Memorial Day: Remember when

Posted Jun 1, 2010 by Tom McEwen

Updated Jun 1, 2010 at 06:07 PM

The memory bank of senior citizens, and I am by now a member of that ever-growing assembly, seems always expandable, notably on special event days, such as Memorial Day, this past weekend.

Remembering Memorial Day took me back to 1946. I was a youngster, age 21, but with a major task ahead. I was a platoon leader, second lieutenant for Company C, 785th Tank Battalion, which had just landed at the Port of Manila in the Philippines where Captain Ed Hadowaine had assembled officers to listen to the instructions of our big commander, General Edward Plank, standing in front of a newly erected sign that read “Base X, Japanese Prisoner of War Camp No. 1, Tondo, Manila.”

Capt. Hadowaine was a big man and far older than his birth certificate’s claim of 28 years.

General Plank told Hadowaine, me and the other officers of our company that “you are no longer tankers, you will not see the tanks you brought over here again. You are occupational troops and you will build a prison enclosure with tents for the prisoners and yourselves around this area. You will start receiving POWs very soon, perhaps tomorrow. Try to get ready for them, you are going to be here a long time.”

The area that we were to build a prison upon was a former city dump for Manila.

Capt. Hadowaine then took over from General Plank and said to me, “McEwen, you have a little college education, so you are going to be the prison officer.

“Lt. Coughlin, you are going to manage the company after me. Lt. Phil Anderson (West Palm Beach), you are going to be the supply officer so get out of here now and start finding beds, clothing, wood, nails and all of the rest that it will take to run a prison camp. Lt. Andy Anderson, you are in charge of the motor vehicle parts, all of our vehicles and find us more.

“Phil Anderson, you will see that we officers have some kind of quarters in some kind of building close by, that barbed wire and guard towers will be found and constructed as quickly as possible. Now go to it, men.”

And it would be done. In a matter of days we had the fencing and towers up in the surrounding acreage the equivalent of two football fields and mess sergeant, Joe Mandola had his kitchens up and going and Anderson was bringing squad tents in to house the POWs.

Our battalion surgeon, Dr. Jaroz, took one tent and as many beds as he needed for a temporary hospital. Phil Anderson went in search of our supplies, all of which he would find, loaned to us by whatever military unit could use free labor. General Plank had told me I could use the POWs as labor for those who supplied the needs of the camp.

In no time, our company troops were camped nearby, wiring was up, towers were in place, and guards on duty for the POWs we would be receiving on the second day. The first Japanese POWs I ever saw were brought to our camp more than anything else, in time, protected from some of the Filipinos, who would drive by and randomly shoot into the camp at the Japanese.

Prisoners were killed daily by the retaliatory Filipinos or from wounds and aliments developed before they came to our camp. The Japanese prisoners were in terrible shape when they came to us. Dr. Jaroz and his aides could not save them all. Many had jungle rot and could not be convinced the war was over even when they were in our prison.

I and my officer friends quickly determined the way to run the POW camp was to allow the inmates to run it themselves and by their own rules. If a prisoner was to be disciplined, I turned him over to Sgt. Steele, as we named him. He was the biggest Japanese I ever saw and I guessed the meanest. The POWs included soldiers and civilians, including former leading Japanese businessmen and professionals stationed in Manila during the war.

I picked out the best and the smartest and the toughest I could find and they were in charge of discipline with the camp commander’s oversight. Above our small camp office and the entry and dispatch shack we had a lockup room for rulebreakers, supervised by Sgt. Steele. By the way, my associate and jeep driver was Joe Garagiola (above), sports commentator, as well as Hall of Famer and major-league pitcher Early Wynn. We had a good prison softball team.

The majority of deaths in the camp when we ran it were from war wounds, natural causes or suicides. We made no such serious punishments ever. We had a good camp, largely because of the work of the Japanese we put in charge and the Filipinos who would help us. Not many did, for they could not easily forget what the Japanese had done to them and their families.

One of the best laughs ever to come out of the camp was when Garagiola and his associates followed a lead of a POW who was a doctor and claimed they had buried perfume essence up near the WaWa Dam and if we wanted, he would show it to us.

Garagiola and I went with the POW, found cases of perfume essence, but the bottles were corked and had leaked much of their aroma. Garagiola chose not to sell the essence but to spread it over in the latrines of POW Camp No. 1. Thus we had not only the first POW camp in the Philippines but the best smelling.

After about a year and all the learning and the great experiences coming out of that unique time, another general came by and told us to close it. The prisoners were to be put on a train and going back to Japan. We put them on the train, I never saw one of them again, not Sgt. Steel, not Chief Interpreter Tim.

Only those memories flood back in the dark of night or on a weekend like this Memorial Day.