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All morning on the 5th, the sounds of battle grew in intensity. We
expected a flanking attack because we knew that the Japs were catching hell
although advancing steadily. But at noon General Jonathan "Skinny"
Wainwright walked out on the battle line and, with tears in his eyes and
voice trembling, he ordered the surrender of the last American stronghold in
the Far East. The orders were to destroy all small arms and raise a white
flag in our individual sectors. Then we were to march our men, disarmed, to
their headquarters to await the arrival of our captors.
After the danger,
privations, and hardships the men had undergone during the siege, I expected
and would have understood had they cheered and rejoiced at the order to
surrender. I looked at Manuel, a 40-year-old Filipino who had left his
family on Bataan. He had been manning a machine gun. Then there was young
Philipe, who had volunteered for every assignment. My eyes roved up and down
the loose ranks of unkempt but courageous men. Not one had even the trace of
a smile. Some cursed and swore, and a few cried, as they obeyed my order and
broke their rifles on the rocks and threw the bolts into the sea.
Leaving
their arms broken and useless I marched my company to headquarters, placed
them in charge of the first sergeant and went into the tunnel to report to
Lt. Col. Herman Anderson and Capt. Pat McMakin of the Fourth Marines. Even
then I had completed plans with Lt. Alberto Arranzaso to escape Corregidor,
because I knew what would happen to me if the Japs should catch me again, as
they had a good description from several sources. The colonel nodded at me
when I approached his desk, and I noticed deep lines at the corners of his
eyes. I told him about my men and he stood up and said, "Gause, you've done
a good job and I'm not telling you to leave but I understand. Bon voyage!"
I saluted, did an about-face, and rejoined Arranzaso in the tunnel. We
hoped to reach the mainland and find shelter with his mother in the hills.
We were both absorbed in our plans when someone grasped my arm at the tunnel
exit. It was Millie Dalton, a frightened Millie Dalton and not nearly as
crisp-looking as the girl who nursed me when I reached Corregidor. Another
girl, a Miss Kennedy of Philadelphia, Mississippi, was with her. "I'm
horribly afraid of what will happen to us when the Japs arrive," Millie said
in a rush and her friend nodded emphatically. She wanted me to take them to
the mainland, but neither Lt. Arranzaso, who stood quietly by, nor I was
sure that we'd finish the journey alive, so I reluctantly refused. When I
last saw Millie at the tunnel entrance she waved and bravely wished me good
luck. I had never felt so low, but I turned and ran with the Filipino for
whatever cover the northern edge of the island might afford until nightfall
when we could start for the mainland, six miles across the bay. We hadn't
covered a quarter of a mile when we heard motorized equipment, Jap, of
course, thunder up to the main tunnel, and then there was loud talking and
shouts and screams. We got away fast.
Arranzaso and I at last flopped
breathless under the protective shadows of a beach cliff on the northern
edge of Corregidor and damned the Japs. They had resumed their bombardment
of Corregidor, undoubtedly out of anger because General Wainwright refused
to order men on other islands in the Philippines to surrender also. American
and Filipino soldiers were standing around unarmed and helpless in the
barrage.
About seven o'clock, we ventured out of our hiding place to
scout around in the gathering dusk for some means of getting across the bay
to the mainland. A short walk up the beach revealed a sluggish-looking
native outrigger that had washed up on the sands. It was duly launched, and
the Filipino flyer and I were heading into the waves about 200 feet offshore
when Japs on the cliff several hundred feet above caught us in the beam of
searchlight that combed the water searching for anyone foolhardy enough to
try and leave Corregidor. They fired at us, of course, but we were too far
out in the sea for their shots to be effective.
When it was quiet again
we heard someone calling to us in English from a rock on the shore. I
cautioned Arranzaso that it might be a ruse to draw us back, but we paddled
parallel with the island and after close scrutiny called to the figure that
we would come in for him. The logy craft hadn't been turned, however, when
the man who hollered that he was a Filipino scout was in the water and
swimming out to us. We helped him over the side, handed him a piece of plank
without asking any questions, then the three of us began making energetic
whirlpools in the water, and the outrigger moved faster than it had moved in
its lifetime.
I was beginning to think that getting to the mainland would
be a cinch when, once again, we were framed in a searchlight from one of the
Jap cruisers that continually circled the island to discourage and pick up
fleeing soldiers. The cruiser's gun crews must have been at their stations
because a shell went sighing over our heads a few seconds after we were
sighted, and several more followed, none very close. In the excitement,
however, the boat was overturned, and we were unceremoniously dumped into
the water. The sailors, probably slapping each other on their backs and
telling each other what marksmen they were, promptly forgot us. Arranzaso
couldn't swim, I was dismayed to learn, so we righted the outrigger and
swung our dripping bodies aboard. We paddled along with the gunwales
submerged, but it was a bit comforting to have something beneath my feet
after so many hours in the water previously.
The night was dark and the
sea was choppy. We headed into the wind and our paddles lifted and dipped,
lifted and dipped. Shells and bombs were still bursting on Corregidor and
every once in a while one would come sailing over the island -- the Japs
couldn't always hit the island -- and burst near us. Whenever I heard one
whistling in our direction I instinctively drew in my neck and hoped that it
would keep on going. When dawn broke, we weren't a third of the way from
Corregidor to the mainland. Treacherous crosscurrents carried us sideways
during the night, and we made little headway in the water-filled boat.
We
were debating what to do next when a Jap fighter plane peeled off from a
formation and fired a few bursts at us. The bullets spat into the water
alongside the boat as the three of us went over the side, and when I came up
Lt. Arranzaso's voice rang in my ears.
"I've been hit!"
