Risk & Resolve
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Risk & Resolve
Henry Clay Conner's WWII Journey (Part 2 of 7): Surviving the Unthinkable - A Jungle Escape
Henry Clay Conner recounts his harrowing escape from Japanese forces in the Philippines and subsequent 34-month survival in the jungle during WWII while battling tropical diseases and navigating complex political alliances.
• Escape from Bataan on April 9, 1942, as Japanese forces broke through American and Filipino defenses
• Climbing treacherous mountains and drinking contaminated water while suffering from malaria, dengue fever, and dysentery
• Finding shelter among supportive Filipino families who risked execution to hide American soldiers
• Close encounter with the communist Huk guerrillas who put Clay on "trial" before his daring escape with fellow Americans
• Evading a 300-strong Japanese force hunting them with a price on their heads
• Living among the Negrito people in remote jungle areas and adopting Filipino clothing and identity
• Learning Tagalog and other Filipino dialects to survive while navigating the complex political dynamics of occupation
If you enjoyed this episode of my grandfather's war story, join us for the next installment, where we'll continue exploring his remarkable journey of survival.
You're listening to Risk and Resolve. And now for your hosts, ben Conner and Todd Hufford.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another episode of the Risk and Resolve podcast. I'm Ben Conner, alongside my co-host, todd Hufford, and we're about to embark on part two of seven, talking about clay connor, my grandfather's journey through world war ii. Before we get jump into the airing of episode two, we wanted to recap episode one. There's a lot there. There's a lot funny. Yeah, it's funny. As we were talking we're like, well, we can't like recap this thing and so much that it's as long as the first episode. There's so much with how detailed he was and just like his vivid memory. That really stood out to me as I listened multiple times to episode one.
Speaker 1:You know we've had these tapes forever, obviously since the early 80s. Have you listened to it in its entirety before? I have not. I haven't either, and I think it was because number one who's got a tape player? Number two I think it was really scratchy and we had it kind of remastered and it sounds really good.
Speaker 2:It's amazing and really a shout out to Ashlyn and Catherine on our team for how they remastered those episodes. It doesn't even sound like the tapes. They've cleaned it up so much so and obviously there's still some elements that it is from a tape. But man, they did such a good job. But let's get into what we heard in episode one. I mean it was an episode that was chronicling his quickly what happened while he was growing up and then the early stages of the war actually taught a couple of things that were new to me. I didn't realize that he was in Indianapolis for the first 10 years of his life.
Speaker 1:Right that kind of settled in for me as well.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, he was in Indianapolis. His father worked for the Allison Coupon Company Now Allison Payment Systems Business still exists, but his dad worked for them. And then, when he was 10, they moved to the East Coast and they moved to a lot of different places. They're in Connecticut, new Jersey I believe he said another location in that first episode.
Speaker 1:He ratted off like three of them before he kind of landed in that New Jersey, the East Orange that we've kind of always referenced. That he lived in. You know, I don't mean to be a spoiler here, but for those that don't know, you know his, his dad worked for the Allison Coupon Company. He did for a hot minute he explained. A lot of people may not realize, but your grandfather went on to marry the daughter of the then owner of the Allison Coupon Company. So it's kind of interesting to piece that all together.
Speaker 2:That's right. So then he went to Duke. So he had three majors news to me.
Speaker 1:He only mentioned two of them, though. He said economics and history, and I kept listening for the third one. Did you catch what the third one was?
Speaker 2:I did not. So we're gonna have to dig into that. But what's interesting is, you know, he said that he had two days vacation. His dad gave him two days vacation After graduation commenced, which the irony in that is apparently that's a Connor tradition, because I remember when I graduated college, my dad he told me hey, ben, congrats, you graduated college. You have 30 days to live with me and then you are out on your own. So apparently there's a lot that's more of like a family tradition than I thought, but that really resonated with me that he had to get out and go and so he had several jobs.
Speaker 2:He actually went to work at Allison Coupon Company as a pressman. He said he almost killed himself. He was so bad at what he was doing and he's bored, and he was bored. He said he almost killed himself. He was so bad at what he was doing and he's bored. And he was bored. He said he was interested in business and not necessarily for working on the line. But there was this movement in the United States of patriotism and what was happening in the war in Europe. Obviously, with what was going on, with Hitler invading countries in Europe, there was a lot of interest and it created a lot of patriotism here and seemingly a lot of his friends, and it was kind of the thing to want to volunteer for the service.
Speaker 2:You know, he said old men don't fight wars. That's right, and as a young man you don't have the fear of what can happen in war and just some of those things. So it's kind of interesting, just the national sentiment at that point. So as he enlisted, he then got odd jobs as a fuller brush man. He taught lessons at the Arthur Dance Studio.
Speaker 2:So he was still trying to figure it out and Todd, I mentioned this to you earlier, but if you took his experience and you overlaid that into a Gen Z worker, we would probably say about that Gen Z worker is man. That's a failure to launch. They don't know what they're doing, they're struggling, they're unsuccessful. A bunch of gig jobs. A bunch of gig jobs. Driving for Uber maybe is the translation.
Speaker 1:The original gig economy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's not what we think when you look back, right. So that really stood out to me and really how hard we are on Gen Z. It really stuck in my mind. But then really quickly he got into his war experience. He went into the war as a group communications officer and he left for the Philippines in November of 1941, and it took three weeks to get there. So he's getting there late November, early December 1941. Right? So the parallel is crazy.
Speaker 1:I mean I was. These recordings were done in what? 83? Yeah, a couple months before he passed away. So we know that. So he's taught.
Speaker 1:He doesn't sound like a weak man to me. He has a strong command of the dates. When he was talking about the military he had numbers of troops and at first I thought is he just making this up? And interviewer asks him a couple of questions and he says I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. So he was honest about what he didn't know, which I guess affirmed that when he did say something he did know it. And I thought, oh my gosh, here we are listening to me, a stronger voice, and you and I know that he's dead in less than six months. But then he's also recalling hey, I'm doing this in the fall of 1940.
Speaker 1:I graduated in June of 40. I hit Scott Airfield in Belleville, illinois, in January of 41. And I feel like I'm watching a slow motion car crash. I mean we know what happens and it's like you're on a boat to the Philippines. No, don't do that. I mean unbelievable. And he also was there a lot shorter than I realized. I thought he might have been there maybe six months before everything kind of broke loose, but it was weeks weeks so, on that note, landed in the philippines and weeks later, pearl harbor was attacked.
Speaker 2:Something that stood out to me that I didn't realize is pearl harbor and manila were attacked within hours. Yes, so that was actually a coordinated attack, which is interesting to me, obviously something that's not really talked about, but it was within hours. Obviously, when you look at dates of when things happen, it doesn't appear to be hours because of the international dateline, but literally within six hours of Pearl Harbor being attacked, manila was attacked, being attacked, manila was attacked. And they also asked like hey, wasn't there like some communication around? Hey, japanese are acting funny, you know this, that or the other? And he was emphatically said no, like this was a total surprise, you know. I think the skeptic in me said he also talked about airplanes went to australia because they didn't have coolant and it's kind of like okay, is that, like I know, very?
Speaker 2:strange, strange. So a couple of things that I have as notes and we can't drone on for too long. But when he was asked if he had adequate training for when the Japanese attacked, he belly laughed Like that's absurd, like not even in the slightest. So he just mentioned group communications officers. When they describe what a communications officer does, we think in modern times of like this podcast and communications, but he was talking about like pipes and equipment that made him sound more like a plumber than it did. Yeah, and then a communication, but he just talked about that. His strength was really in the people skills business and that really got him through his probably like imposter syndrome early on as a group communications officer. And as he continued, he described that I was best at being a scavenger. Yeah, he knew how to get food, he knew how to get things done and he maybe wasn't mechanically inclined but he could just figure things out. He also mentioned that he never fired a gun before he arrived at Bataan.
Speaker 1:And never camped out.
Speaker 2:And he never camped out. That's how it actually ends. It's hard to hear, but that's how it ends. But there's just some interesting things that he said that I wanted to highlight. He said in know, I wanted to highlight is you know? He said in war, I don't think you can steal anything. So, just talking about that survival instinct, yeah, the rules are all off. Yeah, he said a million, a million of the enemy shows up. You're not working, you're surviving. So it's interesting how that clearly transitioned when they were invaded. They talked about hope and and his comment was obviously he talked about scripture, but he said every day is hope, talked about his mental, just alluded to his mental toughness. He mentioned hearing that President Roosevelt got on the radio and talked about people in the Philippines were expendable, expendable, yep Wild. And what's interesting is they're like well, is that propaganda? Was that like a smokescreen? And he's like. I kind of just took it as it is.
Speaker 1:Something on that front if you don't know your history. At that time, the Philippines was a whole lot more like Puerto Rico is today almost like a protectorate. It was very much American influenced and so to have the Japanese coordinate attack it was basically them attacking two American soils. Even though it was Philippine at the time, it was very much aligned with America.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's almost like attacking America without not totally attacking directly America. Right, it's kind of off. Another thing that he said that stood out to me about survival is he says you took the bull by the horns and determined to survive. And if you're determined to survive, you're going to use every feasible known tact, technique and available method to do just that survive. And that's what we did for four months, and that was talking about before he got into the jungles. It was just this survival mentality. He got into the jungles, it was just this survival mentality. And that four months was really from when they invaded to when they really broke through and decisions had to be made. So you know his escape. He used a specific date of what that was, which was April 9th 1942.
Speaker 2:So between when it was invaded to April, 9th that's when that occurred and he really kind of talked through like I remember the individual over the radio saying the Japanese broke through and were killing everyone on their way through the South and I thought it was really interesting that he really talked about the Japanese culture from his opinion of how they viewed war and honor and that sort of thing and he goes. We didn't know that Japanese thought anyone who surrendered was a coward and should be dealt with harshly, killed and punished and the idea was, if you were surrendered in numbers you would be safe.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's interesting.
Speaker 2:They talked about the failure of knowing the culture that you're dealing with and you know how to communicate, and just really fascinating. But he ended that episode with the escape taking place on April 9th 1942. And that's where we're headed into in episode two. Todd, before we dive into episode two, anything else that stood out to you?
Speaker 1:Just to remind all the listeners that it was estimated to be 30,000 US troops, 90,000 Filipino troops I'm sorry, 70,000 Philippine troops. That takes it to close to 100 with a million bearing down. So it was 10 to one, of which your 10, only 30% were what we would view as trained American soldiers which, based upon your grandfather's account of his training, wasn't very that strong of training. I'm just amazed by after he's recording this 40 years after it happens, his mastery of the details. That's a gift and I think everybody as they listen to this should think about what's the best way for them to document their story so their kids, their grandkids and great grandkids can benefit from it. Because, man, these tapes have been sitting on the shelf for a long time and a handful of your family's known and listen to them. But I just know a lot of people are going to be moved by just his words, just his voice.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well, everyone enjoy episode two.
Speaker 3:The Japanese had a chance to embed themselves into the society. There's no question about that. The Filipinos were already pro-American in the beginning. They were fighting on our side to begin with. But the Japanese homerized the Filipinos absolutely and totally and only perhaps 5% of the Filipinos who were preconditioned prior to World War II and educated in Japan and prepared for World War II, and that helped them store parts of artillery pieces and whatnot in mountain areas. So when Japanese landed, they helped them, assemble them and showed them where they were. So these 5%, I'd say, when they were brought to be a part of the surrounding areas of the prison camps when the Americans were killed, they were called the GANAP. It was a party called the GANAP. How's that spelled? G-a-n-a-p, something like that.
Speaker 3:G-A-N-A-P, something like that G-A-N-A-P, g-a-n-a-p, I think it's N-A-P, n-a-p is Nippon, pro-nippon, pro-japanese, something like that. Anyway, those 5% were well known and isolated out by the pro-American Philippine. So there weren't any difficulty. Difficulty in really identifying who those people were. They might have gotten new. The problem that developed as the war went along was we could not defend those who were out and out pro-American and they were being killed as they were discovered in helping us to wipe out a whole burial or village of people men, women and children because they were known to have helped us, which was a terrible thing and obviously we don't want to be responsible for that kind of thing and that was the penalty for helping Americans. And that began to get around and the people became they had no place to turn If they helped us. They were in a spot. They wanted to help us. So it became a very delicate as they put it, delicato and difficult thing. So it kind of went underground. The help went. They didn't discuss it among themselves or whatever. It wasn't that universal help that we had at the beginning out and out.
Speaker 3:When did this transformation approximately take place? Was this in 43 or 44? I'd say 43. 1943. Around the end of 43 was when it really got rough. So about halfway through the 34 months you spent in the jungle, things really got tough on you and certainly you could understand why they wouldn't want to help anymore, because there would be a death sentence for everybody in the village and there was a form of genocide. When you first got started were you the only American in the group that and I really want to get back to how you actually got escaped from the perimeter the Japanese were closing in on you. At this little barrio, little Baguio, baguio, baguio, excuse me. Here was a resort up in the north part of the blue zone which is a well-known international resort. It's the miami or santa barbara or, uh, pasadena. You know it's a rural resort. So this is a little bag of eggs.
Speaker 2:It was a jungle.
Speaker 3:Another thing is this would be after April 9th. Did you tell anybody in advance that you were going to try to make a break for it? And did anybody try to say, but you can't go? And uh, how did you actually, uh, you know, manage to, uh, to get out of that area?
Speaker 2:this is something really curious, as I said.
Speaker 3:I went to the general state and uh, told them and the anderson, of course, was there also. I was telling about his plans and, too late, talked to and he offered to take the general staff or any of them. He wanted any of them to go with him, but you got to remember they were all in the mid and that was this is 1942, so I was 23 years old, born 24 years old. So the older fellas were not prone to go through the jungle. First of all, most of them had been there for a couple, three years and had done maneuvers on Bataan and knew it was heavy jungle terrain and high cliffs and direct drops and all that kind of thing, very, very rugged terrain. What do you think? Yeah, you look at the Grand Canyon at times, oh, wow, so I didn't know this rugged terrain. You think, yeah, you look, you're looking at the grand canyon at times, oh my, so, uh, I didn't know this. You have to understand that all I all I was thinking I was escaped and they said it was fine for anybody that wanted to go. So I called together my group of communication personnel that I had gathered together from all of the Air Force units. In other words. When we turned the Air Force units into infantry, I was given the order to bring all of the classified communication personnel into this communication center in order to establish a center communication for the general staff that was. My job was to get all these people together. So I'd call them all together and I said, well, I need the henderson's things to get escaped through our amount to our marvellous, which is straight up and top and up to mountain, which is up in here, and get all up in to northern Bacan and then to Pampanga and find Colonel Thorpe and McGuire, captain McGuire and all those guys. And Anderson's been around a while. He knows what he's doing, he's flown over this area many times and he's got a Filipino accent. He knows what's going on and I must have had 50 people working today in communications. And he's got a Filipino accent. He knows what's going on and I must have had 50 people working in communications and we'd do a little show and everything else.
Speaker 3:I had a real terrific operation going. We weren't living in poverty, we were probably the best unit in the operation because I was getting stuff nobody else was getting and I'd gone back into Manila before the Japanese cleared out. I was the last guy to leave Manila and I had truck after truck after truck and I'd come and brought him down here. I didn't leave all the stuff I had. I had tents and all kinds of C-rations, world War I rations, all kinds of canned rations. We just cleared our warehouse after warehouse in Manila for two and a half days and so we had Gumo in pretty good shape. It was Joe, had food, but anyway, not one of those birds. Hey, go with me Now. This is what the other giant.
Speaker 3:These are all the people that are working for me, working for you.
Speaker 2:Most of them are a lot older than I am.
Speaker 3:In other words, a few younger, but they didn't have any confidence in me as knowing anything. That's true, you're about 23 years old, 23 years old.
Speaker 2:What do I?
Speaker 3:know about the Philippines, and why would they go with me with $30,000 and go to surrender? And they're going to go with me and a guy they never heard of called henderson. And you're going to go up there in a mountain full of pythons and and whatever, and wild boars and, uh, savages negritos maybe, and and the japanese, just a million of them coming down through here looking at you. They're going to kill you. You're nuts. No, sir, we're not going. You want to go, bobowski? No, you want to go, no. And so I went and we just took off straight north from that area a little back here. We just took exactly straight north. He had a compass, I didn't. And we went right up on the side of that mountain and I'm telling you that's something else. Well, you can see from the terrain features on the map that you have that that is extremely steep. It almost looks like an extinct volcano.
Speaker 3:I got into one area by myself, because they left me behind. I got sick. I climbed down about 600 feet through a water fall, gripping both sides of a swarmy rock area and catching wet heat. And I've never done that in my life before. 600 feet, 600 feet. There is no amount of money in the world that would give me to do a dumb thing like that. But there was no way. I either did that or nothing, I died. And so those that, but there was no way out. I either did that or nothing, I died. Right, I could sit here for a week and tell you about that escape, going through all that. But that's ridiculous. I couldn't do that again. I mean, if somebody told me I had to go through that, I wouldn't have seen.
Speaker 3:Do you think you were in good physical condition? You must have been in order to get through that area, absolutely physical condition. You must have been in order to get through that area, absolutely. If I hadn't gotten malaria and dinghy fever and dysentery, that would have been great. But I got all these things because, you see, when you get your kids down at the top of the mountain, you cast you out of the mountains. You know why? No water, oh, that's right. The other letter St Will's Lawfully. So there's no water, oh, that's right. The other letter rules, awfully. So there's no water. And especially in April, there hadn't been a rainy season yet. So there's no water. So you've got to go to the loon, you've got to get down there and you think you're never going to get there to get any water. You think there isn't any water left in the world. And when you get down to the water, what you find are hundreds of dead bodies, with scavengers of every description running through the bodies and over the bodies, and every kind of insect, by the billions, insects so massive that they just cover your head, your face. You can't get them off, you just. They're as thick as a ruler almost, and they're just mad. They mat themselves all over you because they multiplied as a result of all this death in the water, in that environment, and you go in and you're thirsty and that's what you drink. These were dead Americans, dead Americans before we got to this point, and then after that they were dead Japanese.
Speaker 3:Outside lines Right, that's that ruin area that you mentioned on this other map. Let's see, I can find that Pilarbegak Road, pilarbegak, pilar, bagac, how would you spell that? I'll go from right here to another. You see there, pilar, and you say Bagac. Shouldn't we do? What's that? Say Bagac, what's this? She bettained right here. Except Pilar, pilar, that's Pilar Bagac Road, pilar Bagac Road. Okay, b-a-g-a-c Bay and we care for a lot of BGAC. We can just join the two words together.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, it's 14 miles north and south and 14 miles east and west, and 96,000 offenders, almost 30,000 were Americans. Well, when you're thirsty you drink it. Mm-hmm Makes no difference, it's the situation the insects, the bodies, everything you just swore the water was. There's no water anyplace else, and that's what? Well, the problem is the Japanese are still running through the area. So, you know, you should put some money down in, if you had it, or you should put some tablets, if you had them, or you should boil the water if you can, but you're a little hesitant to build a fire. We think that's the source of the diseases that you've got, basically just the contaminated water. I don't know if I'm a biologist, but it sounds like a pretty good candidate for it.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 3:A few days. A few days later, I was climbing these jungle mountains and so on and I had malaria. I didn't know what malaria was. So you were by yourself this whole. No, I was by myself for five days. Then I happened to meet up with another man. What was his name? Do you recall? I don't know. I'm asking. I wrote, okay, well, I'll check it out. I don't know. I've got a story. I wrote, okay, well, I'll check that out?
Speaker 3:I don't know how I could forget it at this point, but he was later killed. Oh Well, he was killed on the West Coast about a year later. Mm-hmm I don't remember what his name was. His name was terrible, mm-hmm. Well, that's all right. She. Well, that's all right. She got it down here in this article. It'll probably come back to you a couple hours after I leave.
Speaker 3:Well, he and another American were together, man, remember the other American? He was a very nice fellow, his name was Mann and he was killed. Also, how do I spell his name? M-a-n-n? Oh, mann, m-a-n-n. For one night, but he lostam at the pool at that point, I see, and they had become separated. So what can happen is and what did happen to this other fellow and how I got in touch with him I came to a place on the mountain that fell off at about oh, I don't know what angle that would be about 90 degree degree, almost 90 degree, almost straight down, probably 70, 80 degree, and it was kind of shale or slate.
Speaker 3:Imagine that half way up the mountain, here's this loose. Now I had to go about 50 feet from this side to this side of this shale that I built up there. Or, if I got caught in this, I come straight off drop and he started to cross and made it and he loosened it. Shape of it to build up there. Or, if I got caught in this, I come straight off Drop and he started to cross and made it and he loosened it and I started to cross and didn't make it and slid down. This is the guy with it before and I got caught on the three limb and I had to go down the cliff, which is about, as I said, got down about 300 feet, went out to get in this waterfall. Well, he went on it, so he had a level of 600 feet down.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm in a different terrain altogether and I was to be, alone for several days and I met up with this guy, just a random kind of thing, just by accident. You just bump into somebody. You never saw this man the second man ever in your life, probably. In that case, just here we are out in the jungles and we got to help each other out Boy. So you linked up these two, I mean with this other man, then later the other one and then the other one, so there was the three of you. Did you finally make it back to what Anderson had been talking about? On four, about that rendezvous? They were just catching up with him. I got up to this point called TALA, tala, t-a-l-a, t-o-l-a, and it's opposite Samao, s-a-m-a-l, s-a-m-a-l.
Speaker 3:Right here, it's right up there. Uh-huh, yeah, that's excellent. The Filipinos had Tala would be right in here someplace, you see it. Yes, all right, I see some little dates down here too. This would be. Well, it says May 1st 42 to September 15th well, 42. So you're basically in that area during that time. Well, that's where I was, that's where I darn near died. Oh, I got out of them 95 cows Based on the fevers and the fever, the dengue fever.
Speaker 3:Later I was determined. I had Jonas, I was yellow, everything about me was yellow, and I had dengue and I had malaria Several different. You could have different infections. You could have multiple infections of malaria. You don't just have malaria, you could have multiple infections. And then you one infection will hit you every other day where you chill and fever, and then another one will hit you the same day, and you're on and off days and it's a mess. In fact, several Americans up there, a whole bunch of Americans, were brought into that area. There must have been about 15 of us that were picked up and brought into that area, including me, who picked you up to bring you in there.
Speaker 2:Filipinos Filipinos Filipino.
Speaker 3:It was kind of an evacuation center. Filipinos who had built these temporary houses up in Tala where they would not live in normal times. Up in Tala, where they would not live in normal times but went into that area because it was away from the artillery fire which was hitting their former homes and villages. Down near the fishing villages the Americans were firing into the Japanese. The Japanese were firing back, so they had escaped from southern fishing villages on our side north into the area where the Japanese were firing back. So they had escaped from southern fishing villages on our side north into the area where the Japanese were occupied. But they had, rather than join up with the Japanese and get involved in the Frankish, they'd gone up halfway up the side, almost three-quarters of the way up the side of the mountain, and had built these temporary areas and planted rice and were harvesting wild bananas and roots and one. But I didn't live enough and very skimpy, regal or sick, nice. So they being pro-American, when they found guys like me down in the river bottom, they knew I was going to die down there. They brought me up into Tala and they brought other guys up there. Well, several of them died.
Speaker 3:A very hairy quarter from Willisburg, kentucky, a very, very, and we were together for a couple of months there. I guess he was a very nice fellow. And Gerald Dunlap, he was from Wisconsin. He also died then. Yeah, he also died. And of course, the fellow that finally joined with me and went through the whole war, frank Gavay, was up there. Frank's still living in Aurora that's Aurora, illinois, right and he just retired last year. He was a post office a couple of years ago. He's had a lot of physical problems. Well, I think about everybody that survived. That would probably come out with. This is getting ahead of the story. But what illness did you take out of the war? I mean, you finally did recover some of your health, but Well, I was blind for a while.
Speaker 2:Oh, is that?
Speaker 3:right Because of the vitamin deficiency. I'll tell you about that in a minute. Oh okay, actually, I regained my health pretty well through the care of a very generous and wonderful family in Tawa. How I ever got through the multiple diseases when others died I don't know. Only God knows that, but I did. And what did they give you to eat? Do you recall? Was there anything in the diet that was different? Primarily rice, wild boar when they could get it, and some fish that they got from work. I can't remember.
Speaker 3:Down in the lowlands, which was a low way and a small amount of wild food when it came in season. A little wild in the end, but it wasn't a lot because the Japanese had poured everything out. Most of the trees had been blown out with artillery, so it was tough, but fortunately I regained my health and, when I did, decided to leave there. What date would this be?
Speaker 3:This would be sometime in September, I suppose Late September. I took a head on the event. Yeah, september looks like about a 15. Could be Of 42. Right.
Speaker 3:What happened was the Hux came through. Okay, now, this is a good point to introduce the Hux. Who were the Hux or who are the Hux? Hux, h-u-k-s is an abbreviation for a Filipino name Hacobo no Bayan Laban Sahapon, that's, army of the People against the Japanese. That was the Hux. The Hux were the Army-American in order to establish armed units of 100 men, the leader, to harass the Japanese.
Speaker 3:But why they were not joining Thorpe and the USAFI, which is United States Armed Forces, far East USAFI Guerrilla Forces? Nobody put that together. Or was it just become part of the USAFI forces forces Far East Asafi guerrilla forces? Nobody put that together. Or was one of them just become part of the Asafi forces? I'm saying Asafi guerrilla forces was an established fact because MacArthur had initiated the Asafi guerrilla forces under Thorpe. So the Asafi guerrilla forces. I've even got orders of the Asafi guerrilla forces. See, I was commissioned Right. General order of BO. I was commissioned by General Order of the BOCO Vertebrate Board, commanding Officer General McArthur. Usafiq Rural Forces has made a match.
Speaker 3:Well, anyway, that was a complex problem and studying some of the history, I began to realize, with discussing it, what had happened, and this developed over quite a period of time. The Chinese agrarian movement, which was known in this country in the middle 30s as a communist operation in which the Communist Party offered to overthrow the government of China in order to take away the land-holding system and give the land in partial to the peasants. In other words, the revolution would give the peasants land. This is nothing new. This is the Marxian doctrine of getting the cooperation in order to give the people land. That's where the value of life goes. You raise your own crops, you're your own entrepreneur. Well, that's a philosophy. So the Chinese agrarian movement had moved into the Philippines and had become an organized group of politicians.
Speaker 3:Then, when they seized the opportunity of the Japanese occupation, organized the Hukks. They took in Americans, because Americans couldn't understand the language, took them with them in order to get the Filipino support, saying they were the same as Yusufi. We got the Americans with us. They got contributions, they got food, the arms that the Filipinos had picked up when the Americans had evacuated Clark and Nichols Field, all these places, and the Filipinos come in and took all the arms and hit them. They began to give them to the Huks, who were their army to defeat their enemy, the occupied forces of the Japanese. Because here these people are helping the Americans. See this American with them. Well, over a period of time, by 1944, the Hucks killed off all the Americans with them. Oh, they did. Yeah, because they took on the attitude that the Americans may be coming back and they didn't want any evidences that they were really a political movement. See, now the Asafi guerrillas surrendered the army, surrendered their arms and laid down their arms to the Americans. When the Americans reoccupied and many of them were killed off by the Huxlater, who didn't surrender their arms to the American but went into hiding again against from the Americans as soon as they had the Japanese.
Speaker 3:Well, anyway, that's a whole political thing. And I was with the Huks for a while until, but I learned the language. Well, I was up in Tala, I learned two dialects, one being Tagalog, and I began to put all this together because I had a semblance of knowledge relevant to Tagalog, which they were talking and they didn't know I understood it quite that well. So I began to put together what they were doing, organizing the Berrios as a defense for themselves, called the Berrio United Defense, which was a very subtle way of putting together a political organization where they're a Berrio lieutenant, where they had the communication that comes down to the lieutenant from the city where the Japs always said we'll vote on raid this, we'll go. Schaefer police notified the burial of the burial lieutenant, notified the next burial lieutenant. The hutch went down. See, that's their form of communication. Yeah, or were they communists then?
Speaker 2:They were communists.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. Sure, but there were not a lot of the early people in the Hucks. The Filipinos themselves were not really communist, indoctrinated anti-Americans. They were politicals who wanted to own land, who were really pro-American. That was a strange thing about it, oh yeah. So it was kind of like that story of the ugly American that came out years and years ago. Here's a guy who's involved in this because he was a man who was really pro-American for the time. But he has to make a decision. See, but a later date. He has to make a decision. That's a good point. Yeah, so you were there with the Hucks in, as you say, a brief period of time until you caught on to what was going on. So this would be after 1742.
Speaker 3:They were going to kill me oh, you found out about it right after the war.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 3:I mean, I was put on trial. They brought me in and said that I had actually betrayed them to the Japanese and that I had escaped from prison camp. This was in early 1944, and I had escaped in late 43, early 44. I had escaped from a prison camp and they'd betrayed them to the Japanese and they were. I'm telling you, it wasn't a circus. Frank had an anchor date on his bill which Frank of a, and there was only two of us there, three of us in the Magala area.
Speaker 3:I was pretty good in the .45 because that practiced a lot. They had a lot of ammunition in the early days up in Talon they had all the ammunition they had by one. I kept practicing faster on all this kind of stuff. I was a real adventurer. I was wider and I got really good with this thing, vick, and, as I said, I didn't have a mechanical aptitude, but I was a pretty good athlete For a little man. I was a pretty fast runner and a good, no broken heel type runner. I just wasn't big and so I was agile, very agile, very quick, and so I became very agile. Well, that's where he found it, and so we were just moving and I dropped the draft on this guy. I was going to blow his head off. I really was, but I wasn't angry with him, but I was upset, terribly upset, to think that they were putting us in that kind of a situation. Well, he knew he'd had it.
Speaker 2:This was the Huck leader that was going to charge us against the 101 win there.
Speaker 3:Three of us, three of you, three Gosh. So Frank went outside and he had a haggard and he opened up his hand and he said I'm going to put the damn thing, stay in there with him. They say it On the outside, not on the inside. With my gun, this guy, I just pulled real fast. Nobody got a chance to get it done, up the floor or on the side. The pull-up peelers were all that fast. I mean they couldn't believe it happened that quick. So we just took the leader outside. It's just ridiculous. We're taking off that lay table. They really respected us. That's right, that's it. Yeah, they did For doing that. Yeah, and they really weren't anti-American, they're just following their policy.
Speaker 2:But they'd let you go then with the leader and you just left. Yeah, we just took the leader along, we took him down the aisle and talked to him and just left.
Speaker 3:We didn't even fear the fact they were going to shoot us at this, but they'd lost the game, so to speak. Everything was unbelievable, gosh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just unbelievable.
Speaker 3:Just the game. I guess the three of you then got out of that yeah we got out of this and the whole American, the Philippine scouts rallied.
Speaker 3:They saw what had happened, they came in, they rescued, so to speak, us. And this happened the latter part of the day and it was turning dark and we just didn't walk down the road saying, I mean, this thing was scary, believe me, I made a little light of it, but it wasn't all that light. And the scouts were great soldiers. They were the Filipino elite Dream, beautiful war fighters, excellent marksmen. I think they're the finest soldiers in the world. For this they really were, and they were written up as son of the finest soldiers in the fire of World War II. So they came to your rescue.
Speaker 3:They came to our rescue and got us into a bunk and took us through the whole. We went through three japanese occupied towns where the fanfara river went and got out right through under bridges where they were in one. Look see the papanga. Uh, this would be. We're up in this province. Yeah, in Bulacan.
Speaker 2:Van Pank.
Speaker 3:Van Pank River comes down here someplace, doesn't it? Yeah, we came all the way down into the swamp areas and then we got off the bunk about Maccabee or Magalan, not Magalan, guagua. You see, guagua Boy, I can't make that out. Guagua, here's Florida Blanca.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, that's too far east, that's too far west.
Speaker 3:Oh, here it is. Here it is All right. Guagua, you've been paying a river. Go right to Guagua. Right, there's a whole swampy area. Yeah, g-u-a, g-u-a, guagua.
Speaker 2:That's where we got.
Speaker 3:That's where we fought. We came all the way from up in here someplace. Let's see. Let's see Another one's here. Mexico, oh, here's Huck, here it is. There's a mountain area. Let's see, it's a mountain. Where are you at Right there? A-r-a-y-a-t. It's a national park now, yeah, and it says Mount of Riot. They call it, yeah, mount of Riot. And then there's there's a fuck D-E-C-I-A-L something. Can't quite make that out, but I see where it is now. That's where I caught the boat guy. Actually, get it on the left.
Speaker 3:Ah See, yeah, december 21st. I forgot to put that on the map. Okay, there, it is December 21st. Yeah, that's it. So I was a little wrong on my memory, but this would be in 40,. Let's see, put the year in there. I didn't see the year. I guess that'd be 40, 42, I guess December 42. Okay, and December, oh, I guess it is. It's December. Yeah, december 1st 42, the Hucks that's what that is. I thought it says decal, but it's December 1st 42,. Around up to Mount Arrowhead. Yeah, right, that's it. Okay, so that's in 42. That dates that particular incident. Boy, is that ever scary?
Speaker 2:That's as frightening as Well.
Speaker 3:you see how far we escaped, turned back over here to the mountains. We had to clear out this whole lowland area, my goodness, and get back to known quantity, just north of Botanic Inn. See, does that show that we got back in there, that piece of tape over which we had this right here you seeing this Uh-huh, which is unfortunate. We photocopied that, but on the original it showed we came over here, bahrain. Let's see what's the name of it. I can't quite remember the little owl, denalupian, that's it right. You see where Denalupian is, the northern part of Bataan. Oh, yes, I see it now. Den of Lupin, right Now.
Speaker 3:Den of Lupin was controlled by USAFI guerrilla forces under the Captain Boone descended of Daniel Boone. You don't recall his first name though, do you Jug? Captain John Boone? That's not too far. He was a private. He made himself a captain. Yeah, he refused to go to officers, candidates, any of that. He didn't want to be a private, he wanted to be a corporal. He told me he was too mean to be anything but a private. That's what he told everybody. He was a handsome, stocky guy and he was independent. He was in the 31st Infantry and he was tough people and he could handle any kind of fire.
Speaker 3:He was amazing yeah he was out there in the jungles. Was he operating independently?
Speaker 2:Yeah independently.
Speaker 3:And then you went up. But he had an American novel India with him, named Gardner, and Gardner was about boom, was about six foot, weighed about 175 pounds. Gardner was about 6'2", weighed about 260, or 2450. Oh, he was not only tough, he meant it, and when he picked up a Browning automatic rifle it looked like he was holding a tooth kick. Whoa, imposing physically. And he got drunk every time he could. He drank his sake and all kinds of junk that they made in the jungle and of course no Americans drank anything because it was too dangerous to be intoxicated or even to be inebriated in any way. So none of them ever drank anything that had any sense at all, except Boone and Gardner, and nobody dared go in their area. Isn't that amazing, bo? Those guys sound like they should make a movie about stuff. They're like that, sound like the odd couple. They were unreal. Oh boy, I didn't want to give them an argument.
Speaker 2:Don't want to argue with those guys, they're Boone.
Speaker 3:No, I am.
Speaker 2:They lived through it too.
Speaker 3:And they survived the war. Yeah, I can see why now, because they just weren't taking a guff of anybody. That's incredible. There were some of those, oh boy. So this would be when you're linked up with Gardner and Boone. This is in 40, this would be in 43. February, February.
Speaker 3:Well, the Japanese heard of it. See, they were following us. As a result of all that stir we made, they rallied. We had a price on our head and money didn't mean anything. They were printing the room. So if you say 10,000 pesos, that'd be $5,000 in American money, but it didn't mean anything. But some Americans were sold out by Pygmies on the West Coast and by Filipinos who wanted the money, and so it became somewhat of a problem. So we became the target. Now, we became a target, believe it or not, because the rumor was that we had got off a submarine to come into Manila Bay, got off a submarine to come into Manila Bay, and we were representing the American returning forces. And not only that, but the Japanese were out to get us and anybody that was helping us. They would all be massacred. And they rallied 300 troops, 300, that's a lot of troops to come after you. This is Filipino.
Speaker 2:This is.
Speaker 3:Japanese. Oh, japanese troops 300. And you don't know how the rumor got started, but you wish they hadn't started it. Oh sure, I changed my name after that. Oh, you did. Oh yeah, I wouldn't blame you, I changed my name. I didn't let everybody call me name after that. Oh, you did. Oh, yeah, I wouldn't blame you, I changed my name. I didn't let everybody call me Connor after that.
Speaker 3:I was Sam White, sam White, uncle Sam the White man, and I was wearing and my uniform wore out, so I would. Of course, I fortunately had small feet so I could wear the Filipino. Filipinos have bought a lot of army shoes, so I always had army shoes all during the war. Partially, yeah, that's right, I started wearing my filipino khakis and and because everybody was sephora and straw hats and all because I lost my, so you really went native. Then after that well, what time? Uh, when did you start linking up with the Pygmy Negritos and organize him as a guerrilla band? That's an interesting story too. Well, I didn't do that for a while. What happened was this group was after us on February 22nd. I remember that because it was Washington's birthday February 22nd.
Speaker 3:They rallied in Dunlupia and I'm beginning to remember some of these things that I forgot all about. It's been so long. But they came in there and they decided they were going to wipe out, in other words, the word Gardner, boone, gervais, connor and Fawcett's kid Now Fawcett, and Fawcett's camp, now Fawcett. Bill Fawcett was an American that married a Filipino and had about 10 children, and some of his, several of his children, live in Texas right now. They're about my age. He took in all the Americans that escaped at one time, went through Fawcett's camp. They got to Fawcett's camp, which was up the mountains behind the Olympian, north of Boone, about four or five miles north of Boone's sphere of influence, and Boone was kind of the perimeter of protection for Fossett's camp. Boone's a word in it, incredible story. Well, anyway, bill Fossett and his family were up there with a bunch of Americans that were hangers-on. In other words, everybody's not going to fight the war, you know, especially when it's kind of like a mismiss, uh-huh, takes some dummy life. We need to try to find an adventure. But anyway, here comes 300 Japanese making this raid on the early morning of February 22nd. They always hit you around, dolan. George Washington put the whole way out telling. They always hit you around. Dolan George Woffman perked all the way out, I'll tell you.
Speaker 3:They tore that place all to pieces and Gardner and I happened to be sleeping in the same shack because I was fascinated with this guy and he was sitting there and he was getting drunk, but I looked forward to him, asking him questions. I was very careful about what I talked about. I might have been fast with a gun, but I didn't know how fast he was, but this guy was. As I looked at him he was. I was like the Louisville taking on the Nimitz. You know they were way. I was going to get through Gardner. I couldn't kill him with a .45, in my opinion, and I didn't want to anyway, but he was. He became hostile when he drank. By the way, we were up half the night. We hadn't been asleep very
Speaker 3:long. The firing up fortunately started in Fossett's camp. They hit the camp, which was a little ways away from where we were, which was a little away from where Boone was, and boy, everything broke in. All fell, broke in and everybody scrambled. Gardner came out of that place. He took the wall out practically, and I went out with him and we scrambled into the jungle and they just tore that place all to pieces. They killed probably eight or ten Americans and killed a bunch of Filipinos. Frank and I got out of there. This was Frank Gavay, frank Gavay, frank Gavay. Yeah, how do you spell his name? G-y-o-b-a-y.
Speaker 1:It's.
Speaker 3:Hungarian Kandori yeah, g-o-v-a-y, but it's Gavay, okay. And so Frank and I went north and we decided to try to get up to a west area in here. My thought was that if we did that, we'd have to get up here, we'd have to raise, yeah, unfortunately we didn't do that. So that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to get up Right, so that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to do that. So we got up this far and about the midway point to be based on the Florence-Woodsville-Griddle headquarters Well, that's later. Well, that's later, okay, we're not been here. Say, wait a minute. We decided we couldn't make it off because there was too much trouble.
Speaker 3:We came back over and went into the road right here which is near along the plain, all across this bridge. That could be the. That's probably a provincial boundary line at that point it's a provincial boundary line. That's also a rope through the moors. Okay, it's called a pass I can't think of the name of it right now Along the pole. Anyway, that's a real rugged thing through there, and we ambushed a bunch of Japanese in there a couple of times. But got over into Maroon. I thought if we can get down to here, there isn't anybody ever going to be in there. So that's what we did, and that's when my first coupling up with the Negritos how do you spell that, moron? M-o-r-o-n? M-o-r-o-n? It's down here, see, you see it there January 43?.
Speaker 1:January 43. Oh, I see it now.
Speaker 3:If you were going to pick a place on a map, wouldn't you think that'd be about the most desolate uninhabited place in the world? There's no road leading in there, right, there's nothing there, see.
Speaker 2:It's on the China.
Speaker 3:Sea and no road Right Now. If you figured you want to get, you've been in all these raids and you've gone under these bridges, you've been fired at, you've been blown out, you've been raided out, you've been sentenced to death by the hooks and you got out of that mess. And you've been in Vatan and you've been up the scramble in the mountains and all that and you almost died and you buried all these Americans with diseases. When you had a map, where would you pick to go? I would pick a spot by, like that, just to get as far away from the action as possible.
Speaker 3:That's what I want to see Peace, peace and quiet. There's heaven. So I said, frank, we're going to Maroon. Well, to get to Maroon, we had to go back across Monartip, which is the second highest point in the Philippines oh yes, is the second highest point in the Philippines, oh yes. And we got up into the beautiful, fantastic top mountains where we I for the first time saw these Negritos stripping rattan. How they were, you know, they were the custom of stripping these low pieces of rattan that they took down into the lowlands and sold for salt. It's recovered how quickly. One with their hands and this knife stripping this bubble into the rattan. Fantastic, agile and the cool of the mountain here in the tropics, 14 degrees north latitudes.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in to Risk and Resolve. See you next time.
