Historic Laredo

for service in the Philippines. After our leave, we
took the train from Camp Bowie to Fort Mason
in San Francisco and then a ferry to Angel
Island. From Fort Mason, we boarded an Army
transport ship, the U.S.S. Republic, an ancient
Merchant Marine passenger ship that the U.S.
had gotten from Germany as part of World War
I reparations. The Republic carried over 3,000
men, including our field artillery battalion, airmen,
and a tank brigade from Wisconsin. Our
battalion had become a detached battalion when
we left Brownwood. We were the Service and
Ammunition Battery of the Second Battalion of
the 131st Field Artillery. We arrived in Honolulu
December 1, and we left on the second. I was
having a late breakfast on ship when the
announcement came that Pearl Harbor had been
bombed by the Japanese on December 7. We
were now at war. We learned that we would be
turning further south from our northwest movement.
We stopped at Suva in Fiji and then landed
in Brisbane, Australia on December 22. Just
before the New Year, we left on the Bloemfontein,
a new Dutch ship. We traveled north from
Brisbane and met a convoy going to the Strait of
Celebes. We turned around and traveled back to
Surabaya in Java. At Malang we were quartered
at a Dutch army airport where we provided
cookhouse and munitions loading support to
the 18th Bombardment Group. The Japanese
began bombing the Malang Airport February 3,
1942. We were practically the only defense
there. We had two service battery trucks firing
50 caliber weapons. There were three of us—
Sgt. H.J. Whatley from Lubbock, and Pvt.
Wesley Joyce Hoch, and myself. We shot down
two planes. Strafers came in a couple of waves,
and then their bombers, which they used to
destroy the aircraft at the Dutch base. We pulled
seven planes out of fires with winch trucks,”
Martinez recalled.
“The Japanese had spies on the island. On
the radio, Tokyo Rose named over a dozen people
close to us. She would say our wives and our
girlfriends were playing around with our commanding
officers. She played better music than
our armed forces radio. There were 635 of us on
Java, which was the entire complement of the
Battalion, and 15,000 Australians and
Englishmen, and 45,000 Dutch. We went from
Batavia to Serang on the eastern coast overlooking
the straits between Sumatra and Java where
the U.S.S. Houston had been sunk the night of
February 29. Java was hit in three places by
60,000 Japanese troops. We split with E Battery,
the one that Max Offerle, another Laredoan, was
in. The Dutch, all of them, surrendered.
Battalion Cmdr. Col. Tharp said that he was
going to surrender with the sick and wounded.
He told us that anyone who wanted to keep
fighting could take whatever they wanted.
Thirty-six of us took a 1942 Plymouth staff car,
a Jeep, a truck, and a trailer. We wanted to cut a
path through the barbed wire to the let the
Australian troops attack a block house. I was at
the rear of the group. Everyone who was with
me is dead. Only four or five men of the 150
who split off are now alive. We lost so few in
combat, but lost 32% in the Japanese camp,”
Martinez said.
“I was captured June 8. I was loaded down
with bolt cutters, a heavy Browning automatic
rifle, ammo, a pistol, and two canteens when I
came to a place over which I had to jump. My
leggings caught in concertina wire and dragged
the wire with me until I fell into the barbed
wire. One man captured me. He cut me loose
with my own bolt cutters. I had wire cuts to my
face, arms, back, and shoulders. I would find
out years later that there were shattered pieces
❖
Though he was loathe to hear himself
called a hero, the heroics of Sgt.
Homero Martinez were legendary and
an inspiration to Laredoans of all
ages. The dapper, erudite Martinez
who survived the deprivations of
Japanese prisoner of war camps, died
December 30, 2000.
COURTESY OF ALICIA MARTINEZ
Chapter VI ✦ 43