fella." Read was thinking that poor Mason deserved a successful
drop after all the trouble he had experienced.
Mason had been a planter on Bougainville. He probably was less
like the conventional picture of a conquering military hero than any-
one Read could imagine quiet, round-faced, with a boyish com-
plexion that went with the mild blue eyes behind round spectacles.
But we were to learn that Mason would surprise you. When the going
was rough, he was indeed a good man to have on your side. His de-
termination was matched only by his unsuspected powers of endur-
ance. The first drop that had been made to him went astray by not
less than seventy miles! But Mason doggedly set out by bicycle and
on foot to recover it. His reward after a bitter trek through some of
the most uncomfortably fetid country in the South Pacific was ex-
actly nothing. The situation was doubly distressing because, where-
as Read had plenty of supplies cached, Mason had had no oppor-
tunity to save much from the plantation before the Japanese landed.
Read had expressed his concern that Mason's natives might not ap-
preciate his straitened circumstances. The second drop would alle-
viate the situation, at least.
Mason had taken up a position at Malabita Hill near Buin, on
extreme southern Bougainville. As fate would have it, the area he
could effectively overlook would become one of the major anchor-
ages for the Japanese Southern Operations fleet.
The drops to Coast Watchers included more than merely the
means to keep body and soul together. Feldt had experienced many
years' service on isolated assignments and he knew very well the
tremendous importance of mail from home. Great care was taken to
insure inclusion of one or two pieces at least. So it had been that the
last bomber to drum out of the night and lay a softly floating para-
chute onto Read's carefully selected drop zone had brought a letter
from his wife in Melbourne. It had been a solid, homey sort of thing,
just what he needed most, and it had told him all about the antics of
their little daughter, Judy. (What it did not tell him was that Mrs.
Read had experienced a serious accident; she had not wanted to
worry him for she was confident that the results would not be last-
ing.) Reference to Judy had made Read smile. Doubtless both his
28 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
wife and young Judy would be amused if they knew of the arrange-
ment he had with Feldt that if he ever had to go on the air in plain
language and wanted to confuse listeners other than Feldt, he was to
sign his emergency messages "JER," Judy's initials.
Read snapped off the Teleradio until the next schedule with Port
Moresby. It was time for kaikai, or food, and despite the downpour
that went on as if it never intended to stop, the boys managed their
cooking and Read had his plate of hot tinned meat, vegetables, and
his mug of tea. He hitched himself farther from the drifting spume
at the propped-up atap transom over the open window space and
savored the brew.
In the next transmission Read reported that he had made a short
reconnaissance to the coast. At one point he had been waited upon
by a surly delegation of the civilians whom he had urged to take
proper precautionary steps when the war was young and there re-
mained time to act. They demanded that the RAAF make air drops
of supplies to them. After all, they insisted, the government owed
them protection and sustenance, too. Read reminded them that pro-
tection was something they had rejected by keeping themselves be-
yond its line of possibilities. He reminded them that there were
exactly twenty-five Australian soldiers on Bougainville, a poorly
equipped guard detachment of prewar days, in almost as bad a
plight as they were themselves. As to sustenance, he imagined he
could forecast RAAF's reception to the idea that it should risk its
few operational bombers from their round-the-clock war responsi-
bilities to deliver food to people who a short time ago had denounced
the military as unnecessarily dictatorial. But that night Read relayed
their request to Port Moresby. The next day he had confirmation of
his forecast. The issue did not endear him to the group, nor it to
him. Read was honest with himself; he was direct and honest with
others. He had an idea he had not heard the end of them. He
wondered about the Catholic nuns he knew to be still on the island
with a Bishop Wade.
He continued to file his observer reports from Buka Passage.
Every significant bit about the air strip, the village, or the ships that
came and went and what they did while they were there swelled our
intelligence file at AIB.
THE SOLOMONS 29
But one day toward the end of July he got a deeply encoded mes-
sage from Feldt at AIB.
He was to stop reporting everything except emergency informa-
tion of great importance. He would establish himself at the best
point of vantage above Buka Passage and await developments.
Meanwhile, if he did see something very important, especially in
the air, he would report directly in plain language. His messages
would be identified by the "JER" call sign.
He stood in the middle of the shack, the deciphered message in
his hands, and he knew this meant action. He was laying pounds to
sixpence that it would be on Guadalcanal to the southeast of him.
A few minutes later he knew that Mason had received the same in-
structions from Feldt and that he would use the call sign "STO."
Mason had married a girl whose family name was Stokie.
It was fully appreciated at AIB that broadcasting in plain lan-
guage meant shouting out the locations of the two men. But speed
in reporting was going to be of utmost importance; conceivably the
success of the whole operation would rest on adequate warnings
of enemy counterblows while the landing and support ships were
bunched without maneuver room at the beaches. Against the "give
away" was the fact that the two men were tiny needles in a very
large haystack. Bougainville was a hundred and thirty miles long
by thirty wide and what was not smothered in rain forests and
jungle growth was upended in mountains. As long as the natives
did not turn against them. . . . Nevertheless, it was a very uncomfort-
able decision to have to make back in the safety of headquarters.
Read looked wryly around the shack. It had been a secure spot.
He decided to make a cache of supplies in several places, of one or
two of which only he would know the exact location; then, whatever
befell him, he should have recourse to a few emergency supplies. He
was to be thankful one day for this item of his foresight.
The next morning he put into execution his plan for erasing signs
of the base preparatory to moving northwestward. He was seeking a
better position that was low enough to avoid most of the mists but
high enough to cover most of the vital area. The rains came down
as they departed. This time Read did not mind so much. He wanted
their tracks to be erased. He used trails unknown to all but his little
30 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
party, or cut new ones. On the evening of August 7, 1942, he still
was some distance from Buka Passage. Except that it had been a
strenuous day, for him it had not been unusual. Since his teleradio
had been stowed in many containers slung from poles supported
fore and aft on the shoulders of carrier boys, he had been entirely
unaware that in reality the day had witnessed a tremendously im-
portant military development in some respects even more signifi-
cant than either the naval battles of the Coral Sea or Midway, be-
cause it represented the first retaking of a land mass for a counter-
offensive that was not to experience a major reversal until the war
was won for the West. Read made camp where the rain forest was so
dense that only directly above him was there open space. After a
new downpour the stars showed there.
Paul Mason, however, had been aware of something unusual on
that day. He had, in fact, played a part in connection with it as vital
as any who participated, and doubtless because he had, many still
were alive and safe who otherwise would have been victims of the
air attack launched by some twenty-seven Japanese warplanes from
Rabaul.
At dawn of that day the first massive combined-services counter-
assault of the war had been launched by the Allies. It was against
Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and other nearby Japanese-held targets. By
the time Read had pitched camp for the night, the First Marine Divi-
sion was dug in hard along the Japanese airfield at Lunga, had re-
taken Tulagi, and had established firm beachheads elsewhere. At
dawn that day planes from United States carriers had screamed
down on Tulagi through a mist that hid the approaching battle and
transport fleets from sight and had bombed it heavily. Then the ap-
proaching warships had divided. One division had taken over from
the bombers while another steered for Lunga and opened up on
shore defenses there. The transports came in and released their
battle-ready Marines. The assault boats rammed square steel snouts
hard aground and the heavy ramps roared down. The enemy had
been taken completely by surprise, and on Guadalcanal were unable
to rally against the attack. The survivors fled into the jungle toward
the mountains. It was almost the same at Tulagi, but there was de-
termined resistance elsewhere.
THE SOLOMONS 31
The Allied command was under no illusions about the initial suc-
cess. The enemy simply could not afford to allow the Allies a
secure foothold in the South Pacific, and certainly not one they
themselves required if they were to secure Port Moresby, already
overdue, and cut the supply line from America. The American com-
manders hoped that before the enemy could reorganize or call for
help, the heavy task of getting supplies ashore to support the troops
for a prolonged period of what was sure to come could be accom-
plished. But manhandling thousands of tons of the materiel of
modern war from transport to barge and barge to shore and shore to
truck and truck to supply dump was a task to weary the stoutest
backs, especially when the debilitating tropic heat wrapped the
whole area in a sodden blanket. There had been little or no time to
rehearse this phase of it. The work went slowly; the wonder of it
was that the sweating, swearing men had managed to bully as much
of the artillery, the ammunition, the construction materials, and
the rations ashore as they had by the time Mason's signal reached
the ships to the effect that over his hidden position at Malabita
Hill on Bougainville at 1030 hours he had sighted
TWENTY-SEVEN BOMBERS HEADED SOUTHEAST
The message was signed "STO." Actually, the ships had not re-
ceived it directly from Mason. He had sent originally on the "X"
frequency for emergency traffic and had been copied at Tulagi, also
aboard the Australian cruiser Canberra, which together with an-
other Australian warship had cooperated with the American vessels
that morning in the shelling of Guadalcanal. Port Moresby also had
taken it in and immediately relayed to Townsville. Townsville re-
layed to powerful transmitters outside Canberra which in turn,
flashed it to Honolulu. The transoceanic station on Oahu stepped
up to full power and sent the warning roaring back over the Pacific
for all to hear. The whole series of relays had taken approximately
twenty-five minutes, and the Japanese still were a considerable
distance off, coming in under heavy bomb and fuel loads.
Mason later said that he was barely able to contain his excitement
and that Ms eyes "felt very hot" behind his glasses as he constantly
32 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
fingered his receiver dials for news. The air was full of strange
signals and he discerned both the Morse key "fists" and voices of
Americans. He knew then that "The Yanks were fair in it now!"
Mason could hear only confusedly, and he could see nothing.
Macfarlan on Gold Ridge, Guadalcanal, constituted the "eyes" for
this show, although some of the others caught thrilling episodes of
it from their lairs.
Macfarlan had noted the orderly deployment of the American
carriers well out to sea. He saw the transports weigh anchor and dis-
perse in a disciplined pattern away from the crowded beachhead. A
low throb of scores of aircraft engines being prefiighted came from
the distant flat tops. The drone swelled and sounded to him like
"a far-off bullish roar." Presently he saw our planes rising, looking
in the distance "like some kind of slow daylight tracers." In due time
they found their proper stations and began a leisurely climb into the
high places of the sky. The heavier American fighter planes were
not so nimble as the Japanese Zeros who doubtless were escorting
the bombers, but the Philippines had taught us that if the American
planes had the advantage of height, the acrobatic superiority of the
Zero was canceled out: our heavier armor and armament more
than evened the score. At Guadalcanal, local warning only would
not have enabled the American fighters to have climbed high. Mason
gave them an hour and a half to do it.
The Japanese pilots were unprepared for the magnitude of the
reception awaiting them from below and were disorganized by the
wide deployment of the targets.
To Macfarlan the whole sky had suddenly become dappled with
the black puifballs of ack-ack fire from the ships. Now he could see
the Japanese bombers coming in on the final approach, but the in-
tense fire disrupted their runs and they began to fall off. Bombs fell
into the sea and far off to one side on the land. One bomber then an-
other burst into flame and black smoke. Others sideslipped and the
ack-ack from hastily erected shore guns took them under fire. The
attack seemed to be breaking up before it was fairly launched. The
Japanese veered more and sought to disengage. The smoke now
made observation difficult and Macfarlan could catch only snatches
of the big surprise. At just the time when the enemy planes could
THE SOLOMONS 33
least afford to take on a new menace, a whole sky full of fury
dropped upon them from the heights. Now both bombers and Zero
escorts alike were caught in a storm of tracers and shells. Pilots who
remembered Pearl Harbor, Singapore, Clark Field, Bataan, let
them have it again and again.
Paul Mason saw only one bomber returning that afternoon. This
was a paradox, for initial Allied claims listed only two shot down
and two damaged. That was before the carriers deployed out to sea
had entered their tallies. Possibly more than that single bomber
seen by Mason got away, but history was to say that it was doubt-
ful if it had any companions.
The next morning, August 8, Read broke camp early. The party
was on the trail when shortly after 0800 hours the column stopped
as one man. The thundering roar of many aircraft engines seemed to
burst upon them. That could mean only that they were flying low.
Automatically his boys melted into denser jungle. Read looked
around desperately for some point of observation. But only his boys
were equipped by dress and nature to shinny up the boles of trees.
Then the sound exploded directly above him. To his surprise he
found himself reacting automatically to training even as his boys
had done when they "melted" into the jungle. He was counting air-
craft which, as fate would have it, were flying across the only place
in the whole vast canopy of the sky that he could observe im-
mediately over his head. They were no more than five hundred feet
above him and he could discern not only that they were bombers
but that they were torpedo bombers.
The din receded. He shouted orders. Two of his boys were well
toward the tops of tall trees. The others reacted quickly and began
to break out the wireless gear. There was no time to make for a more
suitable transmitting area. While Read knew nothing about the
Guadalcanal show, he was certain that eighteen heavily-laden enemy
torpedo planes were not out on an incidental early-morning training
mission so far from Rabaul on New Britain or Kavieng on New Ire-
land. He suspected these were from the latter place; the direction
was right.
He shouted to that boy, helped this one, and heaved with the
34 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
third. The transmitter, the receiver, the batteries, heavy and dan-
gerous to handle. Up went a jury antenna.
Then a warning call from the treetops. More aircraft. As before,
the sound burst upon them. This time Read counted twenty-two
aircraft; some were Zeros.
The sweat blinded his eyes. He dashed it out and tested the power
couplings. Everything seemed to go maddeningly slow. But not
really. "Just the ruddy excitement, you know," as he said later. He
calmed himself, sobered by the thought that at this time of day it
would be a real chore to raise Port Moresby and on "voice," too,
for he did not have Tamti this time, worse luck. Voice had less
range than Morse.
He called on voice. Then listened. There was only the hissing of
the tube filaments in his ears. He tried again, adjusting as he spoke.
But the transmitter was putting out a maximum signal; adjusting
would do no good. There was not even a crack of static.
He banged his fist in exasperation. This signal had to get through.
Right, then, send a general-attention call.
He did, to any Coast Watcher within range or anyone else on
X frequency.
His quick laugh of relief was not lost on the natives. Kiap had
done it! He had, indeed. A Coast Watcher in eastern New Guinea
answered him at once. He had heard Read's frantic calls and was
waiting to take a relay. Read gave it to him:
FROM JER: FORTY BOMBERS HEADED YOURS
He had the satisfaction of hearing the unknown Coast Watcher
swing into the relay. Once more the whole prearranged machinery
of warning went into action. And at Guadalcanal once more the
whole deployment tactic found so effective on the seventh when
only a single ship had been hit went into effect. Once more Mac-
farlan was the star reporter. Many official records remain to testify
to his authentic observing of the most exciting event of his life, for
this attack paled that of the previous day in the sheer fanaticism of
the attackers and the fury of the defenders.
Again the flight of enemy aircraft was caught between levels of
THE SOLOMONS 35
fire, but even more intense fire than previously. The whole arc of
the sky was sliced with red tracers and plumed with ack-ack. Three
enemy planes at one time plunged smoking toward the sea far be-
low. Another bomber erupted into a solid sheet of flame so huge
that Macfarlan was certain that a shell had hit squarely on the war-
head of a torpedo in its bay and the whole thing, big enough to kill
a ship, had exploded in midair.
Still, through the fury of the concentrated fire, Japanese bombers
lived to level off for their torpedo runs and to launch them. Mac-
farlan gasped in disbelief, for some of those bombers were flying at
maximum speed between moving ships, actually below masthead
height.
The sea boiled with torpedo wakes. And now it seemed beyond
credibility that the defending vessels could live with destruction on
the loose against them from every direction. Yet only one torpedo
connected: a destroyer was heavily damaged astern and went out
of control. Under her own power she dragged herself away. Later,
when Macfarlan remembered to look for her, she was no longer
to be seen. Now his attention was jerked to another giant explosion.
A Japanese warplane had plummeted straight into the deck of the
transport. Her whole length quivered with flame, and fire leaped
high where the plane had gone through her deck.
Now it was time for the high-up fighters to come in. Once more
the smoke of battle and the burning transport obscured Macfarlan's
view. But he had seen enough to know that a whole enemy attack
fleet had been all but destroyed before his eyes.
Far to the northwestward Read's fingers had teased the essence
of excitement from the vernier dial. At about seven megacycles he
had come upon strange talk between "Orange Base" and aircraft
pilots. Nothing the Australians owned answered to that. The Yanks,
then. This was it. He listened again and heard a carrier concerned
about getting its fighters all refueled in time to beat off an "expected
bomber attack on the transport area."
Read said that this time he really jumped to his feet and cheered.
His boys cheered with him. The warning had got through!
He waited, caressing the vernier dials. And soon it came, the in-
tercommunication orders and shouted warnings as the battle closed.
36 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
The distant voice said that it would go off the air during the battle,
but the unseen American was unable to stay off the air and kept
breaking in with his own blow-by-blow account of the sight he was
witnessing. "Boys, they're shooting them down like flies! I can see
one, two, three, four, six eight of them all coming down into the
sea together!"
Forty of them had gone over Read's spot. Eight came back. In the
two main battles and in at least one side fight later, the enemy had
lost more than sixty bombers and Zeros in two days. Read could not
know it, of course, nor could anyone else except the Japanese au-
thorities at Rabaul, but the tremendous losses had made impossible
the mounting of another sustained attack until new elements had
been flown in from the Carolinas some days later.
Despite his crucial role, there was one irony for Read in con-
nection with this victory. While both he and Mason and other de-
serving Coast Watchers would be tendered high American decora-
tions for their work, a British decoration for the "Forty Bombers"
message would be accorded not to Read at all, but to an Australian
Army officer who happened to be on duty and was concerned with
the relay of it from the New Guinea Coast Watcher to Port Moresby
and on to Townsville.
In Brisbane we could hardly believe our luck. Conning the maps
coupled Vith an analysis of the reports began to make it dazzlingly
plain that Read and Mason were incalculably valuable positions:
seemingly every flight that went out of Rabaul droned over Mason's
position; all flights originating out of the satellite field at Kavieng
went over Read's. The cream of the Japanese naval air power was
habitually plotting its own course to its own destruction. If by chance
either the two missed them owing to fogs or some temporary devia-
tion in the enemy's navigation, the other Watchers spotted them.
It was to be that way throughout the whole Guadalcanal campaign;
captured enemy operational data after the war were to tell of the
bloodletting there and elsewhere and of the fact that 50 per cent of
all the best-trained Japanese air personnel was lost within the first
three quarters of 1942.
The solitary unknown Australians out in the islands became
legendary figures among the Americans. Both on Guadalcanal and
38 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
in Brisbane, if you wanted to evoke a smile, it was necessary only
to say: "Forty bombers headed yours!" It caught on during the
critical months when the enemy would hurl his might in his effort to
force the Americans back into the sea, a continuous battle that was
to see thousands of casualties on both sides and drain Allied naval
strength to a new low before the tide finally was turned late in the
year.
The Japanese High Command reacted violently to the events at
Guadalcanal. History was to show that a new and much stronger
combined headquarters of the Japanese Eleventh Air Fleet and the
Eighth Naval Fleet was activated that very day to "prosecute with
all vigor the official Southern Operations Plan." As shall be seen
presently in a sequence dealing with New Britain and New Guinea
during this period, in addition to taking steps to bring in greater
power to deal with the Solomons, the enemy already had imple-
mented an alternate to the ill-fated Coral Sea plan to take Port
Moresby.
This new threat out of Rabaul was posing multiple headaches for
the Allied Intelligence Bureau which certainly could have occupied
everyone concerned full time. But we were to be permitted little
time to take our eyes off the Solomons. The Japanese wasp's nests
there especially at Lunga had not been more than normally dan-
gerous as long as they were not stirred up. Lunga's violent dis-
placement by the Allied assault of August 7 produced reactions in-
creasingly dangerous to the Coast Watchers on Guadalcanal and
even farther afield. Calls for help and evacuation began to filter into
the AIB decoding center. Japanese remnants in strength were re-
forming in the coastal areas and in the jungles and they were patrol-
ling in strength. Furthermore, they were venting the anger of their
defeat upon the natives. It was clear to their commanders that they
had been betrayed by hidden observation agents who probably
could not have survived without native permission. Savage reprisals
against the natives were adopted to influence them to change their
allegiance.
In the northwest part of Guadalcanal Rhoades and Schroeder
were in a bad fix. Especially dangerous patrols with cowed native
guides had infested the areas of these two. They, in turn, were wor-
THE SOLOMONS 39
ried, not only on their own account but about the safety of mis-
sionaries and nuns in the vicinity once they had found the stripped
and bayoneted bodies of two missionaries and two nuns on a beach.
It was only a matter of time before the native-led patrols would
catch up with the rest of them.
In a hasty conference at Brisbane it was decided to shift Hugh
Mackenzie from the New Hebrides to Guadalcanal since, in any
event, the forthcoming hub of the Solomons war would be there,
and effective, mature coordination of ABB operations was requisite
to the preservation of our precious people and to serving COM-
SOUPAC, which now was bracing for the inevitable counter assault
by the Japanese.
Hugh Mackenzie, of the generous mouth and level gray eyes,
who eventually would be brought to Brisbane to recover his health
and amplify his modest reports, reached Guadalcanal just in time
to effect a dramatic and unauthorized rescue.
Mackenzie knew that the tough American general of marines
had placed great value upon him as a coordinator of Coast
Watchers. He strongly suspected that if he made a request to risk
a run for it and rescue Rhoades and Schroeder, he would be
refused. Therefore, he did not ask.
"I told Horton that General Vandegrift would skin us alive
when he did hear about it," Mackenzie told me later. He had
set up AIB's Station "KEN" at the edge of the former Japanese
air strip, now called Henderson Field, and he was talking to Lieu-
tenant D. C. Horton of the Australian Navy. Horton was an ordi-
nary chap with an extraordinary way of getting things done. He
had asked for the job of rescuing Rhoades and Schroeder. "I'd
managed to get a launch," continued Mackenzie. He hitched
around and smiled. "Well, the resident commissioner had gone
away and . . ."
Apparently Horton already had anticipated the requisition in
absentia and he had already refueled. "It'll soon be dusk, you
know," he had said.
They emerged from KEN's fairly snug dugout that had been
constructed by them and occupied only a day before the earlier
40 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
one a combination of tattered canvas and a hole of warm mud
soup had been blown to bits by enemy marksmanship.
Horton knew the coast; once he had been a colonial district
officer. He piloted his little craft to take advantage of every ob-
scure passage and every shadow and at dawn crept into an inlet
where Rhoades and Schroeder should have been. They were there
together with thirteen missionaries and a shot-down airman!
Everyone turned to in order to camouflage the launch against
early-morning air patrols friend or foe, it would make no differ-
ence. During the night Horton repeated his delicate piece of sea-
manship along the thoroughly hostile coast and landed sixteen
grateful people the next dawn.
Later in the morning the telephone rang. "An invitation to call
upon General Vandegrift, I'll warrant," Mackenzie said quietly.
It was, emphatically. Horton arose to accompany him. Mac-
kenzie pushed him down. "My party, Dick."
The interview was all he expected. The general had an ample
vocabulary, and suffered from no inhibitions. He expressed him-
self on the subject of discipline and those who lacked it. He
quickly confirmed Mackenzie's earlier presumption that opera-
tional orders would emanate from no place other than his own
headquarters. There were other pointed allusions to this and that
and Mackenzie found himself outside where the steaming tem-
perature of Guadalcanal felt gratefully cool to him.
Not long afterward Macfarlan staggered in to KEN from his
hide on Gold Ridge. Mackenzie searched his haggard gray fea-
tures and told him that if he could achieve as sick a look as that,
he would put in for home leave and get it. Obviously it was
malaria. How long had Macfarlan had it in such a severe degree?
"About long enough, Hugh. I've clipped my coupons. Brisbane
looks good."
He followed Rhoades and Schroeder out by air, his job superbly
done, another yet to do in Brisbane. MacArthur awarded him a
Distinguished Service Cross. The same award went to Rhoades,
and to Read and Mason all citations marked "Secret." They
could not be publicly announced until after the war. Macfarlan
was given long recuperation leave, then joined us at AIB head-
THE SOLOMONS 41
quarters. He was lucky to have gotten out. Soon afterward there
were no aircraft to spare. Daily the situation for the American
troops grew more critical. Despite extensive losses, the enemy had
managed to land reinforcements on the western end of the island
and daily the defensive perimeter was being pinched in. A series
of violent engagements had tipped the naval strength in favor of
the enemy. At one time three American cruisers and one Aus-
tralian were sunk simultaneously. Carriers went, too. To add to
the constant harassment of daytime bombing now came a new
threat to life or sanity. Japanese naval units of the Eighth Fleet
began shelling Lunga by night. Mackenzie and his little staff were
grateful for their stronger dugout, but none had illusions about
what a direct hit would do.
Then one night, amid the endless crash of the explosions they
had come to know so well, there was a new note. The whole
earth rocked to tremendous concussions at regular intervals. Be-
tween blasts Mackenzie peered up through the acrid murk and
announced: "They've brought in the first team. Those are not
less than fourteen-inch guns out there."
He was right. They timed the incoming rounds. They were
methodically deadly at twenty to the minute. Nerves went ragged.
Heads pounded and seemed to pull apart from the incessant ham-
mering. Once Mackenzie was deep down in another dugout when
it was hit. He was flung violently against a wall. He crumbled up.
"It was only concussion shock," he said later, "but I knew now
there was a limit to what a man could take." Yet even through
all of it Station KEN continued to handle the traffic from Read
and Mason and the others to the northwest, especially from a
hard, dark-miened man named D. C. Kennedy, who was holed
up at a plantation on the southern end of New Georgia Island.
He was the last one in the chain northwest of Guadalcanal to be
able to give warnings; his word was the final prelude to the "red
alert" at Lunga.
In Brisbane, Colonel Roberts studied a radio message from
Mackenzie.
"Kennedy's a bloomin' one-man army, no less," he said. "Look
at this."
42 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
It was a request from the undefeated, undefeatable man of
Segi plantation. He had a loyal following of natives (the natives
were worshiping strength here, too, no doubt) and among them
all they had slain three bargeloads of enemy soldiers who had
ventured too close; captured twenty Japanese pilots who had
been shot down in air flights; rescued twenty-two American pilots
who similarly had been shot down.
"He wants someone to evacuate his stockade and barracks,"
chuckled the controller. He picked up a pencil. "Let's see, you
Americans estimate that it costs twenty-five thousand dollars to
train a pilot. Now then: that's five hundred and fifty thousand
Kennedy has saved his gallant allies!"
"How does he rate the Japanese pilots?" someone asked, just
as Feldt came in.
"Same difference," explained Feldt. "He has a standing offer
to his natives: one case of tinned meat and one bag of rice for
every living airman brought in, Japanese or American only the
Japanese are trussed up on poles and carried in that way."
It was an extremely hazardous but well-paying mission for a
Catalina a few nights later to effect the evacuation. Kennedy
stayed on.
It was the same night that the enemy off the Guadalcanal coast
shifted his pattern again, and the two thousand smaller caliber
shells that raked the Lunga area were described by Mackenzie as
seeming to be even worse than the regular pounding of the big
guns. KEN's dugout withstood it, but outside the land was tor-
tured chaos. The next morning they surveyed the damage.
Only one of the three aerials they had so carefully and scien-
tifically constructed for utmost efficiency still stood. But the trans-
mitting wire, in falling, had become entangled in the head of one
of the few coconut trees still erect. It looked very much as if
KEN would be off the air indefinitely. Still, it was decided to try
to raise some comparatively nearby Coast Watcher and arrange
for relays of urgent traffic.
The operator warmed up his Teleradio and called. To his aston-
ishment he got a response from one of the alert members of the
THE SOLOMONS 43
chain. He asked for a signal strength and readability report. Anx-
iously they waited. It came.
SEEMS IMPROVED. HAVE YOU BEEN MAKING ADJUSTMENTS?
Mackenzie looked at his men and they looked back at him.
Then the strain of the night and those that preceded it broke under
their laughter until the tears came.
Between bombings and bombardments they managed to erect
two or more receiving aerials. In the first traffic to be snared by
them were warnings from Read that the heaviest concentration of
aircraft he had yet observed was now on the expanded ak strip
at Buka village. There were more ships there, too. But why no
friendly bombings of them? It was true that the enemy was enjoy-
ing some immunity. Southwest Pacific Area bombers were em-
ployed day and night trying to prevent enemy reinforcements
from reaching the New Guinea coast and the heavy bombers of
COMSOUPAC were based too far south to make raids profitable.
They could not base closer; there was no fuel for them and little
of anything else except an endless supply of wounded waiting to
be airlifted to base hospitals.
Read's reports were followed by grim news from Mason. Liter-
ally scores of enemy ships of every kind were anchoring within
his range of vision. A tremendous build-up obviously was in
progress. Apparently everything now was awaiting the arrival of
actual assault-troop convoys from the enemy Caroline Islands.
Then a different kind of message came from Mason. The enemy
was out after him and to make sure the Japanese had just landed
at Buin crates of savage dogs trained in jungle trailing.
In Brisbane it gave us a shiver of apprehension as nothing else
had done. War was always dirty business, but somehow this
seemed a new low. Mackenzie pleaded for a bombing mission.
AIB urged it. RAAF did it superbly. Mason's next message in-
cluded his fervent thanks to all concerned for the beautiful accu-
racy of a direct hit on the crates.
In a new message to Feldt, Mackenzie expressed fears that this
was only the beginning of an enemy attempt to clean out the Coast
44 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Watchers. A priority reply went back. Both Read and Mason would
get off the air and stay off until ordered to resume. They would
hole up in the most secure places inland and avoid capture.
On Maliata Hill, Mason needed no prod; he had it in the form
of urgent reports from his native scouts that not fewer than one
hundred Japanese constituted the latest punitive patrol that had
already set out from Buin to mop up him and his handful of de-
voted followers.
Mason considered. If the enemy was heavily armed, his prog-
ress would be slow in the tortuous country through which Mason
planned to lead him. He would bury his Teleradio and travel
light. With signs of their occupancy obliterated, Mason released
some of his boys to return to their homes for the time being and
with the others, he set his face toward the high, mist-shrouded
ridges inland. Now his life was in the hands of his boys, whose
glistening bodies worked patiently to clear passages just large
enough for them to traverse; the jungle closed up after them. It
was bitter, exhausting work and that night Mason felt the giddi-
ness of exhaustion. But he was heartened by his scouts who re-
ported that as he had foreseen the enemy had made even less
progress. At noon the next day he got it from two observers simul-
taneously that the Japanese had given up and turned back. He,
too, headed back, and by the time the last Japanese had trailed
into Buin, Mason's Teleradio was ready for eventualities. He got
a permission to transmit if absolutely necessary.
An almost identical experience had befallen Read, except that
the enemy out of Buka Passage was more resolute. The second
afternoon had found Read's party slogging through a heavy down-
pour well up into the high interior. They moved with the heavi-
ness of men who were approaching their limit. But there was one
more steep ascent before they could reach their objective of a
small village on the very top of the highest elevation in the entire
area. The miserable trail was almost vertical and slick with black
mud and skinned vines. The afternoon was nearly done when they
achieved that last wretched lap. At the top they dropped in their
tracks to rest on the comparatively open crest.
"It was no choice of mine that we stopped at that one par-
THE SOLOMONS 45
ticular spot," Read said later. "We were dead beat and I was on
the point of dropping off to nap when I happened to open my
eyes for a moment."
The sun had broken through a clearing and a surge of breeze
had driven the mist away. Below, in a glorious panorama of a
Coast Watcher's dream come true, was a convoy of no less than
twelve huge troop transports loaded to the rails with Japanese
soldiers and moving toward the southeast.
Read scrambled to his feet.
"Quick, yufelo!" he yelled. "Wairless belong dis felo, you mak
um hurry alonga tree!"
His weary boys were galvanized into action. They saw now
what the kiap's quick eye had taken in. In an ordered chaos of
their own they put their backs into the business of breaking out
the Teleradio and running an emergency transmitting aerial. For
Read it was a repetition of the scene of August 7 above Buka
Passage.
From the ridge he counted the ships again. Yes, twelve were
in sight. There might have been more, of course. But not one of
these was under ten thousand tons. He realized that this convoy
was carrying enough assault impact to make bitter business of
Guadalcanal. Without a doubt the formidable concentration of
warships Mason had been reporting down south was to serve as
an advance assault and as an escort for this stuff. He correctly
assessed this as the major enemy drive to retake Guadalcanal and
all the central Solomons with it.
Everything now depended on the Teleradio. The connections
were tight. Read patted the transmitter affectionately. To his grin-
ning blacks he expressed his feelings of how good it was to have
the faithful unit. "Wairless i gudfelo samting, dis felo tinkum!" The
boys nodded their noisy assent.
The milliampere needle went to maximum and he knew the
power was radiating from the jury antenna.
Read had not forgotten Brisbane's order for radio silence. But
under the circumstances he was "not very ruddy likely" to ob-
serve it. As he prepared to transmit, he said to himself, "Bougain-
ville's a fair size. We'll just keep on the run."
46 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Read's warning reached KEN almost simultaneously with an-
other from Mason that now enemy ships of every description were
anchored below him at Buin. Mason listed more than sixty. With
this vital intelligence and much more gathered from non-AIB
sources, COMSOUPAC fully appreciated that the time of deci-
sion had arrived. Nothing could save the worn-down, if now-
reinforced., defenders of Guadalcanal unless the naval and air
strength of the whole command could be rallied to disrupt the
enemy attack before it could hit.
On the night of November 10 the bombardment of Lunga by
Japanese warships, doubtless from the concentration Mason had
kept under observation, was particularly devastating. At dawn the
ships moved back to let the dive bombers take over. That night the
ships came in again for one last softening before the kill. But this
time they were met off Savo Island by an unexpected American
naval force. There was a short, savage fight and the Japanese
were beaten off. More American heavy naval units arrived. Re-
peatedly the opposing forces traded blows. Then one night the
main Japanese escort for the transports that Read had seen were
met head-on by powerful American naval elements. The enemy
was taken under murderous fiat trajectory fire at close range. The
short battle had no equal for quick, savage ferocity.
This left the enemy transports wide open to attack. It came in
successive assault waves from Allied air. The packed convoy was
mauled without mercy until it was no convoy only a remnant
that sought to beach itself before total annihilation.
The Japanese reinforcement attempt was a failure. The cost
had been dreadful for both sides. But the enemy effort in the Solo-
mons never again would be so great as it had been. Even so, he
was still utterly determined, resourceful, and very powerful.
New Year's Eve, 1942 . . .
In Brisbane's brown-out, dense crowds of men and women in
the service garbs of half-a-dozen Allied nations jostled and tramped
and cheered their way aimlessly along Queen Street, George
Street, the City Hall Square, and all the other downtown places
THE SOLOMONS 47
of that overpacked garrison Queensland town. Few knew quite
why they cheered, for the picture was grim enough. Perhaps it
was because they were still alive, or because of Coral Sea, Mid-
way, and Guadalcanal. And there had been another reprieve,
too Port Moresby had been saved.
As has been said, when the Coral Sea victory frustrated the
Japanese in their original plan to capture Port Moresby and thus
give them an anchor in the north for their encircling movement,
the enemy determined upon an overland campaign to do the same
thing. For sheer audacity in the face of stupendous natural ob-
stacles, it was typically Japanese. He had landed troops on the
north coast of New Guinea at Buna, dug himself in and prepared
to assault the Owen Stanley Mountains themselves in order to
take Port Moresby from behind. This formidable range dividing
New Guinea north and south rose wave after green wave to heights
that few white men ever had traversed. Despite concentrated heat,
despite disease, despite endless trails that went up sheer, jungle-
covered sides and went down sheer sides only to go up again the
same way, despite ever-lengthening lines of communication under
continuous Allied air attack, and despite constantly mounting op-
position in front, this insidious threat had crept to within forty
air miles of Port Moresby before it dropped in exhaustion. Then
it had recoiled upon itself, slowly retreating back over the Kokoda
Trail the way it had come.
This threat, too, had originated at Rabaul, that fountainhead
of enemy power to the north. And now not only New Britain was
increasingly dangerous for any Allied Intelligence Bureau activity,
but the New Guinea north coast as well. Plans MacArthur may
have cherished for the acquisition of his own bases on the north
coast once the Solomons were no longer in danger of Japanese
domination would have to await the building of enough force to
smash Buna. Then perhaps he could think of a frontal assault on
Rabaul. Or, if he could not do that, at least he must provide warn-
ing protection for his own flank while he tried to secure such bases
on New Guinea as Lae, Salamoa, and Finschafen for his cam-
paign to return northwestward to the Indies and the Philippines
and finally, Japan itself.
48 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
AIB had become heavily engaged in New Britain; it was per-
forming a vital piece of work before Buna; it had even recruited,
trained, and dispatched its first penetration agents to the Philip-
pines by New Year's Eve of 1942.
But with all this AIB still was tremendously occupied with the
critical situation in the Solomons. A very powerful enemy had
yet to be contained; he would be slowly decimated thousands
of Allied lives, hundreds and hundreds of riddled aircraft, and
whole divisions of Allied warships later
New Year's Eve, 1942 . . .
Midnight on a certain small strip of sandy beach on the north-
east tip of Bougainville. Absolute silence except for the soft purl-
ing of the sea on the sand that showed with pale luminescence
under the starlight. Read studied the radium hands of his wrist
watch. They merged, straight up.
He raised one arm high, then pumped it up and down. On the
beach to the right there was a spark of light. It wavered, nearly
died, but ballooned to a bright orange flame. He turned and faced
the other way. Already a substantial fibre was burning. In back of
him twenty-nine silent men and women huddled in the denser
shadows of foliage. Read took a long breath: it did things to a
man to advertise his presence to the whole world like this after
all those months and especially these last few weeks of hardly
daring to stir without double checking to make certain that a
Japanese patrol led by turncoat natives was not onto him. This
exposure was a calculated risk of the first magnitude. But there
simply was nothing else for it the civilians must be gotten out
of his territory. Without them, he felt that he and his few loyal
natives still could carry on; they could continue to radio vital in-
formation and throw other barbs into the Japanese who now were
stung to true fury by the Coast Watchers who had tipped their
hand at every turn in the crucial battle for Guadalcanal. The
enemy knew now that he could not retake Guadalcanal; the only
thing he could do and this he would if it expended his last man,
ship, and plane would be to seal it off. In his operational book
THE SOLOMONS 49
of "musts," however, was the destruction of the Coast Watchers
on Bougainville. Every day the enemy patrols grew more numer-
ous and more savage. There were murder, arson, rape. The natives
were fearful and they were turning
So all through that day there had been a stealthy gathering of
civilians summoned by still-loyal natives to this place of rendez-
vous. Here, if all went well, a gigantic American submarine the
largest in any navy on this side of the world would appear and
take them off. It had rained steadily. The trail had been a horror
of mud and slippery leaves and entangling vines. But they had
made it including several nuns of advanced age.
So here the year 1943 was born to the soft sighing of palm
fronds and the lisping of the sea.
But wasn't there another sound? From seaward a faint hail?
Read stared. Then he was sure that he could detect a motion-
less shadow well out.
"A quid they're hung up on a ruddy reef," he said to himself.
From the foliage he pulled out a canoe. Bidding the others stay
concealed, he launched the craft and paddled hard. His estimate
had been correct. But with good seamanship on the part of the
American naval personnel manning the power wherry from the
three-thousand-ton U.S.S. Nautilus and some guidance from Read,
the launch and its rubber raft tow were salvaged from the hidden
coral without damage and the beach landing was effected. The
submarine herself had to stand well out, for this underseas giant
needed more than those dangerous shallows in which to swim
safely.
Read directed that the women go first. There were seventeen.
One, a nun, whose habit was spattered with the mud of the
soaked trail, hesitated, then turned and approached him. She ex-
plained that she represented the others in the party when she said
that months ago it was considered that he had been needlessly
adamant in demanding that they evacuate the island while there
still was time, but since then they had learned how right he had
been. She apologized for all the trouble they had been. Read swal-
lowed a tight feeling in his throat and muttered his appreciation
50 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
for her words. Perhaps he had been a bit hard in his direct way;
civilians were not such a bad lot, after all.
Then he turned about, unbelieving. At the very last moment
one of the women, the widow of a planter, announced in emphatic
terms that she had changed her mind and would not go.
"Will you go yourself, Madam?" asked Read icily, "or do you
want to be carried aboard, for that I'll well and truly do now!"
She went. There was no more room. The launch with its heavily
laden tow moved out over the calm sea. Time went by and there
was no reappearance of the launch. Anxiously Read scanned the
hands of his watch. Dawn was not far off and he knew well that
the Nautilus would be compelled to clear the area before first
light. Soon he and the others would have to put back and get
under safe cover. With civilians still to be looked after it would be
grim. Of course there were other civilians on the island, but they
were not in his immediate territory; things were just too hot here.
Finally, the launch returned and just before dawn broke Read
was able to send a message from the Teleradio hidden on the
beach: "Mission accomplished."
He and his natives turned back into the jungle, happily laden
with chocolate bars, cigarettes, tinned hams, razors, mirrors, tooth
paste, and a variety of other things supplied them by the gen-
erous gobs of the Nautilus. Even the conviction of enemy reprisals
to come failed to dim their New Year's party in the bush.
It was a short respite. The enemy was implacable. His patrols
became constant. Nor was he afraid to come inland. The key to
his efficiency lay in his impressment of natives, now demoralized
by a combination of propaganda that was superior to the Allied
brand, and brutality if there was a lack of cooperation.
There was a flurry of AIB priority messages involving Mason.
From Guadalcanal, Mackenzie told Brisbane that reliable infor-
mation indicated the presence of not less than four enemy patrols
of some fifty men each converging on Mason's priceless hide above
the Buin anchorage. There was no time to lose. Mason was or-
dered to bury his Teleradio and anything else he could dispense
with and go light but go fast. He would try to effect a junction
with Read, a hundred and thirty miles of the most rugged walking
THE SOLOMONS 51
through the bush to say nothing of the enemy and his hoard of
native aides. It was learned later that Mason had barely cleared
the old site when the Japanese swept down on it from all sides;
he never would have had a chance.
Read knew Mason only through the medium of the Teleradio.
But the combination of electronics and his own intuition added
up to what he felt was a solid enough appraisal. Somehow, he
was sure, Mason would get through. Anxious weeks later he re-
ported that the jungle telegraph was active, and that he now was
able to trace the progress the little safari was making along
villainous trails made doubly hazardous by repeated traps placed
by the enemy. Read decided to send help.
From the beginning, as the reader will recall, there had been
on Bougainville a detachment of twenty-five Australian soldiers
who had been assigned to guard supplies accumulated there prior
to the outbreak of war. Read queried their officer and got agree-
ment that they would work southward to try to contact Mason. It
proved to be sound tactics, for in due time he had word that the
junction had been effected somewhere in the wild bush and that
the combined party now was proceeding north.
Then came a message from the soldiers that left Read disturbed:
for reasons of his own, Mason had sent the main party forward
while he and one police boy detoured to investigate a camp of
refugee Chinese. If that message bothered him, the next one pro-
duced genuine anxiety. It said that shortly after the separation
had been effected, a strong enemy patrol had been spotted be-
tween them and Mason and now he was cut off. The soldiers
wanted instructions. Read considered all angles and then, examin-
ing again his preconceived assessment of Mason's character sent:
"Wait."
For the next three days Read's boys squatted on their haunches
and watched their kiap. His dark-gray eyes stared unseeing into
the jungle and his jaw, with a strong hint of stubbornness in it,
seemed to set even more firmly. The boys looked at each other
and there was admiration in their glance. Here was a kiap worth
sticking by: he was one to hold fast when action could be foolish.
52 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
And then came the nnmer. The party was just below and com-
ing. A kiap was with them, limping badly.
Read and Mason met, and Read knew how accurate his ap-
praisal had been. The signal he had been waiting to send to AIB
was transmitted by Read just six weeks after Mason's own Tele-
radio had gone silent at Buin.
One of Mason's feet was in bad shape. When he had become
separated, he had taken refuge with a white miner who had been
successfully evading the Japanese since the beginning. A foot blis-
ter had become infected and was suppurating. The miner tended
him for two days, then Mason had hobbled off. Bougainville had
beaten strong men down to defeat despite every assistance, yet
this planter who boasted none of the physical qualities of the cam-
paigner now proposed to make the last lap of it on only one good
foot.
He did it. Read and Mason measured each other and liked what
they saw. They discussed the situation. They were in immediate
agreement on two points as many of the remaining civilians, in-
cluding refugee Chinese, should be evacuated at the earliest op-
portunity, and the soldiers should also go, since they were in poor
shape owing to prolonged exposure to a kind of rugged tropical
life to which they were not acclimatized. They "made a signal"
to Mackenzie, who concurred and asked Brisbane's okay. Bris-
bane sent it, but said that the soldiers were to be replaced by
fresh men from New Guinea who could give the Coast Watchers
some protection. In addition, there would be three new officer
Coast Watchers. In that case would Read and Mason come out
for a most thoroughly earned rest?
The two men looked at each other over mugs of tea. Outside
the hut of bamboo stalks and fiber roof the rain drummed down
in a gray blur. Read shivered slightly and looked into his tea mug,
then at his faithful police boys in their jungle-stained khaki shorts.
Their eyes were on him. He looked at Paul Mason, who smiled
slowly and shook his head. Read put his cup down and chuckled.
Obviously they agreed that neither they nor their black boys would
take to the life of a "base wallah."
He flipped the Teleradio to "on," and Brisbane got its answer.
THE SOLOMONS 53
The next evacuation was set for the last of March at the same
place on the northeast coast. Then came the word that this time
it would not be the Nautilus, but an operational submarine with
compressed spaces that certainly were not designed for the ac-
commodation of passengers. That drew another signal from Read.
It was one that jolted Brisbane. He had no less than twelve women
and twenty-seven children in addition to twelve soldiers in the first
contingent for exchange.
The signal that came back from Brisbane gave no hint of the
soul searching that had gone into its making: the soldiers would
have to wait. Read sighed. So be it. Some of the civilians had
made the trek of a hundred miles to the rendezvous on foot.
The next day Read supervised the concentration of his charges
at the same spot as had sheltered the group on New Year's Eve.
Quietly he spoke to the commander of the downcast soldiers, tell-
ing him to have the men ready "with their kits." The other looked
at him sharply. Read shrugged. He muttered something about
man's inability to forecast the future accurately if at all, and said
good-by for the moment.
What happened that afternoon was not what Read had antici-
pated. A short time after his conversation with the troop com-
mander he was staring at the small Japanese ship that had come
into the very eye of the evacuation area and dropped anchor a
few hundred yards offshore. What a situation! Here he had
gathered all the weak and the helpless he could sweep up and de-
livered them straight into the hands of the enemy. And the sub-
marine as well.
He was everywhere at once. There were men, women, and chil-
dren to hide in the jungle; there was a small fleet of canoes to
conceal. There was a warning message to be sent to AJQB at
Guadalcanal to warn the submarine not to come in. And if sheer
mental persuasion had power, then Read bent every iota of his to
influence the Japanese to stay aboard their ship and leave with-
out landing.
The day wore on, and with each measure of light that went out
of the sky Read's hopes rose another notch; surely the enemy
would not land in the darkness. But why were the Japanese here
54 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
at all? Were they going to establish a base, or rendezvous with
another ship?
There was no sleep for him that night.
Shortly after dawn the enemy ship hauled in her anchor chain,
her crew sluicing off the links as they came inboard. The vessel
slowly gathered way and left. He sent another message. It would
be tonight. Meanwhile, they could wait and rest.
At dusk the signal fires were lighted. Almost instantly the sub-
marine rose out of the depths and shook the sea from her. Read
launched a canoe and went out.
Lieutenant Commander Foley of the U.S.S. Goto was chuckling.
The Goto had spotted the unwelcome visitor immediately. "He
can thank his lucky stars you and your party were there hiding on
the beach," he had said. "Otherwise we would have blasted him
sky high. We were practically sitting under him all the time!"
Read cleared Ms throat. "I ... " he began, looking straight at
Foley, "have fifty-one persons to go out." This figure, of course,
included the weary soldiers.
The American's eyebrows went up. Then he grinned, called his
executive officer, and discussed it with him. He turned back.
"If we can dog down the hatch over the head of the last one,
we might say we're full. Bring 'em on!"
There was a story that the last six were made comfortable in
the torpedo tubes.
Now on Bougainville there remained the last of the soldiers and
a Bishop Wade and some of his people. Read sent word for them
to be ready for the next and last evacuation party.
It was in the interval between the second and the last evacua-
tion that Read observed nearly one hundred Japanese Zero planes
take off from the greatly expanded air strip at Buka village and
strike off for the southeast. Again his famous signals preceded
the raiders. The ensuing sky battle off Guadalcanal was one
of the most devastating the enemy had yet experienced, for there
was no doubt that he already had expended the cream of his ex-
perienced pilots while the Allied fighters were just achieving their
maximum efficiency, and with their added advantage of ample
time and height, the issue was certain.
THE SOLOMONS 55
The last evacuation went off without a hitch. Now no civilians
remained except some refugee Chinese and possibly a few white
men fairly well able to take care of themselves. A new burden
had been laid upon Read, however, for a RAAF Catalina in at-
tempting a resupply drop near the high country had crashed into
a mountain. Some crew members had been killed outright. A
brave but futile attempt had been made to carry the critically in-
jured survivors to the submarine evacuation spot before the ship
left. A camp inland was established for them. On the other side
of the scales there now were several fresh, experienced Coast
Watchers. They included an old New Guinea friend of Read, one
"Wobbie Wobinson" Captain E. D. Robinson of the Australian
Army was unable to articulate the letter "r"; result: "Wobbie."
Stories of "Wobbie" were legion. Feldt later told of the pur-
ported initial conversation between him and Read. It had gone like
this:
Read: "I had it first that the 'Robbie' coming in was c Dry Rob-
bie.' " He was referring to the only non-drinking Coast Watcher
in the whole organization, Lieutenant H. A. F. Robertson of the
Australian Army.
Wobbie, emphatically: "Not I, mate. I likes me pint." (In
peacetime he had owned a pub in Sydney,) Then he asked Read
if he had heard how convivial indulgence in the cup that cheers
had done no less than save the very life of still another "Robbie."
This time he meant Flying Officer R. A. Robinson on Mackenzie's
staff at Lunga. Read had not, and awaited elucidation.
Wobbie: "Well, now. Y' see a wuddy Nip ai'cwaft that had
been plaguin' th' Yanks had just come back t' pay anothah visit
and th' Yanks was lettin' him have what-foah with all the ack-ack
in the place. The wed wa'ning signal had been displayed all th 5
time but ouah man was havin' none of it because th' beeah was
on that day. So he was sittin' theah and he had just tilted his head
back t' get the last fine twickle o' it, when a wuddy hunk o'
shwapnel comes in and actually nicks his wuddy fo'head. Now
then, it's plain t' be seen that if he'd been sittin' in a nondwinkin f
position like T)wy Wobbie' would, n' doubt he'd now be flyin'
56 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
about by means of wuddy wings of his own Let that be a
lesson f you, Jack Wead!"
Other things also had been occurring at Lunga. The original
Marines had been relieved during December 1952 and had joy-
fully pushed off for Australia. With them had gone Major General
A. Vandegrift. Major General A. M. Patch had replaced that warm
friend of the Coast Watchers as commander of ground forces,
now predominantly army infantry. To Mackenzie's relief, General
Patch was no less solid. The same could not be reported of his
intelligence officer. Totally untrained for his job, this individual
was described by Mackenzie as one who "did not seem able to
absorb much knowledge of the geography of the Solomon Islands.
His plan was based on his desire to rectify the unsymmetrical ap-
pearance on his map of the colored flags indicating Coast Watch-
ing stations." The G2 put his "plan" before General Patch. It is
not known whether it was at this time that the American com-
mander sent a message to Washington requesting the assignment
of the most experienced Intelligence officer they could lay hands
on (he got him in the person of Colonel E. E. Brown) but it is
known that he sent for Mackenzie and assured him that no one
and he meant no one would disturb the Coast Watchers except
Mackenzie himself, and that thereafter he should consider him-
self as having direct access to the general's command post at any
time.
It had been a gratifying moment. But Mackenzie found himself
increasingly unable to rally to good luck when it did occur. The
frightful ordeal of November and the unceasing strain, coupled
with low-grade malaria, were taking their toll. At last he radioed
Feldt. Feldt decided to investigate in person. He flew out. A few
days later we were dismayed at Mackenzie's urgent message of
critical illness not of himself but of Eric Feldt. The untiring
chief of the Northeast Area section had collapsed while flying in
a small military plane. He now was in capable American medical
hands. Diagnosis: coronary thrombosis. Prognosis: fair, under con-
ditions of absolute rest.
Eventually he was flown back to Brisbane and hospitalized. It
THE SOLOMONS 57
was the end of active military service for him. Yet from his sick-
room he eventually would compile the finest complete story of the
Coast Watchers to come out of the war.
The casualties of war were not restricted to the fighting fronts.
In Brisbane devoted, dogged Colonel Merle-Smith also had passed
the limit of physical elasticity. He was told to rest, and while re-
luctantly complying, suifered a heart seizure. Flown back to main-
land United States, he died in New York.
On Guadalcanal, Mackenzie persisted through a haze of exhaus-
tion until Commander I. D. J. Pryce Jones could take over at KEN.
Then he was evacuated to Australia. The drain on his vitality had
been too much and the low-grade malaria degenerated into feared
"blackwater" fever. He was critically ill for months. Upon his
eventual recovery he came to us at AD3 headquarters in Heindorff
House, Brisbane, where his quiet friendliness and unassuming ef-
ficiency would be strengthening factors at all times.
Meanwhile a slight man with snow-white hair, frosty eyebrows
over friendly pale blue eyes, and a granite-like jaw had taken over
from Feldt. Commander J. C. McManus was not an "islander" but
he was as capable as he was fair, and he was a champion of every-
thing and everyone related to Coast Watching. It was plain that he
would be accepted, even by the clannish, unpredictable, independent
"islanders" themselves.
A development that was to have far-reaching effect on Coast
Watching had its inception at the time he took over. This was a
plan for greatly expanding the scheme which Kennedy on Segi Island
had been employing so successfully against the enemy the recruit-
ment of volunteers among qualified natives to serve as trained, of-
ficially enrolled guerrillas under the command of the Coast Watch-
ers themselves. Eventually the plan would result in the development
of splendid battalions that would become the terrors of the Japa-
nese, on New Britain and New Guinea as well as the Solomons;
they would account for the bulk of the more than fifty-four hundred
enemy killed and nearly fifteen hundred wounded officially credited
to the Northeast Area section. The high proportion of killed to
wounded was significant.
It fell on McManus, also, to implement an earlier decision to
58 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
revitalize Coast Watching on Bougainville. One of the newcomer
Coast Watchers was Lieutenant J. H. Keenan of the Australian
Navy. He was to take over Read's old spot in the north, while Read
and Robinson, together with some soldiers in support, were to
locate on the east coast in a more central area. Mason would head
south for his old location, which seemed to be quieter now.
Any appearance of peacefulness was wholly deceptive. Hardly
had Read gotten into position and Mason traversed a part of his
rugged way back when trouble was reported from every point.
Some of it was because of the inexperience of some of the new-
comers, but mainly it was the aggressive enemy and his host of co-
operating natives. Mason, hemmed in and having lost one of the
new officers to a Japanese bullet, turned in his tracks and set his
course for a reunion with Read or the Buka force. But the latter had
been attacked, too, and Lieutenant Keenan had escaped only by
prompt evasive action. He later returned to his burned-out site and
prepared to continue reporting movements at Buka. But the enemy
in turn was watching him.
Then the lightning hit Read.
The observation camp he and Robinson had set up was high on
a ridge. Some miles to the westward were the soldiers. Japanese
were known to have been in the area and Reed, the old hand, em-
ployed every device of his jungle wile to prevent surprise. An "outer
guard" was established at some distance from his lookout along the
only trail that would lead directly into it. Then came a stretch along
the trail cunningly laid with dry bamboo which would crack with a
discernible report when inadvertently stepped on. At the end of
this lane and covering it with fire was the "inner guard." Then the
camp itself.
All had been quiet enough. Except for a visit by an aged native
who proffered taro in exchange for some calico, nothing unusual
had been noted. Thoughtfully Read watched the old native depart.
He glanced about the shack with its palm-thatch walls. Almost un-
consciously he gathered together a few bits and pieces and stuffed
them in his pack.
Shortly thereafter Wobbie reported that a runner had come in
"with a yarn about a strong party of Nips coming this way." After
THE SOLOMONS 59
hasty conference it was decided to bury the radio and otherwise
prepare for hasty departure should that be indicated.
It was done, but not before runners had been sent to warn the
soldiers farther west. As dusk came down, the guard was set up, a
stronger "inner guard" than usual being maintained. Faithful Ser-
geant Yauwika was in charge. With the darkness came the multiple
sounds of the jungle and the unseen tautness of danger.
Suddenly there was a single shot from the outer guard, followed
almost at once by the firing of automatic weapons. That would be
the inner guard. Then came explosions from half the circumference
around. Grenades.
Action, right action, was the rule of survival for the successful
Coast Watcher, and Read had been successful. His instant estimate
was that it would be quick death either to remain in the hut or exit
from it through the doorway. He dived headlong through the side
of the hut itself on the side leading down from the ridge. He landed
rolling down the declivity, and after him came Robinson. He man-
aged to check his momentum and Robinson brought up against him.
Now they could hear the explosions of grenades being hurled
into the hut itself. Read wondered what had happened to Yauwika.
The firing seemed to be general except from below the slope. Accord-
ingly, they began to make their way down. From the glow of orange
light above them they knew that the enemy had set fire to the camp.
Read thought: This time they've got us.
The declivity grew steeper and they were sliding, feet first. Read
grasped the undermatting of the jungle and checked himself. He
tried to dig in with his boots, but there was no earth beneath them.
"Wobbie, for God's sake don't come any farther," he whispered.
There was nothing to do but hang on.
It was the longest night Read had ever known. But they were
alive. And then after an age of weariness, of biting mosquitoes and
crawling things,' the night ended. Read could see that he was hang-
ing on the eyebrow of a true cliff.
Slowly, cautiously, he pulled himself up, hardly daring to put an
extra pound of pressure on the rotted matting beneath him. Inch
by inch he gained and together he and Robinson pushed upward
until they could rest.
60 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
It was useless to think of climbing back to the camp; the enemy
would be waiting for just that move. They decided to work to the
left and try to get down. Eventually they found a way, and for two
days they rested on the floor of the valley. Then they went on. Read
was grateful for his own foresight in caching food where he knew he
could find it. Later they cautiously revisited the burned-out camp.
Yauwika had escaped into the jungle, and they were reunited. To
their joy the faithful Teleradio also was recovered unscathed. But
the batteries had been found and smashed. They were about to
leave when Read stopped short and stared. Before him, at the edge
of the lane of fire of the former inner guard post, was the body of
the old native who had visited them that fateful afternoon to trade
taro for calico. His stealthy tread on the dry bamboo as he guided
the enemy in had alerted the sentries. . . .
They slung the Teleradio on poles and carried it in a search for
the troops, in time finding them. What's more, they dug up a new
set of batteries and a charging engine. But there was no gasoline.
A few days later Keenan joined. Read looked beyond him. There
were a few native scouts and police boys, but no Teleradio.
"It's buried," said Keenan. "The blighters hit me again and there
was no time to do anything else."
Read could sympathize with that. "Petrol?" he asked.
"Might be a bit in the ground."
Read considered. He knew as well as he knew anything that
Coast Watching on Bougainville was finished. It was not a question
of staying useful any longer but of staying alive. He must get
gasoline, charge the batteries, and signal Brisbane. It would be a
signal that he hated to send a request for evacuation for every-
one who still was left before it was too late. He did not know that
it was already too late for some. A force of about eighty Japanese
had wiped out one whole element of the soldiers together with the
injured RAAF men in the west. But he did learn that Mason was
unreported. This time he could not feel the old faith in Mason's in-
destructibility. To elude for the second time an enemy net covering
the frightful country Mason would have to traverse to rejoin them
was "stretching it a bit thin, just a jolly bit thin."
Read sent Keenan and his party westward with instructions to
THE SOLOMONS 6T
hunt for one of the new Coast Watchers named McPhee and any
of the surviving soldiers; they were to gather at a point previously
agreed upon with the United States Navy as a pickup site should a
submarine be available. Read well knew that the submarine would
call if only he could charge his batteries long enough to make
contact with AIB at Lunga and request it.
Sure enough, there was a quart of gasoline at Keenan's old camp
above Buka. Read transmitted KEN's call and felt a sweat of
weakness come out on him when Lunga answered. His message
began: "My duty to report that position all here vitally serious . . ."
It ended: "Reluctantly urge immediate evacuation." AIB's con-
currence was instantaneous. Lunga was directed to request COM-
SOUPAC for a quick submarine evacuation. COMSOUPAC needed
no prod; their collective estimate of the Coast Watchers was un-
conditionally the highest and submarine crews considered it a
privilege to serve the men who had served everyone else so long.
Now began the deeply secret move westward to effect the rendez-
vous. It would be a most dangerous undertaking, for not only were
there Coast Watchers but soldiers, and even the last of the Chinese
who had been hiding from the merciless persecutions of the enemy
and of the now almost completely subverted natives. In addition,
Read had stood solid on another point: Every loyal native carrier
and police boy "who wants to should go with us when we leave."
His batteries were still good for a few more schedules, and he
was grateful indeed that they were, for it was while they still were
trekking across to the westward that he heard that the unbelievable
Paul Mason had made it again after a nightmare of living off yams
and pawpaw, of endless wild trails and enemy traps. The same mes-
sage concluded: "Submarine can be made available on four days*
notice."
Read sat down wearily and encoded the reply that he knew would
end his Coast Watching in Bougainville within four days. The faith-
ful radio transmitted the instruction for Mason to take complete
command and embark everyone at the earliest possible time while
he and his own party would make for the coast and a lift whenever
the submarine could return for them. Then he called his boys
around htm and explained the situation. There was much quiet talk
62 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
among them in their own dialect and then all turned to and broke
camp for the last time. Read was wise enough not to question. But
he knew that some of the married police boys would not be among
those present on the beach when the submarine sent her rubber
rafts ashore.
Read was still on the trail when Mason's big party of soldiers,
Coast Watchers, Chinese, loyal natives, and two remaining sur-
vivors of the crashed aircraft assembled on the appointed beach.
Mason sensed the tension. He shared it. For somehow, after seven-
teen months of blandly defying fate, it seemed to be stretching it
too fine to expect that now, crowded as they were into the last few
precious hours and the last few fugitive miles, they still could play
it out and win.
How the U.S.S. Guardfish stuffed all sixty people in her narrow
steel gullet and put to sea no one quite knew. She arranged a trans-
fer to a small surface naval craft destined for Guadalcanal and
turned about to keep an appointment farther north with Read. It
would take a little doing, for this time she was to go in over un-
charted reefs. She did, and paused offshore with her snout pointing
fair between the two points of yellow light that suddenly had
bloomed where the dark mass of the land met the sea.
The Guardfish took her passengers aboard and put about. In the
control room Read and "Wobbie" blinked to accustom their eyes
to the glaring white interior. The hatch snapped down. Jack Read
was not seeing the clustered trunks that carried the nerve system of
the ship, nor the bland faces of the twin-depth gauges, nor the
"Christmas Tree" panel on which the red lights were blinking to
green, for it had come to him that the hatch in snapping down like
that had snapped shut on a whole chapter of irregular war in the
Pacific. He sagged inwardly. He had done his best, and dozens of
other Coast Watchers had done theirs, but God was on the side
of the strongest battalions. What he could not see then was that
strength itself was shifting. He was too tired, too drained from hav-
ing done his part to deny Guadalcanal to the enemy, to even
imagine that within months the reinforced Allies would smash
northwest into the New Georgia chain, and then, finally, Bougain-
ville itself, and that when this was done, still another chapter of ir-
THE SOLOMONS 63
regular warfare would be written. This time, for other and later
Coast Watchers, there would be no enforced last-minute escapes
from the last few yards of safe ground, for this time, as in mid-1943
when Read left Bougainville, God was still on the side of the strong-
est battalions. He would learn of AIB's new penetrations though,
for after a brief recuperation he would go to New Guinea. In the
dried-grass huts clinging to the bare, sun-baked hills where the
powerful AIB radios were hidden he would hear all about them.
He would hear of "Wobbie," back in the fight, arranging to get
his beloved beer from a Japanese ship on the beach. Of youthful
Henry Josselyn, who knew from the flashes on the clouds that the
battle-wagons were slugging it out and that there might be sur-
vivors, so he sent out his boys to look; they came back with
one hundred sixty-one survivors of the sunken American cruiser
Helena. Like Kennedy, Josselyn took in airmen as well and got
credit for thirty-one Americans and twenty-two Japanese. As for
Kennedy, he stuck it to the last, retreating only when too many
United States Marines were sent in to protect his position!
Read learned about the superb work done by that explosive
Irishman, J. A. Corrigan, who got an American Legion of Merit
for his actions. He learned, too, that Keenan went back in, as did
"Snowy" Rhoades. The latter guided in American assault infantry
and then became one of them to even up a few scores. There were
more, many more.
He would, of course, also hear of the things that did not go so
well, for while the telling of it this long afterward minimizes the
troubles, the examples of carelessness, of indifference, or poor direc-
tion, and worse coordination, and all those other manifestations of
the perverse and the crude in the make-up of the human animal
these were there then as in any other war in history. There was, for
instance, the necessity for pulling out Lieutenant A. R. Evans of
the Australian Navy from his Coast Watcher post on one of the
central Solomon Islands owing to what appeared to be the total
disregard of his information by American authorities who needed
it most and the persistent American bombings of his position and
that of the natives who were helping him over the whole period of
his occupancy.
64 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
It remained, however, for neither enemy action nor our own
blunders to account for an outstanding failure of a Coast Watching
station in the Solomons to accomplish its mission. The trouble was
attributable to that allegedly deadliest of the species, the female.
In his official report on the case, Mackenzie was characteristi-
cally gentle. Said he: "To what extent the attractions and generosity
of the Polynesian women [of a certain island], who greatly out-
number the men, contributed to the general slackness of the Coast
Watching station there is a matter for conjecture." He added: "The
number of aircraft which developed engine trouble when passing
[the island] and were 'compelled' to alight on its hospitable lagoon
eventually caused a certain amount of official concern."
Yet despite all the difficulties, the enemy was being slowly forced
back northwestward.
This development improved our position in the Solomons and the
lot of our Coast Watchers there. But during the first phase of the
war, that concerned with the enemy's attempt to seal off Australia,
AEB had also infiltrated agents into New Britain and New Guinea.
As the enemy was displaced in the south, the position of our
Watchers in these northwesterly areas became more hazardous.
In order to tell the full story of AIB operations in New Britain and
New Guinea it is necessary to turn back now to 1942.
PartS
NEW BRITAIN AND
NEW GUINEA
New Britain Interlude
a
F F THE MANY STARK REALITIES FACING GHQ
SWPA in mid- 1942, none was more painful than the enemy's firm
possession and strong military build-up of Rabaul, at the north-
eastern tip of New Britain. The wide harbor of Rabaul actually was
the sea-filled crater of a huge volcano that long ago had blown out
all but a portion of its cone in what must have been an enormous
eruption. The town itself once had been the center of pre-World
War I German colonial administration. Mandated to Australia after
the war, the island of New Britain and New Ireland beyond it
to the northeast interested the tough Australian "islanders."
Rabaul, located on the north and eastern sea-front flats from which
the land rose to the remnants of the old volcanic cone, grew mod-
estly under their ministrations. There also was a Chinatown with
a population of between five and seven hundred. There were per-
haps twice as many whites in the area and several times more
Melanesians of various degrees of civilization. Just before the Jap-
anese war broke out, the remnants of the old volcano erupted, not
once but twice. In November of 1941, when our survey mission
from Manila visited there, the air was still chokingly heavy with
pumice dust.
There was a squadron of obsolete Australian fighter aircraft
there, a battalion of troops, and two six-inch harbor defense guns.
Life for the military was unenviable. There was but one com-
pensation, the senior officer explained: they were three thousand
miles from headquarters at Melbourne and a man did not have to
live in fear of the telephone.
It was one of those ironic coincidences that he hardly had uttered
67
68 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
the words when a courier aircraft was descried approaching from
the south. The weary flier was trundled in by a small truck white
with pumice dust. He saluted smartly and presented a heavy Manila
envelope, the heavier for the red seals impressively fortifying the
inscription that he was "On His Majesty's Service." The com-
mander excused himself, obviously in some nervous anticipation of
what might be justifying such urgent dispatch over land and sea
and lanH again. As he read, his already sunburned face turned
apoplectic. Wordlessly, he indicated that we were to read. As nearly
as I can recall the words, they were:
Immediately upon receipt of this you will proceed with the construc-
tion of six pan latrines according to the enclosed specifications and
when completed you will report in detail. . . etc. . . .
It could happen in any army!
Unfortunately for him and the rest of Rabaul, the messages the
Japanese were to drop only a month later not only silenced any
possibility of effective reply to them, but were the forerunners of
many others that would blast the tiny garrison out of the place and
send its survivors scattering down the length of New Britain in a
bitter retreat toward the possible safety of New Guinea. Among
those who were compelled to go were many who ultimately would
live to fight back as Coast Watchers, such as Hugh Mackenzie,
Macfarlan, a stocky, rock-faced man called "Blue" Harris, and a
dark-haired chap named Peter Figgis. Meanwhile the Japanese
swiftly consolidated their gains.
As has been said, it was obvious to GHQ from the first that as
long as the bastion of Rabaul, backed by Kavieng, was permitted
to exist as a Japanese Gibraltar for directing and supporting the
Japanese encircling operations, it was useless to think of attempting
to establish Allied bases on the north coast of New Guinea for
fighting back to the Indies and the Philippines without first pro-
viding continuous flank protection. Even more to the point was the
fact that in all probability such a strong hub of operations could
keep GHQ dancing to the shrill minors of oriental martial music at
any time the Japanese High Command elected to pipe it.
The reduction of Rabaul, the heart from which enemy strength
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 69
was feeding into the Solomons and could feed into New Guinea,
appeared to be a priority project.
But before an effective assault could even be soundly planned,
much more would have to be known about the enemy dispositions
there: his strength, his defensive capability, and so on. The old
problem of intelligence information.
Could AIB help by sending in observers, who not only might
supply such information, but remain to act as Coast Watchers to
protect New Guinea, just as those in the Solomons were checking
movements out of Rabaul in that direction?
It all depended upon the attitude of the New Britain natives.
And so it was that in mid-1942 Lieutenant Malcolm H. Wright
of the Australian Navy became a human guinea pig to test the
natives' reaction to his presence. He would be inserted by a United
States submarine and thus would become the first of many GHQ
agents to utilize this modern version of ancient Troy's Trojan horse
for the accomplishment of espionage and sabotage.
There was something of perpetual youth in Malcolm Wright.
Dark, merry-eyed, he radiated a certain basic friendliness that was
quite irresistible. Like Read, he had been a field employee of the
colonial government, originally in New Guinea. Read was assigned
to the Solomons and Wright quit his job in New Guinea to join
the Royal Australian Naval Reserve and was taking anti-submarine
training on the mainland when the Japanese opened the war. He
was so keen to be sent back to New Guinea that he deliberately
failed his examinations to make sure he would be available for
assignment. At that point he joined "Ferdinand" at Townsville, on
the northeastern coast of Queensland, Australia.
"Ferdinand," let it be said, had become Feldt's own designation
for his Coast Watcher organization. Quite shamelessly he appropri-
ated the symbol of the benign old toro with flowers entwined in
his horns as the motif of his "escutcheon" for Ferdinand. (I still
preserve the original drawing.) He reminded his recruits that like
Ferdinand a Coast Watcher never was to fight unless flushed out
of his flowery fields and compelled to do battle in order to save his
life; otherwise he was just to sit quietly and look.
Wright pleaded for the Rabaul assignment and got it. One of the
70 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
oldest of the hard-pressed United States Navy's submarines, the
S-42, awaited him in the Brisbane River. He turned for a farewell
look at the familiar skyline of Brisbane, then indistinct in brown-
out. Malcolm Wright was a normal man and suddenly he was ex-
periencing the pull of the herding instinct, the desire for security
with his fellow men, the ways of peace and a quiet quaff in the pub
of an evening with friends. He dropped down the conning-tower
ladder, the imprint of that skyline still in his mind's eye. Then one
of the gobs reached for his meager gear to help him stow it. He
grinned and the gob grinned back. And suddenly it was all right
again. People liked Wright.
Deliberately he set out to rub the image of the Brisbane skyline
from his mind and in its place to create one of a tropical beach, of
slender palms leaning out over the waters of Adler Bay, only forty
miles from the center of all Japanese invasion activity for the south
and southeast. There should be a few native huts there, but there
should be something else quite incongruous in that tropical scene.
He could not be sure how many Chinese there would be a dozen,
two dozen? As he lay in his tiny bunk that night while the old
S-boat thudded to the labor of her over-age Diesels, he realized that
the clammy perspiration all over his body was not owing solely to
the closely confined space of the submarine nor the fact that she
was traversing the near-equatorial waters of the Coral Sea, but
rather that he was experiencing his first case of "having the wind
up." He was plain scared. He declared that it had come from re-
action after all the excitement incidental to Ms "dispatch" (there
were expressions of broad humor around AEB concerning the use
of this operational term with its implication of finality and in some
areas it was discontinued.) His normally buoyant spirits rose to
support him again. It was true that he had no sound estimate of the
feelings of those Chinese who had been forced to flee Rabaul and
leave their businesses, shops, comfortably stuffed warehouses, and
their homes to the invader, but it was safe to assume that they
were not happy with the Australian Government about it. Neverthe-
less, it still would be his job to contact them and try to convince
them that their best chance of getting any of it back lay in co-
operating with him, giving him every bit of information they could
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 71
think of about Rabaul and the military situation generally in north
New Britain. Doubtless they would be armed.
But why think of it? He started to turn on his side and struck
his head on the hard steel surface of his bunk mate a bulbous
torpedo. Intended for coastal service only, these little S-boats
were among the oldest in the Navy and they were the last word in
discomfort for their crews cramped, reeking with mechanical and
chemical fumes, and veritable sweatboxes without air conditioning.
Yet they had made the long voyage across the Pacific, and every
now and then these relatively feeble Davids sent a Japanese Goliath
to its watery grave.
Running on the surface at night and beneath it in the daytime,
the submarine at last made its way into Adler Bay. Wright had
fitted in well with the submarine crew a good test. He had learned
to relax, too, but now as he fixed his eyes to the periscope for a
sub-surface survey of the beach, his face became serious. Spray
drenched the hooded lens and the beach itself was blurred. He could
make out little and he could see no signs of an encampment. There
appeared to be, however, only a moderate sea running, although
he and the skipper had gone all over it many times and he knew
there would be tricky currents.
The skipper had eyed Wright's equipment: an Australian .303
military rifle, a flashlight, canteen, a week's tucker, a mosquito net
and ground sheet, wax matches, sheath knife and shaving gear, and
had remarked that it seemed rather meager "for a week's sojourn
in the country."
Wright had quipped back that it was due "to the bloomin' ration-
ing, mate."
When it was fully dark, the S-42 surfaced. Wright's small land-
ing craft was readied and crew members held it steady against the
possibility of damage against the steel sides of the submarine. There
was a repetition of the time and place for the return rendezvous, and
with muted expressions of good luck the Americans shoved him
away.
Immediately wind and currents took charge of his frail craft.
Wright gripped his paddle and put his back to it. But to his amaze-
ment he discovered that he could barely make seaway. He would
72 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
have sworn that the weather was not unruly; Malcolm Wright was
to learn much about the waters off New Britain before the war was
over.
It occurred to him that he might spin in a circle and ram the
submarine. But the S-boat had vanished as completely as if she
had never existed. There was a low, driving mist that belied what
shortly before had looked like a reasonably clear night. With every
rise he twisted this way and that to get his bearings. According to
their studies, there should be an offshore current, so he felt that
as long as he battled the sea, he would at least be headed right.
His back and arms began to ache. Twice he caught glimpses of
darker masses he felt certain were trees, and pulled the harder. He
knew he was headed toward shore, at least, although now he knew
that he was being sucked northwest along the coast.
Then suddenly he felt himself being heaved upward. Just as sud-
denly the boat dropped away from under him. The world was filled
with the roar of surf. In the chaos of boat and gear he was flung
down hard on the sand.
Discipline told him that he must not lie there. He must recover
his gear, rifle, and get that boat out of reach of the next comber.
He did it somehow, and just before he gave way to exhaustion
he was aware of his disgust for the softness of his physical condi-
tion; there would have to be a lot of hardening up if Coast Watchers
were to live in this country. The cities did that to a chap.
He awakened to bright daylight. To his relief he found that he
was well concealed, and so was his boat. He wriggled through some
kunai grass crowning a sand bank and took his bearings.
He was within a hundred yards of a native village of a dozen or
so palm-thatched huts. He decided it was best "just to bide a bit.'*
That would give the bucks a chance to set out to work the gardens:
the old folks and the children would be less inclined to be hostile.
It was midmorning when he got to his feet and boldly but slowly
walked toward the cluster of huts. He had gone only a few steps
when he realized that a young native girl had seen him and was
standing motionless watching him. He stopped. The girl blinked
once and ran toward the nearest huts.
"Now I was for it," Wright said later. "What was it to be?"
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 73
In a few moments the girl reappeared. She was leading an old
man. Obviously he was a chief. Wright knew there would be many
eyes peering from the huts now. This would be the test: if the old
man accepted him, he would be safe, for the time being, at least.
They came closer, slowly, cautiously.
Wright was smiling, and it was the same smile that had won the
Yank sailor on the submarine.
The old man and the girl stopped. Wright made no move except
to turn his palms outward.
The old man looked to the right, and then to the left. Then his
face relaxed and he, too, smiled.
In a moment it seemed they were surrounded by the entire old
and young population of the village. One woman reached out and
touched his arm. She spoke excitedly to the others. The white
master was no dream. He was real!
The spate of pidgin English that followed was sweet music to
Wright's ears: they did not like the Japanese. Even so, the white
masters had gone and it was difficult to know who was master; one
had to be very careful; but they would be careful until the white
master whom they liked would come back. He would come back
soon, surely?
Yes, indeed, the Number-One Big Fella would come back,
promised Wright. And when he did, would they help him, just as
they used to?
For answer the old chief, whose name was Nugile, issued orders
and young boys darted away to assume positions as lookouts. It was
a nice gesture and its significance was not lost on Wright. The old
chief then led him to a hut that looked like most of its neighbors
and posted inconspicuous lookouts there, too. Inside, they talked
for a long time. It was plain that the old man meant to harbor him
in spite of what might happen to the whole village if the Japanese
learned of it.
To his relief, Wright learned that the Chino encampment was not
far along the coast. But the chief made it plain by his expression
that he cherished no high regard for his oriental neighbors. The
next day Wright went to see for himself.
Nugile sent two boys as guides. At the edge of the clearing where
74 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
the Orientals were living in a combination of huts and tents Wright
directed the boys to wait and he advanced. He had assumed the
existence of at least some displeasure, and he had been further
prepared by the old chief's expression of disapproval; even so, the
outright hostility he encountered was more than he expected.
His approach was viewed by two slender Chinese dressed in
khaki shorts and shirts. One of them spoke over his shoulder and
several other Chinese appeared. The first two stood with folded arms.
Their eyes were black with animosity. Wright stopped, holding his
.303 loosely.
"Anyone here speak English?" he queried pleasantly. One of
the others who had approached said with an evident sneer: "At
least as well as you do, I should say." Then, "And what, may I
ask, brings you here? Do we assume that all the Japanese suddenly
have departed?"
Wright took the measures of the man, then cast a quick glance of
survey around. He could see at least fifteen Chinese in evidence
now, and some of them were armed. He ignored the insult and de-
cided to face it boldly. He started by saying that he was sure that
no one he knew felt any better about the situation than they did, but
that sometimes it was necessary to retreat in order to fight again.
That, he added, was precisely the Allied position at the moment.
He told them of the American strength building up in Australia and
that the counterblow was not far off but would be the more effective
with proper information in hand. Then Wright changed his tactic
slightly and "tried to butter them up a bit" by expressing his delight
in encountering among them one who obviously was a man of edu-
cation, understanding, and
But the other interrupted, finishing his sentence for him by say-
ing: ". . . like one who was educated in your own Melbourne."
There was no trace of accent. He turned and spoke rapidly to the
others in Cantonese. The men turned hostile glances on Wright and
nodded vigorously. The leader fixed Wright with a crooked smile.
"My companions do not admire you any more than I do for the
craven manner in which you all abandoned us to the tender minis-
trations of the conquerors" he emphasized the word "and they
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 75
suggest that we turn you over immediately to test how well you
would fare with them."
Still others appeared and came forward. Wright realized he had
stopped just in time, for as yet his flanks were fairly covered by
jungle. Even so, it was twenty to one.
Wright said that such an idea was ruddy silly on the face of it,
because by so doing they would be destroying their only chance
of his being of use to them by providing the needed information to
the Allies for use in the comeback that could result in the restora-
tion of their properties.
Wright's own dark eyes locked with the black ones for a long,
unblinking moment. Then the man turned and spoke again, ap-
parently interpreting for the others. Now Wright discovered that
another of the group understood English. Furthermore, he spoke a
sort of pidgin. Wright made out that the man had been in Rabaul
just recently. Ignoring the leader, Wright began to question him.
But the leader quickly put a stop to it and admonished the man in
Chinese. Wright was quick to see that his own logic must have made
an impression, for the fellow accepted the leader's rebuke sullenly.
He finally spoke to the leader, but he looked at Wright. Wright
had become conscious of the heat all at once and realized that he
was sweating profusely, but he knew he had won a reprieve.
"He has decided," the leader was saying, "that he will not give
you one word of information unless you promise that in return you
will take every one of us off New Britain with you when you de-
part."
"So, you think I shall leave?"
"You will leave as you came."
"It was my intention to stay and await our forces. I was to signal
my information back by means of my wireless gear."
"Wireless? You have a radio? Where?"
"It is concealed, of course."
The Chinese from Melbourne fixed him with cold eyes. Then
guessing shrewdly, he reiterated: "You will get nothing from any
of us unless you arrange to take us off with you the way you came
shall we say by submarine?"
Wright appraised the group again. The conviction went through
76 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
him: I've ruddy well had it. I'll get damn-all here! And risking a
bullet in his back, he abruptly turned and stalked away. Silently
his boys fell in before him.
He returned to the hut. The old chief sensed that the trip had
not gone well, or possibly he knew in his wise old way that it
could not be otherwise, and he did not intrude upon Wright. But
that night there was a tribal ceremony and when it was over, Wright
was a full-fledged member of the clan. His depression lifted from
him. After all, it was quite possible that the Chinese knew little and
that the leader was bluffing; it was far more valuable to the ultimate
cause, then, that he do all he could to cement the loyalties of the
natives.
The days that followed served to confirm at least the latter part
of his conclusion. The jungle telegraph announced his coming, and
one after the other of the coastal villages and even some of those
inland received him solemnly and indicated their friendship.
On the day before he was scheduled to make the rendezvous with
the submarine, old Nugile entered his hut. Wright had a visitor, it
seemed. The old man's face was puzzled. He was a Chino. Outside
was the Chinese who had been to Rabaul. He wanted to give in-
formation. But first Wright warned him that there was no "deal"
because he could not make one. The man understood and Wright
made notes for some minutes. It was not so much as he had hoped,
as evidently the man had been prohibited from all vital areas. Still
it was something, especially strength estimates of army 5 navy, and
air personnel. Wright thanked him and promised that should it de-
velop that he could be of direct assistance to him, he would do so.
The Chinese seemed satisfied and departed.
That night the old chieftain offered material evidence of his
loyalty and that of his tribe. His most treasured possessions, a per-
fect pig's tusk and a rare piece of bark cloth, he gave to Wright. If
he lived, Wright would one day return the tusk. It was the custom,
a high honor that he should be allowed its custody even mo-
mentarily.
The next night, off the dark shore, the little S-boat emerged from
the sea. Wright flashed a guarded signal. They took him aboard
and turned southward.
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 77
Six weeks later operators of the Australian Department of In-
formation Monitoring Service were conning the nightly foreign
broadcasts. The receivers were set on Singapore, and the announcer
was intoning nasally in Cantonese:
New Britain: The British-Australian troops failed in their attempt to
land on New Britain Island. Their attempt was made at night with the
aid of a submarine, which has been sunk off the southern tip of the
island. The troops who were captured were found to be in possession
of a short-wave set with which they could communicate with their
headquarters.
Bad news traveled fast even when it was not true! The next
night, while monitoring a far more distant transmitter, the Austral-
ian listeners at Canberra caught a German-controlled announce-
ment in English:
Allied attempt to land in New Britain. A small force of British and
Australian troops tried to land at a certain point in New Britain from a
small submarine. The attempt was repelled. The landing party was taken
prisoner, and a short-wave set was captured.
At AIB, Wright read the reports with cheerful amusement.
"Ha!" he chuckled. "The blighters failed to bag the S-boat, which
did exist, and captured my radio set which didn't. Fights a neat
war on his typewriter, that chappie sanitary, too."
Later Wright asked permission to take the tusk and the cloth to
Townsville, where arrangements were made for the latter to be sent
to the governor general of Australia. The tusk was suitably mounted
in silver. Fate was to have it that the old chief one day would be
personally thanked for his loyalty by the governor general and that
the tusk would be returned to him. Wright stayed in Townsville,
laboring to prepare for the organization of Coast Watchers to go
into New Britain.
Although the information relative to Rabaul proper was less
than had been hoped for, GHQ was relieved to know that native
sympathies still, appeared to be with the "white masters." Accord-
ingly AIB received directives to insert a number of Watchers. One
group would ring Rabaul. Others would be strung out along New
78 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Britain toward the still relatively secure north coast of New Guinea.
The overworked and undersized S-boats were impractical for in-
serting such large numbers; aircraft would betray unusual activity.
Feldt appealed to Commander Long. Seaworthy small ships were
extremely scarce but the Australian Government came up with the
Paluma, a sixty-foot twin Diesel, slow but steady and stable. She
would sneak up the New Guinea coast from the eastern or Milne Bay
end, running at night and hiding by day. Opposite the southwestern
end of New Britain she would pick up her Coast Watchers, many
of whom had escaped with their lives from New Britain only a few
months ago and now were spoiling for counteraction. Then Paluma
would resume her nocturnal prowling, this time depositing Watch-
ers here and there on New Britain until she was as close to the
Rabaul end as she dared go. After that she would run back.
That was the plan, but it was not to be implemented.
Before the operation could begin, the enemy suddenly lunged
southward from Rabaul and struck the New Guinea north coast at
two places, Gona and Buna.
Buna
His
TACTICAL INTENTION SOON BECAME EVI-
dent: the Japanese were going to use their new bases on New
Guinea as springboards to stage an overland attack against Port
Moresby. As previously explained, to accomplish this they actually
were going to try to scale the Owen Stanley Mountains and, com-
ing down on the reverse slopes, take Moresby from the rear.
Gone were American hopes for establishing their own north
coast bases, and gone were AIB's plans for implementing the New
Britain Coast Watcher plan via Paluma. It appeared to us gen-
erally to be a serious setback. Nevertheless, at that bleak hour it
was apparent that MacArthur had his own way of assimilating bad
news: it was then he issued an order for AEB to activate at the
earliest practicable time its hitherto-dormant "Philippine Special
Section" and to put me in charge of it with instructions to " re-
establish communications with the Philippines. . . ."
For the moment, however, we were more than fully engaged by
the problems in the Solomons and the new complications inciden-
tal to putting men into New Britain. Insertion of New Britain parlies
by inconspicuous small craft still seemed to be the best method.
But cheeky as little Paluma could be, she could not defy the com-
bined obstacle of the Japanese land, sea, and air forces to run past
Buna. Feldt's "Northeast Area" Section of AIB instituted an inten-
sive search for other small craft that under favorable weather con-
ditions might negotiate the tricky Vitiaz Straits in short hops, then
skirt the New Britain coast. There remained to be accomplished
much training, equipping, and such coordination requirements as
those pertaining to secure codes and radio communication.
79
80 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
While this was being done in Brisbane, Townsville, Port Moresby,
and secret places along the north or "Rai" coast of New Guinea
the enemy threat over the Owen Stanleys from Buna had in fact
scaled the hump and had penetrated to the line of ridges back of
Port Moresby itself before the cumulative effect of attrition stalled
all forward movement and forced the Japanese to pull back. Aus-
tralians, almost as exhausted as their enemies, hoisted mountain
artillery pieces up sheer declivities by dismantling them. Then, re-
assembling them, they fired into the next jungle-covered ridges
where they knew the enemy to be. The operation was repeated
ad infinitum.
Meanwhile, in September, advance elements of American in-
fantry had been flown from Australia to assault the Gona-Buna
area frontally. They were soon followed by Australians.
Enemy planners proposed, nevertheless, to maintain their hold
at Buna. They pushed their pawns out and took Lae and Salamoa,
farther northwestward thereby materially increasing the danger
to the Coast Watchers assembling on the Rai coast for the em-
barkation attempt. Furthermore, the enemy was determined to
reinforce Buna by landing additional troops and supplies. Allied
air activity made it too hazardous and costly to push small surface
vessels from Rabaul directly into the Buna area. Doubtless, then,
he would try to land elsewhere and effect a coastal supply line
under cover of the jungle. Where? Could AIB find out?
It was at this juncture that a number of excellently equipped and
well-trained potential saboteurs of Lieutenant Colonel Mott's sec-
tion of AIB were transferred to "Ferdinand" to accomplish primary
espionage missions. These men had already been in potentially
"hot" locations in Papua awaiting opportune sabotage targets. Like
Feldt's men, several of them were former civil servants of one type
or another or had been miners, planters, and so on. Feldt knew
some personally. Thus while the Rai Coast Watchers were left
free to continue preparations for New Britain, the sorely-needed
newcomers went to work.
One member of this highly effective group was L. C. Noakes.
Another was Lieutenant K. W. T. Bridge. Both wore the Austral-
ian Army uniform and both were wise in the ways of the mangrove
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 81
swamps where the fetid New Guinea rivers debouched into the
Bismarck Sea. It was these men that Feldt's assistant at Port
Moresby, Navy Lieutenant J. H. Paterson, referred to as "crouched
in the bush like ruddy kangaroos. . . ."
Noakes was camped on one of the few relatively dry spots at the
mouth of the Mambare River. This great sluggish cloaca drained an
infectious area northwest of Buna. Bridge, on the other hand, was
slogging toward Salamoa, another forty miles northwest, in order
to watch the enemy around that place.
For Noakes it was at first an unrewarding experience of confine-
ment in a miserable zone of swamps where the rot of death and the
fungoid thrust of new life met in the brown murk of the Mambare.
Only an occasional sighting of an enemy aircraft enlivened his re-
ports; usually the markings on the aircraft droning overhead were
Allied. Then one day, as he noted a flight of several friendly planes
in formation, they peeled off sharply, and he heard the sound of
strafing. "They're on to something," he thought.
Noakes had been a geologist in New Guinea before the war. He
was a natural woodsman and he was young and lithe. With seldom
a wasted motion or a false step he worked his way up the stream
through the tangled masses of mangrove roots, skirting poisonous
vines wound like engorged veins around tree limbs. The planes had
gone, but Noakes found their battered target. The alert pilots had
seen a hint of a barge and their strafing had done considerable
damage. But the real damage to the enemy lay in Noakes' discovery
of the existence of a well-concealed enemy bridgehead a short dis-
tance from the barges. This was the very toehold GHQ feared,
for by this time the Allies had landed assault troops by air around
Buna, and while they had pinned the enemy down, the situation
was precarious. Conceivably the enemy could utilize the Mambare
to go inland, circle around, and cut off our men, who were daily
becoming weaker through disease, casualties, and tropical ex-
haustion.
Noakes noted every detail in relation to landmarks that could be
identified easily by Allied pilots. Then he eased out of the enemy
zone. On the next Teleradio schedule he had something genuinely
"hot" to send to Port Moresby. AIB in turn had something hot for
82 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
air command. And air command had something hot for the embryo
enemy base on the Mambare. Twin-engined Australian fighters
came in and raked the concealed heart of the Japanese installation.
Barges caught fire. Piled supply dumps under the palms caught
fire. Tents, huts, and bomb shelters alike caught fire. Noakes slid
into his former observation niche and counted casualties. There
were many, but what was more interesting was the activity of the
living. They were pulling out.
He was sure that they would not expose themselves in a daylight
withdrawal to the coast; therefore, they must be seeking a new lo-
cation to conceal what was left of their base. Noakes would be
only too happy to report the forwarding address. He did. The
fighters came back and smashed the new site. There seemed to be
little left to move now. He so reported. But every day he made
his stealthy approach, and one morning was amazed to see evi-
dences of new arrivals and more supplies. Where was the hide?
Late that day he filed another message and the next morning there
was a repetition of the slaughter. This time Noakes could find no
survivors. Yet he distrusted his observations. For days he searched.
The newest hide was so cleverly located that although he was metic-
ulous in his directions, the pilots had to make three sorties before
the place was nullified. For a solid month this sort of thing went
on one man and his party against the determined efforts of the
enemy to escape the shadow of death that followed them unerr-
ingly.
"It's the finish," Noakes announced in his communication one
day. "They've skipped." He felt confident the enemy had found it
too expensive. He was right. Noakes stayed in the area for a long
time to make sure. He also made sure another way: he signaled
Bridge to be on the watch for new activity in his area. That proved
to be a shrewd surmise.
Bridge's consequent signals to Port Moresby told of a heavy new
concentration at the mouth of the Waria River. This was a big,
dangerous force, and would have to be dealt with at once. He de-
scribed the location. Air assaults were begun immediately. The
enemy already was well dug in. Nevertheless, Bridge was able to
report that the constant working over was serving the purpose: it
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 83
was becoming impossibly costly for the Japanese to absorb their
casualties and to consolidate their base. Thus, unable to help him-
self here, he was unable to help Buna. And Buna was approaching
a stage where it would be beyond help. Even now the emaciated
defenders, who had resisted with incredible tenacity, were com-
pelled to wear their gas masks day and night against the stench of
their own piled-up dead in and around their field fortifications.
These defensive bunkers at Buna were deep under tremendous
covers of felled trees and earth and were proof against anything but
direct hits by bombs and the heavier fieldpieces. Their reduction
was strictly the responsibility of assault troops. And let it be said
that no one envied the three American and Australian divisions their
job amid the stinking swamps, the miasmic half-world of Buna. Yet
AIB played a side role. It was one of those left-handed, upside-
down sort of jobs that would fit into no orderly training manual, no
neat tables of organization, but one which, as Merle-Smith put it,
"should prove meat and drink to your rogues."
Obviously the best way to drain strength from the threat that
had been advancing over the Kokoda Trail toward Port Moresby
was to cut off its base of nourishment at Buna. Thus added to
the burdens of Allied air came a new one: the air lift of troops over
the Owen Stanleys in order to take Buna from the coastal flanks.
The task was so great that orders went out immediately to draft
into service every available commercial airliner in Australia. Land-
ing on cramped strips that were little more than mud, they did their
job and went back for more.
But the high, thin air of the mountains and the weight of artil-
lery, ammunition, and tanks were too much for air transport at
that time. How, then, could these essentials be made available to
the infantry? The answer: ships that would round the southeastern
end of Papua at Milne Bay and then come along the north coast
as far as possible. Logical enough. But this war was being waged
in parts of the world that still knew the cannibal and the head-
hunters; there were only the crudest charts to show the coastal
waters northwestward from Milne Bay. AIB's "Islanders" were
aware that there were endless miles of reefs that would tear the
bottom out of any ship, unless it ranged well northward. To do this
84 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
was to invite annihilation by Japanese air and surface raiders. A
distress call went out to naval hydrographers. Mapping of this char-
acter under the best of conditions was a time-consuming job. With-
out proper equipment, and without protection under conditions
of air and sea war, it was quite possible that months and months
would be required.' Among other shortages painfully familiar to
GHQ was that of time.
Merle-Smith called Affi. Feldt recommended that a single, in-
conspicuous vessel be utilized to chart lanes for ships of relatively
shallow draft and low tonnage, perhaps twenty tons or so. The differ-
ence in value of many luggers of twenty tons that got through com-
pared with any number of big ships that would never get through
at all, or get there too late, was obvious, he pointed out. It made
sense to Merle-Smith.
Paluma was still at Townsville. Orders went out to arm her with
.50-caliber machine guns "f save us from havin' t' carry ruddy
fishing gear when we're hungry," in the words of Lieutenant Ivan
Champion, who became her commander. He knew small ships, he
knew the waters, and he had those other requisites, resourcefulness
and courage. It was he who had piloted the vessel that had been
responsible for saving Mackenzie and many others from New
Britain at the outbreak. Outsize fuel and fresh-water tanks were
added. Paluma likewise carried Teleradios and lights that could be
attached to buoys. After refitting delays that brought Willoughby's
hot wrath and Merle-Smith's cold wrath upon us, Paluma cleared
Townsville with a crew that defied classification as one American
naval commander later discovered. On that occasion Paluma had
come alongside the American officer's ship to transfer Lieutenant
Commander Brooksbank, brother of that civilian Brooksbank in
Melbourne, for a conference. The American officer presumed
Brooksbank to be Paluma' s skipper. No, it was explained, the chap
in the Australian airman's uniform was her skipper. The American
blinked. And the fellow next to him? Oh, he was an army sergeant
who was her boatswain and the device on his hat was his idea of
an anchor that he had fashioned from the metal of a crashed Zero.
The American officer looked at Brooksbank as if to dare him to
answer his next question, which was that since her skipper was an
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 85
airman and her boatswain was an army sergeant, just what was he,
a proper naval officer, to Paluma? Managing a straight face, Brooks-
bank answered: "Oh, sir, I'm nothing; I'm a passenger."
By night Paluma moved up the coast. By day she slipped into
hides made the better by a canopy of cut greens. But in part of the
area to be charted her work required daylight runs. Then she be-
came open season for all airmen, Allied and Japanese. Paluma her-
self played no favorites and when attacked she opened up with
splendid impersonality on friend or foe alike with her fifties. Doubt-
less the preoccupation of pilots concerned with missions of a
broader scope saved her life, for most of them considered her
worthy of only a few "squirts" of fire although they bothered to
report her "strafed and sunk" with monotonous frequency.
Whenever Paluma found a reef she would place an inconspicuous
buoy which could be activated with a light at night. Then she
arranged for shore stations that would relay Teleradio directions to
the ships that would follow the path which she was laying for them.
Men from her crew would man those lonely stations. At one place
Corporal L. P. V. Veale of the Australian forces, in Paluma 9 s crew,
sighted an enormous reef unmarked on any existing map. All
modern marine charts refer to "Veale Reef" in his honor.
The little ship put her last shore party down only fifty miles
southeast of Buna. Lieutenant B. Fairfax-Ross of the Australian
Army was to push on with a small party to Oro Bay and be ready
with Teleradio and lights. Oro Bay one day would become a major
Allied supply dump and a steppingstone to places well beyond
Buna.
Paluma had survived. She had been joined by others to hasten
the work, and about the time events were moving to a crisis on
the other side of the Solomon Sea at Guadalcanal, AIB got
Champion's signal that he was ready to smuggle through the first
of the supply ships.
The ships were ready at Milne Bay, thanks to diligent scroung-
ing by the Australian Government. Paluma met them. Champion
boarded one of the supply vessels to act as pilot, while Paluma
went on ahead under the command of her erstwhile engineer, Rod
86 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Marsland. The small convoy slipped out under cover of darkness
and headed toward Buna.
Night after night, for more than a month, the stealthy operation
was repeated as the small ships came on: converted destroyers,
luggers, even captured enemy barges, laden with gunners, am-
munition, and other supplies of aU kinds. Of course makeshift
charts dissolved in the rains; native pilots recruited to help Cham-
pion became confused; engines broke down; vessels drifted out of
position and scraped coral. But they came on, more and more of
them. Soon there were tanks and field guns to help the cruelly worn
infantry before Buna. One Australian gunner used his twenty-five-
pounder cannon as if it had been a rifle; with deadly marksmanship
he sent fiery tracers straight into bunker entrances.
New Britain Toll
THOUGH SHE HAD SURVIVED THESE EXPEDI-
tions, it still would have been suicidal for Paluma to have run the
Buna gantlet in order to implement the original plan of having
her transport Coast Watchers to New Britain. Under Feldt, Lieu-
tenant J. H. Paterson had coordinated things well at VIG Port
Moresby and, partly through the efforts of the restless Watchers
themselves still hiding out on the Rai coast, he had commandeered
a small covey of launches. They were made ready to take all teams
except one across the Vitiaz Strait as far as Rooke Island, where
there would be a separation and further emplacement.
At Rooke Island all except Warrant Officer V. Neumann pushed
on for New Britain points. Neumann pointed his launch, the best
of the lot, to a tiny island called Vitu, well out in the Bismarck
Sea. Captain "Blue" Harris ("Blue" because he had a fringe of
red hair but that's the Australian way of it) and his party made
for a point in the Talasea area, halfway along the New Britain
coast. Lieutenant Andrew Kirkwall-Smith, with an Australian ser-
geant named W. A. Butteris, and a former missionary named A.
Obst, made for a point that would enable them to keep Cape
Gloucester under view. The last launch moved toward Arawe with
Lieutenant Bert Olander and Pilot Officer W. L. Tupling. The team
that remained on New Guinea was composed of Captain L. Purse-
house, a former patrol officer, and Lieutenant K. H. McColl, who
had been coast watching many months before when the Japanese
closed in and took Rabaul, but who escaped to watch again. This
pair made their way into the steamy Finschhafen area and set up on
high ground where they could see the harbor.
87
88 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Then the lightning struck in half-a-dozen places simultaneously.
The Japanese High Command had anticipated the Allied plan to
move northwestward along the New Guinea coast as soon as Buna
might be neutralized. Writing off Buna as an eventual loss (but one
which would not be accepted until the last man was dead), the
enemy suddenly brought in half-a-dozen convoys of fresh assault
troops and landed along New Britain and New Guinea in one tre-
mendous sweep. The Coast Watchers just moving into position
found themselves surrounded by an enemy whose new savagery with
the inhabitants terrified them to a point of wide-eyed agreement
to help against any European.
From every hand messages as unemotional as they were dramatic
came into the AIB station at Port Moresby. There was little Feldt
could do except to try to warn all concerned of the latest enemy
moves and to keep Brisbane advised of the rapidly closing situation.
Coast Watchers had reported surface movement headed toward
Finschhafen. Paterson relayed the information to Air Operations at
Port Moresby and bombers and strafers went out. Transports were
sunk, but enough enemy got ashore to establish a formidable base.
Other convoys, hit Cape Gloucester and Arawe on New Britain.
It was evident to Kirkwall-Smith and his party near Cape
Gloucester that their own landing had preceded by the smallest
margin a far more sinister one. How extensive was the incursion and
where was its epicenter? It was vital to know, not only for reporting
purposes, but for their own safety. Kirkwall-Smith decided to take
three "boys" and do a reconnaissance.
The party embarked in a canoe and began a cautious skirting
of the New Britain coast toward Cape Gloucester and the air land-
ing strip there. Progress was slow. Dusk caught them and they
made a careful hide. Before long they heard the sound of pinnace
engines bringing ashore men and supplies. All through the long
night, while they fought off the voracious mosquitoes, the sound
continued. Kirkwall-Smith was not one to file an unconfirmed re-
port. At first light he crawled through the sharp kunai grass and
checked the strip. When he had counted a hundred enemy in one
small area and still heard many more beyond his range of vision,
he concluded that he was justified in stating positively that Cape
90 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Gloucester was occupied, "well and truly." He wriggled back to the
canoe and the party slid away into mists that hung in patches along
the coast. But the mist was not heavy enough to hide them from
the two pinnaces that were racing toward them simultaneously
from around opposite headlands. Obviously they had been detected.
Kirkwall-Smith realized that the power pinnaces would cut them
off with ease. He ordered the boys to dive, and dived himself. When
he came up for breath, fountains of water were spouting in even
patterns all around him. The two enemy craft had opened with
automatic weapons. He took a tremendous breath and went under,
stroking for the shore. His clothes and his army boots weighed him
down heavily, but he drove every ounce of strength into his legs
and arms and kept on going until at last it came to him that he had
touched bottom. He straightened up and his lungs gulped in great
sweeps of air. He plunged on. When he reached the beach he fell
flat. He lay there for a moment but was driven to crawl on by the
crack of shots back of him. He was retching with exhaustion as he
blundered into a sac-sac swamp. Around his ears came the whine
of ricocheting bullets and now and then the smack of a slug into a
tree. Then the firing stopped.
He was too weak to go on, and the swamp was as good a place
as any when they came hunting. He waited for them, gaining
strength. Slowly he began to hope that they were not coming at all.
It was unbelievable. But as the hours went by, he knew that for
some unexplainable reason the usually thorough enemy was not
making sure this time. Or were they? Perhaps they were recruiting
natives? All the day he stayed and dozed and fought off mosquitoes.
Darkness came. About midnight, as near as he could judge, there
suddenly came from the beach the renewed sound of pinnace en-
gines. The enemy had waited there all that time for a sign of life.
Slowly the engines became less distinct and finally faded. To move
now would mean that he might get lost. For the rest of the night
he waited in his miserable hide. At dawn, filthy and sodden, he
pulled himself out and went inland until he came to a village. For
a long time he considered. In his words (when he told his story
later) "it was a cinch I'd cop it one way or another if I didn't get
some tucker in me stomach and find out where I was. So, I went in."
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 91
The village was friendly but apprehensive. Terrible things had
happened nearby. He gleaned from the natives that not long after
he had left on the reconnaissance, the enemy had rushed the village
where Obst and Butteris were waiting. Fortunately the Japanese had
not known in which hut the men were, and both Australians had
had time to leap into the bush. It had proved only a temporary lease
on life. In the bush the two became separated. But both had waited
until the sounds of strife in the village had ceased. Then Obst had
crawled back but the enemy was waiting for him. There were
shots. Probably he had been hit. Butteris made his own way cau-
tiously to the edge of the clearing and saw the tortures that were
being applied to the helpless Obst. Butteris was unarmed, but he
could stand it no longer and with great fists flaying he sent the first
of the enemy spinning. It was grand and it was hopeless. . . .
Kirkwall-Smith had no illusions as to what the future could hold
for him. The only chance lay in trying to rendezvous with one of the
other Coast Watcher parties that still might be intact on the now
thoroughly alarmed New Britain. He could not expect these natives
to remain friendly. As if divining his thoughts, the New Britains
signaled that he was to have food for a journey. He took it and
set out. Where? The natives mysteriously hinted of someone not too
far away.
Following the directions they gave him, he stumbled, mud-caked
and exhausted, into another camp. His blurred senses discerned a
white man a familiar face. It was Warrant Officer V. Neumann.
But Neumann was supposed to be on Vitu Island, where he was to
watch for movements out of Kavieng. Neumann explained that
he had been there "until the ruddy bongs chased me out." His pres-
ence had been unpopular with them after the Japanese landings and
he had been compelled to board his launch and depart. He had come
to the New Britain coast in hopes of finding others of the original
group.
And what of Olander and Tupling? Neumann had shaken his
head with the remark that Arawe had not looked very healthy to
him. Then he insisted that Kirkwall-Smith rest. After that they
would make a run for Rooke Island to determine the extent of the
enemy invasion wave and to try to raise Paterson for instructions.
92 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
They succeeded on both counts, miraculously managing to avoid
hostile sea traffic all about them. Paterson told them by radio that
he had received word from Olander that his scouts claimed Arawe
to be clear and that accordingly he intended to go in. Only a short
time later Paterson knew for certain that Arawe definitely was not
clear and had signaled long and futilely to warn him. More than
a year later AIB would learn of Olander's capture and that of
Tupling as well, and of fates similar to those of Obst and Butteris.
It was obvious now that Blue Harris and his party would have
to be recovered from the infested Talasea area. The small launch
he had with him was unequal to the run which Neumann's larger
and better-found vessel had made to Rooke Island. But before Feldt
and Paterson could coordinate rescue actions, Harris acted on
his own. He had decided that the tiny Vitu Island would be^safer
than New Britain, not knowing that Neumann already had left it
because he believed it to be hostile. The arthritic engine of Harris's
launch held across the Bismarck Sea until he beached on Vitu, then
gave up the ghost. Harris soon realized that Vitu could be only a
temporary haven. He radioed Port Moresby. Paterson desperately
sought rescuers. He finally made contact with a Watcher named
Lincoln Bell. Bell was covering the Vitiaz Straits. His area was hot
because through his excellent reporting Allied airmen had just
bagged two enemy destroyers. He told Paterson he could make
Vitu in his launch. But now war's irony worked against him. The
very bombers that had responded to his call to destroy the enemy
ships came back, spotted his launch, and thinking it an enemy,
strafed it on its anchorage. One of the native crew members was
killed. The others were terrified. With the departure of the strafers,
Bell ordered the launch made ready for sea. But the shaken natives
refused. Secretly they cut the craft adrift and she piled up on coastal
rocks.
On Vitu time appeared to be running out for Blue Harris.
Feldt considered turning to RAAF for a rescue attempt by Cata-
lina. AIB had been warned not to call upon overworked RAAF ex-
cept under gravest circumstances. This seemed to be the time. A
message was coded to Harris to be alert to a possible aircraft
alighting in a little volcanic harbor of Vitu Island. It would be a
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 93
long shot. But the single plane evaded enemy air and put down at
night on the waters of the little harbor. Harris paddled out quietly
in a canoe but even though he recognized friends, he made no move
to go aboard until he was assured that there was room not only for
his party, but for his dog.
Such a man was Blue Harris, truculent outwardly, soft-hearted
inwardly, uncompromisingly thoughtful of those dependent on him,
man or dog. His rescue from Vitu saved him for other service on
mainland New Guinea.
But that would be later. Now, on New Guinea, the only party
of the November push-off to cheat the sweep of disaster was that of
Pursehouse and McColl who had taken up a position above Finsch-
hafen and coolly reported moves of the invaders. In order to
supply detailed information, they often crawled on their bellies
through rank Finschhafen mud and wet undergrowth to observe the
airfield. Their reports were models to delight the heart of any well-
trained intelligence officer. Ironically, however, little use was made
of them, whereas poorly-based estimates found favor with head-
quarters planners. One day, though, this team would participate in
a golden jackpot, for from their hide above Finschhafen they would
observe the approach of an enemy armada of a score of troopships
and the subsequent air attack upon it. Air observers already had
spotted the convoy with troops enough to have subdued all of New
Guinea. They let it come close, then struck. The reports of Purse-
house and McColl figured vitally in establishing the truth of the
claim that the enemy had suffered a crushing loss through this air
action. This was the Battle of the Bismarck Sea.
Gazelle Necklace
I HE NEW BRITAIN LOSSES HAD CAST A PALL
over AIB, for in a sense it was a closed brotherhood of danger, and
a loss was a personal thing to every man. Yet casualties there would
be scores of them in that relatively small organization. For in-
stance, both Bell and Pursehouse eventually would go.
Nevertheless, there was no hesitation when G2's call came for a
Watcher post to be established in the very heart of that same New
Britain to warn of southward planes and surface traffic reinforc-
ing the enemy now dug in there and on the New Guinea coast.
Wright would go, even though he was quite aware that in many
areas the attitude of the natives had undergone a change, if not
by choice. There was another young man, Peter Figgis, who had
been the intelligence officer of the battalion at Rabaul. I was sent
south to Melbourne to ask him. In a cold office of Victoria Barracks
I put it up to him. He smiled. He'd "be along directly."
The party went out of Brisbane in an American submarine con-
siderably larger than Wright's first craft. This was the newly arrived
Greenling. Others were in the party. One was Lieutenant H. L.
Williams of the Australian Army, quiet and serious but obviously
intrigued with the novelty of the experience. As for another mem-
ber he positively beamed with it all. The inside of a modern sub-
marine slipping through wartime seas was the last place one might
expect to find a full-blooded New Guinea native. But Sergeant Sim-
ogun of the New Guinea Native Constabulary had adapted himself
to life within one of man's most complicated self-propelled missiles
as if he had come from an old line of submariners. Simogun was
like that. Big, genial, he was also a master at managing other na-
94
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 95
tives and there were three more aboard Greerding. They, however,
were from New Britain. When the Japanese drove south from
Rabaul, they had impressed many natives as workers and carriers.
Some of these they had forced to accompany them to New Guinea.
Wright had "rescued" this trio and now, under Simogun, they
had thrown in their lot wholeheartedly with Wright; they had some
old scores to settle on New Britain.
The three Australians looked mahogany-dark under the Green-
ling's lights. At Wright's insistence they had spent what might have
seemed an inordinate amount of time in serious "surfing" on the
splendid sun-swept beaches south of Brisbane. Wright was thinking
of his first nearly disastrous landing on New Britain. "Not that it
would happen again, mind you."
The plan was for these three plus one other native to make a
preliminary landing in an area called Baien. The native was indig-
enous to the place. This time he would be the "hostility tester."
While he entered his former village, the others would stand in the
shadows with ready guns should his retreat be precipitous. If he
was welcomed, he would hint as to the presence of the others, and
if this in turn went well . . .
The night of the landing was calm and black. Wright thought of
that other night and felt satisfied with the whole thing. Rendezvous
plans were made to enable either a total pickup or a landing of the
other two natives.
Two collapsible canoes slid easily away from the Greenling. Her
low bulk was quickly lost in the night as the narrow, cranky craft
were paddled landward. This time there was no savage current to
tear Wright's arms out, no confusing mist, no smashing surf, only
calm, oily blackness.
Suddenly he felt himself propelled skyward. He flung out his
arms but hung on to his paddle. Then he was saturated. He realized
that he still was in the kayak and that the automatic reactions of
training had made him do the right thing to help maintain the
buoyancy of the thing. The big, silent comber had rolled under
them, and beyond. It was as if the sea had sighed mightily in its
slumber. There was no following wave.
96 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Ahead of him he discerned a break in the steep foreland. This
inlet was what they sought, but the village in there showed no lights.
Silently they glided in and beached. They checked their guns and
found them sound. The native, followed by Simogun, slid into the
night toward now the barely visible huts of the darkened village.
Wright and Figgis took up posts.
The minutes went by. At length Wright's vigilant eye detected
the black forms of Simogun and the native as they materialized
from the general mass of shadows. This was no precipitous retreat
from a hostile village, and his tension gave way to relief.
Twenty minutes later they were in a closed, fetid hut in the vil-
lage. The inhabitants crowded around, curious, inclined to be
friendly, yet apprehensive. The white men talked to the uneasy
deputy for the headman, who was away.
Apparently there were no Japanese south of the point Wright
had penetrated earlier. The natives repeatedly confirmed this, then
made it plain that they would like the white men to move on.
Wright bargained. They could move on only if the natives pro-
vided them carriers so they could go inland. Once more careful
preparation, knowledge of native ways, and a faith in themselves
prevailed.
Next night the Greenling was awash in the darkness. Figgis
paddled out and made contact. The submarine's cooperative crew
loaded the rubber rafts, and Figgis' little convoy went landward
while Greenling dissolved in the night. It was even darker than
the previous night, but this time Figgis had beacon fires to guide
him into the cove.
The villagers were plainly anxious for them to be gone, so vivid
were their memories of the ways of the Japanese in discouraging
fraternization with any European. They were no more anxious than
Wright; apprehensive natives had a way of suddenly turning on the
object of their uneasiness and destroying it. Consequently, the next
day found them erasing every vestige of their beachhead and mov-
ing inland with a considerable safari. But with every step the car-
riers became less amenable to the idea of further penetration.
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 97
Figgis finally conceded that it was no use. They had made only
three miles; it should have been ten. The leaders decided it might
be a blessing in disguise. They would pay off and give every indica-
tion of establishing their lookout. Then they would secretly pack
up and make for a good hide inland. It meant carrying all the gear
themselves and it would be weeks before they could do what should
have been done in a day or so. But it was the only, and safest,
course.
To assure maximum observation of the coast as well as the air,
a lookout was built in trees on the highest elevation in the area of
Cape Orford. The soundness of their selection would be confirmed
in the ultimate reports of: more than seventy hostile submarines,
many with supply cargo lashed to their decks for the invasion troops
on New Guinea; numerous other surface ships; in excess of a hun-
dred air sightings. Because of them the enemy was to know the
wrath of Allied air power.
Before these logs were to be compiled, however, there would be
many wet days and sodden nights, for in order to frustrate hostile
observation from the air, they had made their huts under heavy
foliage through which the drying sun seldom more than glinted.
Nevertheless, it was the foothold GHQ sorely needed on New
Britain, and on the basis of it a new and very urgent plan would
eventuate for "stringing a necklace of Coast Watcher stations across
the neck of the Gazelle Peninsula," just south of Rabaul. It would
be a necklace that would pull tight and constrict the vital Japanese
communications lines to the south. But there would be a price.
As will be seen, this prolonged period during which Wright's
successful observation post operated on New Britain was one of
severe strain on the whole Northeast Area organization of AIB.
In New Guinea, Japanese incursions had intimidated the natives
and again bitter hardship, disease, betrayal, and ambush, and sud-
den or agonizing death would be entered on the balance sheet in
exchange for achievement, some of it truly monumental; in the
Solomons, as has been described, retributive action in grim propor-
tion to the successes that had generated it was becoming the rule.
98 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Consequently the GHQ request for the "Gazelle Necklace" imposed
formidable problems of personnel, training, and supply. I was sent
to New Guinea to study the situation.
For the first time the NEA section would have no alternative but
to launch a major operation without quite the usual careful prepara-
tions. (Feldt always had maintained that successful coast watching
was a "venture, not an adventure.") In this case time was of the
essence.
Late in September 1943 the United States submarine Grouper
eventually landed a veritable small army of mixed natives and Aus-
tralian Coast Watchers where Wright and Figgis had landed months
before that is, the submarine put them in their landing craft and
started them on their way. But once more the tricky waters of New
Britain were taking sides. Calling on the winds to help, they played
games with the parties and tumbled them ashore, soaking. This was
not serious, but carelessness owing to inexperience and haste now
chalked up the first scores: it was found that no waterproof cover-
ings for radios and field glasses had been included. This large group
of some forty-three became a burden on the original Wright party,
named to coordinate the deployment and operation of "Necklace,"
until air drops could replace the ruined gear. The delay doubtless
contributed to a later disaster. But meanwhile the appearance of such
a sizable group had a very heartening effect on the natives; it also in-
creased Wright's nervousness for their combined safety. Successful
drops were made and the parties began their long treks, this time as-
sisted by many carriers. Distances of eighty to a hundred miles had to
be hiked by some of the parties, with relays of carriers recruited in
advance by loyal natives and especially by Sergeant Simogun. At
one point, when nearly all the natives had been recruited by the
enemy for road repairing, Simogun made whispered promises to
them for an air raid so they could have an excuse to "go bush."
The raid was dutifully carried out, the natives dutifully "went bush"
and quite as dutifully returned to repair the newly wrecked road
after they had secretly portered the parties to the next relay point.
The various parties, including one led by Captain J. J. Murphy,
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 99
were sliding quietly into place and setting up business. Despite
everything it "looked like a go."
Then came one of those "flash" messages relayed from New
Britain to Moresby and from Moresby to Brisbane:
MURPHY PARTY AMBUSHED. MURPHY CAPTURED. CARLSON
AND BARRETT KILLED. CONSIDER CODES AND POSSIBLY OTHER
VITAL COAST WATCHER INFORMATION COMPROMISED.
The thing crashed upon us in the middle of the night and there
followed a period of anxiety that only fast action could even par-
tially alleviate. The use of large, uncompartmented parties had been
a violation of espionage practice. Now the price was being exacted.
How much was known to the enemy of the presence and locations
of the others? Torture and drugs had ways of making men talk.
The only course was to assume full compromise and to change all
signs and other signal procedure used by the parties and to rush
the altered plans north at once, otherwise other good and brave
men would follow those who had gone. There were disturbing
rumors about Murphy, but it soon was established that these
emanated from Japanese-controlled propaganda. There was no
doubt, however, that he was in their hands and that the Japanese did
in fact have detailed, accurate Coast Watcher information. It would
be after the war that I would follow the court-martial proceedings
of a recovered if torture-scarred Captain J. J. Murphy, who con-
fronted his one-time Japanese accuser and fully cleared his name.
He had not talked. And the dead could not talk: they were Lieu-
tenant F. A. Barrett, an officer with a fine record, and Sergeant
L. T. W. Carlson, who had been Noakes's telegraphist in New
Guinea. The enemy had recovered bits and pieces from the party's
baggage, code books and so on, and what they lacked they had been
able to surmise by torturing natives.
Bit by bit the tension subsided as stations came back on the air
under the altered procedure and lived to come on again. Even so
Wright's own party at Cape Orford narrowly escaped destruction
later when the enemy put pressure on native children who had seen
TOO ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
a trace of his lookout. Forewarned, his group buried as much as
they could, left some for bait, and then scrambled to a new location
some miles away where they could not only watch the coastal and
air lanes as was their job, but also their old camp. They saw it go up
in flames, but were greatly relieved, if suspicious, when the enemy
appeared to take it for granted he had accomplished his mission,
and withdrew. The explanation was forthcoming from Simogun. He
had wrapped a note around a stick of trade tobacco and instructed
one of his natives to drop it where it could be found by friendlies.
The note, apparently from one literate native to another, had said
that the party had decided to call it quits and had deserted to the
south where it would try to get air lifted to New Guinea. The wily
old police sergeant knew his jungle telegraph. His message had
reached the Japanese command.
So it was that Wright and the others stayed on, stayed to send
warning after warning of movements from Rabaul. And when the
time should come much later for the Americans eventually to hit
Arawe, Cape Gloucester, and other coastal points in retaking most of
New Britain, their assault waves would include Coast Watchers who
promptly would set up their radios on the beachheads and intercept
the "Necklace" warnings of enemy retaliation on the way south. It
would be a beautiful repetition of the Read-Mason et al story of
early Guadalcanal. Day after day the enemy would dispatch heavy
air formation south. Day after day their flights would be met by
alerted ground fire from below and plunging death from above
as Lieutenant General George Kenney's fighters would fall upon
them after having had easy time to fly in from Nadzab, New Guinea,
and fly high while they were doing it. The "Gazelle Necklace" was
drawing tight, and those drawing it were party leaders Wright and
Figgis, Captain R. I. Skinner (with him was Lieutenant John Stokie
whose last name had given Mason his call letters in that other tri-
umph), Major A. A. Roberts, and Captain C. Bates.
Imitation has been said to constitute the sincerest form of flat-
tery. It was known that the enemy was endeavoring to emulate
Coast Watcher success on New Britain with his own watchers to
watch the Watchers and also to spot Allied air flights that by this
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 101
time were beginning to "paste" Rabaul with damaging blows. At
Cape Orford, Figgis' operator could hear their calls. Apparently
there was a "KA" party not too far away reporting to Rabaul. On
the opposite coast, somewhere near where he and Wright had origi-
nally landed, was a "TA" station. For reasons unknown the TA
unit faded off the air. Then one day natives hostile to the Japanese
betrayed the location of the KA station and it was routed, but all
except the leader escaped in the bush. The next day he died by his
own hand. The natives tracked the others as far as a yawning
volcanic fissure. There they halted, yammering, for no native would
willingly enter this haunt of the evil spirits. It was plain enough
that here the Japanese had elected to join their own ancestral
spirits. The natives recovered from the station and suicide sites
records that made interesting reading to the AIB men. They pe-
rused the logs with mingled feelings, not the least of which was a
fellow sympathy.
Some entries showed fair efficiency in reporting Allied vessels.
In fact, the private first class who was responsible was handsomely
rewarded with one tin of cigarettes!
But then the record showed paragraphs laden with the bitter stuff
so well known to our men in this solitary, fugitive sort of warfare:
dwindling food supplies, increasing hostility of natives, failing
health, deterioration of electrical and mechanical equipment with
consequent weakening of signals.
There was one message, for instance:
WE ARE RUNNING SHORT OF DRY CELLS. WE WILL INFORM
YOU ABOUT IT AT 1710, SO PLEASE RECEIVE THE CALLS.
Then as the shadows of their fate seemed to descend upon them
with recognizable distinctness, there were other messages to say
that they were destroying some of the equipment and burning some
of the code books. Efforts apparently had been made to send re-
lief parties from Rabaul. They never arrived. What did arrive was
a message from the Eighth Army Headquarters at Rabaul:
DON'T LOSE HOPE. TRY TO GET BACK AND MAKE YOUR REPORT.
102 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Another document had been found, a fragment of a letter from
the KA leader to his parents in Japan:
I WILL KILL MYSELF IN AN HONORABLE MANNER, ACCORDING
TO JAPANESE CUSTOM, SO DON'T WORRY ON THAT ACCOUNT.
And later:
LIEUTENANT MORITA HAS COMMITTED SUICIDE. THE LAST TWO
MEN WILL TRY TO REACH RABAUL TO MAKE REPORTS.
There was no more.
Fateful Hollandia
IN MID- 1943 AND LATER, WHILE WRIGHT AND
Figgis were successfully insinuating themselves as thorns in the
flanks of the Japanese on New Britain and Read and Mason were
successfully evacuated from Bougainville, developments were fol-
lowing a darker course in the central highlands of New Guinea.
Here the land had nothing in common with the steamy coastal
jungles unless it was armor-piercing mosquitoes with frightful ap-
petites. The air was rare and could bite with cold. Trees were
thinned out in the poor soil and open patches of ground offered
little cover.
It was such country as this that two Affi parties had traversed
to reach a position far westward near where the country was politi-
cally split into Australian and Dutch New Guinea. Beyond the
border lay the prewar seat of Dutch colonial government Hol-
landia. One day it would be General MacArthur's advance head-
quarters, but now the Japanese held it firmly, as well as all the
coastal areas, and, as our people would find, even the interior. The
Australian segment of the party was led by an experienced bush-
man, Captain H. A. J. Freyer. It was the plan to have him dig in
around Vanimo, on the Papuan side, while Sergeant H. N. Staver-
mann of the Dutch Section infiltrated his smaller group beyond in
order to establish observation on Hollandia.
Since July 1942 the Dutch segment of AIB had been experienc-
ing one of the highest casualty rates in the whole organization. Ex-
cellent agents, some of them Dutch and some Indonesians of noble
blood, had displayed utmost bravery in attempts to penetrate oc-
cupied Java and lie islands of the Celebes area. Agent after agent
103
104 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
had gone in during 1942 and 1943 and failed to show for the pick-
up by submarine. One, an unknown hero of a Dutch party called
"Tiger 1 1 ," had signaled a sacrifice and was heard about no more
until the end of the war. In this operation the Netherlands sub-
marine D-12 had inserted the group into Java in November 1942
and was to make a pickup later. Surfacing the night of February 6,
1943, at the appointed place, she saw a green light on the dark
shore line. This was the prearranged safety signal. Preparations
were made to make the beach when Morse signals from a white
light at the same shore point warned in Dutch: "Danger. Danger.
Go back." The D-12 quickly went under for obviously the party
was sacrificing itself for the safety of the submarine sent to save
their lives. Japanese records recovered after the war spoke of their
capture immediately after the warning and their subsequent execu-
tion.
It was in such an atmosphere of desperation that Stavennann
was utterly determined to succeed in the Hollandia mission.
At Nemo, fifty-five miles south of Hollandia, he established a
base camp. Leaving a fine young Australian signaler, Sergeant L.
G. SifHeet, at the base in company with one of the two Indonesian
operatives with the party, Stavennann took the other and set off
for a reconnaissance toward Hollandia.
They had been gone but a short time when Siffleet and his com-
panion were startled by the sound of shots from the direction their
chief had taken. The volume of the firing left no doubt in their
minds but that Stavennann and his companion had encountered a
force of much more than their own firepower. Soon natives verified
Siffleet's conviction of disaster.
There appeared to be only one course of action: snatch their
packs and start back along the bleak trail to the Australian party
somewhere near Vanimo.
Sffleet knew the enemy would be upon them very soon. He burned
those parts of the codes that flames could destroy and buried the
binders of the booklets. The radio was smashed. Then the two set
off on what they must surely have known was an almost impossible
journey for them to make unassisted in what now had proved to be
hostile country. Records taken after the war were to tell of their
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 105
eventual capture. The records also would tell of an execution, that
of the Indonesian who had accompanied Stavermann. He had seen
his chief throw up his hands and spin around as the impact of the
first hostile volley stopped him in mid-stride. The Indonesian knew
that he was dead and had turned blindly to escape the gunfire. Ap-
parently he had plunged about in a circle and, still dazed by what
had happened, had come full into the arms of his pursuers.
Hollandia thus early gained for itself an evil name on the books of
AIB. Numerous other Dutch parties were mounted to approach It
from the south. Their efforts were splendid, but they never made it.
Meanwhile, Freyer himself was in peril, as were other Australian
parties working the interior farther eastward. The interior highlands
of New Guinea had been considered to be relatively safe areas.
This was no longer so. The Allied victory of the Bismarck Sea was
responsible for the new peril: now less secure on the coast, the
enemy had gone inland. Freyer decided early that discretion was
virtuous; he established native "pipelines" through which he was
able to collect some information without exposing himself. Items
in his gleanings made him even more dubious of his security;
eventually he was shaken to learn of the fate of the Dutch party.
Then one day, while in a conference with some natives he had
thought friendly, he and others of his group were suddenly attacked
by them. Although fairly covered by black bodies, Freyer concen-
trated on pulling the trigger of his gun even knowing that he could
not point it. The detonation unnerved his assailants. The white men
acted fast and shots and grenades enabled them to escape. It was
plain, however, that existence would be a day-to-day affair. Per-
mission was sought by radio to abandon the area. Air lifting was
not practical. Before Freyer and his people would come out to
where it was practical, they would have spent a total of nearly nine
months under the most rugged conditions and would have tramped
approximately seven hundred and fifty miles.
And yet Hollandia went unreported.
Persisting in the south with the resources left to them, the Dutch
no longer had assets sufficient to mount another penetration via
Vanimo. By this time, however, the Allies had implemented a
tactical policy of by-passing enemy strong points on New Guinea
106 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
after having captured Buna, Lae, Salamoa, and other places needed
as staging bases and now seriously fixed eyes upon Hollandia.
Under this pressure the Dutch agreed to permit an Australian-
mounted party to make the effort.
It was a defiant target worthy of a daring leader.
Tailor-made for Blue Harris, said AIB's Northeast Area section.
Thus was his presence accounted for in the United States sub-
marine Dace as she drummed quietly along on her Diesels through
a soft New Guinea night. The moist breeze came in warm puffs from
the looming mountains on her port side. The relative security of
Allied holdings in Papua was far behind, for she was penetrating
an area west of Hollandia. With Harris was his second, Lieutenant
R. B. Webber, together with Sergeant R. J. Cream and four others:
A. B. McNicol, P. C. Jeune, J. Sunning, and G. Shortis. An
Indonesian sergeant was to serve as interpreter. There were also
four New Guinea police boys. The party carried concentrated ra-
tions sufficient to enable it to subsist for a short time without con-
tacting native gardens, or the natives themselves. It had radio and
would have the added assistance of a relay station secretly installed
a hundred miles farther south.
Whether a change in landing plans dictated what was to follow.,
or merely hastened the inevitable, never will be known. In any
event, the Dace's commander considered it unsafe to enter the area
because of suspected mines and, accordingly, an alternative site
some miles away was agreed upon.
The party embarked in rubber rafts and made for the dark and
unrevealing coast. The D ace disappeared. The night was calm and
quiet but there was a sub-surface swell and as they approached the
shore a series of heavy waves drove them in hard.
Personnel and gear went every which way in the foaming break-
ers. It was a near thing for Harris. He was swept into deep water
and the weight of his clothing and equipment pulled him under.
But he was a strong swimmer, and he managed to make it to shore,
despite the fact that he was suffering from a mild attack of malaria.
Suddenly a signal fire blazed out nearby. It was plain that they
had been observed by natives Japanese would have attacked at
once. Summoning his strength, Harris spoke with them. They
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 107
seemed friendly enough, but an intuition born of years as a bush-
man warned him that danger lay ahead. The party had lost its
radios in the surf. Harris decided that they should camp nearby until
first light, and then organize quickly for the journey of a hundred
miles to the relay station on the Idenburg River.
At dawn they took stock: a week's rations for the whole party;
four sub-machine guns; a few grenades; small arms; medicines.
The start inland was made after the natives had agreed to furnish
a guide. They cleared the thick foliage of the coast and went inland,
where the bald areas became frequent.
Then the guide disappeared.
It was an ominous development.
Webber was quietly told to drop behind for a reconnaissance.
Almost immediately he was back with the news that a big party
of Japanese was coming upon them rapidly.
Harris made a swift decision to split his party as the best possi-
bility for the survival of some of them. He sent the police boys on
forward where there was foliage cover.
The boys had just reached the line of cover when rapid fire burst
out, seemingly from all around. Webber and Jeune took to the
ground, saving their lives. One of the police boys fell backward
into the clearing, dead.
Some of the eleven were destined to come out. From thek re-
ports it was certain that Harris could have reached cover and ac-
corded himself a chance of survival. But it would have meant that
the enemy would have been free to range the area for all of them.
He elected to claim the enemy's attention there in the open. With
him remained Bunning and Shortis. Superbly calm while automatic
weapons and even mortars were brought up and directed against
them, they sent an accurate, deadly fire into the Japanese and held
them at bay.
Flesh and bone and raw courage could not forever balance out
such hopeless odds, but they did it for four interminable hours.
By now the others had managed in one way or another to dis-
perse enough to have a chance for survival. McNicol had tried to
signal Harris to join him in a relatively secure hide but the em-
battled leader signaled that he should save himself.
108 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
From that point the record remained to be reconstructed from
captured enemy documents.
Even the Japanese, who lost heavily in the fight, paid tribute to
the warrior qualities of the man who finally faced their combined
strength alone and without a single serviceable weapon. He had
been wounded in three places and was almost helpless.
They had seized him and propped him against a tree. While life
remained they intended to extract information about GHQ plans,
about Coast Watchers, the Dace, and anything else that might help
them deal with future parties the way they had annulled this one.
It was useless: the defiance they faced was one of the spirit. The
bayonets they repeatedly thrust into his dying body could not touch
this only release it.
It would be weeks and weeks later at four different places along
that coast, now being assaulted by American air, ground, and naval
forces, that men who were hardly more than living skeletons would
tell of this battle in the interior and of their survival. The brave
holding actions of Bunning, Shortis, and Harris bought the lives of
five members of his party. But Hollandia had consumed the best
that Affi had to offer. The miracle was that five should have sur-
vived to claw their way back slowly to even reasonable health.
In this unyielding region, then, the tactical forces had caught up
with the Allied Intelligence Bureau effort an effort that normally
preceded actual assault by weeks, months, or even years. On New
Guinea, GHQ's policy of "leapfrogging" had greatly speeded up the
Allied timetable. While the predominantly American attack forces
continued to move northwestward, tough Australian outfits took
over the dangerous business of containing and reducing the Japa-
nese Eighteenth Army still in New Guinea strong points. AIB par-
ties that once had been riddled because of them now would come
back and give great help in revealing their locations. Native bat-
talions like those originating with Kennedy in the Solomons would
perform efficiently under Coast Watcher direction.
In New Britain the Americans had pushed into all but the north-
ern third. Others had taken points in the Admiralties. The Navy
and Marines had cut communications and taken ground in the
Central Pacific. Thus slowly the one-time giant of Rabaul was con-
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 109
tained, and anemia had set in there. The cost to the Allies had been
great, but not so great as if direct assaults had been undertaken.
Strategically, then, the picture was consolidating into a giant
Allied pincer movement. First the combined Australian-American
thrust up the length of New Guinea was to develop a northerly
turn at Biak and hit Morotai south of the Philippines; then the
Americans would drive straight northward with all their strength.
While this was developing, the Navy and the Marines would have
moved across the Central Pacific rolling up a fanatic enemy as they
came.
The two widely separated jaws of the pincer would grind together
in the southern Philippines.
The combined land and air command under MacArthur once
more in Manila would then fix its eyes on the Japanese homeland,
while to the south predominantly Australian strength would sub-
due the by-passed Celebes and Borneo. The Netherlands East Indies
itself would become the responsibility of Lord Louis Mountbatten.
And what of Allied Intelligence Bureau in all of this?
As we have seen, in New Britain and New Guinea the Bureau
had been vitally concerned long before our troops moved in or, for
that matter, before they even had been formed up for the assault.
After Hollandia, AIB would both precede and accompany the attack-
ing waves as they rolled on to Biak, Sansapor, and on to Morotai.
There, while GHQ was mainly concerned with driving on to Leyte,
ABB would come somewhat more under the immediate supervision
of Australian land headquarters in order to perform espionage
missions in the Celebes and on Borneo.
In the north it would be revealed to the American forces as they
blasted their way into the Philippines what a vital role GHQ intel-
ligence services had been playing in the two years before their com-
ing. They would find intelligence information pouring in from more
than one hundred secret stations hidden in every part of the archi-
pelago. They would have the benefit of advance weather warnings
from beautifully complete weather reporting stations similarly hid-
den from the enemy. And they would have the invaluable support
of thousands of knowing guerrillas under properly organized con-
110 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
trol men whose every modern weapon, every modern piece of
radio equipment, every peso of official new money backed by the
United States, had been infiltrated to them by submarines cooperat-
ing with those intelligence services, of which the Bureau originally
organized by Willoughby was the backbone.
How had this come about?
To trace these and other developments as stirring as any in ADB's
book it is necessary to go back once more to the time when the
menace of complete and final domination by Nippon lay like a
black cloud over the whole Pacific world.
On that New Year's Eve of 1942, while in Brisbane the noisy
crowds contrasted with the lonely vigil Read was keeping on the
silent Bougainville beach, while toasts were being drunk in the
blacked-out Paluma's cabin to a job well done and leave soon to
come, while Stavermann and Freyer waited patiently in Port
Moresby for an air lift toward Hollandia that never seemed to come,
and while Noakes and Bridge "crouched in the bush like ruddy
kangaroos" near Buna while all this was going on, other individu-
als and other events that were to have solid impacts against the
enemy were casting their shadows before them.
In Washington, D.C., for instance, a stocky man named Charles
A. Parsons, who had recently eluded the Japanese by one of the
war's best hoaxes, was enjoying a last fling with his lovely wife be-
fore he obeyed the orders in his pocket to report to AIB for assign-
ments that were destined to make the Japanese regret that they
had ever let him out of their hands.
On the Pacific side of the world, at Mott's secret training station
on the Queensland coast near Cairns, toasts were being drunk by a
small picked group of commandos and saboteurs to the success of
the project proposed by their youthful chief to penetrate two thou-
sand miles of hostile waters in order to blast enemy shipping in
Singapore Harbor. Major Ivar Lyon stood erect in his uniform of
the Gordon Highlanders and acknowledged the salute; but he was
thinking of his missing wife and daughter, now thought to be dead
at Japanese hands in Malaya, and he did not smile.
While Read stowed his civilian evacues aboard the submarine
NEW BRITAIN AND NEW GUINEA 111
Guardfish another United States submarine far to the west was mov-
ing toward the Philippines. Sitting on the edge of a bunk in the
forward torpedo room of the U.S.S. Gudgeon was Major Jesus
Villamor. He had been named to head the first espionage party to
go back into his native land.
Part 4
THE PHILIPPINES
"Planet" Project
I OR VlLLAMOR AND HIS ESPIONAGE ASSOCIATES
aboard the Gudgeon that night, the previous six weeks had been a
grind of concentrated training and preparations; "Planet" party
would be not only the first to be dispatched by the Philippines
section of the Bureau; it would be one of the best trained to go at
any time from any of the sections.
As the reader will recall, the original directive from Mac-
Arthur during the dark days of Buna stated that communica-
tions would be re-established with the distant Philippines. Before
"Planet" could be organized and dispatched, radio communications
of a sort actually had been independently re-established. This had
come about through the temerity and perseverance of some of
those left behind in the Islands. Questions arose as to whether
"Planet" should be canceled. G2 left little doubt in our minds: the
obvious precariousness of the equipment in the Islands, the lack of
secure ciphers and, above all, the contradictory nature of the in-
formation that was beginning to come out underscored the need for
an observer placed there and controlled by GHQ. He must be one
trained in clandestine operations and equipped with proper codes
and transmitters of high reliability. The pressure was on: "Planet"
went forward with tremendous energy. Even so, additional impetus
unexpectedly came in the form of some incredible seafarers tyro
seamen (except one) who, in order to escape the Japanese, had
voyaged all the way from the Philippines to Australia. Their feat
equaled in performance and distance the historic trip of Captain
Bligh in another day. There is no record of how many may have
tried, but at least two parties of two men each and one of several
115
116 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
members accomplished it. Making landfalls at different times on the
northwest coast of Australia, they were picked up by RAAF and
rushed to Brisbane for interrogation. They told AIB of defiant men
formed into big elusive guerrilla packs in the main island of Luzon,
in the middle Philippines, and most of all, in the big southernmost
island of Mindanao. The enemy termed them all "bandits" and
hunted them unceasingly. Some unquestionably were; and unless
official recognition of their ragged, starving, almost defenseless
plight were forthcoming to the others who sought to maintain a
semblance of military organization, they also would be compelled
to yield to the dictates of sheer survival. They knew from enemy
propaganda and from a few deeply concealed short-wave receivers
that occasionally could pick up San Francisco that MacArthur was
carrying on from Australia. But their knowledge of developments
was scant.
"Planet's" original mission of getting information on the enemy,
therefore, was expanded to include bringing in token signs of hope,
however minute, and of collecting data that would enable Mac-
Arthur to delegate official responsibility to the most reliable guer-
rilla leaders.
But who was available to personnel such a mission?
When the main Japanese invasion struck the Philippines and
casualties clogged the field and base hospitals, the hospital ship
Mactan had run the gantlet to Australia. She could not get back.
Other little Filipino vessels, including the Don Isidore, had reached
Australia, had taken on vital loads of foods and drugs for the now-
cornered Fil-American forces, and sought without convoy for
there was no such thing to run back in. Japanese air north of
Australia swept the decks into a bloody shambles and bombed her
under. Some survived and were in Australia.
It was utterly suicidal to think of sending in white men: none
could say how even Filipinos might be received, for none knew
what might be the temper of the Philippine population by now. In
that respect AIB faced the same problem Wright had faced in his
original penetration of New Britain.
The only junior officer who had been selected for inclusion in the
immediate MacArthur party that had come down from beleaguered
VH1AMOR ("WANfT")
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118 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Corregidor in March was Captain (later Goteael) Joseph McMick-
ing, a scion of a wealthy Spanish-Filipino family. Born in Manila,
well educated, and well traveled throughout the Islands, he had
known many "contacts." He had worked with Willoughby before
the outbreak on a plan for certain communication workers to go
underground and form nets should the Japanese attack. (It was, in
fact, one of these that had been utilized by a Major Praeger on
Luzon to effect that first halting radio contact with San Francisco.)
Together with Captain Allan Davidson of the Australian Army,
my training officer, McMicking went on a search for a leader. He
thought he knew where to find him. He was right.
Several hundred miles to the south of Brisbane, at an airfield on
the outskirts of sprawling Sydney, a young Filipino in the uniform
of a captain in the U.A. Air Corps had arrived at some conclusions
of his own. He was convinced that he had evolved a certain aero-
batic that would make him an even more formidable fighter pilot
than he had been in previous combat with the Japanese over Luzon.
And that was about all he lived for. He had pestered Air Operations
until he got an okay to take a P-40 aloft to test his theory.
He was just ready to take off when Operations halted him: he
had "an important visitor."
Important? What was more important than becoming a top-
notch pilot who could do his share toward helping the Americans
free his country from the heel of the invader? He felt, too, that he
owed a personal debt to the United States for all she had done to
give the Philippines strength and stature. Jesus Villamor was the
son of a well-known jurist in the Islands. The son's patriotism was
an intense, almost fanatical thing. He felt that his life was little
enough to give; this was no mere maudlin sentiment he had proved
it on more than one occasion in the brief time before the overwhelm-
ing enemy air strength had wiped out the inexperienced Fil-
American squadrons. In the first award ceremony of the war in
Manila, General MacArthur had personally decorated him and one
other pilot for their bravery. Villamor's citation was for the way he
had taken off his handful of obsolete P-36 fighters from Batangas
field and climbed his wholly inadequate "putt-putts" to engage a
flight of not less than fifty-four enemy bombers and fighters. The
THE PHILIPPINES 119
Filipinos had actually bagged one bomber before being forced out
of the hopeless fight.
Now Villamor pulled himself up out of the cockpit of his P-40.
He had to stretch his short legs to reach the toe slots as he let him-
self down.
At that moment he heard his name called. The greeting was
mutually enthusiastic, for these two were old friends, as were their
families. McMicking explained that he had learned of Villamor's
arrival in Australia aboard one of the Royce bombers staged out of
Australia in one splendid last attempt to punish the Japanese before
the surrender of the Philippines.
Villamor stated that he had never expected to come out but that
he had received orders to contact the Royce bombers on their way
back to Australia.
McMicking looked at him for a long moment and then in an al-
most nonchalant manner asked Villamor if he would like to go back
in.
The little Filipino answered: certainly, if he could do any good.
But what was this all about? McMicking's answer was to ask him if
he thought he could count on the many good friends he had had in
the Islands.
Villamor was not sure. Even his own father might not be gjad
to see him. After all, he, McMicking all of them had deserted
their friends in the hour of greatest need. Certainly they were or-
dered out, but . . . How could he know how the people up in the
Islands felt about MacArthur and all the rest of them now?
McMicking said that the answer to that vital point was one Villa-
mor himself would have to radio back. (McMicking had been so
sure of his man that he had arranged with Fifth Air Force for the
indefinite loan of Villamor before he had called him out of the
P-40.)
Maturity forged in the furnace of war already had stamped it-
self upon Villamor. Coupled with that were two inherent qualities
that ABB would require: an agile but comprehensive imagination,
and a fund of resourcefulness absolutely essential to the undertaking
that was now shaping itself in his mind. Oriental inheritance had en-
riched his imaginative thinking, given craft to his planning, and
120 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
put a glitter in the black eyes on each side of his broad, almost
conclave nasal ridge.
A few days later Captain soon to be Major Villamor reported
as directed. His head was bursting with plans and he threw himself
with amazing energy into the screening of personnel and the thou-
sand details of planning and training. He selected men from the
Mactan and the Don Isfdro. The diminutive Filipino and the big,
barrel-bodied Australian Captain Davidson clicked at first con-
tact.
In his own special training setup near Brisbane's Victoria Bar-
racks, Davidson had put his charges through a tremendous physical
conditioning course. Those who survived the mornings earned the
right to recuperate during afternoons of concentrated training in
Morse code and cipher systems. At night there was celestial
navigation and infiltration of known suburban areas without detec-
tion by an Australian population already edgy with the fear of an
invasion. Then had come small-boat management, map reading,
sketching, military recognition, campcraft, living off the country.
First aid was followed by Judo and Judo by surf training until on a
dark night they could load their landing rafts in a high sea from a
simulated submarine, placing every item in the right spot without
saying a word or showing a light; they then had to paddle away,
make a surf landing, bury all gear and rafts, erase every track, and
defy Davidson to find the cache in bright daylight.
Davidson made them chop wood and plow land in support of
their cover stories that they had run for the Philippine hills when
the enemy had invaded, and after farming there for a living, had
come down out of curiosity to see what had happened, to see what
this new "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" they had been
hearing about actually meant. Their hands became dirt-begrimed
and horny, their nails cracked and broken; their calloused feet
would not now tolerate proper shoes, for few in the Islands were
thought to have proper shoes.
Among the countless subjects considered during those weeks of
preparation was the possible need for an emergency pickup out of
the Islands. Lieutenant Colonel P. I. "Pappy" Gunn, a pioneer in
Philippines aviation, had proposed flying in after Villamor should
THE PHILIPPINES 121
it prove necessary. (Gunn was a man of ideas. It had been his
scheme for arming Mitchells with six .50-caliber machine guns in
the nose to blast off ack-ack crews on enemy transports, thus en-
abling the bombers to come in low for "skip bombing," that was
credited with the tremendous carnage in the Battle of the Bismarck
Sea.)
I had asked General Kenney about Gunn's proposal. He had no
long-range Flying Fortresses left, and B-25's did not have the range
for such a trip.
"General Kenney says you can't," I reported to Pappy one day
when he and Villamor were in my office.
Gunn settled down on the tail of his spine, clumped both feet on
my desk, and drawled:
"Does he mean that he won't let me, or that they's technicalities
in the way?"
"He hasn't said he wouldn't let you yet."
Pappy waved a hand on which the right little finger was stiff
flying mishap.
"Ill fly it there and back and take a pay load, too." His feet hit
the floor. He fumbled in his shirt pocket for a stubby pencil and
reached for the nearest piece of paper. It was a secret communica-
tion from G2. He was hastily provided with a substitute.
"We'll want a B-25 to start with," he said, putting down gross
weight figures. "Well, now, we got to lighten her, so we take out
her guns." He put down another set of figures. Villamor blinked.
"Then we take out her armor plate, then her radio. See, that light-
ens her up, don't it?"
"But, Pappy," objected Villamor, "no guns, no armor plate, no
radio. Are you taking the engines by chance?"
"We'll take 'em. Need 'em on account of we won't have no guns,
no plate, and no radio. Yap. Y'see, we don't need guns because we
ain't a-goin' to fight no one. We ain't a-goin* to fight on account of
we got engines, good engines, and we ain't got no weight, so well
just go too fast to bother about stopping to fight someone."
"That's clear," grinned Villamor. "I guess."
"Now, let's see, we ain't got guns, so we ain't fightin', so we
don't have to carry ammunition.; that's that much off again."
122 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
"The radio, Pappy? Why don't you need the radio?"
"We know where we're a-goin', the man on the ground knows
where we're a-comin', and we don't want any billies back here
callin* us up to go someplace else. So we don't need it. Now we
ain't got bombs, so we can use the bomb bays for fuel, only we'll
put in lighter rubber tanks; more weight gone. We'll fly water high
only, so's we don't alert any radars, or if we do, no one can see us
in time, so . . ."
Pappy paused. We held our breath. Now what would he remove
the flight deck, maybe?
"So we don't need oxygen apparatus," finished Pappy.
It went on from there, until Gunn was considering a B-25
stripped of practically all but a pair of flying engines and a board
between.
"There," he summarized triumphantly, totaling his figures, add-
ing and subtracting the weight saved from the normal, adding for
extra gasoline and some pay load. Carefully computing "how much
gas the ol* gal will burn" against the miles, he had enough safety
factor to be seen with a good microscope. But Pappy didn't have
a microscope, and didn't want one; that was the way Pappy usually
flew.
"So, Jess," he drawled, "you're practically picked up."
Other problems considered during the weeks of preparation in-
cluded light signals, warnings, and so on. Then alternate means of
instruction should Villamor's radios fail: he would have to locate
one of those hidden short-wave receivers and listen to San Fran-
cisco. Certain phrases to be repeated on certain nights. And the
problem of how to smuggle in seven pages of closely typed pages
comprising a high-grade cipher system for at least two selected
guerrilla leaders, Fertig on Mindanao and the Filipino, Peralta, on
the island of Panay when an itinerant Filipino would not be
wearing any more covering than a thin cotton shirt, maybe shorts,
and possibly a straw hat. Microfilming had solved part of the prob-
lem; altered dentistry to conceal the tiny film had done the rest
in one instance, a certain clever patch on a pair of gymnasium
shoes in another.
As the date for departure neared the party, even Villamor, was
THE PHILIPPINES 123
purposely misinformed as to the time. It was hinted that the party
would be flown to Perth where Naval Task Force 77 base was
located.
Instead, one day December 27, 1942 they were issued old
naval dungarees and asked to assist in loading a submarine lying
in the Brisbane River. To their astonishment they saw that the
covered truck was heaped with their own gear, each piece in famil-
iar watertight tins that they themselves had helped solder, and
each wrapped in innocuous burlap and hemp cord. In broad day-
light they worked like any other dockside stevedores to load the
Gudgeon. The only difference was that none of them came out of
the ship as she prepared to cast off in a sudden and convenient
smother of rain.
What occurred from then on Villamor described to me in vivid
personal communications bearing the Gudgeon's own letterhead,
in official reports, and in numerous personal debriefings both during
and after the war. The Gudgeon's log entries were also productive.
It was the first time in a submarine for any of them. In the
hectic days in Brisbane a thousand details of training and plan-
ning had been foreseen and provided for, yet the moment Villamor
stood in that brightly lighted cylinder with its concentration of
panels, dials, valves, pipes, conduits, torpedoes, and a nightmare
of other things squeezing in against them from every direction, he
realized that there was one item they had overlooked suscepti-
bility to claustrophobia. For one tense moment he had stood
there, a new, strange sensation flooding through him an urge
to get out, to get back out fast into the free air and sunlight. Then
he had looked around.
There was American-educated Lieutenant Delfin Cortes Yu
Hico. On his fine-boned face there was an expression of eager
anticipation. Beside him was an older man, heavy and solid. He
was Lieutenant Emillo F. Quinto, the radio operator for "Planet."
He was looking with interest at the control board with its red-
and-green indicators. Those two would be all right. So would his
second-in-command. Lieutenant Rodolfo C. Ignacio, who was
studying the eyepiece end of the periscope with its folded handles
above them. Villamor felt sure of the remaining two, Sergeant
124 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Patricio Jorge and Sergeant Dominador Malic. Jorge had a devil-
may-care expression as he stared at the jungle of machinery and
then at the quizzical sailors who ran it. Malic was dependable
as he had been one day on the Pasig River in Manila when he
coolly navigated the Mactan through amazing evasive tactics that
saved her from destruction by bombs.
From the moment of their embarkation it was a new life for
them in another way, for now they assumed their "cover" names
and their "cover" lives. Villamor was "Ramon Hernandez" and
his nickname, "Monching"; on AIB's code lists he was "W-10."
Ignacio, who had distinguished himself on the Don Isidro, was
"Carlos Noble." He also was "Brisbane" and "J-20." Quinto had
been communications officer aboard the same ship; more recently
he had been the chief operator for GHQ's floating wireless station off
New Guinea, the A returns. She carried the bulk of the enormous
radio traffic between GHQ and Washington. It had not been easy to
pry Quinto away from General Spencer B. Aiken. Now he was
called "Juanito del Rosario." Then Yu Hico: his new name
was "Juan de Jesus" and "Dagwood," and his number, which was
destined to tag many an important message being flicked down
by the lightning-fast fingers of Quinto, was Z-40. Jorge became
i Mr. Vicente Reyes," and Malic, "Mr. Dalmacio Canto Macilag."
Each had been drilled endlessly in the details of his new life, his
past, his present, and all his relatives.
The submarine rounded the tail of New Guinea at Milne Bay
(where still another determined enemy attempt to make a landing
for attacking Port Moresby from the east had recently been beaten
back by Australians and Americans fighting up to their armpits in
the swamp waters). Then she turned northwestward. It was some-
where off Buna that the ship's klaxons had sounded a strident
alarm and the "Planet" men had their first exhibition of a sub-
marine gathering herself to try for a kill.
Villamor had seen American football games and this made him,
think momentarily of the backfield in motion when the ball was
snapped. But here, instead of four or five men reacting to an exact
plan, there were scores, all within the pipelike confines of the
Gudgeon. Even the "Planet" men had been drilled in what to do,
THE PHILIPPINES 125
and in one motion they rolled out of their bunks onto their feet
and slammed the beds into the folded position against the hull
plates. Men hurtled by, going forward. Others charged from for-
ward and slipped into narrow slots, spinning a valve wheel or
pressing a lever as they came home into their battle stations. In
the control room amidships a petty officer was pulling levers
that governed two banks of lights and each time he pulled, a red
light went out and a green light came on. One by one the main
vents to the sea were closed. The ship was rigged for diving. Now,
at a command, the throbbing of the submarine's Diesels was re-
placed by a powerful humming; the electrics had taken over.
Villamor felt the pitch of the steel deck beneath his feet. The
Gudgeon was being driven under. He saw by his watch that exactly
sixty-two seconds had elapsed since the klaxon had sounded. Al-
ready there was water over them. Now he could see how quick
on the stick a pilot had to be from the time he might sight a sub-
marine until he was in position to bomb. These guys were good!
Lieutenant Commander W. S. Post kept his crew at the top pitch
of readiness; there had been constant drills since Brisbane, and
now that they were in target waters, he seemed merciless.
The year 1943 was only a few nights old when the Gudgeon
paused silently off the southern coast of the island of Negros in
the lower central Philippines. She was at "neutral buoyancy"
hovering at periscope depth to enable Post to make a preliminary
survey of the coast. He turned to Villamor and he was frowning.
Villamor peered through the periscope and saw lights.
It could mean enemy, or it could mean only fishermen. In any
event, it was obviously impossible to carry out the landing there.
Some devil of ill luck seemed to be pursuing them, for already
Villamor had been compelled to forego landing at the primary
target site in the Pagadian Bay of Mindanao's south coast. It had
been decided by GHQ that if any part of the Islands might be
preserved for a future landing and base of tactical operations once
the comeback had been realized, Mindanao had the best chance of
survival for that purpose. Accordingly everything and anything,
no matter how little, was to be done to support W. W. Fertig
there. But when nosing into the bay the submarine had received
126 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
radioed warnings to stay clear. Now they had missed the alternate
landing point. Well, Catmon Point then, farther on. It still could
not be too far across open water to Mindanao.
The next night the Gudgeon crept in. Post was walking the peri-
scope around an arc in a new survey. Villamor took his turn and
squinted.
This time he could discern only the darker blur of the land
above a calm sea. There were no lights, although he knew from
the charts previously studied that a village or barrio was not too
distant.
"This is it," he said. "Glad we got everything ready. There's
still time to make a landing and get covered up before dawn."
Post reported later in Brisbane that he had learned to respect
Villamor. There was no shilly-shallying with him; his decisions
were immediate and sound. He had been an indefatigable trainer,
too. Repeatedly he had ordered "dry runs" of the landing within
the restricted confines of the torpedo compartment. They had also
done it in the dark.
Now the Gudgeon moved in closer. A final periscope survey was
still favorable.
"Take her up," ordered Post quietly.
The two men were topside while water still was draining off
the deck grating. With night glasses they scanned the shore.
Villamor requested that Post cover the landing with the deck
gun and if he got a prearranged signal, to fire three rounds high.
By that time maybe Post would be able to discern a worth-while
enemy target.
Then Ignacio came up to Villamor with bad news: One of their
three rubber rafts was torn and useless. There was nothing to be
gained by angry speculation as to how or when it had occurred;
time was even more precious.
Post immediately offered the use of the Gudgeon's wherry, the
small craft every submarine carried.
Villain or considered for only a moment and then rejected the
offer with "We are not trained in its use. Besides, there is not time
to return it to you and we could not bury such a big object. We
could muff the whole show with a slip now."
THE PHILIPPINES 127
It made sense. Nor would there be time enough to make several
trips between the submarine and the shore in order to take off
the whole load in relays. Villamor decided to leave the guerrilla
supplies aboard; everything else had to go in two rafts as had
been planned and practiced.
It was a bitter decision to face up to. Villamor knew as well as
anyone how desperately those hungry, ragged, sick men needed
the stuff packed and sealed in the five-gallon tins: quinine, some
of the new "wonder drugs," insect repellent, vitamins, surgical
supplies, candy, cigarettes. And serving as stuffing around fragile
phials and bottles were sheets torn from American magazines
showing Japanese warships gutted by American bombs and shells
at Coral Sea and Midway, and Japanese soldiers dead in the jungle
Japanese ships could be made to sink and Japanese soldiers to
die, even as our own. These displays could be invaluable. Now he
felt he had to leave them behind or risk the whole mission. But
they had the precious radios, codes, money.
They shoved off.
Malic was on the left side of the lead raft, with Villamor be-
hind him. Back of Villamor, Ignacio widened his stroke and got
in synchrony with Malic. The raft's pace quickened. Villamor
turned. In the gloom he could see only the shadow of the other
raft, as there was an appreciable interval between the two.
Doubtless it was tension, but Villamor repeatedly mentioned,
when he told his story much later, how impossibly long it seemed
to him it was before they were able to make out the outline of the
shore with its heavy crown of catmon trees for which the Point
was named. The inlet he was navigating for was only about thirty
yards wide and flanked on both sides by miniature headlands of
tree-covered rocks. As the shore became more distinct, the sub-
marine's form was lost to them. Now they were on their own.
They were paddling steadily and making better progress when
Villamor suddenly caught sight of a gliding shadow off the right
side. He turned to check the location of the second raft. There it
was, well astern.
"A banca," he whispered. He was referring to a native-type
128 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
boat with outriggers. Then: "Keep paddling, just as if we belonged
here."
The other raft with Yu Hico, Quinto, and Jorge apparently had
seen the stranger for now they lost way to observe.
Plainly the stranger had seen them, too, for he was drifting.
Only one man could be discerned. But one or a dozen, the threat
was real and demanded that Villamor do something to annul it.
But at that moment the stranger seemed to make it unnecessary,
for the shadowy craft resumed way in a southerly direction.
Villamor prodded Malic with his finger and indicated that he
was to paddle again. The only concern now was what had the
unknown individual been able to see and what conclusion had he
arrived at when he decided to move away? Villamor tried to make
out whether the stranger's pace would seem to indicate fear, or
just lack of curiosity. Then his anxiety returned. The other craft
was not departing at all, but had merely circled and now was
silently skirting the area of Yu Hico's raft. Presently it was nearly
in line astern of them.
They must entice him to come closer and see to it that he would
never be able to report his observation.
Villamor whispered to Malic, the only one who spoke the dialect
of this part of the Visayan area. In a loud, confident voice the re-
liable Malic shouted: would the stranger come to help them? They
had a man who had been bitten by a shark and they needed assist-
ance. Please.
The third shadow was motionless. Then a voice answered in
Visayan: "But there are already three of you. How can only I
help?"
Three? Villamor puzzled, and then the solution hit him: the
stranger had seen only one raft, the trailing one; doubtless Vil-
lamor's own was sufficiently close to the shore so that its shadow
was lost in the general blur of the land, and now, with the relative
lineup of the three boats, even Malic's hail apparently had come
from the trailing raft. The man was speaking again.
He could, he said, probably do more good by going for help.
Suiting action to words, he began to ply his paddle, and the shadow
of the slim banca now moved off to the right with purpose. The
THE PHILIPPINES 129
cumbersome rafts would be no match for the native canoe and it
would only alarm the whole district to use firearms to try to stop
him, even if they could sink him at that distance, in the dark. The
speed of his departure made it plain enough now that he either was
alarmed or was convinced of the need for help.
They landed without mishap and now began to reap the divi-
dends of the training grind. With few false moves they buried their
gear and one raft. The other raft, said Villamor, must be found
if the cautious stranger should return with "help" most likely a
detachment of Japanese soldiers. Or it might be pro- Japanese
Visayans. It might also be trigger-happy guerrillas. In no case was
their situation good; it soon might be desperate. It was clear that
he had a very important, very unpleasant decision to make. There
must be a sacrifice party. The man had seen three individuals in
one raft. That left three still unknown. It occurred to Villamor that
he might suggest drawing lots to determine who should comprise
the sacrifice party in the event the man returned with enemies who
would sweep the area until they did find three men and a raft. He
rejected the thought; he was the leader and he must make his choice
regardless of sentiment. On this cold basis the little Filipino put
down the surge of affection he felt for all of them and their loyalty
and named those who must accompany him: Malic because of his
linguistic facility, and Quinto because he would be needed to
operate the radios.
It was done. Villamor covered the seaward approaches by estab-
lishing Yu Hico on the northern headland, while he and Jorge
made their way to the southern one; the others would alert them
should there be an approach from the jungle. If luck was with
them and no expedition came against them, they would bury the
other raft at dawn and push off landward in the general direction
of a house Villamor had been able to discern in his periscope sur-
vey. But luck was not with them. Hardly had Villamor taken his
position than he saw the moving lights of many small boats.
Villamor and Jorge raced through the darkness back to the land-
ing site. Yu Hico was summoned. Villamor spoke rapidly. He,
Malic, and Quinto would hide in the jungle not far away. They
would have the arms. If the approaching craft bore enemy and
ISO ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
they were not too many, they would try to cut them down with
ambush fire. Meanwhile, every man would try to cover himself be-
cause doubtless at the sound of firing the Gudgeon would cut loose
with her deck gun, shooting high. The shelling might be enough
either to frighten off the enemy or to make him go back for help.
In the interval they would all try to escape into the interior
there was no thought of going back to the submarine. If it was
Visayans, the sacrifice party would try to convince them that they
had landed from Mindanao with orders from the guerrilla chief
there to try to contact Negros guerrillas and form a consolidation.
There was no more time. The fleet of lights was now rounding the
headland. They did not say anything as they separated, just shook
hands.
The craft approached. With dismay Villamor noted their number.
But a moment later came compensation, for against the fitful il-
lumination as the men landed he could see that they were not in
the neat jungle dress of the Japanese soldier but rather there were
ragged pants, and sleeves that flapped against bare arms. Filipinos,
at least. Now the nightly offshore breeze militated against his hear-
ing what went on but it was plain to be seen that the visitors had
not come to help "a man with a shark bite." A circle closed around
his three men. There were arms, of sorts, and they were held menac-
ingly. Villamor felt tears of helplessness as he saw the three "Planet"
men led off via a jungle trail inland. Except for two, the remaining
party boarded their bancas and went back the way they had come.
Obviously the two were sentries. Could it mean that the guerrillas
for by now Villamor had concluded that such was the nature of
the band suspected the presence of more than the three they had
captured?
The "Planet" men would have to await dawn and then try to
escape inland. Villamor whispered this to the others and said that
he would stand the watch it would not be long until dawn now.
As the night wore on, he had time to reflect. He recalled the
words of training days at AIB in Brisbane that of all the chancy
games that men engaged in where the stakes were life itself, none
excelled the practice of espionage for the part that sheer luck played
in it. Tbere were too many variables, too many factors that never
THE PHILIPPINES 131
could be fixed long enough to plan beforehand for every contin-
gency they gave rise to. After all the months of preparation he had
been compelled to abort half of his mission in abandoning the drugs
because of a mischance that no one could explain, and now half
his party with, which he was to accomplish the remainder of the
mission already was captured. Again and again he reviewed the
events of the past twenty-four hours. No, he could not have fore-
seen these things. Now he felt the pressing sadness at the thought
of his missing men. Somehow they must be saved from harm. He
thanked God again that at least the captors had not been the Jap-
anese military.
At dawn the guards stirred themselves; when it was quite light
the two guerrillas looked about them, spoke together quietly, then
set off. With them went some of the strain and anxiety.
Malic was awake. Villamor roused Quinto. In the submarine they
had dressed themselves to be like any other Filipino itinerants:
light, well-worn khaki pants and thin, soiled cotton shirts. They
wore old sandals. But concealed in a very special place which weeks
of training made secure (and which even now cannot be revealed) ,
Villamor carried on his person something which he should be able
to convert in order to obtain the prevailing type of Japanese military
occupation currency for the Philippines. Also buried back there
on the beach were some genuine peso notes, but certainly it would
be unwise to flash any of that money until they were certain that it
was safe to do so.They took up the faint trail, moving quietly. It
was good to be in action, good to be in the Philippines again and
good to be alive.
"Halt!"
The three men froze. Out of the corner of his eye Villamor could
see the muzzle of some kind of rifle pointing straight at his heart,
but he could not see the man behind it. Evidently he was crouched
in the undergrowth of giant ferns. There were at least two of them,
maybe more. There had been no chance for him to use his .45 auto-
matic, nor for the others to bring their heavy weapons into play
weapons they planned to bury as soon as they felt secure after
landing.
"We are friends," Malic growled beside him.
132 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
"Maybe yes, maybe no," came the answer. "Put your hands be-
hind your heads. Now where you come from? And speak truth or
my gun's eye will find you."
Villamor saw the gun barrel jerk to emphasize the order. He had
been thinking hard. It would be better to stick to the story they had
agreed upon last night, for probably these men were from the same
guerrilla force that had taken Yu Hico and the others. He formed
the word "Mindanao" on his lips and Malic took his cue.
There followed a silence. The gun barrel wavered slightly. Then:
"We shall see. You come with us to the boss. He is Madamba and
he will kill you like phuttt if you are lying."
Villamor's automatic and their other weapons were taken. Now
they were prodded into action. Their captors fell in slightly behind
them. Presently they came to a small clearing. Several other guer-
rillas silently rose from the underbrush and joined them. There was
rapid talk in Visayan. One of the newcomers studied Villamor in-
tently. Then he moved aside and they started on the trail again. It
grew hot. Twice more the man came alongside and stared at the
"Planet" leader. Then the guerrilla stopped in front of him. Now
what? wondered Villamor, and he involuntarily jerked back when
the fellow's arm came up. But the other shook his head. He reached
out and touched Villamor's nose, tracing a course from the middle
down across his left cheek. That was also the course of a prominent
scar, the memento of an automobile collision in Manila one night
following a high-school party. But if the man thought he recognized
him, he did not choose to reveal it then. Instead, he turned, and
the trek continued.
They seemed to be moving in a wide circle, as near as Villamor
could guess. To where? And who was Madamba? Pray heaven he
would at least listen.
When Villamor finally confronted him, he hardly could have
imagined a man less like what he had considered a guerrilla leader
should resemble. They had entered a little clearing along a trail
that increasingly betrayed the presence of hidden guards such as
the ones who had tripped them up. Then they had entered a little
house of nipa, or woven palm and bamboo, similar to some that the
Melanesians constructed for the Solomons Coast Watchers. At a
THE PHILIPPINES 133
small table sat an oldish man with slender, delicate features. Prob-
ably a schoolmaster in other days, Villamor estimated, and he let
hope rise, for he felt that here was a mind and a personality he
might appeal to. The gaunt men around him, however, were ob-
viously hostile, theirs had been a day-to-day fight for survival. An
infiltration of strangers, doubtless sent by the enemy to reconnoiter
them and go back with the kind of information that would bring
torture and death upon them and those they sought to protect, was
something they could deal with in a very final manner if Madamba
but gave them the signal.
Villamor went through his story of having been sent by Fertig in
Mindanao with a message of greeting and a hope for consolidation
against the common foe. The guerrilla chief gave him his attention.
But if he gave him credence, he did not show it. His eyes never
left Villamor's except once when there were whispers in the
shadows to his left.
Madamba coldly called the others around him. There was talk,
and Villamor did not need Malic to tell him that it was not going
well for them.
Then a Filipino approached Madamba. The old man bent an ear
to his whisper. Villamor watched intently as Madamba turned,
looked sharply at the man, then came forward.
For a moment he stood grim-faced before Villamor, his dark
eyes fixed on him. A thousand thoughts raced across the "Planet"
chiefs mind. Yu Hico and the others had doubtless been captured
by these same guerrillas. Had they somehow told a damagingly
contradictory story? Or had he been mistaken for some enemy who
resembled him?
Madamba brought his heels together and inclined his head cour-
teously. The uncomprising lines of his features softened. It was, he
said, his pleasure and his privilege to greet the famous Captain
Jesus Villamor, national hero of the Philippines in her darkest hour.
It was a wild and noisy reunion a little while later as the other
three "Planet" men were brought in. There were tears and shouts
and backslapping, and then it spread, for the word had gone out
that these were friends. For the security of the mission Villamor
decided to let the illusion of their origin from Fertig's headquarters
134 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
stand, except to Madamba. Intuitively he felt he could trust this
mature individual whose gentlemanly characteristics were stamped
upon him. Madamba's own eyes filled when he heard of the true
origin of the party and that here, at last, and so unexpectedly, had
come a living sign of hope.
Nevertheless, the times had taught him to be a realist. Villamor,
he said, was much too well known to move about freely. It was all
right here where Madamba could vouch for the loyalty of his fol-
lowers, but some other time he might not be so lucky if he were
recognized. Many Visayans had sold their honor to the Japanese;
the danger from them was greater than from the enemy himself,
for no man could say for certain when one stood among them under
the guise of friendship. The "Planet" chief knew that Madamba
spoke the truth but he would not at this time, at least, abandon his
original idea for the penetration of Manila itself to form the heart
of his espionage net. Only later, when he was talking to another
loyal Visayan, one Fortuny who operated a small hostel, did he
learn how dangerous it would be: on the wall back of Fortuny's
head Villamor's own likeness was staring back at him; it was a
cutout from the rotogravure section of a Manila newspaper dated a
year previously. Fortuny noticed the expression on Villamor's face
and smiled. Yes, he said, the hero's picture could be found all over
those Philippine islands, pinned to the walls of nipa huts and framed
against the walls of richer houses, as well. It was a "broadcast" job
such as the police might have done to notify the population of a
wanted man but this time it had been a spontaneous act of admi-
ration. Either one could produce the same all-too-final result!
Thus it was that "Planet's" headquarters was established on
Negros itself. From here Villamor would send out his men to make
contacts and to spot and recruit for other nets that would have only
a remote connection with him so that if one of their members
should prove false, or was to be taken by the enemy, he could betray
only a very limited number of his associates and probably none at
all of those closer to "Planet" Meanwhile, it would be necesary for
him to dispatch one of the original members to the island of Panay,
north of them. There a graduate of the Philippine Military Academy
named Peralta had established himself as czar of the guerrillas on
THE PHILIPPINES 135
the island and ruled them with a heavy but quick hand. M.
Peralta, Jr., was one of those whose signals had been heard in San
Francisco; it had been a coincidence of the war that the one man
in Washington who could readily identify him and vouch for him
was on duty in War Department G2 when the messages relayed from
San Francisco came in. Lieutenant Colonel J. K. Evans had been
deputy G2 at Fort Santiago before the war and had helped Wil-
loughby and McMicking in establishing the "stay-behind" nets,
prior to going back to America. It had been possible for Wash-
ington to set up cipher systems of a sort, but they were "low
grade." Buried on the beach by "Planet" was the high-grade cipher.
Yu Hico, "Z-40," would leave soon to deliver this system to
Peralta.
Villamor was told of others who had been able to send wireless
signals for help. Weak and ragged and uncertain, these signals
nevertheless had spanned the Pacific and the Celebes seas as well,
and had been heard in San Francisco and the RAAF station in
Darwin, Australia. It became clear to the "Planet" chief that they
must have come from the island of Cebu, eighty miles or so across
water eastward. There were, said his informants, two principal
guerrilla leaders there, and many others who fancied themselves
such. The guerrilla situation was as terrorizing to the population as
the Japanese invaders themselves. But the most stable and reliable
appeared to be a one-time mining engineer named James Gushing,
The other was a former Manila radio announcer, Harry Fenton. Ap-
parently he was given to wild thinking and violent actions. The two
had a sort of joint command in this area, the most densely populated
outside of the Manila zone, and again, except for Manila, the most
important to the Japanese militarily. Villamor felt that it was of
utmost importance to determine the truth of the Cebu situation. But
he hesitated to send one of his own men. It was quite possible that
the hard-pressed leaders, good or bad, would accord his messenger,
a stranger to Cebu, the same welcome Madamba had felt obliged
to give the "Planet" men.
The invaluable Madamba and another man named Castaneda
spoke of one Dr. H. R. Bell, a member of the staff of an American
school in the Islands. Bell had been teaching physics at Silliman
136 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
University when the invasion occurred. He had buried the essentials
of a radio set in the hills. Later he had reconstructed it; this was the
"collection of razor blades and old bottles," as it was jokingly re-
ferred to later, that had spanned oceans. Bell was hiding out some-
where in the nearby hills, as were other members of the University
staff, men, women, and children alike. (If they could only be
evacuated somehow before the enemy finally did catch up with
them.)
Villamor acted. Bell was located and they had a long, earnest
conversation. The Silliman teacher obviously was much affected by
this link with MacArthur and set off on his parlous journey for
Cebu. He was to report later in confirmation of the worst that had
been said of Fenton, as well as the good of Gushing. Fenton, he
said, appeared to have become mentally unhinged. He laughingly
related how he had rather too-narrowly escaped death at Fenton's
hands when the man threatened to shoot him dead on the spot and
Bell thought he certainly meant to do it. Villamor sent an agent
recruit to the Cebu area to keep Fenton under observation. He was
a quiet Visayan named Abila.
Meanwhile, it was believed advisable to establish "Planet's"
secret command post farther north in order to be closer to Luzon.
The location of the radio station was left to Malic. So it developed
that an itinerant seller of bananas trudged the area of higher
ground around Cartagena, near Sipalay in northwestern Negros
Occidental. One day he sat down to rest near an old nipa hut whose
original owner apparently had been partial to the sea to the south
and had built on a high point. Fortunately there was no trouble in
gaining possession of it. A transmitter especially built for "Planet"
by the United States Signal Corps unit in Melbourne was brought
in during the night and carefully concealed. The aerial was a master-
piece of inconspicuousness. Tests showed that the unit was efficient.
From Villamor came the word that the daytime bananaman should
make the attempt to call up KAZ, Darwin.
On the afternoon of January 26, 1943, the peddler of bananas
toiled wearily up the trail of broken country toward the nipa hut.
Frequently he stopped to rest his short, stocky body. And Filipino-
like, he was not averse to a siesta in the shade of a catmon tree. It
THE PHILIPPINES 137
was a pleasant afternoon and there were few sounds save the whir-
ring of insects, the occasional squawk of a cockatoo, or the sudden
quipping of monkeys swinging in graceful arcs in the taller rain
trees. Quinto was actually killing time until night, when he knew
the range of his transmitter would be at least three times its daylight
span. He would need it all. Far over the calm sea to the south he
thought he could discern the blue smudge of Mindanao. Far beyond
that would be the Celebes group. Then Timor and finally northern
Australia itself. The transmitter was good, he knew that; it would
develop fifty watts of output, considerably more than an Australian
3BZ, the Teleradio. But the distance was great.
The sun went down, the brief dusk settled into night. Now he
was in the hut. With only the faintest dial light to guide him, he
began to work his fingers over the key, calling KAZ and signing
"4E7." He sent only short "squirts" because he knew that every-
where there were enemy monitors, trained men with good gear. And
his was a new signal on the air. He called again. And again. Each
time he would alternate with listening, rocking the receiver dials
gently.
And then he stiffened, and a slow smile showed on his face.
He turned to the key again and his sending was very fast.
Contact!
Doubtless Villamor had considered how anxious we in Brisbane
might be about their welfare, but it was characteristic of this man to
proceed with utmost caution, one solid step at a time. And now he
felt sure. But for all of us in AIB the month of January 1943 had be-
come endless. Our troubles in Bougainville and in New Britain had
the dubious virtue of compelling so much of our attention on them
that we could not worry exclusively about what had happened to
W-10. Gudgeon's radioed word that she had landed the party and
had gone on her business had only heightened the mystery, for
there had been ample time, we felt, for Villamor to have reported.
We began to dread calls of inquiry from Willoughby, or from Gen-
eral Richard K. Sutherland, the chief of staff.
On the afternoon of January 27 I received a summons from G2.
I expected the worst. But one look at Willoughby reassured me. The
message was brief. Conditions were bad, it said among other short
138 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
sentences. But it was contact. GHQ now had its own eyes and its
own ears in the Philippines once more. Together we trooped into
the chief of staff's office. Sutherland was a man of few words. He
read the message with evident satisfaction, however, then said:
"The first to go in, but not the last. We're on our way!" Later the
Commander in Chief sent his congratulations and a score of spe-
cial requirements for information.
The good news was a tremendous lift for us all. It had come at
a particularly useful time the end of January 1943 for by then
we were deeply committed to the preparation of another party de-
signed primarily for the support of Fertig in Mindanao, and up to
then, as with "Planet," we had been working in the dark as to the
efficacy of some of our methods. Now we had reassurance. While it
was becoming apparent that there likely would be a shift of em-
phasis to the supply of guerrillas and the utilization of intelligence
information gathered by them, it was still essential that there be
"neutral" observers and that they be able to report through their
own secret channels. We would know one day but not until the
end of the war when on-the-ground studies could be made that
the pioneer work done by Villamor was a standout. His careful,
deliberate planning and his rigid adherence to the requirements of
security for such operations were sound. In the months following
the landing, he literally "dug in," for he believed that he would be
in the Islands until the end of the war. He recruited with utmost
care. He surrounded himself with utterly trustworthy agents. He
even got married.
He was not spectacular, not theatrical, his pen was not brilliant,
but sincerity radiated from every fiber of him. Mistakes? Certainly:
the inevitable by-product of men of action.
Now came the time for the dispatch of Yu Hico to Panay.
Villamor had wanted to go with him, at least part of the way. But
now he was aware that one as well known as himself should not
be seen in the company of the man who would have to traverse the
unknown country to the north and west. Panay, like Cebu, was
dangerous territory. Between Negros and Panay were the Guimaras
Straits. The Straits were a favorite haunt of patrolling vessels whose
THE PHILIPPINES 139
flag was the Rising Sun and whose guns were quite prepared to
emphasize the fact.
So it came about that some days later Villamor was waiting be-
hind a clump of foliage at the beach line. His eyes were upon the
slender Visayan with sharp button eyes who approached barefoot
along the sandy strip. A pair of well-worn gymnasium shoes was
tied by their strings around his neck. Time seemed to mean little to
him, and twice he stopped to throw driftwood into the miniature
breakers that curled onto the beach. Then he settled down on the
sand, Filipino fashion, squatting, while he deftly split a coconut with
his machete. Slowly he let the white milk drain down his throat.
"I can hear, sir," he said quietly, apparently to no one. "It is
good we decided on this way; there were people it was as if they
suspected something for they followed me. But now I think they
are gone."
Villamor looked down the beach. No one was in sight.
Villamor asked if he had "it." Yu Hico replied that the minia-
turized cipher system was safe "where they had arranged" sewed
in the ankle patch of the gym shoes.
The "Planet" leader warned him that he had a very hard trip
ahead of him but that everything was depending on him because
Peralta was becoming more restive every day; it was quite possible
that, feeling desperate at the seeming indifference of GHQ to his
plight, he would determine upon some independent action which
could easily lose all of Panay to the strong enemy. It was agreed
that they might not see each other for six weeks or so. Then Yu
Hico was to report back to that very spot on the beach. Someone
would be waiting who would know the other half of an identification
phrase and he would bring Yu Hico to Villamor's hide.
In his turn Yu Hico pleaded with him to stay hidden, as he had
"seen many pictures in the houses." Villamor recognized the peril
of this but said that GHQ had directed him to make a trip to Min-
danao. Furthermore, it was necessary to develop a strong Cebu
grapevine and at the same time push other tentacles toward Manila.
He turned the talk back to Yu Hico and adjured him to remember
that if he ever contacted another approved agent, the first order of
procedure would be agree on what it was they were purporting to talk
140 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
about, inasmuch as it was enemy policy immediately to separate
persons talking together, then quiz them on the topic of their con-
versation. If there was failure of the two stories to agree . . . "Well,
you would not come out of it, my friend," finished Villamor.
"Mabuhay!"
The "itinerant" Filipino finished his coconut, tossed the remains
into the thicket, and sauntered on on into long miles that would
be rendered as dangerous for him by the guerrillas as by the Jap-
anese military because he was a member of neither. (But one day
the message would come down in Yu Hico's own cipher: "Mission
accomplished.")
Villamor made his way back to his hide-out to commence plans
for the trip to Mindanao as directed by G2. The message had been
among the first of the exchanges that now constituted the regular
"skeds" with 4E7. G2 wanted more information about conditions
on Mindanao.
Before he could start a runner reached him from the east. There
had been a find in Cebu that looked highly important a code book
perhaps retrieved from a beached Japanese naval vessel. There
were no other particulars, but Villamor knew this one could not
wait; Brisbane must have it soon. What to do? He must go south.
Why not, then, have one of his recruits now in Cebu a reliable
agent named Alvaraz bring the precious find to Mindanao and
give it to him there? He acted upon this plan, giving Quinto the
data and asking for a submarine to pick up the find from an agent
in Mindanao's Pagadian Bay area.
Then he pushed off in a baroto, a larger native-type boat. Two
of the remaining "Planet" men were with him.
It was a clear day and a good wind helped them along. But it
seemed a snail's pace to Villamor, who with the others constantly
scanned the horizons for the sight of a hostile patrol.
It was as if their alertness and expectancy actually had proved
magnetic, for sure enough a dot in the west rapidly grew in size as
it bore down on them.
Fascinated, they watched. They were too distant from land to
try to swim for it and the oncoming craft obviously had the speed
to overtake them.
THE PHILIPPINES 141
Villamor made a quick decision to turn back before their original
course would be plain to the other craft. The Negros shore was
considerably the closer and if the examination did not prove to be
too searching, they might possibly deceive the stranger into think-
ing that they were merely fishermen or traders.
They could see the Japanese flag now. The sight of it did some-
thing to Villamor. He said later: "It just plain made me sick I
mean sick. So I lay down. I should be ashamed to admit it but this
was mistaken by the others as a sign of supreme contempt for dan-
ger. And suddenly all of the tension seemed to drop away from
them and they in turn assumed attitudes as if they also were care-
free and indifferent. I honestly think this miserable business of mine
saved our lives, because the enemy patrol came in close, took a
good look at all of us seeming to be enjoying ourselves just languish-
ing on a hot afternoon, and suddenly they sheered off to the south
without asking us a single question. Me a hero?"
But there was no doubt now that they would have to continue
back toward Negros, for the enemy vessel appeared to be in no
hurry to quit the area to the south; until dusk they could see her
cruising this way and that.
So it happened that Villamor was not on Mindanao to receive
his Cebu courier. Alvaraz arrived and delivered his precious pack-
age to Fertig's men. In due time it came to Brisbane.
It was in fact a Japanese naval cipher system, the first we had
taken and one which, together with another destined to be taken in
the same area later, had vital bearing on the showdown naval en-
gagements of Leyte Gulf in late 1944, the greatest naval battles of
the war.
On Negros, Villamor received a visit from the mystery man of
Cebu, Gushing himself. Among other matters, he wanted to talk
about Fenton.
Fenton had become a serious problem. He had smuggled out of
his place of former employment in Manila enough radio parts to
enable him to erect a short-wave broadcasting station sufficiently
powerful to reach not only his enraged Japanese listeners but San
Francisco as well. His statements were bitter and potent and certain
to bring down upon him and those around him strong retaliatory
142 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
action. But more to the point was that in his wild, uncontrolled
manner he was shouting to the enemy much information that could
prove hurtful to the guerrillas and to innocent civilians alike. On
instructions from Washington the San Francisco station repeatedly
broadcast instructions for him to refrain forthwith. If he heard them
he gave no sign, indeed his anti- Japanese broadcasts increased in
frequency and vituperativeness. Cushing said that he had felt
obliged to put Fenton under arrest during his own absence on this
trip to Villamor, especially because Fenton's use of firearms was
unpredictable and sometimes lethal. They discussed possible solu-
tions to the problem, unaware that at that very time the matter had
been taken out of their hands permanently.
One of Villamor's watchers had been spending his days squatting
before a nipa hut on the outskirts of Barrio Maslog on Cebu in
which there moved unkempt guerrillas armed with knives, clubs,
and some pdtics (homemade hand guns, the basis of which usually
was a length of gas pipe serving as a barrel). He had often con-
versed with villagers who also kept uneasy watch on the house, and
he knew that the civilians lived in terror of the man Fenton. "He is
mad," they would say. "He will bring the angry Hapon [Japanese]
down upon us."
But it was obvious that something new was developing and now
there was no talk, only unblinking surveillance of the house. The
Filipino lieutenant whom Cushing had instructed to place Fenton
in custody had taken matters into his own hands. A drumhead
court-martial was in progress. Fenton was the defendant on a
charge of willful murder of a Catholic padre who had irritated him.
The proceedings were terse and soon completed. Fenton was ad-
judged guilty and ordered to be shot. The execution was carried out.
Villamor's man had heard and seen enough to go back to station
4E7 on Negros with Ms report. In the excitement he slipped out of
the barrio and headed west. His decision probably saved his life:
that night in the mountains he could see the pulsating glow in the
sky. The jungle telegraph carried the story of the sudden descent of
Japanese raiders determined on revenge for the humiliations they
had suffered at the hands of the man whose death at the hands of
his own men a short time before had cheated them out of personal
THE PHILIPPINES 143
satisfaction. But they were not to be frustrated completely. The
barrio went up in flames amid the cries of the dying.
In his conferences with Villamor, Gushing had displayed those
characteristics which prompted the former to send messages urging
the recognition of Gushing as the Cebu leader and asking for money
and extra radios to be sent by the next submarine in order to supply
him with a direct channel to GHQ. Meanwhile Villamor proposed
to provide Gushing with a small Australian Coast Watcher ATR4A
transceiver to enable him to tie in to 4E7 or perhaps Fertig's local
station. AIB replied that if Villamor could spare an ATR4A, he
should do so as the submarine Thresher would call presently and
provide him with more radios and supplies. So it was arranged that
Cushing's little party took back one of those superb Australian
transceivers which was comparable in size to the average household
breadbox, but which under good conditions regularly gave service
of more than a hundred miles on voice and two to three times that
on telegraph. (Prototypes were sent to America for "exact repro-
duction" to help us supply the demand; once more, but not for the
first or the last time in the war, we were to be balked by that Amer-
ican characteristic which insists that "bigger" and "better" are
synonymous terms the "improved" product that came back was
a splendid piece of equipment, but so bulky that it required jeeps
with trailers and fine, surfaced roads as incidental accessories.)
By now Villamor had decided that the original site near Catmon
Point was superior and he moved back there. Ignacio, Malic, and he
occupied -a nipa hut in an isolated area, access to which was made
difficult by both natural obstructions and phantomlike guerrilla
guards with quick eyes and flashing bolo blades bolos were silent
and they saved precious homemade ammunition.
Before he left the north, however, Villamor had made solid
arrangements with one Major Ricardo L. Benedicto for the estab-
lishment of a "forwarding station" to which agents going north
might report and those going south could make contact and file
preliminary radio reports. To enable Benedicto to maintain com-
munication and eventually control a local radio net, Villamor
named Ignacio to smuggle a transmitter to him. It was done. Ignacio
turned back, meanwhile congratulating himself on the success of his
144 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
mission. It was premature. On a narrow road he was approached by
a man who obviously recognized him. He seemed almost tearfully
joyful. The man was his own cousin.
"But, amigo, there is some astonishing mistake," Ignacio heard
himself saying calmly as he backed off. "I have only now set eyes
on you for the first time. Excuse, please."
His cousin gaped. "Not Rudolfo!" He shook his head, asked
pardon, and turned away, mumbling at the extraordinary re-
semblance.
While Ignacio was making his way back, two more AIB sub-
marine parties landed farther north on Panay with radios and drugs.
They were Peleven under Lieutenant T. Crespo and Peleven Relief
under Lieutenant Ireno Ames. Watcher stations would sprout.
But now Villamor prodded deep. Into the very heart of Manila
went a powerful transmitter. This was the sweet essence of daring.
To do it he sought his old friend, Castanega, who was a trained
radioman.
"Memorize the circuit, amigo" said Villamor. "Then heat your
soldering iron."
It was a curious sight, but few saw it baskets of camotes,
potatoes, of coconuts, and corn. In the hearts of the baskets and
sometimes in the hearts of the vegetables themselves went individual
parts of the radio set, scores of them. Similarly buried in the brain of
Castanega was the method of making a cipher system.
"Mabuhay!" Villamor waved to the innocent-looking vegetable
boats putting off for the north. God willing, they would negotiate
the heavily patrolled waters and eventually land on southern Luzon.
Then into one of the many broken-backed Filipino trucks, or per-
haps several carts, would be loaded the baskets, and they would
groan off toward Manila along the provincial roads with their pow-
der of white dust, their shadowy huts and stilted houses and their
enemy road blocks. He could hear his agent protesting: But these
vegetables, honorable sairs, were for the honorable Japanese of-
ficers* tables only, sairs; surely they must not be delayed, no? No,
they would not be delayed. They were not delayed.
Doubtless some of the provender did go to the tables of Japanese
officers less the technical trimmings. Those trimmings found their
THE PHILIPPINES 145
way one by one to a certain house within the ancient Walled City of
Manila. There an American named Frank Jones, whose father was
an American and whose mother was a Filipina, was indeed happy to
receive them. He assembled them. Eventually he operated the re-
constituted unit with great effectiveness. He was the brother of
Helen Jones, who was herself doing a tremendous task north of
Manila in maintaining a "forwarding station" to pass American
agents within the very shadow of the enemy-operated, stone-girt
jail at Malalos. Jones' Intramuros station would be the original
wireless contact for many of the Luzon guerrillas.
The ''Man-Who-Walks-
Like-a-Ghost"
IS MID- JUNE OF 1943, WHILE VILLAMOR WAS
engaged in developing his organization for penetrating Manila, he
was both mystified and made apprehensive by a message from
Brisbane advising him to expect a certain Manila-bound "Major
Suylan" on the next upbound submarine. In the complexities of
W-10"s personal cipher it emerged that "Suylan" actually was
Dr. Emidgio C. Cruz, the personal private physician to the Philip-
pines' president-in-exile, Dr. Manuel Quezon.
Restive in Washington under the burden of frustration concern-
ing any effort that he might personally make from Washington for
the relief of his beloved land and his people, President Quezon
meditated continuously on the fate of those in Manila who had been
close to him. A realist, he knew well that the forceful retaking of
the Islands would not be achieved for a long time. Yet, could he
not be of some service? Only those whom he utterly trusted, and
whom he prayed might still live, could tell him. The American
intelligence effort, he knew, was as fully developed as it could be for
those early days. He was aware of Villamor's assignment to
"Planet" and personally approved of him and the over-all plan. He
did not desire to interfere with GHQ's operations or to suggest com-
plicating the missions. Therefore, he proposed sending in one of his
own trusted staff, if GHQ would only assist as much as possible in
forwarding him and bringing him out again after he had made con-
tact in Manila itself with one man whom he felt capable of giving
146
THE PHILIPPINES 147
him the most comprehensive, most objective report of the situation
there General Manuel Roxas. There was reason to believe that
this beloved leader and his family had been put on parole by the
Japanese, although he had steadily refused to enter into any agree-
ments with them or to give his word.
So it developed in July of 1943 that a slight, quick-eyed, quick-
brained Filipino civilian arrived by air one night in Brisbane and
went directly to the Commander in Chief. So fantastic did it seem to
General MacArthur that a man totally untrained in espionage work
might effect such a daring penetration that he told Dr. Cruz in all
frankness that he considered his chances of getting in not greater
than 10 per cent, and of getting out "none at all."
The submarine Thresher was going in the next day with addi-
tional radios and other equipment and supplies for "Planet." AIB
was directed to see that Dr. Cruz, actually a lieutenant colonel in the
Philippine Army and a prewar friend of Villamor, was flown to
Perth for embarkation. He was to report to Villainor for further
instructions.
At his end, Villamor was advised by radio to assist the forward-
ing of Cruz in every way consistent with the security of his own
mission. That last qualification was important, as there was no in-
tention of risking compromise of "Planet" or any part of it on an
assignment which was fairly bristling with risk; in no sense was it
considered to have involved the "calculated risk" of planned espio-
nage, but, if anything, calculated demise! Villamor so estimated it
when Cruz reported to him, "complete with the pocket litter of a
comfortably established, peacetime Filipino civilian, including a
modern fountain pen of a popular American brand that in all prob-
ability had never been distributed in the Islands prior to the out-
break of the war, and worse, at a time when the great, ragged
majority of the Visayan population long since had been relieved of
such personal possessions by the enemy." Villamor was dismayed
that AIB should have placed him and "Planet" in such a compro-
mising position and he took immediate steps to isolate Cruz from
"Planet" operations.
To aggravate this aspect of the situation, the heart of Cruz, the
physician, immediately was touched by the plight of the wretched
148 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
people he saw on every hand; forthwith he announced his determi-
nation to do what he could to relieve their illnesses. He thus proved
himself a laudable disciple of Aesculapius but a dismal exponent
indeed of clandestine modus operandi. Word of the healer spread
rapidly among those who so greatly required the healing arts per-
haps to others as well through the jungle and across the blue
straits.
Shortly there appeared from the south a Filipino who was not a
Visayan. He was Abduraman Ali, a Moro tribesman. Villamor
made another appeal to Cruz: Cruz acted on the warning and was
discreet. Silently as he had come, the Moro remained, asking no
questions but seeing everything. Villamor "put a tail on him" day
and night and had to admit in the end that he could prove nothing,
yet in view of what occurred . . .
Three days after the Threshers departure the enemy landed on
the beach. "Planet" was dispersed and 4E7 went off the air. The
raiders knew precisely where to find the precious supplies. No
personnel were taken. The enemy departed.
Thoroughly alarmed now, Villamor rightly or wrongly considered
Cruz the prime factor and thought him fully compromised. In ac-
cordance with the dictates of good security for "Planet," he refused
to allow his agents to associate with Cruz in forwarding operations.
Cruz departed and managed to get to Panay largely by his own ef-
forts, only to be blocked by Villamor's man, Yu Hico, from making
contact with Peralta. Meanwhile, Abduraman Ali eluded his "tail"
and was seen no more on Negros.
It was the beginning of a taut, unpleasant situation that may well
have been responsible for a measure of the criticism eventually
leveled against Villamor. Personally, I felt that his actions were
justified there was much more at stake than this heavily-loaded
mission by Dr. Cruz even if it should work out.
Cruz returned to Negros, and after considerable hardship made
contact with the fugitive governor of Negros at a hidden mountain
retreat well up the side of a volcano cone. Here Governor Monteli-
bano arranged for appropriate clothing and a guide to take him
through Japanese-held towns in order to reach Cadiz, on the north-
eastern coast, where he was to procure a sailing vinta in which he
THE PHILIPPINES 149
could negotiate the inland seas toward southern Luzon. Signifi-
cantly, before these plans could be implemented, the Japanese at-
tacked and drove the governor's party still deeper into the hills.
Cruz laid in a peddler's stock of dried fish and chickens. From
island to island the little craft went, Cruz buying and selling the
while. The vinta inched northward.
One hot afternoon a Japanese patrol boat came up and drew
alongside. Her officer and interpreters boarded. The searchers dug
among the dried fish but failed to uncover the waterproof packet of
letters Cruz was carrying from the Presidente to General Roxas and
others. And it still might have gone badly had the search not eased
when the officer became interested in interrogating him. Informa-
tion was wanted, he was told, about a certain Major Suylan who had
brought arms to Negros aboard a submarine.
Cruz was made to go over his story of being a peddler again and
again. Then the interpreter said to the officer: "He is no Tagalog,
by his speech he is a Visayan." Cruz blessed his facility with dialects.
From this he concluded that they really sought a Tagalog, one of
the peoples from the Manila area of Luzon. He was a Tagalog, but
he never would speak Tagalog on this trip. The patrol officers re-
leased him, and he reached the Bicol area of southeastern Luzon.
Here he paid off his crew and slipped away. Shortly thereafter two
hundred pesos procured him certain documents, including a pass in
Japanese and a resident certificate for one "Emilio Corde," trader.
He set off for the town of Matnog, where, if he was lucky, he should
be able to find a boat of some sort bound for the area south of
Manila itself.
Cruz was lucky. Amiability in the shape of one Chinese merchant
named Tiong Hing awaited him. Hing consented to a proposal that
they represent themselves as trading partners en route to Manila to
sell their produce. The next day they loaded the sailboat with lum-
ber, firewood, and cassava flour. They headed straight for the Japa-
nese patrol-boat base at Bulan to sell their produce. Tiong Hing was
nervous but Cruz had become hard forged in the fires of danger.
They went in.
At the wharf Japanese constabulary accorded them an almost
cursory inspection. Cruz was still blessing their luck when two sol-
150 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
diers with fixed bayonets stepped up. They would, they were in-
formed, follow the soldiers into the town.
Stunned by this new turn, Cruz was slow to realize why Japanese
and Filipino flags were flying everywhere and the people seemed to
be in holiday dress. Children carried miniature Japanese flags.
Then it came to him. The date was October 14, 1943, the inaugu-
ration day of the Japanese Puppet Philippine Independence. He
thought bitterly: What an appropriate time for an execution! They
approached the public plaza, packed with people and Japanese
soldiers.
To the amazement of Cruz and King, the two armed soldiers now
abruptly turned away and left them standing enforced spectators
to a parade! Like the other captive spectators, they found it expe-
dient to take their cues: they cheered when they were directed to
cheer and bowed when it was indicated that they should bow. There
was more speechmaking and finally three heavy "Banzai" cheers
led by a puppet on the platform.
Now they were free to roam. They did into an outright com-
promise.
Apparently the man had been watching them during the formal
part of the ceremony. Now he mounted his bicycle and pur-
sued them. Wheeling around two Japanese policemen, he suddenly
leaped off shouting: "Cruz . . . Cruz ... I am delighted to see you,
my old friend. And they told me that you were dead. Your mustache
almost had me fooled, but . . ."
Cruz engaged his old classmate, Dr. Castro, in a bear hug of
"affection" that drove the breath from his body and left him speech-
less. He maneuvered the man around a corner. Then he explained
and left Castro in open-mouthed amazement.
Soon they were aboard again. For two days all went quietly. Then
another patrol approached, altered course, and made for them. Cruz
had a premonition that this time it was going to be close. He took
the bundle of letters he had protected all the way from Washington.
Besides those from the Presidente to General Roxafc and others
there was one from Vice-President Osmena to Mrs. Osmena, still
in the enemy-held Islands. He weighted the packet with a rock and
slipped it over the side.
THE PHILIPPINES 151
The patrol drew up. Through an interpreter they were told to
crawl upon the outriggers of their boat and there kneel while the
search was conducted.
Cruz forgot his aching knees in his thankfulness that he had jet-
tisoned the letters. Then came the interrogation. It was thorough
and again there was the emphasis on "Major Suylan."
"The honorable officer says that they know he is not far off," ex-
plained the interpreter. "Always now they are close upon him, but
for the time being he is fleet. He is known as 'the-man-who-walks-
like-a-ghost.' "
Cruz stuck to his story with success. He even got a note of intro-
duction to the Japanese officers living in the New Banahaw Hotel of
Lucena who would buy most of Ms provender. Lucena was his
objective.
It was on October 22 that his new-found friends at Lucena bade
him farewell at the railroad station in order that he might go to
Manila to further his amiable dealings with the Japanese there. The
commandant had given him a letter to facilitate this. He said
good-by to his estimable Chinese partner.
Aboard train the guards gave his scanty baggage only a cursory
examination. He arrived at Blumentrit Station and lost himself
among the crowd. It hurt him to see the patched clothing, the shoe-
less feet, the tired, spiritless faces of those about him. But again he
fought down every urge even to speak to anyone and unostenta-
tiously he went along the war-battered streets until he came to a
certain house. His heart had seemed suddenly too big for his body
and he felt breathless as he entered the old, familiar garden of his
sister-in-law, for now he would know what had been the fate of
Ms own wife.
The woman's hand flew to her mouth, but she controlled herself.
Yes, yes, Mrs. Cruz was alive and reasonably well, although there
had been frightful happenings. And he must be so very careful, for
the Japanese did not believe that he had died on Bataan and they
were still seeking.
The reaction of Mrs. Cruz was different. The shock made her
knees collapse and she dropped before the image of the Holy Virgin
Mother. For a long time she prayed, slowly gathering courage to
152 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
look around again to see if the man she had almost given up for
dead actually was there.
This could be no prolonged visit. Cruz knew well enough that his
hours of freedom must be few. It was necessary to get on with the
mission. It was arranged that he should meet a nephew of Mrs.
Quezon in Quiapo Church. There would be means to escort him to
still another contact, who would arrange the meeting with General
Roxas.
On the streets again he found himself staring at the weary people,
the smashed buildings, and the bomb-pocked pavements of this city
he loved. There were the gashed trees along Taft Avenue, the
ripped areas of the Luneta where gay Sunday crowds once strolled
the dirt, the stinks, the piled-up rubble everywhere. Yet this
should all be routine to him by now.
Despite his resolution he halted as he crossed the plaza to the
church and stared at a tiny Filipina girl whose abdomen was so
distended it seemed that her thin pipestem legs could not support
her. Malnutrition. He went on, then stopped again, horrified. At a
more distant intersection he beheld a procession of ghost men
white men whose ribs showed through the rags and tatters of one-
time khaki uniforms. They shuffled along like men in a nightmare
procession. American prisoners of war. His feelings were in turmoil.
He rushed into the church.
In another moment he was finding it hard to prevent open weep-
ing as his hand gripped that of his old friend and they embraced.
For a few moments all was forgotten except the reunion whispered
names, places, those gone.
Then Cruz felt the other's hand tighten on his arm and his almost
inaudible whisper calling his attention to a man near the door who
was watching them intently. Cruz did not turn his head, merely
rotated his eyes. He saw the man approach Japanese police at the
front door. Cruz and his companion went along the wall toward a
side door.
He ducked through, and almost collided with a car parked close
in front of the doorway. He started to skirt around the machine,
when his eye fell upon the features of the Filipino behind the wheel.
At the same moment the man saw him.
THE PHILIPPINES 153
"For Dios!" he exclaimed. "It is you at last!" He thrust a door
open. "Inside . . . Pas . . . Pas . . ."
Cruz's companion pushed him from behind. The car jerked into
motion. Cruz felt limp with reaction, for he had blundered into the
very man who had been sent to make the contact, an old friend of
the better days.
The next day Cruz shaved off his mustache; General Roxas had
informed him that morning that the Manila police under enemy con-
trol were avidly seeking a one-time aide to the Presidente, an aide
who wore a black mustache.
Perhaps the report of one Abduraman All had reached Manila
more swiftly than Cruz had been able to come.
Danger faced him on every hand. And now whatever the threat
to him there was one of similar dimensions to the Roxas household,
for in those days no man could say who was his friend and who a
collaborator. But Roxas, whose courage and integrity had girt him
around against the worst or the most tempting the Japanese occupa-
tion could bring against him, now held daily conversations with
Cruz on subjects of immense importance to both the military and
the political fronts in Australia and Washington. Who among the
one-time public figures had been forced to bend to Japanese will,
or had apparently succumbed to blandishments? Who were true
collaborators and who were merely playing the dangerous game the
better secretly to serve their own people? What members of the old
legislature had "gone over" and what ones could be depended upon
to lead their constituents into anti-Japanese rallies when the time
came to coordinate civil and military operations in the final show-
down? Cruz made other contacts as well, sometimes with the very
men whose apparent collaboration had made them the objects of
suspicion, even hatred. There was still one more he wanted to see,
the most controversial "collaborationist" of them all. Was he really
so? Disguised as a vegetable peddler, Cruz went to see. But the
man's garden was too full of Japanese soldiers to permit an en-
trance. There is little question but that Cruz's failure in that case
saved his life.
From October 22 to the twenty-eighth he was truly a man who
walked like a ghost in that city which was but a ghost of its former
154 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
self. Then, packing a small bamboo trunk with papers concealed
beneath cigars, handbags, and wooden shoes, he started south
again. Pursuit was so close he could feel it, but somehow he felt,
too, that he would not be there when the enemy sought to spring the
trap. At Matnog in the Bicols it was that way, and again at Gigan-
tangan Island when a typhoon blew a Japanese patrol boat into the
town where he was hiding. Finally he made Negros and the Nar-
whal. When the Japanese came, once more he was not there.
In Brisbane General MacArthur's office had arranged for a deco-
ration ceremony for Cruz. Three o'clock came and went. Cruz was
not there. He had become so engrossed in writing his report that he
had forgotten. That night, however, we had a celebration dinner at
Lennon's Hotel for him. It was a honey. Cruz was there.
"Carabao Boy"
I T WAS AFTER HIS OWN RETURN TO AUSTRALIA IN
November of 1943 that Villamor told the story of "Carabao Boy."
His agent had been well indoctrinated in the espionage dictum
that boldness is often the best course. Finding it nearly impossible
to locate undamaged studio space in the war-torn city of Manila
suitable to his needs as an architect, he had decided to appeal to
the Kempei Tai. The Manila unit of this dreaded Japanese version
of military police occupied one of the most desirable buildings, and
the Japanese had been making much propaganda about rebuilding
Manila after "its destruction by the cowardly Americans." His ap-
peal was rewarded. An office immediately across the corridor from
the main police office was assigned to the cheerful Filipino whom
the sentries seemed to find very amusing in his efforts to learn their
language. The usual searches and checks eventually went by the
board and often he stopped to bow and chat. Sometimes he heard
things such as pertained to great underground ammunition, bomb,
and fuel dump developments at Nichols Field.
In due time a new water boy applied for a job there and got one.
From the broad backs of their carabao, or water buffalo, these boys
would serve the work details with thirst-quenching drafts. One of
the most reliable, the most certain to be around, was the new boy, a
good-humored chap who might have been a younger brother of the
architect. The age of Orientals is notoriously deceiving and it had
required only ragged short pants and a few other alterations to put
him in a class with the others riding their slogging animals. He was
ever obliging, especially to those who worked in the restricted areas
of the underground dumps, the ventilating system installations, and
155
156 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
communication alleys. Like any good Filipino, sometimes he curled
up and slept on the platformlike back of his beast, while it stood
shoulder high in a mud wallow.
A close observer might have noticed much activity for a sleeping
lad, but he was careful that there never should be close observers
while he was sketching out his "roughs."
Back in the office he made the "finals" with all the artistry of
which he was capable. The sheets were sizable, however, and he
was confronted with the problem of smuggling them out of the
Kempei Tai building and rendezvousing with the "contact" who
knew the time and place in the vicinity of Cape Santiago that the
submarine would surface to receive them and carry them south.
"The boldest course . . ."
He rolled the stiff sheets and stuck them into his hip pocket.
When he had grinned and bowed to the sentry in the corridor, the
roll had stuck out at an awkward angle. But there had been previous
occasions when the architect had carried his drawings in that
manner, and the sentries had become indifferent to unrolling them
and examining them. Of course they might examine them this time,
or there could be a new relay of guards who were unfamiliar with
him, his habits and his papers. But it was an old team of sentries.
So uncanny were American bombs in finding their objectives in
the Nichols Field installations when the day came for the avenging
American pilots once more to thunder through the skies above
Manila that the enemy command was constrained to release an of-
ficial communique which asserted that the Americans had perfected
a new aerial bomb which was attracted by concentrations of am-
munition and fuel. (The same was to be said as a result of the work
of secret observers reporting on installations around Davao on
Mindanao.)
After his return to Australia in November 1943 Villamor re-
mained in Brisbane only long enough to permit detailed debriefing
of him by relays of G2 interrogators. It was a source of increasing
puzzlement to him, however, that in certain high places there
seemed to be an indifference to his findings and even glances down
long noses that bespoke outright questioning of his sincerity. He had
no time to go into these aspects owing to a request from President
THE PHILIPPINES 157
Quezon of the Philippines that he come to Washington and make a
report in person.
The campaign was to continue in his absence, even to insinua-
tions of discredit in official records. These were strenuously re-
sented by myself, by the controller of AIB, by General Willoughby,
and by others acquainted with the real facts. Nevertheless, the
Commander in Chief elected not to become involved and it would
not be until sixteen years later, in Washington, that in this connec-
tion it would be necessary for me to reshuffle an appointment at
the Pentagon with Jess Villamor. The reason: he had been invited
to the White House, where the President of the United States de-
sired to make a personal apology to him for the injustice that had
been done him. The President was warmly emphatic about his own
evaluations of the little Filipino-American and the work he achieved
with the "Planet" organization. In testimony to that, President
Eisenhower presented Villamor with the official file of the case.
For Villamor it was one of the proudest days of his life. There
could have been no finer vindication, no more solid tribute to all of
those who had served in "Planet" in the beginning or in the endless
ramifications of it throughout the troubled Philippines of that day.
Painstaking surveys by impersonal researchers after the war
would reveal that his nets extended from the northernmost reaches
of Luzon to southern Negros and from Panay on the west to Sorso-
gon on the east. Further, his agents were of a consistently high
quality, reflecting, no doubt, the discrimination he exercised in
choosing his schoolmates in younger days, and later in forming
associations in the Philippine Army Air Corps PAAC. In fact, his
work among the latter proved so cohesive that long after Villamor's
GHQ critics had effected a degree of sabotage of his efforts, these
loyal Filipino associates carried on with little or no official support,
even increased both in strength and effectiveness, filing their re-
ports with whatever organization would accept them. These were
known as PAAC-AEB units. As stated, Villamor's original Station
4E7 on Negros was left under Andrews, to become one of the main
links of the Seventh Military District. Through this station and
"feeders" initiated by him not less than four hundred and sixty-nine
messages of all types to GHQ are officially credited to Villamor,
158 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
while more than twice that number eventually were credited to the
Seventh District net control station under Lieutenant Colonel S.
Abcede, which itself was established in consequence of his early
efforts. Long after his return to Australia, and America, some of
his agents and their radio units played key roles in reporting the
movements of the Japanese naval units in the showdown Battle of
Leyte Gulf in late 1944.
Chic Parsons,
"The Artful Dodger"
L.YE FIXATION ON SOME BRIGHT OBJECT FRE-
quently a coin coupled with a. smooth, lulling flow of words have
been trance-producing factors in the techniques of the successful
hypnotist since the art was first practiced. Generally, however, the
bright object has been fixed in one position. But Charles A. "Chic"
Parsons was a nonconformist even to the point of not conforming
to one's idea of what a nonconformist might look like or how a non-
conformist might act. He did not lay claim to being a hypnotist; he
probably never considered it that way. Chic's coin was constantly
in motion, up and down in front of one's eyes. Twelve times out of
twelve he could do it. Twelve times it would come down tails if
he called tails, and twelve times out of twelve it would come down
heads if he called it that way. Accompanying the nonchalant, coin-
flipping motion would be the steady, low-pitched rattle of words,
earnest but unemotional, convincing, making sense. Sometimes a
ranking headquarters planner would basically alter his plans; some-
times a tactical commander would discover that he had agreed to
commit a sizable portion of his command when originally he had
entertained no such notion or someone else would commit his
loyalty, his immediate future, or his very life to the short, stocky
man with the bland round face spinning that coin before him and
talking.
Actually, Chic never flipped the coin over at all. True, he flipped
it into the air for a couple of feet before it fell back into his other
hand, and it certainly had the appearance of rotating over and over
159
160 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
rapidly as it flipped. The fact was that, as it left his hand, he merely
and very expertly gave it an off-center snap with his thumb in
such a way that it shot wobbling into the air and came back down
same side up as before. Thus, if the "head" was uppermost when
he launched the coin, "head" it was when it came to rest.
That was only one of the ways in which this amazing individual
created illusions. From the standpoint of the Japanese command in
the Philippines, he created illusions on such a grand scale that he
became one of the most intensely hunted men in Southeast Asia.
Although the reward for the head of Charles A. Parsons eventually
reached a sum that was quite beyond the imagination of the simple
Filipino guerrillas among whom he moved for prolonged periods
during repeated penetrations of the Islands, not one of them ever
caused him a moment's concern about betrayal. A hundred thou-
sand pesos fifty thousand dollars' gold with all their power to
twist the souls of men could not buy Filipino loyalty and Filipino
devotion to "Chicho."
In desperation, Radio Tokyo, on a masterful note of triumph, an-
nounced his capture and death. But in the Philippines the Japanese
High Command kept right on hunting. That was in 1943 after the
"Fifty" party had made its presence in Mindanao vividly felt.
The dose was a doubly bitter one for the Nipponese authorities
to assimilate, for only a year before Parsons had been securely in
their hands in the dank dungeons of old Fort Santiago in Manila
and they had let him go!
Born in the Tennessee hills, a neighbor of Jean Fairfield, who
was to become Mrs. Douglas MacArthur, Parsons entered the Phil-
ippines the first time in 1921 as a member of a freighter's crew. He
was lured there by the tug of an imagination fired by the tales of
two uncles who had preceded him years before. Trained in stenog-
raphy at home, Chic became secretary to Governor General
Leonard Wood and in that capacity traveled the intricate pattern of
the archipelago for three years, learning the land, learning the peo-
ple. He responded to the chromatic loveliness of the former and to
the warm, honest simplicity of the latter. It was mutual. Chic knew
he had found his corner and his people. He never changed. It was
that direct, that final, when he met Katraushka Jurika in Mindanao.
THE PHILIPPINES 161
For Chic and "Katsy" it became hand-in-hand progress through the
eventful days of his emergence as a business leader with the Luzon
Stevedoring Company and in the subsequent days of disaster
when the Japanese military machine thundered in and crushed or-
ganized resistance in the Philippines.
Together with their three young children they could have sought
safety in time. But this was his land and these were his people. So
he stayed, working like ten men to move all possible equipment and
all possible supplies from the Luzon company's great wharves in
Manila to trucks and ships waiting to make the increasingly perilous
runs to Bataan and Corregidor. MacArthur had declared Manila an
open city to save it from destruction, and the enemy was entering
from the south.
Then came New Year's Eve, 1941.
Chic and Katsy entered the Army and Navy Club. Only a few
short weeks ago it had resounded to the gay pre-Christmas parties
of American service personnel. Now silence. They stared at the
deserted tables. On the dais was a Filipino band. The round eyes
of the silent musicians followed them as they moved slowly for-
ward. Only one other couple was there. From the walls a flickering
red light was reflected. Chic and Katsy knew where it came from:
with their own hands they had set the torch to the last of the stores
on the great wharves so the enemy might not use them.
The hour struck twelve. For a long moment there was no sound.
Then, doubtfully, the Filipino band began. It was "Auld Lang
Syne." Chic and Katsy stared at each other. Then, wordlessly, they
pulled each other close and danced, and tried not to think or smell
the soot and gasoline on his uniform and her party dress.
On New Year's Eve a year later, Chic was enjoying another dance
with Katsy this time in Washington. In his pocket were his orders
directing him to report to Brisbane immediately after New Year's.
They recalled "Auld Lang Syne" and what had followed.
Chic had burned his naval uniform and papers. Together they
had packed what they believed the enemy might allow them to have
in concentration camp. And then Chic had an inspiration. After all,
American citizen or no, he also was the Panamanian "honorary
consul."
162 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
He had served in that capacity for some years until a "career"
man might come from Panama. He had the seals, he had the stamps.
Why not have the diplomatic immunity of a neutral, too? In his
heart he knew why only "career" consuls were entitled to that
kind of immunity. But would the enemy commander know that?
There was fast action around the Parsons menage. A big sign
appeared on the gate. A Panamanian flag was recovered from
someplace.
They were just in time. The first Japanese patrols were entering
the city. In a short time the military government was installed and
it was combing through every district with devastating thoroughness.
It came their turn. Chic brazened it out. It looked as if he might be
winning. The Japanese authorities decided to recognize his "status."
A certain amount of freedom for him and the family resulted
until one day he was suddenly ordered to Fort Santiago in the old
Walled City area from which few returned. He was tossed into one
of the underground dungeons of that gloomy, wet old Spanish keep.
But Chic had not lost heart. Instead, he became increasingly
vehement in his demands that his "status" be respected. Eventually
he managed to make an outside contact, one Helge Jansen, another
"honorary" consul whose status the enemy had accepted. It was
embarrassing for the Japanese to explain how they recognized one,
but not the man who represented the neutral Republic of Panama.
Jansen sent secret messages through Sweden to Panama. Panama
protested.
There ensued a sudden trip for the whole Parsons family by air
to Hong Kong and eventual repatriation via the Gripsholm.
AIB learned of it through Peter Grimm, Chic's Luzon Stevedor-
ing Company boss, who had become a colonel in the Army Trans-
portation Corps in Brisbane. Immediate request was made to GHQ
for Chic. General MacArthur already had taken action to bring
him over "soonest."
This was early 1942, and Villamor's key station in Negros was
beginning to pass traffic of a kind that was proving very helpful to
us in the preparation of "Fifty" Party. The information was con-
cerned primarily with logistical needs, since the guerrillas on Min-
danao, mostly under the leadership of former mining engineer
THE PHILIPPINES 163
Wendell W. Fertig, were sufficiently entrenched in some areas to
give reasonable assurance that supplies could be landed safely. The
mission of "Fifty" had been altered from one of expanding clandes-
tine activities of the "Planet" type to giving all possible logistical
support to Fertig in the faint hope that Mindanao might be pre-
served for use as a base for ultimate reoccupation operations. There
would be materiel and money for Peralta on Panay as well.
Amid a welter of activity involving the soldering of tons of equip-
ment into waterproof tins at the AIB supply depot in Brisbane,
Parsons saw a figure that made his brown eyes light up with joy.
The greeting between Chic and Charlie Smith was almost casual.
But that was not the way either of them felt. They were old ac-
quaintances from the prewar Philippines and both confessed that
neither had expected to see the other alive again. Smith surveyed
the gold braid of Chic's smart naval uniform.
"I'm in the army, Chic, for one thing because I know I'll never
be a sailor."
Charlie Smith was a mining engineer from the island of Masbate
in the middle Philippines. Together with his partner, the tall, rangy
Jordan Hamner, he had duplicated the feat of a few other intrepid
amateur navigators and had succeeded in spanning the tremendous
distance to northern Australia in a small boat. Burned black by the
sun and emaciated, they had made landfall near Darwin and, as
mentioned, were brought to Brisbane by plane. Almost at once they
volunteered to augment the already considerable store of informa-
tion they had given G2 about conditions in the Islands by volunteer-
ing to go back in as spies. It was agreed. Charlie would lead
"Fifty," Hamner would go in later and try to extend communica-
tions and observations along the Sulu Archipelago toward Borneo.
Each party would include certain Moro tribesmen who had formed
the crew of still another amazing band to sail their fragile craft
through weather and Japanese alike from the Philippines to Aus-
tralia.
Parsons looked around him. There were radio transmitters, re-
ceivers, charging units, batteries, tools, wire, and spares. There were
sidearms and ammunition and grenades. In another area were
bundles with red crosses on them drugs, surgical kits, vaccines.
164 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Being chucked into every niche and cranny of the sealed tins were
copies of newsmagazines, newspapers, bars of soap, sewing kits,
cartons and cartons of cigarettes, and individual packages where the
cartons were too big to go in. Chocolate bars, socks, shirts, under-
wear. There were lieutenant colonel's insignia to go with the official
commissions establishing Fertig on Mindanao and Peralta on Panay
as the GHQ-appointed commanders of the Tenth and Sixth Military
districts of the Philippines respectively.
"There's two things wrong, Chic," said Smith in that soft, almost
lisping way of his. "First, there can never be enough of this stuff
and, second, you are not heading this penetration. How about it?"
The coin came out and went flipping into the air. "Heads you
go," murmured Chic. "Heads it is."
"No, you don't. Let's put it up to the bosses. You're the man,
Chic."
GHQ considered carefully. It was certain death for Parsons if
he were retaken by the Japanese, and a terrible death. The coin
spun and the soft patter went on in the Commander in Chiefs of-
fice. Two days later the decision came. Chic Parsons would head
"Fifty."
"Swell, Chic," was all Charlie said as he grasped Parsons' hand.
Training and preparations went into high gear an eighteen-hour
schedule. Everywhere the Parsons' kind of foresight was register-
ing, things that proved important out of all proportion to their size.
There was, for instance, his request for a sealed tin of buckwheat
flour.
"But why?" he was asked. "There are fifteen million Filipinos up
there, all hungry. What good can one tin do?"
"Fifteen million, right and most of them Catholic. This is for
Communion biscuits. Spiritual food. Gotta get wine, too."
Now there was only one grave deficiency: somewhere between
Washington and Brisbane there was a shipment of money, Philip-
pine peso notes, needed by Fertig and Peralta as urgently as food,
medicine, and arms if they were to live to fight another day. Wash-
ington reported that the fortune in notes had been shipped by special
air. What was not known was that to mislead the curious the con-
signment had been labeled "Finance Forms." A determined delega-
THE PHILIPPINES 165
tion of us from AIB drove through a night black with rain to check
with Amberley Field, thirty miles or so from Brisbane. Sodden on the
flooded hard stand where they had been unceremoniously dumped
the previous night by a weary air crew before taxiing off for hot
coffee and sandwiches were the abandoned cases of "Finance
Forms." Fifteen hours of counting ensued. Then the soldering irons.
And so it was that, early in March 1943, at the same time Malcolm
Wright and Peter Figgis were standing off the dark New Britain
coast aboard Greenling, and readying their kayaks, the U.S.S.
Tambor was boring her way far to the westward with "Fifty"
bound for Pagadian Bay on the south coast of Mindanao. Aboard
were Chic, Charlie Smith, and three Moros, together with seven
tons of equipment and miscellaneous cargo. There was complete
compatibility between Chic and Tambor *s skipper, Lieutenant Com-
mander S. H. Ambruster. It was a dangerous combination for the
Japanese.
In the dry language of the Tambor 's log, target area was
reached on schedule:
4 March 1943:
1850 Hours Surfaced and proceeded toward Pagadian Bay.
2000 Hours Removed wherry from skids and lashed it on deck
to avoid noisy operations close to beach.
5 March 1943:
0445 Hours Arrived four miles southeast of Labangan. Visibility
poor during night; practically all navigation by S. J.
Radar.
0517 Hours Lieutenant Commander Parsons and two natives left
in wherry. Submerged and patrolled area.
1637 Hours Sighted wherry flying white flag and proceeded to
close it
There had been enough exchange of messages between Mindanao
and GHQ to assure that Pagadian Bay this time ought to be safe
for landings. But who could tell? Chic had drawn a long sigh as
behind him he saw white foam and bubbles dissolve into the engulf-
166 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
ing darkness; the Tambor had gone back down to wait silently on
the bottom. Ahead was only the dark smudge of the land.
The two Moros paddled quietly enough, but there was no en-
thusiasm. Chic whispered quick words in Spanish to put energy
into their strokes. The shore approached them and seemed slowly to
engulf them.
They were almost in.
Suddenly there were red and yellow spurts in the shadows. Bul-
lets whined as they ripped against the water and ricocheted.
The Moros froze at their paddles. In mingled English and Spanish
Parsons tried to break their paralysis. He knew that as they lost
way, even a poor marksman would be able to hit a sitting target.
Then came two more shots. Chic slapped the nearest paddleman
smartly on the back and yelled in Spanish. The man began to
paddle hard.
They went straight onto the beach. With a silent prayer Chic
slowly and carefully got himself out of the wherry and stood. A
rifle suddenly poked out of a mangrove thicket and steadied ex-
actly between his eyes. Now he froze.
How could he somehow make the rifleman reveal his military
status before it was too late? Then he saw the man's foot appear be-
neath the leaves. It was bare. The Japanese always wore shoes. His
voice was husky with relief.
"I come from General MacArthur. I bring letters, supplies
cigarettes. See!"
The guerrilla came out to see and what he saw sent him shout-
ing back into the jungle.
The party was on! Such a vociferous, pathetically eager welcome
Chic had not imagined in his fondest moments of ultra-optimism.
He had landed in an outpost zone of Fertig's own waiting guerril-
las. Hundreds of willing hands reached to carry his little armful of
supplies and him, too. He told them when he could that the rest
of the stuff was still on board the submarine. How could it be gotten
off?
The local leader beamed. He would show him how. Just "follow
me only."
Chic stopped, amazed. Anchored in an inlet was a small lighter,
THE PHILIPPINES 167
complete with crane and winch. "... a present from the Japanese."
There was an excellent launch, too.
As per prearrangement Chic stood out in the wherry first, show-
ing the proper signals. The barely surfacing eye of the submarine
fixed upon him. The visibility had not been good, and now a gray
rain obliterated the shore line. Arnbruster considered. It could be a
trap.
They surfaced. All defenses were manned. It was Ambruster's
turn to gasp. There was not only Chic, but a miniature navy, com-
plete with unloading lighter!
With a now well-armed patrol, Chic, Charlie Smith, and hilarious
guerrillas started for Fertig's hidden inland headquarters. No one
slept. But for once everyone smoked and talked, talked, talked.
Then came the inspections as per GHQ instructions. Days went
by. Then down over the miles Chic sent his first long cipher mes-
sage in his own key; and with it a greeting from provincial officials
for President Quezon in Washington.
The time came for the separation of Parsons and Smith. In keep-
ing with a master plan prepared by AIB and approved by GHQ,
Coast Watcher stations were to be established without delay in the
Surigao Straits region of northeast Mindanao where fate was to
decree that one of the greatest naval battles of all time would be
fought in October of 1 944 while a second station was to go into
the Davao area in the southeast. From a military point of view the
Surigao Straits ranked with the San Bernardino Straits farther north
and with Manila Bay as the three most sensitive sea approaches in
the Philippine Islands. Chic would go to the Surigao area. Charlie
would go to Davao. (Eventually Katsy's brother, Tom Jurika,
would do yeoman work here.)
"Mabuhay, keed," grinned Chic, squeezing Smith's hand. He
watched him disappear into the hill country with his picked as-
sortment of Moros and Fertig guerrillas. Charlie's carriers were
supporting cases containing little ATR4A transceivers, as well as
one Dutch special set for longer communication. This one would
be safely hidden in the hills., the little pack set could move up close
theoretically, anyway.
Grave, intense, efficient Lieutenant Colonel Fertig turned to
168 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Parsons and pointed to his prize possession, a sixty-foot Diesel
motor launch, Japanese-made and, until recently, Japanese-owned.
Chic knew well how loath the hard-pressed commander was to turn
over the Nara Maru to him, but it was the only way if he was to do
his assigned job. Traveling by night and hiding by day should en-
able him to make it.
"She's ready," said Fertig. "Run for Medina. That's Ernest
McClish's headquarters on the north coast. I've sent him a message.
He's one of my best district commanders. A bit impulsive in his de-
sire to liquidate Japs, perhaps, but . . ."
McClish, a one-time businessman of Manila, was well known to
Chic. Their reunion was a glad one. Chic was to refuel. But with
what?
McClish's service company proved that it could provide an ex-
cellent substitute for Diesel fuel for the ship's motors, or whisky
for the captain all in the same liquid. It was accomplished by
taking the flower of the palm tree, withdrawing the sap, fermenting
it, and distilling off the alcohol in stills made of battered five-gallon
tins and rubber tubing carried under the surface of running streams
to provide the condensing media. Amazingly efficient, it would
propel a boat or a man according to the control or lack of it
invested.
McClish also armed the Nara Maru with the only .50-caliber gun
in the area one of the old Air Corps guns salvaged from a smashed
B-17 of the original Nineteenth Bomb Squadron. Equipped with a
piece of rubber tubing from a discarded auto tire as a recoil spring,
it would fire as a machine gun. Without the tubing, it was a single-
shooter.
Eluding Japanese patrol boats by hiding in the daytime, they
reached the country around a big lumber mill in the Agusan River
area. Chic was playing a lone game at the moment. He did not seek
the hardy "king" of that part of the country, Buck Walter. But
some of Buck's one-time workmen gave him news that made him
thoughtful: the Japanese were in full control of the Surigao area,
at least on the Mindanao side. There would be no possibility of
operating a station there. In fact, added his informants wryly,
THE PHILIPPINES 169
enemy patrol boats based on Surigao were out looking for him at
that very moment.
Chic was not surprised at the news any of it. The Japanese knew
the Straits to be a vital seaway and were watching it. Chic wanted
this station to be on Mindanao to simplify land communications
with Fertig and to insure its being within Fertig's official control.
The only alternative was to move either across the Straits of Leyte,
or to some intermediate island and set up a watcher station to
watch the Jap watcher stations and everything else.
There were two islands off Surigao. One was Dinagat. "Likely
hot," considered Chic. He selected a smaller one to the west,
Panaon. Its proximity to Leyte would facilitate escape to that large
island if the Mindanao side became untenable. Besides, there was
work to do on Leyte, too.
The dash was made after dark. The Nara Maru was not the only
Japanese-made craft aboard in the Straits that night. Chic never
knew whether they were mistaken by one enemy patrol boat for one
of its own kind, but at one electric moment they went unchallenged
within hailing distance of a prowling enemy searcher. At dawn they
slipped into a well-hidden anchorage straight into the arms of a
guerrilla force whose faces were savagely streaked with yellow.
"War paint?" queried Chic, breathing easier after he had man-
aged to establish his identity.
The explanation was that the guerrillas had been particularly
bothered with tropical ulcers. They had snared a big Japanese mine
on the loose in the Straits and had dragged it home. The detonators
had been removed and the picric-acid powder recovered to treat the
ulcers.
Chic knew that men of that caliber would not let him down. He
left them in charge of a beautifully concealed little station on the
east coast. But Panaon offered little maneuver room. To Truman
("Ernest") Hemingway, one of Fertig's best men, Parsons did
not mince anything.
"This is one of the most important 'eyes' GHQ can have," he
said prophetically. "And you're it. The enemy is just over that hill
there, and they're almost sure to get closer."
Hemingway made no boasts. Chic knew his man; far-off Brisbane
170 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
was to know him, too. Through increasingly critical days and nights,
Station 'TUP' would be whispering into Fertig's control station
with priceless ship-movement information, even when the enemy
was combing the tiny island itself for the station that was proving
so costly to them. Captured Japanese intelligence documents later
revealed that the enemy had determined to clean out the tiny
hornet's nest and had sent a strong punitive expedition against guer-
rilla forces in southern Leyte and Panaon. The Japanese patrols
prodded every bush with bayonets. Station "TUF" sent a brief
warning to Fertig, slipped out under the very rifle muzzles of the
Japanese, and skittled across to Dinagat. Until the end of the war
"TUF" continued to pump in its precise ship "fixes" for American
submarines that hovered within calling distance beneath the waters
of Surigao Straits the graveyard of so many of the Emperor's
vessels.
After establishing Hemingway, Chic moved cautiously to south-
ern Leyte, where guerrillas battled not only the Japanese but just
as savagely fought each other for local control. Somewhere was
Colonel Ruperto K. Kangleon, former district commander of the
Philippine Army for Samar and Leyte. It was Chic's hope to find
him, and that the venerable and thoroughly respected Kangleon
would agree to serve as guerrilla coordinator for the important
island area and put an end to the senseless warfare. Chic began his
search. The grapevine had served; guerrillas on the extreme south-
ern end of Leyte were enthusiastically friendly.
He had requested the local guerrilla commanding officer to warn
those farther up of his coming.
"Yes, it would be advisable," the other had replied. "I have not
yet known of a Japanese launch to get through, or anyone aboard
to ah, escape. And your Nara has a nice Rising Sun painted on
both sides and on the deck. Good bull's-eyes!"
Good bull's-eyes they proved, despite the added precaution of
an American flag Chic had caused to be hoisted before they moved
closer to the richly green, quiet shores. As they turned toward a
barrio where Chic had reason to believe the commander of that
area would be waiting for him, they were met by a volley of rifle
shots.
THE PHILIPPINES 171
Chic scrambled on hands and knees to reach the wheel. In his
mind was one compelling thought: they must get in closer so the
hidden riflemen could see the American flag. He said later it had
not occurred to him that the fire might have been coming from
Japanese who would not have been particularly panicked by the
sight of the flag.
Someone yelled that the fuel drums had been shot. Chic bellowed
an order for all to lie still. He raised his head a fraction, just in
time to see the man who had cried out leap to his feet and run to the
forepeak, shouting and gesticulating to the shore. It was no use to
order him back. Every moment Chic expected him to drop with a
slug through him. Instead, the firing on the shore ceased. The
Filipino's crazy appeal had worked.
For a moment no one moved. Then several men jumped to stuff
emergency plugs in the spouting fuel drums.
No one had been hit, though the little vessel bore some fresh
scars. The turn in toward port had given them some protection
and had reduced the size of the target.
An apologetic lieutenant explained: The message he had re-
ceived was missing in one vital word, "American." He had been
warned to watch for "a launch" in the Straits that afternoon and
had prepared two reception committees. If this one had failed, three
quarters of his riflemen were concentrated at a certain narrow
point farther on. After all, the only launches they had seen since the
fall of the Islands had been Japanese.
Parsons resumed his survey. Little time was required to confirm
messages sent down previously by Villamor's 4E7 that conditions
on Leyte were worse than chaotic. As Chic phrased it there were
"at least six first-class wars going on not counting the official one."
Two were being waged between a former yeoman in the United
States Navy and a mining engineer. Then there was a private one
involving Lieutenant I. David Richardson of the Navy. Richardson
had plenty of what Chic needed in the way of leaders and he was,
as Chic put it, "a fighting fool who knew when it was best not to
fight." There were some lesser private fights, too. Unification had
to be. In Chic's book, Kangleon was the man to achieve it if he
could be prevailed upon. Young Richardson should be Ms field boss.
172 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Southern Leyte guerrillas knew of the "Soap Factory." To any-
one else, that was exactly what it was a place where an old man
and his big, good-natured wife made soap and sold it for forty
centavos a chunk. After Parsons' historic visit with the leathery-
skinned old patriot, the "Soap Factory" had another meaning, one
with more than cleanliness in it one with grim hope in it.
It took all of the earnest persuasiveness Chic ever had to con-
vince the war-weary, physically unwell Colonel Kangleon. Auto-
matically Chic began to flip the coin. Then he talked. First he re-
called for him the desperate plight of the guerrillas without medi-
cine, possessing only junk radio outfits that could not power the
ether enough to reach more than a few score miles, homemade
"paltics" for guns, Chinese firecrackers for powder to make home-
made bullets.
There would be no overnight conversion to military strength, he
made it plain, but a start had been promised by MacArthur, and
Admiral Kinkaid was making available the submarines to carry the
stuff in provided only they could be assured that it would be worth
the effort, that there would be a responsible man on the Philippines
end to see that it was used for the good of the cause. He used the
phrase then that he was to use often: "After all, a guerrilla move-
ment is only as good as its leader."
Two days later our AIB decoders in Brisbane were extracting
sense out of the five-letter cipher messages that were coming down
from the north in relays Leyte to Fertig, Fertig to KAZ, and KAZ
to Brisbane.
KANGLEON HAS AGREED . . .
It was an agreement that was to withstand the combined attri-
tion of jungle, of hates, jealousies, frustration, sickness, and sudden
enemy raids, one of which was so sudden that the Japanese even
captured Kangleon's new transmitter sent in from Mindanao, though
they failed to get Kangleon. It was an agreement that would be
confirmed wordlessly in a steel-like grip of hands in October of
1944 MacArthur and the proud old patriot whose courage and
tough determination never had failed him after Chic's visit.
THE PHILIPPINES 173
Parsons always traveled unarmed. It was his agility, he would
say, that kept him out of trouble. AIB knew that his agility was two-
fold mental as well as physical. Now he had another assignment
that was going to test the latter.
On reading Chic's reports, the Commander in Chief had ex-
pressed his concern about a certain guerrilla leader, one "Brigadier
General" Salipada Pendatum. It was feared that not only would
Pendatum insist on independent operation in Mindanao, but that
his utter determination to engage the enemy on every occasion
would bring down crushing Japanese retaliation. Such a campaign
by the enemy could not only wipe out Pendatum but threaten all
of Mindanao.
Pendatum, a one-time lawyer and influential advisor to the
governor of Mindanao, was brainy, proud, and unquestionably as
good an organizer as he was man of action. That he was ingenious
and ruthlessly determined had been proved when, upon laying
siege to a strongly built structure in which the Japanese were
laughing at his attempts to dislodge them with small-arms fire,
Pendatum caused a water buffalo to be saddled with a hundred-
pound aerial bomb, "aimed" at the building, and "fired" by means
of burning cloth under his tail. Terrified and full of pain, the animal
charged the building. The bomb exploded, demolishing a wall. The
victory was complete.
As usual, Chic went unarmed to tell Pendatum that he must
come under Lieutenant Colonel Fertig as a major. Fertig reported
that he was more worried than if Chic had been bound for Manila
itself.
"This will be better than a gun," Chic had said, grinning and
patting a bulging knapsack on his shoulders. "Maybe it will get the
self-appointed star off his collar."
In the knapsack was his proof that he came from GHQ. Prob-
ably no stranger credentials had ever been offered: cigarettes,
candies, anti-malaria tablets, and several copies of Time magazine
showing a mangled Japanese warship at Midway. Pendatum was not
gullible, neither was he a fool. But this was proof. He took the
major's bronze leaves.
Originally it had been planned that Parsons would remain in the
174 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
lower Philippines from thirty to sixty days. But so valuable was his
work among the guerrillas (a task which Villamor could not do and
at the same time organize the clandestine nets independent of guer-
rillas, his original mission) and so helpful were his reports to the
Commander in Chief that weeks ran into months and still he stayed
on.
In the interim there had been changes in the Philippine section of
AIB. The flow of military, political, and economic information from
the north was assuming impressive proportions; obviously to evalu-
ate much of it required an individual whose knowledge of the
Islands and the people that made up its social and political shad-
ings far exceeded my own. Such a man was Colonel (later Major
General) Courtney A. Whitney, who had resided and practiced law
in Manila for more than twenty years. In mid- 1943 he arrived
from America and was assigned to take over the Philippine section.
At his request and by direction from the "front office," I remained
as his advisor on technical operations and consultant on policy;
this would be in addition to my other duties as deputy controller
and finance officer of the Bureau. Perhaps it ought to be mentioned
here, too, that shortly thereafter I failed properly to evaluate and
interpret the Willoughbian eyebrow and found myself "ranked
down" to the level of "assistant deputy controller" under one
Colonel Colin S. Myers, a grizzled old campaigner who did not
know much of clandestine operations but did know army regula-
tions. I learned a lot about them, too, after that. We collided often,
but later served amicably and productively together in Java and
Japan on important jobs. (In 1951, in Tokyo, I would be restored
to the position of eyebrow interpreter dai ichiban or Number 1
but that would be after the deactivation of the Bureau.)
It was shortly after Whitney had taken over that we received a
startling message from Fertig. Whitney referred it to me. The text
spoke of the white men who claimed to have escaped from an enemy
prison farm near Davao after having been taken on Bataan. They
had, they said, survived in the "Bataan Death March." Their stories,
warned Fertig, would shock all of America if they were true.
One name caught my eye: "Captain Ed Dyess." If the man claim-
ing that name was genuine, he would know the answers to some
THE PHILIPPINES 175
questions I could send, because Ed had been the "squadron" leader
of what was left of our Air Corps on Bataan at that time, six
P-4CTs. I was directed to make up the questions. In consequence
of their exactly proper answers, Chic Parsons got his next assign-
ment: he would escort as many of the men as were fit to be moved
to Australia via a submarine that would come close to the place
where the wretched men were recuperating. That place, Chic
radioed back, could be a certain north coast point. Task Force 77
radioed to one of their "fish" and gave her the cooordinates.
Quietly the U.S.S. Thresher swung her bow around and got under
way. Other messages went north that night in the personal code of
"Q-10," Parsons, confirming the exact coordinates for the rendez-
vous. It was necessary for Fertig's operator to relay the message
to "Q-10," who was hidden on the northeast coast. Atmospheric
conditions were not too good, repeats were necessary.
The repeats that night were appreciated by certain Japanese
wireless operators manipulating carefully calibrated dials mounted
on powerful receivers. One set was in a vessel drifting quietly out
in the Mindanao Sea just under the island of Bohol. A second set
was on a craft slowly drifting in the Surigao Sea just south of Leyte.
These ships were Japanese Radio Direction Finders "RDF's."
There would be quick calibrations followed by a rapid exchange of
signals between the ships as the clever triangulation operators
charted the next location of a troublesome guerrilla station. Japa-
nese Naval Air Operations would be glad to hear of this "fix."
Two days later the enemy came in.
"Many Hapons . . . Many Hapons!" had cried the runners of
Fertig's guerrilla army. Nimble hands disassembled small radio sets.
In a trice there were no telltale aerials the wires had collapsed into
trees; and the little nipa shacks looked bare and disused by the
time the advance reconnaissance parties arrived.
It was a near thing. Three times Chic's policy of sending ahead
of him a simple Filipino who could be an innocuous tiller of
camotes or peddler of bananas had saved him from heavily armed
patrols. He did his "swan dive" into the jungle until the immediate
danger, unobtrusively signaled by his "farmer," abated. But it was
soon clear to him that this was no ordinary patrol. Reports came
176 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
in from outposts everywhere of more enemy coming ashore. There
had been short shrift with anyone who failed to cooperate. Chic
sensed that either there had been a compromise, or a dreadfully
potent coincidence. He dared not even try to break out the radio
again not then.
Anxious days later, back in Brisbane, a wordy message in the
Q-10 (Parsons) code finally came through.
ARRIVE HQ TODAY FROM NORTH. WARN SUB COMMANDER SITES
ONE AND TWO FOR MEETING NORTH COAST IN HANDS ENEMY
SITE THREE NOT FEASIBLE. RECOMMEND MEETING ONE HOUR
BEFORE SUNSET NINTH VICINITY NORTHEAST COAST OLUTANGA
ISLAND FROM SAME LAUNCH THAT MET SUB. IF POSSIBLE DATE
THIS MEETING SHOULD BE ARRANGED SPECIFICALLY TO AVOID
ENDANGERING SECURITY. AREA SECURE AT PRESENT NO AIR
OR SEA PATROLS. PORTABLE TRANSMITTER MALANGAS WILL
WARN IF SUDDEN CHANGES. MORE TOMORROW.
Only immediate action might save the submarine from a dis-
astrous ambush. There was not even time in Brisbane for us to
take a staff car to Naval Operations. Instead, the open phone line
was risked to say that "the threshing machine definitely must not
enter the new field to work the harvest. The field boss says she'll
bog down in yellow mud with disastrous results. Been raining in that
country pretty bad."
Navy's fervent "Roger'* clipped off.
From the tall towers in Perth the warning went north. To the
intense relief of everyone the Thresher's own "Roger" came back.
Now began one of the most trying forced marches Chic ever was
to experience. Deprived of the relatively accessible site to the north,
it would be necessary for the party to negotiate treacherous trails
over some of the most punishing country in the Philippines to reach
the area where Chic had made his original landing in March. And
all this to be imposed upon a little company which collectively was
in such poor shape that only three of the seven original escapees
could be considered for the trip. They would be Dyess, Lieutenant
Colonel Stephen Mellnik, and Lieutenant Commander Melvin H.
THE PHILIPPINES 177
McCoy. With them also would be Charlie Smith. He had accom-
plished his daring job of establishing a watcher position above the
city of Davao with its important port and signals from his little
ATR4A had been feeding in excellent grist for the mills of Naval
Intelligence, who gave it to Operations, who gave it to submarine
commanders. Chic would be glad to have Charlie. Brisbane directed
him to accompany the Parsons trek. It would be necessary for them
to move out at once if they were to make the rendezvous at all.
During the morning of the first day they had made fair progress.
But as the heat increased, the pace slowed and finally stopped.
While they were halted there in a defile with the inhospitable moun-
tains rising higher and higher before them, they caught the hint of
smoke in the hot air. One of Chic's scouts slipped back from his
forward position and signaled them to follow him. They stopped on
the edge of a steep gulch at the bottom of which rushed a deep,
turgid stream. Sagging into the swirling waters were the charred
remains of bridge timbers, still smoking.
Chic knew that they were not far from friends. He was sure
guerrillas had done this and if they had, that meant only one
thing: the enemy was in the area in some force. They had done it
to protect the barrio.
Dyess muttered that they'd have to swim for it. Chic regarded his
wasted body and knew that would be out of the question. Anyway,
there were crocodiles, lots of them.
They would have to build a raft.
It was bitter work. The current sucked at their legs and pulled
their feet from under them. The timbers from the bridge ruins
would have invited the service of a crane hoist instead of these
weary, famished bodies. Three o'clock came.
Chic called a ten-minute halt. Then he forced his own aching
body to resume. A longer rest would be fatal; they would not be
able to get going again.
By late afternoon the stream of the crocodiles had been navi-
gated at last. Drearily they tramped the jungle trail, but their sag-
ging bodies were sustained by the knowledge that just beyond
should be the barrio they sought. A friendly barrio, said their guide.
Rest, food.
178 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Suddenly Dyess, in the lead, halted. Before he could signal, the
others had plowed into him, walking blindly as they were.
"Japs," Dyess whispered. "Right there in the yard taking a bath."
For a moment they stared. Then Chic gave the signal for them to
fade into the jungle. But some movement had caught the attention
of the alert enemy. There was a sudden cry, and the soldiers clawed
for their clothes and their weapons.
In a trice the party melted from the trail. Fear put strength into
their tired muscles as they crawled away through the jungle.
Night closed down on them.
Still they went on, climbing steadily as they knew they must if
they were to find the trail again.
At last they stumbled into a sudden clearing.
Mellnik's voice was a croak.
"Corn . . . Lookit, guys . . . Corn!"
McCoy seized an ear, ripped away the husk, and sank his teeth
into the raw kernels. For a moment the others watched. Then
savagely these famished men stuffed the green corn into their
mouths and blinked back salty tears at the sheer ecstatic taste of it.
Their luck had changed. Gladly, humbly, the native shared his
poor shelter with them. Instantly they were asleep, secure, for the
simple Mindanaoan steadfastly refused to close an eye.
At dawn they were on the trail again, always upward. Would it
never cease?
Then the guide halted, pointing to the earth. Chic and Charlie
struggled to him.
In dismay they recognized the fresh imprint of a Japanese
soldier's "tabby shoe," a soft type with a separate "toe" for the big
toe. It also pointed up the trail.
So while they had rested the enemy had passed them and now
were "pursuing" them up ahead. They held a conference. Then they
pushed on, for that way, at least, they knew where the enemy was.
Slipping, sliding, and fighting always, they mounted.
Suddenly the guide signaled a warning. Peering through the little
clearing he had made, they saw what he saw.
The enemy patrol was comfortably spread out in a sheltered
hollow, and they were eating!
THE PHILIPPINES 179
Dyess cursed. He pulled his gun. But Parsons reasoned with
him; it would be a hopeless attack.
Charlie Smith was reconnoitering. He came back to suggest that
they find a way around the enemy and go on, for it was his bet that
soon the Japanese would suspect that they might have outrun their
quarry and turn backward. This was done. Later they began to
drop down into lower, hotter country. Twice the guide halted, seem-
ingly for a rest. Smith observed him. He knew Filipinos. Was the
man lost? He faced him and put the question he hated to ask.
Yes, he was lost.
For a moment they were stunned. Then McCoy began to speak.
There was a flat pitch to his words that made Chic jump up and put
an arm on his shoulder, and say reassuring things. McCoy became
silent. Chic and Smith conferred. Charlie pulled a little compass
from his pocket. He could do no worse, he said; from now on he
would be "guide." It was agreed. It was then that they discovered
that they had only part of one canteen of water left.
There was no alternative: they would have to trust stream water.
Later they dropped on their bellies beside a small stream and filled
themselves and their empty canteens.
The frail needle of Charlie's compass tremblingly waved them
on through hellish, endless days, steam-infused and miasmic. The
nights brought no rest only the dawn, and the jungle again, crowd-
ing, implacable. . . .
At times the ex-prisoners seemed to lose all sense of time. Parsons
wondered if there would be a tomorrow for them? Their strength
was going fast. Yet back of them all certainly were those well-fed
stocky Japanese. There would be no quarter, asked or given.
Ahead, someplace, would be the submarine. It had to be soon.
His grim musings had been suddenly interrupted by sounds of
someone ahead. They pulled each other into the undergrowth.
Could the enemy possibly be ahead of them, another patrol? Then
Chic jumped as beside him Charlie Smith called out loudly:
"Guerrillas! Hey, Captain Medina! It's friends! From Fertig! . . .
Christ!"
The reaction had been terrific. Tears streamed down their faces
180 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
unashamed. There was joyful sharing of meager rations by the little
guerrilla band.
The guerrilla leader jerked his head back along the trail and
promised that he would do things to discourage the Japanese from
overconfide nee .
They went on, momentarily encouraged and refreshed. Medina's
ragged fighters had disappeared to the rear. (They did not hear the
firing of the ambush. Some enemy got away, it was known later.
Medina and his band would be pushed high into the hills, where
they all but starved.)
Another day and night went by. And now it was actually the
sixth. They dared not lose more time. Yet the ex-prisoners were at
the end of their strength. They appeared to be dazed. Sometimes
they would wander away. And then, when it seemed that even the
comparatively fit men could endure no more, they were confronted
with another great hulk of a mountain. Beyond words now, they
started. Up and up.
Somehow they breasted the summit. There they halted, words
dead in their throats.
Below them was the bay.
Behind guarded doors at AIB headquarters in Brisbane the inter-
rogations were pushed as rapidly as the strength of the pale, drawn-
featured escapees would permit. There were other interruptions as
well, because the stories were so horrifying that the stenographers
could take it for only twenty minutes at a time. For these were the
first participant narrations to come out of the Philippines of the
Bataan Death March and of the unbelievable prison camp life fol-
lowing it. On orders of the Commander in Chief, the word-for-word
record w 7 as sent to him immediately for special air dispatch to
Washington, because the United States Government had decided on
a nationwide expose fully to acquaint the people with the nature of
the military enemy that was ravishing the Pacific world.
As indicated previously, Chic's return to Brisbane in July 1943
coincided with the extensive expansion of activities in the Philip-
pine section of the Bureau. It has also been stated that before his
THE PHILIPPINES 181
return other penetration parties had been organized to follow
"Planet" in, such as "Peleven" and "Peleven Relief." There was
another, known as "Tenwest," led by Charlie Smith's boat partner,
Jordan Hamner. By the time of Chic's return, "Tenwest" had gone
and had insinuated itself into one of the most unenviable positions
in the whole area that of the Sulu \rchipelago, a string of islands
extending in a generally westward direction until they almost touch
the northeastern part of Borneo. This screen, frequently referred to
as the Tawitawi, had to be watched; enemy movements from the
western Philippines, or even from Singapore, headed southward
toward our island-hopping troops on New Guinea, in all probability
would set their course through this line of the Sulus. It was a tac-
tically delicate area; it was also notoriously a hostile one.
Parsons* reports encouraged GHQ planners in their hopes that
if every assistance within our admittedly limited potential were ex-
tended to Fertig, and if a military policy of non-offensiveness toward
the enemy were strictly observed on Mindanao, possibly that island
might be preserved long enough to enable the Allies one day to
swoop upon it with a force sufficient to hold it as a base for a big
northward campaign. The problem, then, was to increase the flow of
necessities to Fertig and, if we could, to help the others stay alive
until "the day."
The consensus of numerous conferences was that attempts to do
this by aircraft would prove unfeasible; even if we had the air-
craft, their presence would only alert the enemy of GHQ's inten-
tions. Surface vessels likewise were out. Submarines? It was at this
stage that Courtney Whitney began to benefit from the earlier suc-
cesses of AIB infiltrators and from the alertness of the encouraged
guerrillas. When AIB had first proposed to insert agents via tactical
submarines, our reception at Naval Headquarters had been a cold
one; understandably so, but nevertheless cold. With such a mere
pittance of submarine force, Task Force 77 did not relish taking
out one torpedo for every man and gear we proposed to send north.
It required a direct order from the Commander in Chief to make
this precious space available. But one day the situation changed as
if by magic. The trick was accomplished quite unintentionally by
ABB; a routine report by one of Charlie Smith's agents telling of
182 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
the torpedoing of an enemy ship near Davao did it. Navy was more
than interested. Could AIB report these "kills" as a part of its
normal function? Indeed, we replied, puzzled at Navy's enthusiasm.
We soon understood. Compelled by the shortage of submarines to
demand strictest "hit-and-run" tactics by its submarine command-
ers, the Navy was unable to credit these thoroughly deserving under-
sea heroes with sinkings they claimed because the submarines were
not permitted to remain in a position to observe, and thus verify, a
sinking. But AIB's observers and guerrillas with the new radios
could do it for them. Thus, for the first time, the undersea men
were getting their richly deserved marks. There was no more re-
luctance to transport AIB agents, and, as far as possible, to stow
supplies for the guerrillas.
But now it was desired to send in many more agents and much
more supply. It will be remembered that the submarine which called
for Read's first batch of evacues New Year's Eve was a giant. She
was the Nautilus. COMSOUPAC needed her yet, but possibly the
Navy could assign her sister ship, the Narwhal, to Brisbane for AIB
dispatch; she was just as big, just as eager, and just as tough. Later,
probably the Nautilus as well.
Thus it ensued that when Chic made his next trip into the Islands,
he went via the Narwhal The big "sneaker" was heavy with guns,
ammo, carbines, grenades, radios, medicines, money, food a thou-
sand morale-builders for the guerrillas, a thousand morale-destroy-
ers for the enemy. Not just seven or eight tons this time instead,
fifty tons. Whitney's section levied heavily upon AIB's personnel
and facilities to do this; the Bureau responded in a manner that
made Chic and Whitney grin in anticipation.
For this particular "show," however, a severe strain had devel-
oped owing to a belated order to prepare a party for insertion in
the very heart of the enemy stronghold. Major J. H. Phillips, a one-
time Mindanao planter, was to establish something similar to a
Northeast Area Coast Watcher-type unit at Cape Calavite on
Mindoro Island, just south of Manila itself. He was to emulate the
Villamor type of organization and avoid guerrilla entanglements
until much more was known about them in that area. As always,
time was pressing, but in this instance it was so insistent as to make
THE PHILIPPINES 183
training almost incidental. Perhaps we had been lulled by the suc-
cesses Chic had experienced. Possibly we had been overcautious
with "Planet"? I thought not. My protests were listened to and some
training programs were initiated. But Narwhal was waiting. . . .
Aboard the vessel Chic continued such training as could be
carried on; the big, dark-complexioned, friendly Phillips fully co-
operating. But all too soon the Nanvhal nosed into her landing on
Mindoro. Radio advances indicated that the area was clear and that
a "reception party" would be waiting to help unload.
There was.
While such a hearty celebration might have succeeded in the far-
south Mindanao where Fertig had reasonable control over men and
events for limited periods, such a public event simply could not be
justified under the very windows of the enemy headquarters, as it
were. Phillips was doomed the moment he set foot ashore, although
it would be some time before the Kempei Tai drew its noose tight.
The story was told that among those watching the landing was an
inconspicuous Mindoran who slipped away without speaking to
anyone. In due time he appeared at the Manila Kempei Tai as a
seller of fruit. He sold his basket without trouble. In that basket he
figuratively delivered the head of the genial Phillips.
The enemy needed only confirmations of exact locations. These
were forthcoming from Japanese radio triangulation experts who
had zeroed in on new and powerful signals, signed "ISRM." To the
listeners, these were merely call letters. To us in Brisbane they were
the initial letters of a famous slogan: "I Shall Return, MacArthur."
Phillips' station was the western anchor of a chain that was hoped
to be established clear across the Islands south of Luzon. On the
east Charlie Smith would go in again to set up "MACA," which was
the cryptic signature the Commander in Chief utilized on his inter-
office communications.
In Manila, the Japanese radio monitoring experts smiled their
satisfaction. The new station was very prolific in its traffic; in fact,
it was so busy transmitting that it seldom paused to change the
key words for its cipher system. Convenient for the crypto-analysts,
because any system, however "tight," would yield if there was
enough substance to work on.
184 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
This circumstance was quite as evident in Brisbane as Manila,
but AIB took no comfort in it. The shock was a double one because
it was apparent that the big-hearted Phillips had become deeply
affected by the deplorable plight of the guerrillas and had forgotten
secrecy in his determination to better their situation.
Emergency sessions were called at Heindorf House. By now the
astute, scholarly Dr. J. R. Hayden, one-time vice-governor of the
Philippines and an authority on its political economy and its people,
had joined GHQ and was assigned to Whitney's section. The three
of us paced the famous "Back Room" and pondered possible solu-
tions. We were triply concerned because concurrently with the
Phillips' developments a most secret plan for the evacuation of
certain highly influential, thoroughly loyal Filipinos in acute danger
in Manila had been going forward. These people were to report one
night to a certain point south of Manila. There would be a hidden
small boat. At the proper signal the boatman would emerge. The
civilians would embark and push off toward a tactical submarine
diverted for the job and waiting on the surface that is, if all was
well.
It was not. One evening at this delicate juncture KAZ, Darwin,
could not raise ISRM. The report of "no-contact" came to Brisbane,
and there was a little ripple of apprehension. Still ISRM had gone
off the air before when hostile movements were sensed in the area.
But Lieutenant T. Crespo of "Peleven" party on Mindoro had re-
ported alarmingly that ISRM's position was common knowledge.
Cautiously other net-control stations in the area began to call,
not only to ISRM but to some of the satellite stations Phillips was
known to have established along the coast. No replies. It was be-
lieved best for KAZ itself to refrain from calling so as not to betray
our anxiety to the enemy. KAZ monitored instead, day and night.
AIB's Dutch station hidden near Darwin changed coils to enable
it to switch from the Netherlands area to the Philippines and listen.
Nothing. The Navy's powerful receivers monitored.
The total "catch" was a terse hint from Peralta on Panay. He was
trying to confirm a disturbing report that had come in by runner.
A long time later a long time after we had learned the unhappy
truth from our own sources an official Japanese intelligence docu-
THE PHILIPPINES 185
ment, Report B, No. 51, covering the activities of W atari Group in
Luzon during the first fifteen days of May 1944 fell into our hands.
Paragraph 3 of the Summary contained a familiar name. The Allied
Translator and Interpreter Unit operated by that veteran intelli-
gence officer, the pirate-featured Colonel S. Mashbir, worked on it.
3. It is certain that the American secret agent, Major Phillips, was
shot and killed. Captain Esugera, C.O., of Bataan and Cavite combat
areas, who is now under arrest, was a subordinate of Major Phillips.
When he met W.O. "Waisu" [presumably Warrant Officer B. L. Weiss,
Phillips' radio operator], an American agent engaged in radio work on
Mindoro Island, the latter said he had heard confirmation of Major Phil-
lips' death. Phillips was an Army agent who originally entered Attu by
stealth statement of Phillips' liaison man, a Filipino.
What this report didn't mention was that the Kempei Tai had
struck suddenly in three places simultaneously: Phillips' headquar-
ters; a Batangas Coast Watcher station; and a point midway be-
tween that place and a spot where the submarine was due to sur-
face and take aboard the group of ten prominent civilians. Shortly
afterward there had been another swift descent on Elena Apart-
ments in Manila where some of the civilians had lived. The torture
dungeons of Fort Santiago were becoming well tenanted.
It was also much later that a certain Japanese soldier was cap-
tured in the Hollandia area who had seen duty with the Manila
Kempei Tai. Yes, he had been on armed patrol under secret instruc-
tions in the Cape Calavite area about February 26. Yes, there had
been an action. An American secret agent had been surprised while
bathing. He had leaped for his arms, but had fallen at shots from
the Japanese. There had been other sharp engagements with a con-
siderable number of guerrillas. The American had escaped. He had
thrown money away; in one place the Kempei Tai leader had found
documents, cipher material, he thought it was. No, he didn't think
Major Phillips had died then, because they found a blood trail, but
it was lost eventually. He did think that the wound had proved
fatal within thirty-six hours. Later he had heard persistently that
such had been the case.
And what about the Japanese launch that suddenly appeared and
186 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
captured the Filipino party in the small boat off Calavite a little
after? Had there been any connection? The Japanese PW said no.
There had been a list of names captured in Manila some weeks
after Phillips' death. Well, then, he was asked: Had someone in
Phillips' party talked?
Ah. There had been one man captured in the raid of the secret
Coast Watcher station in Batangas. It was one of Phillips' men. He
had, ah, found it expedient to talk. Yes, he had talked. But what he
had said exactly the PW had no way of knowing. The Japanese
believed in a policy of quick rotation of Kempei Tai patrol members
so that none ever knew too much of one area and its operations.
This pretty much substantiated information brought down in
person by Weiss. Miraculously he had escaped the ambush of
February 26. It had been agreed, he said, that in case of surprise,
headquarters staff members would flee in different directions to
minimize the danger of a wholesale coup by the enemy. He made
his way to Panay, reported to Peralta, and eventually was evacuated
by submarine. (In September of 1944 I again said good-by to this
courageous young man who, despite his harassing experiences, re-
quested that he be returned to the Islands. Accordingly, he went in
with the submarine Seawolf, a converted operational vessel now
used for cargo work and assigned to Whitney's Philippine Regional
Section. The Seawolf carried Weiss and fourteen others for Samar.
She never arrived. There is some evidence that she was bombed out
of existence by friendly aircraft which by then were raiding the
Philippines.)
Various other members of the original Phillips party eventually
were accounted for. Some reported to other guerrilla leaders, and
one reported to the brilliant Commander G. F. Rowe of the Navy,
who was sent in subsequently by Whitney to replace the ill-fated
group at Cape Calavite. (Rowe, with splendid radio, photographic,
and weather equipment and tested personnel, was to perform in an
outstanding manner right up to the time of military operations in
1945; he refrained from involvement in guerrilla affairs as much
as possible.)
Chic was deeply affected by the Phillips disaster. By this time lie
had done more, much more, than his share and he would have been
THE PHILIPPINES 187
justified in taking a base job. But the memory of the brave, pos-
sibly foolishly goodhearted Phillips drove him on without recess.
This coin-flipping, merry-eyed, chuckler-at-fate went into the Is-
lands on not fewer than half-a-dozen missions, each one of which
broke into multiple missions once he was inserted by submarine.
During one of these missions, in mid-1944, he made contact with
Luzon guerrillas on the east coast, taking with him Private Courtney
Whitney, Jr. Young Whitney was charged with delivery of certain
messages for the guerrillas. Both he and Parsons returned on the
same submarine that took them in.
Chic also is credited with making a momentous landing on Leyte
in October 1944, just prior to the invasion. Through his interven-
tion, at utter disregard by him of his own safety, the town of
Tacloban was spared both bomb and navy big-gun shelling when
he had found that to destroy it would have worked the greatest
punishment upon the Filipinos and none upon the enemy.
That the messages he subsequently managed to send back to the
Fleet and to Advance GHQ were the pivots upon which detailed
invasion operations either were spun to conclusion or held, or
altered, there is no doubt.
And yet here, on Leyte, the scene of his greatest triumph, Chic
came closer to death by Japanese hands than he ever knowingly
had done before. He told me about it in a shot-riddled building on
the Manila water front after the Japanese had been pushed back
onto Honshu itself.
"The chances were at least eighteen real ones to nothing flat that
I was a goner," he said. "I was in my usual 'business suit' of old
cotton pants, dirty and ragged, and a shirt to match, while on my
head was an old saw-edge straw hat. I was barefooted. I'd sent two
guerrillas on ahead as usual, while two native fanners were with
me. The guerrillas stopped at a main-road intersection, and I con-
cluded from their general behavior that the coast was clear. We
went on right straight into a patrol of Japanese soldiers who were
carrying every kind of weapon except atomic bombs.
"Well, for all the action I was capable of at that moment, they
could have sent a sick Boy Scout to take me. I was absolutely
paralyzed with fear.
188 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
"And that," grinned Chic, spinning a well-worn Australian florin
into the air and catching it expertly, "was my salvation."
Chic stared at the coin a moment, then went on.
"They slogged by in a ragged file eighteen of them, so close
to me that one or two actually had to lurch to the left to avoid
bumping into us. We just stood there, frozen, my arm on the
shoulder of one of the farmers, and stared hard the other way.
"Every second I waited for iron hands to grip me, or a bayonet
to stick into my tight belly, but say! What do you know about
that? This coin came down tails, and it shoulda been heads! You
know I think I'm still scared just thinking about it."
Sulu Sharpshooter
O
NE CONSEQUENCE OF THE GALA EVENT THAT
characterized the landing of the Phillips party on Mindoro was
that the big Nanvhal became the object of the enemy's concen-
trated attention. For a prolonged period following Calavite she
seemingly dropped out of existence. AIB had no word, the Navy
had "not a tinkle." The facetious phrase had nothing in common
with the true state of feelings at Navy. Tension built up by the
hour. Days and nights of it. Finally a message did come in from
the Japanese.
Intercepted, this fragment intended only for Japanese consump-
tion, had included in clear language the word Narwhal.
Again there was concentrated work by Mashbir's translators:
Narwhal had been observed by the enemy off Calavite, proceeding
southward.
Then she was safe.
But it was obvious that her continued welfare was a matter of
hour-to-hour concern; the enemy was determined to kill her. This
had double importance at this time because Whitney and AIB were
concerned in another deeply confidential deal to effect the rescue
of the American men, women, and children of whom Villamor had
heard when he debriefed Dr. Bell of the Silliman Institute. This
little group, always one short hop ahead of a determined enemy,
could not hope to elude him forever. There also would be some
military personnel requiring evacuation. The rendezvous was set
and Narwhal was to collect them if they, the enemy, and the
submarine could play their hide-and-seek game to a fine point just
a shade in our favor.
189
190 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Time after time quick alterations had to be radioed north to
counteract equally quick moves by the hunters. And then it was
done. Now Nanvhal with her passengers stowed inside was on her
way to Tawitawi to drop some sorely needed supplies to Captain
Frank Young before turning south to Australia.
Would it be from the frying pan into the fire? Young had radioed
that treachery was abroad in the Sulus, but that he had posted
agents everywhere to try to determine if news of the submarine's
expected call had leaked out. At GHQ it was felt that if treachery
existed, Young's own shrewdness, his own steel-trap mind were the
best counterfoils. Instructions went out to the Narwhal giving time
and place in the Tawitawis. After that she would report to still an-
other rendezvous off the northwest coast of Australia where her
previous cargo of passengers would be transhipped to an Australian
vessel which would take them to a secret landing spot.
Frank Young had been a third lieutenant in the Philippine Army
that had rushed north from Manila to meet the overwhelming in-
vasion of the Japanese pouring into Lingayan Gulf in December
of 1941. Together with the American Thirty-first Infantry and
other Fil-American elements, they had fought, been cut off, ma-
neuvered, and fought again, but had always been compelled to re-
treat before the enemy hordes. The situation grew desperate. The
main American defense forces were pouring into Bataan Peninsula
for the last stand. But Young could not make it; he was wounded
and in a field hospital that was being abandoned. He escaped. For
months he ranged as a guerrilla under Colonel Claude Thorp. Then
Colonel Thorp gave him some messages to deliver to General Mac-
Arthur. To reach Corregidor would have been a real feat in itself.
But the Commander in Chief was no longer on the Rock he was
in Australia.
Young considered: he had his orders and he had his legs. But
he would need a boat. He slipped down through the maze of the
Islands until he reached the southern group. Here he joined with
a keen-minded German who said that he hated the Nazis and
their allies, and that he, too, had information he believed Mac-
Arthur would be glad to possess. They would go together. Young
THE PHILIPPINES 791
acquired a Moro-type craft with a single ragged sail together
with six silent, able Moro crewmen. They set off.
Young had long since discarded his uniform. Except for his
height, he was as much a Moro as his crew: lank-haired, blackened
by the sun, attired in ragged shorts and a dirty shirt and a conical
native-type hat. The Moros did not like the German and, in their
simple, direct way, occasionally tried to kill him. But Young was
alert, day and night: he knew that the German's knowledge of
navigation and his little compass were all that stood between them
and extinction on those sun-beaten seas. They made their landfall
late in 1942 and were rushed to Brisbane, Moros and all. Young
was asked about the messages from the American colonel. "Oh,
yes, sir the messages. I have them here, sir." From his hip pocket
he pulled well-creased, somewhat tattered papers.
Their arrival marked the opening of a new and salty period of
learning for us in AIB. The presence of semi-savage Moros in
"white Australia" offered its problems; fanatically devout Moslems
in an all-Christian community provided others. To train them
and Young in the fine points of the white man's idea of stealth
called for exercises that were never, never boring such as the
night Young decided to test the proficiency of his charges.
He attired them in the jungle battle dress complete with helmets
and carbines and told his pupils that they must deliberately let
themselves be seen by such Brisbanites as might be abroad in one
of the suburbs at that time of night. Then they must "melt" and
must successfully elude the police for the remainder of the time
required for them to traverse the entire city and report back to
him. The only element lacking was that Young had neglected to
inform AIB of some of the fine points concerning his "guys." The
ensuing hours were made very lively for the police. Their tele-
phones were jumping to calls by thoroughly panicky inhabitants
convinced that the small, dark soldiers they had caught a momen-
tary glimpse of were the first of the long-feared invasion. It is only
right to add that the police, in turn, eventually made things lively
for AIB.
"Tenwest" party embarked May 23, 1943. Headed by the grave,
thorough Jordan Hamner, the party was to split up after it landed
192 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
on Mindanao. Young's half would slip into the Tawitawi group
and set up watcher units to report on possible southward move-
ments by the enemy, especially through the key Sibutu Passage.
Hamner was to continue westward and eventually try to effect
junction with a British group of agents from Mott's section of
AIB which had been working up the Borneo coast. Together they
were to effect a solid observation of the sensitive Balabac Straits
between Borneo and Palawan Island of the Philippine group north-
ward. Thus it was felt that enemy movements either down through
the Islands and into the Celebes Sea, or from Singapore through
the Balabac and into the Celebes Sea, would be detected in time
to offer warnings.
From the beginnings of modern times, however, the Sulu Archi-
pelago has been a problem area for the white man and for any
non-Moslem. The Moro was, and is, uncompromisingly hostile to
the "infidel" of any color, even his own. Little wonder then that
Young had to report "treachery" abroad in the Tawitawis. Even
so, the combined cunning of the hostile Moros and the maneuver-
ings of the Japanese failed to silence the signals of Station "FGQ"
hidden in the humid dark hill country of the Archipelago.
In fact, it was through this station which Hamner and Young
had inserted with the help of the guerrilla leader Lieutenant
Colonel Alejandro Suarez that the first intelligence information
was relayed to Australia in mid-1943, as to the fate of the Aus-
tralian Eighth Division, unheard of since the fall of Singapore
early in the year. An intrepid band of Australians from that unit
had managed their escape from a prison camp at Sandakan, North
Borneo, and had reached Tawitawi Island where they had been
nursed back to health by Suarez's men. (Two of these Australians,
"Jock" McLaren and Rex Blow, later performed incredible feats
while fighting with the American guerrillas on Mindanao, and as
though that were not sufficient, in 1945 McLaren reported to
Advance Headquarters of Allied Intelligence Bureau on Morotai
for missions of utmost danger in the many operations conducted
by the Services Reconnaissance Division unit of the Bureau against
Borneo.)
Hamner had gone on, carefully, purposely. But this was one
THE PHILIPPINES 193
assignment that even the intrepid Parsons likely would have voted
down; it is doubtful if Chic would have considered it feasible to
send in a white man at all. I must assume my share of responsi-
bility for that error. In the second place, experience was to teach
the fallibility of trying to work a joint enterprise between two
separate sections of the Bureau with their different methods of
operating, their unrelated systems of cryptography, and the con-
trasting temperaments and motivations of the personnel.
The two parties reported that they were unable to make their
rendezvous. In addition, Hamner's health had not been recovered
to the extent it seemed to have following his prolonged exposure
with Smith in their epic small-boat voyage from the Philippines
to Australia. His teeth became infected. Then a fungus developed
in one ear. It was plain that Hamner would have to be evacuated
and another party developed for the Balabac watch. To take the
heat off the guerrillas in the Tawitawi area who had been doing
their best to protect him against the Japanese and Moros alike,
Hamner struck westward and established a secret command post
on Borneo.
This move made him inaccessible for evacuation, for as has been
seen Narwhal was making deliveries in the Tawitawi area and had
the full nature of the grave situation confronting Hamner been
realized sufficiently early in Brisbane, he would have been directed
to effect junction with the big submarine when she came in to un-
load. Instead, he was far away. Despite his wretched health, he
would stay with a rough situation doing what he could and relaying
information until he was evacuated in March of 1944.
For us in the "back room" at Heindorf House in Brisbane it be-
came the old familiar "sweating out" period between the last radio
contact and the "rendezvous effected" message that should follow
once the submarine had gotten safely out of the area and could
break silence again.
But this time the message did not come. The silence finally was
ended by a flurry of maddeningly corrupt ciphers from Young. To
make it worse, his transmissions were so weak that frequent re-
peats were necessary. Obviously he was not sending from his main-
base set, but from some portable unit in a location that might be
194 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
good for his security but bad for radio emissions. It spelled trouble
all around.
Days later I was off in the Timor Sea to get the story.
Treachery' and betrayal had kept twin watches in the Sulus. All
had gone well with the contact initially. Lieutenant Young's fleet of
small boats had swarmed up to the big submarine, whose deck was
piled with cases of money and equipment. Guns were manned, look-
outs doubled. From the conning tower the penetrating eyes of Com-
mander Frank Latta, United States Navy, had missed no detail. And
Young's liaison transmitter and receiver on shore should catch any
possible warning of danger from the main station in the hills.
None came. Yet, suddenly, Latta saw two destroyers bearing
down on him from opposite ends of a nearby island.
"Crash dive!"
His shout was followed instantaneously by the blare of the
klaxons.
The big sub shivered as her propellers engaged to engines that
had been idling and were now at the "full."
Men were plunged into the sea. Bobbing off into the churning
waters went scores of burlaped cases. There were shouts and cries
and a panicky rush of small craft for land to escape the two ships
racing down on the Narwhal.
A moment later only a whirling boil of foam and bobbing cases
marked the spot where the big submarine had been. Then the cases
were hurled violently aside by the slicing bows of the destroyers.
From the fantails of the ships the depth charges shot into the air
and down into the water. The sea heaved and the air shook with
the explosions.
The destroyers canted sharply, reversed courses, and repeated
their operation.
Slipping into the jungle, Young raced for his station in the hills.
In the Narwhal men, women, children, crew snatched anything
solid. Some missed and went catapulting forward into the bulk-
heads, so steep was the dive. The submarine shivered with every
detonation of the charges.
The Narwhal touched bottom. It would be deep enough or it
THE PHILIPPINES 195
would be their grave. Latta tried not to think of the terrific pres-
sure on the plates.
There had come an interval of respite. Then the detonations
began again, each one more violent than the one before it. The
Nanvhal shuddered, lifted heavily, and settled at a sharp angle.
They were left in utter blackness as all lights failed.
The Narw-hal was not destroyed. Some days later I came aboard
and listened spellbound to Latta's account. At the point in his nar-
ration when he told how the lights had failed, he paused for a
moment, then went on.
"They stopped after that," he said quietly, as though he had been
speaking to me of fish biting, or church bells ringing.
I stared at the calm waters of the Timor Sea sloshing against the
rusted sides of the Narwhal and waited.
"You'd never believe what saved us," he continued.
With a sigh that was half thankfulness, half pride in the old
Narwhal for taking the terrific punishment, he explained that the
submarine had not buckled anywhere from the last series of explo-
sions. Following these there had been a long cessation of depth
bombing. Latta had not been fooled. He knew the enemy was
listening.
"Pass the word," he had whispered. "Not a sound. Not a sound
of any kind, understand?"
The enemy was using "dotters." This was a device for sending
sound waves to the bottom of the sea and registering their echoed
return. By studying the characteristics of the returned sound waves,
the destroyer captains could roughly determine the outline of
whatever structure on the bottom was reflecting the waves.
"It was an appalling strain," Latta related in that same un-
dramatic way. "And then suddenly we heard them at it again. I
could not understand. It was a tremendous bombing but it was not
for us or, rather, it would not get us." He chuckled. "The enemy
had registered upon a submarine shelf of rock about three hundred
yards away from us. The shelf was long and narrow. He fairly
blasted it out of the sea. Even so, after he'd gone, we had some
trouble making the surface because of the mauling we'd taken
196 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
initially coupled with the distant but even more concentrated
bombing."
The real nature of the betrayal never was known to AIB. Only a
short time before, Young had escaped two ambushes and the fol-
lowing week he had put the blade to the neck of one whom he had
trusted and found trafficking with Moro agents of the enemy.
The attack was the Narwhal's closest brush with death.
Young's position in the Suius had rapidly become desperate.
Denied his badly needed funds, armament, and drugs, he found
himself forced to abandon secrecy status and openly called upon
volunteers for a guerrilla force, declaring himself to be the leader
officially appointed by MacArthur.
At first he was unable to gather more than a baker's dozen; in
fact, enemy agents were having considerably more success at re-
cruiting. The Moros were deserting wholesale to the Japanese.
Driven by patriotism and by his fanatical hatred for an enemy
that had killed his own parents, Young faced would-be deserters
with his most effective weapon his flaying tongue.
General MacArthur's chosen leader, was it? thought the Moros.
And only a lieutenant?
"I am not a lieutenant. I am a captain!" Young had shouted.
"Appointed to lead you. A captain, yes."
A few days later there was transmitted to the Commander in
Chief by Whitney one of the most unusual messages of the war.
Paraphrased, it went like this:
I HAVE STOPPED A REBELLION SINGLE-HANDED. BUT I HAD TO
BE A CAPTAIN TO LEAD THEM. DO NOT MAKE A LIAR OUT OF
ME. MAKE ME A CAPTAIN INSTEAD. AT ONCE, PLEASE.
Whatever may have been the general's broader feelings toward
this characteristically unmilitary message from Young, there is no
question as to his reply, which he ordered sent at once.
Young was to be a captain, not only because Young said so, but
because General MacArthur said so.
It was unanimous.
THE PHILIPPINES 197
And so it was that Captain (still later, on Korea, a lieutenant
colonel) Young still was holding some sort of sway in a country
that was death itself by the latter part of April 1944. April 20 it
was, to be exact, when the first of a series of highly charged mes-
sages began to come through in a bewildering scramble of bilingual
cryptography that would have defied the Black Chamber itself
had they not known Young as we did.
Providentially, we were able to get something out of it. The in-
formation was rushed up to G2, to the Commander in Chief.
Ten, twenty . . . twenty-seven ships now were in the Sulu Seas,
reported Young. And more on the way.
His signaling became more erratic than ever. Brief messages that
we hoped he would take the time to decode were sent to urge him
to observe tightest signal security for now he was GHQ's only "eye"
to see which way that formidable fleet turned, once it got to where
it could go north, east, or south. Apparently he did decode one of
them. To our vast relief he "Rogered" and held his tongue while he
watched.
Then he broke radio silence in a manner that was Young to the
tips of his long brown fingers. He sent his answer in clear English
Young style:
DOS GUYS ARE MOVING EAST.
What the American fleet eventually did to "dos guys" in the
Battle of Leyte Gulf is a matter of history.
Philippine Snatch
LRRANGEMENTS TO RECEIVE THE Narwhal's
refugees into Australia and to rehabilitate them enough to enable
them to proceed to their various destinations were practically as
secret as those which effected their removal from the Philippines.
There were more where they had come from. If concentrated re-
prisal by the enemy was to be avoided, it was most important that
the Japanese be denied any hint that an evacuation program was
under way, or that any part of it had been successful.
At Whitney's request the assignment fell to me to coordinate the
operation involving the rendezvous with the Narwhal, the subse-
quent smuggling of the party through the vast military camp of the
Darwin area without the knowledge of any save those concerned
in the job, and finally the movement to Brisbane. From there the
Philippine section had arranged for their rehabilitation at a coastal
rest area north of Brisbane, where their presence would cause no
particular comment.
The first stage involved our flying north to Darwin in two C-47's
quaintly called Cold Turkey and Hairless Joe. There were two
others besides myself. One was Captain Willa Hook of the Nurse
Corps, whose courage, devotion, and dependability had been
thoroughly tested in the fires of Bataan and Corregidor (she was
one of the small party of nurses who had been air lifted to Australia
at the last moment) . Since a doctor might be needed as well, Major
H. Eldon of the Medical Corps was the other.
Eldon and Hook had been surprised upon boarding the aircraft
to note that in addition to the necessities and "comforts" accumu-
lated for the evacues there were several tons of solidly-packed gear
198
THE PHILIPPINES 199
with no markings. But they had been warned to see nothing and
say nothing except as concerned their own mission. The stuff actu-
ally was the final installment of radios and other gear for a new AIB
party destined first for Mindanao, and then northward to effect that
eastern anchor of the string of secret stations planned for the whole
width of the Islands "north of twelve degrees." Phillips was to have
been the western end; Charlie Smith would establish the eastern
anchor in the very sensitive area of the San Bernardino Straits, one
of the two principal ways of entering the Islands from the Pacific
side (the other was the Surigao Straits in the south, which Parsons
already had "planted"). The party itself already had been flown to
Darwin and was installed in isolated billets at what AIB termed
"Lugger Maintenance Station," on the coast northwest of Darwin
proper. It would be at this same secret installation that we proposed
to land the evacues from the sea side, install them in rest billets for
the night away from the Philippines-bound party, and then smuggle
them out at dawn the next morning. After that, the Smith party in
turn would load and board the waiting Narwhal and disappear
northward. Neat arrangements if everything worked smoothly and
on the dot. There was one nagging concern: someone "in the know"
had talked: Nurse Hook had received a phone call in the middle of
the night before we had come for her to go to Archerfield to board
Cold Turkey. The caller had been a newspaperman who said that
he understood that she had been purchasing rationed clothing for a
"two-year-old who was an escapee from the Japanese, etc., etc."
She had cut him, off and run for the car.
After a daylong flight during which the aircraft seemed to stand
almost motionless above a rust-colored land where time itself hung
suspended, we put down at Darwin and were driven in Australian
light trucks through the scattered buildings of Darwin, many of
them unrepaired after the heavy bombing of early 1942, and out
into the bush. There the trucks stopped. Ahead were the bunched
shadows of foliage topped by the straight boles and thin cover of
the ever-present Australian "gum" trees. Our escort and commander
of the station, Captain Jack Chipper of the Australian forces,
jumped out, his boots raising red dust as he landed. Via a telephone
protected by an "elephant iron" chalet, he notified the guard rings
200 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
of our approach. We moved slowly over a trail flanked by foliage to
a gate. In the gloom we could see the multiple wires of the fence
"in depth." Here and there against the pale light were discernible
sinister black objects like spiders in the maze of the fence booby
traps.
Late the next afternoon, after we had finished arrangements for
receiving the evacues that night, we returned to Darwin and boarded
an Australian Navy special-purpose vessel.
The skipper, Lieutenant Commander Erricson of the Australian
Navy, waited only to check us in, then gave the order to cast off.
The word from the American naval senior officer in the area,
Commodore Jack Haines, had been to the effect that the Narwhal
would fulfill her "expected time of arrival" at the rendezvous.
Night began to fall. The Chinampa pushed on steadily. Erricson
continuously studied the horizon through binoculars; it was im-
portant that the meeting be effected while there still was enough
light. If calculations had been right, there would be.
Then we saw it a mere black dot on the now-indistinct blur of
the sea. The Chinampa payed off to starboard. The Narwhal drew
near. Now her conning tower was plain, her squatting guns and
even tiny figures clustered on her deck. She lost way and waited for
Erricson to close up in the most favorable position. This he did with
a fine show of seamanship. Against the somber gray of the sub-
marine bright spots of color marked the presence of the women,
incongruous in this scene of battle-tested efficiency; for the Narwhal
did not forget for a moment that this was war and that she was
designed to fit a pattern of destruction all her defenses were
manned, and at her slender stern crewmen hunched over a hydro-
phone station.
Now the refugees were leaving the area amidship and going
forward in anticipation of the transfer to the vessel that would bring
them to land safe land. In their faces were plainly to be noted the
indelible etchings of nearly two years of constant apprehension and
flight, yet outwardly, at least, there was only moderate indication of
physical disability. It seemed there would be little work for the
medicos.
The ships were lashed to each other, the word for transfer given.
THE PHILIPPINES 201
Without hesitation, and flinging their good-bys and gratitudes over
their shoulders, the refugees stepped across the gangplank joining
the two vessels, and clambered over the Chinampa's rail except
one.
Her face was pinched with suffering. Her thin arms bespoke
severe malnutrition. She was seated in a chair on the submarine's
deck. Beside her was a dark-eyed, quiet youth.
"We'll just carry her aboard, chair and all," called one of the
sub's bearded crewmen. "Here we go."
In a moment Mrs. Evelyn Birchfield was snug aboard the Chi-
nampa. Beside her stood James Birchfield, whose fifteen years of
strength, although taxed, had served him to carry his mother about
in his arms, much as she had carried him years before. All through
the voyage she had sat in her chair. So solicitous had been every
member of the crew from Commander Latta to the newest able sea-
man that the seven days and nights had fled by leaving her with
many memories of human kindness.
The vessels were unlashed, the Chinampa's engine-room tele-
graph jingled. The dark water between the two ships bubbled and
swirled from our propeller.
As we saluted the Narwhal, the air was filled with farewells and
expressions of thanks, hopes for reunion, and prayers for luck. Of
the names called out by the submarine's crew, one was predominant.
"Good-by, Stevie." "Good voyage there, Stevie." "Stevie, don't
forget me, and so long."
Who could this be? Someone explained to me.
"Little Steven Cryster, there. Believe me, he was the real boss
aboard the submarine. It was his ship."
In the quickly-gathering dusk his blond curls and big blue eyes
could just be discerned. Truly a beautiful child of two years. His
stout little arm pumped his farewells, but he was too overcome to
be articulate at that moment. He was in the arms of a somber-eyed,
dark-haired woman, Mrs. Glenda Hallea Cryster, his mother.
Then, as though by common agreement, there was silence as
each withdrew into his own solitude at this moment of departure.
They had seen that vessel rise out of the sea to come to them. After
being pursued for two years by misery and hatred, they had hardly
202 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
dared to hope. But she had come. Life was to be lived again. Ahead
was a new land, a hopeful land, where there would be friends,
American soldiers thousands of them, fresh from America; air-
planes with the United States Air Corps insignia.
I thought: here at last was tangible, human evidence of the result
of GHQ's constant efforts. Almost one year before for us in AIB
these efforts had been launched with the departure of the first party
under the intrepid Villamor. One's mind blurred to the montage of
many scenes, many words, anxious days, endless nights, halting
messages, mounting hope, constant apprehensions because of the
seemingly insurmountable odds.
Now in the Chinampa's engine room the telegraph gonged for full
speed. We had swept in a huge circle and now were headed west-
southwest. The lights that marked Port of Darwin would appear
soon.
"What's the course?" Erricson asked Captain Chipper.
"About two more points to starboard. A single light will appear
within five minutes."
The skipper studied the shore with a night glass. The headland
we had rounded lay flat and dark, like a giant crocodile's head and
snout, motionless upon the sea. The possibility of some hitch in the
arrangements intruded into the mind. The skipper continued to
study the shore.
Then in exactly the position Chipper had predicted a yellow eye
gleamed briefly in the crocodile's head.
"In just a moment another light will mark the limit on the port
bow," explained Chipper.
Punctuating his sentence, a second point flickered, then was
steady.
"Pay off two points to starboard," suggested Chipper.
"Two points it is. How far do we go in?"
"Until you pick up a trawler off the starboard quarter. She'll
flash once. We answer the same way. Then reduce to half-speed."
For several minutes the only sounds were the steady exhaust of
the engine and the lisping of water from the bow. Then a searchlight
beamed across the sea and held us fast for a brief moment. Our
engines eased. And our own searchlight picked up a small trawler,
THE PHILIPPINES 203
or cabin cruiser. She was standing by. The Chinampa lost way, and
nudged close to her.
We moved onto the cruiser, which brought us to shallow water.
There we were met by dinghies and rowed to shore.
Now in curious procession we made our way by the light of oil
lanterns placed along the trail winding up to the main station house.
On the veranda was a row of nine bunks, each whitely collared in
snowy, turned-back linen. And in the middle of each a Red Cross
bundle.
There these weary people stopped. Tired eyes ranged down the
line of waiting comforts. Slowly they went forward, each turning
into a space between cots. Then a soft, hesitating voice . . .
"It's . . . it's just like Christmas . . ."
The tension dissolved. Tears were unashamed.
"Look . . . Look . . ." said one woman. In her hand she held a
nylon tooth brush, sterile and new in its cellophane case. Her voice
trailed off. Her lip trembled. She turned, laughing, to Nurse Hook.
"I know it's silly, but. . . ." The back of her hand pressed hard
against her lips to stifle the threatened hysteria. Nurse Hook's eyes
held hers and she winked. Now the laughter was normal, healthy.
They were all there quiet Donald C. McKay, whose mining
genius had developed the Mindanao mother lode, and attractive
Mrs. McKay. Beside them, soft-mannered Mary, their daughter.
Grizzled Captain John Martin and Mrs. Martin. Mrs. Cryster, Mrs.
Helen Welbon, who together with Mrs. Nellie Varney had come out
without their husbands, sorely needed by guerrilla commander
Colonel Fertig. And Mrs. Stanley Briggs, whose husband would not
come out, then or ever. There was Mr. G. E. C. Mears, a British
subject (who had married a member of the United States Army
Nurse Corps, Lieutenant Robertson). In a nearby room was Mrs.
Birchfield, and beside her the ever-faithful James. There were two
other civilians, but they were bunked with the servicemen in nearby
huts and two loyal Norwegian sailors who had been rescued from
a torpedoed ship.
After a pre-dawn breakfast there was another roll call. In addi-
tion to the civilians, there were Major Halbert D. Woedrugg, Ser-
geant Frank Duff; Master Sergeant Albert Kirby, Jr., Corporal
204 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Cyril Grohs, and Privates Romrny Stewart, Oscar Smith, Frank
Harayda, Leo O'Connor, and Aldo Maccagli of the Army (mostly
Air Corps), Lieutenant Colonel Justin C. Shofner, Major Jack
Hawkins, Major M. Dobervich, Corporal Reid C. Chamberlain
(whose story was a chapter in itself) of the Marine Corps, and
George W. Winger, Otis E. Noel, and John L. Houlihan, Jr., of the
Navy.
We climbed into military ambulances. That was one way to
smuggle women and children down to the airfield without observa-
tion, even by inquisitive sentries. The sun had not yet risen as we
caravaned past the gutted buildings of Darwin airdrome and onto
the strip. We descended. Faintly discernible in a nearby revetment
was the spreading shape of an airplane.
"A Liberator!" exclaimed one of the evacuated Air Corps per-
sonnel, joy in his voice. "Just let me touch her!"
Men, women, and even tiny Stevie followed his lead. An Ameri-
can airplane.
At eight o'clock on the dot we were airborne.
High aloft in Cold Turkey and Hairless Joe the inevitable reac-
tion set in and most of the party slept. At one point during the long
journey to Brisbane I peered out of the flight-deck gangway of
Turkey to make a check. A man was just settling down close to his
wife whose face in this slumber relaxed into grim lines of wear and
fatigue. With infinite gentleness he placed his arm under her head
to afford her a pillow.
These would be the first of some four hundred and fifty to be
"snatched" from the Philippines in this manner before the end.
Mindanao Mender
I N THE DARK HOURS BEFORE THOSE AMBULANCES
had lurched off to the airfield I had slipped away from the main
lugger station building to pay a farewell visit elsewhere on the sta-
tion. In the steamy darkness of another dormitory Charlie Smith
had shaken himself into wakefulness and with him Captain (later
Major) James L. Evans of the Army Medical Corps. There was a
last-minute broad check over of their plans.
They would travel together to Fertig's headquarters. There Evans
would, first, endeavor to weld Fertig's radio net into an efficient,
dependable unit that would function at all times despite the com-
bined attritional factors of inexperienced personnel, the jungle, and
the enemy; second, he would accord such limited medical help as
was possible to guerrillas and civilians, so long deprived of such
help. As for Smith, when conditions were reasonably favorable he
would work his way northward to establish that eastern anchor for
the trans-Philippines chain of agent stations. His story will be told
later. Meanwhile, Evans . . .
An odd combination, Evans. A mind that sometimes seemed to
exude the essence of pure intelligence. One felt it. An orderly,
analytical mind which properly questioned all that was brought
before it, and having queried sufficiently for proper identification,
filed the matter away for eventual use. Holder of awards in English
composition, Evans was an equally accomplished youthful physician
and surgeon. An essential friendliness, a gift for gently prodding
into the intricacies of the human mind and heart marked him out as
a natural psychologist. Yet no more of rhetorician and doctor was
205
206 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
he than he was communications expert. Literally a triple-threat
man for AIB.
Wordlessly we gripped hands. What would happen to him before
we might once more shake hands or would we, ever?
What did happen to Evans combined to make one of the most
fascinating tales to emerge from a record crowded with the danger-
ous, the daring, the bizarre. Yet there were lighter moments. One of
these occurred not long after the Narwhal had taken him aboard
and begun the run back into the Islands. Half-blinded by looking
toward the early-morning sun, Evans had so quickly obeyed a
command to "clear the bridge" that he missed every rung of the
steel ladder and landed below with the speed and force of an un-
impeded falling body. "Evans' Leap" became legendary in the
wardrooms of submarines in Task Force 71 as the fastest known
way to "clear the bridge."
Thanksgiving of 1943 was celebrated aboard the Narwhal, and
was followed by the dangerous passage of the Surigao Straits. The
Narwhal ran through at night, just awash, and submerged at dawn.
She was at the end of her northing and the course was now south-
west.
Unable to sleep during the ticklish run through the Surigao,
Evans was up at dawn the next morning and joined Latta at the
periscope. The commander straightened up, indicating that Evans
should have a look.
His heart leaped at the beauty of the scene revealed to him. To
eyes accustomed to white steel bulkheads, glaring electrics, and
the colorless fixtures of his subsurface prison, the lush, unreal
green that startles every beholder of the Philippines for the first
time seemed to him something he was witnessing in a fantastic
cinema. Vividly chromatic, extravagantly green, with the morn-
ing's sun rouging the highlands behind.
The Narwhal settled to the bottom to await evening. Then she
went to periscope depth again. Latta invited Smith and Evans to
have another look. They saw a white target on the beach. Then
from the darker band of the shore above the target came three
winking lights, doused and repeated, to be followed by darkness
once more. It was the "all clear."
THE PHILIPPINES 207
The Narwhal pumped the sea from her tanks and stood solidly
on the surface. A barge came alongside. In it was a guerrilla of-
ficer named Money. He had with him a 3BZ radio transceiver, one
of the units that had been sent in to Fertig previously. This portable
set was tuned into the master control station inland and that one
in turn was monitoring all of the little ATR4A's hidden along the
north coast which would send in their alarms at the first sign of
threat approaching the lair of the Narwhal and her precious cargo
of radio equipment, guns, and medicines. The hatches were opened.
They had arrived.
A few minutes later the bearded Colonel Fertig himself came
aboard. Evans studied this lean, quiet man who wore that un-
definable air of a commander and wondered if his country ever
would truly realize what a debt it owed him or would ever honor
him in proportion to it.
Evans, Smith, and their radio operator, Robert Stahl, soon found
themselves with Fertig in a launch that moved along the coast and
into the Agusan River. Just before midnight the little craft stopped
at a barrio called Ampara. The weary men pitched their jungle
hammocks and slept.
After an early breakfast they pushed farther upstream in a smaller
launch. There must be no time lost. Word would get around fast
enough that the Narwhal had come in and discharged much mys-
terious-looking cargo. The job was to move the valuable radio gear
far into the interior. Enemy shore-raiding parties who might turn
inland would have to pass observers who then would alert the
hinterland to danger.
There was nothing particularly secret about the headquarters of
the most formidable guerrilla force in the Philippines. It was located
in the small barrio of Esperanza at the junction of the Agusan and
Wawa rivers. Except for local sentry rings, there seemed to be
little in the way of warning apparatus. Nevertheless, it would be
some time before the enemy in the coastal areas would know of it
with sufficient accuracy to dispatch effective bombers and strafers
to the area.
Evans initiated Ms communications survey. In a small hut at
Esperanza he found another Teleradio which relayed to a powerful
208 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
fifty-watt transmitter Parsons had brought in earlier. This was
located in a well-guarded secret place in the hills westward. But
relays were time-consuming and demanded air time for the enemy
to monitor and triangulate. Surgeon Evans selected tools of a dif-
ferent type, probed the vitals of an ailing HT-9 transmitter and
put it on the air with a special parabolic-type antenna that shot
a concentrated beam at AIB's station near Darwin. The resulting
signal was clear and strong. For the first time Fertig had direct
communication from his Esperanza headquarters to Australia
that is, at nighttime. But Evans had other ideas. He wanted twenty-
four-hour service and he wanted it without Japanese monitoring.
He advised KAZ he was doubling his normal frequency and for
them to prepare receivers that would take it. The frequency he was
suggesting seemed fantastically high. But Brisbane's experts met
the challenge. The result was nearly what Evans sought and with
no more than fifty watts for that tremendous distance. Normal pro-
cedures with no restraints on the kind of equipment to be used
and no fear of enemy reprisals would have called for ten times the
power to do the same thing on a twenty-four-hour basis. Evans was
like that.
The accomplishment was only one short leap ahead of trouble.
In fact, there had been only one warning of the swift enemy action
that resulted in the loss of the Parsons' fifty-watter. This unit had
been primarily to serve the Navy at Perth with immediate sub-
marine attack data, and to relay Fertig's GHQ traffic. The cleverly-
concealed position was uncovered by the sudden raid of enemy
soldiers and the precious equipment destroyed. As a precautionary
measure, the Esperanza unit was also immediately dismantled and
hidden. Thus, no sooner had a peak in communications been ef-
fected when KAZ had to report a complete black-out.
Complete? Not quite.
Thin and uncertain, a voice had come through the air. Its call
sign was "UU2." The message was relayed to Brisbane for study
and identification. If Evans had accomplished a master stroke, one
of those tiny, incredible Australian ATR4A 5 s had done even more.
To our astonishment the call was identified as being that of the
station Charlie Smith had established near Davao in 1942 when he
THE PHILIPPINES 209
had gone in originally with "Fifty" party. Those two-and-a-half
watts of power had spanned the whole distance! It was, of course,
a freak and could not be expected to repeat. It did, however,
every once in a while, as Charlie's observer sent out ship sightings
originally intended for relay by Fertig.
In time, Evans came back on the air. The HT-9 had blown up
for good in the wet tropical heat. He had substituted an Australian
TW-12 which withstood the rigorous conditions. We had not yet
learned to properly "jungle-proof* American equipment.
By early 1944 the traffic from the Philippines in general was be-
ginning to assume impressive proportions. The Heindorf crypto-
graphic section under Lieutenant C. B. Ferguson was a model of
efficiency. If the messages were to be decoded, studied, and for-
warded to the Commander in Chief with comments and recommen-
dations in time for his morning sessions, it meant that Whitney had
to quit his bed each morning at about three o'clock. Folk like Dr.
Hayden and myself normally reported at eight o'clock to debate
such issues as Whitney desired to try out on us. Then the paper
work went forward to GHQ. By afternoon the replies generally
were back for encoding. Sometimes the Commander in Chief acted
on the recommendations as suggested, sometimes he amended them,
and sometimes he quite ignored them. But the collective "batting
average" of Philippine Regional Section remained gratifyingly high.
On the Mindanaoan end of the link was another cryptographic
section, lacking no doubt some of the fine equipment of Brisbane's
but, under one Harold Martin, nonetheless efficient. He was eventu-
ally commissioned in the Signal Corps.
Evans' net was "clicking." A typical Martin encoding from some
of the stations hidden on the coast might refer to: ". . . medium
cargo ship at 122.5 east, 12.06 north" or to a "convoy of small
ships headed south of Sindangan" or "twenty-two bombers arrived
Davao strip from north, are refueling." Maybe it would be "four
three-inch anti-aircraft guns now installed in clearing at southeast
angle of road intersection at [coordinates] with fuel dump hidden
in trees five hundred yards north."
Ship information immediately went to Perth and Perth made its
own contacts with submarine commanders. Obviously a direct tie-
210 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
in with them would eliminate costly delays. Evans pushed for it.
Previously Navy had declined to let the watchers have any access
to the submarine frequencies. Now the proposal was urged with
renewed energy, especially by Parsons. The Navy agreed. "Kill"
counts immediately mounted.
One day a message was dispatched to Brisbane by Fertig in his
own cipher. He had felt constrained to mention Evans' deteriorat-
ing health. The doctor had worked incessantly and despite urgings
seemed unable to relax. Soon Fertig had the "pursuader" he wanted
in the form of a message from Brisbane that Evans was to ease off
on the now smoothly-working communications net and at his dis-
cretion make a medical survey in the area. Evans accepted the order
amiably enough, but to suggest a slowdown for him was one thing,
to effect it was another regardless of the nature of his occupation.
With the same devotion he had given radio, he turned to medicine.
With the help of a Filipina nurse, Evans set up shop in an aban-
doned house in Esperanza. It was a three-room establishment a
living room for him, a waiting room, and a "surgery." He added to
his staff a one-time pharmacist's mate in the Navy Henry Rooke.
The trio was an immediate success. AIB came to dub him "the
Mindanao Mender."
Business came from every direction and in all forms and de-
grees of pathology and trauma. Digging Japanese bullets out of
Filipino anatomy was interspersed with treating a constant parade
of tropical ulcers.
One aged Filipina came from afar for the word had traveled
afar that a white doctor had appeared from no place at Esperanza.
She had a large purulent abscess under one eye. Immediate ex-
cision was indicated. Evans signaled his nurse to prepare the
scalpels. But the patient would have none of the knife. The doctor
was troubled; the stinking infection would soon spread to nearby
brain paths. He had an inspiration. A less-provident man, or one
less susceptible to the urge of details in planning, might not have
thought to include some of the new anesthesia, sodium pentothal, in
his kits so hastily assembled in Brisbane. Evans had.
With much ceremony he directed that the incising instruments be
returned to the sterilizer. Before her one good eye and the other
THE PHILIPPINES 211
affected one he displayed an intriguing little glass ampule. "Dream
medicine" it was. Persuasive was his voice, flattering his words. Her
suspicions dissolved. The "dream medicine" was pumped into her
brachial vein. Soon sleepiness and relaxation in turn gave way to a
slumber that left her insensitive to the swift work of the knife and
the cleaning action of the irrigation solutions.
Ten minutes later the patient awakened, quite apologetic. It
seems, she explained, that she had waited too long, and had fallen
asleep. Then the sight of her operated face, protected with clean
dressings, was framed for her in a mirror.
And from that moment the barrio of Esperanza and all the ter-
ritory around belonged to Evans and his "staff" of two. The ac-
count of his prowess grew amazingly with every repetition. For
Evans there was the added satisfaction accruing from the knowledge
that, as far as anyone knew, it was the first time that sodium
pentothal had been used in the Philippines.
There was another medical "first" during those days and nights
when, unknown to them, the enemy was inching his way closer to a
"find" of those stations which so brazenly were supplying GHQ with
thousands of cipher groups every week.
In November of 1943 the medical supply depot at Brisbane had
boasted a total stock of fifty ampules of the newly-discovered germ
killer, penicillin. It was worth a small fortune because at that time
the mass-production methods were still developments of the future.
Yet the 155th Medical Depot had given up half of its stock to AIB.
Evans' patient was the wife of a civil official whose good will was
important to the guerrillas. But it would have made no difference
to him who she was, for in any case she was a human being whose
life soon would terminate unless the acute infection in her cervical
region was halted. The precious ampules were brought out, and in
due time the house of Pajarillo greatly rejoiced. The age of mir-
acles had not passed. To Evans came the satisfaction of knowing
that, in addition to having brought happiness and health into a
land where disease, poverty, and war's brutality had been rampant,
he had to the best of his knowledge and belief made successful use
of penicillin in the Philippines for the first time in medical annals.
Late in January uneasy whisperings began to come by way of the
212 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
jungle telegraph. The enemy was "wise." It was nothing Fertig could
lay a finger on, but real, nevertheless. Perhaps the enemy rdf s had at
last pinpointed him? Or had there been spies?
He decided to act on his hunches. He instructed Evans to "fold"
and go up the river to Talagogan; he would follow later and relocate
his headquarters there; part of the equipment would be retained
near the barrio of Pianing under Mr. Sam Wilson (whose "Wilson
Building" had been a prominent landmark on the Escolta skyline
in Manila before the destruction).
In the meantime another successful supply drop of bountiful
proportions had been made by submarine. There was much equip-
ment, new personnel, medicine and even 20-mm guns. Lieutenant
Monty Wheeler of the United States Navy had brought in a new
naval transmitter to replace Parsons' smashed fifty-watter; he would
operate the new unit for Navy.
Evans made the move to Talagogan and immediately set himself
up in another "dispensary," together with Lieutenant Carlos S.
Turla. He was too busy to be disturbed seriously by the latest
rumors of enemy activity but got a good laugh from the report of
an encounter of McClish's 110th Guerrilla "Division," which had
just received one of the 20-mm cannons. The enemy had come in
strong, quite unprepared for the ravages of the well-mounted field
piece. At first they had been routed. But overwhelming numbers in
time had the usual effect the gun position was overrun. The en-
raged, unpredictable Japanese paused, then lighted a fire under the
cannon, and retreated. McClish's men swarmed out of the jungle,
put the fire out, reloaded the hot gun, and began a rapid firing
against the soldiers' posteriors with devastating effect.
It was a local victory.
But the over-all enemy command had experienced its fill of
brazen submarine landings and now moved to mop up the whole
northeast and east coasts. There would be no more landings in that
area for a long, long time. Enemy attack planes swooped low over
Talagogan, strafing and bombing. The little barrio became a sham-
bles in which one man moved as if protected by magic Fertig.
He was not hit. But everything except one 3BZ Evans had buried
was hit and reduced to junk. To our great relief in Brisbane, the
THE PHILIPPINES 213
sweet notes of this transmitter came through to give reassurance
that they lived to fight another day.
Evans embarked on a program of hiding other 3BZ's. So per-
fect was the camouflage of these hidden stations that even the local
operators had to memorize certain landmarks to find their way in
to them.
But a new specter came to haunt them hunger. The enemy's
activities had all but severed the main supply line. Evans' already
lean frame seemed to shrink visibly. The menu of tankong (fern
greens) became so inevitable that the mere sight of the stuff set
him to retching. Polyvitamin pills brought from Brisbane alone pre-
vented the ravages of severe malnutrition.
How long could they hold out? It was all the more ironic now
because the information coming from the important Davao area
was becoming unbelievable in quantity and accuracy. The Illocano
"natives" they had trained and sent in to observe that sensitive
area had actually hired out to the Japanese, just as "Carabao Boy"
had done in Manila. Mistaken for the ignorant fanners they repre-
sented themselves to be, these keen-minded youngsters, many of
them college men with bilingual abilities, hired out for work in
enemy ammunition dumps, airfields, and even in headquarters it-
self. Their gleanings were encoded by men of Fertig's command
and others brought in aboard the last submarines to call, and
transmitted by ATR4A's to the net control unit, then sent to
Brisbane.
One message which described the presence at Davao of enemy
naval units unsuspected of being anywhere near that area seemed
sufficiently incredible even to the observer himself that he con-
sidered it advisable to append this line:
... I AM SOBER COMMA HALL.
Comedy relief, however, was almost as scarce as food in the
hard-pressed Fertig area. And Evans, who burned nervous energy
at an exceptional rate, had little more to burn. Fertig had seen the
early signs and now he saw them in an aggravated form. If he was
to preserve the man for future usefulness, he had to act again. The
214 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
situation was too grave to permit proper rest. A change of scene,
then.
Tired, thin, his nerves on edge, Evans pushed off with Filipinos
in a baroto. Stowed in it was an Australian Kingsley receiver. Then
they left the craft for a long trek inland. It was mid- 1944 when they
arrived at Wilson's headquarters near the barrio of Planing in north-
east Mindanao. Gratefully Evans prepared to "settle in" and treat
his feet, which had become cut and blistered by the last lap of the
trek.
But rest and recuperation it was not to be. The enemy moved
again, massively. Fertig's reports to Brisbane became very clipped
he was offering a minimum target for enemy radio direction-finder
experts but they were charged with trouble: the enemy's total
strength in two columns moving inland was approximately that of
a division: fifteen to eighteen thousand men.
On one of these critical mornings, Evans was counting off the
minutes up to thirty: a half-hour's rest, then he would try his weight
upon his bleeding feet once more. By that time there should be
some deadening of the pain in response to the ampule of morphine
he had taken upon awakening that morning, the fourth since
they had adopted their fugitive existence to save their lives. Feet
that had been in poor shape to begin with had responded in the
only way they could be expected to through four days of wading
in stream beds and grinding along the rockiest trails they could find
in order to leave undetectable signs of their passing. Fortunately
the other members of his little safari, Filipinos supplied by Wilson,
were in better shape so they had been able to relieve him of most
of his pack. Evans examined his feet. The abrasive action of sand
and gravel had planed off all normal calluses; there was a con-
stant oozing of blood from exposed capillaries. But for a while the
pain would be less. And they had to go; the pursuing enemy was
never far behind.
On June 24 Evans set up the ATR4A and hopefully called into
McClish's net. Far from receiving encouragement, the wonder was
that he made contact at all. At that moment McClish's headquarters
in northeast Mindanao was being immobilized by enemy shelling,
Pianing had been captured. There was no news of Fertig but
THE PHILIPPINES 215
maybe no news was good news, for certainly the Japanese would have
made much of it had they taken him. Evans shut off the receiver
and packed it. But they would have to boil some drinking water
before they could go on. While he was chopping he struck his left
big toe. The log had been rotten inside; the ax had driven through.
The morphine partially blocked that pain, too. Evans bound the
lacerated member and off they went. Evans trailed and the others
helped, for he seemed to be like a man in a dream state. Probably
he was. At noon a runner caught up with them with the news that
an advance patrol of the enemy was drawing closer. There could be
no more rests for a long time.
The next days were torture. He felt that it was not only too
dangerous for him to risk the narcotizing effect of the morphine,
but unfair to the others who had to be alert for every possibility.
He took no more. The pain was so great that it seemed to numb his
brain. They went on, trying to escape via the Sibagat River. The
banks became almost cliff-like and the current in the constricted
gorge tore at them. From the banks, boulders weighing tons had
fallen long ago. They were smooth and slippery through the action
of the rushing water. The men clung to them like wet insects and
inched their way forward. Evans sent a scout ahead. The rest dis-
posed themselves to cover the river to the rear. Through a haze of
exhaustion they waited. Then the scout came back. That night they
would sleep and sleep, proclaimed Evans, for there was a friendly
village nearby.
At ten o'clock, when they had just dropped into the dead slumber
of beaten men, a runner slipped into the village. The enemy, he
said, had done a forced march and already was "a mile and half
away only, sir at Afga."
Evans fought sleep and concentrated on what the man was tell-
ing Him, Afga, he had said. But Afga was in front of them!
They held a quick council. The enemy was back of them, too.
How far back? That was the question, and on it would depend their
freedom, probably their lives. The river that had served them as an
escape route thus far, however brutally, now was their trap. There
was only one hope to scale one of the banks, then climb a moun-
tain and drop down the other side of it into a valley that ran paral-
216 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
lei to this one. If they could reach it, they should find an old mining
camp. At the camp they might find Major Vincent Zapanta, one of
McClish's men. But to reach the point where they might scale the
bank and start the climb, they would have to go back along that
hellish river bed with its clawing current and its slippery black
boulders, and this time they would have to do it at night.
But one more gamble they would have to take: they could not
push on without some sleep; it would be sheer guessing as to how
long they dared sleep before one enemy or the other, or both,
would close in on them.
At three o'clock the sentry shook them awake. Soon they were
slogging in that Mindanaoan valley of the shadow once more.
Scouts declared them to be safe from immediate detection. Accord-
ingly, they lit their way with the red flames of nipa rushlights. All
night they stumbled forward, driven by an urge to live that was
stronger than the drive simply to lie down and await the enemy.
With the coming of daylight each could see the marks exhaustion
had left upon his companions.
Then came the heat. If the night had been grueling, the time
until noon was like acid and salt poured into open wounds. Without
sleep, rest, or food, they went on laden with arms and ammuni-
tion.
What happened next probably was due to the disorganizing ef-
fect of exhaustion; perhaps there had been momentary black-outs
for more than one of them. At any rate, Evans realized that he
had called to Jose, his personal boy, about something or other and
had received no reply. He stopped and called again. Still nothing.
He turned back a few paces to speak to the others back of him
but there was no one back of him. He was alone.
For a long time, it seemed, he was stunned into complete inac-
tion. Then the reflexes that had been driving him ahead for days
took over and he found himself climbing again. Somewhere ahead
was the mining camp, somewhere ahead he would surely find Vin-
cent Zapanta.
The period that followed became mercifully analgesic. His mind
began to play tricks on him. He was sure that he saw people up
ahead. But they turned out to be rocks and trees and stumps.
THE PHILIPPINES 217
Nevertheless, he was aware of speaking to them as if they were
people.
Then there was no sound at all. It was quiet, deliciously quiet.
Nor was he climbing any more. In fact, he was lying down in a hut
of some kind.
His mind cleared and he remembered. He had reached the sum-
mit sometime in the late afternoon. On the ridge he had seen the
tiny native hut, set high on the ulual piles. It looked unoccupied.
He had been glad of that because he was in Manobo country, and
the Manobos were not hospitable to strangers in fact, he had
heard that they were cannibals. He had climbed up the shaky
ladder. He doubtless had slept, but he did not think that it had
been more than an hour. Before it got dark he had to take stock
of his position. His body hurt in a hundred places at once as he
tried to move. But he got down out of the hut.
Directly before it the mountain sheered off precipitately. He
peered down the magnificent escarpment that must have been at
least fifteen hundred feet high. He looked across the chasm. The
country rolled away in ridge after ridge to the sea. Then he studied
the valley below. Someplace down there Zapanta must be located
with food. But without more rest he could never descend the moun-
tain to the Wawa River. He pulled himself back into the hut and
slept.
He had no idea when it was still that day or the next that he
awakened to find himself sitting up, staring into the haggard features
of Jose, his boy.
Nothing seemed to surprise him any more. He asked about the
others. The boy shook his head. Evans knew better than to ask
whether Jose had any food. The Filipino was hardly in any better
shape than Evans himself. It was agreed that they could go no
farther without rest. In an instant they fell asleep.
Evans awoke with a sense that someone was climbing the ladder.
He covered the trap door with his automatic, but the face that
emerged was that of Ramon, another of their safari. The boy
nearly fell from the ladder with fright before Evans shouted re-
assurance and dropped the gun. Ramon, looking comparatively re-
freshed, told them that the rest of the party had decided to try to
218 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
escape by another route once they had become separated. He had
asked permission to leave them and it had been granted. He had
climbed the mountain alone, as had Jose, but for a specific reason:
he knew that at the top was a hut that belonged to his brother-in-
law. This was it. He planned to rest there, although he was not too
tired, as he had slept the night before.
The night before? Yes, the boy replied, puzzled at Evans' ques-
tion. After all, they had become separated two days ago.
Evans reached into the pocket of his filthy khakis. Ramon's face
brightened at the two pesos. They would be his if he would but go
down the mountain, find Zapanta, and tell him to bring food and
water because he and Jose were too done in to move.
The boy left.
Sometime during the night he returned. Evans' eyes alternated
between the chicken he carried and the companion he had brought
with him. It was not Zapanta, but a Monobo native armed with a
long spear. His hair was done up in a bun at the back of his head
and on top of his head he wore an old hat of sorts, rather like an
inverted gravy boat. His eyebrows were plucked to a thin straight
line. Twin red streaks of betel-nut juice ran down the sides of his
mouth.
Ramon's cousin, so Ramon said, spoke no English. But Jose sud-
denly broke into animated conversation with him. He was himself
of Manobo extraction. The immediate point of the torrent of words
seemed to be the chicken. And Evans noted with satisfaction that
it changed hands forthwith.
Hardly waiting for the roasting to be completed, they tore it
apart and wolfed it down.
Ramon and the odd character curled up on the floor. Evans slung
his jungle hammock above them. His last thoughts were of an ac-
count of an incident in 1937, when Manobos had killed a number
of people not far inland from the coast. Their heads never had been
found. This spot, he recollected, was much more isolated than that
location.
At daylight, sliding, clutching at bushes, slipping in reddish mud,
they went down the mountain. At the bottom they rested, bruised,
cut, and shaken. They resumed by wading in the rock-strewn bed
THE PHILIPPINES 219
of a small stream to conceal tracks. Then came another hour along
the faintest of trails in the jungle. A halt. And suddenly Evans was
aware that they had been joined silently by another spear-carrying
native, long and lithe, as queer looking as the first. Jose told Evans
that Zapanta was in a hut belonging to Datu Pataday. Evans had
heard of him as one of the most energetic headhunters in Mindanao.
At the end of another hour they crossed a small stream. Before
them was a native house of bamboo frame, split bamboo floor, and
a nipa-thatched roof, the whole set on thin piles about six feet
above the ground.
Peering inside, Evans drew a long breath of sheer thankfulness
to see Zapanta and some of his boys. Against the opposite wall was
a native more than six feet tall. Jose told him that this was Datu
Pataday.
Evans surveyed his "host." The headhunter was attired in a
native-woven shirt of abaca decorated with stripes and designs of
bright colors. His shorts were made of the same material. On his
arms were numerous bracelets of metal and stone. His mouth
drooled red betel-nut juice and lime.
In one corner of the house were his aged mother and father, also
drooling betel-nut juice and lime; in another were three young
women attired in brilliantly dyed native cloth. Near the center
of the floor lolled a native boy, obviously a congenital idiot. His
chin, was ropy with saliva. His mouth was twisted upward in a
perpetual foolish grin. He groveled in the midst of his foul dis-
charges. Near him sat another in the straddle-legged posture of the
Mongolian idiot. Again and again he was tormented by his relatives,
who slapped and pinched him. They were delighted at his whimper-
ings of pain and dull resentment.
Despite his revulsion, Evans' exhaustion and the deplorable state
of his feet ruled out any choice. He dropped on the floor and in-
stantly was asleep.
For three days, between long, deathlike slumbers he was aware
that Zapanta was endeavoring to convince the coldly listening Datu,
who had never seen either a white man or a Japanese, that the
paper money he carried actually was money, and that they wanted
220 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
to pay for everything. Zapanta had quietly arranged that one of
their boys always remained awake, just in case.
By the third day the Datu was plainly disinclined to continue his
role as host. Evans had been playing for time to allow his feet to
heal Now he became more concerned about his head. He was not
happy that Data's queer-looking sons they of the sharp spears
were to be the guides. Once they were on the trail, he put them im-
mediately before him. Eventually they came to another untenanted
hut. That night they ate a poor meal of dried corn. Tired and still
hungry, they went to sleep.
All the next day they pursued their trail. Roasted green bananas
were their lunch. Evans rated them as being like a mixture of cotton
and uncooked com meal. But that was all there was.
Late in the day there was a conference between the guides. Once
more they must be close to Sibagat and the Japanese. But they
had to take that chance: after all the enemy was all around. (Al-
though they did not know it then, a patrol sent to capture them had
passed just on the other side of the stream from Data's house while
Evans had slept.) But if ever they were to reach Fertig's head-
quarters again, they must break through somehow.
With only a warning hiss, the guides suddenly leaped into the
bush. Evans followed, flagging the others behind him.
A patrol was coming toward them. He saw a Japanese helmet.
His automatic covered it, but Zapanta shouted: "Don't shoot, Doc!
Jesus, Doc, if s friends!"
The helmet had been taken from a dead Japanese. Together the
two parties made for the barrio of Sibagat, in turn frightening the
wits out of another little band of refugees who had taken shelter
there. The Japanese were known to be very near.
That night a Filipino boy raced into the camp.
"Hapon!" he cried, jerking his arm backward. "Hapon!"
There was barely time for them to seize their weapons before the
firing broke out. It was every man for himself, no man knowing
where to leap to save his life. Evans and Zapanta never knew the
fate of the others, but in some miraculous fashion they had not
only leaped together, but in the right direction.
If they had saved their lives by their accidentally proper actions,
THE PHILIPPINES 221
they soon realized that perhaps they had only postponed their end,
for now they were thoroughly lost. Except for their packs and guns,
they had nothing. The two decided to sit the night out. Through
the hours they fought mosquitoes and tried to avoid centipedes,
whose bites could cripple.
The next day they wandered, trying to get back to some landmark
they could recognize. They never did. But they did come upon an-
other village, this time all Manobo.
As near as could be determined later, this must have been early
July of 1944. From then until the middle of October these two, an
American physician and a Filipino who once had been a maitre
d'hotel at one of San Francisco's finest, lived an incredible ex-
istence as adopted members of one of the most primitive tribes
encompassed within the boundaries of any civilized country. Using
his knowledge of herbs and the few pills of various kinds that he
still had in his pack, Evans set up another "clinic." Zapanta was his
partner. The Manobos trusted them and allotted them a large nipa
house for their activities. In return for Zapanta's carbine, and in-
structions in how to use it, the natives gave the two men a "per-
centage" of what game they were able to kill with it.
One of the Manobos knew a smattering of English. There en-
sued prolonged educational sessions. But it was almost beyond the
resources of Zapanta and Evans to explain something as compli-
cated as an automobile to these people who found even the simple
wheel a marvel, or to tell why white men and Japanese were fight-
ing each other when both lived so far away across seas that any
man could see were much too immense to be crossed. The Manobos
could see Japanese aircraft flying above them, yet to include this
into some comprehensive scheme of social relationship, good or bad,
was something so impossible that it was wisest simply to ignore the
fact of the aircraft altogether.
In August they could hear restless mutterings from the east. They
did not know it then, but these were the first bombings of the Davao
area by American air. (And deadly accurate, too, thanks to UU2
and the others in Charlie Smith's wake.)
On the morning of September 9 Evans' boy shook him awake.
From long experience, Evans' first thought was that this was an-
222 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
other attack. But the boy was shouting for him to come outside.
There were many airplanes now; he held up ten fingers many times.
Evans rushed out.
American bombers. And there were more than sixty of them!
There was a big celebration in the village, the Manobos not
knowing quite why, but joining in with zest. Zapanta and Evans got
somewhat drunk on tuba juice.
Then deliverance. The planes ultimately found the enemy col-
umns and blasted them under.
Bidding their "brother tribesmen" farewell, Zapanta and Evans
got into a baroto and made for where they thought they might find
Fertig if he lived.
He did.
On November 23, 1943, 1 had gripped Evans' hand there in the
pre-dawn heat of Darwin, wondering what might happen to him.
It was almost fourteen months to the day that I shook it again, in
Brisbane and learned from his own lips what had happened to
him.
The Charlie Smith Way
HILE ADVENTURE IN THE RAW HAD BEEN
piling up unremittingly to liven and oftentimes threaten the life of
the "Mindanao Mender" in the first half of 1944, Charlie Smith
had been making history in his own way considerably farther to the
north. It will be recalled that this was Smith's second penetration
into the enemy's back yard. His first had been as a member of the
old "Fifty" party. On that occasion he had sent his first message
from his cozy hide just above Davao Harbor, one of the true enemy
strong points in the south. It had become difficult for him to obtain
food because of the enemy in large numbers "practically on my
front doorstep." He decided to establish some degree of equality.
One of his early messages had read:
FIVE THOUSAND-TON WHITE CARGO STEAMSHIP AT POSI-
TION FIVE-TWENTY NORTH ONE TWENTY-FIVE THIRTY EAST
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED HOURS TWELVE KNOTS. THIS SHIP HAULS
RICE TWICE WEEKLY COTABATO-DAVAO.
The "fix" was relayed to Perth at once. Perth pumped it north.
The white cargo vessel forthwith ceased to haul this staple of the
enemy's diet to Davao, or any place else.
Leaving UU2 in capable hands so capable that ultimately Fifth
Air Force bombers would score one of their outstanding successes
in the Davao area Smith was ordered to make his way back to
Fertig's headquarters in time to join Chic Parsons on the frightful
trek with the American escapees to the submarine rendezvous on
the south coast of Mindanao. He allowed himself little recupera-
223
224 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
tion time in Australia but fell to with characteristic generosity in
preparing the newest up-bound party to go in November 1943. It
was at this time that pressure developed for establishing the east-
ern anchor to the trans-Philippines belt of agents and watchers to
accomplish two main objectives: to provide a complete screen for
reporting enemy movements from Luzon southward; and to set up
an efficient "underground railroad" for the movement of agents and
guerrillas between Luzon and the central Philippines, thus open-
ing up Luzon internally. Under Whitney's characteristically ener-
getic direction, things went forward at a rapid clip. The only factor
undecided was the selection of a leader. He spoke to Smith. As
before, there was no hesitation. Whitney emphasized the extreme
hazards of such a venture, which meant eventually penetrating all
of the strongly-held San Bernardino Straits area and even southern
Luzon itself. Smith's reply was undramatic, completely selfless:
"It's my old stamping ground; I know it like my own hand. You
wouldn't think of sending anyone else, would you, sir?"
It was after an anxious period of silence that the Bureau had its
first indication that the little Masbate mining engineer and his
party had established "squatter's rights" in enemy-held territory
on Samar. The night of December 20, 1944, carried his wireless
note, clean and sharp: "MACA" three times repeated. In the G2
office the successor to the late Colonel Merle-Smith made an ob-
servation that was as prophetic as it was original. Lieutenant
Colonel Archie McVittie, who formerly had been associated with
Merle-Smith in New York, read the brief message form. "And
that, gentlemen," he said, "is General MacArthur's signature on
the death warrant of the Japanese in the Philippines."
Charlie did not stay long on Samar. It was, he explained, not
close enough to the enemy. Across the San Bernardino Straits was
the Bondoc Peninsula, and Legaspi, where the enemy had made
one of the earliest invasion landings of the war. The enemy was
there that was where Charlie would be. He set up a sub-station on
the peninsula although the MACA net control was continued on
Samar. He initiated expansion operations. To one of Fertig's best
radiomen, loaned to him by the bearded Mindanao boss, Smith
said:
THE PHILIPPINES 225
"We've got to get closer to Manila; that's where the enemy is,"
"There's a few of them around here, too, sir," replied Captain
Robert V. Ball, one of Charlie's own kind.
Smith left Warrant Officer Stahl there and sent Ball to Baler in
the Bondoc area. It was another step toward the enemy's heartland.
Ball went, and the move proved to be one of the most significant
for AIB and troublous for the enemy of any made by the cagey
little Smith. In May 1944 the local radio link between the two
points along the San Bernardino coast came in. Hardly had the net
begun to function when KAZ picked up a "hot" one from MACA.
It was directed for my urgent attention.
A guerrilla courier had broken through to StahFs position on
Samar. He claimed that he had come from Luzon. He also claimed
that his chief was one "Andy" (Bernard) Anderson, an escapee
from Bataan's hell, who was exterminating the enemy wherever
he found them with his compact guerrilla band northeast of Manila.
Through the grapevine "Andy" had heard of Allied Intelligence
Bureau and that I was connected with it. He wanted help, wanted
money, arms, drugs. In return, he could supply vitally-needed in-
formation.
"Andy" Anderson! Could it be the Andy of whom I had once
been a messmate at Selfridge Field, and in whose eyes I had read
uncomplaining acceptance of his own fate, one night in March of
1942 when I had said good-by to him on Bataan Peninsula? I had
been evacuated; he had remained. Only that man could answer cer-
tain questions that could be put to him by radio. The answers, if
correct, also could serve as the keys to a cipher system. Ten ques-
tions went north by night schedule. They were such as: "What was
the hobby of the cook in the BOQ where we bunked in 1940-41?"
He would have to answer: "woodcarving." "What was the name of
the pet monkey at a certain hidden mess at the edge of Bataan
Field?" He would have to answer: "Tojo." And so on. The next
night answers came back, correct to the last word.
We had found a strong arm in vital Luzon. Plans were laid im-
mediately by PRS to make a submarine contact for supplying these
people. There were others as a result of Smith's "underground rail-
226 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
road," such as Major Robert Lapham and Lieutenant Colonel
Russell Volckmann.
We wondered how word of the Bureau had penetrated so far so
soon even to the details of headquarters personnel; in some ways
it was disquieting. It would not be until after the war that Andy
would reveal that it had occurred as early as 1943 through one of
Villamor's ever-spreading tentacles. "No one seemed to know for
sure where he was, but his men certainly showed up in the most un-
expected places," Anderson said, in what he probably had no idea
was one of the best tributes to "Planet." He added that W-10's men
also had contacted other noted guerrilla leaders, such as Lieutenant
Colonel Merril in Zambales and Lieutenant Colonel Ramsey, just
outside Manila.
But this is Charlie Smith's story, for had it not been for him the
San Bernardino corridor might never have come about and the
"softening up" of Luzon might have been delayed indefinitely.
The time came for Smith to smuggle radio equipment up to a
position in the vicinity of the Polillo Islands, east of Luzon. The
instructions whistled through the air. Smith's "Roger" came back
from the Bondoc. That was all, except that he was readying a small
launch for the smuggling act. He was nearly prepared, but there was
one annoying insufficiency. Smith decided to solve it his own way.
He sent a message that should take its place among the immortals
of warfare. It said:
DEPARTURE DELAYED OWING SHORTAGE OF LUBRICATING OIL.
HAVE ARRANGED TO GET SAME FROM NIPS.
The Japanese were quite aware of Charlie and were determined
to destroy him. They sent numerous raiding parties into the Bicol
with instructions to block off all escape routes for MACA and take
him and his organization dead or alive. MACA went off the air,
and with it nearly every station in the net. The enemy was closing
in.
There was only one thing wrong with the Japanese concept: It
presupposed that an avenue of retreat naturally meant retreat upon
THE PHILIPPINES 227
one's own lines. From a remote station as yet intact came the
second of Smith's classic messages.
SITUATION HERE TOO HOT AM RETREATING TOWARD MANILA.
He did, and went to work again at a new address.
Japanese documents captured at the end of the war described the
worries Charlie had provided. Said Watari Group headquarters,
July 3, 1944:
The appearance of new enemy wireless stations is as frequent as be-
fore. In particular, the enemy has recently brought in many small-type
sets which are used for communication within the islands. Wireless com-
munication has increased considerably. The bandits (sic!) seem to have
learned about our interception by plotting, for they are skillfully con-
cealing their stations and are successfully preventing interruption of
communication by our punitive units. Station MACA alone is equipped
with 10 to 20 wireless sets. More accurate information must be col-
lected to destroy these stations.
Following the determined raids made by the enemy parties came
another report (likewise subsequently captured and translated)
proving that it was one thing to know about Charlie and quite an-
other to get to know Charlie. It said:
Enemy communication continues brisk, and he seems to have made
considerable preparations against interruption by our punitive opera-
tions. Although we captured seven transmitters and fifteen receivers in
operations against Station MACA on Samar, communication continues
as before, interrupted only two weeks.
Of course, there would have been for Charlie, as for any of
the others in the Bureau's chancy business of spying on the enemy,
the same frightful consequences of a single misstep, but his opera-
tions always seemed to be characterized by a certain impishness.
The situation had become quite uncomfortable for him as a
result of enemy action in the Bondoc and he considered it neces-
sary to move again farther north. This time he planned to scout
the area ahead by dispatching a messenger before him in a small
launch. But there hardly was fuel for one. Worse yet, the enemy
which had provided him with oil on the previous occasion appar-
228 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
ently was suffering as severely as he was from a lack of gasoline.
Charlie was reported to have murmured "Heaven will provide," and
started the messenger off. It was after the war that Charlie told
me the rest of it, his eyes merry and a hint of a smile under his
mustache.
"The man watched the fuel gauge drop toward zero and he
imagined sad things, so sad that they made him want to weep and
thus he almost missed the first of two fifty-five-gallon steel drums
floating by probably from a torpedoed ship up north someplace.
Well, he snared it aboard, figured the currents, and just let the
other one drift southward toward me, thinking that I'd likely
know enough to take it in. Then he went on."
Charlie was asked if he had encountered the second drum in
that wide ocean.
"Oh, sure," he replied simply.
Smith has got some medals tucked away somewhere, high deco-
rations that go only to those whom the country believes to have
done outstandingly brave and valuable deeds. Yet probably the
finest tribute to him was paid by the warring guerrilla factions in
the east-central Philippines. They were desperate men and leaders,
or they never would have survived. They came to Smith with a
proposition: If Charlie would agree to be their boss, they would
all forget their personal differences and ambitions and come in
as one force.
They awaited his decision. Hard, grim faces, intense eyes, lean
jaws with blue stubble on the sunken cheeks leather-skinned
hands that never strayed more than a few inches from ready car-
bines. . . .
Two weeks later the authorization from Brisbane arrived. Now
it was "Lieutenant Colonel Charles Smith, the official command-
ing officer of the Samar Area."
When the tremendous forces of the combined army, navy, and
air eventually smashed in and began the pincer move up from the
south and down from the north on Manila, Smith was called to
the field GHQ. His radio net was made available to General Walter
Krueger, as well as the file of reports of Smith's intelligence agents
operating into Ball's station on Baler. The hard-headed field
THE PHILIPPINES 229
commander realized from this and other data that he was op-
posed by a far larger force of Japanese on Luzon than he had
believed. Wisely, he held two divisions back for the fight he knew
would come around the Baguio area. He resisted being drawn too
far south too soon with too few men. The move was destined to
become a highly personal matter for little Charlie Smith. He later
spoke of it this way:
"General Krueger's Sixth Army didn't come down but I did.
I was in front of Sixth Army doing some reconnaissance for Gen-
eral Krueger's G2. I was also in front of the Japanese Army. I
was between 'em. They didn't call it 'No-Man's Land' in this war.
But I was in it just the same all by myself. I didn't sleep very
well," he said simply. "Funny the fixes a man will get himself in,
ain't it?"
The Captured Plans
I HE HEAVY LAND CONTESTS IN WHICH CHARLIE
Smith had been caught broke the back of Japanese power in Luzon
earlier in 1945 than had been anticipated by the Allied High Com-
mand. These military victories were the consequence of successive
catastrophes that had overtaken Japanese imperial naval strength
in the battles of Leyte Gulf late in 1944. The Japanese Navy liter-
ally ceased to exist then, and its destruction isolated Japanese land
strength in the Visayas and Luzon and enabled MacArthur to drive
ahead relatively free from sea and air threat. Schedule after
schedule became obsolete before it had even been implemented.
The way was opened for the attacks on the enemy home islands
and the end of the war.
The Philippine network established by AIB played a vital part
in insuring our success in those tremendous naval engagements.
The Allied naval command not only went into those battles with
the broad Japanese naval strategical concept outlined before them,
but they knew what enemy ships were likely to participate, what
were their fuel ranges, their fire powers, their vulnerabilities even
the names of their commanders and some of their personal char-
acteristics; all this and more, when prior to that time the utter
paucity of information about the "mystery navy" of Nippon had
been a matter of gravest concern. Possession of the Japanese "Z"
plan together with the wealth of sustaining data enabled exact
tactical planning, the matching of weakness with strength and
strength with greater strength.
How had this come about?
230
THE PHILIPPINES 231
In the southern Philippines the day of March 31, 1944, had
been particularly heavy with the humid heat so characteristic of
the region. As the breathless afternoon went into the brief dusk
of the tropics, a light offshore wind made it a little more com-
fortable, especially in the high country inland and to the south of
the city of Cebu, the most important city outside Manila. The
enemy was in strength there and James M. Cushing's Cebu Area
Command guerrillas gave the city wide berth, preferring to move
like the shadows they were in the mountains to the west and south.
Lieutenant Colonel Gushing endeavored to keep them deployed, so
that no sudden enemy strike could effect more than local damage,
if any. There was only the usual handful of commandos at his
headquarters in the mountain retreat of Tupaz. Gushing particu-
larly welcomed the relief from the heat, for he was a sick man
and so debilitated by recurrent attacks of malaria that he could
get about only with the aid of crutches. He looked off to the east
and saw a massive build-up of towering black cumulus clouds
flickering with a continuous play of lightning. Like gunfire, he
mused.
That thought gave rise to another. If what "they" had been say-
ing was correct, there had been some highly significant gunfire off
there to the east far off, in the Palau Islands, to be exact. "They"
were the voices that came to them through the medium of radio re-
ceivers deeply hidden at the edges of some of the barrios. Only
greatly trusted individuals knew of them and were allowed to
listen by means of the tightly cupped earphones. Through them,
when the static was not too bad, they could get the bulletins out
of KGEI in San Francisco. There had been exciting news. Power-
ful American naval units had been sweeping westward across the
central Pacific to rendezvous with other elements coming up from
the now well-contained Solomons. The combined strength, includ-
ing eleven huge carriers, spearheaded by heavy air attacks from
their carrier aircraft and land bombers from SWPA, apparently
had dislocated Japanese naval operations, especially around the
Palaus, the stronghold of Admiral Mineichi Koga, the commander
in chief of the Combined Imperial Fleet. Neither KGEI nor Gush-
ing could guess the true extent of that dislocation, or that at that
232 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
very moment momentous events were occurring in consequence of
it, events that would deeply concern him. Gushing observed the
impressive storm front again. It would be well out to sea, probably,
and it would be stiflingly hot down in the coastal regions.
In the barrio of Balud, San Fernando, just inland a few hundred
yards from the eastern shore line of Cebu, a handful of Filipinos
in nondescript clothing, mostly tattered and patched khaki, lolled
about or squatted on lean haunches. Their black eyes were on the
deserted provincial road that led away from them down the coast
toward a point where there was a Japanese detachment that some-
times raided along the road and drove the fisherfolk and farmers
into the mountains. The Filipinos were unmoving, for the evening
was breathlessly hot. But they were careful not to abandon their
weapons even for a minute. Only two had guns. The others were
armed with curved bolo knives that gleamed dully in the fading
light, or with pikes, some of which had knives on the ends. They
were volunteer guards.
The evening went into night. Still the lightning played around
the cloud mountains on the sea horizon. The storm was moving
farther away. There was a moon. It went down early.
It was then that something happened out at sea.
First it was a sudden bloom of light. But not from the storm.
And it was red and yellow instead of the blue-white of lightning.
The guards were all alert now, straining eyes to seaward. The light
swelled and pulsated. It grew bright and they could see silhouetted
against it the little black shapes of fishing boats moving out to-
ward the source of it.
It was, the guards surmised correctly, an aircraft crashed into
the sea and burning. In no time the half-dozen guards were joined
by twenty fifty a hundred others, all armed one way or an-
other. The air was alive with the babble of their excited voices.
It took the fishermen a long time to reach the burning airplane,
and more time for them to come back to the beach. The babble
increased to a din. When some order came out of the confusion
it was apparent that the village of Balud was host to ten Japanese,
most of them so injured as to be unable to more than move.
Only one of them was able to stand. Even practically naked as he
THE PHILIPPINES 233
was, and badly hurt as well, he gave an appearance of command.
He regarded the menacing circle unafraid, even once indicating
to one of the men with a gun that he should use it upon them, the
captives. There were many cries of agreement.
But the cooler heads among the guards prevailed. These men,
whoever they were, could be made to talk if they lived. Cushing's
guerrilla soldiers in the mountains would know how to question
them.
But the Japanese could not walk. Even the leader now sagged.
Very well, they would be carried in improvised litters. It was then,
as the queer safari started into the dense country inland, that the
waterproof container which had been in the possession of the
authoritative-looking Japanese was produced. This, too, would go
to the nearest guerrilla unit.
After an exhausting journey that lasted until early in the morn-
ing, the procession reached an outpost of the Eighty-seventh
Regiment of the Cebu Area Command. From here runners were
dispatched, both to the regimental headquarters and to Cushing's
headquarters at Tupaz. At one of these points was located the
little ATR4A that Villamor had spared Gushing from his stock.
Through the medium of this precious set a signal went out to be
snared by both 4E7 on Negros and WAT, Fertig's net control, on
Mindanao. It told of the capture of a whole case of important
enemy documents including what seemed to be a Japanese cipher
system together with ten men, some of whom might be of high
rank. WAT relayed to Australia.
At Heindorf House and GHQ the message created a tremendous
stir. Immediate steps were taken by the Navy to divert an opera-
tional submarine to Villamor's old site on Negros to pick up the
party. A little later a message came from Gushing himself, stating
approximately: "Ten captured Japanese coming this headquar-
ters; believe from Palau; one thought high rank probably General
Furomei commanding land and air forces Macassar. Advise action.
Constant enemy pressure makes our position precarious."
It was not long after the receipt of this message that another
came which created an even greater excitement. It intimated that
234 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
the party included no less than the commander in chief of the
Combined Fleet. That would be Admiral Koga himself!
It would be truly the catch of the war.
The messages were the first of a series that formed the basis for
confusion that would prevail until long after the end of the war.
In fact, to the end of their lives there would be good, honest men
who could never believe anything other than that they had been
involved in the taking of Admiral Mineichi Koga. They had ex-
cellent reasons for believing so, including, among other things, the
statement of the impressive captive himself that he was, in fact,
Admiral Koga.
This statement was made later in the trek, when eventually the
party had been carried every step of the way over treacherous
mountains to Cushing's compound at Tupaz. Here they were given
the best he had in medical care. The party had refused to acknowl-
edge that anyone in it could understand any Filipino dialect or
English. But one of Cushing's regimental interrogators knew some
Japanese as did Gushing himself. That broke it, and now the leader
admitted that he spoke fluent English, as, indeed, did most of the
others. (For some reason, however, Gushing still addressed him as
"General" although postwar records failed to disclose the name of
Furomei or such a post as "commander of the land and air forces,
Macassar.") Another ranking member of the party was Com-
mander Yamamoto.
By this time, however, Gushing knew something else all too accu-
rately: he knew that he never could successfully convoy his cap-
tives to Negros for embarkation on the submarine that was coming,
for now the Japanese on Cebu were aware of the captures, and
they were sweeping through the helpless areas of southern Cebu
like avenging scourges to recover the prisoners. Gushing sent an
agonized message to Australia. The answer made the sweat break
out on him. It was:
ENEMY PRISONERS MUST BE HELD AT ALL COSTS.
He stared at the message and slumped into the sawed-ofl box
that was his office chair. Surely General MacArthur could not
THE PHILIPPINES 235
mean that. He himself had declared Manila an open city to save
the civilians from enemy rage when he had retreated from Manila
to Corregidor and Bataan. Now Lieutenant Colonel Homisi, the
Japanese commander in Cebu, was acting on orders from an
adamant Tokyo that the captives and anything taken with them
would be recovered at all costs. Homisi knew that only hara-kiri
could atone for his failure, and he did not intend to fail, even if
it meant the extinction of every living thing in southern Cebu.
Soon the country was under a glare by night and a shroud by day as
men, women, and children alike died in their ravaged barrios.
Gushing knew that it was impossible to comply with that GHQ
order. His forces were being scattered. The enemy shipped in a
whole unit of elite marine raiders. Gushing had only twenty-five
commandos with him. He would use two of his best men to spirit
the documents to Negros, but that was the best he could do.
These men were joined by another and together they did ac-
complish an incredible infiltration across Cebu, across the water
separating Cebu from Negros, and on to Villamor's old site, now
commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Andrews. Always one step
ahead of pursuing Japanese the fleeing trio went, arriving at the
rendezvous only as the submarine came to the surface, took the
case aboard, dropped back into the depths, and pointed its sharp
bow for Australia at top speed. Then the raiders swept over the
Negros headquarters site. But they did not capture the exhausted,
triumphant men.
In Brisbane, Cushing's newest message reiterating that he would
be compelled to surrender his captives to spare the civilian popula-
tion generated wrath in the office of the Commander in Chief. He
demanded that Whitney send a message announcing Cushing's im-
mediate discharge in disgrace and probably worse when our
troops returned to power.
In the back room Whitney paced in short, jerky steps, his pale
blue eyes blinking back the intensity of his feelings.
"Gushing couldn't help it. He couldn't help it!" he muttered again
and again. "It meant the blood of thousands of helpless Filipinos
on his hands."
He seized his uniform cap and went to GHQ. He was gone half
236 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
an hour. When he came back, he flung his cap into a chair. "I've got
twenty-four hours to prepare a defense," he announced shortly. He
ran everyone out and locked the door. He did not go to bed at all
that night as he called upon every resource in a legal armory gained
in twenty-two years of practicing law to prepare that defense.
On Cebu the situation was becoming desperate. Scared, ex-
hausted runners were arriving at Tupaz at intervals to back up radio
reports that the powerful enemy had routed the guerrillas in every
direction. Cushing knew it would be only a matter of time before
they would be overwhelmed. But he would play for every minute of
that time he could get. On a neighboring hill he had prepared a
final defense perimeter at Maserela. It was not much but it was all
they had left after Tupaz. He gave order for the evacuation, should
there be an assault on the compound.
At about three o'clock in the morning it came. A crash of shots
from the northeast told him that an enemy force from Cebu City had
broken through their outposts. It was every man for himself to get
to the perimeter but the prisoners must be brought along and se-
cured there.
Cushing's custodian of records, a commando sergeant named
Alfredo Marigomen, together with another commando named
Meliten Endagan, helped the man they believed was Admiral Koga
onto his litter and amid the flicker of small-arms fire, managed to
evacuate the shambles of the compound and gain the heavy foliage
of the mountain. Commander Yamamoto was carried by Com-
mando Pedro Gabriel. The going in the dark was of the heaviest.
The men panted, then gasped for breath. The admiral asked for
water and Marigomen gave him some in a coconut shell. They
rested, then stumbled on. Sometimes they fell into holes. Sometimes
they had to pass the litters over their heads to by-pass the tangle of
creepers and vines.
It was noon the next day when they all arrived at the perimeter
of Maserela. Cushing was there. He told them that the old head-
quarters site had been razed and that the enemy in overwhelming
numbers was in full control of the area except for their own small
perimeter. He indicated that he wanted to talk to the admiral alone.
For a long time they spoke. Then the Japanese leader asked for
THE PHILIPPINES 237
writing materials and a messenger. He was going to propose to
Lieutenant Colonel Homisi that he refrain from all further terrorism
or attacks upon the guerrillas in exchange for the prisoners them-
selves. He signed the document. Cushing's hand shook so that he
had to make two tries in signing his own name.
The messenger took the paper and together with a captured
Japanese airman Gushing had been holding, disappeared down a
gully where the still-warm bodies of many Japanese and Filipinos
lay in the sun. For Gushing it was an eternity of waiting, for he
knew that he had shot his last bolt: he had permitted the enemy to
organize in strength along his pitifully weak front and he had offered
to trade with that enemy in direct defiance of orders from the Amer-
ican Commander in Chief. The sickness welled up inside him and
it was only through a haze that he saw the messengers slowly climb-
ing back up the hill. One of them bore a paper signed by Homisi,
giving the promises that he had asked.
Now came a scene unparalleled in the war to this time. Gushing
shook hands with his captives. Headed by the admiral on his
stretcher and accompanied by an unarmed platoon of Cushing's
men, the Japanese prisoners filed slowly down the hill toward a
banyan tree. From the bottom of the gully another platoon, this
time of unarmed Japanese soldiers, toiled under the hot sun toward
the tree. At a distance they halted and eyed each other. Except for
the subdued clicking and hissing of insects in the afternoon heat
there was no sound. Gushing knew that hundreds of enemy with
their weapons covering every foot of his position and the platoon
out in front waited, fingers on triggers, for one small hitch or even
for a word of command, should this prove to be a trap, after all.
There was no hitch. It was not a trap.
The two groups moved closer merged.
Some of the Japanese soldiers held out cigarettes. The ragged
Filipinos looked at them hungrily, then reached out. Little mists of
smoke emerged from the circle as the men smoked silently and
stared at the well-fed, stoutly-clothed soldiers before them. The
stretchers changed hands. The two groups surveyed each other for
another moment, then turned and retraced their steps.
It was done.
238 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
For three days there was silence and peace in the area.
No one was surprised when eventually the air beat to the crude
air-raid alarms of hammers on empty shell cases. The planes came
and the bombs crashed down. The war was on again, but this time
against the guerrillas only.
The resumption of active war coincided generally with the arrival
in Manila of the one-time captives. Promptly they were sent to
separate hospitals as isolation patients who were to remain abso-
lutely silent about their experiences. It would not be known until
after the war that this was one of the devices by which the Tokyo
government endeavored successfully, as it turned out to keep
secret for the time being the fact that Admiral Mineichi Koga had,
in fact, disappeared the night of March 31, and was presumed dead.
It was to avoid risking a plunge of public morale at this critical
time in the war that the Japanese Government had decided to keep
secret the disappearance of such a distinguished naval leader,
especially until all hope of finding him alive had expired.
Admiral Koga had indeed met his death that night.
Who, then, was the Admiral "Koga" that had been held by Cush-
ing's guerrillas for a matter of ten days in 1944?
In the years following the close of hostilities the evidence slowly
was accumulated. Much of it was based upon interrogations, in-
cluded repeated questioning of the individual whom Cushing's men
were confident, and remained confident, was Koga. Unless the years
to come bring to light some even more dramatic and irrefutable
evidence, it would seem certain that this captive was not Koga, but
his brilliant chief of staff and second-in-command, Vice-Admiral
Shegeru Fukudome.
Postwar researches have yielded the fact that late in February
1944 Koga had attended a top-level conference in Tokyo to put the
finishing touches on his "Z" plan. This provided for the concentra-
tion of nearly the entire naval and air strength remaining to Japan
a very considerable strength indeed in every arm except carrier-
borne air for a sudden, all-out attack upon the Allied naval
strength coming westward across the Central Pacific. Koga was
ultra-aggressive. He proposed to offer tempting bait to the major
American units to lure them within range of his air, which then
THE PHILIPPINES 239
would make a mass, even suicidal attack to reduce their effective-
ness and make them vulnerable to the next phase. This would be a
sudden devastating gun-and-torpedo smash calculated to drive
Allied naval strength to the bottom and end for all time the threat
to Japanese home waters. In Nippon's brief, brilliant naval history
there was ample precedence for this: the destruction of the Russian
fleet in 1904; Pearl Harbor in December 1941; the blasting of four
fine Allied heavy cruisers in only a few minutes of a firelit night off
Savo Island in the Solomons in August 1942
Koga was to get everything; even land-based air units from as
far away as Singapore were called up for operation out of Mindanao.
Back in the Palaus, however, he was disturbed by the tremendous
aggressiveness of the Americans themselves. His own headquarters
the entire fleet anchorage area came under destructive air
bombardment. Then in a final brilliant exploit that got little atten-
tion in America but won the grudging admiration of the Japanese,
American naval airmen thoroughly mined the very waters Koga re-
garded as "the keystone of Japan's inner defense zone." The Palaus
rapidly became useless to him as a base from which to operate or
direct his showdown battle.
Very well, then, he would direct it from a land headquarters
Mindanao.
He called up four-engined Kawanishi flying boats. He would take
one, Fukudome the other. Since he knew by heart every detail of
the Z plan and all the vast paper work that had gone into coordinat-
ing and implementing the concentration for the battle of the giants,
he directed Fukudome to take the bulging case containing all the
vital documents pertaining thereto, together with the cipher system
applying to much of it. In the middle of the newest night air-raid
alarm he took off. Fukudome waited only to watch the heavy
Kawanishi swing into the southwest before he boarded his own
craft, together with Commander Yamamoto of his staff.
That was the last Fukudome or any other man associated with
Admiral Koga saw of him. Koga had gone to fulfill his announced
destiny, for in his communications reference the Z Plan, he had
written that he would fight it out on that line " until the death."
Apparently death came to him and to all others aboard the first
240 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
Kawanishi in that tremendous build-up of lightning-shot weather off
the Philippines that night.
Fukudome subsequently stated that his own aircraft was unable
to cope with the huge front, and to avoid it, swung far to the
north. The four engines carried her high, so high that the lack of
oxygen apparently affected all aboard and may have impaired the
judgment of both the navigator and the pilot. At any rate, when it
became apparent that they would have to put down someplace to
replenish fuel consumed in forcing the engines, there was doubt as
to their whereabouts. At last it was decided that they were off
Bohol or Cebu. They believed that their chances of refueling on
Cebu would be good despite the surprising amount of "bandit"
activity prevailing on that island. They descended. Just when the
pilot was attempting to get bearings for a final letdown, the moon
itself went down and left the country below them in blackness. Fuku-
dome pulled back on the control column to maintain buoyancy until
they could con the situation some more. But the Kawanishi had lost
her safe flying speed. She stalled, then sideslipped heavily into the
sea. The remaining fuel had ignited. Apparently the promptings of
training were such that even in this extremis he retained a grip
upon the waterproof container with its vital documents. It was taken
from him by the Visayan fishermen only after he had lost conscious-
ness in the water.
In Brisbane the unbelievable array of documents was pounced
upon by experts who reproduced every page of it. These reproduc-
tions were rushed to a day-and-night concentration of the best
talent Colonel Mashbir's translators could produce until every word
of it was available for the collators and the analysts at Naval Intel-
ligence. Meanwhile, the originals were reseated in their waterproof
container and rushed back toward the Philippines by submarine. It
was hoped that they could be deposited in the sea in the area of
the Kawanishi's crash to enable Japanese divers who had been as-
signed to sweep the ocean floor for them to "find" them. Thus
Tokyo might never know for sure whether they had ever been in
Allied hands.
But Tokyo was acutely aware of the fact that they were missing.
THE PHILIPPINES 241
Another ultimatum had descended upon Cushing's headquarters,
or what was left of it:
. . . RETURN UNCONDITIONALLY UNTIL NOON OF MAY THIRTI-
ETH ALL DOCUMENTS, BAGS AND CLOTHING EITHER PICKED UP
FROM THE SAID AIRPLANE OR ROBBED OF THE PASSENGERS
WE NOTIFY YOU THAT IN CASE YOU FAIL TO FULFILL OUR DE-
MAND THAT IMPERIAL JAPANESE NAVY WILL RESORT TO DRAS-
TICALLY SEVERE METHODS AGAINST YOU . . .
It was impossible for the submarine to reach the crash site by the
expiration hour of the ultimatum. Cushing's message of June 16
was a model of official restraint:
PLANES BOMBED AND STRAFED CONTINUOUSLY FOR TWO
WEEKS. SINCE THEN DAY AND NIGHT PLANE ACTIVITY PASSING
OVER CEBU.
All that was a month before the clash of the naval giants actually
occurred, yet the measure of the enemy had been taken.
Gushing would be there late in 1944 when the Americans swept
in. He would meet them in his official capacity as commander of
the Eighth Military District (Cebu) under MacArthur.
Whitney had won his plea.
Part 5
THE COMMANDOS
Limpets for Singapore
IN SEPTEMBER OF 1943 THE DIVERS OPERATIONS
of the Bureau were extended over a front of thousands of miles.
They were concerned mostly with the production of intelligence
information and warnings of hostile intent. They were about to
be extended to an even greater front, and this time the gathering
of information would be subordinated to the primary objective of
affecting sabotage. Villamor was still in the Philippines; in Bris-
bane preparations were being pushed for the insertion of the
ill-fated Phillips' party; Read was recuperating in Australia; the
silence from the Dutch party before Hollandia was ominous, and
on New Britain, Wright and Figgis had been alerted to receive
the "Gazelle Necklace" observers coming in by submarine. In the
west, the Dutch had drained themselves white in their brave,
tragic efforts to establish clandestine communications with the in-
terior of Java. Singapore was even more distant and it was the
enemy's western naval base. GHQ's cool reception of a daring
plan for inflicting a blow upon the Japanese in their own strong-
hold at the tip of the Malay Peninsula was understandable.
Actually, the first admittedly vague suggestions for "Jaywick"
project had been outlined to us quite early in the Bureau's his-
tory. The new unit was just hitting its stride when one Captain
Ivor Lyon of the British forces asked for a confidential appoint-
ment. Captain Lyon wore the brass-buttoned uniform and rakish
tarn of the Gordon Highlanders. He was more recently of Malaya.
It was that phase of his life which accounted for the cold, com-
pelling look in his eyes and the taut, unsmiling mouth. Back there
somewhere were his wife and daughter. The first stories said they
245
246 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
were prisoners of the Japanese after the fall of Singapore. Then
there were later hints that perhaps they no longer were alive.
Lyon never referred to them. But to those in authority he spoke
of schemes for getting back into Singapore Harbor which now,
like Rabaul, had become a pivotal strong point and naval base
for the enemy. If successful, his plans would not only supply
GHQ with information of the area and the nearby East Indies,
but would exact from the Japanese a very heavy price.
To negotiate hundreds of miles of hostile water unescorted
before the target could be reached was an undertaking at which
most hardy planners might look askance; to propose to blow up
enemy ships within his own base by penetrating it in canoes
sounded downright incredible. The men would be bearing devices
known as magnetic limpets, charged with a high explosive.
It was obvious to Lyon that his proposals lacked the power to
impress those at GHQ whose approval he would require. But
AIB directed him to report to Lieutenant Colonel Mott. It will be
recalled that Mott headed the Bureau's secret sabotage organiza-
tion.
If Mott was terse, direct, and single-minded in his determina-
tion to hit back at the enemy who had run him out of Burma
and Malaya, he was now confronted by his counterpart in the
captain who gave him the British flat-handed salute. They meas-
ured each other coldly: Lyon believed he had found the right
chief; Mott felt that in Lyon he had a perfect operative. Mott
never doubted but that with the proper training, the right asso-
ciates, and a potful of luck, project "Jaywick" could carry it off.
But there was GHQ and its doubters.
"We'll simply have to provide them with a convincing demon-
stration," Mott said.
"Show how a limpet works?"
"I mean we must actually enter one of our own tightly guarded
harbors and bug every last ship in it with limpets sterile ones,
of course," he added with a note of irritability that suggested he
considered the point minor.
"I could do it, sir," said Lyon quietly.
"No, not you!" Mott replied. "You must be saved for the real
THE COMMANDOS 247
show. There'll be the devil to pay when they discover we got it off
the leader will come in for some unpleasant publicity. Hummm."
Mott thought for a moment. "Carey, of course. Who else?"
A few days later Captain F. W. Carey of the Australian Army
was on his way north. On the coast of Queensland a good distance
above Townsville Mott's section maintained a training station.
It was an isolated, tightly guarded place. Casual wanderers who
might stroll toward it were intercepted before they got close and
advised to take the air elsewhere. It was to this establishment that
Carey repaired.
In the days that followed there were exercises in the sea just
off the training station. They involved canoes, men in swimming
trunks, and crablike objects that the swimmers clutched as they
dropped below the surface. The metal arms of the objects were
taped and painted gray. Between them was suspended a gray
metal tube, slightly smaller than a quart milk bottle. The arms
were in reality powerful magnets that caused the device to adhere
with amazing tenacity to such things as the steel plates of a ship.
Two limpets attached at different places on the hull would blast
a five-thousand-ton ship, while three, expertly placed, could send
a ten-thousand-tonner to the bottom. The exercises continued both
day and night.
Townsville had become a boisterous garrison town, grossly over-
crowded with troops of every arm and service in both Australian
and American forces. To add to the congestion that boiled the
length of Flinders Street were hundreds of naval ratings, for
Townsville Harbor, once a sleepy, subtropical port of languid
ease, had become a combination of naval-base and trans-Pacific
unloading depot point. Merchant ships and transports of small
tonnage and great were tied up or waited for their chance to get
tied up. Escort naval vessels flying the Union Jack of the Ameri-
can Navy and the White Ensign of the Australian Navy were
nested side by side while their crews roared ashore except those
on the watch.
There had to be a watch, for on one occasion enemy bombs
had fallen not far away and on several other instances enemy
submarines had been sighted off the coast. Still, after the tension
248 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
of running the Pacific gantlet, any harbor seemed a snug harbor
and it was likely that not all security regulations were as tightly
enforced as they might have been. At any rate, even though later
several seamen and officers recollected having seen during that
particular night small craft, like bumboats, moving nonchalantly
in the waters between ships, and some recalled hearing sharp,
metallic clicks, like the bolt of a rifle being drawn, there had
not seemed anything alarming in all this.
No one seemed quite sure who it was at dawn that spotted the
first limpet gripping the hull of a ship. His cries soon were drowned
out by the mounting scream of a siren. Then two more. Search-
lights stabbed the pale dawn to examine a hull that might go
asunder any moment. Shore police promptly bellowed for a black-
out. Water police, shore police, military police soldiers, sailors,
and airmen appeared from nowhere and everywhere. All sought
to advise, direct, and control concerning something they knew
nothing about, except that apparently every major ship in the
harbor had been mined by some secret device and the whole place
was going up in a blaze of glory at any moment.
Safely away from the harbor area Carey changed into his nor-
mal Australian Military Force uniform. Meanwhile, his elusive
limpeteers had rendezvoused at a secure hiding place. Carey made
for town, thoroughly enjoying the unholy row along the water
front, and went to sleep. The night had been strenuous.
Gradually the harbor authorities learned the truth about the
stunt. They were advised to seek one Captain C. W. Carey, said
to be taking his ease at a pub. There the concentrated might of
military and civil law descended upon the sleeping man. Carey
saw that they were in no mood for levity. He answered questions
promptly and advised them to telephone AIB to confirm his claim
of a "harmless practical exercise."
Unfortunately for Carey's immediate plight, AIB had not been
advised by anyone of the plan. Mott was not to be found for
some time, and, when finally cornered, was curiously vague as to
the authorization for the "exercise" but most emphatic about the
efficiency of the indicated results. Carey was dutifully meek,
GHQ was properly exercised, and AIB was extremely active. The
THE COMMANDOS 249
upshot was Carey's release on AIB's promise that he would be
transferred to New Guinea. There were other transfers in and
around Townsville Harbor that AIB had nothing to do with and
many replacements appeared in officers concerned with the se-
curity of installations.
The Japanese apparently never heard about the incident, for
if they had, they might have tightened their own security in Singa-
pore Harbor.
Ivor Lyon and a team of the most carefully selected men "went
underground" on a program of exacting training that included
digesting all of the lessons learned in Carey's "Destruction of
Townsville Harbor/' For GHQ was convinced.
It was in the first days of September 1943 that "Jaywick"
stirred. Off the west coast of Australia a small black craft, Diesel-
powered, moved from her berth at the United States Navy's base
at Exmouth Gulf, north of Perth.
HMAS Krait was really a stranger to these Australian waters.
She, like her skipper, was a refugee from Japanese invasion. But
unlike her skipper, she had once been Japanese-owned. It was
from Singapore she had come; it was Singapore to which she pro-
posed to return. She had been refitting at Exmouth for some
weeks. Now as she moved out from under the high sides of
U.S.S. Chanticleer she excited no particular curiosity. She was
long and lean seventy feet by eleven and had a queer, high
cabin rising just a bit aft of midships, giving onto an awning that
carried to the stern. Inboard she carried a cargo inconsistent with
her nonchalant exterior: canoes, limpets, tins of organic dye
which could give the white man's skin the golden brown of the
Malayan; and mounted in such a way that they were invisible
from without, she carried some light machine guns. There was
much more, details, mostly, for Lyon was a meticulous planner,
an indefatigable trainer. This same trait would be manifest in the
exact log he kept and the detailed supplemental record he would
prepare.
By nightfall of September 2 Krait was rolling heavily in an
unpleasant sea kicked up by a fresh southerly breeze. Despite the
last-minute removal of some of her deck armor, Krait was not
250 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
happy about her overloaded state and she would prove to be an
uneasy craft in any kind of sea. Although they believed in her,
the uncomplimentary remarks uttered by Lieutenant D. N. David-
son, the second-in-command, and shared by Lieutenant H. E.
Carse, her navigator, were honestly descriptive of her caperings.
The medicine kit of her doctor, Lieutenant R. Page, would come
in for considerable use before the crew "salted down." Page was
the son of Sir Walter Page, deputy governor of Australian New
Guinea. Besides these and Lyon, Krait carried ten others, some
crewmen, others operatives. Of various ranks were A. Crilley,
R. C. Morris, J. P. McDowell, K. P. Cain, H. S. Young, W. G.
Falls, A. W. Jones, A. W. Huston, F. W. Marsh, and M. Berry-
man. There was one compensation for the rough sailing: the wind
was abaft and in four days and nights they should be high up
toward the equator and the Lombok Straits through which they
would have to pass before they could alter course to the northwest
and sail through the enemy-controlled Java Sea toward Singapore
itself.
The four days passed uneventfully, despite perfect visibility that
greatly increased the chance of detection. On the night of the
fourth, to the straining of her powerful Diesels as the Krait pushed
against the swift current, they slipped through the narrow straits.
For two days they progressed as if they had been on a pleasure
cruise. It was unbelievable. With only slight alterations occasion-
ally they were able to avoid even remote contact with native
fishermen. Surely their luck was tops. But they were taking no
chances. With great care they applied the body dye that con-
verted their tropical tans to the dusky shades that would allow
them to pass as Malay fishermen. It would last for several days
under the best of circumstances. Skin, hair, ears never as youths
had they washed their ears more thoroughly than they did now,
but this time to dirty them. Even the nostrils and between the
toes. Now the speed was more than six knots toward the Karimata
Group of islands. Then, just before dawn of September 14, Carse
shook Lyon awake and told him the sea was alive with junks
and sampans. "We're right in the midst of them."
Lyon was on his feet and into his clothes. "Patrol boats?"
THE COMMANDOS 251
"Can't see."
From the dark wheelhouse Lyon did a quick survey. In the
faint pre-dawn light he could see at least twenty small craft of
every description. That there were others, he had no doubt, but
he discerned only fishing craft.
"Drag that fishing net over the stern," he directed. "We've got
to be one of them."
It worked. Gradually they were able to put distance between
themselves and their industrious neighbors. Once they were hailed,
but they ignored the cry, and kept going at slow speed.
They were free. For two more days their luck held. Now they
were set for the Temiang Straits entrance to the Lingga Archi-
pelago. As Lyon turned out for the dawn action stations of that
day, he reflected that at this rate they would make their objective
for the first "hide" that evening. At noon they were off the island
of Bengku, approximately 104 16' E and 22' S.
Lyon directed the others to lower the dinghy and take sound-
ings. The prospect of land and the looming of the final phases of
their approach lent speed and dexterity to the men's actions. The
boat dropped into the water with a light splash.
Suddenly there was a sharp call from Lyon. The wind had
carried to him the distant sound of an aircraft engine. Then he
had spotted it, coming in low and fast. He shouted for all hands
to cover, except Davidson, already in the boat. He threw down to
him a conical native straw hat.
Now all could hear the rapidly increasing drone of the aircraft.
Every man but Lyon was under cover on the Krait, while David-
son crouched in the dinghy, his form half-covered by the ragged
straw. Lyon was similarly attired. He lounged against the rail as
though talking with Davidson. He knew from the suddenness of
the approach that the enemy craft was flying low. Had she spotted
them before, and was she closing in for a good look?
The single-engined patrol plane thundered over at one hundred
feet. Lyon looked up, as would be natural, and saw the pilot
peering down. The stain Lyon was wearing served its purpose.
The Nipponese plane did not circle, but flew into the distance
252 ALLIED INTELLIGENCE BUREAU
and was gone. Lyon was thankful for the Japanese merchant serv-
ice flag under which they were sailing.
That night they swung on their hook in the lee of the island.
The Kraft, it had been decided, would off-load them, then cruise
off Borneo until time for the pickup again. As discussion ended,
one of the men appeared at the scuttle, motioning Lyon topside.
The heavens were bisected by the restless beams of search-
lights. Searchlights likely meant guns. They had landed in a dis-
tinctly "hot area." Better not unload here.
Later that night they were groping off Panjang. Towering
cumulus clouds had broken in a sudden tropical downpour. The
Krait pitched heavily. Then here and there in the seething murk
blurred white lights became visible. Davidson thought they must
have lost their way and were actually entering an unsuspected
enemy small-boat base. Page called guardedly for Carse. The
navigator appeared. Lyon clung firmly to a stanchion and looked
inquiringly at him.
u No worry," reassured Carse. "They are fishing pagars. I
plotted their positions before. Now I know where we are."
Carse was referring to the pressure lanterns hung by natives at
the entrance to their fish traps. Attracted, then blinded by the
light, fish would swim into the bamboo yards and be unable to
find their way out.
The storm passed. They made Panjang and worked the rest of
the night to unload. One party lightened ship, the other trans-
ferred stores from the beach and buried or otherwise concealed
them. Another small party made a reconnaissance of the island.
With the faintest flush in the eastern sky, the Krait stood high
out of the water. Words were few as Carse leaned over the side
and shook Lyon's upraised hand.
"See you on Pompong Island the night of October first or
second," said Lyon briefly. "Cheerio."
With hardly a ripple the black little ship slid away from them
and pointed her bow toward Borneo, where she would hide. Lyon
turned to the others, solemn and quiet. Action was needed. He
issued instructions to overhaul all canoe and limpet gear. One
party would eliminate all traces of tracks on the beach.
THE COMMANDOS 253
"No need, sir," replied Operative Huston. "It's been done
for us."
"You mean natives?" queried Lyon sharply.
"No, sir. Hermit crabs. An army of them. Cleaned off the beach
as neatly as if they had brooms."
The men overhauled gear, then rested for a day and a half.
After that the canoes were loaded for the first lap of the final
journey. The plan called for one more "hide" on Dongas Island,
within eight miles of Singapore Harbor entrance. This spot where
they were now would be their rear base.
It was nearly dusk. The canoes had been camouflaged with
green branches. Lyon looked at his watch. He held up one hand.
In two other canoes an arm was raised. They were ready. With
him was Operative Huston. Lyon's arm fell. Huston's paddle
dipped. From the low banks three clumps of tropical thicket
seemed to detach themselves and drift along the shore. They
were off.
At that moment came the drone of a power-boat engine.
Lyon's canoe bumped lightly, dipped, recovered, and snuggled
up to the bank again. A quick glance assured him that the others
also had sensed the danger; without a word between them they
had resumed their "hide" stations.
There was silence except for the throb of the engine, intensified
as an unlighted patrol boat the size of Krait plodded around the
point three hundred yards away. They could see the snouts of
machine guns and something larger a one-pounder, perh 
