ER-5ABG

            The 19th BG, upon return from the Far Pacific, were gathered at a new base at Pyote TX in the early part of 1943 to train on B-29s as soon as they became available. These were core personnel for the pending 20th AF. The Pyote Museum was expanded to commemorate their activities --  many former members in later years sent material back to the museum. In Nov ’96, a few from the 19th BG Assn paid a visit to the museum and obtained the loan of some 20 folders of documents for incorporation in their on going history task. This document was one of them – it’s unknown if it was ever published. This history is being placed on CD-ROM and the composite will be provided to the Pyote Museum. The 5th Air Base Group was actually part of the 7th BG sent to Mindanao to establish the Del Monte base, code named “PLUM”. 7th BG crews, who’s orders stated the destination PLUM, were too late --  they joining the 19th on Java.  DL 01-23-97.

16th September, 1943.

Dr. & Mrs J. K. Regehr,

Fort Morgan

Colorado, USA

 

Dear Mr. & Mrs. Regehr:

I have just received your letter, written 16th August regarding your son, Walter. He was a member of the 5th Air Base Group and under my command at Del Monte in the Philippine Islands. He and the other members of his Squadron who were with me in the Philippine Islands worked long and hard and did a marvelous job on the Island of Mindanao.

            It was believed at that time that all the 5th Air Base Group would remain on Mindanao Island as teh only ones being evacuated to the south were the combat pilots of the tactical units. However, I received direct orders to leave and departed on April 29th for Australia. It was felt at that time that there would be many more airplanes returning, but as you know from the papers the entire Philippine Islands were surrendered after the fall of Corregidor on May 7th. It is undoubtedly because of that, that you had received word from the War Department that your son had been reported missing from that date, May 7th. However, from very reliable information which I have, there were only a few, if any of the 5th Air Base Group who lost their lives, I think the great majority of them becam prisoners to the Japanese at the surrender, and have seen the announcement from Washington the names of a great number of that group and feel that a few probably went with the natives and are still at liberty and will be rescued.

            Just where your son is of course I cannot definitely say. However, I feel most confident that practically every one of the Air Base Group which remained there on May 7th are safe. I also have rather reliable information as to the location of the prison camp at which most of these prisoners are kept and know that it is one where the receive better treatment and the best food. I am of course not at liberty to tell the location of that camp at the present time.

            I am making a note of your address and will write you if I learn anything further regarding Walter and should state that he was an excellent soldier and served his country in an outstanding manner until the Philippine Islands were forced to surrender and he with the other boys.

            If you desire to write me at any future time feel perfectly free, as I will always be happy to hear from you.

 

Ray T Elsmore

Ray T. Elsmore

Colonel, Air Corps

PS I am enclosing copy of a letter which relates some of the activities that Walter was engaged in. I have not written the story yet, but will send you a copy when I get it done.

 

            Their son, Walter J. Regehr, was taken as a POW, and survived the war. His address written on this page at an unknown later date was: 5137 Elbert Way, Sacremento, CA, 95842. DL 01-23-97.

*****O*****

Rebuttal to “Queens Die Proudly”

 

Del Monte Field  Mindanao Jan 1942

APO 925, c/o Postmaster,

San Francisco, Cal.,

30th June, 1943

Lt. Col. Frank Kurtz,

Hdq Caribean Command,

c/o Postmaster, New Orleans, La., USA

 

Dear Frank:

 

I have just finished reading in The Readers Digest the first installment of the thrilling story narrated by you, "QUEENS DIE PROUDLY".  Needless to say I was stirred as I lived again those never to be forgotten days, the events so eloquently depicted in the story having crossed and recrossed the path of my experiences time and time again. I commanded the Del Monte Airfield when all the planes you mentioned were dispatched on their perilous missions against tremendous odds, missions which required outstanding skill and daring, with the will "to do or die". My admiration for the patriotism and courage of the men engaged on those missions will never die. You mentioned Al Mueller's Flying Fortress limping home to Darwin from deadly combat over Davao, there to be stripped of tail surfaces for your 'OLD SWOOSE', and then left there to be used as spares that other Fortresses may fly. I remember well how we at Del Monte 'sweated out' that flight after Captain Schetzel, flight leader of the mission, had radiod back that Al’s Fortress had been driven down and out of the bombing formation by a swarm of attacking Zeros, and that it had not rejoined the formation. It was many days before we at Del Monte learned that Al had arrived safely at Darwin. It may be of interest to you and Al to know that even then his Fortress refused to die, but was resurrected by General C. N. Connell's service command and today is flying under my operational control in the Directorate of Air Transport, Allied Air Forces, SWPA. Like many of us older pilots of 'yesteryear, she is now considered too old and unfit to go 'over the target', but she can still 'deliver the goods' and render that service indispensable if newer and fitter Fortresses are to take her place.

            In passing, I might also mention those young RAAF pilots you met at Batchelor Field, kids you said were nice to you, 'but seemed to talk another language because they had not been through hell'.  They have now had that trip through hell, and, with their brothers, the Aussie soldiers, now fight with the same determination, daring, courage and gallantry which characterized you and our other boys in the Philippines, Java and New Guinea.

            But, there was one statement in "QUEENS DIE PROUDLY" to which I take exception, and of which I needs must write because of the injustice done to the boys and families of the boys who served to the end on the Island of Mindanao.

            Your narrative states:

            "Here on this beautiful field (Del Monte) we saw people who did not seem to know a war was on. The only military around was some kind of transportation outfit. The first day we were there I got hold of a couple of privates and gave them orders to dim out headlights of every car - no matter whose - that approached the field, but when the boys, carrying out my orders, stopped a staff car, the Transportation Officer decided he’d stop all that nonsense.

            I cannot understand why you gave such an impression for publication, unless your memory has failed you miserably. Let me refresh your recollection with a few irrefutable facts.

            I commanded the Del Monte Air Base, which constituted the entire air force on Mindanao, from one week prior to Pearl Harbor until the 29th April 1942, when the last airplane to depart from any airdrome in the Philippines took off from the Del Monte Airfield for Australia. When the late Brigadier General H. H. George, my immediate superior, was evacuated from Bataan through the Del Monte Air Base to Australia, I told him that myself and staff desired to remain at Del Monte until all Air Corps personnel had been evacuated. After he arrived in Australia he sent a letter back to me signed by Major General Sutherland, Chief of Staff to General MacArthur, mentioning this request and leaving to my discretion the order in which the remaining Air Corps personnel at Mindanao was to be evacuated. Myself and five members of my staff, Majors R. L. Fry, W. J. Monay, L. O. Gee, Don Searcy and Vic Huffsmith were aboard that last plane in pursuance of a directive brought in on that plane from Major General Ralph Royce, who was then Lieutenant General Brett's Staff Officer in charge of operations. Upon my arrival in Australia I again met you. You were with General Brett and the pilot of his airplane, 'OLD SWOOSE'. We then talked of our past experiences at Del Monte; of your evacuation together with hundreds of other combat crew members of the 19th Bombardment Group from Del Monte to Australia. I think you can now see why I am writing you as I am today.

            Referring to 'YOUR ORDERS' to dim out headlights. My first order at Del Monte was for total black-out of automobiles. Result - costly accidents, with injuries to personnel and damage to motor vehicles which were too scarce and no replacements available. The Fortresses had to be re-serviced with gas, oil and bombs, and crews had to work all night to accomplish it. Motor vehicles therefore had to go to and from the airdrome during the hours of darkness, and air base personnel had to work on that airdrome, both day and night, regardless of danger. There was some danger with lights on, yes, but a greater danger if this service were delayed and our Fortresses caught on the ground at dawn. To accomplish the task I changed my first order and directed use of headlights. You ordered privates to break these official orders.

            It was also said that the Transportation Officer of the 'some kind of Transport Outfit' decided he would stop all that nonsense on the car lights. I am sure that officer was Major Chauncey B. Whitney, my Base Operations Officer and a life-long friend. It was he and Major Wilfred Rotherham that I sent in our unarmed B-18 to land at Zamboanga to rescue Captain Montgomery and his crew of the Flying Fortress which had crashed into the sea near that point. All but crashing on the take-off from a dangerously small field, Captain Montgomery and his entire crew were brought back safely to Del Monte and later evacuated to Australia. A few days later Major Whitney died at his post of duty on the airfield at Del Monte, killed by an enemy bomb. Major William H. Monay, Base S-4, and his assistant, Dennis Rohlfing, were thrown from their jeep and the vehicle overturned from the concussion from the same bomb.  The day before his death, Major Whitney, together with Major Rotherham, had come to me and requested that I permit them to man the machine guns which were protecting the airfield, as they wanted to get a shot at the Japs. I mention these things as they are only typical of the fighting spirit and devotion to duty of those who died on Mindanao, as well as those who remained to serve until the end.

            My concern is now what Mrs. Whitney and those others will think when they read "QUEENS DIE PROUDLY". The logical conclusion would be that their husband, son or loved one had failed in their duty at Del Monte. This was not the case, and since they cannot reply I will answer for them, for I was there and know what they did and what they may have failed to do.

            Your narrative records how twelve of your thirty-six Flying Fortresses were saved from Clark Field destruction because they had been sent to Del Monte. But the Japs struck Del Monte also, and those twelve Fortresses were saved, not because they had been sent to Del Monte, but because the boys at Del Monte worked night and day to save them. The Fortresses arrived at Del Monte prior to 7th December. However, the one and only spray gun on Mindanao was immediately put into use and it was operated day and night by air base personnel until the shining aluminum of these planes had been sprayed and covered with camouflage paint. But that was not enough to save them as it was a new field without facilities or native cover of any kind, just green turf. Filipino natives were regimented and worked day and night with air base personnel gathering the large leaves from coconut trees on the beach and then hauled them up hill over narrow, rough, winding roads, twenty-seven kilometers to the Del Monte airfield. It required ten truckloads to cover each Fortress. But they were covered and recovered each time they returned from a mission, in order that they may be concealed when the Japs struck, an event we then knew was inevitable.

            The Jap Bombers and Zero strafers did strike. Every Fortress on the field was completely covered.  Coconut leaves were applied to three non-combat B-18's, including one of my base airplanes which I had just landed in from Cebu Island with supplies. I think you know the result of that strafing as well as I. The three B-18's were set on fire and burned to the ground. Every Fortress on the field was saved and departed that night for Australia, to return again and again to Del Monte to bomb Japs during the night and depart again before dawn, carrying 19th Bombardment Group crews to Australia. I think it was these same Fortresses which constituted the backbone of your outstanding achievement against the Japs in the Macassar Straits battle. The one-third of the 19th Bombardment Group fleet of Flying Fortresses entrusted to Del Monte had been saved from destruction.

            Other tasks were undertaken and accomplished. Within thirty days after Pearl Harbor these men, regimenting and working hand in hand with Filipino native laborers, supported in all tasks by one of the finest men I have ever known, Neil Crawford, Manager of the Del Monte Pineapple Plantation, had selected and prepared for use seven additional airfields with a twenty-five mile radius of Del Monte, complete with hideouts in native cover and camouflage nets for concealing all aircraft thereon; constructed 12" xl2" timber shelters under from ten to twenty feet of earth, sufficient to house the air base personnel, and carry on essential activities within a few yards of the Del Monte airfield, two of these under-gound shelters being more than two hundred feet in length; dug two tunnels into hills overlooking the airfield large enough to house both base and group operations offices; commenced a tunnel into a. hill for an underground hanger large enough to house five P-40s, which tunnel was completed before I left Del Monte and a runway constructed so that the P-40s could be flown directly from the tunnel mouth. In short, these men labored long, hard and tirelessly, without complaint, to prepare their new home for combat operations.

            Nor did they stop when their air base had been so prepared. General MacArthur had issued a general directive to build air fields with all haste throughout the Philippines. This directive was not received at our air base, but was seen at the Headquarters of Major General Sharp, Commander of the Visayan-Mindanao Forces, and was taken as our cue and work started. Our air base personnel, augmented by some from the 19th Bombardment Group awaiting evacuation, were fanned out for hundreds of miles in all directions over the Island of Mindanao, to select new sites, regiment native labor and construct new landing fields. When the Del Monte Air Base arrived there was only one airfield on the Island of Mindanao large enough to accommodate our fighters and bombers. In less than five months we had twenty-two fields constructed and completed suitable for operation of both bombers and fighters. Each of these fields had hide-outs prepared in native cover with camouflage nets, and at some of them blast pens and underground storage space had been constructed. Only five of the small existing airfields had been found capable of enlargement, the remainder having been on entirely new sites, sites selected where they would be most inconspicuous and capable of camouflage. There were only five flying officers in the Del Monte Air Base, Major Whitney, Major F. O'Tally, Major R. L. Fry, Major W. Rotherham and myself. The latter four of us flying first in our remaining base B-18 and later in a single-engined Waco, flew all over the island inspecting the construction and camouflage of these new airdromes. Later this Waco was shot down before our eyes as it approached the Del Monte Airfield with passengers from Bataan, killing all aboard. Major Fry and Major Fernando, head of the Philippine Air Force, flew to all of the Visayan Islands directing and inspecting the construction of air fields on those islands. Complete information on all of these fields was then compiled, twenty-two on Mindanao and twenty-one more throughout the Visayan Islands, and forwarded to General MacArthur at Corregidor, General George on Bataan and General Brereton then in Java.

            But construction of these landing fields was of no avail unless landings could be made and airplanes serviced in all sections of the island. The personnel of our air base at Del Monte was spread thinner and sub-air bases were established in all strategic sections of Mindanao. I had to send three of my highest ranking staff officers to command some of these sub-bases. Major Fred O'Talley (by now a Lieutenant Colonel) was sent to command a sub-base and field erection-depot at Anakan in the northeast.  The only crated airplanes to reach us, three P-40s were erected at this sub-base. Major Joseph S. Bell was sent to Maramag and Major Wilfred Rotherham to Valencia in the interior of Mindanao. Major W.H. Monay, Base S-4, and a past-master at moving motor convoys despite bombings and strafing, had to be relieved from Base duties to direct the moving of bombs, aviation fuels and food supplies to these sub-bases. Malabang on the west coast was first commanded by Captain Horrigan, and after he left for Java by Lieutant Draper of the 19th Bombardment Group. A seaplane base was established at Lake Lanao with hide-outs and camouflage for seaplanes. Not knowing when these hide-outs were constructed that any seaplanes would ever arrive, they proved their worth when two U.S. Catalinas arrived from their base in Australia to hide there during the day in order that they could make their perilous flights to Corregidor by night to evacuate nurses at Corregidor's zero hour. Alert crews were kept on duty day and night so that runways could be lighted and airplanes serviced and bombed up whenever they might arrive at these sub-bases.

            Routine duties at the Del Monte Air Base were not neglected while this building and expansion program was being accomplished. For some weeks after the Fortresses arrived they were operated continuously on both night and day missions from Del Monte, and after they departed for Australia, both Fortresses and Liberators returned again and again to Del Monte. When I became Chief of Staff of the Bomber Command in Australia and again in direct contact with the 19th Bombardment Group the pilots of these various missions to Del Monte came to me almost to the last man to thank, through me, the personnel at Del Monte Air Base, who they claimed had served them so well, both in service to airplanes and to look after their personal needs. They stated that at no other base had they received a hot meal upon arrival and hot coffee and sandwiches again before their dawn departures.

            Medical and other supplies brought in by these bombers from Australia for Corregidor and Bataan had to be flown in. A Waco, a Bellanca and a Duck; all old unarmed 'crates' were all we could scrape together for the task. Courageous fighter pilots, who had been at Bataan and therefore knew how desperately their beleaguered comrades needed quinine, flew those old single-engined airplanes through Jap infested skies, trip after trip, into Bataan. While other fighter pilots made an occasional trip, it was Captain William R. Bradford and Captain Hervey H. Whitfield,(now Majors and in the United States), who flew the great majority of these missions. Then Bataan fell. Hundreds were dying on Corregidor for want of quinine. The Bellanca was all that was left. A one-way trip had to be made, as the field on Corregidor was to small for take-off even if a crash landing could be averted. We had about fifteen fighter pilots from Bataan, so lots were drawn for this last trip. Captain Bradford drew 'the number', and while not definitely known, it was believed by all present that he planned and arranged his lot. The quinine got in, but the plane was demolished. Captain Bradford, apparently doomed to Corregidor, was sent out on the Catalina Flying boat mentioned above, General Wainwright so rewarding him for his outstanding valor in making this flight.

            The Fortresses that carried General MacArthur and his party from Mindanao were received, serviced and dispatched by these men. Emanuel Quezon, President of the Philippines, with his family and official party were likewise evacuated to Australia from the Del Monte Air Base. The Motor Torpedo Boats of Buckley and Kelly of "THEY WERE EXPENDABLE", which brought General MacArthur and later President Quezon to Mindanao, were serviced with aviation fuel by these same men. Likewise the bombers which Major General Ralph Royce took on his famed expedition to the Philippines, were received, serviced and bombed up by them. Between missions these bombers were effectively concealed on our inland airfields, described in press releases from General MacArthur's Headquarters in Australia as, "our secret airdromes on Mindanao”.

            The activities of the officers and men of the Del Monte Air Base were therefore many and varied. Those accomplished on Del Monte proper were what they had been sent to Mindanao to perform. But the building of airdromes and establishing of sub-bases and servicing units throughout an entire island was above and beyond their normal call of duty. Yet every officer and enlisted man cheerfully responded to every call made upon him and worked long hours in order to accomplish each task assigned. They served unselfishly, without praise or glory to the end, and of their devotion to duly I, as their commander, am justly proud. Knowing of this duty well done I could not pass unchallenged the clear insinuation that they had utterly failed in their assignment.

            I shall send a copy of this letter to Mrs. Whitney and the families of the others who, I know, died at their posts of duty at Del Monte. Your narrative has also resolved me to do that which I should have done before now -- write the story of the Fifth Air Base Group on the Island of Mindanao. It will be simply written because I cannot do otherwise. It will not contain the gripping experiences of those who are privileged to 'fly them' -- it will be of those who must stay on the ground to ‘keep them flying'. As far as we who came out can now learn the addresses as all records were left behind, it will be sent to the families of those of the Fifth Air Base Group, who served to the end on Mindanao, and who are now either dead, prisoners of the Japanese or wandering in the mountains and jungles of that island.

 

RAY T. ELSMORE

Colonel, Air Corps.

 

c - Readers' Digest

Pleasantville, N.Y.