The Greatest Story Of The War In The Pacific (WW2 Documentary) | Timeline

[Music] [Music] Major William Edwin Dyess was a ghost at that moment outside of a select few in the military and government head Dyess didn't exist he was hidden away inside the Pentagon building outside of Washington DC and classified as top secret Dyess poor little resemblance to the healthy dashing young fighter pilot in the photograph that in a few short months would appear on the front page of every newspaper in the country and elicit a response from the American public that rivaled that of the attack on Pearl Harbor this program to bring you a special news number 7 1941 called home from the Pacific Theater of war major edia said arrived in the United States exactly one week earlier on his 27th birthday mystery had surrounded at Dyess ever since the fall of the Philippine Islands one of the greatest stories of the war in the Pacific began not at Pearl Harbor in 1941 but on the Prairie of West Texas where William Edwin Dyess was born in tiny Albany in high school in college Dyess was a solid student a talented dramatic actor star athlete and above all a natural leader at diocese fascination with flight began when he was just four years old and his father took him for a ride on a rickety to heaven biplane throughout the Great Depression and Dyess worked several jobs to pay for secret flying lessons given by America's fearless barnstorming pilots Dyess was he was a natural-born pilot he was he was he was created to fly Dyess could not rein in his desire to be a pilot and the United States military offered him the best opportunity if I only have so long to live I'd rather spend that time in the air Eadie Dyess Albin a Texas Dyess guaranteed his father Richard that he would flourish in the Army Air Corps rigorous training program located at San Antonio's Randolph field which was known then as the West Point of the air Diocese leadership capabilities and flying skills made him very and soon the Army Air Corps appointed the 25 year old as commanding officer of its 21st Pursuit Squadron located at Hamilton field outside of San Francisco Edie Dias was one of the youngest squadron commanders in the Air Corps around this time he married marriage instead ik a pretty socialite whose wealthy family owns several Illinois newspapers and radio stations their plans for a family would have to wait as the 21st squadrons commander EDD is led by example he was a daredevil and tough to keep up with in the air oh yeah he was everybody liked him he was a real man he was top top dog and he he knew it his folksy sense of humor and his talent for handling a p40 fighter plane made Diazes pilots and crew think of him as an older brother they should follow and respect he had the characteristics of a leader he had charisma he was a physical presence it was definitely a caring compassionate individual and someone that people could respect in the fall of 1941 war clouds were gathering over the Pacific the 21st received their orders they were headed for a mysterious place known only as plum as the SS President Coolidge passed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and slipped out of San Francisco Bay the men of the 21st Pursuit Squadron speculated on where the ship would take them their first stop would be Pearl Harbor Hawaii sailing under sealed orders at Pearl the Coolidge met another transport and a Navy Cruiser escort and the convoy proceeded westward into the vast bloop it wasn't long before those on board figured out that plum stood for Philippines Luzon Manoa Dyess wrote to his parents back in Texas it has been three days since we left Honolulu that was a wonderful spot the ship entered Pearl Harbor just at dawn so I got my first view of Diamond Head in Honolulu during a beautiful sunrise we were allowed only eight hours of shortly love we made the most of it after nearly three weeks at sea the coolies docked on the Philippine island of Luzon area of Manila where the 21st Pursuit Squadron was welcomed with great fanfare by a band playing Dixie it was Thanksgiving Day November 20th 1941 Dyess and his men debarked into the Philippine capital a steamy bustling blur of a city equal parts exotic Far East and modern American East Coast Manila was known in those days as the pearl of the Orient Manila was universally considered a service man's shangri-la buzzing with plenty of action and athletics and glowing with movie marquees and neon signs advertising Hollywood pictures and familiar American products but there would be no time for Dyess or his men to place a wager on the local highlight games grab cold beers at the swanky Manila Hotel or visit the local clubs and bars at the head of the Philippine forces as field marshal since 1937 General Douglas MacArthur was placed in command of the combined Philippine and US forces in the Philippine Islands in July 1941 the Manila the 21st Pursuit Squadron had stepped into was a frantic and chaotic place and in the 11th hour of preparation for war American General Douglas MacArthur was in command of the combined Philippine and US forces in the Philippine Islands at his headquarters inside Metro morose the old Spanish walled city at the mouth of the Pasig River MacArthur oversaw an army that was outdated and not prepared for war washington promised macarthur modern planes tanks artillery and plenty of troops to remedy the situation the troops arrived in the form of the 4th Marine Regiment which had been stationed in China since the 1920s among the hundreds of Marines arriving in Manila captain Austin shifty Shofner a strong-willed former football player at the University of Tennessee lieutenant Mike daube 'ervix and lieutenant jack sharp-witted soft-spoken Annapolis graduate from Fort Worth Texas and then we got orders for the fourth Marines to leave Shanghai and order the Philippines this was an November of 1941 the 4th Marines as well as some Air Corps and National Guard armored and anti-aircraft units made it to the Philippines but few other soldiers and a little war materiel followed and that would prove to be disastrous Dyess reported to Nichols field in Manila with only his crew and 13 pilots half of what made up a pursuit squadrons regular complement they also had no planes the first few p-40s finally arrived unassembled on december 4th but getting the planes combat ready was another story there was hardly any engine cool no oxygen for the planes high-altitude compressors nor enough ammunition for the planes 50 caliber machine guns but perhaps the most acute shortage affecting the whole of the American and Filipino force in late 1941 was time during the first week of December 1941 Japan's designs on the Philippine Islands were becoming evident all indicators were that the Japanese were coming diocese good friend and wingman samgrass EO showed little concern for the seriousness of the situation even after an ominous briefing on December 6th grass Hill remained confident the Japanese would not strike the brash young pilot offered to bet his commander five Philippine pesos in preventive 10 u.s. dollars that there would be no war Dyess not only took the bet he raised the stakes I'll lay another five down Sam that the world begin within a week Ella has just been bombed right now Japanese forces struck simultaneously at more than half a dozen Allied bases and outposts throughout the Pacific on both sides of the International Dateline during a day of infamy that would span December 7th and 8th 1941 nowhere was the resultant confusion more strategically devastating than in the Philippines climaxed in one of the most controversial yet least known episodes of world war ii the destruction of General Douglas MacArthur's Far East Air Force from the beginning Tex Annette Dyess was in the middle of it all December 8th 1941 then first lieutenant Dyess was at Nicholls field just outside of Manila and word had come in through various channels of the attack on Pearl Harbor and so he had his men on on alert he'd be you know sleeping pretty much next to their planes you know in the early morning hours of December 8th at 10:15 a.m. the main strike force of the Imperial Japanese Navy's 11th air fleet had one goal to destroy the largest concentration of American air power in the Far East stationed at Clarke field the 21st Pursuit Squadron was being scrambled to intercept the Japanese planes it was a moment that Dyess had rehearsed for his entire young life in his own incomparable style he relayed the scramble order to his pilots Tally Ho Clark Field Sam grass was one of the few pilots of the 21st Pursuit Squadron who actually did come across the Japanese unchallenged by American planes and ineffective anti-aircraft fire the Japanese wreaked havoc at Clark Nichols and other fields in the Philippines by day's end most of General MacArthur's b-17s to entire squadrons of p-40s caught on the ground while refueling had been destroyed the fog of war was quite thick you know during this day especially in the Philippines led by General Masaharu Hama the Japanese fourteenth army landed in the Philippines in Luzon on December 22nd with no air force no Navy and no prospect of immediate help MacArthur declared Manila an open city in order to retreat to the Bataan Peninsula and the fortified islands of Manila Bay as Hamas Japanese troops surged towards the fiery Philippine capital of Manila General MacArthur's forces commenced a chaotic Exodus into Bataan perhaps the perfect place in the Pacific for a desperate last stand here at Dyess and the men of the 21st Pursuit without any planes to fly were inducted into the army infantry at first Dyess was out of his cockpit and therefore out of his element I'd rather be back home in Texas staring at the southbound end of a northbound mule his nature and enabled him to adjust to the situation at hand and he's able to train his men and successfully lead his troops and was called the Battle of the points the Japanese had planned to take the Philippines in 45 days by late January 1942 general Hama was severely behind schedule desperate Hama attempted amphibious landings on the west coast of Bataan all that stood between the Japanese and Victor he was a handful of poorly armed plane less pilots ship less sailors and other and experienced personnel we were going to run into the enemy and we did we started forward and they were they were shooting medicine and some of our guys were shooting after several days of hard fighting the patchwork Americans joined by native Filipino forces succeeded in boxing up the Japanese in two caves near Kino on point when the fanatic Japanese invaders refused to surrender the American command for Edie Dyess it was here a fighter pilot turned army infantry soldier became a Marine on February 8 1942 Dyess and Lieutenant I beat Jack Donaldson one of his favorite pilots and 20 enlisted men from the 21st Pursuit Squadron dodged strafing Japanese planes to land on this enemy-held beach charging ashore Dyess and Donaldson fired heavy Lewis machine guns while men lobbed grenades at Japanese troops concealed by caves and large rocks by 2:00 p.m. the Battle of agloe Lama Bay the first American amphibious landing of World War 2 was over it diocese heroics in leading the mission earned the pilot now a ground soldier a Distinguished Service Cross the Army's second highest medal for valor and gave General MacArthur the opportunity to continue the fight in the Philippines but for how long allied troops on half rations and in the field for months began to grow weak from starvation rampant tropical disease and combat casualties overwhelmed field hospitals MacArthur and President Roosevelt promised that help was on the way but the defenders of Bataan began to suspect they'd been written off and the European Pacific the American forces at Pearl Harbor in particular the main battle out of the Pacific Fleet have have been sunk and damaged heavily and the isolation of the force and the Philippines have only one option fight to the finish and hope we can get there but we couldn't even mobilize forces to get to Wake Island the the critical part of the story what was our capability and unfortunately for those poor men there will be the largest surrender of American forces in our history there is no way to relieve them sensing that sinking morale at Dyess had been pressing his CEO general Hal George of the fifth interceptor command to strike back into Japanese Dyess finally got the green light to take the fight to the Japanese on March 2nd 1942 lifting off from Bataan field and kibosh his olive-drab p40 Gaius felt weighted down with both a 500-pound bomb and responsibility after a short flight at Dyess dulled toward his destiny over Subic Bay at 5,000 feet with the throttle wide open I saw that I was to receive a big-time reception for hours Dyess and others braved fierce anti-aircraft fire dive bombing and strafing enemy ships and Shore installations nine pilots participated but Diocese individual exploits were staggering his score included 112 thousand ton transport destroyed one six thousand ton vessel burned several major motor launches and barges sunk and incalculable dockside damaged the soon-to-be famous raid on Subic Bay earned Dyess a Distinguished Flying Cross dear folks characteristically humblest is communicated none of his daring exploits in a handwritten letter that somehow managed to reach his parents in Texas as soon as we kicked the nips off the island we'd take a short trip to Tokyo for a little cleanup job and board a boat for good old USA despite diocese efforts morale nevertheless plummeted when General MacArthur under orders from the president left the Philippines for safety in Australia in early April general hama launched a multi-pronged offensive and the debilitated defenders were helpless to stop them even as the inevitable end drew near at Dyess never wavered in his devotion to his duty and to his men when General Edward King made the fateful decision to surrender the Filipino and American forces on Bataan in April 1942 there was a there was already a contingency plan in the works in order to try to airlift or evacuate some of the pilots there to the southern Philippines Mindanao or else Australia II Dyess was selected as one of these into Jools to go as a talented skilled squadron leader and pilot but Dyess wasn't having any of that that was it was a in order that he did had no intentions of following he felt it was a run out he felt his responsibilities to his men to his family his friends that forced him to stay stay on Bataan after ordering Jack Donaldson to fly kibosh off Bataan daya surrendered his seat on a salvaged Grumman amphibian named the duck to his friend lieutenant Leo Bolin's his last self assigned mission completed at Dyess samgrass EO and a handful of pilots reluctantly laid down their sidearms before a Japanese patrol [Music] there was always sort of a sneaking suspicion that the Japanese didn't exactly play by the rules the rules being the Geneva Convention but nothing could prepare that for for what was going to befall them this this whole tragedy that was about to unfold that would be called the death march on April 10th 1942 merav Ellis a tiny port on the southern tip of Bataan was a mob scene of refugees captured Americans and Filipino soldiers and pampas Japanese troops the new prisoners of war were corralled in Sunsplash staging areas where the Japanese seized their jewelry wristwatches ballpoint pens lighters and cigarettes determined not to let his flight school ring become a war souvenir at Dyess defiantly hurled it into the North Channel there still was plenty of fight left in us we were prisoners but we didn't feel late marching out of marabella's the POWs trudged up the steep grade of a winding road and into the unknown the Japanese eager to conquer Corregidor prodded the prisoners forward relentlessly the Japanese are very impatient they feel that these prisoners who are placing their charge or less than human for having surrendered they're definitely dishonorable soldiers there they're below that and at that point they start using whatever means possible to to move these American prisoners faster one of the first guys I ran into was a Jap officer and he had a pretty good-sized pistol they put it right up to my head he was pulling that trigger and I I thought I thought that I was gonna end up right there but the Japanese were just getting started it starts with beating them with rifle butts swinging with sticks from trucks that are passing by and different convoys and it escalates from there to bayonet prodding a men are starting to be beaten and soon enough it starts with with samurai swords beheadings and different atrocities take place many thirsty prisoners who broke ranks for bubbling artesian wells paid the ultimate price [Music] Dyess had witnessed senseless atrocities with disbelief he longed to strike out against his captors but eventually pulled out of that emotional nosedive now as never before I wanted to kill Japs for the pleasure of it but by going berserk now I would only lose my own life without hope of ever helping to even the score Diocese determination to live to fight another day and to avenge his countrymen as well as his sense of duty kept him moving through the taunts and the beatings he's marching with some grassy Oh for for a little bit but they get separated once Dyess has knocked into a ditch by a violent Japanese guard so at that point the death march both literally and figuratively encouraged I'd to trees as living targets for bayonet practice as the March proceeded north the prisoners pass through the barrios of Eastern Bhutan in slow succession in and around each one brave civilians attempted to provide the prisoners with food water and moral support the Jap guards went into a frenzy they struck out right and left at the good Samaritans slugging beating and jabbing bayonets indiscriminately energized by the filipino spirit Dyess had summoned the strength to reach the sugar mill town of san fernando the end of the death march it had taken him nearly a week but Dyess had survived the most infamous war crime in the annals of American military history others would not be so lucky nearly 700 Americans and as many as 10,000 Filipinos were believed to have died during the roughly three week long movement survivors would later call with unique understatement the hike those brutal as the March was they think it really can't get any worse especially when they see a bunch of train cars lined up at a train station the Japanese are shooing in these prisoners with their rifle butts and with their bayonets into boxcars that are basically called 40 by eights which meant during World War one they were meant to carry between 40 men or eight horses Japanese in some cases our shoehorning in 50 men 100 men into these cars there was no room to move we stood jammed together because there wasn't sufficient floor space to permit sitting as the day wore on and the Sun climbed higher the heat inside the boxcars grew the oven like intensity it was so hot that the air we breathe seemed to scorch our throats the boxcars clattered through the sugarcane fields and shrunken rice paddies of Pampanga province toward the great flat emptiness of Central Luzon later I heard that a number of men had died in each of the five cars I don't know I was too far gone to notice much at the journey's end after three interminable hours the locomotive hissed and squealed to a stop and the prisoners stumbled out of their stupor in Capas Tarlac province the location of a prison camp named O'Donnell as we stood staring dazed idli there came to me a premonition that hundreds about to enter O'Donnell prison this April day would never leave it alive if I could have known what lay in store for us I think I would have given up the ghost then in there with the fall of Bataan the Japanese sighted in the sole remaining obstacle to their conquest of the Philippines Japanese objective oregano the island was honeycombed with subterranean bunkers and tunnels and bristled with artillery batteries giant mortars and seacoast guns the largest of which could hurl 1000 pound armor-piercing shells for 17 miles this is Corregidor May 1942 Corregidor is most celebrated feature was the bomb-proof Valenta tunnel command center and its cavernous maze of laterals that served as hospital wards offices and storage but as Corregidor s besieged Army and Marine Garrison soon learned the famed fortress island was not all it had been built up to be both literally and figuratively you could hear the sound of the guns first before the shells were to get there really but a room above the room like that and when those shells came in it was really a barrage around-the-clock bombing shell concussions want to reinforce concrete recesses of Malinda the bombardments destroyed buildings and stripped Corregidor of its lush vegetation transforming the tropical island paradise into a smoking wasteland of skeletal ruins after several weeks of softening up corridors defenses Japanese general hama ordered an amphibious assault may 5th 1942 the enemy lands on Corregidor when they landed they landed where I had expected out on the narrow trail the island general Jonathan skinny Wainwright MacArthur's successor is commander of all forces in the Philippines feared a slaughter of the nearly 1,000 hospital patients in Malinda tunnel he had no choice but to meet with general Hama to arrange surrender terms and so we were about to breaking up our rifles and our machine under throwing them into the ocean it was a pitiful thing in the Navy tunnel Lieutenant Commander Melvin McCoy a 1927 Annapolis graduate concluded his duties as a radio officer for the 16th Naval District by destroying codes and transmitters at the last moment he beamed the last official message from American forces in the Philippines to Radio Honolulu going off the air now goodbye and good luck the next day they herded us all down into what they call the 92nd garage area which was in a low flat country not far from maleta tunnel after a few days they began to take us out in groups to move to a prisoner of war camp and the destination was the town of cabana Tuan a former Philippine Army military garrison Cabanatuan prison camp had become the largest powa encampment in the Pacific by the time edie Dias and aboutin prisoners arrived from camp O'Donnell a few weeks later since the Death March ended the Japanese had purposely deprived the survivors of food water and medical care and as a result nearly 2,000 of the 9,000 American prisoners were dead the Filipinos segregated from the Americans at O'Donnell and Cabanatuan had fared much worse 20,000 men were buried in endless dawn-to-dusk funeral processions at diocese squadron had disintegrated but his sense of duty and his devotion to his fellow men had fortified him with the will to endure he still feels that obligation to lead and he's at this point trying to rally his men trying to keep keep morale high doing what he can in terms of smuggled in food and medicine to try to help his his comrades as well as his his own men it may seem ridiculous but in the face of all of our adversities we continued hopeful and optimistic indeed there were many of us who never despaired of regaining our freedom the only way out of Cabanatuan it seemed was to be carried out in a burial detail torture and humiliation one of the most cool sights wikipedia american flag used the dishrag by the Japanese when Jack Hawkins was bed ridden with dysentery Mike Dover vich waited for hours to fill his canteen and force-fed him a bitter charcoal paste remedy Hawkins and dauber vege served as human crutches for shifty Shofner while their friends foot ulcers healed Texan Bob Spielman muscled a camp black marketeer to secure quinine pills for his malaria stricken pal fellow Army sergeant Paul Marshall in cobalt one Lieutenant Colonel Morey the Japanese commander announced that if anyone attempted to escape not only would he be killed but ten additional men would be killed as well another horrible example was when three American officers were caught attempting to escape they were brutally beaten tortured and finally murdered without trial these were doing to the American prisoners and of course the world outside did not know was happening to alleviate overcrowding in Cabanatuan some prisoners were being shipped to an unknown destination somewhere in the Empire Mike came back from a meeting with the Japs and told me Jack we're getting out of here he said they're going to take a thousand men hour and we don't know where they're going but but they won't men and the best condition because they're going to have to work and so we said well we've got to get on the list we're not gonna live if we stay here that's for sure with the gravitational pull of diocese personality samgrass EO signed up to so did West Point grad major Steve Melnyk Michael doe Burbidge Navy lieutenant Melvin McCoy Paul Marshall and Robert Spielman were in also McCoy knew that one of the rumored locations Mindanao the southernmost island of the Philippines was 600 miles closer to New Guinea and Australia areas in which he presumed US forces could be found they had reasonable intelligence from some friendly Japanese some Filipinos that their destination would be Mindanao in the southern Philippines and they all thought that was a chance worth taking to get away from Luzon and the conditions that could manage one the prisoners were led out of cabinet Juan's main gate on October 26 1942 this movement appealed w's however was no death march all 1000 Americans including the diocese LED group reached occupied Manila they marched us down to appear seven where so many great liners used to come in the past and the pier was full of holes from the bombs and there was an old rusty bucket of a cargo ship called the Erie Maru their conditions aboard the Japanese ship seemed like luxury compared to Cabana tois the ship sauntered out of the Loire Visayas and through the sarado straight into the Pacific after 12 days the decrepit merchant vessel tied up at the loss on lumber mill pier well we went ashore there and started to march up through the jungle on a jungle road toward the camp mile after mile the corridor wound on its walls unbroken by crossroads or clearings they really were putting us away this time we approached the camp in the night and we could see the lights over the Sun the Val penal colony and the next day after we arrived we formed up out front for tinkle which is what the Japs called muster and then they divided us off into groups and we would mark chose to work under exact guard at the de Valle penal colony also known as typical just outside of Davao City the Luzon prisoner's joined about 1000 other Americans who had been captured in the southern islands they were basically slave laborers the Japanese it was their intention to although the conditions were better than a Donald Cabana chuan and they received more food it was a Japanese intention to work these men to death it was reportedly escape-proof it was a swamp it surrounded a prison camp on all sides that swamp was filled with large Philippine crocodiles water that reportedly reached even a man's head and reportedly even headhunters also inside the camp edy iesson samgrass EO had been reunited with Leo Bolin's who had escaped Bataan but had been forced to surrender on Mindanao at a secret meeting inside the camp Dyess Grasso and Bolin's met up with Jack Hawkins shifty schockner Melvyn McCoy Steve Melnyk Mike daube urvich Paul Marshall and Robert Spielman also joined the group their plan was to escape with help from Filipino wanna see us the group secured Survey maps of the area pointing out a route that led through a treacherous large swamp of the town of loon gog home of a local guerrilla outfit I've always planned to get away from these little bastards and I think the time has come to do something about it the team decided the best way to make a break for it was to walk right through the gate and broad daylight giving him the impression that they were going to their normal jobs and the fields surrounding the prison camp Shawna adobo bitch and I were the director members of the plow detail and we realized that it was the best avenue for any esteem because we had no guard with us if they were caught it meant death for EDIUS and his co-conspirators this is where crash oh did this thing he was a friendly outgoing man and he contacted a couple of Filipino contractor or there for murder inside the camp Sam Gracia recruited Ben de la Cruz at almond Ilyn with medical training and Victor whom Aram who said he knew a trail through the intimidating swamp one of our major intentions were making this team in the first place of course was to inform the whole world about the Japanese Atrocitus the escapees assembled at the main gate on Sunday April 4th 1943 some sentries always stopped me for fruit others never do you just can't tell the Japanese had no clue the men had no intention of working that day we would have all of our gear stashed out there ahead of time take it out a little at a time and stash it hide it be ready to pick up and gold at about dozen a mix of Marines Air Corps Navy men and Filipino convicts then disappeared into the dense jungle and the impenetrable swamp we did know that the area to the south of us toward val was largely populated by Japanese civilians who would turn us over to the Jap military for sure back at NAPA cold that night a headcount found ten American POWs and two Filipinos were missing then all of a sudden they were gone you know and then the Japs were ticked off and they started beating the hell out of people a Japanese search party was immediately sent out the Japanese were all obviously angry there no one had ever attempted a mass breakout like this from an imperial japanese army prison camp on April 5th the escapees moved slowly for hours through the heart of the swamp waiting through chest high water and slashing through the sharp Kogan grass that cut their bodies to shreds we knew that if we didn't get out of here within a day or two more we were going to die delirious with hunger and exhaustion the escapees collapsed but were shocked back into reality by the splashing sounds of nearby crocodiles and the stings of swarming insects our shoes were falling apart our legs and bodies had been slashed severely by the sword grass another day like this one would finish us off finally we crossed our own tracks we had been going in a circle and were lost in the middle of this wall we came to places in the jungle impossible to cut through sometimes we climbed over and again we crawled under holding our noses just above the slime and expecting them eat snakes face to face there was some talk of giving up and returning to the prison camp these men when they escaped obviously they were in you know very weakened condition in all facets I mean physically mentally spiritually and [Music] he said a prayer all of a sudden we could hear the sound of infantry combat look at your rifle fire mortar fire the gunfight provided the escapees with a path out of the swamp and into the jungle they followed the sounds of the battle the gunfight on the edge of the swamp was between a group of Filipino resistance fighters and a Japanese patrol we had going for came out into a clearing that all of a sudden all around us jumped up Filipino soldiers with shotguns rifles and we joined up with these fellows and met the the leader captain Clara Loretta was the guerilla leader at Dyess and 11 others found Loretta who told the group of POWs that guerrillas on the northern coast of Mindanao were in contact with General MacArthur's headquarters in Australia by radio and that u.s. submarines were landing operatives radios ammunition and supplies that's where we should go and I guarantee you that we'll get out of here both submarine led by the Filipino guerilla fighters the twelve prisoners set out on an extraordinary expedition through the southern Philippines in nearly every town along the way celebrity fiestas were held in the escapees honor by local Filipinos and these are guerillas who had risen up to fight the Japanese occupiers Patriots local civilians ranging from from from businessmen to farmers and to you know local politicians everybody who you know had a stake in this war and it truly was a team effort for weeks the men trudged through the jungles of Davao into the highlands across rugged territory dodging the Japanese so we followed the native trails day after day up into the high mountains some of them so high we were above the clouds on May 6th 1943 the Dyess 12 arrived in the village of hing gook where Melvin McCoy was led to a radio transmitter but after weeks of waiting with no reply at Dyess Melvin McCoy and Steve Melnyk headed west to the headquarters of the 10th Military District in masami's City we're wendell fer qug a former mining engineer now resistance leader had promoted himself to the rank of general well fertig proved to be very uncooperative he did not want Indian Americans to leave Mindanao by submarine or any other way the escapees could not believe that fertig had not relayed McCoy's message on to Australia hells bells let's light a fire under this guy we've been through too much to be stymied now by jealousy or protocol Melvin McCoy brought along a 45 caliber pistol to their next meeting so McCoy took a firm position with him he said look I have every right to use any communications facility that you have to communicate with my harm able headquarters and and I require that you do that period a reply came back from General Douglas MacArthur the heroes were to be evacuated immediately at Dyess felt guilty about leaving the other members of the escape party behind but he understood his larger mission now someone had to tell the story of the escape and speak for the thousands of prisoners of war who had died at the hands of the Japanese being tortured in prison camps spread around the Pacific they were torn in many respects by their and their their self self-imposed mission to break the news of the atrocities the death march and Japanese behavior against prisoners to the rest of the world but they also felt an obligation to stay and help this you know nation' guerrilla movement and the Filipinos themselves who had who had risked their lives in their livelihoods in order to help to help these men escape around this time at Dyess Melvin McCoy and Steve Melnyk were introduced to Lieutenant Commander Charles chick Parsons Parsons led the three escapees to dimanche las Bay at sunset on July 9th 1943 the American submarine USS trout surfaced and moved toward the former POWs waited in a small boat when Dyess McCoy and Melnick first boarded the USS trout it must have been a descendant to another world when they when they went into that conning tower and down into the you know the innards of the sub I mean this was a steel beast that must have been a dizzying sight for them with all the valves switches lights sound smells etc eleven days later the trout docked at Fremantle harbour in Australia with their valuable human cargo when they reach Australia these men are very gung-ho to tell their story and to talk about the conditions in the prison camps inside MacArthur's office in Brisbane on the evening of July 30th 1943 the famed four-star general pinned a Distinguished Service Cross on diocese McCoy and Melnick this was a very rare occurrence in which macarthur did all the listening and he listened to Dyess McCoy and Melnick you know tell their respective stories and he was he was aghast at what he heard macarthur when he hears what these men have to say I think he understands that this is a this is a this is a major bombshell they could have major repercussions if it's delivered to the American people and I think he also recognizes that at Dyess is the person to deliver that news [Music] a diocese flew back to the United States in August of 1943 following debriefings in Washington Dyess was admitted to Ashford General a military hospital deep in the Allegheny Mountains near White Sulphur Springs West Virginia Dyess was there for rest but he was also at that remote location for another reason there was a Europe first declaration that had been agreed upon by the Allied powers and US government was was very wary of upsetting this this tenuous arrangement with with Great Britain and another allies in order to defeat Nazi Germany first and they correctly predicted that the American public if they learned what was going on in the Pacific and just how how terrible of an enemy they were truly facing that they didn't want to open that proverbial Pandora's box for the time being a gag order on all atrocity stories was issued by the White House through the War Department the office of War Information and the office of censorship in early September if that Dyess and the others spoke of their experiences they risk their careers and even criminal proceedings despite his officers oath Dyess knew they also had a duty to those he left behind the thing I must do the thing I'm going to do is to tell the American people what the Japs have done and are doing to their sons and husbands and brothers out of the Philippines the Chicago Tribune one of the nation's largest daily newspapers was alerted to Diocese presence in the States and a strange set of circumstances that had brought him home stead of having being welcomed you know having a hero's homecoming they were basically muzzled by the government they weren't unable to talk to the press and you know in to that point unable to fulfill their mission no that's it disturbed him terribly because he couldn't eat in all these letters and all these people all his calls and he can't say anything it was traumatic the newspaper told Dyess that it could get his story to 14 million people daily and lobbied to have the government censorship lifted at Dyess finally granted permission to speak to a reporter spent several weeks at the Greenbrier resort Dyess however sunk into a depression when his request to return to combat duty in the Pacific was denied I'm sorry I haven't written but between hospital doctors flying satisfying the army and a certain publication we've had more than we could handle but the Texan would soon receive some good news he was to be given command of a fighter squadron bound for the European theater but first he was given leave for a long-awaited home coming to Texas on November 5th 1943 at Dyess found himself in front of a standing room crowd of over 2,000 people from Albany in Abilene at Albany High School Stadium [Applause] at Dyess was impatient to get back to the ward and get into the cockpit of a p-38 lightning the Army Air Forces new ultra-fast twin-engine fighter on the afternoon of December 22nd 1943 at Dyess was rushing he arrived at grand central air terminal in Burbank California and brushed aside a pre-flight warning about engine problems prevalent at the p38 and daya soared airborne Diocese left engine began backfiring violently causing the plane to Bank severely to the left Dyess requested that the tower clear the field for an emergency landing but he disappeared from sight and into a crowded residential area of Porter and Grand Central unable to steer the plane home and unwilling to bail out and let his ship Carine into a heavily populated area Dyess swung his crippled aircraft in line with a four lane highway he was about the land when faith as it had so many other times in his extraordinary life intervened one last time a car pulled onto Olive Avenue directly in Diocese landing path jerking back on the stick he provided just enough clearance for the car to pass beneath his landing gear a split second Dyess instinctively banked his plane for a vacant lot but he'd run out of time altitude the p38 grazed st. Finbar's Church and cart wheeled in to the ground it's amazing in a man who survived and accomplished so much to come home to die in a freak plane crash she's almost it's beyond comprehension but then again that was the way that diets died was the way that he lived very unselfishly he lived he lived for others and it ultimately cost him his life on a dismal wind whipped late December day hundreds crowded Albanese Matthews Presbyterian Church for diocese memorial service [Music] the awful headlines speak 5200 American boys torture murdered at bath town by the Japanese the story of the atrocities committed by the Japanese military against American War prisoners was finally released at exactly 12:00 a.m. Eastern wartime Friday January 28 1944 Americans were both riveted to and revolted by the revelations the next Sunday the first of 24 installments of the Dyess story ran on the front page of the Chicago Tribune as well as in 100 associate newspapers across the country the cumulative effect of the revelations was far beyond what Diocese of the other escapees had ever imagined when this story broke about their trust is never secret worldwide attention every was known all over the civil of rural it was the biggest bombshell that had been dropped since Pearl Harbor on the American public they didn't believe any of us would live to tell what horrible things they did thank God we have now you know what animals the Japanese are their speeches incited and inspired war workers inform the American public about the inequity of the Allies prosecution of the Pacific War and sent stagnant war bond sales skyrocketing funds to beat the Japs bombs not for vengeance but for victory a victory that was one not by a fleet of ships not by several Corps several army field armies any famous generals Admirals it was won by twelve unarmed men who accomplished the most impossible mission of World War two [Music]

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 443,258

Rating: 4.7535353 out of 5

Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, world war 2: documentary, world war ii: documentary, world war, world war 2, history of world war 2, japanese ww2 movies, japanese ww2 veteran meets american, japanese ww2 weapons, japanese ww2 veteran

Id: HA184kOnQW8

Length: 54min 32sec (3272 seconds)

Published: Thu May 30 2019