#13. This Rag-Tag Group of Sailors Saved Bataan. Here’s how…

Episode 13 – The Naval Battalion – Episode Script

Cold Open
[Narrator] At 8:40 on the morning of January 23, 1942, Commander Frank Bridget was at his command post near Mariveles on Bataan Peninsula’s southern tip when he got a phone call from a lookout on top of Mt. Mauankis.
[Lookout] ““Longoskawayan and Lapiay Points are crawling with Japs. We’re getting the hell out of here, right now!”
[Narrator] the lookout shouted into the telephone. But Commander Bridget -- a 44-year-old naval aviator with a lean, wiry build, ice-blue eyes, light hair, and a small, waxed moustache above his crooked smile -- needed more details.
[Bridget] “What is their exact position? How large is the force?”
[Narrator] he asked the terrified lookout. But silence was his only response.
[Bridget] “Sailor! What is the exact position?”
[Narrator] Again silence.
[Bridget] “Hello! Hello! Are you there?”
[Narrator] Bridget shouted again. But, in response, all he heard was the sharp crack of some half dozen rifle shots.
Bridget hung up the phone, anxiety and adrenaline high, because his fears had come true: An unknown number of Japanese forces had landed 20 miles south of the American front lines, less than 2 miles from the American Naval Base at Mariveles, and not quite 5 miles from General Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters.
Just a couple weeks earlier, Commander Bridget noticed a flaw in the American defense of Bataan.
An oversight.
Yet something the Japanese could easily turn to their advantage – 20 miles of a vital supply road that paralleled the Bataan coast between Mariveles and the American front lines was largely unprotected. But there were no American forces available to protect the coast from Japanese landings.
So Bridget, ever the resourceful commander and seeing a need for coastal protection around Mariveles, pulled together naval aviators, rounded up a couple hundred sailors from various ships and bases, and added in around 120 Marines to form the Naval Battalion – a troop of ground fighting navy men to help defend against Japanese invasions on the unprotected coast around Mariveles.
Except the navy men weren’t trained for ground combat. So the Marines were tasked with turning the rag tag group of sailors and aviators into a jungle fighting force.
And they ended up having about 3 days to do that before Japanese landed and Bridget received that early morning call from the Mt. Mauankis lookout.
The Japanese landings could lead to destruction of that vital supply and communications road, infiltration of the southern part of the Bataan Peninsula, and, perhaps, even the capture of General MacArthur and his staff, which would mean instant American surrender.
And on that late January morning, it was up to Frank Bridget to stop it – with his brand new, practically totally untrained fighting force against a highly trained Japanese invasion unit.
And guess what – he did it!
This is Left Behind

Podcast Welcome
Welcome to “Left Behind,” a podcast about the people left behind when the US surrendered The Philippines in the early days of WW2.
I’m Anastasia Harman, and I tell you the stories of WW2 servicemen and women, civilians, guerillas, and others captured by Japanese forces in The Philippines. My great-grandfather Alma Salm was one of the POWs, and his memoir inspired me to tell stories of his fellow captives.
Today I get to tell you about one of my favorite people I’ve researched – Frank Bridget. This man was amazing. His insight and initiative may have prevented Bataan Peninsula from falling to Japanese forces in January 1942 (instead of 3 months later in April).
The story of Frank Bridget and his Naval Battalion is nothing short of miraculous, as the untrained unit held off the advance of elite Japanese invaders. Tragically, both Bridget and the Naval Battalion’s role in the Battle of Bataan are highly unrecognized.
But we’re going to change that.
So, without further ado, let’s jump in.

POW’s Life Story
Before the War
[Narrator] Francis Joseph Bridget – or Frank as everyone seemed to call him -- entered this world on August 2, 1897, in Washington, DC, where he also grew up. Frank was the 5th of 7 children born to Bernard and Josephine Bridget. His father was a clothing merchant. I’m not sure if he owned a clothing store or was involved with manufacturing and distribution.
23-year-old Frank graduated from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, as an Ensign in 1921 and spent the 1920s working his way up the Navy ranks. By 1928, Lt. Bridget was in training with the flying corps at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. After at least a year of training, he spent time in a bombing squadron and then in an air fighting squadron.
Something interesting I learned is that dive bombers as a specific type of war aircraft were created by the US Navy during the 1920s. Dive bombers were specifically meant to bomb the upper decks of warships, which typically didn’t have heavy armor. The first real dive bomber – the Curtiss F8C Helldiver – appeared in 1929.
That’s the same time Bridget was in the naval flying corps training at Pensacola. Now, I don’t know it he flew this plane, but . . . maybe. Which would make him among the first dive bombers in the US Navy. How cool is that?
Take that Marshall Foch – the French general who, supposedly, said in 1911 that “Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value.” Not even 20 years later naval aviators like Frank Bridget are dive bombing ships with planes. And, to add even more perspective, Frank was just 6 years old when the Wright brothers first flew. Go technology and innovation!
BTW—the Helldiver is one of those open cockpit, propeller planes – and looks, to my untrained aviation eyes, not that much different than the iconic Red Barron WW1-era planes. I’ve put a picture of one on my website, the link is in the show notes.
While Frank was stationed in Pensacola, he married Charlotte Ballou on July 28, 1928. Their daughter, Charlotte Bridget, was born a little over a year later in 1929.
By Oct 1932, Frank was back at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. I’m not sure if he was studying or teaching there. But 18 months later, in April 1934, Frank graduated with a degree in aeronautical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. He and 6 other Navy and Army officers were the first officers to receive degrees at CalTech.
He spent the rest of the 1930s flying, then at the Bureau of Aeronautics in Washington, DC, and finished the decade as the Assistant Naval Attaché at the American Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. (You may recall that Frank Pyzick from episode 1 also spent time with the Naval Attaché in Tokyo in the late 1920s, early 1930s)
By late 1941, Frank was a Commander in the Navy (that’s similar in rank to a US Army Lt. Colonel). But sometime in 1940 or 1941 he had been passed over for promotion by Navy selection boards.

This is slightly tangential, but I found an interesting commentary from April 1942 (so about 4 months in to WW2) that mentioned Bridget and his achievements to date in WW2 and pointed out that he was among several WW2 standouts who, had just before the war, been passed over for promotion – which put him way down the list for a chance at ever being promoted again. The selection boards, the article said,
[Reporter] “have some personal pique against [the officers] or their wives or because . . . they were not Annapolis graduates.”
Gen. Douglas MacArthur spoke out openly against the Naval selection boards promotion process. Still, he was an Army guy . . . so, who knows how much sway that had with the Navy.
The article also talked about how, at the very beginning of WW2, the navy was planning to retire hundreds of Navy officers who had 10-25 years of service and then call them back to active duty in the war. Except their retired status meant they couldn’t rise in rank. Ever.
At the same time, this article said, with the war raging larger, the Navy was promoting sons of wealthy, connected men to higher ranks in administrative positions – meaning those rich, connected young men wouldn’t have to go to battle zones.
[Reporter] “Washington is overrun with these young, wealthy socialites who have wangled navy commissions and are fighting the war on the exciting fronts of the capital’s embattled cocktail lounges, salons, and exclusive clubs.”
[Narrator] Military and government bureaucracy. Privileged 1-Percenters. I guess somethings never change.

[Narrator] Well, despite all that drama, when WW2 began, Commander Frank Bridget was the Operations Officer and Chief of Staff for the naval aviation unit Patrol Wing 10, stationed at Cavite Navy Yard just south of Manila.
On December 10, 1941, Japanese air forces attacked and demolished the Cavite Navy Yard (which I covered in episode 5). And Bridget’s command ceased to exist – because the patrol’s planes were destroyed. And there was nothing left to command.

During the War

[Narrator] So Frank Bridget, along with all the remaining American Navy forces, congregated to the Naval Station at Mariveles.
Mariveles sits at the very southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula in The Philippines. It’s a small town nestled on a small bay in between jungle-covered hills, that rise dramatically from sea level to tower (at least somewhat) over the town.
In those early days of WW2, the town was somewhat removed from the Bataan fighting, with the front lines about 20 miles north of Mariveles.
Bataan Peninsula is divided by a mountains region that runs the peninsual’s north to south length. That mountainous region made east-to-west travel – at least during WW2 – difficult, if not impossible. To go from the eastern side of the American front lines to the Western side, the military relied on small supply roads that went around the bottom of the peninsula – through Mariveles – and then circles around to head back north up the other side.
Imagine a U-shaped road, with Mariveles at the bottom of the U and 2 front lines on each end of the U’s legs.
Going west from Mariveles, that supply road – basically a 1-lane dirt road back in early 1942 – wound serpentine-like between hills and came very close to the beach areas as it went north toward the western front line. Despite the primitive road’s rough terrain, it was a vital supply and communications line between Mariveles, MacArthur’s Headquarters, and the two American fronts.
But the thing about peninsulas is that they’re surrounded by water – and beaches – and, if left unprotected, enemy forces could land anywhere along those beaches, push through a few hundred yards of jungle, and have access to that supply road and more.
Bridget realized that gap in defense.
But – none in charge at the Naval Station would listen to him. “Fidgety Frank,” as he was sometimes called,
[Sackett] “was never one to sit back and criticize when action was needed,”
[Narrator] recalled fellow Navy officer Captain Earl Sackett. So Bridget took his concerns and suggestions to MacArthur’s headquarters. They, at least, recognized the threat and, on January 15, issued an order for the Mariveles Naval Station to establish a security force.
Marine Corps Col. William Prickett, who knew and served with Bridget, later explained:
[Prickett] “[Bridget] offered his services to form a local security force and was ordered to organize a battalion to protect the Naval Station. He was authorized to use any naval personnel on Bataan provided they could be spared from other duties. This served two purposes—lip service to MacArthur’s order and a means of shutting Bridget up.”
In other words, the Naval Station leadership begrudgingly let “Fidgety Frank” have his way. Thus, as a fellow serviceman later said:
[Serviceman] “Bridget, a patrol bomber pilot who had never led troops—became the commanding officer of the Naval Battalion on Bataan and later Corregidor.”
[Narrator] He got right to work setting up his security force.
First off, Bridget ordered the lookout on Mt. Mauankis to observe the surrounding terrain (not just the sky) and let him know about unusual activity.
Mt. Mauankis (it’s really a hill, a steep hill) rises over the southwest side of Mariveles Bay. It’s only about 1.5 miles from the town of Mariveles.
About 2.5 miles northwest of Mt. Mauankis is Mt. Pucot (also another hill). The 2 hills are connected by a saddle. On the far western side of the hills and saddle are 5 narrow, small, finger-like peninsulas (also called points) that jut out into the China Sea. And those small peninsulas become very important in this story – we’ll get to them in a bit.
Bridget ordered a lookout on Mt. Mauankis to keep an eye on all of this terrain.
Then, from January 16-19, he gathered together naval aviators and sailors. The USS Canopus, a Navy ship anchored in Mariveles Bay, provided many sailors. The Ship’s captain, Earl Sackett, later wrote:
[Sackett] “Frank had under his own command about a hundred and fifty aviation men, mostly ground crews, who had been left without work when their planes were destroyed. He … collected a hundred and thirty men from the Canopus, about eighty from the Ammunition Depot detail, a hundred or so Marines, and a few refugees from the ill-fated Cavite Navy Yard.”
[Narrator] One of those Cavite refugees – that is, navy men without assignments – wrote a letter home saying:
[Lt. Swenson] “Under Commander Francis J. Bridget, we prepared to make marines out of ourselves and to fight with Gen. MacArthur’s forces.”
[Narrator] Since Marines had ground combat training and experience and the sailors and aviators didn’t, Bridget combined the navy men with two Marine Battery units. These Marine units had been manning machine gun batteries near Mariveles to protect against attacking Japanese planes.
The Batteries divided the navy recruits into several platoons and started training them on basic infantry skills – like marksmanship, elementary squad tactics, and using bayonets. Captain Sackett explained:
[Sackett] “Equipment was a serious problem. The Marines were, of course, ready for field duty, but the others were sailors, and the Navy doesn't provide much equipment for land operations at the best, to say nothing of the fact that several of these groups had been separated from their normal supplies by unforeseen circumstances. However rifles and ammunition of some sort were finally begged, borrowed or stolen for most of the men.”
“Perhaps two-thirds of the sailors knew which end of the rifle should be presented to the enemy, and had even practiced on a target range, but field training was practically a closed book to them. The experienced Marines were spread thinly throughout each company, in the hope that through perception and example, their qualities would be assimilated by the rest.”
[Narrator] Combat training through osmosis, a truly novel idea.
The sailors also attempted to dye their white navy uniforms khaki – but ended up with a bright mustard yellow color. Bright yellow, not a target at all.
Bridget heard there was a Philippine Army detachment in the area – that somehow hadn’t been given fighting or position orders since the withdrawal to Bataan. Bridget went looking for them, found them, and added them to the Naval Battalion. Prickett later explained:
[Prickett] “The training was a challenge and the sailors turned to with a will. They joked incessantly, but were in dead earnest. It is fortunate that they were, because on the morning of 23 January, they were called on to fight a Japanese landing force.”
[Narrator] By that point, the navy men had had 2-4 days of infantry training. Well, like Bilbo Baggins and the dwarves escaping the Goblin King only to encounter orcs, out of the frying pan and into the fire.

[Narrator] Curiously – or perhaps predictability, Japanese commanders realized that the American defenses were strongest at the front lines in northern Bataan and that the southern coast areas were not well defended.
(Just like Bridget predicted.)
So the Japanese assembled a landing force that left the beach at Moron after dark on the night of January 22. (BTW – you may recall Moron from episode 11 and the last cavalry charge. If you haven’t listened to that episode, I suggest doing so. It’s REALLY good.)
But the landing forces were ill prepared for the harsh, rough terrain of Bataan’s south western coast. Also, their map was so bad and lacked so many details that they couldn’t readily identify – especially in the dark – which of the many small, finger-like peninsulas their commanders wanted them to land at.
Plus the tides along the Bataan coast were treacherous and difficult to navigate. Barges got off course. And then a US Navy PT Boat appeared. PT Boats is short for Patrol Torpedo motor boat, which was small (holding about 10 people), fast, and maneuverable. The one that found the Japanese landing crafts that night was captained by Lt. John D. Bulkeley (who would later use the same boat to help MacArthur escape from Bataan). Bulkeley’s PT Boat sunk 2 of the Japanese landing barges.
Still, barges containing about 300 Japanese ground troops did land at Longoskawayan Point along the southwestern Bataan coast. Except – they were 10 miles south of where they were supposed to have landed.
Longoskawayan Point is one of the 5 narrow, small, finger like peninsulas that jut out into the China Sea on the south west side of the Bataan Peninsula – and just over the hill from Mariveles. Earlier I mentioned the hills called Mt. Mauankis and Mt. Pucot, which are 1.5-2 miles (2.5-3 km) west of Mariveles. Well, Longoskawayan Point and the other 4 finger peninsulas are on the other side of those hills from Mariveles.
For our story today, we’re interested in 2 of these finger peninsulas -- Longoskawayan Point and Lapiay Point. To give you an idea of size, Longoskawayan Point is only 700 yards long – that’s like 7 football fields end to end. At its tip it’s just 400 yards wide. So it’s really quite small. And it sits just 1.7 miles from Mariveles – of course there are some rather large hills between the point and the town, but still – it’s close.
Also, the tip of Longoskawayan Point ends in 100-foot-tall cliffs.
So, when the Japanese landed, they came ashore, as best I’m understanding, in between Longoskawayan Point and Lapiay Point. Some went to Lapiay, but most of the forces dug in on Longoskawayan Point.

[Narrator] And that’s why, at 8:40 on the morning on January 23, Commander Frank Bridget received a phone call from a terrified lookout on Mt. Mauankis.
[Lookout] ““Longoskawayan and Lapiay Points are crawling with Japs. We’re getting the hell out of here, right now!”
[Narrator] And then he must have left, because Bridget only got silence to his questions, until he heard gun fire. Bridget knew his fears were realized – and he and his untrained Naval Battalion were the only unit between the Japanese, Mariveles, and MacArthur’s Headquarters. Defending was up to them.
He telephoned one of the Marine Lts. who was over several of the Naval Battalion platoons,
[Bridget] “Get going, Willie. Secure Mauankis and Pucot. Don’t let the Japanese advance. Report the results of your reconnaissance to me at the Command Post as soon as possible. Good Luck.”
[Narrator] Then he radioed the lieutenant over the Battalion’s remaining platoons, giving him the same orders.
And…he didn’t tell either that he had given identical orders to the other platoons.
This was . . . an error. Because both Lt’s thought their platoons were the only friendly forces in the area. Thus Bridget’s orders set up two friendly infantries going blindly into the jungle and thinking they were the only American force there.
But, we have to give Bridgett a bit of slack here, since he was a naval aviator trained in aerial combat, not ground combat. He was doing the best he knew how.
Thankfully, though, the error didn’t cost any lives.
Not knowing the other group was heading to the same place, each set of platoons headed toward Mt. Mauankis and Pucot. Marine Col Prickett later said,
[Prickett] “The lines of march of all these platoons were hopelessly intertwined. How they kept from engaging each other in a pitched battle is one of the unsolved mysteries of World War II. Time after time, they met each other in the dense jungle and never once fired at the wrong man.”
[Narrator] This is especially incredible because the untrained Navy men were quite trigger happy. More on that in a bit.
Canopus Captain Sackett relayed a story of perhaps a third group of the Naval Battalion that day. I’m not 100% certain where this fits in the overall timeline, but here’s what Sackett reported:
[Sackett] “Thus equipped, mostly with boundless enthusiasm and determination, the motley array sallied forth one day late in January for a preliminary hike to the coast to harden them up. At the base of Mt. Pucot near the sea they met an agitated group of soldiers who had just been chased by the Japs from their signal station on the mountain top. Here was "field training" with a vengeance for our budding infantrymen. Figuratively thumbing their manuals, they hastily deployed.”
[Narrator] Well, the first Naval Battalion platoon to reach Mt. Pucot encountered a group of Japanese and engaged them. The (mostly) untrained men of the platoon became rattled after their leader was wounded and fired blindly into the jungle, even after the Japanese withdrew, thus wasting precious ammunition.
I won’t go into all the details, but by the end of that first day, the Naval Battalion had secured Mounts Mauankis, Mt. Pucot, and the saddle between them. In the meantime, back at his Command Post, Bridget had scrounged up a howitzer – that’s a gun that fires shells on high trajectories but low velocities. It was a good addition, and the Battalion placed it on the saddle between the two mounts…uh, hills.
As the sun went down and the fighting subsided, the Naval Battalion men got hungry and tired. And realized that they didn’t have provisions. But, there are advantages to your fighting front being so close to civilization, as USS Canopus Captain Sackett explained:
[Sackett] “In the excitement, nobody thought much about [food and bedding supplies] until nature began to assert itself as night came on, and the boys began to get hungry and tired. A hurry call was sent back to the Canopus [which was anchored in Mariveles Bay] to "send up plenty of everything", and trucks were rushed to the new front with food, ammunition, blankets, and stretchers for the wounded.”
[Narrator] The next morning – January 24 – the Americans woke up to discover Japanese forces had, during the night, retaken their positions on the western slopes of Mt Pucot, thus regaining the ground they’d lost the day before. These night-time tactics had unnerved the untrained Naval Battalion men, and they tended to fire intermittently through the night at the last known Japanese positions on the front.
Sackett explained:
[Sackett] “Five days of what was probably the weirdest jungle fighting in the annals of warfare ensued, with all accepted principles violated, and no holds barred. Adjacent units were unable to maintain a contact with each other during the night, so, or course, the Japs took advantage of their famous infiltration tactics. However, this did not have the expected results, because our boys, not having been indoctrinated into the ancient Army principle that it is fatal to be outflanked, simply held their ground and sent back detachments to clear out the annoying intruders behind their lines.”
[Narrator] The Naval Battalion’s “tactics” confused the Japanese forces. A diary of one Japanese soldier, found after the battle, talked about a new type of American suicide squad dressed in brightly colored uniforms – remember how the sailors tried to dye their white uniforms khaki but ended up with bright yellow. Yeah, the Japanese noticed. The diary continued:
[Japanese] "Whenever these apparitions reached an open space, they would attempt to draw Japanese fire by sitting down, talking loudly and lighting cigarettes."
[Narrator] Another source reports a Japanese diary recording:
[Diary] “Today we have encountered a new kind of enemy. They come walking into the front yelling, ‘Hey, Mac, where the hell are you?’ They are completely without fear.”
[Narrator] Ineptitude . . . brilliance. There must be a fine line between those two things.
Really, though, I’m not making fun of these men. What Bridget and the Naval Battalion accomplished is nothing short of amazing. It’s just a very different kind of WW2 story than we usually hear.
And…it’s also kind of funny.

This is a good time to point out that Japanese and other Axis countries didn’t have high opinions of American soldiers. Well before the war, they thought Americans wealthy, weak, and lazy. Today the word “entitled” might have been thrown around.
About a month after the Naval Battalion’s first battle, on February 23, 1042, President FDR spoke to the American citizens in a Fireside Chat, stating:
[Audio Clip: Audio from 2/23/1942 Fireside Chat. “Ever since this nation . . . tell that to the Marines.” Toward end of the speech, probably in the last 5-10 mins.]
[Narrator] And tell that to Frank Bridgett and the Naval Battalion. Or, really, any of the people I highlight in this podcast. Hard to see much entitlement in any of them.

Well, Bridget – who didn’t have direct telephone access to his field Lieutenants -- communicated with them through messengers going from his Command Post up to the front lines and back. The morning of January 24, these messengers conveyed Bridget’s orders to send platoons down Lapiay and Longoskawayan Points to clear off the Japanese invaders. They did so, but weren’t able to clear either Point. By evening however, they had completely pushed Japanese forces off of Mt. Pucot and back down onto the points.
Luckily, though, the Battalion was about to get reinforcements. First, a Marine machine gun platoon and a mortar section from Corregidor arrived to help out. And they brought with them –telephones. So now Bridget could instantaneously communicate with his field Lieutenants and the two artillery sections.
I’m fascinated by field telephone technology from this era. I researched it a bit, and learned that field telephones were developed as early at the 1880s, shortly after the telephone’s invention. The phones were wired, and there were servicemen whose job it was to wind and unwind the phone wire from command posts to field locations. (I’ve got a picture on my website of American servicemen unrolling phone wire as they ford a river on Guadalcanal during WW2.)
They had radios and walkie talkies, but the phones were much more reliable for communication.

At the same time, there was also a strange phenomenon happening. As wounded men from the Battalion filtered back into Mariveles, other sailors asked the wounded men where the fighting was going on. These new Navy men procured rifles for themselves and headed – in groups of 1, 2, or 3 men -- to the hills to start fighting.
This isn’t typical military procedure or strategy or method of receiving replacements – but, hey, it worked.
On January 25, the Naval Battalion was able to sweep all the Japanese off of Lapiay Point. But, the Naval Battalion forces on Longoskawayan got pinned down and dealt with intense crossfire from the front and both sides (or flanks). Miraculously, the Marine LT in charge, after 10 hours of fighting, was able to get his unit out of the trap and back to their defense positions on the Pucot- Mauankis ridge.
That night, a Mortar battery on Corregidor Island shelled Longoskawayan Point starting at midnight and into the next day. The boys in that battery had been impatiently waiting orders to open fire on the Japanese, and this was “their first real shoot of the war.”
They hit their target dead on and an observer on Mt Pucot reported that the first shells to hit on Longoskawayan Point started such large fires he could no longer see the target. (I’m also in awe of the shelling technology’s accuracy back then – to hit such precise targets from miles away.)
A Japanese soldier later wrote:
[J. Soldier] “We were terrified. We could not see where the big shells or bombs were coming from; they seemed to be falling from the sky. Before I was wounded, my head was going round and round, and I did not know what to do. Some of my companions jumped off the [100-foot-tall] cliff to escape the terrible fire."
[Narrator] But despite the Naval Battalion reinforcements and help from Corregidor’s heavy artillery, the American ground attacks on Longoskawayan Point the next day (January 26) failed to push the American front forward. The Japanese’s counterattack was well planned, and the US ground forces met Japanese light machine gun groups in the dense jungle delivering heavy crossfire. The Japanese even penetrated the American line.
You’ve got to admire the tenacity and training of the Japanese troops. To land at the wrong spot, but dig in and keep hold – and even mount an advance -- of this point despite all the artillery being thrown at them.
In mid-afternoon on January 26, Bridget got a call from one of the platoon’s lieutenants.
[Hogy] “I can’t hold ’em, Commander,”
[Narrator] he said.
[Bridget] “Sure you can, Hogy. You’ve got to. I’ll get Perez to help you.”
[Narrator] Bridget called Perez – who was in charge of an artillery unit on the two hills. Perez put his last nine rounds right on top of the Japanese.
[Bridget] “You all right, Hogy?”
[Narrator] Bridget asked, getting the field Lt back on the phone line. The Lt. told him that they were able to extricate themselves – with the help of those artillery units up in the hills – from the Japanese crossfire and return to the Pucot-Maunkis ridge.
[Bridgett] “Good boy.”
Narrator] Bridget told the Lt after hearing this report. Then Commander Bridget got on the phone to MacArthur’s headquarter, demanding,
[Bridget] “You’ve got to help me out. My boys are dead tired.”
[Staff] “Ok, a battalion of Philippine Scouts has been ordered to relieve you,”
[Narrator] the Headquarters staff responded. Bridget’s face brightened and his voice filled with hope as he asked:
[Bridget] “When?”
[Staff] “As soon as they can get there.”
[Bridget] “Oh,”
[Narrator] Bridget responded as his face fell and he dejectedly laid down the phone. Then he called his leaders in the field.
[Bridget] “Philippine Scouts on are on their way, but you’ve got to hold the lines until they arrive. At all costs.”
[Narrator] The Naval Battalion was safe, but they had accomplished little beyond defending their position. Another day of fighting like this could be the end of the Battalion. The Japanese kept pressure on the Battalion’s line throughout the night. But, around midnight, a miracle happened.
The Naval Battalion men felt taps on their shoulders, and voices whispered in their ears:
[Scouts] “Okay, Joe, you go now. I take over.”
[Narrator] The 57th Infantry of Philippine Scouts had arrived. The Canopus’s Captain Sackett wrote:
[Sackett] “These Scouts were the cream of the crop. The Scouts were intensely proud of their service, and high indeed were the qualifications of any Filipino who could pass their entrance requirements. The Scouts could, and did, outdo the best of the Japs in jungle fighting. The officers swore that their men could smell a Jap sniper in the trees, and cited numerous cases where Scouts stalking through the pitch-dark jungles at night would suddenly fire a shot upward into the trees, bringing down a sniper. Any Scout who used more than a single shot to bring down his enemy had to face caustic comments from his mates.”
[Narrator] American troops from Bataan would later say that the Philippine Scouts were the backbone of the defense on Bataan.
As their time on Bataan lengthened, the American soldiers took to calling themselves the Battling Bastards of Bataan, probably because they came to realize with more clarity the US wasn’t coming to rescue them. They called the nurses the Battling Belles of Bataan. Well, keeping with that theme, the more I learn about the Philippine Scouts (who were largely Filipino natives), the more I realize they truly were the Battling Bad-Asses of Bataan.
Within 3 days, the Scouts pushed the Japanese off of Longoskawayan Point. Some Japanese soldiers jumped off the high cliffs to escape the Scouts’ onslaught. Some Japanese escaped into caves on the cliff side – which we’ll talk more about in next week’s episode.
These and other actions became known collectively as the Battle of the Points.
When all was said and done, that Naval Battalion suffered only about 10 deaths. Which is truly remarkable all things considered. Marine Col Prickett said:
[Prickett] “Commander Francis J. Bridget …. is one of the unsung heroes of the U. S. Navy. He had never commanded infantry, he had no staff, no communications to speak of, and almost completely untrained troops. Yet he and his Naval Battalion, consisting of some 200 sailors, Filipinos, and Marines, kept an organized force of Japanese confined on one finger ridge for five days. By so doing, they prevented the closing of the only supply road on Bataan and the possible capture of General MacArthur, whose Headquarters were only five miles away.”
[Narrator] The US Marines called the Naval Battalion a “damned fine outfit.” And that’s high praise for a rag-tag group of untrained sailors and aviators.
In the coming months, the Navy would tout Bridget and his Naval Battalion’s achievement in newspapers all over the US. And all this from a man who was, just the year before, passed over for promotion.
That’s something that strikes me about Frank Bridget – he saw a job that needed to be done and got it done. I don’t know how he felt about being passed over for promotion. Regardless, he made sure he got a job he deemed needful done.
And if that doesn’t define hero, I’m not sure what does.

[Narrator] Their job on Bataan finished, Commander Bridget and the Naval Battalion followed transferred to the island fortress of Corregidor. There they joined the 4th Marines to protect the island’s beach from enemy landings. They really did make Marines out of themselves.
Bridget was evacuated from Corregidor by plane on April 29, 1942, mere days before that island fell to Japanese forces. However, when the plane stopped for refueling at another Philippine island, it hit a rock and couldn’t leave again. Bridget and the other Corregidor evacuees, including at least 11 nurses, were captured by Japanese forces on that island. (More on that in a future episode.)
And that failed escape was, in many ways, Bridget’s death warrant.
I don’t have many details of him as a POW from May 1942 through December 1944.
But on December 13, 1944, Commander Bridget entered the rear hold of the Japanese ship Oryoku Maru in Manila with some 1,600 other POWs. Bridget would endure 2 ship bombings and more than a month at sea in indescribably inhumane circumstances.
And through it all, Commander Bridget was a leader and guiding star who probably kept many men alive who would have otherwise perished. I actually have so many details about his role in what’s become known as the Oryoku Maru disaster, that I’ll have to detail it in a future episode – because doing so here would make this episode twice as long.
When the POW ship finally arrived at Moji, Japan, 6 weeks after leaving Manila, only 550 POWs of the original 1,600 were alive. 48-year-old Commander Bridget was not among them.

After the War & Legacy
[Narrator] Commander Francis J Bridget is considered Missing in Action. As far as I can find, no one knows precisely what happened to his body. If he died while the ship was enroute to Moji, Japan, he was probably buried at sea. Otherwise, he may have been cremated once the sip reached Japan.
His name appears on a Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery, alongside 36,285 other missing servicemen. In August 1945, Bridget finally received that promotion and was posthumously appointed to the rank of Navy Captain. (Navy Captain is similar in rank to Colonel in Army or US Marines)
He received three major military awards — Navy Cross, Army Silver Star, and Legion of Merit — for his bravery and leadership during the Battle of Bataan and on-board the Japanese hell ships.
In 1956, the US Navy named a destroyer escort USS Bridget in honor of Frank Bridget’s service and sacrifice.

His wife, Charlotte, died in 1980. She was buried at sea, per her request, perhaps to be with her husband. Their daughter, Charlotte, married and had 5 children. She died in 2011.
It’s a tragic end for an amazing man. An end I didn’t want to have to finish this episode with. If real life were like novels, men like Bridget would come home to heroes’ welcomes. But now you know his story – and his memory can live on brighter than before.
Now, for a moment, cast your mind back to that fight on Longoskawayan Point. The Philippine Scouts relieved the Naval Battalion and pushed the Japanese off the cliffs. Some Japanese didn’t die in combat or jump to their deaths. Instead, they made their way down to hide in caves along the cliff sides. Thus they continued to be a threat to Mariveles.

And it took the audacious and creative war-time strategies of another Navy Commander to eradicate the continued Japanese threat on southern Bataan.
More on that next week.
This is Left Behind.

Outro
Thanks for listening! You can find pictures, maps, and sources about Frank Bridget’s story on my website; the link is in the show description.
If you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Spreading the word about this podcast left me continue sharing these amazing stories.
Left Behind is researched, written, recorded, edited, and produced by me, Anastasia Harman. Voice acting by: . Dramatizations are based on historical research, although some creative liberty is taken.
I’ll be back next week with how a navy commander successfully hid an American war ship in plain sight.

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Francis Joseph Bridget marriage record, Ancestry.com. Florida, Marriage Indexes, 1822-1875 and 1927-2001 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data: Florida Department of Health. Florida Marriage Index, 1927-2001. Florida Department of Health, Jacksonville, Florida, and/or Marriages records from various counties located in county courthouses and/or on microfilm at the Family History Library, accessed 2 January 2020.
Francis J Bridget entry, Ancestry.com. World War II Prisoners of War, 1941-1946 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2005. Original data: National Archives and Records Administration. World War II Prisoners of War Data File [Archival Database]; Records of World War II Prisoners of War, 1942-1947; Records of the Office of the Provost Marshal General, Record Group 389; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.
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