H-AGOM-LCampeau

MY AIR FORCE WEATHER MISSION FROM APRIL 1944

THROUGH APRIL 1945 WITH

THE AMERICAN GUERRILLAS OF MINDANAO

by

Lucien (Luke) V. Campeau

Copyright being applied for 1992

All rights reserved

including the right of reproduction

in whole or in part in any form

Maj. Joe Kelly, our Weather Sgdn. C.O. at Amberly Field, Ipswich, Queensland, Australia called me at Eagle Farm Field, Brisbane where I was Wx Officer in charge in March of 1944 saying that he wanted to discuss a proposition with me that I may be interested in. I drove my jeep the 35 miles to Ipswich and there was Kelly with Maj. Lee Telesco whom I knew in July 1943 as our Sqdn. Ops. Off. under Col. Jas. Twaddell, Sqdn. C.O. at Townsville when I came down from Milne Bay, N.G. Telesco then went back to the States to Intelligence School and returned to Allied Intelligence under Col. Courtney C. Whitney who had been Gen. MacArthur's lawyer in Manila before the war. Telesco advised Kelly and me of a secret mission project he was putting together to set up Wx stations throughout the Philippines before the American landings planned for an unknown future date. He said he needed an officer to lead an original party of six enlisted men to be taken into the P.I. by submarine to join an already organized guerrilla army on the Island of Mindanao. More pairs of Wx men would be sent in later to other islands by submarine which I was to tie into the Wx reporting network. I knew there would be many major landings westward on the north side of New Guinea and on other islands on the way to the P.I. This sub mission sounded very intriguing, and I felt I may have more control over my destiny so I volunteered which was the only way he could accept me. Lee said he had approached several other officers and had one 1st Lt. as far as the elevator on the first floor of the Allied Intelligence Building when he backed out. So I volunteered and was attached to G-2 for the mission.

Kelly and I had very recently gotten involved in another deal that sounded great but didn't work out. One evening we were sitting in the Wx office at Amberly Field when Captain Knight, an ATC (Air Transport Command) contract pilot walked in. He had just come in from the States on his way across Australia to Colombo, Ceylon. It was a 3,000 mile flight from western Australia, all over water, with only one reference point, the Cocos Islands, on the way. Knight had made the flight one other time, and as we talked, I asked him how I could go along. He said he’d welcome a Wx officer along to chart the weather for records for future trips. He happened to be a friend of Col. Twaddell, our Group C.O., from stateside. He was leaving at 5:00 a.m. next morning, and it was now 11:00 p.m. To go from one Theater of War to another, the authorization had to come from the theater commander, General MacArthur. So, Knight called Twaddell and told him what we wanted to do. Twaddell said the only way he could try would be to call Lt. Gen. Krueger, MacArthur's Chief of Staff, and he was damned if he was going to risk waking him up that time of the night. So, it was agreed that we'd try it on Knight's next trip. Knight said you could get some nice rubies and sapphires for a few cartons of cigarettes in India. Well, when the P.I. trip came up, and I decided to take it, I told my close friend G. D. Walker about Knight and the Ceylon deal and to stay on top of it as it was practically okayed.

After I got back to the States, got married and went to Santa Monica on an R&R deal with wives, I saw Glen and Doris Walker. Walker did follow up, did make the trip and distinguished himself in the CBI (China, Burma, India) theater on weather forecasting for the first B-29 strikes into Malaysia. Walker said our friend Knight was caught hauling cigarettes into India and bringing back considerable value in precious stones and was given a stretch in Leavenworth. I bargained with Walker for tipping him off to the deal, to bring me back a decent ruby and sapphire, and of course he quickly agreed. When I braced him in Santa Monica for the stones, he gave me some incredible excuse, but I loved him just the same.

The people at G-2 explained that the men would be trained in radio, weather, demolition, rubber boat landing and commando tactics on a rigorous obstacle course at a secret camp named Tagrigelba located in the mountains 45 miles southwest of Brisbane. I was allocated 5,000 pounds for our equipment and had three weeks to procure it in the Brisbane area.

We were to live off the land so could take no food, and would rendezvous with the existing guerrillas at night at prearranged locations. I procured Wx gear, guns, ammo and clothes while the six men were trained in the mountains. On one of my frequent trips to the camp to check on the training progress, I found one of the men, Chester Moore, in bed with a high fever and confirmed with the doctor that it was malaria. He was pretty sick and a big kid (they were all 18 and 19), and I couldn't afford the liability of a recurrence and jeopardize the rest of us and the mission so I told him he could not go. He was broken hearted, and I felt awful bad, but I had no choice. I had malaria 26 times, as best I could count, in New Guinea and Australia from December 1942 to March 1944, but it was Vivax, frequently recurrent and relatively mild. I'd get a 104 degree to 105 degree fever in the dark hours for about three days and get over it and generally had warning and was mobile. I called Maj. Kelly and told him I wanted to substitute S/Sgt. Max E. Hoke, whom I had as a senior non-com at Cooktown, Queensland in 1942. Max was a great guy, a good Wx man and 100% reliable. So Kelly told me to talk to Max and see if held go. Max was on a three-day pass at South Port, a beach resort about 40 miles south of Brisbane. So I took off in my jeep that night and found Max in bed about 2:00 a.m., got him up and explained the project and my dilemma. Max volunteered then and there, he packed his gear and I took him back to Amberly to get the rest of his gear and have orders cut. It was a lucky piece of fate as Max became invaluable. When I went to Air Corps Tech Supply, a large warehouse at Eagle Farm, to pick out material that I wanted, a major understandably refused as I had no orders other than to have him call Col. Whitney at G-2 which he did, and it was approved immediately which didn't make him happy. I took ten of everything like watches, machetes and jungle gear, carbines, 45 cal. pistols and automatics, a 45 cal. submachine gun, two typewriters, jungle boots, clothes, etc., and the necessary Wx gear and even a hydrogen generator and a supply of balloons, lanterns, candles and a theodolite. My men were S/Sgt. Max E. Hoke, Sgt. George Finnegan, Sgt. Chas. McGrath, Cpls. Ray Lozano, William Richardson and William E. Becker, III. Rich was 6’ 4" and wore size 13 jungle boots and Becker was 5’ 11" and 235 pounds and wore a size 15 jungle boot which was very hard to find, but we got them.

About mid-April 1944, in the evening, all our gear was packed and the men were packed and ready at the camp and Gen. MacArthur, Col. Whitney and Maj. Telesco came to the camp where we opened the bar and had a few drinks. The men were put in hooded 6 by 6 trucks and were driven about 75 miles to Amberly Field, Ipswich where they were driven into a hangar where a C-54 was waiting. The hangar was kept closed for secrecy.

There were 31 "Pinoys", Filipinos from the States, on a separate mission, as well as a Capt. Rosenquist whose mission was to form a group on the east side of Mindanao and free the American POW's in the Davao Penal Colony.

So, MacArthur, Whitney, Telesco, Rosenquist and I went in a staff car and stopped at Whitney's apartment in Brisbane where we had a few drinks and talked. We then drove on to Ipswich and into the hangar at Amberly Field. They had built a wooden ramp for us to walk up and enter the C-54. MacArthur stood at the bottom and shook hands with and gave a wrist watch to each of the 39 of us. MacArthur had tears in his eyes and his voice quivered as he wished each one of us God's speed and good luck. It was very dramatic as only he could be. He said to me, "You're doing a magnificent service for your country, I'll see you on the Lunetta (which I was told was a park near the Rizal Monument on Dewey Boulevard in Manila) and God's speed." Breezy Brozowski, stationed at Amberly came into the hangar with a box of cookies that my mother had mailed from Butte, Montana – Breezy handed me the cookies just as I began to salute MacArthur and instead I reached for the cookies, then changed and began to salute again, and the General and I went through a comedy routine until we got synchronized and got the salute done. I was embarrassed, but he took it in good humor.

Our pilot was the famous "Pappy" Gunn who was written up in "Reader's Digest" after the war. "Pappy" was a test pilot who flew a B-26 [This may have been a B-25, Ref Gen G. Kenney’s book “Kenney Reports” which tells of “Pappy” Gunn and his evolvement of B25 skip bombing methods and the addition of extra 50 cal guns on B-25’s.] out of Eagle Farm (and prominent in the Coral Sea Battle) where I had briefed him on the weather many times in the past eight months. He was a hell of a guy, a test pilot at large under Gen. Kenny and had a keen interest in the guerrilla project. I don't know how true it is, but I heard he had a wife and child caught in the P.I. and held prisoner. We had a lot of time to talk on the long flight to Darwin where we were to board the submarine Narwhal. Col. Gunn offered me a job as Wx manager f or the P.I. Airlines that he and others were forming to operate out of Manila after the war. He said they had already placed a post-war order for 10 C-47's with Douglas in L.A. He was a senior pilot with much over 10,000 hours so didn't require a signed weather clearance as did those with lesser time. He always checked the weather and asked intelligent questions. At one point in the flight, "Pappy" and I had signed each others "Short Snorter" and he set the C-54 on auto pilot and showed me how to adjust for altitude from the co-pilots seat while he went back to get the others to sign his "Short Snorter”.

It was a clear day and nothing but flat out-back land all the way, and I only saw one shack in 1,850 miles. I noticed that we had gone from 3,500 feet down to 2,800 feet so I trimmed it up but couldn't level at 3,500 feet and had the plane up and down a few hundred feet for about ten minutes. "Pappy" came back and said I had a dozen Filipinos sick.

We landed at Darwin where we were met by Navy Lt. Com. Chick Parsons who sort of ram-rodded the whole deal. He was a great guy and had made several trips in and out of the islands. He was a millionaire from Manila where he had been an executive in the P.I. Steredoring Co. I heard a story about how he got his wife and son out of Manila after the Japs took over by claiming diplomatic immunity as the ambassador from Moldavia. His three year-old son carried his papers which the Japs didn't inspect, but he carried diplomatic papers he had phonied, and it worked.

Some Aussie took the 39 of us out to Melville Island on a landing craft which could only get within 100 yards because of tide. We had to bucketbrigade our duffle bags, trying to dodge jelly fish and manta rays – no one got stung.

The sub was loaded and the next day we boarded the Narwhal. As I was boarding, Chick Parsons handed me a five gallon can with gunny sack sewed around it and soldered shut to water proof it. This was 25,000 real pesos made in the U.S. and soaked in salt water to make them look old and used. I was to use the money as I saw fit for intelligence purposes in case the Filipinos would not accept our emergency money and I needed something done in an emergency.

AGOM made their own money on a printing press using bond typing paper. I was told there were 13,000 organized guerrillas on Mindanao called the "Tenth Military District" and the emergency money was backed by the U.S.

Anything that needed protection from moisture such as medicine was put in a 5 gallon can and soldered shut. Then gunny sack material was sewed over it so it couldn't be seen from the air on a trail. This size and weight could be easily carried on the trail by Filipino cargodors on their shoulders. We left Darwin at night around April 15, 1944 on the Narwhal. This sub was 375 feet long, mounted a six inch gun fore and aft and had a 76 man crew. The captain of the sub was Lt. Com. Titus. As mentioned before, there were 39 of us passengers with various missions and 100 tons of supplies which included guns, ammo, wx gear, medicine, clothes, radio gear, a printing press, but no food. Our cargo was dispersed along the entire sub floor, even in the engine room. In the fore and aft torpedo rooms the cargo was covered with dunnage of a few feet of loose clothes comprised of sun tan pants and shirts and undershirts and shorts. Richardson, Becker, Finnegan and I were in the aft torpedo room and just bunked on top of the dunnage. Lozano, Hoke and McGrath were in the forward torpedo room. The other 32 were dispersed throughout the ship. The sub carried 16 torpedoes mainly for defense as I was told. We had 100 drums of airplane gas in the deck wells where torpedoes were normally stored. This gas was to be taken to a secret airfield the Filipinos had built in the mountains of Zamboanga Province as a refuge for pilots in trouble when the invasion took place. While in Darwin, I was shown three feet diameter, eight feet long torpedo shaped heavy cardboard capsules which were to be used to drop supplies to us by parachute at night with flashlights on top to shine up into the chutes. This project was not used to my knowledge. At night, we ran on the surface and charged the batteries and submerged at sun up and ran on the batteries. Then at sun down, we surfaced, etc. The first 24 hours several things occurred of note. The executive officer, a full Navy Lt. blew the wrong tanks to surface at sundown. To submerge about 5,000 gallons of seawater was allowed into the ballast tanks and then the sea water was blown out with compressed air to surface. The Exec. officer mistakenly blew several thousand gallons of fresh water the first night to surface so we were on short rations for the next 15 days.

There was an alcoholic captain dentist up in our secret camp out of Brisbane who fixed our teeth. He had a corporal pumping a foot-pedal like on an old sewing machine for his drill. He fixed a cavity for me on the inside of an upper left molar. That first morning when we submerged, I experienced about a 5 to 10 second rapidly pulsating pain in the area worked on by the dentist. It was so intense that I would wind up on my knees, hitting my left jaw with my fist. This took place twice a day for 15 days, and I surmised that it was caused by the pressure change on surfacing and submerging.

We ate in two sections. My men and I were fed in the first section. Over the P.A. system we'd hear "Chow down, 1st section." The evening chow was served just before we surfaced and the morning chow was served just before we submerged. This meant I had that raging tooth ache just before each meal and sometimes made it difficult to eat. Just before we submerged the first morning, we ate our first meal and I joined my men in the enlisted men's mess. In a few minutes, the Exec. Officer came in and advised me that I was to join the Capt. in the officers Ward Room. I told him that I'd rather eat with my men. He returned in a few minutes and advised me that Capt. Titus desired my presence in the Ward Room for breakfast. So I went to the Capt. and explained that where I was going, there would be no Officers Mess, and I was on a mission where I would have to live with my men under all conditions and an indefinite period of time. Capt. Titus quickly informed me that he commanded the sub and that he expected me to eat with the officers and would not discuss it any further. So needless to say, I ate in the Ward Room against my better judgment, but my men understood my dilemma. My opinion of Titus was on a downward curve which didn't stop with this incident.

Our journey took us northward, east of Timor, through the Molucca Straits, west of Halmahera and up the east side of Mindanao on the way to Samar, a distance of 1,800 miles, all behind the enemy lines.

After about four days, I had not had a bowel movement yet and believe it was mostly because I was afraid to flush the toilet, but now decided my time was near and I had no choice. Now there was a young, small, baby faced, wise-ass crew member that pissed me off pretty good, and I can't recall his name, in fact I can't recall any names of the crew. This seaman looked like he was about 18 with a sort of high, crisp voice, and he talked fast. For instance, I'd meet him in the companionway and held salute, step aside and say "Excuse me General." He always called me "General", and my guys gave me a full ration of "red ass" over it. I finally got up enough courage to go to the toilet. The "head", as the Navy terms the Army latrine or toilet, had a washroom with sinks for washing clothes, next to that two shower stalls, then three stools up on a one foot platform. Across from the stools about three feet were three sinks with a long sink to ceiling mirror over the sinks. Next to each toilet was a lever and instructions for flushing the toilet. Step 1: reach around on the lower shower wall and secure valve A and open Valve B. Step 2: next to toilet, push lever “I” forward until pressure valve shows 40 pounds. Step 3: put toilet seat cover down and hold down firmly with your foot in case you have missed any of the preceding steps. Step 4: pull lever ‘I” back and blow waste into the tank. Now I sat there for what seemed an eternity studying the instructions, but fearful of missing a step. I finally completed my task and climbed down and stared at the instructions for flushing. As fate would have it, my little wise-ass seaman friend walked in and said "What's the matter, General, are you afraid to flush the head?" I said "Yes." He said "step over by the shower and I'll handle it, just secure valve A, open valve B, build up about 40 pounds of pressure and just blow it!"

He did not put the seat cover down in his unequalled experience and must have missed one of the steps because he and the mirrors took the bulk of my "nature call" and it was a terrible sight to behold. I said "Thanks" and left as fast as I could, and he never called me "general" again, in fact he avoided me.

One day, Rich, Becker and I were playing cards, sitting on the dunnage and Finnegan walked up and bumped his head on the threaded bolts hanging down under the "hurricane lamp." He grabbed his head and moaned. I looked up and could see a piece of his scalp with hair on it hanging on the bolt. We couldn't quite straighten up because of the cargo with dunnage on it. It hurt Finnegan so bad, I could feel it. The medic patched him up.

As we were halfway up the east coast of Mindanao, in the "Mindanao Deep," one of the deepest oceans in the world, 34,440 feet deep, just after midnight while we were running on the surface, we encountered a Jap convoy of eight freighters with a three ship tin can escort. Over the P.A. system came the very dramatic voice of Capt. Titus. "This is an emergency, repeat, emergency – forward torpedo crew ready your four forward tubes and stand by to fire." Rich, Becker, Finnegan and I quit playing cards, looked at each other and started to sweat. One of the crew came by and said we were making a run on a Jap convoy and not to be scared. He said, "I'll tell you when to be scared." It was very quiet and eerie and the sub was doing its top speed of about 16 knots. After a few minutes, we had the sensation of turning as the sub leaned over and we heard Titus say "Fire one, fire two, fire three, fire four." By the time we'd done a 180 degree turn and the sub quit creaking from the turn and straightened out we heard "wham, wham" reverberating concussions that shook the sub and three to six inch odd shaped chunks three inches thick of cork plaster were breaking off the overhead and falling on us. We thought we were hit as we were sitting below the water line and the concussions were loud and shook the sub drastically. Next, we heard Titus say "Emergency dive, emergency dive." It felt like we were on a toboggan going down hill. After a short time, we leveled off and the same crewman came by really sweating and said "Now you can be scared, we're sitting ducks for depth charges." We all sat quietly and the long shafts down each side would make a few turns every few seconds to keep an even keel. We were at 280 feet and the Narwhal was only tested for 250 feet when commissioned in 1929. Next, we heard a noise like someone coming across the hull at an angle and hitting it with a 16 pound hammer every five feet. Now the crew were really sweating and one said "They found us and now we'll really get it." The Capt. had fired his four forward fish and made two hits 1,500 yards to the stern as we were running straight away. That put us in the after-torpedo room nearest the hits and explained the concussions. we heard the Jap sound echo system hammer across one more time and figured they had a fix on us, but must have had to move on because we lucked out and never caught one depth charge.

This sub and crew caught many charges off Tawitawi, near Borneo six months before which damaged the conning tower but they got away. So, needless to say, this crew was gun shy, nervous and ready for R&R as they'd been out steady since those repairs in Perth, Australia.

While I didn't hear of any official position on this episode, I was very unhappy about Titus trying to get the Navy Cross when his primary mission was to deliver 39 of us and 100 tons of supplies to the proper destinations.

We proceeded north to the east coast of Samar where in rough seas at night we let off two of my men, Richardson and Becker and 30 tons of supplies. Our rendezvous signal was three fires on the shore, we in the sub would partially surface and the guerrillas would come out in a small boat flying the American flag. We would then surface and unload on any and every kind of a boat and/or outrigger that the guerrillas could muster. We would set up tripods with block and tackle and take supplies up out of the holds through a man hole. One incident of note at Samar occurred when I handed a case of 30 cal. ammo to a small Filipino who had one foot on his raft and one on the slanting side of the sub. I waited until the sea rose his raft to deck level and handed the ammo to him. The weight was a little too much for him in that awkward position and the raft pushed away from the sub. The last I saw of him, he went under still hanging onto the ammo. I never saw him again.

Now, obviously, we had a true navigational fix on our position at Samar. Yet, 24 hours later on a straight southern course with a known maximum flood (tide) we missed our next rendezvous at midnight on the east coast of Mindanao! Even though we were unable to get a fix on the stars, this was a basic navigation problem. We were 50 miles off at the rendezvous point as at that time the weather cleared and the same Exec. Off. that flushed the fresh water miss navigated the rendezvous.

This was a serious error as we were to leave Finnegan, McGrath and Capt. Rosenquist off with 35 tons of equipment and supplies on the east coast of Mindanao nearest Col. Wendell Fertig's headquarters. He was a Col. in the Engr. Corps. when the Japs overran the P.I. He made himself a general and headed up the Tenth Military District on Mindanao. Fertig did a big job in the guerrillas but had an ego second only to MacArthur and in fact thought he was more capable than MacArthur!

This was a bad set back as now these three men and equipment had to land with Lozano, Hoke and I at Pagadian in Zamboanga Province. The next day, submerged, we passed around Davao through Surangani Strait on the southeast end of Mindanao, and as luck would have it, we passed within a km of a large part of the Jap fleet. We lucked out and were undetected and thankfully, Titus didn't attack the fleet!

The next night we rendezvoused with the guerrillas at Pagadian City in Illana Bay on the south coast of Zamboanga Province. Not long before, I had consoled my six men that even though we may be stupid for volunteering for this fiasco, we wouldn't have to put up with the Aussies bumming cigs from us. As I stepped out of the conning tower in the dark night, I bumped into a figure and heard "Have you got a smoko mite?" I almost dove back down the tower as this was surely an Aussie? His name was Gillon who I found later had escaped from a Jap prison camp on Borneo with five companions. They'd heard of the American guerrillas on Mindanao and made their way through the Tawitawi chain to Zamboanga and joined the Americans. These were some tough Aussies captured in Singapore and imprisoned on Borneo. Of the six, I met Gillon, Rex Blow and Jock McClarin. Jock was too young for WWI and lied to get in, was too old for WWII and lied to get in and lost a son at Dunkirk. On their way up the east coast of Borneo, an American sub sunk a Jap tanker and many dead Japs and 30 live Japs floated ashore. Here were eight escaped Aussies with 30 Jap prisoners on Jap held Borneo! They were afraid to leave them alive for their own safety and escape so decided to kill them. All they had were bolo knives so divided the Japs up and beheaded them. Jock told me he could never get through the gullet (the skin over the Adams Apple) when hitting them in the back of the neck. He said Rex could get clear through, clean as a whistle!

It took several hours to unload the sub and we were exhausted. I had a wooden footlocker, labeled "Weather Instruments--Luke Campeau", in which I had 20 quarts of booze. Col. Robt. V. Bowler, who lives in Seattle today, was the next in command under Fertig and commanded Western Mindanao met the sub along with Capt. Willard Money and others I don't recall. We relaxed in a small grass shack on the beach, and I broke out a quart of Bourbon which we quickly inhaled.

I brought in a commendation for the Distinguished Flying Cross for Money as a PFC, he was a gunner on the fateful flight of Capt. Colin P. Kelly on a B-17 on a routine training flight after Pearl Harbor flying out of Clark Field. Kelly was in big headlines in the States as the first hero and Medal of Honor winner of the Pacific war. Here's what Money told me: "we had a blind tail with no guns on our early model B-17, found and sank a Jap heavy cruiser, the Ashi Gara with one of three bombs making a direct hit down the smoke stack. They were chased by Japs fighter planes and one man aboard was killed and we were badly shot up and disabled. I jumped up on the radio table and tried to man a top gun and shots missed me going between my legs. Next, we get orders from Kelly over the P.A. system to abandon ship. Kelly baled out and I baled out but the co-pilot was trying to bring the plane in. The plane blew up over land and the co-pilot was blown free, pulled his cord and made it. Kelly either caught a streamer or hit the tail section and was killed.

The co-pilot, whose name I didn't get, got back to the States through Java. “I was strafed in the air but wasn't hit and landed in a field where about a dozen Filipinos surrounded me and threatened me with shovels and pitch forks. They thought I was a German paratrooper. It had been rumored that the Japs had some help from German paratroopers which was never confirmed. I said, ‘me no German, me Americano and they left me alone.’ I made my way to Mindanao [Kelley’s plane was shot down within sight of Clark Field, and Money was sent to Mindanao on the ship Mahan Christmas Eve along with other 19^th BG personnel intended for operations out of Del Monte Field.] and joined the Americans there."

When we landed at Pagadian, we had been 15 days on the sub and were glad to get off it. When we were unloading from the after-torpedo room, one of my guys began to pass up some canned goods and the ship's storekeeper caught us and made us return it as we brought no food. At daybreak we were looking at stacks of material amounting to 70 tons and had to get it off the beach ASAP. Three hundred Filipinos with 100 carabao with mud sleds showed up to help move the supplies. Col. Bowler got us six horses. McGrath, Finnegan and Rosenquist took off north on the national highway to Bowler's headquarters, about 20 km with a train of sleds and supplies. We had problems trying to get the Filipinos to hurry and load the sleds. They'd stand around and moan "Agooie” (like, oh my God) because the ammo cases were too heavy. I got impatient, threw about three of them out of the way and screamed "Outin se cabeyo” which I translated to "horsecock" and threw a can of ammo about five feet. They responded and started to work. We took in a lot of propaganda items, calendars, little penny size Hersheys (of tropical chocolate which had wax in it to keep it from melting), and little packages of four pillows of PK gum – all of which had a picture of MacArthur and the words "I shall return!" I can remember standing on a stump with a crowd of Filipinos around me, preaching that MacArthur would be back and throwing out candy and gum! Hoke, Lozano and I took off for Bowler's place with another train of carabao which had to stop about every kilometer and be allowed to wallow in mud holes in the bar-pits along the highway. These animals had no sweat glands and the only way they could survive was to cool off by wallowing in a mud hole.

The first night we stayed with a school teacher and his family in the barrio of Aurora on the south end of Illigan Bay. They fed us rice and gave us a place to sleep on the bamboo floor of their shack. The next morning, I went to the town hall, a clapboard house up on stilts with stairs and a porch and an armed Filipino guard at the door. I was told by Bowler that Col. Cabili, the head of quartermaster corps, would be in Aurora. Cabili was a pre-war senator from Mindanao and a politician who was sewing his support every chance he got for after the war. I was told to remove my WOJG insignia so the many Filipino officers I'd encounter wouldn't be able to tell my rank. I was also told not to take any lip from any of them. I needed a fresh horse for Lozano, his wasn't going to make it. So, I sought out Cabili who was meeting with the town politicians. The guard blocked my entrance to the house after saluting me – I told him to get the hell out of the way and that I had to see Cabili. I pushed into the room and there was Cabili, a plump, good looking Filipino with graying hair and Lt. Col. insignia, startled and upset by the intrusion into his meeting with three of the town's politicians. He saluted and I returned it and told him I'd just arrived on the island and had to have a fresh horse for one of my men on our way to Bowler's headquarters. He stammered and stuttered and made excuses – I said "Bullshit" and left.

We took off on a long straight stretch of road up hill out of town singing cowboy songs. About a half a km out of town, I saw a Filipino in a field plowing with a beautiful black Arabian stallion. The Arabian horses in the P.I. were smaller than a normal horse but had great stamina for that climate. I went to the farmer and told him to use Lozano's old mare and I'd have to take his stallion and that I'd leave him with a Chinese merchant in the next town called Tambulig. I paid him 50 pesos. He cried and moaned and I just took the horse. On the road, we put the saddle on the black stallion and as Lozano got on the horse, the horse reached out and bit Hoke's mare in the ass. That mare took off up hill on a dead gallop and it was all Max Hoke could do to hang on. In fact, his cinch wasn't tight enough and I could see him losing it. Max fell off and badly sprained his wrist, which I thought was broken. Poor Max, he was in pain, but we went on. We found later that a boat load of Japs snuck into town and scared the hell out of everyone about a half hour after we left. Lucked out again. Late that afternoon, we arrived at Tambulig where we stayed with a prosperous Chinese merchant. The Chinese did not join the guerrillas but ran their business, and at least, were sympathetic even though they had to cater to the Japs. This Chinese man had a nice family and prepared a great five course meal for us. So, I broke out a bottle of bourbon and tried to show him how to throw down a shot. He tried and damn near choked to death – I thought we were going to lose him – his eyes bulged and he turned red and blue. He kept the farmers black horse that I had commandeered and wanted to sell me one like him for 300 pesos or a carton of cigs. I also took in a case of Lucky Strikes which were worth their weight in gold. I saved these and gave them to Americans as I met them. If you got caught selling them and/or medicine you could get shot without a trial. I did not buy a horse but only paid to use them. We used "emergency money" made by us out of typing paper and backed by the U.S.A.

It was only a few km more to Bowler's headquarters which was a nice two storied chalet hidden in the timber by a beautiful creek and water fall. The Filipinos built it for him out of hand-hewn hard wood lumber. His porch or upstairs balcony overlooked a nice circular lawn with a walkway with flowers. He had his own chapel, dentists chair in an office, dining room, bedrooms. His personal aid was a good looking young Filipino named Bill Neri who he brought to the States and put through medical school in Seattle where Bill now practices. Bowler's private nurse was a good looking Filipino lady, Miss Yap, always in a white nurses uniform and his major domo or all around man for heavy work was "Gus", a strong, tough Filipino whose last name I can't remember.

Because of that error in navigation by the Exec Officer on the Narwhal which caused us to miss our rendezvous with Col. Fertig on the east coast of Mindanao, my two men, Finnegan and McGrath and Capt. Rosenquist now had to go overland about 300 km or 180 miles over mountains and through rivers and across highways along muddy trails with 35 tons of supplies on mud sleds pulled by carabao. It's hard to imagine the physical effort, hazards, hiding from Japs, the jungle, insects, snakes, on rations of native food mainly rice and lucky to have salt which had to come from the coasts. This is hardship in its purest form. The trip took about six weeks. It took ten days just to sneak across a highway traveled by Japs because they could only move at night. This fiasco caused by one man’s incompetence, put Rosenquist so far behind schedule, his mission could not be accomplished in time.

Max Hoke and I had another 30 km to go up into the mountains elevation about 4,000 feet to the Dimoroc Canyon area which was very deep with a fast river in its bottom. We had considerable equipment and supplies to take to this radio headquarters for western Mindanao and which became our Wx Headquarters and collection point for much of the P.I. How the natives were able to get down and up that canyon with carabao up to their chests in mud pulling mud sleds up a 15% incline is beyond my belief in back sight, but we all dug in and did it. We also hauled many drums of hi-octane airplane gas over the same trail to be taken beyond our camp on to an airfield the natives had cut out of the jungle on a high plateau which was camouflaged with moveable grass shacks. I was told 300 Filipinos died building the airfield and phoney rice fields. The first night we arrived at our headquarters, we met several Americans, Ben Farrens, Forrest Howard, Howard Watson, Weyman McGuire, Lee Rutherford. We were tired, thirsty and hungry. We sat down at a table covered by a nepa or palm leaf covered lean-to which had so many millions of cockroaches crawling in the leaves you could hear them and see them crawling over each other. A Filipino put a large pot on the table. The light was dim from a coconut oil lamp so it was difficult to see what was in the pot. We had already heard stories of how some guerrillas had to shoot and eat monkeys when that was the only food available. Ray Lozano stuck a fork into the pot and pulled out a chicken (minook in Vasayan dialect spoken on Mindanao) leg which still had the foot on it, as they don’t bother to cut them off . Ray said "What the hell is this?" I said "It looks like a young monkey's leg!" Ray left the table and didn't eat. We also had cooked rice which was our staple from then on.

I sent Ray Lozano west to join Capt. John Woods at a spotter station on the mountain overlooking Zamboanga City the next day.

Several Americans from time to time visited us in Dimoroc Canyon and there was a compliment of about 75 Filipinos stationed there. We had a diesel generator and some powerful radio equipment there. The natives built a grass shack on stilts with bamboo floors, two bedrooms and a covered porch which housed our Wx instruments. We had an aneroid barometer, rain gauge, anemometer, wet and dry thermometers, Wx balloons and a hydrogen generator which consisted of a large heavy cylinder on a swinging cradle to mix the silicon, caustic soda and water. This formed hydrogen and we filled Wx balloons to an amount that sustained a certain weight. When the weight was removed, the balloon ascended at a known rate. We read the balloon's position every certain number of seconds with a theodolite (similar to a surveyor's transit). We made a balloon run every six hours and hung a paper lantern with a lighted candle in it for night time runs. At our headquarters, Max and I took Wx observations every hour and took winds aloft readings every six hours, and always at the same hour based on Greenwich Meridian time to coincide with the rest of the U.S.A.F. in the world. Our morning run seemed to coincide with the exact time a Jap mail plane came over at about 7,500 feet (we were at about 4,000 feet) and sometimes I feared it would hit the damned balloon which was about three feet in diameter, white and glistened in the sun. Apparently, they never saw them or didn't know what the hell they were because we had no trouble from it.

We would give pads of subtractor codes to each reporting location. Our radio people collected the coded Wx observations from all over the PI. Max and I would decode, consolidate into one message, re-encode on a manual code machine (looked like a miniature cash register) and our radio people sent it to "Allied Intelligence" in Brisbane, Australia, for dissemination to the Air Force locations and VIXO Navy Intelligence in Perth, Australia for dissemination to the fleet.

Teams of two Americans were taken into other islands by sub as the trips permitted and we'd tie in by radio. Otherwise, we used existing spotter stations wherever we could. There were 85 spotter stations from the northern tip of Luzon to Borneo and we had 41 of them reporting weather every six hours.

Our plan was to tie in each station as they came on air, which worked in most cases. No messages were received from Richardson and Becker on Samar for several weeks and I found out after the mission ended why. When we left them off the Narwhal and they got back to their location in the mountains, they were jumped by Japs and had to run for their lives leaving much gear behind. I was told one lost his jungle boots and later developed hook worm. I was able to give those in the mountains a reasonable elevation estimate by a comparison of barometric readings, once ours was established.

Shortly after arriving at Dimoroc Canyon, I set up the theodolite on a clear day at high noon to "shoot the sun" and get our exact location. There were about 25 natives around watching and asking questions and at this time my "Narwhal toothache" struck and I wound up on the ground hitting myself on the jaw until it subsided. The poor natives were baffled enough without wondering if I'd gone crazy. I got mad and told Max Hoke I was taking off for Col. Bowler's place to see his dentist. This was a trip across the Canyon and down the mountain about 30 km or as the natives measured, one days fast walking one way. Bowler's dentist, a Filipino Capt. in the guerrillas searched but could not find any cavity in my teeth that could cause this horrible rapidly pulsating pain on the inside of an upper left molar. So, I went back to Dimoroc and a week later it happened again and I went back to Bowlers. This time, I told the Capt. to pull the tooth as I couldn't put up with it. He refused to pull the tooth because he had no anesthetic and nothing but sulfa drugs which he felt were not enough to stave off infection in a socket. I threatened the dentist and he looked again – this time he found a small cavity under the gum line with a half loose flake of plaque or tarter over it that he had to believe was the cause. He fixed it and I never suffered again from it and still have the tooth in my head. Of all the cavities, extractions, root canals, bridges, etc., that I I’ve had done in my 72 years, that ache was uniquely different and more painful than any other. So, I didn't have to shoot the dentist, which I threatened in my frustration.

Max Hoke later got an infected molar and I fed him sulfa but couldn't reduce his fever so got a horse and had a group of natives take him down to Bowler's as he was very sick and the dentist had to pull poor Max's tooth. He was sick for a couple of weeks, but thank God, the sulfa finally whipped it. I'd grind up a large sulfanilamide tablet, make a paste and pack his socket. His tooth had to be pulled as there was no other way out. Max was a hell of a guy and the most capable and reliable man I've ever had the good fortune of associating with – we were good friends.

A short time after we arrived at Dimoroc, another sub, the Nautilus, a sister ship of the Narwhal, came in. I happened to be at Bowler's headquarters when a full Navy Lt. named John D. Simmons arrived. As we used the phonetic alphabet a lot in our radio messages, Simmons became Jig Dog Simmons instead of J.D. and he was put in charge of our camp at Dimoroc as I believe he was the ranking officer. He was a graduate of Oberlin in archeology, I believe, or possibly liberal arts.

Simmons and I got a couple of horses and took off up the mountain for Dimoroc. We came to a little low spot in the trail with about two feet wide one inch deep trickle of water and an abrupt hill on the muddy trail on the other side. Simmon's horse would not cross the trickle of water and wouldn't budge no matter what he tried. I'm waiting right behind him on my horse. All of a sudden, his horse jumped the water and took off up the hill on a gallop. My horse spooked and followed his, Simmons was thrown and lit spread eagle face down on the one way trail and my horse galloped right over him before I could stop him. I was af raid my horse stomped him dead, but when I got back to Simmons, my horse hadn't touched him and the only thing hurt was his pride – lucky.

One night, after a poker game in the mess hall at Dimoroc (grass shack, but a bigger new one), Simmons and I sat around talking and I related a story about an incident that occurred on the Matsonia in our convoy from San Francisco to Melbourne in May of 1942. There were 4,500 GI’s on the ship, mostly infantry and coast artillery and only two small air corps outfits, the 15th Wx Sqdn. I was in and the Eighth Photo Sqdn., a reconnaissance outfit. Each sqdn. had less than 200 men. An Army General was ranking so gave all the guard duty to the Air Corps. I caught the duty as Sgt. of the watch on one shift. One night, one of my guards pointed out a fire on the horizon and we figured a ship had been torpedoed as it looked like a fire getting larger. I ran and found the O.D. who was a Navy Jr. Grade Lt. (Officer of the Deck), got him out on deck and had him convinced. A few moments later as we stared at the horizon, we both got a very sheepish look as we saw a beautiful moon rise – he thanked God that he didn't alarm the bridge. Having related this humorous story to Simmons in the mountains of Mindanao in the fall of 1944, he looked at me in an astonished way and said "I was the O.D. on the Matsonia that night and remember the incident!” Small world. Simmons was a good C.O. and friend.

One day Bowler sent me a radio-gram and told me to go down to the compound which was halfway between him and us at Dimoroc, and interrogate a Jap prisoner that the native guerrillas had captured and brought to the compound. So, I took off and when I got there and showed the Lt. in charge my orders from Bowler, he said "But sir, de frisoner was shot while trying to escafe!" The Filipinos say F for P and P for F and B for V and V for B in their pronunciation of English. You had to be fast to get to a Jap prisoner of theirs before he’d be shot trying to escape.

Not long after arriving at Dimoroc, I acquired a "Dong", my own "boy" or aid. His name was Agapito Lezon, 19 years old, about 5’ 6” and very strong, well built and good looking. I made him a Corporal and gave him a 45 automatic with a web belt and holster. He was a good kid and very proud of his position, gun and rank. But I had to change his name to "Sam" as Agapito was cumbersome when I needed him fast. I took him everywhere on the trail. Simmons had a reliable, smarter and smaller boy or aide whose name was Aurelio.

At Dimoroc, our food was not only meager but poorly prepared. We heard of a good Chinese cook at Dipolog about 77 km north through the mountains to the coast on the Mindanao Sea. So, we sent a squad of Filipino soldiers to Dipolog to get him. He was very unhappy and came with great reluctance. We had to send to the coast periodically to keep him supplied with dried fish to keep him semi-happy. We also had to get our supply of salt (half sand) and cigars and/or tobacco from Dipolog. The salt was made by evaporating sea water in half 50 gallon drums. The cigars were made from washed tobacco and sometimes we'd just have tobacco leaves and roll our own – they smelled bad but we got used to them. Our food was mainly rice cooked several ways, occasionally chickens, egg plants, a carabao that died, camote (which was like a sweet potato but gave a belly ache with gas), wild pig, deer (about the size of a greyhound), pineapple, 13 kinds of bananas, papaya and some other tropical fruit like durian which weren't too good, and of course, coconut – once in a while palm heart if a tree was knocked down and mungo beans which looked like a blackeyed pea and so full of gas you'd almost leave the ground, and corn called palai.

One Sunday, a few of us were invited to mass and a fiesta at Dr. Diagler's compound where he was having lechon (barbecue) goat, rice and mungo beans – about 5 km on the other side of the Canyon. We went and stopped to meet and pick up Weyman L. McGuire who with his Filipino wife Rose and children lived just across the Canyon. McGuire, I believe, was a medic. When we arrived, he went to put his jungle boot on and let out a scream and thrashed around – a centipede had gotten into his boot and bit his toe – he got pretty sick and had great pain. We went onto Diaglers without McGuire and had a good visit. The goat was no good for me, but I loaded up on mungo beans, which was the first time I'd ever seen or heard of them. I was told they were a good source of vitamin B which was needed to keep from getting beri beri. Another source was unpolished rice, in the chaff.

We got back that evening and by dark while laying on my bunk trying to sleep, my stomach swelled up to an alarming size. I hollered at Max Hoke and he came in with a flashlight. I had a swelling on the right side of my stomach almost as big as my wrist. I figured it was an appendix about to break and figured I was clichin' with satan. Max had sympathy but no answer and getting to a doctor, halfway to Bowler's, about 5 hours to our guerrilla hospital which was converted from the old prison compound mentioned earlier, was not feasible. This was beyond discomfort, it was a big time belly ache. Well, the disaster turned out to be nothing more than gas which when passed gave complete relief, thank God.

One day, Lt. Ben Farrens invited me to one of my few decent meals with his wife Juanita. They lived a short distance from our camp at Dimoroc. Juanita came from a prominent Catholic family and they had some problems to overcome in holding it all together. But they persevered and raised a large, great family in New Orleans, where they live today. Juanita has studied extensively abroad and is an accomplished artist.

I mentioned McGuire and the centipede – on one of my trips off the mountain to Bowler's headquarters, I stopped at a farm for a drink of water and saw a woman crawling on her elbows and knees and very dark in color. I was told by Sam that she said she'd been bitten by a centipede a week before and her extremities became paralyzed but would recover in a week or so. I remember a close call by almost putting my hand on one when I was going to lean against a bamboo post in a grass shack. It was about eight inches long and as big around as your little finger.

On another occasion, we got a shipment of about a hundred carbines in and had them on the bunks in the radio shack. It was very dark and the stocks were dark and I reached for one and damn near took a hold of a black scorpion. I had come close to another one at Diaglers, the day of the fiesta.

There was a sub scheduled in at Sindangan Bay on the west side. Col. Bowler asked me to join Maj. Chandler Thomas at the rendezvous. It was 77 km to Dipolog north through the mountains, with no trail to the halfway point, where we had about 12 Filipino soldiers guard the trail from Dipolog. Then another 80 km west along the coast to Sindangan Bay. It was two days fast walking to Dipolog and two more to Sindangan Bay. Simmons let me borrow Aurelio for the trip so he and Sam could each carry a five gallon can of sulpha drugs for the people of that area. We spent the first night at the outpost on the mountain.

When on the trail, we usually took a banana leaf with cooked rice wrapped in it and on this occasion we shot, cleaned, cooked and ate a young monkey which wasn't good but not bad if you're hungry. I carried a 45 automatic and a 45 revolver and two grenades. Sam had a 45 automatic and a carbine and my jungle pack. I also carried a map case which never left my side. it contained a gridded map with all 85 spotter locations, frequencies, a list of personnel and contained a magnesium cartridge which would ignite by pushing hard on a button destroying the contents and the map case. This damn map case was my biggest worry and responsibility, just thinking about the jeopardy of all these people if it fell into the Japs' hands.

On the way down the mountain to Dipolog the next day, the trail followed a river which we had to cross 13 times as the trail would get pinched off. When we got into sight of Dipolog, a small barrio on the north coast, I sent Sam in to make sure there were no Japs in the area. It was clear, so we entered on a main street heading for the beach. About two blocks ahead, an apparent American came around the corner and walked towards me. It was like Gunsmoke. I introduced myself and he gave his name, Alex Bonner, a Capt. as I remember. I told him I knew an Alex Bonner at St. Patrick's grade school in Butte, Montana, a couple grades below me, that lived in the Paul Clarke Orphan's Home, who had a big brother about 6’ 8” tall who played center on the Butte High School basketball team. Alex informed me that he was that Alex Bonner. What an amazing coincidence. Alex was one of the Evadees, Americans who did not surrender to the Japs and went into the hills joining others to form the 10^th Military District or AGOM. In Dipolog on that trip I also met Nick Pociluyko and Windy (Pete I believe was his real name) Schur.

As I recall the story, Nick wandered into the Lake Lanao Moro country after running into the hills instead of surrendering. Now this could be very hazardous to one's health, as the Moros generally killed anyone not of their tribe. Datu Mandangan, the head Datu (chief) of all the Lake Lanao Moros took a liking to Nick and he lived among them for some time. Nick got out of there with his life, but I don't recall the details of how.

Windy was the designated weather observer at Dipolog. Windy took us to a prize fight and his man "Fast Albert", fought and won, and he was fast. We also saw cock fights and ongoing mahjongg gamblers (Chinese) whose games went on for days.

Another story I have been unable to verify is: "on one occasion, one of the Dipolog spotters from the approximate 15 foot tower on the shore side of town saw a Jap ship, transmitted a spotter flash code on a separate frequency for that purpose to our headquarters giving the estimated class of ship, direction and speed. This information was immediately transmitted to vixo, Navy Intelligence in Perth, Australia. Coincidentally, we had a sub in the immediate vicinity, and the Jap ship was sunk shortly after in sight of the spotter on the tower."

I met a guerrilla there named Schaeffer who had a crew of Filipinos on his 25 foot outrigger, and he operated all through the islands. He had some stories of narrow escapes at sea from the Japs. Schaeffer gave me, Sam and Aurelio a ride down the coast for about 30 km towards Sindangan Bay on his way to the Island of Negros. I met him later on a plane from Manila to New Guinea after our Island of Mindanao was landed on by the 41st Division at Zamboanga City, and when we got off at Hollandia, he stole a good Moro Kris (a wavy bladed knife about two feet long with an ivory handle) in a nice case when I wasn't looking. I tried to find him years later in his hometown of San Francisco on one of my sojourns through there, but was not successful. I'd have put out a contract on him.

We went on and stopped at Mr. John Roemer's plantations just east of Sindangan Bay. Roemer's story was very interesting. He had a Filipino wife and several children. His copra plantation bordered a beautiful beach on the Mindanao Sea. His home was a mansion on a cliff overlooking the sea with a gorgeous view. On a clear day, you could see the Island of Negros to the north. The mansion had beautiful hardwood floors and furniture. The Japs would come through and take over and build fires on the hardwood floors burning the beautiful furniture which they would break up. When the Japs would come, Roemer and his family and servants would flee to another home he built in the mountains where they'd hide until the Japs moved on. His secret mountain home was called an "Evacuation Place" which the Filipinos pronounced "Bock-Waishun Flace.” To go there was to "Bock-Wait." Roemer's hobbies were fruit trees of which he bragged 28 different kinds and collecting guns. He was a millionaire, owned the large plantation and gold mining property on the island of Surigao. His money was all confiscated by the Japs from the Bank of Leyte. He had a 60 foot yacht also confiscated. The Japs killed and ate all his carabao. He was a very gracious host to us, and we had some long talks. I would guess his age at about 55 at the time, 1944. I left a five gallon can of Sulpha drugs in his care to administer to the Filipinos in the area, as he could be trusted not to sell it. He thought this was a wonderful gesture as there was no medicine in the area.

Roemer said he tried to get into West Point after a year of college, but was rejected because of a hammer toe. So, he and a friend of his came from the States to the Island of Negros to be school teachers. While on Negros, they saw that the operators of the Negros Sugar Central had the native sugar cane growers under their thumbs and paid them starvation prices as the farmers had no other place to market their crops. Roemer and his friend, whose name I can't remember, got the idea to sign up all the farmers on contracts before harvest and promised them double their previous sell price and gained control of the entire crop. They then went to the Central and adding a profit for themselves advised that the Central had to deal with them or they'd have no cane to process. Their only investment was pencils, paper, their time and ingenuity – what a marvelous piece of entrepreneurship.

In a few years, they took over the Negros Sugar Central. Roemer then invested in gold mining property on the Island of Surigao and his plantation on Mindanao. He said when he had visitors from the States, he would pick them up in Manila in his yacht, take them to the plantation and for fun they'd go down to Borneo and hunt gorillas. He was so impressed with my thought to have him administer the Sulpha drugs to the natives in the area as they needed, that he offered me 100 hectars of his large, rich planation land if I desired to come back and settle there after the war was over.

I then visited Ricardo Macias, a nearby Spanish millionaire plantation owner whose home, etc., were not nearly as lavish as Roemers. Ricardo had a brother, Iaquin Macias, around the other side of the bay who also was a rich plantation owner. I also gave a can of Sulpha drugs to Ricardo to help take care of the natives in his area. He had a Filipino wife and a handsome 19-year-old son who had a beautiful black Arabian horse which he rode like a professional through the coconut trees. He looked like all the greatest riders in the western movies, and he rode bareback. We went to the beach and he wanted me to try his horse. I got on, and that stallion took off as fast as he could down the beach and I couldn't stop him. The beach went on to a narrow strip for about 50 yards which ended in the ocean which is where we went. The horse didn't stop until he was chest deep. Young Macias (I forgot his first name, but think is was Ricardo also) couldn't stop laughing at my predicament. These were great people and treated me like royalty. I think this was about August, and later at Christmas, the dad sent his son to our headquarters to bring me a gift of candy and nuts. They made coconut candy covered with chocolate made from their own cocoa plants or trees – but imagine, this young man came 80 km to Dipolog and then 77 km through the mountains just to bring me the Christmas gifts.

I then went around the bay to rendezvous with the sub. At dusk, we would climb in a 30 foot moro compite (sailboat with six oarsmen on each side) and go out in the bay about a km, flying the American flag in the bow. We had three fires spaced on the beach to signal the rendezvous point. After a few hours into the dark in pretty rough water, the moro boat not only was rounded fore and aft, but had a round bottom so it was a wild ride. If I didn't get sick on that boat ride, which I didn't, I shouldn't on any water. We did not connect, as the sub rendezvous was cancelled for some reason unknown to me.

I visited Jaquin Macias as I was invited to a birthday party for his daughter, celebrating her Saint's name sake at his plantation which was in Zamboanga Moro country a few km from the beach. However, these Moros were more friendly than the Lake Lanao Moros. Two things stick in my mind at this fiesta. Everyone, including me, had to sing a song – the only thing I could think of was "Ragtime Cowboy Joe” which went over big for laughs. Then the eleven-year old birthday girl sang. The words I remember were: "T’was Ineath the palms it started – we kissed and then we parted." But with the unique Filipino pronunciation, the words came out like this: "T’was Ineath the falms it started, we kissed and then we farted.” This young lady was serious and singing a serious song. I almost choked trying to keep from getting hysterical.

Down in this country, the cigars were black, unwashed tobacco being used, and had real authority. I started smoking and chewing in grade school and inhaled everything. The first drag I took off one of these black cigars dropped me to one knee, coughing. It was like someone had grabbed a handful of skin on my chest and ripped it off. After a few, I got used to them and life went on. On the bottom shelf of a round ratan table was a basket of these black cigars. I noticed later, one of the dogs came by, lifted his leg and watered the cigars. I gulped, wondering how many passes (if you'll pardon the expression) that dog had made at those cigars. They were so strong, I doubt if anyone knew the difference.

The long trek back to my headquarters at Dimoroc Canyon was rather uneventful. I remember Willard Money visiting us briefly in the mountains. He was our Navy. He had the use of a 36 foot whaleboat given us from the deck well on the Narwhal, and he got a hold of a 20 mm gun which he mounted on the bow. He said the front end was a bit deep in the water, but worked okay.

Sam Wilson, Col. Fertig's Chief of Staff, visited our place. He was quite a man. I understand he was rich from the junk jewelry business in Manila. He had some powdered milk and Nescafe with him which tasted good. The milk on rice with our sandy brown unrefined sugar was great. The only coffee I had on the island was "corn coffee." The Filipinos would throw ears of corn in a fire, burn them black, then shave off the burnt corn and grind it up for coffee. This was about as bad as anything could taste. They claimed it was good for dysentery. Col. Bowler had bad sieges of dysentery which he thought flared up from eating chocolate covered coconut candy.

After the 41^st landed on our island, March 13, 1945, and I went to Manila, my interview with Gen. MacArthur was on an upper floor of one of the few buildings left standing in downtown Manila, and guess who owned it – Sam Wilson so I was told.

Max Hoke and I had done some pole vaulting in grade and high school, I never could get much over ten feet and never to eleven, so could get no points. So, we set up a couple standards and a cross piece and had our pick of many bamboo poles, as it grew wild. Trouble was, the bamboo was green and heavy so we had to run with it high and jamb it in the hole which made it difficult and strenuous. We almost got to ten feet up at Dimoroc.

I developed a drip from a strain which apparently caused a bladder infection. So, I went down to see Dr. Frias at our hospital, about a five hour walk on the way down to Bowler's headquarters. Now to set this up, I had just returned from my trip to Dipolog which was known and it was a standing rumor that there were a few fast and loose women in Dipolog. I told Dr. Frias my problem, he smiled and asked for a urine sample. He explained that when he was running the sample on the centrifuge, it should show balloon like cells under the microscope which was normal on the first go around for an infection. Then he added a chemical and was going to run the second stage and explained that if diamond shaped cells appeared, I had gonorrhea (in service slang: the pipe wrench, clap, gravy on the stick). There were three nurses there that overheard Dr. Frias' explanation and they started to giggle, either laughing at my predicament or thinking I was pretty sporty and careless. So, I offered them a ten to one bet that we'd see no diamonds, but there were no takers. I knew where I'd been and what had caused my problem. Result: no diamonds so I just took more Sulpha and it went away.

I had brought in a bunch of Cadbury chocolate bars which developed a mold fleck clear through. It didn't effect the waxy taste so we ate it anyway. I developed a terrible rash all over my body, but worse on the chest, back and stomach. It could have been the chocolate. It could have been from the bushes the Filipinos hung my clothes on to dry after washing them or it could have been a carabao rash caused by drinking water in the creek after carabao had crossed upstream from you. At any rate, I was tearing the skin off just scratching at it. So, once again, I walked 15 km to the hospital to see Dr. Frias. When I got there, I met a man named Andrew Buckavinski, as I remember his name – he had escaped from the Davao Penal Colony and came all the way over land. I don't think this man's name was the Buckavinski on our roster, but possibly it is and I have it wrong. At any rate, Buck told me he had a carabao rash and Dr. Frias gave him shots of “mother's milk" in the arm and it hurt so bad that he’d rather have the rash. Dr. Frias wanted to give me the same shots and I said "no way.” So, I took some calcium pills I had brought in, at his direction, which induced real hot flashes in the face and neck. The rash went away after a few days. Back to Buckavinski – he said he and another POW were working on the edge of a rice paddy and had planned to escape. When the time was right, he hit a guard in the back of the head with a shovel and they ran for it into the jungle. They split up and he went around Mt. Apo, across Cotobato Province to Bowler's headquarters and up to the hospital, no easy chore.

On one of my trips, I was riding a horse downhill on a steep, muddy, very narrow trail with a long drop-off to my right side. I was wearing khaki pants, a t-shirt and a nice ratan, Amazon type hard hat that was made for me by one of the Filipinos. I came to a low lying branch of a tree and ducked my head to get under it. I was holding back on the horse as carefully as I could because of the condition of the trail. In the P.I., there are small bees called "Nit Nits", about the size of an average housefly, but the similarity ends there. They hang in clusters on the tree branches. When I ducked under the branch, I knocked off a cluster which lit on the back of my neck. These bees don't mess around jockeying for position, then land on you and bite. They were more like the goofy Kami Kazi Japs and flew right into the target, stung and were gone in a second. I'd estimate about seven billion of these little bastards bit me at the same time. I grabbed my hat and swung at the air, and in my frenzy, hit the horse on the ear. He took off down that scary trail too fast for even the bees to catch us. I hung on and God took over and saved me and the horse, and I suppose, the bees too. It was not a fun afternoon.

Our forces advanced westward on the north coast of New Guinea; i.e., Lae, Hollandia, Biak and finally Morotai. MacArthur warned the Japs to remove the American POW's from Davao on the southeast corner of Mindanao as the Americans were going to bomb Davao. The Japs began to send boat loads of POW's west around Zamboanga City and up the north coast of Mindanao on a path that appeared to be toward Leyte.

On one of the early trips, one of the POW's dove over the side at dusk, swam ashore and joined us. His name was Herb Wills, a Captain and graduate of VMI. Herb was about six feet, 185 pounds, in good shape, handsome and a hell of a guy, good friend and who married a beautiful model, "Dutch" after the war. Herb told me that they were keeping them in covered holds below deck in very unsanitary, crowded conditions, fed lugao (watery rice soup or camote top soup) same as in the penal colony. They were allowed on deck a couple times a day to relieve themselves. There was a long tin trough aft along the rail used for a toilet which just ran into the sea. He said it was evening and he could see the mountains, but did not know what island or where they were, but they were beginning to leave the coastline. As it became his turn in line and he got up to the trough, he jumped up on the rail and dove over the side. He said they sprayed the water with machine gun fire, but he went under and was safe as they couldn't afford to stop the ship. Herb said he tried to navigate on the stars in the pitch black night swimming on his back which wouldn't even give him a silhouette on the mountains. And when daybreak came, he had screwed up and was swimming out to sea. Needless to say, he had a long swim of many kilometers back to shore. I asked him if he knew Hayes Bolitho in the prison camp, and he didn't but had heard the name. Herb was put in charge of developing Camp X, a camp farther back into the mountains where we could retreat to if we were chased by the Japs. He later wound up at Ozamiz where they had a bunch of Japs holed up in a "Cotall (old Spanish fort) and were lobbing mortar shells in on them. Some Jap survivors made it out at night and escaped down the river. Herb sent me an invitation which reserved a mortar and gave the serial number to come down for a day of fun. I didn’t make it.

Hayes Bolitho, mentioned above, was a friend from my home town where we went to Butte High (Montana) , who went down to Fort Missoula and enlisted in the Air Corps when I did, August 7, 1940. He went into the 5th Air Base at Hamilton Field, San Francisco area, went overseas early and was captured on Mindanao and put into the Davao Penal Colony. Not long after Herb Wills joined us, I received a radio-gram from Bowler that a Jap prison ship had been torpedoed on the afternoon of September 10, 1944 near Sindangan Bay on the north coast of Zamboanga Province, Mindanao. The Japs did not mark the prison ships so our subs could never identify them. According to the Geneva Convention, such ships were to be clearly marked with a "P” on the sides. Bowler said there were 83 survivors and I asked for a survivor list wondering about my friend Bolitho whom Herb Wills figured would probably be on that ship. When I got the list, I frantically poured over it and the last name was Bolitho! I asked permission to go to the beach, and he granted it, saying I could help with the sub contact that was coming in to get the survivors.

I took off straight north through the mountains, 77 km to Dipolog on the Mindanao Sea and then 80 km west along the coast to Sindangan Bay, the same trip I'd made in August. This is an incredible story of the treachery and inhumanity of the Japanese and the courage and valor of these American survivors. I believe this was the last load of prisoners from Davao and had taken the same route as the ship Herb Wills was on. There were two tankers and the unmarked prison ship.

One of our subs sank one of the tankers and hit the prison ship which broke in two and sank. The Japs beached the other tanker and set up machine guns on deck to shoot any survivors that made it to shore. They launched a whaleboat with Japs running down survivors in the water and shooting them in the water. There were 500 in the after hold and 250 in the forward hold which means 750 dead and/or alive Americans in the water and some smaller number of dead and/or alive Japs in the water. The Japs radioed for a float plane from Zamboanga City which flew up and dropped depth charges in the water not caring if they killed Japs or Americans. Imagine the blood, guts, bodies and confusion in the water which attracted many sharks. These men were in the water one to three days and nights before getting to shore. They were barefooted and had only G-strings for clothes hanging onto any debris handy. Hayes Bolitho was shot in the hand, foot and hip, had a broken wrist and jaw, but made it.

Joe Coe, who stayed with the guerrillas and joined our group at Dimoroc later, was pinned by a large beam on his chest in the after hold and said as the water got to his face and he began to face death, he noticed he could squirm a little – took a deep breath and the water floated the beam off him. He swam out through the hole in the side of the ship. He got a life jacket off a dead Jap after much struggling and hid behind a bale of straw he hung onto when the Jap motor launch came by shooting Americans.

One of the men was standing on the afterside near the prop as the center of each half of the ship sank first, the prop came out of the water and hit his thigh tearing a large piece of muscle off – he made it. Of the 83 that got ashore, one died of pneumonia, Joe Coe stayed with the guerrillas and the other 81 were taken out on the Narwhal, the same sub I went in on.

After the war when TV came into being, there appeared a half-hour weekly show called "Run Silent, Run Deep." It was a good series. one night while watching it, as a forward to the episode, Commander Titus appeared, sitting in a chair to briefly explain the episode. It was the run the Narwhal made just prior to the rescue mission at Sindangan Bay.

The guerrillas put together a makeshift hospital and a doctor and nurse gave what care they could with very limited medical supplies. I made it to Dipolog in two days fast walking and had 80 km to go down the beach. I would commandeer a horse if available and an outrigger to gain any time I could. I came to a barrio (village) the first night and the Filipinos fed us and we took off in the dark in a dugout canoe through a small grove of trees in the water. The natives were walking the canoe through about four feet of water and we came out of the trees about 20 feet from shore when we saw a Jap freighter anchored about 500 yards off shore. All of a sudden, a large splashing noise came at us from shore and I thought it was a Jap shore patrol and damn near started shooting at the noise. It must have been a shark laying along the shore feeding – what a thrill – the adrenalin was really pumpin', and I thought the bastards had me. A few minutes later, the whole hillside next to us lit up with fire flies, enough to give a good silhouette of us, but we snuck on by without being seen. We walked down coral beaches until our canvas boots were shredded and about midnight the next night we couldn't go on and fell exhausted on the beach on the east side of Sindangan Bay. I could see three fires on the shore across the bay and feared it was a rendezvous signal for the sub that was coming to pick up the survivors. It was only 16 km around the bay, but we couldn't go on that night. Sure enough, when we got there next morning, the Narwhal which had been in the area, had loaded 81 survivors, on board and took them out to Hollandia, I believe. I met Joe Coe, a Cpl., who stayed behind to join us and get even with the Japs. Joe was about 6’ 1”, handsome, dark haired young man who turned out to be a hell of a guy and good friend. Joe was pretty thin and had many bad cuts the entire length of his body where he had dived into the coral beach on the dead run when the Japs opened up (on any survivors coming ashore) from the beached tanker. Joe would get up and run, dive, get up and run, etc., until he got away. He had been on the Bataan death march and had been transferred on a work party of about 1,800 POW's to Davao Penal Colony. One day, a while later, after we got back to Dimoroc, Joe told Max and I some tales of the Davao prison camp. He’d had wet and dry beri beri which was caused by a Vitamin B deficiency. I had the wet type where your ankles would swell up and fill with water – unhandy but not painful. Joe said he’d be laying on his ratan mat in Davao, too sick to work and with dry beri beri your nerve ends are like they're exposed on your ankles and feet and you can't stand to have anything touch them. He said you'd pray that a fly wouldn't land on them and you'd scream if it did. He was cleaning out a barn one day and a Jap came to check on him and asked brokenly how he was doing – Joe said "Okay," and the Jap hit him with a rifle butt, knocked him down and kept hitting him hollering "okay, huh, okay huh?!" He said there was no rhyme or reason to a lot of their brutality. He said they could contract for a certain size of rice paddy to work which was usually more than one could do. If you didn't get enough done, they may make you "ride the rails". They'd turn large railroad rails on their side and make you kneel on the half inch rusty steel edge on your shins, while holding onto your ankles and make you try and balance without touching your toes on the ground in back or knees to the ground in front. After the rail cut through to the bone and the feeling left and you'd be balancing okay, they'd come by and jostle you into a new position to cut through in a different place. The atrocities perpetrated by these fanatical savages during the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's and unfortunately unknown and/or ignored by younger generations are beyond comprehension. we guerrillas went to great lengths to keep from getting captured, death was understandable, but the torture those crazy sons of bitches might subject you to was better not thought of.

We proceeded around the bay the next morning where I met with the guerrillas. We hadn't been on the beach but a few hours when a flight of P-38's buzzed us on the beach. This was the most thrilling sight I'd seen since leaving Darwin, and I didn't fully understand. Then I received a radio-gram on the beach from Bowler, ordering me back to my headquarters. Just about then, an outrigger pulled into the beach with a small load of rice. I asked the three natives on it where they were going. They pointed with their lips toward Zamboanga City and said "Dito, there-o, Zamboanga south." I said, "well you're going north now" and commandeered them to take us back across the bay where they'd just come from. They began to whine and wail and moan "Ogooie, ogooie". I paid them and we pushed off back across the bay into a moderate head wind so we'd tac a km one way and then back again and made very slow time. When we got halfway across, the wind quit altogether and we were becalmed. What a predicament, we always tried to stay within a half km of shore when possible so as not to become vulnerable to Jap patrol boats along the coasts – now I'm sitting still about 8 km from shore so I ask Aurelio the Visayan word for "row," and he answered "Reemo.” So, I turned to the natives and hollered "reemo” – they looked at me and whined and cried "Ogooie” but didn't move. I was in a hurry to get the hell off the water so I jacked back my 45 and put it to the ear of one of the natives and said, "Reemo you bastards, reemo” and scared the shit out of the three of them and my man Aurelio whom I had borrowed from Simmons for the trip. They saw that I was very serious and "reemold.” The way they rowed an outrigger was with a pole in a notch in the trailing edge of the aft outrigger brace on each side of the boat with a figure 8 motion from side to side. After a while and very little forward progress, a trailing breeze came up and helped us out. It was a beautiful, clear day, not a cloud and all of a sudden, we heard what sounded like roaring, rolling thunder which to me did not make sense. It immediately dawned on me that the Americans were landing. In my unstrategic calculation, I figured they were landing on our island, figuring they could find many places such as Cotabato and meet little resistance. As we neared the shore, a flight of B-24's came over in a northeasterly direction and this now really thrilled me. When we volunteered to go into the P.I., no one knew nor could hazard a guess in May of 1944 how long we'd be in there. So, this was a beautiful sight. The rumbling that at first I thought was thunder, continued. I found out later that I was hearing the "Battle of Leyte Gulf" and big Navy guns as well as bombs, about 250 miles or 400 km northeast of me. The rest of the trip back to Dimoroc was monotonous and laborious but light hearted. Joe Coe joined us at Dimoroc a few days later and had many stories about the cruel treatment by those crazy fanatical sons of bitches. They thought the Emperor Hirohito was God!

One day, Joe Coe was lying on his stomach on the hydrogen generator box at the weather shack and he said "If I had a million dollars, I'd give it for one shot of Black and White Scotch!” I had a bottle of B&W in the footlocker of booze I brought and thought – now's the time to bring it out. He had his chin on his fist and was looking at the bamboo floor and I rolled the bottle right under his face. He damn near fainted – we inhaled a few smashes right then and he was thrilled.

We ran out of codes for several spotter stations in early September, 1944 and began making up our own from mere random number selection, and sent copies overland to correspond. This later created some raised eyebrows at Allied Intelligence when some of our messages were intercepted.

I had some bouts with malaria, had some ankle swelling from wet beri beri and developed pin worms which cause itching and show up in your stool, but otherwise were only a nuisance. Then I got the bad stuff, amoebic dysentery. I always figured in my own mind it was due to a lack of sanitation on the part of our Chinese cook – maybe he was getting even for us virtually kidnapping him from Dipolog. This totally drained my energy as I averaged 25 trips per day for 25 days to the latrine passing blood and puss most of the time. I'd eat to live, but hated to because I knew each bite of rice became a big belly ache shortly after. I took a teaspoon of Sulfaguanidine powder three times a day and drank quarts of water. It was easier to lower my head to the cigar in my hand on the table than to raise the cigar to my mouth while leaning on my elbow.

Just about a week before I got the dysentery, we got a radio-gram from Bowler that he was going off the air and evacuating his headquarters because there were an estimated 3,000 Japs staged around Ozamiz and their last movement was toward our headquarters at Dimoroc. That only put them a day away so we did not have time to move to Herb Wills Camp X nor even time to dismantle and bury the equipment. Captain Woods was visiting from Zamboanga at the time. About 6:00 p.m., we sent relief for the guard post at the trail on the edge of the canyon on our side. About 7:00 p.m., the relief soldier came back and said there was no one there to relieve. It was now about 24 hours since Bowler's message and now we had no way of knowing whether the Japs had gotten across the canyon and were near our area or not. We set up about three individual perimeters – one at the mess hall where I believe Simmons was, one at our weather shack and one at the radio shack, as I recall. We sat all night on guard with our fingers on the triggers and every time we heard an animal move or a noise we flinched, but no one fired so as to give our position away, so I was proud of the guys at our station. Nothing happened and at daybreak, I asked Captain Woods if he’d go with me to find those sons of bitches so we could quit worrying about where they were. He agreed and we took off about 50 yards on each side of the trail to the canyon and proceeded carefully all the way to within a km of Bowler's and still no Japs. Then we spotted a few hundred of them over a hill where they had commandeered a bunch of Filipinos to harvest a rice crop. This was a great relief to know where the bastards were. We snuck around the hill and into the forest where Bowler's headquarters was, which was only about 1,000 yards from the Japs who had no knowledge of Bowler's place.

Sitting up on the balcony with his skinny legs propped up on the railing was a man reading a magazine. No one else was around and he said "How she goin' mites?" This was my first encounter with Jock McClarin, one of the six Aussies that escaped on Borneo. He told us some great stories. I asked if he wasn't a little concerned about all the Japs just over a nearby hill and he said, "The bawsturds haven't bothered me for two days." So, I felt comfortable staying there with this old pro. He was the one too young for WWI and too old for WWII, but lied and got into both and lost a son at Dunkirk. He’d had an appendix removed on the trail without any anesthetic and a few weeks later led an attack against Cotobato Airfield. As skinny and old as he was, no one could keep up with him on the trail – a hell of a man.

We went back to Dimoroc and advised that everything was under control. The large number of Japs staging at Ozamiz area was drained off and sent to Leyte to help against the American landings as were most other large contingencies of Japs, so I was told. It was after I got back to Dimoroc that I got the dysentery and 25 days later I was ordered by Allied Intelligence to proceed to Dipolog where a B-25 would pick me up to come out for new codes. This was not good news as I was awful weak and that two-day march through the mountains looked impossible.

When I left and said goodbye to Max, he said "you won't be back" – I shook hands with him and as dramatically as I could said "I shall return!" Sam and I took off, and with nothing but a compass and no trails, it was difficult even though this was the third time to Dipolog. We'd travel from farm to farm. The Cibuanas, mountain people, would clear a hector or two on the side of a mountain and you could see a yellow patch were they lived. So, we'd go from one to the next and make each one take us to the next one we could see in the distance. These people were very small and looked undernourished almost to the point of starvation. Even though they spoke a different dialect than the Visayan Sam spoke, he could communicate with them.

This one small family living way up on the side of a mountain on our way had very little food left and were waiting until their small patch of corn was ready to harvest. I had Sam ask him why he didn't clear a few more hectares and grow enough rice to get him through to the corn crop and so on, so they wouldn't starve. The Cibuano said "If we grow more, de wild figs (pigs) will come and eat it." I said build a fence and he said "Then de wild deer will come and jump de fence and eat de croffs.” I said build a higher fence." He said "then the locusts will come and eat the croffs (crops)." So, I gave up, pulled out my 45 and insisted that he take us to the next visible farm on the way. There had been a recent typhoon which smashed much of the large hardwood pine trees – in some areas the down fall timber was difficult and slow to get through. This first little Cibuano got a little too far ahead looking for a way and dropped below us about 75 yards and was doubling back to his farm and taking a sneak on us. I just caught a glimpse of him, so I fired a shot pretty close to him and he came back up to us in a hurry and guided us with no more trouble. Poor Sam was in shock, he thought I killed him. We had started at daybreak, were on top of the range but it was getting dark as we found the trail on top which I knew was only a few km f rom the outpost about halfway to Dipolog. I still was troubled with dysentery and was too weak to go on so I sent Sam ahead to get some soldiers to help me to the outpost. I waited by a clear creek for about an hour and no help came. By then I had all kinds of thoughts about what had gone wrong. So, I crawled through the cold creek which was deep enough for about 20 yards so I could just keep my mouth out of the water and went on crawling down the muddy trail for a few hundred yards, resting every few minutes, and finally Sam showed up with three soldiers who took turns under my arms to walk me to the outpost. They bathed me, fed me rice and put me to bed on a bunk in the grass shack. I slept like I died and got up the next bright and sunny morning and felt great. We had one day fast walking down the mountains to Dipolog. From that beautiful morning on I never had one more bit of dysentery which I can’t explain any more than how and why it started.

A few km from Dipolog we stopped at a farm for a drink but I was afraid of their water so they gave me a glass of goat milk. I took a mouth full for the first and last time in my life and spit it ten feet--God it was awful and warm. The next day, right on schedule, a B-25 with a pilot, co-pilot and crew chief landed at our guerrilla held airfield. We took off for Morotai, damn near to New Guinea which baffled me because I was supposed to report to Tacloban, Leyte. They explained that you could only land at Tacloban on a pattern because of such heavy traffic and had to go in scheduled from Morotai. The crew chief set me up in the top turret and showed me how to clear the guns and operate the turret and then the pilot said we were going to fly around Mt. Apo near Davao, and see if we can scare up some excitement! I told him not to go to any trouble on my account and was scared to death that I'd shoot both tail struts or vertical stabilizers off, not knowing the guns were synch’d to miss them. I lucked out, they didn't scare up any Jap fighters. When we landed at Morotai, a Jeep came out to meet us with a doctor, nurse and a red cross lady. They gave us a couple shots of brandy which sure went down easy. I had a shower, a decent dinner and a good sleep. Next day, on to Leyte in a C-46 which I never did like. Planes were landing every few minutes on a schedule at Leyte. I took a look at the weather map and nothing looked bad. We took off on a north heading and about the time we got as far north as Davao off the east coast of Mindanao, all hell broke loose. I was laying in an upper litter and could not get out because of the violent turbulence. Finally in a rage, I tumbled out to the floor and grabbed the slats (like in a boat) to keep from getting slammed against the overhead about seven feet above. I could see that these guys had gotten into a violent north-south oriented front and were staying in the middle of it at about 7,000 feet. I clung to the floor slats and made my way forward until my face was between the pilot and co-pilot and screamed at the pilot to take a 90 degree east heading. We were hanging on like bull riders, and I don't know how the plane held together. In ten minutes, we broke into the clear. I explained the dilemma and they headed north again. When we got as far north as the Surigao Straits, they headed west and were going to cut through the front at about 7,000 feet. I tried to explain that I wasn't ready to die and told them to get down on the deck and go under which was turbulent but we made it with no real problem. In three years these weather-uneducated pilots had provided me with many thrills. At Tacloban, I located an old friend WOJG Sylvester Reibel whom I had known in 1940 at McChord Field, so I stayed with him in his pyramidal tent. A boat load of pretty bad "Indian Head" beer arrived so we got a supply, lied and bragged and gambled at cribbage. We were in a tent city, tents on about 50 yard centers.

Now let me digress back to Dimoroc Canyon on Mindanao and the stories of Joe Coe – Joe, as I recall, had made the Bataan Death March and was sent to Davao Penal Colony with an 1,800 work force. Before he was captured, during one of the Jap air raids on Manila, Joe was walking past the Rizal Monument and Fountain when he heard a bomb coming down, so he jumped into the waist deep pool for cover. After that Jap run, he peaked up over the edge of the fountain and heard "fuck you, fuck you, fuck you--haaaa (like an exhale of a big breath)." Joe was mad and looking for someone to fight. A few minutes later, he heard the same thing. Finally, another American came along and it happened again. Joe said "hear that, who in hell is doing it?" The G.I. laughed and told Joe, "that's a 'fuck you lizard,' haven't you ever seen or heard of them before?" Then he showed Joe a green lizard about 30 feet up in a palm tree and verified it. Now, I thought Joe had been in the prison camp too long and told him so. He swore by the story and I insisted on him making it up. Bob Stahl informed me at our Tucson reunion in May of 1992 that the technical name of this lizzard is "Guka".

Now back to the tent on Leyte, it was dark, but there were lights on with officers and nurses in all the nearby tents with the sides rolled up. I went out in the shadow of the tent to get rid of some beer and while in the act, heard a real loud "fuck you, fuck you, fuck you - haaaa.” I went up a few steps into the tent and said "Rebe, did you hear that?" He said "yes, what crazy bastard would holler like that with all these nurses around here?" Then it happened again in an identical tone and noise. It was at that moment that Joe Coe's story hit me. I got a flashlight and Rebe and I went outside and looked up this palm tree – there was a green lizard about a foot long up about 20 feet. Held suck in air and swell up like a balloon and holler as plainly as anyone could say "fuck you, fuck you, fuck you – haaa (and blow out the rest of the air)." Now, I've told that story, numerous times and really don't think anyone has ever believed me, but how could you make it up?

At Tacloban, I met with Major Lee Telesco, my G-2 contact and saw Bill Richardson who told me the following: that Wm. Becker had told him to stick with him and he’d be home and a civilian in a month. Rich said they were brought to Leyte right away when Samar was cleared. He said Becker had grown a full beard and looked like a mountain man and that Becker had gone down to the center square of Tacloban by the bank of Leyte and was up on a box preaching to a bunch of Filipinos that he was the second coming of Christ when the MP's picked him up. He was shipped off to Hollandia for treatment and a probable section 8, as was his plan. However true, I heard later that Rich got a card from him as a civilian from the States saying Rich should have stuck with him. Not long after we left Rich and Becker off on Samar and before we were able to make a radio connection with them from Mindanao, they made a direct contact and were sending Wx observations directly to Brisbane. Apparently G-2 had trouble with their transmissions, advised them to shape up their operation. Becker sent a message addressed to General MacArthur saying "My men, are not sending garbled messages, please get your men on the ball, signed Cpl. Wm Becker III"'. Maj. Telesco said there was someone in G-2 that wanted to court-martial Becker over it when he got to Leyte, but Telesco got it squashed. I later saw a story on the episode in Life magazine after the war.

While I was in Tacloban, Leyte, one of the later Wx observer arrivals was sent into Luzon by sub. As Telesco told me the story, the Filipinos had been ambushing a Jap mail truck at a turn in the highway where a cliff overlooked the road. They'd hide along and above the road, lob grenades onto the open stake bodied truck and then run. They pulled this stunt once too often and were getting too bold. The Japs were expecting the ambush and had put a canvas canopy on the truck with a machine gun on a tripod under the canopy. When the daily ambush job took place, the Japs threw the canopy off and opened up on the Filipinos with machine gun fire, pinning down a few who couldn't get away. Those who ran, went for help and Christenson and some others responded. He ran along the shoulder toward the truck and threw a grenade at it and was hit in the shoulder receiving a pretty bad wound. The shell almost severed the nerve trunk, knocked him down and out. The Filipinos were able to drag him to safety and get him back up the mountain to the Wx outpost. He was a big man and very difficult for the Filipinos to carry in rough terrain. Telesco got the message of Chris' dilemma and a PBY rescue rendezvous was arranged.

The first night's effort almost ended in disaster, as the sea was too rough for the PBY to set down and received some damage to the pontoon trying, so had to return to Leyte without Chris. The second attempt, the next night, was successful. I visited Chris in a hospital on Leyte where he was undergoing physical therapy. The doctor told me he had severe nerve damage, but the nerve trunk wasn't completely severed and may possibly be repaired by surgery. Chris said the therapy hurt like hell, but he was getting some feeling and movement in some fingers and had a good attitude toward recovery. He said when he got hit, he was running low and the shell entered the top of his shoulder knocking him down like a shot rabbit and he couldn't move, he was so stunned. He had played on the CU football team as an under classman when Whizzer White, the all American great, Rhodes Scholar and Supreme Court Justice, played. Chris was taken to Hawaii and, unfortunately, I lost track of him so was unable to follow up on his recovery.

Another casualty involved Charles McGrath, who was shot in the knee. I heard it was an accident but was unable to get further details as he was on the east side with Colonel Fertig.

We lost two men, Robt. P. Herbig and Charles R. Hammill, on the submarine Seawolf which, I understand, was mistakenly sunk by our own aircraft. These young men were in the 20th Wx sqdn. and were on their way in to join us but never made it.

I reported to the FEAF Wx Group Headquarters at Tacloban and found that Twaddell had been replaced by Col. David Kennedy whom I was told was on a trip to Australia and New Zealand. There was a major in charge whose name I can't remember and whom I had never known before. The major received a message ordering Col. Kennedy to attend a secret VIP meeting for allocation requirements for the upcoming V-1 through V-15 landings being planned for the immediate future. Kennedy was gone and could not be reached, and the major would not attend the meetings, and I saw no one else around. I said I'd go as someone had to cover for weather.

The major gave me all the allocation requirement information for Class A, B and C weather stations which specified the number of men and weight and volume of equipment needed for such stations. Also defined was the type of station needed for providing 24 hour service or less for a given number of air strips that were intended to become operative. I entered a large pyramidal tent with several tables at which were seated more generals and colonels than I'd ever seen before. The lowest ranking officer was a Lt. Col. and he was the recording secretary. When the presiding officer (whom I believe was Gen. Hoover, as I recall) asked who was representing the FEAF Wx Grp, I stood up, saluted and gave my rank (CWO) and name. The general looked at me with a frown and asked where Col. Kennedy was, as he was the listed representative. I answered that I did not know for sure, but believed he was in Australia. The general told me to advise Kennedy to report to him the minute he arrived on Leyte, and he was very angry. The Lt. Col. would call out the landings in order V-1, V-2, etc., and each branch representative would give his requirement logistics. When he called for Wx, I would ask how many strips would be operative and how soon, and with that information, I could supply the Wx logistics from the allocation information given me by the major. It was embarrassing to be there with no rank and a bit ludicrous but we got through it without a problem. This included all the future landings from Palawan to Zamboanga City, Negros, Mindoro all the way to the big one, V-15, at Lingayen Gulf. When the meeting ended, the general called me over and said "Son, I don't know what the hell you're doing here, but don't worry about it, you did fine and you get that message to Kennedy ASAP." I felt very relieved, but very concerned for Kennedy. Kennedy was a captain in charge of the McChord Field, Washington Wx station when I was assigned there from March Field, California, in December 1940. He was a hell of a guy and great C.O. The major advised me that Kennedy had flown from Melbourne to New Zealand and was scheduled to arrive at Peleliu (known for the famous Marine victory on Bloody Nose Ridge) in the Palau Islands on his way to Guam giving the time and date about 48 hours ahead. These islands were in the South Pacific under Halsey's command and to go from one theatre to another required approval by the theatre commander, MacArthur. I had no time nor method for such an authorization and went to the strip to see if any planes were scheduled for Peleliu. I wanted to head off Kennedy and warn him of his predicament. I heard later that there was a high level meeting in Guam where Kennedy wanted to put in his oar for a possible generalship in Wx of which there would only be one in the Air Force. A plane was scheduled for Peleliu and I bummed a ride. Peleliu was 500 miles east, the weather was clear and the ride uneventful.

We arrived in mid-afternoon and the plane was parked a half mile from the weather operation. The runway was long and wide and made out of white crushed coral. I had good dark air corp glasses, but the glare was so intense I had a blinding headache just from walking across it. The Wx office was manned by Marines who really took great care of me when I pointed out how they'd been getting all the observations from the P.I. As I recall, there were three islands, and the one about three miles to the north had an estimated 3,000 Japs on it which were bypassed and used for bombing practice. I stayed in a tent with five Marine officers, and they graciously gave me the remaining empty cot. I noticed a large slit in the tent by my cot and they explained that the Japs were starving and occasionally one would sneak over at night to try to steal food and killed the Marine before they could subdue him. That's why the bunk was empty! Of course, this information didn't make me sleep too soundly.

Kennedy was scheduled to land the next morning. When I went to ops next morning, I found that he had landed on the island to the south in the very early morning and took right off after gassing up, so I missed him. So, I took the next plane back to Leyte. By now, Telesco supplied me with a package of new codes and arranged for a C-46 with an eight plane Corsair escort to take me back to Mindanao. By now, Max Hoke had moved our Wx station from Dimoroc Canyon down to Ozamiz City on the west side of Illigan Bay, not too far from Bowler's old headquarters. Bowler also moved his headquarters there.

It was a clear day and the Corsair pilots were giving me a thrill by taking turns and practically sitting on the C-46 wing where the cargo door was off and I could see the expression on the pilot's face. I promised to put on a party for them if they got me back okay. I asked Col. Bowler if there was any medical alcohol left and he said yes.

That night we had a feed and party and dance with a band in the school house and those pilots couldn't believe it was possible. They were hung over the next morning. Max and I stood on the balcony of the two-story house we lived in and all eight of the Corsair pilots buzzed us awful close when they left. A Chinese merchant had a long building across the street with a corrugated tin roof and siding. Each time a plane came over at about 100 feet, the roof would flutter and the Chinaman was out in the street screaming. Then the C-46 buzzed us and put about half the roof on the street. The pilots were waiving, we were laughing and the poor Chinaman was crying.

When the battle on Leyte took place, it drained many of the Japs off our area so virtually the pressure was off.

The next eventful episode was when Datu Mandangan, the head chief of the Lake Lanao Moros asked and received guerrilla permission to travel with his entourage to Bowler's headquarters to barter for clothes, mainly as theirs were pretty rough and scarce. The Moros were Mohammedan and constantly harassed the Filipinos. They’d pillage and rape and take hostages and the Filipinos were understandably afraid of them. They agreed to stop this harassment for the duration. They brought knives, canes, jewel boxes, etc. , with gold, silver and ivory worked into the handles, etc. Their stuff was fascinating and showed very skilled handcraftmanship. One cane had an ivory handle which disengaged and became a pistol. They displayed their wares on a large table about 12 feet by 4 feet upstairs in the restaurant-bar run by a Chinese. I made a quick decision on four knives and passed on the rest of the stuff. I chose a large ceremonial dagger with a large ivory handle which was Datu Mandangan's personal dagger as was the working knife a Kris with an ivory handle and a wavy blade about 27 inches long over all. I also chose two smaller ivory handled daggers. All four had fancy sheaths and are famous, valuable knives that the Datu said had been handed down for many generations. I traded most of my khaki clothes and underwear as he would not accept money. Of course, he wanted guns, but this was out of the question.

There were stories of Americans going into the Moro country and being stopped and offered money for their guns. If they took the money out of fear or refused, they'd be ambushed and killed either way. The main thing the Moros wanted was guns but they were only able to barter for clothes at this point, which they needed badly. They looked different to me, high cheek bones and a little different color of skin. They were fierce warriors and when a young man reached manhood, he would bind his pressure points so as to bleed more slowly if cut, kill someone and drink some blood. This was how they prepared against General Pershing in the early 1900's during the "Moro Uprising." The story I heard was that this was the reason the Army changed to 45's from 38's. When the Moros charged, all bound up, the 38's wouldn't knock them off their feet and they'd keep coming with their knives, engage and then fall over after finally losing enough blood.

Finally when the 41st Division landed at Zamboanga City March 13, 1945, I believe, there was little else for us to do on Mindanao. I received a radio-gram that a plane would be sent to pick me up and take me to Manila which occurred in about a week. A C-46 arrived and flew me to Manila. As I was unloading my duffle bag, a staff car drove out and was flying a blue flag on the fender with a star on it. I didn't pay any attention as I didn't believe any general would be coming for me. Out stepped Courtney C. Whitney, a Brig. Gen. and he had come to meet me! He was a Col. when I left him at Brisbane about ten months before. He was still MacArthur's righthand man and running G-2. I heard he and Jimmy Roosevelt made Brig. Gen. over the heads of about 800 Cols. that outranked them, time in grade and that there were some repercussions in Congress over it.

Whitney was a lawyer and businessman more than an officer. He treated me more like a friend than a subordinate and seemed awkward in returning my salute. He took me to MacArthur's headquarters which was in downtown Manila, and I heard Sam Wilson's building on the third or fourth floor. MacArthur had a large desk up on a raised platform in a large room like a ballroom and with nothing else in the room. Whitney took me in, introduced me with a small preamble of where I'd just come from. After saluting and shaking hands, MacArthur sat me down and for a half an hour profusely thanked me for doing such a wonderful thing. I wasn't used to this and was a little embarrassed when his voice quivered and tears came to his eyes. I was then taken to "Awards and Directions" where I made recommendations for Silver Stars for my six original men. In my ignorance, I didn't realize one had to perform gallantry in action for the Silver Star, so I recommended them for the Bronze Star. I couldn't recommend anything for myself of course, but later received a Commendation from MacArthur with the Bronze Star which Whitney and Telesco were responsible for.

I was then taken to the Wx headquarters where I met an old friend, W.O. Jas. G. Barney, who took me to a house in Quezon City on the edge of Manila where he and about four others were living. That night after some celebrating, I was awakened by a battery of 155's about 8 kms away where the Americans were still fighting the Japs.

Not long after we arrived on Mindanao, it became evident that my six original men needed more rank to deal with the Filipinos, many of whom were officers. I requested of Col. Bowler that my men be made second Lt. in the guerrillas to be more effective in carrying out their duties. This was done and now they all outranked me! I made no request for myself and no one took the time or effort to do the same for me, or because I was a CWO by then, just overlooked it, apparently.

I spent a short time in Manila and was advised that I could be on the next C-54 home if I wanted as I had plenty of points after almost three years overseas by then, the end of March 1945. I had stored my clothes and belongings in Brisbane, only weighed 120 pounds and did not want to go home looking so thin.

While I never did get to see Col. Kennedy, he had remembered me and left a letter at FEAF headquarters giving me the option of a 30-day unofficial leave in Australia before going home or I could go home from Manila. It was my understanding that Kennedy was sent Stateside and replaced immediately upon his return to Leyte.

In 1946, while a freshman at the Montana School of Mines, one of my fellow classmates, Pat McGee, had to go to the Veterans Hospital in Spokane. Pat was shot down over the English Channel, parachuted out and came down on a log in the Channel, injuring his back. After he returned to Butte from Spokane, he said he met a Col. Kennedy who knew me. Pat said Kennedy was in pretty tough shape with a nervous breakdown. I was unable to follow it up.

So, I went to Australia via Hollandia where I tried to find Becker but heard he’d been sent to the States as a section 8 case. I met up with 1st Lt. Hamil, whom I hadn't known before, on the plane trip to Lae and Townsville. Hamil had orders to become the Wx officer at Sydney, so I told him I'd be there a little later to visit. On the flight from Lae to Moresby, the C-47 was loaded with G-I's and one Aussie. The pilot kept circling to gain enough altitude to get through Kakoda Pass (8,000 feet) in the Owen Stanleys. There were some Cu-Nims building up against the mountains in the afternoon faster than we could get high enough to get over them. At about 11,000 feet, the pilot decided to cut through the tops, and it was rough. We had been given sack lunches for the trip which we ate and by that time after letting down on the south side of the Owen Stanleys, the Aussie crawled to the back, laid on the floor, turned green and moaned he wanted to die. Hamil and I looked at him, couldn't help him and about that time, Hamil asked him if we could have his lunch! The poor guy just turned his head and threw up. We went back to our bucket seats and split the Aussie's lunch.

I visited friends in Townsville a couple days and W/O McGuigan cut me orders for Brisbane where I stayed at Eagle Farm where the rotation for the States was located. Captain Pete Rawstrom was the Wx officer in charge, whom I had never met before. He was a big fellow and a hell of a guy even though at time he acted a little more like he was in a scout troop than the Army. My letter from Kennedy stated that I could travel anywhere we had a Wx station in the SWPA, was not required to pull any duty and could use the station facilities including transportation.

I borrowed Rawstrom's Pontiac staff car for a night on the town, got a half a bag on and quite late, came around a downhill turn on the way back to quarters when I went a little wide and sideswiped a parked car and knocked it off its blocks. I did a pretty good job on the driver's side of the Pontiac, it still ran good and I thought it best that I hurry on back to my quarters. Now, Pete had asked me to be very careful of his assigned car, olive drab, four door, Pontiac and I had assured him it was in good hands. The next morning when Pete saw the car, he almost cried. I told him to take it to the motor pool, tell them it was hit while parked and get another one – he almost cried, but did it and got another car. He and I and a bunch took a trip to Southport to a Red Cross dinner and dance and had a great time. Pete let his hair down a little and taught us a song that went something like this: "She ate a porterhouse steak three times a day for her board – more than any ordinary guy could afford. She had the hips that sank the ships of England, France and Peru and if you're like Napoleon, boys, she's your Waterloo. Waterloo, she lives in the water, Waterloo, she's a fisherman's daughter and you ought to see her tread the water – Waterloo da da da.” I'd like to find Pete and get the rest of the words to the song. I think Ormand (Rocky) La Rocque was on that trip, maybe he knows the words. I hadn't met Rocky before either and saw him at our 1989 and 1991, 15th and 20th Wx Sqdns Reunions which were fun.

In Brisbane, I also saw an old friend, Lt. Col. Joe Kelly, who was really responsible for getting me into the guerrilla fiasco. Kelly was on rotation and waiting for a ship to take him to the States. He took a look at me and told me to turn in to an Army hospital for a check up before I went to the States. I did, and gave them a history of my past year in the P.I. They kept me at the hospital for ten days on rigorous tests and a treatment for amoebic dysentery even though it was not active. I was allowed to come and go from the hospital during the treatment and was given a card and dog tag with a major's name and phone number. The tag said to call him, the doctor, in case of any emergency if I was found in trouble from sickness or unconsciousness!

I asked what the hell that was about, and he said sometimes a person reacted unfavorably to the strong medicine they had me on. He said it was the only treatment they had and if I tested negative, which I did, that it was no proof that I was cured but only that the tests didn't pick it up. I've never had a recurrence, but years later tests did reveal scar tissue in my colon that was presumed from the dysentery.

While in the hospital, I had the same room that Col. Pappy Gunn had been in weeks before with a nerve injury in his hand. The nurse said he made them turn off all music as the vibrations made his hand ache. After I was discharged from the hospital, Kelly said he needed me as an excuse to get his plane back for a trip to Sydney to visit his wife, Penny, a lovely and great gal originally from Perth, who was staying there while he was awaiting rotation. So, I sent a telegram to McGuigan in Townsville to cut me some orders so I could go to Sydney. Kelly went to the C.O. at Eagle Farm and got permission to use his old C-45 Lockheed to take me down to Sydney. He no longer had use of the plane after being put on rotation. It was a lovely, sunny morning, a Captain and a 1st Lt. nurse bummed a ride with us. I was sitting in the co-pilot's seat and we took off with no problems. we flew at 3,000 feet about a mile off shore in nice, smooth air. I was flying and Kelly was reading a "Life" magazine when I advised him that the auxiliary tank was showing "low". He assured me he’d handle it and kept reading. A few minutes later, a red light began flashing on the instrument panel and a horn began blowing as both engines quit. Kelly threw down the magazine, turned very pale, switched over to another tank and reached down on the floor between our seats and got a hold of a jack pump handle and I could hear his knuckles beating on the floor. The plane began to lose altitude, and as I pulled back to level it, it felt like we were going in ass first, so I pushed forward to try and level it. By now the captain and the nurse had their faces about a foot behind us and were very pale and scared. I put the plane in a glide towards the white water on the rocky coast figuring we were going down in the ocean and I didn't want to have to swim any farther than necessary.

Kelly was turning a pale green and pumping harder than before without even looking up. We were now at about 1,200 feet, and I turned to the two face's about a foot from mine and hollered, "Go back and get the fuckin' door off and get out of my way," not realizing there was an escape hatch right above the pilot's compartment. One engine started to cough, smoke and started up as Kelly manned the throttles and then the other engine caught. I leveled it off at about 800 feet and had been too damn mad and busy to get scared, but now I got a bit pale. I still was mad and ate the ass out of Kelly for not switching tanks sooner. He just leaned back and nodded. He’d had a pretty good plane wreck in Australia before, broke an arm and had some other injuries. I think he was still shook when we came into Sydney as he landed about six feet above the runway and we had some more thrills, bouncing down the runway. As we walked into the Base Operations Office, Kelly said "Do you want a ride back to Brisbane in a couple days?"'. I said "screw you, Kelly, I may never fly again, I'm taking a train to Brisbane and then a boat home." He may not have been the best pilot in the war, but I swear he was the best C.O. anyone could possibly have, I loved and respected the man. I called Lt. Hamil as planned, and he came and picked us up. Hamil and I got an apartment in King's Cross and I got down to some steady eating and drinking. We played golf one day at the Royal Australian Golf Club, where they'd allow a couple of Americans a day to play. It was a very nice old private club. The steward told us just to drop our good uniforms on the floor in the locker room where we changed, and the pro fixed us up with equipment. When we came in after playing, our uniforms were pressed and our shoes shined!

An elderly gentleman member in a tweed suit and with a walrus mustache introduced himself and took us into the bar where he signed for all the scotch and soda we wanted – very royal treatment and we were grateful. After a week or so poor Hamil was a mess as he had to work every day and would plead with me to pull a shift or two so he could rest. I'd pull my letter from Kennedy on him and he’d cuss me out and threaten not to let me use the car, at which time, I'd pull my letter again.

We ate at the Red Cross center most of the time in King's Cross, and the food was so good I'd have to unbutton my pants and loosen my belt before I could move from the table.

After a few weeks, I telegraphed McGuigan and he cut orders for me to return to Brisbane where I turned into the rotation center to go home. While in Brisbane this last time, I received a radio-gram from Lt. Col. Lee Telesco noting that I had received no promotion in guerrillas, and if I would return to Manila, he would arrange through General Whitney a retroactive guerrilla commission to Captain, which MacArthur could confirm, and if I put in about a month, they would arrange a promotion to Major. This was very enticing and interesting, but my head was pretty well made up to get out of the service when I got home. So, I answered and declined the offer.

Another factor weighing on my mind was flying back to Manila, and I didn't relish that thought after all the harrowing rides I'd had in three years in the SWPA.

I was in Brisbane awaiting rotation, I was havin' a beer with some guys and a doctor, a major, was there and I was bitchin' because I was told I had to have all my shots again! He said, "Let me see your immunization record.” I gave it to him, and he took out a pen and gave me all my shots with his pen right then and there and I bought him a beer.

By now it was June, I was to board the Lurline of the Matson Lines. I bought a bunch of booze and a case of Abbot's Lager beer for the trip home. A case of Aussie beer was 48 quarts and you could hardly pick it up. About 20 guys from our outfit came down to see us off. I had the booze in my duffle bag and two of the guys picked up the beer and were helping me up the gang plank when the O.D. stopped us and refused to let them aboard without proper orders. All my pleading and explanations were in vain, so the men took the beer back down on the dock and each one had a quart of beer on me. All I could do was wave from the ship and cry.

The trip overseas on the Matsonia was 26 days of inedible food and I lost 22 pounds on candy, cookies and pop and some frozen strawberries we stole. But now I was eating and traveling in class as an officer (the good old cast system), so the trip home was rather pleasant and only took eight days. Plus the anticipation of getting back after three years, two of them in the jungle and one of those in the guerrillas in the P.I., was a real rush.

One of the saddest sights of my life was seeing the Golden Gate Bridge getting smaller in June, 1942. One of the most thrilling sights was seeing it come into view in June, 1945. But the greatest of all was seeing my fiancee, Francie Kane, who waited for me – beautiful memories after 47 years of marriage and seven wonderful children of whom I am very proud.