June/July 2002 - Philippine Defenders Main

16 — THE QUAN
Philippine Scouts’ Glory Days Recalled
Unit’s claim to fame include helping stall Japan’s invasion of the islands in the early days of WWII.
As Americans all over the world take
time to remember veterans — both past
and present — and their sacrifices for
freedom, John E. Olson will remember the
Philippine Scouts.
Olson, a retired U.S. Army colonel living
in San Antonio, has written two history
books and a novel based on his research
and experience as a Scout.
The Philippine Scouts were created in
1901 and existed only 50 years. But from
the group’s formation in the wake of the
Spanish-American War through its service
in the darkest days of World War II, the
little-known unit covered itself with glory.
During its half-century of existence,
three members of the Philippine Scouts
received the Medal of Honor, the nation’s
highest award for courage above and
beyond the call of duty.
Olson served in the Scouts’ 57th
Infantry Regiment, a unit with roots that
extended to Fort Sam Houston during
World War I and the Civil War battle of
Chickamauga in Georgia. Members of the
regiment, which helped hold the Japanese
at bay in the Philippines, were awarded
21 Distinguished Service Crosses and 68
Silver Stars.
Olson earned one of those Silver Stars
for helping set up a command post after
an artillery barrage. He also was among
the Philippines defenders who were captured
and forced to participate in the infamous
Bataan Death March. Only half of
the 12,000 Scouts in the service at the
start of World War II survived the conflict.
“I’m particularly proud of my service
with the Philippine Scouts,” says the 84year-old
Olson, who serves as the historian
of the Philippine Scouts Heritage
Society. “It was a great outfit.”
After the war, Congress quickly authorized
the enlistment of 50,000 Philippine
Scouts to serve as occupation forces in
Japan. Following the independence of the
Philippines in 1946, some of the original
scouts took advantage of an opportunity to
become American citizens and join other
units in the U.S. Army. Two years later,
most of the remaining Philippine Scouts
on duty were those in hospitals, suffering
from long-term illnesses.
The Philippine Scouts were created to
help quell an insurrection after Spanish
armed forces left the islands, which had
just become U.S. territory. Congress
authorized the enlistment of 5,000
Filipinos, who were divided into companies
of 100 men, each led by an American
officer.
“We had to pacify the Filipinos,” Olson
says. “In the Philippine Scouts, we used
their own citizens, their own relatives and
their own friends.”
Olson’s father served two tours with the
U.S. Army in the Philippines in the early
By DAVID UHLER, Express-News Staff Writer
1900s. The father passed along a love of
the country and its people to the son. After
Olson graduated from West Point in 1939,
he asked for and received a posting to the
Philippine Scouts as his first assignment.
Asia and the South pacific were already
in turmoil. Japan, lacking many natural
resources, had invaded Manchuria and
had its sights set on other targets. Over
the next two years, Olson participated in
annual military maneuvers that were a
dress rehearsal for an invasion that eventually
came. Under “War Plan Orange,”
the defenders of the Philippines would be
required to hold the invaders of for six
months, long enough for the U.S. pacific
Fleet to arrive with reinforcements.
The war games became reality on Dec.
7, 1941. Official word of the attack on
Pearl Harbor arrived in the Philippines
early in the morning of Dec. 8.
“By 8 a.m.,” Olson recalls, “we were combat-loaded
and ready to go to our positions.”
Japanese planes bombed an American
airfield the next day and troops landed on
the principal island, Luzon, a few days
later. On paper, the defenders of the
Philippines appeared to have the upper
hand. Besides the Philippine Scouts and
other U.S. Army units, they had the
Philippine Army, more than 120,000
strong. Most of those troops, however,
were equipped with old rifles from World
War I plus small-caliber machine guns:
they lacked mortars.
The defenders did the best they could.
The Japanese thought they would roll
over the islands in a few weeks. Instead,
the defenders of Bataan and Corregidor
didn’t surrender for five months, almost
achieving the objective of “War Plan
Orange.” Unfortunately, much of the
Pacific Fleet, instead of rushing to the
Philippines with reinforcements, was
lying on the bottom of Pearl Harbor.
After Bataan fell, the Japanese forced
about 70,000 American and Filipino
defenders to walk 65 miles to a prisoner of
war camp at the start of their captivity.
Many of the POWs were malnourished and
sick from malaria, dysentery and other
tropical diseases. Only 54,000 men survived
the march; between 7,000 and 10,000
died. The rest escaped into the jungle.
Olson, who didn’t get sick until after the
march, survived by filling his canteen
whenever he could and keeping out of
reach of the Japanese, who often bayoneted
or shot stragglers.
One soldier tried to take Olson’s West
Point class ring at bayonet point.
“I was one of the lucky ones,” says
Olson, who still has the well-worn gold
ring. “I was in one of the first groups on
the Death March.”
Another Philippine Scout, Menandro
Parazo, escaped after nine days on the
trail. A native Filipino, Parazo joined a
guerrilla unit and continued fighting. A
year later, the Japanese captured him
again and sent him to Fort Santiago, where
Parazo says the enemy tortured prisoners.
“Ninety-nine percent of the people never
came out alive,” says the 84-year-old Parazo,
who now lives in El Paso. “They make
you drink water, and they step on your
stomach. They burned my face with lighted
cigarettes, and they beat me up.”
Parazo escaped from Santiago after a
few months and rejoined the guerrillas.
When Gen. Douglas MacArthur and the
Americans returned to the Philippines in
early 1945, Parazo rejoined U.S. forces and
participated in the liberation of Manila. He
later received a direct commission to the
U.S. Army as second lieutenant. After duty
in Japan and the United States, Parazo
retired as a captain in 1971.
Olson spent most of the war in Japan.
In November 1942, Olson was transported
to Manila, where he and 1,500 other
American POWs boarded the Nagata
Maru, a freighter bound for Japan. Fifteen
men died during the 19-day journey.
Once again Olson was lucky. Many other
POWs transported later in the war were
forced to board “hell ships” and live for days
without food or water. Thousands died.
In Japan, Olson worked with other
POWs in a factory that produced steel
drums. They lived on rice and soup, mostly
turnips supplemented by an occasional
piece of meat, and dreamed about home.
For entertainment, the American prisoners
— many of whom had never cooked
a meal in their lives — often wrote and
exchanged recipes with each other, like a
bunch of kids trading baseball cards.
Caroline Burkhart, the daughter of a former
Philippine Scout, found dozens of the
handwritten recipes last year among the
wartime memorabilia left by her father.
Thomas F. Burkhart didn’t talk much
about his experiences during the war. He
died in 1972. Most of what his daughter
knows is from information she and her sister
have pieced together from journals he
kept during his years in captivity. He
earned a Silver Star for helping save a
Filipino sergeant who had been wounded.
Burkhart’s curiosity about her father’s
military past led her to San Antonio
recently for a convention of the American
Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, a
group of veterans that also includes some
former Philippine Scouts.
Burkhart, who lives in Baltimore, spent
several days sightseeing, attending seminars
about the war and talking to World
War II veterans.
“One little man I was sitting with downstairs
said, ‘If you’re a child of one of us,
you’re one of us,’ ” Burkhart recalled. “I
almost cried.”