Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission

Once Murphy’s Company F attacked from the rear, Prince’s Company C “opened fire with a barrage that was so immense it was plainly overkill” (346). All of the Japanese watch towers and pillboxes “had been neutralized, or obliterated altogether” in less than a minute (346). Company C’s Teddy Richardson shot open the padlock on the main gate, and the Rangers were inside. The first prisoners they encountered were confused as the Rangers yelled directions at them to head to the main gate. Staff Sergeant Manton Stewart used a bazooka to destroy the flimsy buildings that housed military machinery. Opening the gates to the American part of the camp, Ranger Lester Malone announced his presence, “We’re Yanks!” and instructed the prisoners to head to the main gate (350).

The American prisoners resembled “scared vermin scattering for cover after you switch on the kitchen lights” (350). Some were confused. Others thought it was a trick. Others yet prayed. Certain prisoners even seemed ungrateful. Prisoners like Bert Bank experienced symptoms of blindness and required help to move about. Bob Body’s escape plan was foiled once again, “trumped by a full-scale rescue” (353). To the prisoners, “the Rangers looked exceedingly strange”—from their unrecognizable uniforms to firearms (351). Many prisoners were confused about what the main gate was—to them, it “always meant the gate to the American compound” rather than the main entrance and exit of the prison compound (353). Others were not American—British, Norwegian, Dutch, and Canadian—so they asked if they could leave too. Dr. Ralph Hibbs did not seem to understand how urgent the escape had to be and “needed a little physical convincing” (353). Colonel Duckworth, the US camp commander, was “[t]he most recalcitrant prisoner” (354). The Rangers had to prevent the POWs from taking their documents, souvenirs, and clean clothing. Eventually, however, “the awareness that this was a jailbreak was beginning to sink in among the rest of the prisoners” (355).

The rescuers “were truly appalled at the grotesque condition of many of the prisoners” (358). The prisoners were “a ghastly parade—amputees, consumptives, men with peg legs, men without hair or teeth, men with the elephantine appendages and scrotums indicative of web beriberi” (358). Some Rangers teared up at the extent of the prisoners’ emaciation. Corporal Jim Herrick carried a POW who died in his arms from a heart attack outside the gate—“apparently the raid’s first American casualty” (360). Some Rangers were wounded by Japanese mortar shells, such as Alfred Alfonso, Tom Rounsaville, and Jack Peters. Bill Nellist—completely lacking medical training—used his field knife and wire cutters to cut out and remove a large metal fragment from Rounsaville on site. Captain James Fisher, a doctor, was also wounded in his stomach and bleeding profusely. He “knew it was extremely serious,” so the other medics carried him to Platero (363).

Mucci watched the raid from the field. As they moved, the Rangers could hear “an enormous firefight” between Captain Pajota’s guerillas and the Japanese (365). Some POWs walked naked, fearing that their white G-strings were too visible in the moonlight. Many were too weak, or too blind, to walk and had to be carried or led. Finally, Mucci’s men found the promised carabao and carts in the riverbed of the Pampanga River (367). The Japanese attempted to chase the column, including a light tank, which they shot with a rocket launcher. As the American column crossed the Pampanga River, they were heading into safety because the river was “both a literal and a metaphorical line of demarcation” (368).