Risk & Resolve
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Risk & Resolve
Henry Clay Conner's WWII Journey (Part 3 of 7): Guerrilla Life, Betrayal, and the Pygmy Allies of WWII
In this gripping episode, we continue Clay Conner’s harrowing World War II journey through the jungles of the Philippines. From dodging Japanese patrols and surviving against impossible odds to encountering pro-Japanese informants, life-or-death escapes, and building alliances with the elusive Pygmy Negritos, Clay’s story is a raw look at survival, loyalty, and the moral dilemmas of war.
Key Talking Points:
• Clay’s first encounters with the Pygmy Negritos in 1943
• Life in remote guerrilla hideouts and surviving Japanese raids
• The betrayal by Fred Al Vedra and the harsh realities of war-time survival
• Narrow escapes from Japanese patrols and life-or-death survival techniques
• Crossing Clark Field through 20,000 Japanese soldiers undetected
• The moral complexities of judging survival decisions in wartime
• Forming alliances with locals and earning trust in the mountains
• Stories of incredible bravery and selflessness from Filipinos who risked their lives
• The pivotal role of the Zambales Mountains and Mount Pinatubo in guerrilla operations
• How the Negritos later trained U.S. troops for Vietnam jungle 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 Risk and Resolve. I'm your co-host, ben Conner, along with Todd Hufford, and today we're doing the intro into part three of seven of my grandfather's war story, henry Clay Con Connor in the Philippines, about to be missing in action of what happened in Episode 2. So we're going to do an Episode 2 recap before we launch into Episode 3. But Episode 2 was launching in, so he fled into the jungles. He went straight north from Little Bagugio, which was where he was located, and he was instantly sick and he had malaria, dysentery, dinghy fever, and it was not good. He was left behind. He was by himself for five full days. Not a good outlook for trying to be a survivalist on your own. Probably not the way that you want to start.
Speaker 1:No, he also talked about having multiple different, that you can have multiple different kinds of malaria. Pretty early on talks about how the Philippine supporters would get just totally mowed down and decimated by the Japanese and that became an obvious problem, problematic. It prevented other Philippines from supporting them and it also also just prevented these guys from wanting to be helped by them because they cared about the Filipinos so much.
Speaker 2:Well, he mentioned that the word they used was delicato. The relationship between the philippines wanting to help the americans was delicate because it was more or less a death sentence. The japanese would make them pay it was the timeline.
Speaker 1:I'm still wrapping my head around some of it. We talk about how the initial bombing was around, that you know December 9th, timeframe, 11th, whatever 10th when Pearl Harbor was hit, and you just sort of have to remember that just because they bombed that day doesn't mean that the Japanese forces were ready to come down. I mean there was still a war on, so they didn't make it to Manila until quite a bit later. And he talks about he's laughing very jovial about the fact he said I was the last guy to leave Manila. And he talks about commandeering all these trucks and getting all these supplies and how for a while they were the best outfitted group in the bunch because they had kind of planned and taken the opportunity into their own hands.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought this episode was also well. Episode two was really a setting the stage kind of episode of the who, who is who? Um, kind of what are the conditions on the field now? Um, and you can hear them going through like literal maps, like they, they are physically going through maps on their end of the recording that we get to hear audibly of where things are located in batam um, or on, you know, in the peninsula of luzon, um, so that that was kind of interesting. I had to actually slow down the podcast to really listen to like what. So what did they say there? Um, but yeah, it was. It got very uh tactical um, but he, he introduced a lot of people, he introduced a lot of factions, if you will. Uh, one of the factions that he introduced, um, obviously he introduced, like, the filipino nationals of you know how they were engaged in the war, but he also introduced a, a faction called the Hucks, and he gave them the, the literal, like full name, which can't, I cannot repeat that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Not that it was bad, it's just a really long name that I don't even understand. But they were called the Hucks and the summary was is that they were an army of the people against the Japanese that kind of turned into a political organization. What did you take away from the description of the Hucks, todd?
Speaker 1:Well, I took away that it was kind of the first alliance that took place after if you think about December of 41, they got bombed. I checked my local Wikipedia to see when the official Bataan death march was. That was on. Wikipedia said April 9th through 17th. So you figure that's five months after the bombing. I don't really remember from his recordings him talking much about falling out of rank. But I remember from the book and some other writings that they were allowed to fall out of rank and do whatever they wanted. And you know, it's just, we just kind of slid right into I'm on my own, I'm in the jungle, I'm sick, I've got dinghy fever, and so the Hucks become this first sort of group that could be an alliance. But I think he said that was like in the December of 42 timeframe. So this is a year later. So they're fighting a war for five months. They fall out of rank but Tandeth March happens. He's running around.
Speaker 1:The Hucks appeared to be favorable to Americans. But he also mentioned he says the more I studied and learned Now you and I both know he wasn't hanging out at a library I wish I could say where did you study and where did you learn in the middle of this war. Because he says that the Hucks were all about. They were a Chinese agrarian movement and they were going to take the land and give it to the peasants. And he just says, matter of factly, this is nothing new, this is Marxian doctrine.
Speaker 1:And once he realized that and realized they were using the Americans to curry favor with the Filipinos since the Filipinos love the Americans the Hucks were saying look, we're taking care of the Americans that have been left behind, up until the point they massacred all of them. So he got himself in a situation where he before he was in this and he says he learned two different dialects of the language. And by learning the language they didn't know that he knew the language and so he picked up things that they didn't realize. He knew and was able to learn what they were doing. And there was a situation where he's in a bad situation. He pulls a gun on the leader and basically walks him out of this tent, doesn't say how far away from the tent, but lets him go. And he says after that they really respected him, I think, because he didn't kill him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought that was interesting. He really talked about in this episode how he practiced with his 45 and that became his buddy. Practiced with his 45 and that became his buddy, his unofficial you know, maybe I personified it a little too much, but like he became very good, uh, with his 45 and he actually got talking into, like that for a small guy, as he called himself, that he was a good athlete and so, uh, obviously that helps him navigate a jungle that probably allows him to be to move around like he did, as he describes. So that was that was. That was pretty interesting to hear him say that.
Speaker 2:I think we we failed to mention this, but when he was sick right out of the shoot and you know, was by himself for like basically his first five days, um, he talked about how he got sick and, um, you know, they immediately go up into the mountains, but because the mountains there's- no water up there, so they had to go down to get water and he mentioned like we need water but the water is laced or surrounded by dead bodies and animals that are eating off of these dead bodies and it's just totally contaminated.
Speaker 2:so they're drinking water that's contaminated with dead bodies and ergo getting sick picture he drew was devastating was just disturbing yeah, very disturbing, but just like it's survival, it just really led into what, what they were doing, and it was survival and it's like I gotta worry about today, like I can't I, I have to, I have to, uh, get water, um. So, um, you know, he he talked about just some other camps and some other guys that he, he ran into. So who were some of the guys, todd, that that were notable to you that he ran into? So who were some of the guys, todd, that were notable to you that he bumped into along the way in episode two?
Speaker 1:You start to hear these personalities and even in one situation he forgets a couple of the guys' names, but he knows what happens to them and that they didn't. They got shot or killed later in the war. But the two that he spent a little bit more time with was this guy named Boone and Gardner, and one of them was just a beast of a man and he kind of talks about different stories around him and how they were camped out near a place called Fawcett's Camp. Now Fawcett appears to be a World War I, maybe American hangover, who is married and has married to a Filipino woman, has 10 kids.
Speaker 1:So this is not Fawcett, is not a World War II military guy, and if you know your history, there's a long history of the US and the Philippines back into World War I, and so this guy's got an established camp and Boone and your grandfather are camped out in some hut of some sort, somewhat some distance away from the camp and he explains that the night that the whole thing broke loose and the Japanese totally devastated that camp and they were far enough away from the camp that they were able to avoid capture and being killed. And you could tell in the interview your grandfather's talking to a guy and looking at a map and they'll look over here and look over there. And he starts to joke and he says you know, when you're being chased like this, where would you go? Look at this map, when would you want to go? And he points to this area where there's just nothing. He says we want to go there. That's where peace, and quiet and tranquility are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that reminded me. So where he went to was a place called Moron, which is spelled Moron, m-o-r-o-n. But him and Frank went there for rest and I just got this really vivid picture of En Gedi in Israel when I had a chance to visit the holy land, and getty was an area where david fled the pursuit of saul, king saul, who was trying to kill him. I just got this vivid picture of, like he's going to this place in the philippines and it is such a similar situation of what david did, uh, in fleeing, uh, king saul. Um, so just really fascinating.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, that's that's where episode two ends and that's where we get into episode uh, three. Um, but before that ends, a couple of things that stood out to me. Is you know one? He actually, since there was a bounty on his head, he ended up changing his name to Sam White and he starts laughing when he says it because he was Uncle Sam the White man, so Sam White, uncle Sam the White man, so Sam White. And that was just to protect himself from a troop of 300 Japanese that were looking for him to kill him.
Speaker 1:They had created a special infantry, if you will, of 300 men, of Japanese soldiers that were simply going out to hunt, particularly the American girl, of forces that were left behind, but they had certain names of people they were looking for.
Speaker 2:And he says that's when I stopped using the name Connor, yeah, and he stopped started wearing different clothes and shoes, yeah. So that was really fascinating. And he also made a comment towards the end. He goes. You know, these guys were doing this and that, talking about Boone and Gardner and all these other guys, and he goes. And then there's me, just a dummy like me, looking for an adventure. And again he brought up the word adventure and I think that that is. We haven't got through all the episodes yet, but it seems to be some connective tissue there of just what made his experience his experience is that he wasn't. He wasn't a victim, he was on, he was.
Speaker 1:he was on an adventure, yeah he's like 15 months in, so early december of 41, faucet's camp gets raided. He, he says it was on february 22nd. I remember that because it was washington's birthday. I'm trying to figure out how you remember what day it is. He must've had some sort of system to keep track. But you're 15 months in. And he finally says I'm tired of putting my Filipino friends at risk. I'm tired of being chased. I got to go somewhere deeper, higher, further away from this action. And that's where he ends it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he ends it with going to Moran, which is maybe the En Gedi of the Philippines, and right at the end of the episode he goes and he introduces the Negritos, which we know from his story was a really important group for him, maybe important for each other, but they really saved his life. So I'm really excited to dig into part three. So enjoy everyone. Part three of Clay Conner's war story.
Speaker 3:Pygmy Negritos my first contact.
Speaker 3:Your first contact with him, and this will be in January of 33. I was stressed have you ever met a pygmy in his own environment? Not many people have. No, not many people have. And both they got to remember the vintage of the year, the year that we're talking about. And I wrote to him where, at 40, through me, 80 percent I remember nothing about tribal custom or their religion or their superstitions. And at this point I wasn't. I didn't have the time to learn, but I was totally fascinated by them, just intrigued. I wanted to know everything, but they were very distant. They weren't hostile but they were distant and they weren't hostile, but they were distant. And I noticed, I learned that they did not give me honest information. They told me that everything was great in Maroon. Well, everything wasn't great in Maroon, because Maroon had also been a place where the Japanese decided to put their soldiers when they wanted to give them the rest. This is our spot for the Japanese.
Speaker 3:This is where they bring them in by boat to Maroon to get them away from everything when they're sick and everything else, and set up a headquarters there. And the place was loaded with jabs. I couldn't have picked a worse spot and I was in no place and I was in no way to get out, except how I came in around by boat. There's no other way to get out of this godforsaken area, although it's beautiful, absolutely fantastic. I was right about the train and everything, but you got in that boat tour.
Speaker 2:No, I came to the moon.
Speaker 3:So you did come all the way, but you had to go back over the mountain. Oh, no way you're going to do that. If you go back over the moon, where are you? You're back where you started. Well, you wouldn't have left there in the beginning, unless you were in big trouble, right, because of that way they lived.
Speaker 3:Yeah plus the fact they were wiping out all those cities over there looking for you, uh-huh. So anyway, we stayed there two or three days and we had to get out. There was only one way to go and that was north. So we had to go by boat and the Filipinos rigged up this and I didn't know what they were doing. At this point I don't know if they're selling us out or not, but they rigged up this big bunk and that's an outrigger type thing and they took us out of the chair machine along the coast.
Speaker 3:I never got so seasick in my whole life. There was, a storm came up and I'm in an outrigger and we're not that far out, or in the break, so to speak, in there and they start getting sick. Well, they never got seasick, but I was getting real sick. And all of a sudden I see these lights going on, these fires building up, with fires building up, being signals to me. They meet shameless. So I said we're brewing a shore north. No, you can't do that. You ain't never find a way. They go on the shore on the sugar. No, you're not. And there were two fellow people. They said we're really, really, you ain't got 30 seconds. Out comes the gun Boy. We were on the shore right now. That was our settler, that was our settler.
Speaker 3:So all of a sudden they put us to share and they were gone because they knew that the signals were being set by the very Japanese Filipinos to claim the hits. There weren't too many of them, but that was a bad area, oh boy. So we got Marisendo, along with Paul, which was a Japanese Billy's Primo base American naval. They'd taken over. But we found former Americans, inland American former. We found Filipinos who were formerly in the United States Navy, live in Malaripo. They had a solar family out to protect. How great. You finally got to a good area after that. But we had good communications. They spoke fluent English. They were very patriotic with the Americans. They put us up here two weeks but said we had the clear round, Plus the fact that the Americans had one American who was from Newark, New Jersey. I had one American who was from Newark, New Jersey. Fred Alvidrez, had been released from San Fernando prison camp and had been brought to and on the cold to find us. They had traced us, see, and he was released and given certain privileges in order to turn us in. And so all of a sudden he shows up in a, like we did, and he comes ashore and we're communicating. He's from Norvington, which is next door. It's kind of like Grand Ripple in Indianapolis or St Paul, Minneapolis, I don't know how that goes. The next.
Speaker 3:I had a new feeling about this bird. I just thought there was something wrong. He wasn't saying things that, but he was quick and he was rough. He was a street fighter. I mean, I recognized him because I was, you know, I grew up in the area. He was a good street fighter, I could tell. But there was something wrong. You, I grew up in the area and when it was a bit street-trigger I could tell but there was something wrong. You don't show up like that. Where'd he been all this time? Never hooned up? How could he be on three? Where'd he been? Where'd he come from? You don't come out of the bush. I mean, everybody knows where everybody is. See, it's a big island, but you know what's going on Right by this time. You better if you're going to stay alive.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:So I went and I told these Filipinos. I said you better take off and we'll come leave it. Now, this was just in three hours after he got there and all of a sudden, while we're doing this, heaven was meeting and we thought he'd disappear and we took off. Right now. I've been to the top of the mountain, I've come back up through here. You would run up and we would run up the pass into the mountains. And you know, we went about. No, we weren't over. Okay, we went over a mile away and they just tore that town all apart.
Speaker 3:Oh boy, well, when in the world would he do that? I mean, see, american isn't he? The name itself is there, or what? Taurus Ferdowit Veedrus. He was American. I mean, his heritage was Mexican, but he wasn't. He'd take care of Ferdowit Veedrus. You don't know what happened to him. No, they killed him. Oh, the Japanese killed him. The Japanese killed him before the Americans came back. Oh boy, yeah, and he was a jubilus, he was going to sell out to Americans. No, really, just doing whatever it was, survive himself. He might have been brainwashed or tortured or something.
Speaker 3:Well yeah, he was tortured but he was surviving too and that was his way of surviving. He's doing his thing, shane, he was keeping alive too, but he was caught in the circumstance. I was in the circumstance. I was in the circumstance. I mean, I wouldn't have killed Fred, no matter what. Fine, even if I had known definitely what he was doing, I wouldn't have killed him, he wouldn't have killed me. See, he was doing what he was doing, I was doing what I was doing. He was trying to keep alive by selling information or giving any time.
Speaker 3:You make judgment after a ruler of this kind and we'll go back and you say if I had been in that circumstance I wouldn't have done that. It's a bunch of stuff you'd have heard the hell you do. Or save your life. You didn't. And not only that, it isn't like you have to make. You make that decision when you eat steak and potatoes and hot granted biscuits and you lived in American stuff. You don't live those decisions with that kind of chemistry. You make the decisions after months of hardships, isolation, cut off from your own family and your country. You cannot rule upon yourself a judgment after the fact about a person in that circumstance and say he should not have. You can't say what he did was wrong, because the rules.
Speaker 3:You don't know the chemistry, you don't remember anything. But that was probably the exception, though, wouldn't you say? There were probably about 20 or 30 that did that. Little survived it.
Speaker 3:But you get into the prisoners and you hear the prisoner stories and they don't tell half the damn stories about what they did to each other to survive. They stole each other's food, they quoted each other in order to get favors. That's a damn mission. It's a risk. You've ever heard of the one on the air that they were taking blood. They didn't have vampires there. You just hear all kinds of terrible things.
Speaker 3:Well, they don't want to tell those stories and you can't blame them because nothing's going to come out of it. That's rational or reasonable. You have to deal with a man and the environment and the chemistry and the things. It's not a reasonable circumstance in which you can make a reasonable judgment, and none of us at this point in time could ever possibly make judgment on any of those people who were involved in that experience. You're only looking at it in the eyes of a person years away. That's a good point to make. Very, very good. I'm pretty sure that you're bringing that up. So you pursued the North. This is January 6th. I think I'm getting my timing off because the road says February 22nd 53. It looks like you're coming back up across the road. That's exactly what we did, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I think the raid may have taken place after this business with the Strad Oliveris Alvindris.
Speaker 2:Alvindris, yeah, I think that's probably true.
Speaker 3:In other words, when we went down through there after the southern raid over there, they came up and then it was the Boone's deal and then we fled north. I was thinking that's how it happened, right, I'm glad I put this down. Then we went up here and see where we made our mistake, where we went north. We were going to this objective up to the near because we thought, well, if that isn't any good, these mountains up here with the Inga Roads, they're the most aggressive and probably the most talented of all Filipinos. They do a lot of weaving, live in the mountains, they have a fine culture, they have a lot of good religious background and the Inga Ro religious were very industrious people. They were the most industrious. You've seen these pictures of the kind of on the sides of the mountains where they build these farms, where the irrigation goes from one level to another.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's, very elaborate.
Speaker 3:Yes, they're terrorists. That's what the Egorics did see. Oh, marvelous. So, anyway, we're going to. That was your objective. We got into Gaddafi territory up here, which surrounds the Filipinos that were brought in with pro-Japanese around Cabana Tawan. Now Cabana Tawan is the primary prison camp of the Americans. It was named after the town of Cabana Chihuahua and the Galapagos were brought in to live around Cabana Chihuahua.
Speaker 3:You see that on the area near the X, you see Rapace, just to the lower right of the X mark. Yes, sir, and around Rapace, yeah, sir. And down to Posh, yeah, that's for Posh. And when we come over and you see, you come down and see Cabana Jawan is in that area. I can't find it. That's where it is. It's over there. You want to cut it off? No, okay, so to a prison camp at Cabana Teran, which would be northeast of where you had been at the time of that raid, where they hid Fosser Camp and Boone's Sphere. So that's where the main American prison camp was located. Yeah, then, it's almost directly north of Manila. That's right, and that was really the goal.
Speaker 3:On the Bataan Death March, they marched no, they marched to O'Donnell. O'donnell, they marched to San Fernando, which is right below A and Pampango on the bay. See Down here. Oh yes, then they took them by cruff and they took the left way. See Down here. Oh yes, then they took him by truck and he took the left way. See Where's North to you. See where Congolese is, congolese Angeles, right here in Clarkfield. Yes, then you go north up to O'Donnell Camp O'Donnell, that's where the first camp was. It's north of, is it your cop buses? Newmont North Cop Bus, the cop bus, oh, it's long ago, okay.
Speaker 3:You see, Bam Bam over at the Bonneville East. Yeah, bam Bam cop bus, I mean cop buses, what's that? Old Donald, that's Old Donald. Okay, this was a very salient army camp, back in the middle of the movers. Okay, that's where 26,000 people died, right there at that place, right there At O'Donnell. Okay, I'll circle that. Okay, I see where it is. Because of O'Donnell 26,000, the place was polluted, they couldn't even bury him, so they cleared him out and took him over to Camp Anna to work, because there was absolutely no place to put them there of Camp O'Donnell, and 26,000 died, 26,000. Let Americans, americans and Filipinos and Filipinos there. I guess that's one of the real horrifying cases in the entire.
Speaker 3:Yeah you've got to get all that from the guys that were there. But I can tell you about it because I was very close by and knew what was going on and I had some of the escapees from that thing join me and all that kind of thing. But you knew, mr, escapees from that thing joined me and all that kind of thing. Well, there were some escapees that got out of the Valdonald and just linked up with you, just a few, and then they began to release a few Filipinos and they were dead to bury and they weren't, and they nursed back to life Philippine scouts. They joined me Later on, a year later, yeah, after they were nursed back.
Speaker 3:But anyway, I'm over there trying to get north and I've got great respect for Cabana Tawana. I don't want to get near Cabana Tawana. I'm smart enough. We got the information. We've been keyed in by the Filipinas. We know that's a hot area, so we're not even going to get close. You see how much room we gave it. We gave it a wide berth. We gave it a wide berth. So we're going in Nueva Escalia, up near the Eagle Rooms, north Way, north Way up there, north Way opposite Ling Island Gulf, north Way, north Way up there north Way opposite Ling Island Gulf, but we're about as far as Tar, as La Paz, and we suffered, in two weeks' time, two raids on the part of the Japanese hitting us, and one in La Cabe and the other in La Paz. And how we ever got out of that thing is it's a long.
Speaker 3:This was March 15th of 43. Yeah, around the LePaz area, and April 1st, and April 1st also Right April Fool's Day. I can't make out that other town, I assume L-A-P-A-Z, but that's LePaz, that's LePaz. And there was another LeCobb, lecobb, la Cobb. It was a video. Was that located near La Cobb? Yeah, la Cobb is. I see where you went. I see La La Cobb. I'm trying. I forgot where Exactly. There was an X near the yeah, where La yeah. Well, laura was where we were hit, okay, and now we were in the Cobb also. Remember, joe, where the Cobb was In the first of the Cobb. When did you find it? April Fool's Day, yeah, that'd be the Cobb, so it'd be right up there. So the Japanese got some prior information that you were in the area and then they went up there. Every place we went they knew about there was some advanced intelligence again by that 10 or 5 percent of filipinos are informing them about you're at war we're in the cabana juan area, silly, yeah.
Speaker 3:oh, I'll tell you where to come see it first. Hell, in the south east, about an inch l-i-c-a-b. Yeah, all in the city. See that, all the city. We'll put first and if I make that up, we're. Cobb is southeast. Where's April 1st? See it on this one, is it there? Won't see it on this one. I see March. Where you see the X yes Morning.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Was there another X worth of that? Really one, oh yes, here. Or X worth of that. Lillipin oh yes, here's something. Now that Lillipin has come down an inch or a half inch southeast, okay, I see it now. Lecom yeah, I see it now. L-i-c-a-b, I'm not going to tell you that, so don't forget it. L-i-c-a-b, that's what it is. With it, frederick Goins says nothing could be rougher than LeCobb. You're a fine joker Boy. I'll tell you Well, how many Jack, 300 300 against how many?
Speaker 2:How?
Speaker 3:many did you have on your side About five. Five of us were trying to get through there. We picked them up. We picked them up after all this deer at Boone's camp and Fawcett's camp. We escaped them up after all this deer at Boone's camp and Fossett's camp, and we skived out there and five of us met up and we were trying to get north. They joined up with me. So, as a result, we got hit pretty hard and we were running pretty hard and fortunately blew ourselves through part of their troops. They were all that well trained and they were just true news Five of you against 300 Japanese soldiers. Yeah, coming in. They were coming in all the way from three directions. We took the direction we were covering out. We didn't know that. We were fortunate. We ran into one side. We ran into one side, we ran into the other side but see, the part that left Durfden was solid bamboo and thicket and the river and we went through across this narrow piece of the river and through the thicket and got out and they started mortars, machine guns. I don't know where we got through that, but we were all scattered. I think the worst part of it was after about an hour of running. I got into him. I was all by myself.
Speaker 3:At this point I don't know what happened to the other guys. I had gone back to get two of them out of these ditches, pull them out while the machine gun fires going on. They were definitely lost unless somebody went back and got them. But I was with the first two. Then we got each other out, then we took off and here they come and they got stuck. They couldn't get out, too high and muddy, slippery bank. So I got the two out. Then we started going. Then we split up and I got onto this high coogan grass, which is eight-seater, laying seed hole Cougan seed. Yeah, it's very sharp grass, it's got you, I mean and it's really heavy. So anyway, it grows on the edge of banks and stuff like that. So I got onto thisootenai grass and started digging. I knew I was in trouble because I knew I'd flush me out. So I started digging into this and there was kind of muddy and I dove down under the mud and I started to mud back on my body and I took a reed and put it in the mulch and left it in some prairie debris.
Speaker 3:You already picked up some jungle techniques, but there's one about how to survive. Oh yeah, oh. So anyway, it's really a couple of the half-track store. Who's first and lightened the kugelwit so he could burn it. It didn't burn too easy, but they kept at it. They got out of the metal to start burning this coven off and the death tractor coming back and forth.
Speaker 3:Those clowns get every person. They're going to run right over, see, and they must have come around six or seven too. That's a lot. What am I going to do? I mean, I could do it and I was there all day long and it must have been a quarter and 15 degrees. I don't know what it was, but anyway. Then I was baked in there and Harrison, this rate of about 6 o'clock in the morning and 6 o'clock in the morning turned out there all the wrong thing. You know what I call it? Misshawzy, with the malaria and dysentery. And when they're all baked in the red and burning, roving me and all that code Shh, I get out of there and I look to the river there. I'm going to show them the octagonal water. They were growing. At that point they thought they'd done a job. Really. They thought it wasn't. They didn't think you were in there. No, nobody could live by law.
Speaker 2:It's just 12 hours and then the other fellows, the other ones.
Speaker 3:those guys all got rescued by the Filipinos. In other words, they ran into areas where the Filipinos conducted a windage, some kind of hiding, Some kind of hiding, but you were the only one that got kind of left behind. I got caught. Well, I went back after these other two corals and they happened to pick the right direction to escape. See, you were left behind.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was, I was standing there firing at these guys with machine guns, and all with a .45 automatically. You know you've got to be stupid, but that, believe it or not, they kept it from COVID after us. Well, that slowed them up by you being in there. They didn't try to chase after the others, it didn't make any sense. That's what they were. That's what they were, but it was a bad experience.
Speaker 3:I finally caught up with my friend Fred Gervais about must have been about 7 o'clock that night and he was so glad to see me and all this that I was dead. Yes, and I remember I was quite a reunion, but once you left two days in a row, so about a week later, march 15th and April 1st, we almost had the identical pattern you get, only this time we got in with the Hucks again. I missed this in April 1st.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, it was your friends, the Hucks. Yeah, we were right over the Hucks. They were defending an area over there from the Japanese. The Japanese quit following us. I don't know if they knew. The Huck's had a barricade set up to run. We were in the Huck's, but this time the guys.
Speaker 3:They said this one Huck leader. He was really pro-American, in fact the Huck's killed him. He was a college graduate. He was Julian Paul. He was one of my old buddies. How's his last name spelled Julian Paul? I mean, he was a rumor of buddies. How's his last name spelled Julian Paul? P-a-l-a-d.
Speaker 3:He was former chief of police of the road of the towns. He wouldn't work with the Japanese in Ireland and he was just a real adventure type. He was a perjurvia type, well-educated Well, I don't know about perjurvia a little educated, but anyway, this guy was well educated and he was a very good pitcher. But he was a lot of fun. If you didn't know, he was putting you on, you were a little trope and Paul. We ran into Paul and Paul was later accused, as some of the Americans were, of betraying their hubs and and was sure that's unfortunate, very unfortunate. It was really great.
Speaker 3:I love Jerry Ode. He taught me a lot of things. He taught me a lot of things about guerrilla tactics. He taught me a lot of things about the Philippines and Filipino. He taught me a lot of things about the history of the Philippines, the agrarian movement, in a logical fashion, not a bitter, rather like the argument of the ruler to bring relevant to the liver, which is going to solve all the problems through humility and peace. When a regular learner runs over the river to lines, it was ridiculous.
Speaker 3:And when we're opposite, where everybody is, it was well, the caretaker. If you don't care, you go on your side. That's not true. And all of a sudden, paulette was the kind of way you could sit down and really talk to him about the issues. Okay, so you worked up to them for probably just a brief period of time, right? And this is all April. About two or three days, two or three days Now. Time right, and this is our April about two or three days, two or three days Now. Had you organized the good car Pigment Negritos at this point. Yet we had to leave.
Speaker 3:Paula was in trouble. He was in trouble with everything. He was in the wrong area for one thing, and his would be a good book to write A good story. Because here is a real, well-educated Filipino that's pro-American and has his head screwed on straight and knows his story the Valrots grew up on both sides and has his country of heart. He was cured by his own people because he wasn't going along with the communist line. He grew up with the great movement. He grew up with the communist line. He moved it, he went up to the pale-mute and swore and he said that he was the difference.
Speaker 3:He said the difference, he knew the difference. And I came. Well, anyway, we left and Paul told us we had to get out of there and he told us we'd better get back to New England. He told us to grow in the Zambalans. This is Zambalans, that's what he said. That's what he said. And Prahlad said the Zambalans will run to Tuba, which is the highest thing. And then Barad starts and talks to you. He says, even though there's 20,000 Japanese troops, he says they can't get rest. And to Ruben I'm trying to blink this up again because I don't see these glistening on the map Well, the Zambalis, the Pelletubba's, the highest point directly west of the Liguruma headquarters. Oh, directly west of the.
Speaker 2:Liguruma headquarters yeah, about a half inch or an inch.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, you see, bell and Pelletubba, that's the highest point. That's the highest point. It's where these wines converge, right there. Oh, yes, I see it now. I'll mark that on the map Map. Go Pinatuba 2-I-N-A-2-B-A. Go Pinatuba. I marked that also.
Speaker 3:Okay, beautiful culture, large mahogany, giant firings, fantastic jungle grounds. Giant firings, fantastic jungle grounds. We were in Silver, we were in the area. We had to go right through Clark Field, right through 20,000 Japanese there at Statenburg, which they took over, clark Field. Did you see that Clark Field is the largest airbase in the area right now? But here's Statenburg right here, just west of that, the part of that. Clark Field is the largest airbase in the area right now, but here's Fort Statenburg, right here, just west of that, the part of that is Clark Field. Oh, I see, okay, so that's the largest installation in the area airbase right now. That's where everybody that went to Vietnam went through Clark. I mean, yes, everybody that went to Vietnam and I didn't know this until 1968, was trained for general survivor by the pygmy labrinos that I organized. Their children and some of the old timers that I organized in World War II trained the Vietnamese on what they called the survival program. Is that right? That's amazing, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's the story. That's not at all known. Oh no, nobody knows that.
Speaker 3:But see, I was told this by the general at Clark when I went back in 68 was documented in this one of the Clarkfield Air Course release. I think you got a copy of it, okay, see, well, anyway, I'm going to click on it. We had to go right through there. We couldn't get across. We went to the Bam Bam River. We couldn't get back anywhere back across the Bam Bam River except at Clark Field to go south. See, we're north Now, if you're here, there's 20,000 Japanese at Clark Field in Statenburg, right.
Speaker 3:Here's the main road, and this is all heavily Japanese. And we're here. How are you going to get down here, out of here, unless you go across here? When are you going to cross the Bam Bam River? Well, you can't cross the Bam Bam River, so you've got to go right through the camp to get across the Bam Bam River in order to get south into this area, because there's nothing up here but Camp Redobble and all the Japanese emplacements, right, right.
Speaker 2:So you've, got to go south.
Speaker 3:Well, you can't get south Unless you go right through or down that main road. Well, you can't go down the main road and you can't go east of the main road. So what are we doing? We go through the west part of Clark Field, right At night, I hope About midway and there they are. There they are. There were about 15 of us Japanese, filipinos and Americans and we were just kind of spread out, just taking our time going out there, trying to make no noise, just acted like people in there. Oh, they're right, incredible 20,000 Japanese. 20,000 Japanese. Yeah, I'm telling you if I think back on that.
Speaker 3:That's ridiculous, but that's exactly what we did. It was a miraculous no comment. Well, anyway, we got a big kick out of it. After some of it, let me tell you, every breath was in eternity, for we went through that. That must have been a while, and it was like a year, as we were on the frost there through those urban areas.
Speaker 3:And then we went back toward the dam and we had to cross the river. At the dam there wasn't any other way to cross this river. But we had to cross the dam, which is guarded. See. Well, how did you get across it? Well, they just weren't paying attention. So we're going to go. We went the other way, we go Gauge it through the river, oh, and they all got across and nobody was paying any attention. Nobody paid. Thank goodness If it happened. We got hit the next morning. They're paying attention. Goodness If that happened, we got hit the next morning. They're paying attention. We could only listen for it. You could just stay watching and look and you could just do so much.
Speaker 3:We found an on-evacuate Japanese temporary deal on the river, on the south side of the river, and we slept there. Then we got on. We were leaving there when they machined that thing coming in there after us. They got the message somehow and we just took off back to the jungle. We made our retreat down to Bonnebotte. That's where we met the most poor American people. Those people are liless people. Killers are so happy. In fact, I brought an American to this country. He lives here in Minneapolis. His name is Dermot Credo Lamonia. He worked in the state government. Oh, he works down there at St Adamsville. Yeah, and I brought him to this country. His father was the burial lieutenant of Bonneville. Have you seen Bonneville down there? That's true, bonneville off there, it's high and late. You see, if you come around south of Statsenburg and Clark, you see Angel Lake. Oh, yes, angel Lake.
Speaker 2:And you know yes.
Speaker 3:Lake that goes southwest.
Speaker 2:Do you see?
Speaker 3:that? Yes, I saw that. Now, when we get down, where you come to Porag yes, I see Porag Go back up halfway and then to your left and you'll see a little circle from where we're in Bonneville. That's Bonneville right here. That was our headquarters, that was our contact with civilization. And then on, okay, the rest of the war, the rest of the war that was.
Speaker 3:And there were two families the Lamar-Malon family and Mrs Hardeen, h-a-r-d-e-i-n. She was a Filipino woman After the First World War, married American Hmm, soldier, was it H-A-R-D-I-N-G or just D-R-D-I-N? H-a-r-d-i-n-d-i-n. Mrs Harding married an American and they had about six or seven children. He died, married an American and they had about six or seven children. He died there. She married a ton of people and she you wouldn't believe what that woman did Going into Japanese occupied towns around and dialing the market in a brazen way, and the people had to know she was loved by herself and the rumor out was collecting money and all kinds of stuff in order to give Mrs Harding and everything else. And finally the whole place got hit. A couple of Americans got killed and we had to go back in the mountains and then she couldn't make it. She wrote too late and we had to go around back in the mountains and then she couldn't make it. She rode touring. She'd come through the mountains in the rainy season carrying this big basket on her head.
Speaker 3:You know a very sturdy drawing. I call it tapas dress. And she was a heavy set Little woman with brown skin, beautiful face. She had the most beautiful face. She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. But I was her son. She was the mercilessly wonderful person. They wouldn't do it.
Speaker 3:My mother and she heard me tell about this. After the law, my mother couldn't go to the police office often enough to send out all the things. She didn't survive the war then, yeah, and then she died later. But my mother must have sent her out of crud of stuff she collected from her friends and organized the US Airwaves Guard. She must have sent that woman to town. She knew that woman like she was her own mother, because she would tell her shit. That's it. Extraordinary woman, extraordinary. Well, in this whole story and this whole event where you're filled with extraordinary people and you just never forget Democrito, of course. How do you spell his name? D-e-m-o-c-r-i-t-o, democrito. He goes by Dick Dick Lamond, l-u-m-a-n, l-a-n. Lamond Lamond. I have to check him out through the staff directory sometime. L-u-m-a-n. L-a-n. Amon Marn. I had to check him out to the staff directory sometime Arusha Wood yeah.
Speaker 3:He's an intelligence group, a state government. You know what I mean. Red Wood, of course, was on the tan, served with me. We served together in communications. Oh, I didn't know that he became state governor, you know. So I worked with him to get the job. I took the money, that's right. Brett actually got the job and I got him in the country and they're a very deserving person to. Oh yeah, very good, he brought his wife's in and his children and they know all the condition with you those were lovely wives.
Speaker 3:so the area that was your headquarters and this is where we're talking about a better date, this thing is is uh, where would that be? Uh, that big eggs?
Speaker 3:well back above it, that's where we're sailing one of the back of the mountains, about five miles west of Clark Field, because the Japanese cleaned out the area looking for us, mm-hmm, okay, I'm just trying to locate this. Well, it's the main headquarters. It's where our headquarters are in Linton Beach. Oh yeah, gorilla, the headquarters. That's where our headquarters are in Linton Beach. Oh yeah, guerrilla, the headquarters. That's where we were until the Americans returned. Okay, we worked out that general area. We weren't in any one spot, but we were on both sides of the Bam Bam River and we were in one mountain and then another, and that's where I organized the Pilgrim's Medi-Geritos, and that's where Sergeant Bottle brought the 26th Calvary flag and that's where we raised the flag in the morning and we taught them manual lines and we shot the fire.
Speaker 3:This all comes much later, after all these other dramatic things. So what would be the date that you first arrived in that particular area? Then I don't see a bound, no, it's not dated, but I just thought, well, I'd say, well, let's see. If this is April 1st, I would say by, probably about the 2nd of April. We were back in there by June. May or June. We did it by degrees. Or July, okay, july maybe of 43. Yeah, possibly, and then until the actual February of 45. February of 45. Now, how did you actually? You didn't speak the language Did the Filipinos do the traceti to get these pygmies organized?
Speaker 3:Some of the originally spoke some Tagalog, but I was a kind of an oddity. I went blind back there as a result of falling when the river and, uh, what I did was, uh, I realized we were kind of in a mess because the monologue was bringing us very little food and I know we couldn't exist on this for long because the burden was too much for him to come that far back in the bones very often. And there were three of us Bob, mayhew and Frank of A and me, and the room was for our surgeons. How was his name spelled? L-a-r-l-a-g, a-u. He's where, in Texas, I think. Okay, he's turned alive. I'm not sure if he's in Texas, but I think so. Anyway, I'm going to go back there for a while and I remember something had to happen. I decided I was going back to meet the Negritos. I'm out, I am.
Speaker 3:I had to hit contact with two of these more aggressive nucleotides called Neural and Tito, two I-T-O-R-E-U-R-A-L-E-A-U, something like that. But we had a last stage. Neural and Tito came in there and I began to talk to them and I spoke fairly well in Tagalog and they spoke some Tagalog and I began to and I have some paper in the Benson that I have gotten from Yosora Bima's books. At this point they have any books that during some of the times we were hiding out, I ran into many by and such as I've been doing versus Shakespearean, fulber Kohl, a believer around Emerson Thoreau. Some of these vines were a collect of vines because I looked for them in leather bindies and I went into some of those areas and conducted them for five or six days, or a week to two weeks, through a marriage. Take four other vines and take two vines, three v them there, and take one of the vines and take two vines or three vines and then send them back. So I had a lot of reading time. I did a lot of reading.
Speaker 3:By the way, I had some pencil and paper maps that I collected at Kerr, oregon, and I wrote down the genetics of what they would say in translation when I made up a speech and I decided to go back and I wanted to talk with the ethnic leaders, so I had the speech all written around him with some others and I went back and they, they all spoke down around the fire show and they were all facing the woods and they were all independent. And here I am back there and they'd been known to kill all white men and they'll impact their no-good boy, including Goodwood and Bob Miller you wouldn't go. And Bob man you wouldn't go, and most of your nuts man Goodbye, terry. But I was going to have. But when I went to LA and I thought I was a great adventurist and I had this other experience previously where the river was as crazy, but I thought there were more of us Primitive Aboriginals and I've read much of the history of this town and those were the aborigines they actually came from. Nobody really knows Micronesia or something. So I got back there and they staged me as I wanted to talk to. So I read my speech that I'm an American.
Speaker 3:The Americans are going to come back and liberate the food. Don't kill him. These are abitionally gentle people that have never seen a white man in their life and it was totally. It's like talking to an Eskimo about a refrigerator. It was nothing.
Speaker 3:Why are you going to liberate a person who's already liberated? See, well, they'd see him in the airplane overhead. They knew something. They'd heard the bombs drop down there and they knew that things weren't right in the lowlands and they knew something about. The Japanese made some raids on the mountains and they set up these big traps which were made out of band and would cut you up in a minute. You'd bring your step on the right side of your hips and hang you up when you're dead, but a little truck can throw you in the air and throw you on a bunch of spikes. So they had set up their own defenses. So they knew there were problems, but they didn't need to be liberated. They were already liberated. But anyway, they all started lashing and remember we're sitting there. They didn't know what I was talking about. They didn't. They didn't know what I was. They thought I was funny. But the funny part to them was that I was saying words that they understood.
Speaker 3:I was the first intruder that ever came into their tribes and tried to communicate at their level. With their words, they adopted me right away.
Speaker 3:Crucial, I was their man, not only that I picked a subject which made sense to them. I had detected that their big problem was salt, because it was mine. We must show men's that would give the lowlands. Now, they had wild animals. They had banana leaves which were keyed in and converted into wrapping material, and they had bamboo and they had wild bananas. And they had rice moved rice out of the mountains. They had good trading material. They had rattan. Those were their show, but they were being snookered out of a lot of valuable stuff for nothing. And we were with Speech Grocery. When I put the light He'd get it short and lit. Here comes the scrounger back in, right, right, I can get you all sold, boy. That made you real popular. Well, they didn't believe it, but they liked it. Did I do what you said? So they let me live and they adopted me. I had no question about it. They let me live, but they adopted me and wonderful to me. Plus, they tried to put Gerald call me his brother. Now you're neither a brother or you're dead.
Speaker 2:I can't?
Speaker 3:I started running out of labor. You're not here for me, I, you're dead. I'm here. I saw it out there. You're not here for me, I'm here, I'm welcome. I'm welcome, brother. The ride became as I cried out, and when I became a journalist, I was you.
