Jan Feb '09 Saber.indd - First Cavalry Division Association

Page 23SANTO TOMAS RAID by Peter R. Wygle*One of the most awe-inspiring yet historically little remembered missions ofWorld War II in the Pacific were the four rapid-fire prisoner of war liberation raidsin the Philippines. These four raids, Bilibid, Cabanatuan, Santo Tomas, and LosBanos, all took place in a one-month period between late January and the end ofFebruary, 1945, and the men who planned them faced many of the elements ofpotential failure; the raids, with the exception of the Bilibid liberation in Manila,were independently planned in very restrictive time-frames by at least three differentheadquarters; they involved every branch of the American military, withenormously important help from, and sacrifice by, the Filipino people and theirguerrilla Army; and they employed practically every method of attack and meansof transportation known to man. In spite of all this potential for confusion andfailure, each of the rescues was pulled off without a hitch. These prisoner raidsAerial view of Santo Tomas– collectively – killed, wounded, or scattered about a thousand enemy troopsand resulted in freedom for almost eight times that many allied prisoners of war,including the largest number of American civilian internees ever taken prisonerby an armed enemy in the history of our nation. All of this while sustaining relativelylight – though certainly not insignificant – causalities among the Americanforces and their supporting Filipino guerrillas.Legend has it that General MacArthur was so impressed by the Cabanatuanraid by elements the 6th Ranger Battalion – which was still in progress at the time– that he went immediately to MG Mudge’s 1st Cavalry Division headquartersin Guimba. There he ordered the formation of a ‘Flying Column’ to accomplishthe same thing with the 3,700 civilians interned at the University of Santo Tomasin Manila. Nobody knew about the 1,300 or so military and civilian prisoners atthe old Bilibid prison which was only a few blocks from Santo Tomas.The oratory attributed to the general during this conference was typically MacArthur:“Go to Manila! Go over the Japs, go around the Japs, bounce off the Japs,but go to Manila! Free the prisoners at Santo Tomas and capture MalacanangPalace and the legislative buildings.”Two-thirds of this grandiose mission was practicable from where the 1st CavalryDivision sat. Santo Tomas and Malacanang Palace were in the north end ofManila, the same side that the 1st Cav was on, but the legislative buildings wereon the south side of the Pasig River. This large river runs east-to-west throughthe middle of Manila and there were only three or four bridges across it. Thechances of the Japanese destroying the bridges and turning the river into a majorobstacle were pretty good. If the Japanese managed to do this, it would makethe legislature buildings relatively hard to reach.When MacArthur decreed the formation of the ‘Flying Column’ the 1st Cavtroops, to whom he had decreed it, had come ashore at Lingayen Gulf on 27January. 1945 after 72 days of continuous combat in the mountains of Leyte,and the division had just completed its move 35 miles south from Lingayen toGuimba, arriving there on the 30th. As fierce as the combat on Leyte had been,the memory that usually gets shared by the 1st Cav troopers that were there isthe fact that during 40 of those 72 days, 35 inches of rain fell. The troopers hadearned some rest, but there was to be none. They received “MacArthur’s FlyingColumn” decree on the day after they arrived at Guimba. MG Mudge spent therest of the 31st gathering the troops he thought it would take to accomplish hisnew mission. These troops included, in addition to parts of the 5th Cavalry and8th Cavalry Regiments and some miscellaneous support people, the 44th TankBattalion, a bunch of air cover from Marine Group 24 and 32 and – luckily - aNavy demolitions expert, Lieutenant (JG) James Patrick Sutton. MG Mudgedivided the Column into three serials, assigning missions to each, and, at oneminute past midnight on the morning of 1 February, 1945, led them out of Guimba.The race to Manila was on!The Column, carrying only four days’ rations and the absolute minimum inarms, ammunition and fuel, had to tread carefully for the first few miles becausethe Cabanatuan prisoners were still being evacuated across its path. Once in theclear, however, it fought its way at top speed down Highway 5, slowing for a dayof heavy firefights at Cabanatuan and Gapan. An ambush at a road intersectionduring the fight at Gapan cost the life of LTC Tom Ross, commander of the thirdserial. This was the serial with most of the 44th Tank Battalion assigned to it.After this fierce early fighting the Column sped south, depending totally uponthe Marine flyers for flank security. The 1st Cav moved toward Manila, pausingJANUARY/FEBRUARY, 2009only to bypass blown bridges and to engage the Japanese in hit-and-run fighting.It hit a snag however, at the Novaliches Bridge just south of a road junctionthat became known as “the Hot Corner”. They were still about ten miles shortof Manila.Mines had been set, the fuse was lit, and the Japanese were laying down heavysniper fire on the bridge to discourage all efforts to prevent its destruction. Bypassingthis particular bridge was not an option because the gorge was deep andthe river was swift. It was here that having Pat Sutton along turned out to be astroke of good fortune. He, apparently protected by some sort of a providentialStar Trek force field that seemed to repel sniper bullets, ran out on the bridge andcut the demolition fuse, enabling the Column to cross the river with dry feet.LT Sutton also helped in clearing a path through a minefield further south onthe approach to Manila. His next running – with his brand new DistinguishedService Cross – was for Congress where he won a Tennessee seat in the Houseof Representatives.After the Column crossed the river at Novaliches it moved down Quezon Boulevardstraight toward Santo Tomas Internment Camp and Malacanang Palace.Inside the prison camp, 3,700 apprehensive civilian men, women and childrenwere watching the approach of the tracer-bullet fireworks in the evening sky witha strange mixture of excitement and dread. After three years in the “protectivecustody” of the Japanese Army, they were excited that SOMETHING was happening– even if they didn’t know what it was – but mixed in with this excitementwas dread of the possibility that the pyrotechnic display was, in truth, being causedby the bad guys headed their way with malice in their souls. Rumors had beenrampant for some time that the Japanese intended to kill all of their prisoners.Late on 3 February, 1945, after a couple of wrong turns and some heavy fightingin the mixed-up outskirts of Manila, the Santo Tomas column picked up CPTManuel Colayco, a Filipino newspaperman and clandestine intelligence officer,who guided them to the main gate of the prison camp. At about nine in the evening,after a brief flurry of resistance by the Japanese guards during which CPTColayco was fatally wounded by a grenade explosion, the 44th Tank Battalion’sM-4 Sherman “Battlin Basic”, closely by the “Georgia Peach” knocked downthe gate and the war was nearly over for the internees.The Flying Column was 66 hours into its mission. With time out for the fightsat Cabanatuan and Gapan, and delays in bypassing some of the blown bridges,it had covered 100 miles. The 1st Cav had toeholds – tenuous as they mightactually have been – at Santo Tomas and at the Malacanang Place.For the Santo Tomas internees, their liberation was followed by a night of delirioushappiness, a standoff and hostage crisis in one of the campus buildings,and two or three days of murderous artillery dueling.The artillery battle resulted when the few hundred men of the 1st Cav, nothaving all that much Manila real estate under their control, had to set up theirartillery inside the Santo Tomas complex and begin making enough noise todiscourage thoughts of counterattack in the minds of Admiral Iwabuchi and histwenty thousand marines defending Manila. The good news was that no counterattackmaterialized; the bad news was that the presence of American artilleryin the front yard invited counterfire from the Japanese, and the internees werein the middle. This several day artillery duel caused the only prisoner causalitiesof the Santo Tomas liberation – with the possible exception of a couple ofinternees who reportedly ate themselves to death in the first day or so. Seventeeninternees and several 1st Cav troopers were killed in this exchange of fire andmany more were injured.Brigadier General Chase and men of his headquarters repelling Japaneseforces in Manila on the evening of February 3, 1945. Photoflash picturetaken by Tom Shafer of Acme News-pictures who accompanied thetroops.After the shooting died down, only a couple of months of stomach achesfrom the unaccustomed good food and headaches from the seemingly endlessinterminable processing stood between the ex-prisoners and, for many of them,repatriation.*This was an excerpt from a paper by Peter R. Wygle entitled “Jeb Stuart WouldHave Loved It!” that covers the four mentioned POW camps. Pete Wygle was acivilian internee at the Santo Tomas Internment Camp, a boy of about ten or 11years old at the time. He also authored the book, “Surviving a Japanese POWCamp”, served on active duty in Korea and later in the Army National Guard retiringas a Colonel. He was also very active in the American Ex-Prisoners of WarAssociation. Pete died of cancer in September 2003. Pete’s window, Nancy, hasgraciously provided a copy of this paper for inclusion in the 1st Cavalry DivisionMuseum archives. Edited by R. W. Tagge, Member of the Board of Governors,1st Cavalry Division Association.Make a tax-deductible donation to the of the 1st Cavalry DivisionAssociation Museum Foundation to preserve the history of theFirst Team or donate to the Foundation of the 1st Cavalry DivisionAssociation to support the children of our fallen Troopers.