#60. Chronicling the Lives of Each Defender

Note: This transcription was created by AI, thus there are some misspellings and wrong word choices.

A couple months ago, in April 2024, I gave a presentation at the Philippine Scout Heritage Society and American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society joint conference in Houston, Texas.
It was a fantastic opportunity to share the work I’m doing on Left Behind with descendants of the servicemen and women who defended the Philippines during WW2. And it was an honor to be invited to present.
I met so many people whose family members (mostly their fathers and grandfathers) served in The Philippines during the war, and I’ll be sharing their stories in upcoming episodes.
I thought you’d be interested in the presentation I gave at this wonderful event. But…it wasn’t recorded. So I’ve re-recorded it for you. Also, I created a YouTube video of the presentation, and I’ll put a link to the YouTube video in the show description if you’d prefer to watch it there.
Let’s jump in.

This is Elma som.

He was my great-grandfather. On December 8th, 1941. When world war II started in the Philippines. He was stationed on the ship.   📍 USS Canopius. And it was anchored in Manila bay. However by late December, 1941, it moved to a small Harbor at the very south of Baton peninsula. Which is where all us troops were withdrawing to. At that time in the war. The Canopius and my great grandfather would remain at the bottom of the pit Honda. Peninsula. Until April, 1942, when Bhutan felt a Japanese forces. At that time som and the crew of the cannabis was sent to Corregidor island. Which was a small island off the coast of Bhutan and it became the last us stronghold in the Philippines.  

📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 on May 6th, 1942, Japanese forces invaded the island. It fell within hours and all the 10,000 or so men on this island became prisoners of war. Including my great-grandfather. Shortly after Corregidor his fall. He raised relocated to the cabana to Juan pow camps, which was also in the Philippines. This camp became the largest of the Japanese held. Pow camps during world war II. And som remained here for pretty much the remainder of the war nearly three years. Although he did spend time at the Nichols field work camp. At this camp, prisoners were forced to build an airstrip by hand. And the main way that they were doing that was digging out the bottom of the Hills. Until the hillside collapsed and hopefully the POW's had retreated by that point, or they would have been buried alive. My great grandfather called this a hell hole of a work camp.

He was liberated along with about 500 other men from cabana to one in January, 1945. He'd been in this camp since may of 1942. So nearly three years. This picture here is the many men who were liberated from that camp. And this is the morning after liberation. They had walked many, many miles to get beat. Get so that they could get out of enemy held territory.

He returned home in February, 1945.

This picture is him embracing his wife and daughter. Um, as soon as they, he, he landed in San Francisco. His daughter was my grandmother. She was 16 at the time today she is 92 and she remembers this and many other events from this time period of waiting for her father to come home. Later that day, a newspaper reporter followed them home and took some stage pictures of Mimi, pulling out a beautiful pie to present to Alma. And, um, you can tell it's very staged. But shortly after he returned home from the war, he began writing a memoir of his time.

There it's 250 pages long and you can see it's typewritten and he has a lot of handwritten corrections in it. Now, I don't remember a time when I didn't know about him being a pow or that he had written this memoir, but it was about my college years. That I decided to sit down and read it and earnest. And I was surprised by what I learned.

I had never heard this part of history because the Philippines is not part of the world war II narrative. If you think about it, we talk a lot about Germany. The invasion of Normandy, um, mostly the Nazis, and then there was something going on in Japan, but nowhere in that narrative, do we specifically mention the Philippines?

And I think that is tragic.

When I was about 24, I started transcribing. This memoir, um, into a computer format because you know, that's what 24 year olds do or something. Actually at the time I was working for historical publisher, these are the kinds of things that we did making manuscripts, turning manuscripts into. Books and things like that.

So it was something I was very used to doing. As I went through. I became very interested in the fellow POW's that saw, mentioned throughout.   📍 Specifically, I was interested in these three men. First Harry Whitman on the left, who was Psalms a marching companion on their way to cabana to one. Some, we became good friends with Harry and Harry was a lot younger than som.

And some mentioned that his men were hoping that Harry returned home and was able to fulfill all the dreams that hidden plans he had shared with som.

The second man is Hinckley whose horrific death Elma som described in the beginning of the memoir. He referred to Hinckley as poor bastard and Hinckley story is just heartbreaking. Lastly major piggyback who likely saved my great-grandfather's life.

The very first day they became prisoners of war. Because he spoke Japanese.

So I dug into their lives. I have a family historian and I wanted to see what I could find. So So I started with Whitman. And I discovered that he was on a transport ship, a Japanese transport ship. That was bombed by an American plane. And he died in that bombing.

So he never returned home to do all of those things he had told som about. Hinkley we are. I already knew his death because som had described it. But I discovered his early life and his family and other things, which I thought was incredible. And then lastly, major picnic. We're going to go a little bit more into him.   📍 So I knew about four things about major pickup.

When I started researching him. I knew he was a us Marine major. I knew he spoke fluent Japanese. I knew he was captured on Corregidor island at the same time as my great-grandfather. And I knew that his last name was picnic. So I went into a pow database searching for picnic and I found nothing. At that point, I reframed my search. And I looked for us Marine majors. Captured on Corregidor who had a last name, similar to pick ag or at least beginning with a P.

And I found a major Frank Pesic.

Seemed a very likely choice to be the picnic. That my great grandfather remembered. And it wouldn't surprise me if he got some of these last names wrong because it had been several years. Since these events had taken place. And the fact there's like 130 men in this memoir that he mentioned the fact that he gets so many names. Close or right on is, is just amazing to me. So I started researching even more about Frank And I found a   📍 1929  Marine re muster roll.

And it says that was an attache to the American embassy in Tokyo, Japan, for the purpose of acquiring knowledge of the Japanese language. So. Yes, he spoke Japanese.

I had found my Marine major whose last name began with a P capture with my great grandfather. Spoke fluent Japanese. As I did more research, I became convinced that Isaac was the man who had saved my grandfather's life on that day of surrender.

even found that Um, in early, early mornings, like three o'clock in the morning of December 8th, 1941. He had jumped into the psych car of a motorcycle and written through the Marine barracks where they were in staying in the Philippines. Shouting wars declared wars declared. Because they had just received word of the Pearl Harbor bombings.

And he always just seemed like a modern day. Paul Paul Revere.

So after I learned so much about these three men, I was hooked and I wanted to find out. As much as I could about all 130 or so men. That's all mentioned in the memoir.

So I started looking for these men one to identify them. And tude to find their before, during and after if there wasn't after the war. And I found about 95% of them and discovered their lives.

So once I had all this information, I needed to decide what should I do with it? And after several years, I decided that I wanted to create a podcast that told their stories. But the problem was that my great-grandfather's memoir told a very small portion of world war II in the Philippines. He was on a ship for most of the time that the actual battles and fighting were going on, he spent a month on the war torn Corregidor. And he spent the rest of the time in the Covanta. pow camp. But there was nothing about the invasion of the Philippines by the Japanese, nothing about the battles of Bhutan and things like that.

The Bataan death March. Transportation to Japan aboard health ships work camps in Japan. So I expanded the scope of my project to eventually tell the story of the war in the Philippines from beginning to end. And the way that I would do that is use POW's whose wartime experiences highlighted. That portion of the war to tell. Uh, those things.

And so each episode tells the whole story of the individual, but also as part of an overarching thing to tell the story of the war in the Philippines.  📍 decided to call my podcast left behind. Because these men, Americans and Filipinos alike, and there was what, 75 to a hundred thousand men. They were left behind. By the us government. The Philippines was supposed to be a strong hold during world war two in the Pacific area. But the Japanese invasion crippled it fast and devastatingly.

The United States then decided that they would have a Europe first strategy in this war.

They put their efforts and all of everything. Toward Europe. Effectually leaving behind all these men. They knew that this island would likely fall. And they just left them there.

And so that's why I call it left behind when America surrendered in world war two.

And my very   📍 📍 📍 first episode was a Frank Nick and him driving through that Marine barracks. In the motorcycle, shouting that war was declared.

Today I published nearly 60 episodes. And I've highlighted more than 75 American service men nurses, prisoners of war. Filipino service men. Civilians and I plan to keep going. And the stories   📍 📍 I find are just incredible. There's some somewhat well-known faces. Like these three men who were the medal of honor winners on Bhutan.

the left. We have Alexander ninja who was the first medal of honor recipient in world war two. He received that award for taking a bag of grenades and a rifle and jumping into an enemy Fox hole when they found his body. He had taken out several soldiers and as well as an officer. The man in the middle is Jose He's the only Filipino in world war II to have received the medal of honor. And lastly we'll about Biyanki who was the third and final man on Bhutan to receive the medal of honor. But I also told stories about Jim Daley,   📍 who was Willow, bald, beyond case best friend in the Philippines.

He's pictured here holding a little monkey that they had befriended during their time on Bhutan.

Daley was wounded in action in the very final days before Bhutan fell. He was hit by a machine gun bullet near his hip. It shattered his hip. And so he was in the hospital in a full body cast when the Baton surrender to the Japanese. Thus, he couldn't be evacuated or go on the Bataan death March with the rest of the men captured on Bhutan. He remained in the field hospital for several months and was transferred then to a prison in Manila. Where he stayed for the rest of the war. And because of his serious injuries and he wasn't able to move around very well. He wasn't ever sent to Japan or hint to the work camps and he survived the war and came home.

  📍 📍 This is a picture of Jim Daly's family. It was taken before the war shortly before Jim sail for the Philippines in 1941. Next to him is his mother. Followed by his three siblings and then his father. Now his mother is looking down and one reason that she might be looking down and slightly. Trajected is because that day. She kept telling the family, this is the last time we will all be together.

This is the last time we will all be together. And that premonition actually became true. The boy next to her, who's kind of peeking out from behind, behind it next to her. Is the youngest son of the family and he was in the air court in France. And his plane crashed during, um, shortly after D-Day. And he died.

So this picture captures the very last time this family was together before the war and together forever.

📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 I also discover the life story of Eunice hatchet. This woman was incredible. She was part of the army nursing Corps and she was a Lieutenant. She was was stationed at field hospital. Number one, during the battle of Bhutan.

She was able to escape the islands with about 10 other nurses. Right before the islands fell to the Japanese forces. And she ended up in Australia where this picture was taken. Now, when I found this picture of these two nurses in Australia, the caption just said, American nurses in Australia who escaped the Philippines. They didn't identify her specifically, but if you take a look at the person on the left and then the person in the very right of the second photo that is obviously her, and I thought it was just amazing that I found this photo of her randomly on the internet that wasn't even with her name in it. Once she got home, she was welcome home to a hero's welcome in our small Texas town. And then the army nursing course sent her to Hollywood to be an advisor for the film. So proudly we hail, which came out in 1943 and was about the nurses. On Bhutan during the battle of Bhutan.

After that she was assigned to an army medical unit. Which was sent to England. And then six weeks after D-Day they went into Normani and followed Patton's army from France into Belgium. And then finally Germany. So Eunice hatchet literally did the whole war, right. She went from the Pacific theater back home all the way to the European theater.

It's just an amazing story. And. There's also a little romance, a worldwide romance that is in the mix of it too, but I'll let you listen to the whole episode to find out more about that. This man, his father William Cummings. When he was about 39 years old in 1940, he went to Manila in the Philippines to be a missionary.

When the war started and the Americans were leaving Manila withdrawing to the Bataan peninsula. William comings decided that he was going to join the army as a chaplain and follow them over.

So a couple things to know about father William Cummings. He was in his early forties when he joined as a chaplain. He had severe back problems. He had had back surgery before he came to the Philippines and they almost didn't want to let him come as a missionary because of his back problems. And he was just very people could describe him as frail looking in general.

Further coming spent a lot of his time at the field hospitals, especially number one, which you can see here in this picture. Now the awards at this hospital, weren't in buildings. They were open air pavilions. I imagine them like picnic pavilions with just like a metal roof. And then some like pillars holding that roof up. You can kind of see that in the background of this photograph.

On Easter morning of 1942, the Japanese air force bombed this hospital on purpose. They came through and they did one bombing and strafing run. And then there was a pause during that pause. They could hear the planes coming back. So Cummings grabs a chair. In the middle of the ward. He stands up on it, raises his hand high above his head and starts reciting the Lord's prayer as the first bombs start falling. stayed there for the entire bombing run. ABOM even went off, very close to where he was and a piece of shrapnel embedded itself in his arm. So when he stood there, arms in the air, blood dripping down his arms and reciting the Lord's prayer. When the bombing Rome was finally over, he asked a friend to take over for him as, and he went to get first aid. This though was considered a miracle because the portion where he was standing. Remained intact and standing.

Whereas other parts of the hospital, the roofs had collapsed and equipment and men had been blown up into the jungle and things like that. So this was considered a miracle and at one point, father Cummings had been nominated for sainthood. He's also the chaplain who is credited with coining the phrase.

There's no atheists in foxholes. Although, there's not a lot of good evidence that he did. In fact, when that phrase.

Father Cummings died on board, a prisoner transport ship, taking him to Japan. It was bombed by a us plane who didn't realize the unmarked ship was carrying American prisoners of war.

found and told the stories of these three sailors who are under the command of my great-grandfather Alma som.

As American forces and ships were leaving Manila. Some order these men to go and destroy some Navy warehouses and all the supplies in them. So that they wouldn't fall into Japanese hands. So these three men and another who I never had a picture for went and did that, but by the time they were done, it was too late to get to Baton and they were stuck in Manila with the Japanese occupation force coming in any moment. So they pretended to be American civilians. And were eventually put into the Santo Tomas civilian internment camp in Manila. About a year after their incarceration there, the Japanese military. Realized that these men were American military and they arrested them and put them in the Dungeons of Fort Santiago. Now Fort Santiago was built in like the 15 hundreds.

And so it's Dungeons or legit. In fact, some of them. Even to this day, fill up at high tide with water, and POW's sometimes drowned down there when they were being kept there. Well, these. For men were in the Dungeons. They didn't draw. Well, these four men's they spent about two and a half months in those Dungeons. They survived and were taken to Cabanatuan where a surprised Alma Salm was reunited with them. Eventually all four men were transported to other Japanese camps in on the Japan islands. And they all came home after the war.

I've even done   stories about some famous photographs from the Philippines during this time period. Like this one, which is a fairly iconic Bataan death, March photo. Interesting thing about this photo is that it actually wasn't taken during the Bataan death March. These men were captured the day before Bhutan surrendered. And so they weren't technically on the Bataan death March, although they had to do a lot of marching. I learned the stories of the three men who were in the front of this photograph and the one who's in the third one in, he has like the dirt streaming down his face and he's looking up to somebody. He was actually very sick at this time.

And he died later that day. And his body has never been found.

This is one of the last photographs taken on Corregidor island before it fell. It was taken in one of the islands tunnels. It's the finance department. I was able to identify all of these men. That are, uh, in this photo. Oh, well almost all these men, the one in the very back number seven, his back is turned.

No, at some historical sources and people had tried identifying them before, but I actually discovered that I think a couple of those original, um, identifications were incorrect and I've been able to correct them and, and know which person is which, but I did an episode telling the stories of the four men who were in the most front part of this. Number 1, 2 14 and 15. Only one of these men returned home.

These 18 men had served together on the USS quail. And when all of the islands surrender to Japanese forces on May 6th, 1942, they decided they wanted to try to escape. They got this diesel boat launch. It's about the length of a school bus. And they sailed quietly out of Manila bay under the cover of darkness.

Then they made their way through the rest of the Philippine islands. Through open sea through the east Indies, which we can call Indonesia today and finally down to Darwin Australia, and they made it. They all made it through rough seas, rough weather. It was amazing.

I told the   story of Irvin strobing, the man on the left hand side, he sent out the last message in Morris code from Corregidor island before it fell. It was a series of messages over the morning of May 6th, 1942. When has he just basically was tapping out a play by play. Of the invasion of the cricket or island. very interesting.

He didn't know if that message had been received.

[Rest of presentation/episode wasn’t transcribed.]

Well, that’s Left Behind the Scenes for today. Be sure to like and subscribe to that you’re the first to know when I drop the next episode about African-American servicemen in The Philippines.
Have a fantastic week.