At a crucial moment, Ed Whitcomb, a B-17 navigator, made a split-second decision and thereby set off a hair-raising, spine-tingling sequence of narrow escapes, captures, unexpected breaks and bitter betrayals that culminated in his final extrication from enemy territory. Whitcomb reached Clark Field just before its demolition by the Japanese. He then evaded capture at the fall of Bataan by fleeing in a row boat to the bastion of Corregidor, where he was caught. Escaping under cover of darkness, he swam for eight hours to get to the mainland. After weeks of struggle in a snake-infested jungle, he sailed by moonlight down the heavily patrolled coast, only to fall, once again, into the clutches of the enemy. Facing captors, Ed Whitcomb took a desperate chance for freedom. Clenching his fists, he said: "My name is Robert Fred Johnson, mining employee". This is the story of a man who vowed never to give up. He assumed the identity of a civilian and lived another man's life for almost two years. Neither hunger, nor beatings, nor the long gray hopelessness of prison life could shake Ed Whitcomb's determination to escape the enemy and return home to Indiana. Ed Whitcomb is the epitome of the American fighting man. He has the courage and fortitude needed to defy all odds in order to bring honor and respect to his state and country. Escape from Corregidor is the story, told with simplicity and fearlessness, of his dedication to the principles of devotion to his fellow man and his country.

Escape from CORREGIDOR

By Edgar D. Whitcomb

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Edgar D. Whitcomb
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-6304-4

Contents

Introduction...................................xi1. Takeoff.....................................12. Surprise attack.............................103. Sweating it out.............................264. Surrender...................................435. Getaway.....................................606. Invasion....................................717. Ordeal by water.............................828. Jungle interlude............................959. Salvador Savaras............................10810. Split up...................................12011. New companions.............................13012. Santiago prison............................13613. Lead-pipe questioning......................14614. Santo Tomas................................16315. Transfer...................................17316. Shanghai...................................18117. Malaria—and hope.....................19518. "Hello, Mom"...............................20719. Full circle................................215Epilogue.......................................233

Chapter One

TAKEOFF

The four engines of our B-17 wind up with a thundering roar as we lumber down the runway on Hamilton Field, California. Pencils, books, maps, and everything loose slide to the back of the table, and the force of the acceleration takes hold of my body as the plane lunges forward. Runway lights flash past faster and faster, until at last I feel light and breathing becomes easier. We are off the ground; and through the plastic nose of the plane, I can see the lights of the bay, the boats and the bridges of San Francisco. I press my face to the cold window to drink up these last precious glimpses of the U.S.A. It is October 16, 1941, and we are on our way to a two-year tour with the Air Corps in the Philippine Islands. It will be a long time before we see this again. We may never see it again.

Little do I know that I am starting on a strange trip around the world, perhaps unlike that experienced by any other person ... that I will be captured by the enemy ... that I will escape and be captured again ... that I will be accused of being a deserter and returned to the U.S.A. with a name not even my own ... or that I will have to fly from San Francisco again before I can take an active part in the war.

Seconds after the anti-aircraft searchlights salute us high above the long string of lights which I recognize as the Golden Gate Bridge, we plunge into a wall of total blackness. With the darkness comes torrential rain and turbulence; the aircraft begins to pitch and toss, and loose gear falls to the floor.

I feel a little weak in the stomach as I realize that it is my responsibility to navigate this giant bomber with its crew seven thousand miles across the Pacific. As I sit back and wait for the weather to clear so I can take a celestial observation to establish our position, I wonder what "Old Charlie" would think of me now.

It was Charles J. Lunn, chief navigator for Pan-American Airways at Miami, who had taught us what we knew about navigation less than a year ago. At night Charlie used to take us to the top of the San Sebastian Hotel and point out all the important stars in the heavens. He called out names for them that sounded like something out of Grandma's almanac; but after a few weeks, Arcturus and Betelgeuse became as common to us as Smith and Jones.

"Don't write that down," he would say. "You've got to get it up here in your head. Your notes and papers won't do you any good when you're out over the ocean some night. You've got to know this stuff."

When we were more advanced in our navigation training, Charlie used to take us on flights down to Havana or out over the Bahamas in the Pan-American flying boats which had been converted into classrooms, with individual tables and equipment for each cadet.

When we were graduated, we gave Charlie a two-hundred-dollar watch to show our feelings of appreciation for what he had done for us; and with big tears in his eyes he sent fifty of us off to the Army like a proud father sending his sons into the world to make their way. "You guys are going to be captains and majors in the Army Air Corps some day, and some day you'll have the responsibility of navigating bombers across the Atlantic and Pacific."

Charlie's prediction had come true, and on this night of October 16, 1941, twenty-six of Charlie's boys, including Seamon, Jones, Horowitz, Oliver, Berkowitz, Warner, McAuliff , Schreiber and me, were individually navigating the first flight of B-17's from the United States to Clark Field in the Philippine Islands. It was the 19th Bombardment Group under the command of Colonel Eugene Eubank.

The blackness of the night as we departed from San Francisco Bay turned out to be just one of many thunderstorms we flew through as our plane made its way to Hawaii, Midway Island, Wake Island, Port Moresby in New Guinea, and Port Darwin in Australia.

In Australia we were met by a Captain Colin Kelly who had flown down from the Philippine Islands to brief us on the long flight from Port Darwin to Clark Field.

Though the flight from Australia to Luzon had been by individual navigation, by prearranged plan our squadron rendezvoused near Batangas on the south shore of Luzon, and we flew in formation at a low altitude across the island of Corregidor, the mouth of Manila Bay, Bataan Peninsula, and on across the plains to Clark Field. From the nose of the B-17 I looked with eager eyes at the scenery below as it flashed past, for this was a new and interesting land. Clark Field lay in the western portion of a vast plain, stretching from Lingayen Gulf at the north to the swamps of Manila Bay on the south, and bordered on the eastern and western sides by mountain ranges. Directly to the east of the field, a volcano-shaped mountain marked the approximate center of the great plain as it rose abruptly out of the flat country that lay all around it. As we circled for landing we could see the golf course spread out west of the field, a swimming pool, and a number of large frame houses just to the west of the field. We were eager to get on the ground and to learn what our new home in the Orient had to offer. From the air everything looked clean, fresh, and green, and we were certain that Clark Field in Pampanga Province, Luzon Island, would be a wonderful place to spend the next few months.

On the ground, we were unimpressed with the fact that we had just completed the greatest mass flight in aviation history. We were more interested in getting settled in our new oriental home. Clark Field was a pleasant place and fairly well suited to our purposes, as it had been an air base for many years, although it became immediately apparent that it was too small to accommodate our bombardment group and the other squadrons which were stationed there before we arrived.

Within a few days about seventeen of our bombers were flown to Del Monte, about five hundred miles to the south on the island of Mindanão. We were quartered in old Fort Stotsenburg to the west of the field, where we occupied quarters which had previously been used by service families before they had been sent back to the United States. By setting up our cots on the porch and in the living room we found that fifteen or twenty of us could live comfortably in a big old wooden frame house previously occupied by only one family.

In spite of our somewhat crowded conditions, we soon learned to appreciate the luxury of military service in the...