Detroit evening times., October 15, 1945, REDLINE, Page 8-C, Image 8

About Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958

Image provided by: Central Michigan University, Clark Historical Library

                
11 ainicright *s Black <1 heist nuts: Begins Betreat
Sacrifices One Platoon
To Save Larger Force
(C'ontinutsl from I’afii* On«^
Selleck, the 71 st Division’s commander, would be
there.
Hinalonan lies just east of the main high
way. An old and rarely used road runs more or
less paraliel to the main highway northward
and leads into Hinalonan directly. For some
reason or other I chose the old road, and by
doing so just missed being captured or killed.
As I was nearing the town, a platoon of four
or five t;yiks rode down the main highway about
2<>o yards to my left, going south. They were
Jap tanks.
My dusty Packard sedan would have offered
small resistance to them if I had encountered them
head-on, on the main road.
I got into the village aware that at least some
elements of the enemy were now between me and
Bataan, but could not find Gen. Selleck. Nor could
1 find any 71st Division troops.
* * *
OUT the 2(>th Cavalry was there, with little Col.
Pierce light out in the thick of furious com
bat with the vanguard of the main Jap force. The
2bth had been in action since daylight, protecting
the retreat of the 71st to the Agno. By the time
1 reached it, the 2(>th was reduced to not more
than 450 men.
1 ordered Pierce to get his truck train and
his wounded men out as quickly as possible and
hold his position as long as he safely could and
still be able to withdraw his remaining men .
When the time came to withdraw , he would
back up to the Agno , 15 miles below him , cross .
the bridge , destroy it and hold the south side of
the river. ,
Pierce held that position at Binalonan against
overwhelming odds until 3:30 on the afternoon of
Dec. 24, by which time he had forced the Japs to
deploy the advance guard of their main column
and to begin the deployment of the whole main
assault body.
Here was true cavalry delaying action, fit to
make a man’s heart sing. Pierce that day upheld
the best traditions of the cavalry service, and his
action led to his being raised to the rank of
brigadier general.
* * *
T STAYED at Binalonan with him for two or
A three hours and then returned to my Alcala
headquarters. En route I passed along the south
bank of the Agno and as I crossed the main north
south highway at Carmen I noted that Jap planes
had bombed the mile-long bridge over the Agno
between Carmen and Villasis. They had destroyed
the south span of the vital bridge, blowing it off
its abutment.
It was a time for cursing our luck, because
the 11th Division would have to cross that
bridge on the night of Dec. 21-25 in its with
drawal southward.
But while 1 was standing there, viewing the
damage, CoL Skerry, my engineer chief, loomed
out of nowhere. He was already making plans for
temporary repair of the bridge.
At the same time he was having charges
placed under the undamaged part of the bridge so
he would be ready to blow it as soon as the 11th
got across, or blow it if the Japs got to the river
before the 11th did.
From that point I got in touch with my Alcala
headquarters and ordered it moved back to Barn
ban, a short distance south of Fort Stotsenburg.
1 told my operations officer, my signal officer and
a few enlisted men to wait at Alcala for me.
* * *
T REACHED Alcala on the evening of Dec. 24.
* Christmas Eve always was something of an
event around our home in the good days, and now
I found my mind going back over those memories
of a Christmas tree, the arrangement of our boy’s
toys, the carefully wrapped packages for my wife,
and all the things that go with a family on that
light.
So I got in touch by phone with Necker at
RCA in Manila. He was closing up. The city had
)cen declared an open one. But he was kind
nough to get through a message to Adele.
I remember it because it was the last time I
vas able to wireless her directly for three awful
*ears .
I was hot, dirty and hungry from the day’s
ighting, worrying and traveling. But the food
which my headquarters commandant was sup
posed to send up from Bamban upon his arrival
there failed to come. We went to l>ed that night
without dinner.
On Christmas morning, 1941, a tank officer
THE DETROIT TIMES
8-C
Oct. 1945
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Helping wounded soldiers into a bus at an open-air hospital on Bataan. Before Bataan’s capitulation this was a common scene among Gen. Wainwright’s meager forces.
came past my skeletonized headquarters and gave
us a Christmas present. It was a can of beans.
Our little force, including Cols. Frank Nelson and
Josh Stansell, split it up. It was Christmas break
fast, lunch and dinner, as well as our Christmas
Eve dinner—and was mightily appreciated.
* * *
ly/l'V WITHDRAWAL plan toward Bataan was
divided into five phases, designated as Dl,
D 2, D 3, D 4 and D 5.
Dl called for a withdrawal to a line along
Urdaneta, San Carlos and Aguilar, about midway
between the base of Lingayen Gulf and the Agno.
D 2 was a line behind the Agno. D 3 reached
from San Jose to Santa Ignacio and ran through
Gerona, 16 miles farther south. Dl reached from
Cabanatuan through Zavagosa, La Paz and Tarlac
to the high ground west of Tarlac.
D 5 stretched across the broad valley leading
down from Lingayen Gulf from Bamban on the
west to Sibul Springs at the foot of the mountains
to the east.
It was unlike any of the textbook retreats
I had studied at the war college and at Leaven
worth. It differed from the retreat of Gen. Mc-
Dowell’s army from the First Battle of Bull Run
in that that had been a rout. Nor was it like
Pope’s retreat after the Second Battle of Bull
Run, or Lee’s withdrawal from Gettysburg.
In these classic retreats the object was to get
away from the enemy by speed of movement.
Moving down toward Bataan we had the definite
mission of delaying the enemy as long as prac
ticable, not only to permit Gen. Jones’ south Luzon
force to clear around Manila Bay and get into
Bataan, but also to enable Maj. Gen. George M.
Parker to prepare our Bataan defenses for us.
Ours was more withdrawal than retreat,
withdrawal with delaying actions all the way. But
even that hurt deeply. It was hard for an Ameri
can to get used to.
* * *
WITHDRAWAL to Line Dl was to be eom
pleted on the night of Dec. 23-21; D 2 on the
night of Dec. 24-25; D 3 the next night; D 4 the
night of the 27-28 and Do two nights later, the
last two withdrawals subject to cancellation in
case we could hold those D 4 and Do lines.
We completed withdrawals Dl, D 2 and D 3
without incident, but the Japs hit us heavily at
D 4, especially at Cabanatuan on our right flank.
The 91st Division took the brunt of the Jap tanks,
cavalry and infantry, and gave ground to Capan,
10 miles south of Cabanatuan.
Late the same evening, Dec. 29, the 91st was
attacked again and was routed. Our buses, loaded
to their ceilings, hauled the survivors 20 miles
farther south, where the' division commander
rallied what was left of his force.
My right flank was in such peril that I
immediately ordered a general withdrawal to
1)5, the Bamban line, on the night of Dec. 30-31.
That night Bonnett and about 1,000 troops of
the 12th and 13th Infantry Regiments, trapped
up the Kennon road two weeks before, rejoined
us and were placed with the 11th Division along
the 1)5 line.
The 91st was reformed east and south of the
Pampanga River, but for some reason which I’ve
never been able to fathom, MacArthur’s head
quarters directed that I was not to employ the
91st’s artillery units. I therewith ordered the 91st’s
artillery to withdraw at once to Bataan.
• * * *
r
THIE south Luzon force, withdrawing northward
* toward San Fernando Pampanga to reach the
only road down which it could travel to Bataan,
had to cross the Pampanga River by means of the
Calumpit bridge to reach San Fernando Pam
panga and the homestretch of the escape road to
Bataan. The bridge was a serious bottleneck. The
Japs knew it and started for it, bent upon trapping
a large part of the south Luzon force.
We had to protect that bridge, and San Fer
nando Pampanga.
With the 500 men left of the 91st Division,
plus a regiment of the 71st Division and a bat
talion of field artillery, I took a position along the
Pampanga River north of Baliaug at 11 o’clock
on the night of Dec. 30, while the south Luzon
force moved as quickly as possible over the bridge
and through San Fernando Pampanga.
During the night a company of the 192(1 Tank
Battalion was added to this defense.
At 10:30 on the morning of Dec. 31 the
Japs attacked. The 91st, somewhat reinforced ,
held its position all day in sharp fighting, while
Gen. Jones’ south Luzon men ran what
amounted to a gantlet. By midnight the major
ity of Gen. Jones’ men were safely through San
Fernando Pampanga , protected by the success
ful stand of the Uth and 21st Divisions north
of the town.
I welcomed in the dreary new year of 1942,
which was to see us fall and become the victims of
barbarous captivity, by ordering the plucky 91st
to begin its own withdrawal over the Calumpit
bridge and to be done with it before daylight.
I was at the bridge at dawn as the last ele
ments of the 91st Division crossed. The last truck,
one of the civilian ones I had earlier comman
deered, stopped at the edge of the bridge and
reported to me that it had been fired upon by a
Japanese patrol at a crossroads about 500 yards
away.
* * *
¥ ADJUSTED my field glasses and in the early
* light of the morning I could see the enemy
patrol, the tip of the Jap advance guard, coming
at us.
“Blow it,” I told Col. Skerry.*
But he hesitated, and then informed me that
Maj. Manzano of the 14th Engineers, a fine
Philippine Scout officer, and a platoon of fellow
engineers were still executing demolitions between
Manila and this escape bridge, and blowing it
would cut them off.
I looked again at the approaching Japs, and
had to choose.
“Blow it now,” I repeated. It was just
6:15 a. m.
The bridge came down into the river with a
deafening roar and the Jap force had the wide,
deep and unfordable Pampanga between them and
us. Our forces above San Fernando Pampanga
held through that day and withdrew the follow
ing night toward Bataan again.
TOMORROW Fall of the first defense
line on Bataan, and the withdrawal toward tht
tip of the peninsula—and Corregidor.