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WW2 Dispatch
  • 6 hours ago
At dawn, a daring airborne raid became a race to bring 2,147 starving civilians out of a Japanese prison camp before enemy forces could close in. On Luzon, paratroopers, Filipino guerrillas and amphibious tractors combined a precisely timed attack with a dangerous evacuation across a lake—and every prisoner survived.

This World War II military history documentary follows the intelligence smuggled out by escaped internees, the low-altitude parachute drop, and the difficult hours that followed inside Los Baños. Discover the planning, courage and split-second decisions behind one of the war’s most remarkable rescue operations.

For viewers seeking WW2 stories, Pacific War history, airborne operations and true historical rescue accounts, this narrated military history offers an immersive look at the people and strategy behind the mission. A compelling choice for documentary viewing or background listening about the Second World War.

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Transcript
00:00At 6.58 on the morning of February 23, 1945, First Lieutenant John Ringler stood in the open door of
00:07a C-47, a few hundred feet above the southern shore of Laguna de Bay, on the island of Luzon.
00:13Ahead of him was a small field, hemmed in by trees, power lines, and a railroad track.
00:19Beyond the field was a barbed wire fence.
00:22Behind that fence were more than 2,000 people who were slowly starving to death.
00:27Ringler was 26. He had enlisted as a private in September 1940 and come up through Officer Candidate School.
00:35Now he commanded Company B, 1st Battalion, 511th Parachute Infantry, 11th Airborne Division, and the men lined up behind him
00:44belonged to the strongest company in the battalion.
00:47Eight more transports followed his, in three tight V's.
00:51He was watching for one thing. Smoke.
00:54Then it came, rising from the ground near the edge of the field, set off by men who had crossed
00:59the lake two nights earlier in native outrigger canoes and spent the dark hours moving through rice paddies to be
01:05in exactly that spot at exactly that minute.
01:08In the cockpit, the co-pilot, Captain Herbert Parker, switched on the green light.
01:14Ringler went out the door.
01:16Behind him, the sky over Los Baños filled with white canopies.
01:20Hold on to one number from this moment, because it will come back.
01:25500 feet.
01:28Paratroopers normally jumped from 700 to 1,000.
01:32Ringler had chosen 500 himself, so his men would spend only seconds in the air, too few for anyone below
01:39to take aim.
01:40One Amtrak crewman, watching from the lake, said later that he couldn't believe they could jump from so low an
01:46altitude.
01:48On the ground, inside the wire, the day had started like any other.
01:52People were stirring by half past five.
01:55A little before seven, they began lining up.
01:58Sister Maria Del Rey Danforth, a Maryknoll nun, heard the roll call gong ring at seven o'clock, as it
02:05always did.
02:06In another barracks, Father William McCarthy heard what he later described as the roar of nine C-47 airplanes.
02:15At the other end of the camp, the Japanese guard detail was in the middle of its own routine.
02:20The night watch was waiting to be relieved.
02:23The new watch was still fastening its cartridge belts, and the off-duty soldiers were out in the open, doing
02:29their morning exercises.
02:31Without their rifles.
02:34Now think about what that means.
02:36Not just that the guards were surprised.
02:38Something far more precise.
02:41At that one minute, on that one morning, a large part of the garrison at Los Baños was standing in
02:48a field, in exercise clothes, with its weapons somewhere else.
02:53That was not luck.
02:55Someone had known that would happen.
02:57Someone had known the minute.
03:00And that brings us to the question this whole story is built around.
03:03One company of paratroopers, around 130 men with their attached machine gunners, was dropping onto a camp 25 miles behind
03:10Japanese lines.
03:12About seven miles to the south sat the Japanese 8th Division, somewhere between 9,000 and 11,000 combat troops.
03:19One of its battalions was a 90-minute march away.
03:23Taking the camp was one problem.
03:25But inside were 2,147 people.
03:29Children.
03:30Old men.
03:32Nuns.
03:33A group of Navy nurses captured in 1942.
03:36A baby girl born three days earlier.
03:39Many of them could barely walk.
03:41How do you get every one of them out alive, before that division arrives?
03:46That is what we are going to find out.
03:49And I'll tell you this much now.
03:51The answer is not the parachutes.
03:53If you want to see how one American airborne battalion planned a rescue 25 miles behind Japanese lines, tap like
04:00and subscribe.
04:02The 11th Airborne's morning at Los Baños is only beginning.
04:05To understand why those paratroopers were in the air at all, you have to see what the people on the
04:10ground had been living through.
04:12Los Baños had once been the agricultural college of the University of the Philippines, a green campus about 40 miles
04:19southeast of Manila.
04:20The Japanese turned it into a camp for allied civilians.
04:24Most were Americans.
04:26There were businessmen and mining engineers, teachers and bankers, mechanics, missionaries, wives and children.
04:34By early 1945, they had been prisoners for three years.
04:39Then the food stopped.
04:41By January, the daily ration had fallen, by one count, below 450 calories.
04:48A grown man doing nothing at all burns three or four times that.
04:54Then the guards stopped issuing milled rice and handed out unhussed grain, which people that week no longer had the
05:00strength to pound clean.
05:02Some ate it anyway, husk and all.
05:05Camp doctors warned against it.
05:08One Mary Knoll record sums up what followed in four words.
05:12Death was the result.
05:14Father McCarthy wrote that people were eating weeds, flowers, vines, banana tree pulp, salamanders and black bugs.
05:22By January, he recorded, the deaths had climbed to two a day.
05:27A teenage girl named Margaret Whittaker kept a diary, which was forbidden.
05:32One entry reads,
05:34I weigh 83 pounds.
05:36Another,
05:38The grave diggers are working overtime.
05:40The army must come soon.
05:42The man who controlled the food was Warrant Officer Sadaki Konishi, the camp's supply officer.
05:50When someone raised the internee's condition with him, he is reported to have answered,
05:54Let them starve.
05:56On February 21, 1945, Sister Eleanor Frances Andrews wrote a single line,
06:03Tonight is our last meal, unless something happens.
06:07She had no way of knowing that something already was.
06:11By the time she wrote it, a man who had slipped out of Los Baños under the wire only days
06:15earlier
06:16had already sat across a table from the American major who would lead the raid.
06:21The army had maps.
06:22What this man brought was something no map could show.
06:26A schedule.
06:27And one line of that schedule would set the clock for the entire operation.
06:31On the night of February 12, 1945, a 19-year-old internee named Freddy Zervalakos crawled under
06:38the wire at Los Baños and walked into the dark.
06:41Within hours, he had found what he was looking for, a band of Filipino guerrillas.
06:46And they had something to tell him.
06:49The Americans were close.
06:51A rescue could come.
06:53Zervalakos slipped back into the camp with that promise,
06:56and took it to the internee's executive committee,
06:58the handful of prisoners who dealt with the Japanese on everyone's behalf.
07:03Their answer is worth hearing exactly.
07:05The committee decided that it would be best for the prisoners to do nothing.
07:11Before you judge that, consider what those men were weighing.
07:15Anyone caught outside the wire, even someone coming back with food, could be shot.
07:20And that February, the guards had begun digging deep trenches near the barracks.
07:25Nobody inside was told what they were for.
07:27Many internees were afraid they knew.
07:30Do nothing, and you might starve.
07:33Do something, and you might hand the guards a reason.
07:36Not everyone accepted that.
07:38In the days that followed, more men slipped out under the double fence.
07:42One of them was a civilian engineer named Pete Miles.
07:46By one account, the escapees crawled beneath the wire unseen, linked up with armed guerrillas,
07:52crossed the lake by native canoe, and moved through the jungle, mostly at night, until they reached American lines.
07:59On February 19th, Miles sat down with the man who would lead the raid.
08:03Major Henry Burgess was 26, raised on a cattle ranch in Wyoming.
08:08In November 1941, as a National Guard officer, he had been put aboard a troop ship bound for the Philippines.
08:15Then came Pearl Harbor, and the ship turned around and sailed back to San Francisco.
08:20Now, more than three years later, he had finally reached the Philippines,
08:25and he had commanded the 1st Battalion of the 511th in combat for exactly 15 days.
08:31The day before, he had been pulled out of the fighting on the Genco Line, south of Manila,
08:35and told what his battalion was going to do.
08:38He said later,
08:40I was shocked to learn that only our battalion of about 412 men and officers was expected to make the
08:47raid.
08:48Remember that number, 412,
08:51against a camp of more than 2,000 in a Japanese division.
08:57Miles gave him the camp the way only a prisoner could,
09:01where the fences ran,
09:02where the gun towers stood,
09:04which barracks held which people.
09:07And then, he gave him the detail that would set the clock.
09:11Every morning, at about a quarter to seven,
09:14roughly 200 soldiers of the garrison assembled for 30 minutes of calisthenics.
09:20Unarmed.
09:21Many in nothing but loincloths.
09:24While they exercised, only a handful of guards stood at their posts.
09:28Now think about what that does to a plan.
09:31The planners had been looking at 8 in the morning.
09:33On the strength of what the escapees told them,
09:36H hour moved to 7.
09:37And by one account, the date moved up by several days.
09:41For half an hour each morning,
09:43the strongest part of the garrison stood in the open,
09:45with its rifles somewhere else.
09:47The raid would be built to land inside that window.
09:51That is the first layer of the answer.
09:52The weapon that opened Los Banos was not a rifle or a parachute.
09:57It was a timetable, carried out of the camp in a starving man's head.
10:02But notice what that timetable solves.
10:04It solves the first 20 minutes.
10:06It says nothing about the eight hours after that.
10:10Here is the arithmetic the planners were facing.
10:12The Japanese division, around 10,000 men, sat about 7 miles away.
10:18They believed it could reach the camp in as little as 3 hours.
10:21They expected the raiding force might lose up to 30%.
10:25And according to an account kept by 511 veterans,
10:29B Company was told what success would look like.
10:32Saving at least one-third of the internees.
10:35One-third.
10:36Let that sit for a moment.
10:38The men planning this rescue were ready for the possibility
10:41that most of the people they were going in to save would not come out.
10:46John Ringler, who would lead the jump, put the problem in one sentence.
10:51How could you have over 2,000 persons in the target area, he wrote,
10:55and live fire coming in from four sides?
10:58Then there was the question of how to bring anyone home.
11:01The first idea was trucks, a convoy down the roads from the American lines.
11:06A reconnaissance flight killed it.
11:08The bridges were down.
11:10Between the camp and safety, the only open road was water,
11:14a lake about 25 miles long.
11:17Keep that lake in mind.
11:19It is the part of this story most people never hear about.
11:22And the clock was not only the planner's clock.
11:25On February 21st, Staff Sergeant John Fulton
11:28sent an urgent message to the division.
11:30It read,
11:32Urgent.
11:33Have received reliable information
11:35that Japs have Los Banos scheduled for massacre.
11:39Nobody could confirm it.
11:41Nobody could afford to ignore it.
11:43Major Jay Vanderpool,
11:45the American officer coordinating the guerrillas on Luzon,
11:48had worked out a fallback plan of his own.
11:50A guerrilla attack on the camp without the Americans.
11:54He didn't pretend it was a good plan.
11:56But if the execution started, he said,
11:59we might have no other choice.
12:02That same evening, at 8 o'clock,
12:05three native boats pushed off from the northern shore of Laguna de Bay.
12:10Aboard were Lieutenant George Scow and the men of the division's reconnaissance platoon.
12:15Their job was to be at precise spots around the camp at precisely 7 o'clock, a day and a
12:21half later.
12:22Their only signal to the aircraft would be smoke.
12:25And one of the three boats,
12:27the one carrying their heavy weapons,
12:29already had a broken rudder.
12:31On the evening of February 21st, 1945,
12:34Lieutenant George Scow climbed into a small fishing boat
12:37on the northern shore of Laguna de Bay
12:39with seven of his men and a Filipino crew.
12:42The wind was with them.
12:44Fifteen minutes later,
12:46a second boat followed with six more.
12:48The third boat was the largest.
12:50It carried the platoon's heavy weapons,
12:53its ammunition,
12:54its rations,
12:55and the extra rifles meant for the guerrillas waiting on the far shore.
12:59And just before it was due to leave,
13:01its Filipino captain reported that the rudder was broken.
13:05It took two hours to fix.
13:07By the time that boat got underway,
13:09the wind had died.
13:11Its crew had to tack back and forth
13:13across the dark water,
13:15zigzagging toward a shore they could not see.
13:18Now picture Scow's position the next morning.
13:21His first two boats reached the southern shore
13:23well before daylight.
13:25The third did not appear.
13:28Dawn came.
13:29Then noon.
13:30Somewhere out on that lake
13:31was most of the firepower
13:33his men were supposed to use
13:34against the guard posts at Los Baños.
13:36And he had no way of knowing
13:38whether it would ever arrive.
13:40He made alternate plans.
13:42The big boat finally came in
13:44after nightfall on the 22nd,
13:46with only hours left to spare.
13:48They had landed near a barrio called Nanjaya.
13:51In the local schoolhouse,
13:53Scow met the guerrillas
13:54and some of the men who had escaped from the camp.
13:57Freddy Zervulakos was there,
13:59the boy who had first crawled under the wire.
14:01So was another young escapee,
14:04Ben Edwards.
14:05Edwards picked up a piece of chalk
14:07and drew the camp on the schoolhouse blackboard.
14:10The fences.
14:11The guard posts.
14:12The pillboxes.
14:14The barracks where the Japanese kept their rifles.
14:17That drawing became the plan.
14:20Scow broke his men
14:21and roughly 80 guerrillas into teams
14:23and gave each team one target.
14:26One guard post.
14:28One pillbox.
14:29One gate.
14:31Zervulakos went with one of them.
14:33A few recon men were sent to the beach at San Antonio,
14:36about two miles from the camp,
14:37to mark it with white phosphorus smoke
14:39when the time came.
14:41Then the team set out through the night.
14:44Terry Santos, one of Scow's men,
14:46remembered
14:47traveling overland through rice paddies,
14:49taking circuitous routes around enemy posts.
14:53The march took 10 hours.
14:55While they moved,
14:56the plan behind them was changing.
14:59Engineers had found
15:00that Japanese demolitions
15:01had cut the road
15:02between the camp
15:03and the American lines.
15:05The idea of a relief column
15:07driving in to collect everyone
15:08was dead.
15:09The force that was supposed to do it,
15:12under Lieutenant Colonel Robert Soule,
15:14would now attack along the highway
15:15as a diversion
15:16to hold the Japanese attention
15:18while the real work
15:19was done somewhere else.
15:21And the evacuation would go
15:23where Burgess and his planners
15:24had already been looking.
15:25Across the lake.
15:28Here is the second layer of the answer,
15:30and it changes how you should see
15:32everything so far.
15:33This was not one attack.
15:36It was four.
15:38Scow's teams and the guerrillas,
15:39on foot.
15:41Ringler's company,
15:42in the air.
15:43The rest of Burgess's battalion,
15:45on the water.
15:47Soule's column,
15:48on the highway.
15:49They were coming from four directions,
15:52starting from four different places,
15:53by four different means of travel.
15:56And they had no way
15:57to wait for one another.
15:59What held them together
16:00was a single agreed minute.
16:03Seven o'clock.
16:05Seventy miles of planning,
16:06and all of it hung
16:07on everyone's watches agreeing.
16:10On the 22nd,
16:12the pieces began to move.
16:13The rest of the 1st Battalion
16:15and two pack howitzers
16:16rode south
16:17and bivouacked in the trees
16:18near a lakeside town
16:20called Mamatid.
16:21There they met the machines
16:23that would carry them.
16:24Fifty-four amphibian tractors
16:26of the 672nd Amphibian Tractor Battalion
16:29under Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Gibbs.
16:32The tractors had spent about two weeks
16:35parked at the Manila racetrack.
16:37That day,
16:38they drove through the city,
16:39rolled into the lake,
16:40and churned south until dusk.
16:42Every man in the attack force
16:44was assigned to a specific vehicle.
16:46Ringler's company
16:47had spent the previous day
16:48locked away in the cells
16:49of New Belabed Prison,
16:51of all places,
16:52to keep the operation secret.
16:54One of his men,
16:56Jim Holzam,
16:57remembered the feeling.
16:58Something big was brewing
16:59for B Company.
17:01Late that afternoon,
17:03Ringler told them what it was.
17:04Holzam remembered
17:05what the guerrillas had reported,
17:07that the Japanese
17:08were going to execute
17:09all the prisoners
17:10on the morning of February 23rd.
17:13The men took the first news
17:14in good spirits,
17:15Ringler wrote.
17:17Then they heard the full briefing.
17:19We realized, he wrote,
17:21that we might be dropping
17:22into a hornet's nest.
17:24That night,
17:25at Nichols Field
17:26outside Manila,
17:27they drew parachutes,
17:28ammunition,
17:29and rations,
17:30were assigned
17:31to their nine aircraft,
17:32and slept on the ground
17:33under the wings.
17:35Around midnight,
17:36General Joseph Swing,
17:38commanding the 11th Airborne,
17:39received the kind of report
17:41every commander dreads
17:42the night before an operation.
17:44The Japanese were moving
17:45large forces
17:46into the Los Banos area.
17:48A night fighter pilot
17:49had seen a long line
17:50of truck headlights.
17:52Swing had a choice.
17:54Call it off,
17:55and leave 2,000 people
17:57to whatever
17:57the morning held.
17:59Or,
18:00send it in,
18:01knowing the enemy
18:02was on the move.
18:04He kept the raid on,
18:05and put another battalion
18:06of the 511th
18:07on standby.
18:09Remember those headlights.
18:11Where those trucks
18:12were going,
18:13and why,
18:14turned out to be
18:15one of the strangest twists
18:16of the whole operation.
18:19At 5.15 on the morning
18:20of the 23rd,
18:22Gibbs' tractors
18:23slid into the water
18:24at Mamateed.
18:25There was no moon.
18:27They had 7.5 miles
18:28of open lake to cross
18:30in darkness,
18:31steering by compass,
18:33something this unit
18:34had never done.
18:35In the sky over Manila,
18:37nine C-47s were climbing,
18:38and in the brush
18:39around the camp,
18:40Scow's teams were lying flat,
18:42counting minutes.
18:44The whole operation
18:45had been built
18:45around a single minute.
18:477 o'clock.
18:48At about 6.57,
18:50near a creek
18:51on the edge of the camp,
18:52the first shots rang out.
18:54Three minutes early.
18:55At about 6.57
18:57on the morning
18:58of February 23rd,
18:591945,
19:01Terry Santos
19:01and his team
19:02crested the bank
19:03of a creek
19:04on the south side
19:05of the Los Baños camp,
19:06and someone opened fire.
19:09Three minutes
19:10before seven.
19:11Three minutes ahead
19:13of the only minute
19:14that mattered.
19:15Think about what
19:16those three minutes meant.
19:18Every gunner
19:19in every pillbox
19:20along that side
19:21of the wire
19:22was now awake.
19:23The team couldn't
19:24wait for the planes.
19:26Santos' squad
19:27charged.
19:28Two of his four
19:29recon men
19:30went down wounded.
19:32One of the 12 guerrillas
19:33with them was hit.
19:35They kept going
19:36and silenced
19:37the first pillbox,
19:38then the second.
19:40Then a third
19:41machine gun opened up,
19:42from a knoll
19:43near a large tree,
19:44overlooking the ground
19:45where his men
19:46were lying in the open.
19:48It was not on the blackboard
19:49at Nanjaya.
19:50Nobody had known
19:51it was there.
19:52Santos later called it
19:53a third,
19:54unreported machine gun.
19:56His team couldn't take it.
19:58All they could do
20:00was keep it under fire
20:01and hold on.
20:02And they had to hold on
20:03until help
20:04came out of the sky.
20:06At that same moment,
20:08in the lead C-47,
20:10the red light
20:10had come on.
20:12John Ringler
20:13gave the order.
20:14Stand up
20:15and hook up.
20:17Every man clipped
20:18his static line
20:18to the cable
20:19and checked the line
20:20of the man in front of him.
20:22Up in the cockpit,
20:24Major Don Anderson
20:25called the jump
20:25as the field slid
20:27under the nose.
20:28Captain Herbert Parker
20:30switched on
20:30the green light.
20:32Ringler kicked out
20:33his equipment bundle
20:34and went out after it.
20:37Remember the number
20:38I asked you to hold on to?
20:40500 feet.
20:41The crews on the lake
20:43thought it looked
20:43even lower than that.
20:45Now here is what
20:47that choice bought.
20:49Ringler reported
20:50only very light firing
20:51on the way down.
20:52Perhaps none at all.
20:54I wasn't aware
20:55of any shooting
20:56at us from the ground,
20:57he said.
20:58A man under a canopy
20:59at that height
21:00is in the air
21:01for a matter of seconds.
21:03The company landed
21:04on the drop zone
21:05without casualties.
21:07Around the camp,
21:08not every team
21:09had reached its place.
21:10Three of the five
21:11guerrilla groups
21:11were still short
21:12of their positions
21:13when the planes appeared.
21:14They did not wait.
21:16The moment they saw parachutes,
21:18they stopped sneaking
21:19and charged.
21:20The timetable held,
21:21even where the men didn't.
21:23Inside the wire,
21:24a 12-year-old boy
21:25named Robert Wheeler
21:26had been out
21:27for the morning roll call.
21:28He saw the planes.
21:30Then he heard
21:31the recon men
21:31hit the guard posts.
21:33And he saw something else.
21:35The off-duty guards
21:36were out in the open
21:37at their morning exercises.
21:39Their rifles
21:40were stored in a guard room.
21:42The attack had come in
21:43between the men
21:44and their weapons.
21:46That is the whole
21:47escapee's timetable,
21:48working exactly
21:49as Pete Miles
21:50had described it,
21:51in one boy's eyes.
21:53Then the bullets
21:54started coming
21:55through the grass mat walls,
21:56and Robert Wheeler
21:57lay flat under his bunk.
21:58All over the camp,
22:00people did the same.
22:02Tracers flashed
22:03past the windows.
22:04In the Maryknoll barracks,
22:06a bullet shot a cup
22:07out of one sister's hand.
22:08A young woman
22:09was hit through the thigh,
22:10and Sister Rose Genevieve
22:12gave her first aid
22:13that the doctors
22:14later said
22:15saved her life.
22:17The few internees
22:18who were wounded
22:19that morning
22:19all survived.
22:21In the hospital,
22:23Navy Lieutenant
22:23Dorothy Still Danner
22:25was holding
22:25a newborn baby.
22:26She saw
22:27the smoke signals
22:28first,
22:29then the aircraft.
22:31Then she watched
22:32the guerrillas
22:32and soldiers
22:33around the guardhouses
22:34close in
22:35on the Japanese
22:36posted there.
22:38Ringler's men
22:38took about 15 minutes
22:39to gather on the field.
22:41Then they moved
22:42toward the camp,
22:43about 900 yards,
22:44using a dry riverbed
22:46for cover.
22:47Some of them
22:48went straight
22:49to the knoll
22:49where Santos' team
22:50was pinned.
22:52Others went
22:52through the gaps
22:53Scow's men
22:54had cut in the wire.
22:56Ringler later
22:57described
22:57only minor
22:59enemy resistance,
23:00which was eliminated.
23:02One Japanese
23:03officer was shot
23:04as he dove
23:05out of an office window.
23:06The guards
23:07who survived
23:08ran south and west,
23:10away from the
23:11paratroopers,
23:12toward the hills.
23:13Filipino guerrillas
23:15went after them.
23:16Within about
23:1720 minutes
23:17of the first shot,
23:19the firing
23:19began to die away.
23:21After that,
23:22it was building
23:23building by building.
23:24And then the people
23:25inside started
23:26to see their
23:26rescuers up close.
23:28Sister Maria
23:29Del Rey Danforth
23:30remembered a huge
23:31American soldier
23:32stepping into
23:33the nuns' barracks,
23:34looking around
23:34at the crowd
23:35of sisters and saying,
23:37won't my mother
23:38be proud when I tell
23:39her I rescued
23:39the sisters?
23:41Sister Miriam
23:42Louise Kroger,
23:43who two days earlier
23:44had been too weak
23:45to move her rosary beads,
23:46wrote,
23:51To people who had
23:53been living
23:53on a few hundred
23:54calories a day,
23:55ordinary American
23:56paratroopers
23:57looked enormous.
23:59Dorothy Danner
24:00remembered them
24:01as so healthy
24:02and so lively.
24:04Now,
24:05let me bring you
24:06back to the question
24:06this whole story
24:07is built on.
24:08Because at this moment,
24:10about half past seven,
24:11it might look like
24:13it has been answered.
24:14The camp was taken,
24:15the guards were dead
24:17or gone,
24:18the paratroopers
24:19were inside.
24:21It hasn't been
24:22answered at all.
24:23Here is what
24:24Ringler had now.
24:25A company of about
24:27140 men,
24:28holding a camp
24:29of 2,147 people.
24:32Many of them
24:33were too weak
24:34to walk two miles.
24:35Some refused
24:36to believe
24:37they were free.
24:38Others were dazed,
24:40some were weeping,
24:41and a few were
24:42already wandering off
24:43to collect
24:44their belongings.
24:45the things
24:46they had held
24:47onto for three years.
24:49As one account
24:50put it,
24:50they were ecstatic,
24:52but hardly in a mood
24:53to fall into
24:54any kind of formation.
24:56And the gunfire
24:57had done
24:57one more thing.
24:58It had told
24:59every Japanese unit
25:01within miles
25:02exactly where
25:03the Americans were.
25:04A division
25:05of around
25:0510,000 men
25:06sat seven miles away.
25:09The planner's
25:10own estimate
25:10gave that division
25:11about three hours.
25:12The clock
25:13that had opened
25:14the camp
25:14was still running.
25:15Only now,
25:16it was running
25:17against them.
25:18And at that moment,
25:20an internee
25:21named Bill Rivers
25:22heard a roar
25:23of engines
25:23from the direction
25:24of the front gate.
25:26He looked up
25:27as big,
25:28strange machines
25:29came crashing
25:29through the fence
25:30with markings
25:31he didn't recognize.
25:33His first thought
25:34was that the Russians
25:35had arrived.
25:35At 5.15
25:36on the morning
25:37of February 23rd,
25:391945,
25:4154 amphibian tractors
25:42slid off the shore
25:43at Mamatide
25:44and turned south
25:45into Laguna de Bay.
25:47If you've never
25:48seen one,
25:49picture a steel box
25:51on tank tracks
25:52open at the top
25:53with a ramp
25:54at the back.
25:55On land,
25:56it crawled.
25:57In the water,
25:58it was slower still,
25:59about five miles an hour.
26:01Each one carried
26:03a load of paratroopers
26:04from Burgess' battalion,
26:05with a gunner
26:06behind a machine gun
26:07up front.
26:08And between Mamatide
26:09and the beach
26:10at San Antonio
26:11lay seven and a half miles
26:13of black water
26:14with no moon
26:15and no lights.
26:17The crews
26:18of the 672nd
26:20Amphibian Tractor Battalion
26:21had never done this before.
26:23Not at night.
26:25Not by compass alone.
26:27Lieutenant Colonel
26:28Joseph Gibbs
26:28had his drivers
26:29steer on a bearing,
26:31in columns,
26:32each machine
26:32following the faint shape
26:34of the one ahead.
26:35If they drifted,
26:36they would come ashore
26:37in the wrong place,
26:38at the wrong time,
26:40under the wrong guns.
26:41One of the gunners,
26:43Art Coleman,
26:44remembered what they
26:45had been told.
26:46We were told
26:47paratroopers
26:48would jump at dawn.
26:50As the sky began to lighten
26:52and the far shore
26:53came up out of the dark,
26:54he said,
26:56we had eyes glued
26:57straight up.
26:59At 6.58,
27:01they saw the smoke.
27:03Scow's men,
27:04the ones left behind
27:05on the beach
27:06two nights earlier,
27:07had popped their grenades
27:08exactly where they
27:09were supposed to.
27:11Two minutes later,
27:12the sky to the south
27:13filled with parachutes.
27:15Coleman later said
27:16he couldn't believe
27:17they could jump
27:18from so low an altitude.
27:20The tractors came ashore
27:22at San Antonio
27:23in columns.
27:24From a place called
27:25Mayondan Point,
27:27along the shore
27:28to the east,
27:29Japanese guns
27:30opened up on them.
27:31Not one shell
27:32scored a hit.
27:34The paratroopers
27:35jumped out
27:36and threw a perimeter
27:37around the beach.
27:39The two pack howitzers
27:40they had brought
27:41began firing at a hill
27:42to the west.
27:44Then the empty tractors
27:45turned inland
27:46and ground up the road
27:48to the camp,
27:48two and a half miles away.
27:50Burgess remembered
27:50his first sight of it.
27:52There was a high
27:53barbed wire fence
27:54enclosing the camp,
27:55with a gate ajar
27:56about two feet.
27:58The tractors did not
27:59wait for anyone
28:00to open the gate.
28:01Dorothy Danner
28:02watched them come,
28:03crashing through
28:04the swally-covered fence
28:05near the front gate.
28:07Bill Rivers,
28:08as you heard,
28:09thought for a moment
28:10that the Russians
28:10had arrived.
28:11He had never seen
28:12the insignia before.
28:14In three years
28:15behind the wire,
28:16the American army
28:17had changed without him.
28:19Now look at what
28:20Burgess was actually facing.
28:22Because this is the moment
28:23the real problem
28:24in this story
28:25finally comes out
28:26into the open.
28:27He described
28:28the internees this way.
28:30The prisoners
28:30were hysterical
28:31and euphoric.
28:33Most of the larger men
28:34weighed no more
28:35than 110 pounds.
28:37110 pounds
28:39for a grown man
28:40who had once
28:41weighed 170 or more.
28:43Then there were
28:44the women,
28:45the elderly,
28:46the nuns,
28:48the children,
28:49the babies.
28:51And somewhere
28:52in the crowd,
28:52the baby girl
28:53born three days earlier.
28:55Here is the arithmetic.
28:5754 tractors.
28:59One account
29:00puts their load
29:01at about 30 passengers each.
29:02that is roughly
29:041,600 seats
29:06against 2,147 people.
29:11Even if every single machine
29:13was packed full
29:14and nothing went wrong,
29:15hundreds of people
29:16would be left
29:17standing on the beach
29:18when the first wave
29:19pulled away.
29:21That is the third layer
29:22of the answer,
29:23and it changes
29:24everything you've heard
29:25so far.
29:26getting into
29:27Los Baños
29:28was a matter
29:29of minutes.
29:30Getting out of it
29:31was a matter
29:32of hours.
29:33The parachutes,
29:35the smoke,
29:35and the gorillas
29:36had solved
29:37the first problem.
29:38What would decide
29:39whether this was a rescue
29:40or a massacre
29:42was a column
29:43of slow steel boxes,
29:45a lake,
29:47and the clock?
29:49So the plan
29:50split the camp
29:51in two.
29:52The sick,
29:53the weak,
29:54the very old,
29:55the women
29:55with small children
29:56would ride the tractors
29:58from the camp
29:59to the beach
29:59and straight across the lake.
30:01Everyone who could walk
30:02would walk,
30:03two and a half miles
30:04to the beach
30:05at San Antonio,
30:06and wait there
30:06under the paratroopers' guns
30:08for the tractors
30:09to come back
30:09for a second trip.
30:12A second trip.
30:14Think about
30:15what that means.
30:16Every tractor
30:17had to cross
30:18seven and a half miles
30:19of open water
30:20to Mamatid,
30:21unload,
30:22turn around,
30:23and cross
30:23seven and a half miles back
30:25at five miles an hour,
30:27while the Japanese
30:28on the shore
30:28knew exactly
30:29where they were going.
30:31Hours on the water.
30:33And through all
30:34of those hours,
30:36Burgess's battalion
30:37would be sitting
30:37on a beach
30:38behind enemy lines,
30:40waiting.
30:42Burgess had another
30:43choice to make.
30:44The original plan
30:45had always assumed
30:46that Sewell's column
30:47on the highway
30:48would eventually
30:49fight its way through
30:50to link up with him.
30:51But Sewell was still
30:52on the far side
30:53of the San Juan River,
30:54at least three hours away.
30:57Burgess decided
30:58not to wait.
31:00Gibbs's tractors
31:01would take the internees
31:02across the lake
31:03to Mamatid.
31:04The battalion
31:04would hold the beach
31:05until the last of them
31:06were gone.
31:06And here is where
31:08those headlights come back.
31:10Remember the report
31:11that reached General Swing
31:12around midnight?
31:13Large Japanese forces
31:14moving into the area.
31:16A long line
31:17of truck lights.
31:19According to one
31:20detailed account
31:20of the raid,
31:21those trucks were moving
31:22because of the tractors
31:23themselves.
31:25When Gibbs's machines
31:26had rumbled through Manila
31:27and down the lakeshore
31:28the day before,
31:29the Japanese commander
31:30in the area,
31:31Lieutenant General
31:32Masatoshi Fujishige,
31:34was told that American
31:35tanks were on the move.
31:37He shifted his forces
31:38to the west
31:39to meet tanks
31:40that were never coming,
31:41away from the camp.
31:43The machines that would
31:44carry the internees out
31:46had, without firing a shot,
31:48helped pull Japanese troops
31:49away from them
31:50the night before.
31:51But none of that
31:52helped Burgess
31:53at about 8 o'clock
31:54that morning,
31:55standing inside a camp
31:56full of people
31:57who did not
31:57want to move.
32:00Many of them
32:01had spent three years
32:02being punished
32:03for leaving their barracks
32:04without permission.
32:05Now,
32:06armed strangers
32:07were shouting at them
32:08to go.
32:09Some sat on their bunks
32:11and refused.
32:12Some went back
32:13for their things.
32:14A suitcase,
32:15a sewing machine,
32:16a trunk of letters.
32:18Out on the lake,
32:20there were only so many seats
32:21and only so many hours.
32:23The paratroopers
32:24were about to discover
32:25that the hardest enemy
32:26at Los Baños
32:27was not the guards.
32:29And the way they solved it
32:30would leave the camp
32:31in flames.
32:32At about 8 o'clock
32:33on the morning
32:34of February 23, 1945,
32:37the paratroopers
32:38inside the Los Baños camp
32:39ran into the one problem
32:41no blackboard had shown them.
32:43People would not leave.
32:46The internees
32:47had been told
32:48to bring one or two
32:49small suitcases.
32:51Instead,
32:51they came out
32:52with boxes and bags
32:53of every size.
32:55Everything they had protected
32:56for three years.
32:58Burgess and Gibbs
32:59made a quick decision.
33:01Load it.
33:02Arguing would cost more time
33:04than carrying it.
33:05But many internees
33:06did not come out at all.
33:08They stayed in their huts.
33:10They went back
33:11for one more thing.
33:13Some simply did not believe
33:14that this was real,
33:15or that it was safe
33:16to walk out of a building
33:17they had been forbidden
33:18to leave without permission
33:20for three years.
33:22Out on the lake,
33:23the seats were limited.
33:24On the highway to the south,
33:26a Japanese division
33:27was waking up.
33:28And inside the wire,
33:30minutes were draining away
33:31in the doorways
33:32of bamboo barracks.
33:34So the paratroopers
33:35set the camp on fire.
33:37They worked through
33:37the barracks one by one,
33:39clearing each building
33:40and then lighting it.
33:42Dorothy Danner
33:42put it plainly,
33:44the troops actually
33:45had to set fire
33:46to the barracks
33:46to get the internees moving.
33:48It worked.
33:50The smoke did
33:51what the shouting couldn't.
33:52People came out,
33:53carrying what they could,
33:54and the barracks
33:55went up behind them.
33:57Some could not come out
33:58on their own.
34:00Burgess said his men
34:00carried out
34:01over 130 people
34:03who were too weak
34:04or too sick to walk.
34:06Picture that.
34:08Paratroopers who had jumped
34:09into the camp at dawn
34:10with rifles,
34:11now going building to building
34:13ahead of the flames,
34:14lifting old men
34:15and sick women
34:16off their bunks
34:17and carrying them
34:18to the tractors.
34:20The tractors took
34:21the weakest first,
34:22the sick,
34:23the elderly,
34:24most of the women
34:25and children.
34:27One machine,
34:28nicknamed
34:28the Impatient Virgin
34:30after its driver's fiancée,
34:32was loaded with nuns.
34:33Sister Rose Genevieve's tractor
34:35stopped halfway to the lake
34:37under sniper fire,
34:39sat there for a long moment,
34:41then rumbled on
34:42and drove into the water.
34:44Everyone else walked.
34:47Ringler's men
34:48formed the able-bodied internees
34:50into a column
34:51and marched them
34:52toward the beach,
34:53guarding them
34:53on both sides.
34:55Father William McCarthy
34:56was in that column.
34:58With many others,
34:59he wrote,
35:00we walked over
35:01the Highway of Freedom
35:02against a background
35:03of flames.
35:05As they walked,
35:06Ringler could hear
35:07firing in the distance,
35:08off to the west.
35:09He knew what it was.
35:12At seven that morning,
35:13at the same minute
35:14the parachutes opened,
35:16Lieutenant Colonel
35:16Robert Soule
35:17had sent his column
35:18across the San Juan River
35:20toward two Japanese-held hills.
35:23His job now
35:24was to make noise,
35:25to draw the Japanese
35:27toward him
35:27and hold them there.
35:29His glider men
35:30took both hills
35:31and set up a block
35:32on the highway.
35:33It was not free.
35:35Two of his men,
35:36John Doran
35:37and Vernal McMurtry,
35:38were killed
35:39in that fighting.
35:40They died so that
35:41the enemy would be
35:41looking the wrong way.
35:43At about 9.30,
35:45the first loaded tractors
35:46began crawling back
35:47toward San Antonio.
35:49Around 10,
35:50they reached the beach
35:51and slid into the lake.
35:53From Mayondon Point,
35:55the Japanese guns
35:56opened up again.
35:57Most of their fire
35:58went wide,
36:00but one shell
36:01or bullet
36:01punctured the pontoon
36:02of a tractor
36:03packed with internees
36:04and it began
36:05taking on water
36:06in the middle of the lake.
36:08Its crew radioed
36:09for help.
36:10Another tractor
36:11came alongside
36:12and took every evacuee
36:13off.
36:15A third took
36:16the sinking machine
36:16under tow
36:17and dragged it
36:18all the way
36:19to Mamatide.
36:20Around noon,
36:21the first wave
36:22reached the far shore.
36:24Roughly 1,500 people.
36:26Army ambulances
36:27and trucks
36:28were waiting
36:28to take them
36:29to New Belabed Prison
36:30where the army
36:31had set up a hospital
36:32and a mess hall.
36:34Remember the arithmetic
36:35from earlier.
36:36About 1,600 seats.
36:381,500 people
36:39in the first wave
36:40which means
36:41that at noon
36:42several hundred
36:44internees
36:44were still sitting
36:45on the beach
36:46at San Antonio.
36:48Along with them
36:49was nearly
36:50the entire
36:501st Battalion
36:51of the 511th.
36:53More than 400 men
36:5425 miles
36:56behind Japanese lines
36:58with their backs
36:59to a lake
37:00and every Japanese unit
37:01in the area
37:02aware of exactly
37:04where they were.
37:06That is the 4th layer
37:07of the answer.
37:09The rescue
37:10at Los Baños
37:11was not finished
37:11when the camp
37:12was taken
37:12or when the
37:14first tractors
37:14pulled away.
37:16It was finished
37:17only when the
37:18last American soldier
37:19left that beach.
37:21Until then,
37:22the paratroopers
37:23themselves
37:24were the rear guard,
37:25the bait,
37:26and the last thing
37:27standing
37:28between the remaining
37:29internees
37:30and the Japanese.
37:32For about 3 hours
37:34they waited.
37:35At around 1 in the afternoon,
37:38Gibbs' tractors
37:38came back
37:39across the lake.
37:40The last internees
37:42climbed in.
37:43Then the paratroopers.
37:45Then the two
37:45pack howitzers.
37:47As the machines
37:48pushed back
37:49into the water,
37:50Japanese soldiers
37:51closing on the beachhead
37:52opened up
37:53with mortars
37:53and artillery.
37:55Art Coleman,
37:56at his machine gun,
37:57watched the rounds
37:58come in.
37:59Not a round
38:00found its target,
38:01he wrote.
38:02On one tractor,
38:04Sergeant Harold
38:05Mason and his gun crew
38:06decided they would
38:06fire back.
38:08They loaded their
38:09howitzer and fired
38:10at a suspected
38:11machine gun position
38:12on the shore
38:12from inside a crowded
38:14tractor bobbing
38:15in the lake.
38:16The driver turned
38:17around.
38:18According to Mason,
38:19he pointed a .45 pistol
38:21back at them
38:22and said,
38:23anyone loading that
38:24thing again gets a
38:25bullet in the head.
38:26The artillerymen
38:28stopped.
38:29So, oddly,
38:30did the Japanese fire.
38:32It is a strangely
38:33human moment.
38:35A driver
38:36with a boatload
38:36of people
38:37at five miles
38:38an hour
38:38with one job
38:40left.
38:41Get across.
38:43By three
38:44in the afternoon,
38:45the beach
38:45at San Antonio
38:46was empty.
38:47No internees,
38:49no American soldiers.
38:51Burgess was among
38:52the last to leave.
38:53But before that
38:54last tractor
38:55pulled away,
38:55something happened
38:56that nearly broke
38:57the whole plan.
38:59A small piper cub
39:00had been circling
39:01over the lake.
39:02In it was
39:03General Joseph Swing
39:05himself,
39:05the division commander.
39:07He came up
39:08on the radio
39:09with a question
39:10for his 26-year-old
39:11major.
39:12Burgess later wrote
39:13that he was so startled
39:14by what Swing asked
39:16that he did something
39:17majors do not do
39:18to generals.
39:19He switched off
39:20his radio.
39:22At midday
39:23on February 23,
39:241945,
39:25Major Henry Burgess
39:27was standing
39:27on the beach
39:28at San Antonio
39:28with a radio handset
39:30in his hand
39:30and a general
39:31circling overhead.
39:33Accounts differ
39:34on exactly
39:35what General Swing
39:36asked him.
39:37In one version,
39:38Swing wanted to know
39:39whether Burgess
39:40could go on
39:40and liberate
39:41the entire town
39:42of Los Baños
39:43and link up
39:44with Sewell's glidermen.
39:45In another,
39:46he suggested
39:47that Burgess
39:48hold the beachhead
39:49until Sewell's
39:49column arrived.
39:51Either way,
39:52the question came down
39:53to the same thing.
39:54Stay.
39:55Burgess answered
39:56with silence.
39:58I was so startled
39:59at the inquiry,
40:00he wrote later,
40:01that rather than reply,
40:03I turned off
40:03our radio.
40:05Now,
40:06a 26-year-old major
40:07does not cut off
40:08his commanding general
40:09lightly,
40:10so stand next to him
40:11on that sand
40:12for a moment
40:13and look at
40:13what he was looking at.
40:15Several hundred
40:16internees
40:17still waiting
40:18for the second trip.
40:19About 400
40:20paratroopers,
40:21two small
40:22pack howitzers,
40:23a lake
40:24at his back.
40:25Sewell's column
40:26on the far side
40:27of a river
40:27with the road
40:28between them cut.
40:30Somewhere to the south,
40:32a Japanese division
40:32of around 10,000 men,
40:35and every hour
40:36he stayed
40:36would turn a rescue
40:38into a battle,
40:39with civilians
40:40sitting in the middle
40:41of it.
40:42He kept loading
40:43the tractors.
40:45And that is where
40:46the full answer
40:47to our question
40:48finally comes
40:49into focus.
40:50because the radio
40:51switch is not
40:52a footnote
40:53to the raid
40:53at Los Baños.
40:54It is the whole raid
40:56in one gesture.
40:58Let's go back
40:59through the day
41:00and look at
41:00every piece again
41:01the way Burgess
41:02saw them.
41:04Seven o'clock.
41:05Chosen because
41:06Pete Miles
41:07had carried a guard
41:08schedule out of
41:09the camp in his head.
41:10It won the first
41:1120 minutes.
41:13But its real value
41:14was speed.
41:16Every minute
41:17not spent fighting
41:17at the wire
41:18was a minute saved
41:19for getting out.
41:21500 feet.
41:23Chosen so
41:24Ringler's men
41:24would be on the ground
41:25in seconds.
41:26Not one paratrooper
41:28was hit coming down.
41:29A company with
41:30no casualties
41:30is a company
41:31that can carry
41:32130 people
41:33out of burning barracks.
41:35Four forces,
41:37one minute.
41:38Scouse teams
41:39and the guerrillas
41:39the jump,
41:41the tractors,
41:42Sule's column.
41:43All converging
41:44on seven o'clock
41:45so that the guards,
41:47the pillboxes,
41:47and the Japanese
41:48on the highway
41:49were all hit at once
41:50and nobody had time
41:52to organize anything.
41:54The lake.
41:56Chosen because
41:56the bridges were down.
41:58But it gave Burgess
41:59something no road
42:00could have.
42:01A way out
42:02the Japanese
42:02could shoot at
42:03but could not block.
42:04And the machines
42:06that crossed it
42:06had already,
42:07the night before,
42:08sent a Japanese
42:09general's troops
42:10chasing phantom tanks
42:11to the west.
42:13Sule's column,
42:14making noise
42:15on the highway
42:15so the enemy
42:16would look the wrong way,
42:18two of his men
42:19died making that noise.
42:21The fires in the barracks,
42:23the two trips,
42:24the column of walkers,
42:26the rear guard
42:27on the beach,
42:28and finally,
42:29a major
42:29turning off his radio
42:30so that nothing,
42:32not even an order
42:33from his own general,
42:34could keep his battalion
42:35on that shore
42:36one hour longer
42:37than the plan allowed.
42:39So here is the answer.
42:41The 11th Airborne
42:42did not free
42:432,147 people
42:46by winning a fight
42:47at dawn.
42:48It freed them
42:49by planning
42:49the whole day backward
42:51from the moment
42:52the last tractor
42:53left the beach.
42:54Every choice,
42:56the minute,
42:57the altitude,
42:58the lake,
42:58the fire,
42:59the silence on the radio,
43:01served one purpose,
43:02to be gone
43:04before the Japanese
43:05could arrive in strength.
43:07The parachutes
43:08at 7 o'clock
43:09were not the climax
43:09of the rescue.
43:10They were the starting gun
43:12for an 8-hour withdrawal.
43:15Now hold that
43:16against the numbers
43:17the planners started with.
43:18They had expected
43:19the raiding force
43:20might lose up to
43:2130% of its men.
43:23B Company had been told
43:24that saving
43:25one-third of the internees
43:27would count as success.
43:28Here is what actually happened.
43:31Every internee came out.
43:33Not one was killed
43:34in the raid.
43:34The few who were
43:36wounded that morning
43:36all survived.
43:38On the American side,
43:40the count most often given
43:41is three dead.
43:43Two of them,
43:44John Doiron
43:45and Vernal McMurtry,
43:46from Sewell's diversion
43:48on the highway.
43:49The Filipino guerrillas
43:50lost two of their own,
43:52Atenasio Castillo
43:53and Anselmo Soler,
43:55both of the hunters.
43:57The Japanese garrison
43:59lost somewhere
43:59between 70 and 80 men.
44:02One-third
44:03had been the definition
44:04of success.
44:06They brought out
44:06every one.
44:08Douglas MacArthur
44:09said the next day,
44:11Nothing could be
44:12more satisfying
44:13to a soldier's heart
44:14than this rescue.
44:16Half a century later,
44:18Colin Powell,
44:19the former chairman
44:20of the Joint Chiefs,
44:21called Los Banos
44:23the textbook airborne operation
44:25for all ages
44:26and all armies.
44:28And yet,
44:29here is something
44:30most people
44:30have never heard.
44:32Almost nobody
44:34back home noticed.
44:35That same morning,
44:36on a volcanic island
44:37about 750 miles
44:39south of Tokyo,
44:40a photographer
44:41named Joe Rosenthal
44:42climbed Mount Suribachi
44:44on Iwo Jima.
44:45The picture he took
44:46of six men
44:47raising a flag
44:48went around the world.
44:50The rescue
44:51at Los Banos,
44:52on the same day,
44:53slipped to the inside pages.
44:55But the story
44:56did not end
44:57at three o'clock
44:58that afternoon
44:59on an empty beach.
45:01The tractors
45:02had carried away
45:02every internee.
45:04The paratroopers
45:05had gone with them.
45:06The camp was empty
45:07and burning.
45:09But the barrios
45:10around Los Banos
45:11were not empty.
45:13Thousands of Filipino
45:14civilians still lived there,
45:16in the same villages
45:17the guerrillas
45:17had come from.
45:19The Japanese
45:20came back to Los Banos
45:21a few days later.
45:22And what the Americans
45:23found when they
45:24returned to that shore
45:25is the last part
45:27of this story.
45:28At about a quarter
45:28past four
45:29on the afternoon
45:30of February 23,
45:311945,
45:33a Red Cross
45:34ambulance pulled
45:34through the gates
45:35of New Belabed Prison,
45:36south of Manila,
45:38carrying a group
45:39of Mary Knoll sisters
45:40from Los Banos.
45:41Two days earlier,
45:43one of them,
45:44Sister Eleanor
45:45Frances Andrews,
45:46had written,
45:47Tonight is our last meal
45:49unless something happens.
45:51That night,
45:52they ate.
45:54The army had turned
45:55the old prison
45:56into a hospital
45:56with a mess hall
45:58that could seat
45:58750 at a time.
46:01Doctors and cooks
46:02had to be careful.
46:03People who had lived
46:04for weeks
46:05on a few hundred
46:06calories a day
46:06could be harmed
46:07by too much food
46:08too quickly.
46:10Dr. Dana Nance,
46:12the camp physician
46:12who had worked
46:1312-hour days
46:14through the starvation months,
46:16later told Father McCarthy
46:17something that reframes
46:19the entire raid.
46:21Most of the prisoners,
46:22he said,
46:23would have died
46:24of starvation
46:24within another month.
46:26Within another month.
46:29That was the margin.
46:30But I promised you
46:31the rest of the story,
46:32and it has to be told.
46:34A few days after the raid,
46:36Japanese troops
46:36returned to the area
46:37around Los Baños.
46:39They found the camp empty.
46:41They turned on the people
46:42who remained.
46:43When American paratroopers
46:45later came back
46:46to that shore,
46:46they found Filipino families
46:48who had been tied
46:49to the stilts
46:49of their own houses
46:50before the houses
46:51were set on fire.
46:53Burgess estimated
46:54that more than
46:551,500 Filipino civilians
46:57had been killed.
46:58Pro-Japanese Filipino militia
47:00may have taken part.
47:01Warrant officer
47:02Sadaaki Konishi,
47:04the man who had told
47:05his staff to let
47:06the internees starve,
47:07was identified
47:08as one of those responsible.
47:10After the war,
47:11he was tried
47:12as a war criminal
47:13and hanged.
47:14That is the hardest fact
47:15in this story,
47:16and it belongs in it.
47:18The rescue of 2,147 people
47:21did not end the war
47:23around Los Baños.
47:25It only ended it for them.
47:27So what became
47:28of the people
47:28you met this morning,
47:29Lt. George Scow,
47:31who crossed the lake
47:31in a fishing boat
47:32and lay in the paddies
47:33counting minutes,
47:35did not see the war's end.
47:37His name is on
47:38the 11th Airborne's roll
47:39of men who did not come home,
47:41a silver star
47:42and a bronze star beside it.
47:45The date of his death
47:46is August 13, 1945,
47:49two days before Japan
47:51announced its surrender.
47:54Among the internees
47:55carried out that morning
47:56was a civilian
47:57named Frank Buckles.
47:59As a teenager,
48:00he had served in France
48:01in the First World War.
48:03He spent three years
48:04at Los Baños,
48:06rode out on a tractor,
48:07and went on to become
48:08the last surviving
48:09American veteran
48:10of the First World War.
48:12He died in 2011
48:14at 110.
48:17The baby girl
48:18born three days
48:19before the raid,
48:20Lois Kathleen McCoy,
48:22went out with the rest of them.
48:24John Ringler received
48:26a silver star
48:26for Los Baños,
48:28his second.
48:29He had enlisted
48:30as a private in 1940.
48:32He lived until June of 2008
48:35and died at 90.
48:37Years after the raid,
48:38he called it
48:39truly an ideal airborne mission,
48:41the kind they had trained for.
48:44That is how he talked
48:45about the morning
48:46he went out of a door
48:47at 500 feet
48:48over 2,000 starving people.
48:51And Robert Wheeler,
48:53the 12-year-old
48:54who lay under his bunk
48:55while bullets came
48:56through the grass walls,
48:57grew up.
48:58For the rest of his life,
49:00whenever he met
49:00one of the men
49:01from the 11th Airborne,
49:02he did the same thing.
49:04He took the man's hand
49:05and said,
49:06Thank you for my life.
49:09The paratroopers
49:10usually gave him
49:11the same answer.
49:12They were just
49:13doing their job.
49:15Go back one last time
49:16to that open door
49:17at two minutes
49:18before seven.
49:19John Ringler,
49:2126,
49:22looking down
49:22at a small field,
49:24waiting for smoke.
49:25Behind him,
49:26a company
49:27of American paratroopers.
49:29Ahead of them,
49:30a schedule
49:30smuggled out
49:31in an escaped engineer's head,
49:33a blackboard drawing,
49:3554 steel boxes
49:37on a dark lake,
49:38and a clock
49:39that would not stop
49:40until the last of them
49:41had left the beach.
49:43They weren't asked
49:43to win a battle
49:44at Los Baños.
49:45They were asked
49:45to get everyone out
49:46before the enemy
49:47could arrive.
49:48And they got
49:49all of them out.
49:51Thank you for watching
49:52this story to the end.
49:53If it meant something to you,
49:55please hit like.
49:56It's the simplest way
49:57to help a story
49:57like the 11th Airborne's
49:59at Los Baños
49:59find people
50:00who have never heard it.
50:02Subscribe
50:02and turn on the bell
50:03so you don't miss
50:04the next one.
50:05And tell me in the comments
50:06where you're watching from.
50:07If your father,
50:09grandfather,
50:09or uncle
50:10served in the Second World War,
50:11in any allied army,
50:13please share his name
50:14and his unit.
50:16The American soldiers
50:17who went into Los Baños
50:18that morning
50:18are mostly gone now.
50:20Their names shouldn't be.

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