Eighty years ago a company of U.S. Army Rangers and Filipino guerrilla fighters conducted the most successful rescue mission in American military history, freeing over 500 prisoners of war being held by the Japanese during World War II.
The raid took place at Cabanatuan prison camp, located about 65 miles north of Manila.
Most of the POWs in the camp were survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March, which took place in the spring of 1942 following the fall of the Philippines.
The Japanese had struck the Philippines only hours after hitting Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and with the same devastating effect, destroying most of the American airpower and naval forces stationed in the U.S. territory.
Shortly thereafter, over 57,000 seasoned Japanese soldiers landed on Luzon and pushed the combined American and Filipino forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur into retreat to the Bataan Peninsula at the mouth of Manila Harbor, where they awaited American reinforcements and supplies, which never arrived.
The Americans and Filipinos made a brave stand for four months against the Japanese onslaught until a lack of food and supplies, as well as the spread of disease, made surrender inevitable.
As the end drew near, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to relinquish his command, break through the Japanese naval blockade of the Philippines, and make his way to Australia to lead the Allied counteroffensive.
MacArthur, heartsick, obeyed, and upon reaching Australia, resolutely told reporters, “I came through, and I shall return.” His promise, “I shall return,” became a rallying cry among Filipinos in the then-occupied American commonwealth.
The Japanese made their final push in the Philippines on Good Friday, April 3, 1942. Six days later, the Americans surrendered. It was the largest surrender of U.S. forces in the nation’s history.
The 65-mile Bataan Death March to a POW camp followed.
Today we mark National Former Prisoners of War Recognition Day, commemorating the April 9, 1942 surrender of approximately 10,000 US military personnel & 65,000 Filipino soldiers on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines to the invading Imperial Japanese Army #WWII #History pic.twitter.com/tnc0iaSEyE
— WWII Memorial Friends (@WWIIMemorial) April 9, 2019
Approximately 6,000 of the 78,000 of the combined American and Filipino troops died on the march, due to Japanese brutality, denial of food and water, and exhaustion from the months of previous fighting.
Dr. Conrad Crane, who served as chief of historical services for the Army Heritage and Education Center, told The Western Journal in 2020 that fulfilling his pledge to redeem the Philippines was personal to MacArthur.
“There’s a lot of honor and prestige for MacArthur wrapped up in the Philippines and a part of that too is an obligation not just to the Filipinos left behind, but also to those troops left behind,” Crane said.
It would take the general two-and-a-half years to make good on his pledge, as he led the 3,500-mile push from Australia back to the archipelago.
Finally, in October 1944, the war leader could proclaim from a beachhead on Leyte Island, “People of the Philippines, I have returned. … The hour of your redemption is here.”
Gen. Douglas MacArthur fulfills pledge to return to WW2 Philippines, 70 years ago tomorrow: #NARA pic.twitter.com/XKM4VPsyF0
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) October 20, 2014
In early January 1945, U.S. forces landed on Luzon island and began the push toward Manila.
By this time, most of the American POWs had been transported back to Japan or Manchuria to work as slave laborers, but over 500 Americans were still being held at Cabanatuan, with more at other camps on the island.
When one of MacArthur’s top generals, Sixth Army commander Gen. Walter Krueger, learned of Cabanatuan, he green-lit a mission to rescue the POWs, knowing they were in danger of being killed by the Japanese as the American front lines drew near.
Charlie Company of the 6th Ranger Battalion, beefed up with an extra platoon to be 120 strong, was chosen for the perilous mission to slip 30 miles behind enemy lines, undetected, liberate the camp, and lead the POWs back to freedom.
They would be supported in the mission by 200 Filipino guerrilla fighters.
Rangers’ Raid on Cabanatuan a Classic Joint Special Operation https://t.co/jINl4gd9Qu pic.twitter.com/cZ939bXiLL
— Special Operations (@officialspecops) May 16, 2017
Opposing them would be approximately 250 Japanese guards and other troops housed at Cabanatuan, with nearly 1,000 Japanese soldiers positioned less than a mile from the camp.
Only four miles away, at Cabanatuan City, were an additional 9,000 Japanese forces.
Lt. Col. Henry Mucci led the American rescue operation.
Have you ever heard of this operation?
The West Point graduate explained the odds of the mission and said any soldier who wanted to could stay behind. He waited a moment to let his words sink in and for his troops to make their decisions, but not one backed out, according to William Breuer in his 1994 book “The Great Raid.”
“One other thing,” Mucci said. “There’ll be no atheists on this trip.”
“Men, I want all of you to go to church. Get down on your knees and pray. Swear to God that’ll you’ll die if need be rather than let any harm come to our POWs!”
Robert Prince, commander of Charlie Company, confirmed to me during an interview in the late 1990s, Mucci’s remarks.
The Rangers launched the raid of Cabanatuan on the evening of Jan. 30, 1945.
A P-61 Black Widow fighter plane flew low over the camp creating a diversion, so the U.S. troops could draw in close to the fence line undetected.
75 years ago first flight Northrop P-61 Black Widow, the first operational U.S. warplane designed as a night fighter, and first aircraft designed to use radar. The prototype was powered by R-2800-25S Double Wasp radials turning 12 ft 2 in diameter Curtiss C5425-A10 4-blade props pic.twitter.com/C7apaFG593
— Aviation Buddha ✈ (@AviationBuddha) November 20, 2017
Suddenly, at 7:44 p.m., the night sky lit up with a fusillade of gunfire as Rangers took out the Japanese guards in their assigned sectors.
The Americans quickly broke through the front gate and fanned out into the camp.
Many of the POWs were terrified when they heard all the gunfire, thinking the Japanese had decided to kill them rather than let them be liberated. The frenetic scene during the liberation was depicted in the 2005 film “The Great Raid.”
POWs were quickly directed to the camp front gate then to a rallying point at a river nearby.
Meanwhile, less than a mile from Cabanatuan, 200 Filipino guerrillas under the leadership of Captain Juan Pajota held off nearly a thousand Japanese soldiers.
Pajota’s men managed to partially blow a bridge over the Cabu River, which ran between Cabanatuan and the Japanese forces, which prevented tanks and other heavy vehicles from crossing.
The guerrillas then mowed down Japanese troops with machine-gun fire as they repeatedly tried to make Bonzai charges over what remained of the bridge.
WWII Picture of the Day – Captain Pajota’s guerrillas at Cabanatuan, 1945. pic.twitter.com/gzDdDSKf3h
— World War II History (@thewaryears) April 13, 2019
The liberated POWs, guarded by the Rangers and guerrillas, marched through the night toward the American lines, only encountering some light Japanese resistance along the way.
Things had come full circle from the spring of 1942. Now, instead of the Death March, they were in a life march.
When they reached U.S. lines and saw the American flag flying, “We wept openly,” liberated POW Abie Abraham later recalled, “and we wept without shame.”
Fellow POW Dr. Ralph Hibbs told me during a 1997 interview that MacArthur came to visit the freed POWs days after their rescue, and the general cried when he saw them.
Hibbs felt the tears were a genuine expression of the emotion the general felt at being reunited with his men and the sadness of seeing the toll the captivity had taken on them.
On this day in 1945, Army Rangers, Alamo Scouts & Filipino guerrillas rescue 552 Allied prisoners from the Japanese POW camp at Cabanatuan. pic.twitter.com/2u8zqNbY3O
— Military History Now (@MilHistNow) January 30, 2023
Jim Zobel, archivist at the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Virginia, told The Western Journal in 2020 that MacArthur did not stay for minutes, but hours listening to the POWs’ stories of deprivation and abuse, and repeatedly apologized, saying, “I’m too late. I’m too late.”
A total of 516 POWs were rescued, while two Rangers died during the mission.
“It was a brilliant operation done with the minimum of casualties and the maximum of result. It was a model for other operations,” Crane said.
Cpt. Prince told reporters following his return to the U.S. in the spring of 1945, “People everywhere try to thank us. I think the thanks should go the other way around.”
“I’ll be grateful for the rest of my life that I had a chance to do something in this war that was not destructive,” he explained. “Nothing for me can ever compare with the satisfaction I got from helping free our prisoners.”
Portions of the article first appeared in “We Hold These Truths” by Randall DeSoto.
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