In this gripping episode, we continue Clay Conner’s harrowing World War II journey through the jungles of the Philippines. From dodging Japanese patrols and surviving against impossible odds to encountering pro-Japanese informants, life-or-death escapes, and building alliances with the elusive Pygmy Negritos, Clay’s story is a raw look at survival, loyalty, and the moral dilemmas of war.
Key Talking Points:
• Clay’s first encounters with the Pygmy Negritos in 1943
• Life in remote guerrilla hideouts and surviving Japanese raids
• The betrayal by Fred Al Vedra and the harsh realities of war-time survival
• Narrow escapes from Japanese patrols and life-or-death survival techniques
• Crossing Clark Field through 20,000 Japanese soldiers undetected
• The moral complexities of judging survival decisions in wartime
• Forming alliances with locals and earning trust in the mountains
• Stories of incredible bravery and selflessness from Filipinos who risked their lives
• The pivotal role of the Zambales Mountains and Mount Pinatubo in guerrilla operations
• How the Negritos later trained U.S. troops for Vietnam jungle survival
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Risk and Resolve.
And now for your hosts, benConner and Todd Hufford.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Welcome back to another episode of Risk and
Resolve.
I'm your co-host, ben Conner,along with Todd Hufford, and
today we're doing the intro intopart three of seven of my
grandfather's war story, henryClay Con Connor in the
Philippines, about to be missingin action of what happened in
(00:30):
Episode 2.
So we're going to do an Episode2 recap before we launch into
Episode 3.
But Episode 2 was launching in,so he fled into the jungles.
He went straight north fromLittle Bagugio, which was where
he was located, and he wasinstantly sick and he had
(00:53):
malaria, dysentery, dinghy fever, and it was not good.
He was left behind.
He was by himself for five fulldays.
Not a good outlook for tryingto be a survivalist on your own.
Probably not the way that youwant to start.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
No, he also talked about having multiple different,
that you can have multipledifferent kinds of malaria.
Pretty early on talks about howthe Philippine supporters would
get just totally mowed down anddecimated by the Japanese and
that became an obvious problem,problematic.
(01:33):
It prevented other Philippinesfrom supporting them and it also
also just prevented these guysfrom wanting to be helped by
them because they cared aboutthe Filipinos so much.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, he mentioned that the word they used was
delicato.
The relationship between thephilippines wanting to help the
americans was delicate becauseit was more or less a death
sentence.
The japanese would make thempay it was the timeline.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I'm still wrapping my head around some of it.
We talk about how the initialbombing was around, that you
know December 9th, timeframe,11th, whatever 10th when Pearl
Harbor was hit, and you justsort of have to remember that
just because they bombed thatday doesn't mean that the
Japanese forces were ready tocome down.
I mean there was still a war on, so they didn't make it to
(02:19):
Manila until quite a bit later.
And he talks about he'slaughing very jovial about the
fact he said I was the last guyto leave Manila.
And he talks aboutcommandeering all these trucks
and getting all these suppliesand how for a while they were
the best outfitted group in thebunch because they had kind of
planned and taken theopportunity into their own hands
.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, I thought this episode was also well.
Episode two was really asetting the stage kind of
episode of the who, who is who?
Um, kind of what are theconditions on the field now?
Um, and you can hear them goingthrough like literal maps, like
(03:01):
they, they are physically goingthrough maps on their end of
the recording that we get tohear audibly of where things are
located in batam um, or on, youknow, in the peninsula of luzon
, um, so that that was kind ofinteresting.
I had to actually slow down thepodcast to really listen to
like what.
So what did they say there?
Um, but yeah, it was.
(03:22):
It got very uh tactical um, buthe, he introduced a lot of
people, he introduced a lot offactions, if you will.
Uh, one of the factions that heintroduced, um, obviously he
introduced, like, the filipinonationals of you know how they
were engaged in the war, but healso introduced a, a faction
(03:47):
called the Hucks, and he gavethem the, the literal, like full
name, which can't, I cannotrepeat that.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Not that it was bad, it's just a really long name
that I don't even understand.
But they were called the Hucksand the summary was is that they
were an army of the peopleagainst the Japanese that kind
of turned into a politicalorganization.
What did you take away from thedescription of the Hucks, todd?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Well, I took away that it was kind of the first
alliance that took place afterif you think about December of
41, they got bombed.
I checked my local Wikipedia tosee when the official Bataan
death march was.
That was on.
Wikipedia said April 9ththrough 17th.
So you figure that's fivemonths after the bombing.
(04:33):
I don't really remember fromhis recordings him talking much
about falling out of rank.
But I remember from the bookand some other writings that
they were allowed to fall out ofrank and do whatever they
wanted.
And you know, it's just, wejust kind of slid right into I'm
on my own, I'm in the jungle,I'm sick, I've got dinghy fever,
and so the Hucks become thisfirst sort of group that could
(04:55):
be an alliance.
But I think he said that waslike in the December of 42
timeframe.
So this is a year later.
So they're fighting a war forfive months.
They fall out of rank butTandeth March happens.
He's running around.
The Hucks appeared to befavorable to Americans.
But he also mentioned he saysthe more I studied and learned
(05:17):
Now you and I both know hewasn't hanging out at a library
I wish I could say where did youstudy and where did you learn
in the middle of this war.
Because he says that the Huckswere all about.
They were a Chinese agrarianmovement and they were going to
take the land and give it to thepeasants.
And he just says, matter offactly, this is nothing new,
(05:39):
this is Marxian doctrine.
And once he realized that andrealized they were using the
Americans to curry favor withthe Filipinos since the
Filipinos love the Americans theHucks were saying look, we're
taking care of the Americansthat have been left behind, up
until the point they massacredall of them.
So he got himself in asituation where he before he was
(06:01):
in this and he says he learnedtwo different dialects of the
language.
And by learning the languagethey didn't know that he knew
the language and so he picked upthings that they didn't realize
.
He knew and was able to learnwhat they were doing.
And there was a situation wherehe's in a bad situation.
(06:23):
He pulls a gun on the leaderand basically walks him out of
this tent, doesn't say how faraway from the tent, but lets him
go.
And he says after that theyreally respected him, I think,
because he didn't kill him.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, I thought that was interesting.
He really talked about in thisepisode how he practiced with
his 45 and that became his buddy.
Practiced with his 45 and thatbecame his buddy, his unofficial
you know, maybe I personifiedit a little too much, but like
he became very good, uh, withhis 45 and he actually got
talking into, like that for asmall guy, as he called himself,
(06:57):
that he was a good athlete andso, uh, obviously that helps him
navigate a jungle that probablyallows him to be to move around
like he did, as he describes.
So that was that was.
That was pretty interesting tohear him say that.
I think we we failed to mentionthis, but when he was sick right
(07:18):
out of the shoot and you know,was by himself for like
basically his first five days,um, he talked about how he got
sick and, um, you know, theyimmediately go up into the
mountains, but because themountains there's- no water up
there, so they had to go down toget water and he mentioned like
we need water but the water islaced or surrounded by dead
(07:42):
bodies and animals that areeating off of these dead bodies
and it's just totallycontaminated.
so they're drinking water that'scontaminated with dead bodies
and ergo getting sick picture hedrew was devastating was just
disturbing yeah, very disturbing, but just like it's survival,
it just really led into what,what they were doing, and it was
(08:06):
survival and it's like I gottaworry about today, like I can't
I, I have to, I have to, uh, getwater, um.
So, um, you know, he he talkedabout just some other camps and
some other guys that he, he raninto.
So who were some of the guys,todd, that that were notable to
you that he ran into?
So who were some of the guys,todd, that were notable to you
(08:27):
that he bumped into along theway in episode two?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
You start to hear these personalities and even in
one situation he forgets acouple of the guys' names, but
he knows what happens to themand that they didn't.
They got shot or killed laterin the war.
But the two that he spent alittle bit more time with was
this guy named Boone and Gardner, and one of them was just a
beast of a man and he kind oftalks about different stories
(08:51):
around him and how they werecamped out near a place called
Fawcett's Camp.
Now Fawcett appears to be aWorld War I, maybe American
hangover, who is married and hasmarried to a Filipino woman,
has 10 kids.
So this is not Fawcett, is not aWorld War II military guy, and
(09:13):
if you know your history,there's a long history of the US
and the Philippines back intoWorld War I, and so this guy's
got an established camp andBoone and your grandfather are
camped out in some hut of somesort, somewhat some distance
away from the camp and heexplains that the night that the
whole thing broke loose and theJapanese totally devastated
that camp and they were farenough away from the camp that
(09:36):
they were able to avoid captureand being killed.
And you could tell in theinterview your grandfather's
talking to a guy and looking ata map and they'll look over here
and look over there.
And he starts to joke and hesays you know, when you're being
chased like this, where wouldyou go?
Look at this map, when wouldyou want to go?
And he points to this areawhere there's just nothing.
(09:56):
He says we want to go there.
That's where peace, and quietand tranquility are.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, and that reminded me.
So where he went to was a placecalled Moron, which is spelled
Moron, m-o-r-o-n.
But him and Frank went therefor rest and I just got this
really vivid picture of En Gediin Israel when I had a chance to
visit the holy land, and gettywas an area where david fled the
(10:29):
pursuit of saul, king saul, whowas trying to kill him.
I just got this vivid pictureof, like he's going to this
place in the philippines and itis such a similar situation of
what david did, uh, in fleeing,uh, king saul.
Um, so just really fascinating.
(10:51):
Um, you know, that's that'swhere episode two ends and
that's where we get into episodeuh, three.
Um, but before that ends, acouple of things that stood out
to me.
Is you know one?
He actually, since there was abounty on his head, he ended up
(11:12):
changing his name to Sam Whiteand he starts laughing when he
says it because he was Uncle Samthe White man, so Sam White,
uncle Sam the White man, so SamWhite.
And that was just to protecthimself from a troop of 300
Japanese that were looking forhim to kill him.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
They had created a special infantry, if you will,
of 300 men, of Japanese soldiersthat were simply going out to
hunt, particularly the Americangirl, of forces that were left
behind, but they had certainnames of people they were
looking for.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
And he says that's when I stopped using the name
Connor, yeah, and he stoppedstarted wearing different
clothes and shoes, yeah.
So that was really fascinating.
And he also made a commenttowards the end.
He goes.
You know, these guys were doingthis and that, talking about
Boone and Gardner and all theseother guys, and he goes.
And then there's me, just adummy like me, looking for an
adventure.
And again he brought up theword adventure and I think that
(12:14):
that is.
We haven't got through all theepisodes yet, but it seems to be
some connective tissue there ofjust what made his experience
his experience is that he wasn't.
He wasn't a victim, he was on,he was.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
he was on an adventure, yeah he's like 15
months in, so early december of41, faucet's camp gets raided.
He, he says it was on february22nd.
I remember that because it waswashington's birthday.
I'm trying to figure out howyou remember what day it is.
He must've had some sort ofsystem to keep track.
But you're 15 months in.
And he finally says I'm tiredof putting my Filipino friends
(12:52):
at risk.
I'm tired of being chased.
I got to go somewhere deeper,higher, further away from this
action.
And that's where he ends it.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, and he ends it with going to Moran, which is
maybe the En Gedi of thePhilippines, and right at the
end of the episode he goes andhe introduces the Negritos,
which we know from his story wasa really important group for
(13:22):
him, maybe important for eachother, but they really saved his
life.
So I'm really excited to diginto part three.
So enjoy everyone.
Part three of Clay Conner's warstory.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Pygmy Negritos my first contact.
Your first contact with him, andthis will be in January of 33.
I was stressed have you evermet a pygmy in his own
environment?
Not many people have.
No, not many people have.
And both they got to rememberthe vintage of the year, the
year that we're talking about.
And I wrote to him where, at 40, through me, 80 percent I
(14:03):
remember nothing about tribalcustom or their religion or
their superstitions.
And at this point I wasn't.
I didn't have the time to learn, but I was totally fascinated
by them, just intrigued.
I wanted to know everything,but they were very distant.
They weren't hostile but theywere distant and they weren't
(14:24):
hostile, but they were distant.
And I noticed, I learned thatthey did not give me honest
information.
They told me that everythingwas great in Maroon.
Well, everything wasn't greatin Maroon, because Maroon had
also been a place where theJapanese decided to put their
(14:45):
soldiers when they wanted togive them the rest.
This is our spot for theJapanese.
This is where they bring them inby boat to Maroon to get them
away from everything whenthey're sick and everything else
, and set up a headquartersthere.
And the place was loaded withjabs.
(15:07):
I couldn't have picked a worsespot and I was in no place and I
was in no way to get out,except how I came in around by
boat.
There's no other way to get outof this godforsaken area,
although it's beautiful,absolutely fantastic.
(15:27):
I was right about the train andeverything, but you got in that
boat tour.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
No, I came to the moon.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
So you did come all the way, but you had to go back
over the mountain.
Oh, no way you're going to dothat.
If you go back over the moon,where are you?
You're back where you started.
Well, you wouldn't have leftthere in the beginning, unless
you were in big trouble, right,because of that way they lived.
Yeah plus the fact they werewiping out all those cities over
there looking for you, uh-huh.
So anyway, we stayed there twoor three days and we had to get
(15:56):
out.
There was only one way to goand that was north.
So we had to go by boat and theFilipinos rigged up this and I
didn't know what they were doing.
At this point I don't know ifthey're selling us out or not,
but they rigged up this big bunkand that's an outrigger type
thing and they took us out ofthe chair machine along the
coast.
I never got so seasick in mywhole life.
(16:18):
There was, a storm came up andI'm in an outrigger and we're
not that far out, or in thebreak, so to speak, in there and
they start getting sick.
Well, they never got seasick,but I was getting real sick.
And all of a sudden I see theselights going on, these fires
building up, with fires buildingup, being signals to me.
(16:39):
They meet shameless.
So I said we're brewing a shorenorth.
No, you can't do that.
You ain't never find a way.
They go on the shore on thesugar.
No, you're not.
And there were two fellowpeople.
They said we're really, really,you ain't got 30 seconds.
Out comes the gun Boy.
We were on the shore right now.
That was our settler, that wasour settler.
(17:06):
So all of a sudden they put usto share and they were gone
because they knew that thesignals were being set by the
very Japanese Filipinos to claimthe hits.
There weren't too many of them,but that was a bad area, oh boy
.
So we got Marisendo, along withPaul, which was a Japanese
Billy's Primo base Americannaval.
(17:26):
They'd taken over.
But we found former Americans,inland American former.
We found Filipinos who wereformerly in the United States
Navy, live in Malaripo.
They had a solar family out toprotect.
How great.
You finally got to a good areaafter that.
(17:47):
But we had good communications.
They spoke fluent English.
They were very patriotic withthe Americans.
They put us up here two weeksbut said we had the clear round,
Plus the fact that theAmericans had one American who
was from Newark, New Jersey.
I had one American who was fromNewark, New Jersey.
(18:07):
Fred Alvidrez, had beenreleased from San Fernando
prison camp and had been broughtto and on the cold to find us.
They had traced us, see, and hewas released and given certain
privileges in order to turn usin.
And so all of a sudden he showsup in a, like we did, and he
(18:28):
comes ashore and we'recommunicating.
He's from Norvington, which isnext door.
It's kind of like Grand Ripplein Indianapolis or St Paul,
Minneapolis, I don't know howthat goes.
The next.
I had a new feeling about thisbird.
(18:49):
I just thought there wassomething wrong.
He wasn't saying things that,but he was quick and he was
rough.
He was a street fighter.
I mean, I recognized himbecause I was, you know, I grew
up in the area.
He was a good street fighter, Icould tell.
But there was something wrong.
You, I grew up in the area andwhen it was a bit street-trigger
I could tell but there wassomething wrong.
You don't show up like that.
(19:09):
Where'd he been all this time?
Never hooned up?
How could he be on three?
Where'd he been?
Where'd he come from?
You don't come out of the bush.
I mean, everybody knows whereeverybody is.
See, it's a big island, but youknow what's going on Right by
this time.
You better if you're going tostay alive.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
So I went and I told these Filipinos.
I said you better take off andwe'll come leave it.
Now, this was just in threehours after he got there and all
of a sudden, while we're doingthis, heaven was meeting and we
thought he'd disappear and wetook off.
Right now.
I've been to the top of themountain, I've come back up
through here.
You would run up and we wouldrun up the pass into the
(19:48):
mountains.
And you know, we went about.
No, we weren't over.
Okay, we went over a mile awayand they just tore that town all
apart.
Oh boy, well, when in the worldwould he do that?
I mean, see, american isn't he?
The name itself is there, orwhat?
Taurus Ferdowit Veedrus.
He was American.
(20:09):
I mean, his heritage wasMexican, but he wasn't.
He'd take care of FerdowitVeedrus.
You don't know what happened tohim.
No, they killed him.
Oh, the Japanese killed him.
The Japanese killed him beforethe Americans came back.
Oh boy, yeah, and he was ajubilus, he was going to sell
out to Americans.
No, really, just doing whateverit was, survive himself.
He might have been brainwashedor tortured or something.
(20:32):
Well yeah, he was tortured buthe was surviving too and that
was his way of surviving.
He's doing his thing, shane, hewas keeping alive too, but he
was caught in the circumstance.
I was in the circumstance.
I was in the circumstance.
I mean, I wouldn't have killedFred, no matter what.
Fine, even if I had knowndefinitely what he was doing, I
(20:54):
wouldn't have killed him, hewouldn't have killed me.
See, he was doing what he wasdoing, I was doing what I was
doing.
He was trying to keep alive byselling information or giving
any time.
You make judgment after a rulerof this kind and we'll go back
and you say if I had been inthat circumstance I wouldn't
(21:15):
have done that.
It's a bunch of stuff you'dhave heard the hell you do.
Or save your life.
You didn't.
And not only that, it isn'tlike you have to make.
You make that decision when youeat steak and potatoes and hot
granted biscuits and you livedin American stuff.
You don't live those decisionswith that kind of chemistry.
You make the decisions aftermonths of hardships, isolation,
(21:42):
cut off from your own family andyour country.
You cannot rule upon yourself ajudgment after the fact about a
person in that circumstance andsay he should not have.
You can't say what he did waswrong, because the rules.
You don't know the chemistry,you don't remember anything.
(22:03):
But that was probably theexception, though, wouldn't you
say?
There were probably about 20 or30 that did that.
Little survived it.
But you get into the prisonersand you hear the prisoner
stories and they don't tell halfthe damn stories about what
(22:25):
they did to each other tosurvive.
They stole each other's food,they quoted each other in order
to get favors.
That's a damn mission.
It's a risk.
You've ever heard of the one onthe air that they were taking
blood.
They didn't have vampires there.
You just hear all kinds ofterrible things.
Well, they don't want to tellthose stories and you can't
(22:45):
blame them because nothing'sgoing to come out of it.
That's rational or reasonable.
You have to deal with a man andthe environment and the
chemistry and the things.
It's not a reasonablecircumstance in which you can
make a reasonable judgment, andnone of us at this point in time
could ever possibly makejudgment on any of those people
(23:06):
who were involved in thatexperience.
You're only looking at it inthe eyes of a person years away.
That's a good point to make.
Very, very good.
I'm pretty sure that you'rebringing that up.
So you pursued the North.
This is January 6th.
I think I'm getting my timingoff because the road says
February 22nd 53.
(23:28):
It looks like you're comingback up across the road.
That's exactly what we did, I'mpretty sure.
Yeah, I think the raid may havetaken place after this business
with the Strad OliverisAlvindris.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Alvindris, yeah, I think that's probably true.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
In other words, when we went down through there after
the southern raid over there,they came up and then it was the
Boone's deal and then we flednorth.
I was thinking that's how ithappened, right, I'm glad I put
this down.
Then we went up here and seewhere we made our mistake, where
we went north.
We were going to this objectiveup to the near because we
(24:04):
thought, well, if that isn't anygood, these mountains up here
with the Inga Roads, they're themost aggressive and probably
the most talented of allFilipinos.
They do a lot of weaving, livein the mountains, they have a
fine culture, they have a lot ofgood religious background and
the Inga Ro religious were veryindustrious people.
(24:27):
They were the most industrious.
You've seen these pictures ofthe kind of on the sides of the
mountains where they build thesefarms, where the irrigation
goes from one level to another.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Oh yeah, it's, very elaborate.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Yes, they're terrorists.
That's what the Egorics did see.
Oh, marvelous.
So, anyway, we're going to.
That was your objective.
We got into Gaddafi territoryup here, which surrounds the
Filipinos that were brought inwith pro-Japanese around Cabana
Tawan.
Now Cabana Tawan is the primaryprison camp of the Americans.
(25:03):
It was named after the town ofCabana Chihuahua and the
Galapagos were brought in tolive around Cabana Chihuahua.
You see that on the area nearthe X, you see Rapace, just to
the lower right of the X mark.
(25:23):
Yes, sir, and around Rapace,yeah, sir.
And down to Posh, yeah, that'sfor Posh.
And when we come over and yousee, you come down and see
Cabana Jawan is in that area.
I can't find it.
That's where it is.
It's over there.
You want to cut it off?
No, okay, so to a prison campat Cabana Teran, which would be
(25:47):
northeast of where you had beenat the time of that raid, where
they hid Fosser Camp and Boone'sSphere.
So that's where the mainAmerican prison camp was located
.
Yeah, then, it's almostdirectly north of Manila.
That's right, and that wasreally the goal.
(26:08):
On the Bataan Death March, theymarched no, they marched to
O'Donnell.
O'donnell, they marched to SanFernando, which is right below A
and Pampango on the bay.
See Down here.
Oh yes, then they took them bycruff and they took the left way
.
See Down here.
Oh yes, then they took him bytruck and he took the left way.
See Where's North to you.
(26:31):
See where Congolese is,congolese Angeles, right here in
Clarkfield.
Yes, then you go north up toO'Donnell Camp O'Donnell, that's
where the first camp was.
It's north of, is it your copbuses?
Newmont North Cop Bus, the copbus, oh, it's long ago, okay.
(26:54):
You see, Bam Bam over at theBonneville East.
Yeah, bam Bam cop bus, I meancop buses, what's that?
Old Donald, that's Old Donald.
Okay, this was a very salientarmy camp, back in the middle of
the movers.
Okay, that's where 26,000people died, right there at that
(27:16):
place, right there At O'Donnell.
Okay, I'll circle that.
Okay, I see where it is.
Because of O'Donnell 26,000,the place was polluted, they
couldn't even bury him, so theycleared him out and took him
over to Camp Anna to work,because there was absolutely no
(27:38):
place to put them there of CampO'Donnell, and 26,000 died,
26,000.
Let Americans, americans andFilipinos and Filipinos there.
I guess that's one of the realhorrifying cases in the entire.
Yeah you've got to get all thatfrom the guys that were there.
But I can tell you about itbecause I was very close by and
knew what was going on and I hadsome of the escapees from that
(28:01):
thing join me and all that kindof thing.
But you knew, mr, escapees fromthat thing joined me and all
that kind of thing.
Well, there were some escapeesthat got out of the Valdonald
and just linked up with you,just a few, and then they began
to release a few Filipinos andthey were dead to bury and they
weren't, and they nursed back tolife Philippine scouts.
(28:22):
They joined me Later on, a yearlater, yeah, after they were
nursed back.
But anyway, I'm over theretrying to get north and I've got
great respect for Cabana Tawana.
I don't want to get near CabanaTawana.
I'm smart enough.
We got the information.
We've been keyed in by theFilipinas.
(28:43):
We know that's a hot area, sowe're not even going to get
close.
You see how much room we gaveit.
We gave it a wide berth.
We gave it a wide berth.
So we're going in Nueva Escalia, up near the Eagle Rooms, north
Way, north Way up there, northWay opposite Ling Island Gulf,
(29:05):
north Way, north Way up therenorth Way opposite Ling Island
Gulf, but we're about as far asTar, as La Paz, and we suffered,
in two weeks' time, two raidson the part of the Japanese
hitting us, and one in La Cabeand the other in La Paz.
And how we ever got out of thatthing is it's a long.
(29:25):
This was March 15th of 43.
Yeah, around the LePaz area,and April 1st, and April 1st
also Right April Fool's Day.
I can't make out that othertown, I assume L-A-P-A-Z, but
that's LePaz, that's LePaz.
And there was another LeCobb,lecobb, la Cobb.
It was a video.
Was that located near La Cobb?
(29:46):
Yeah, la Cobb is.
I see where you went.
I see La La Cobb.
I'm trying.
I forgot where Exactly.
There was an X near the yeah,where La yeah.
Well, laura was where we werehit, okay, and now we were in
the Cobb also.
(30:06):
Remember, joe, where the Cobbwas In the first of the Cobb.
When did you find it?
April Fool's Day, yeah, that'dbe the Cobb, so it'd be right up
there.
So the Japanese got some priorinformation that you were in the
area and then they went upthere.
Every place we went they knewabout there was some advanced
(30:27):
intelligence again by that 10 or5 percent of filipinos are
informing them about you're atwar we're in the cabana juan
area, silly, yeah.
oh, I'll tell you where to comesee it first.
Hell, in the south east, aboutan inch l-i-c-a-b.
(30:48):
Yeah, all in the city.
See that, all the city.
We'll put first and if I makethat up, we're.
Cobb is southeast.
Where's April 1st?
See it on this one, is it there?
Won't see it on this one.
I see March.
Where you see the X yes Morning.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Was there another X worth of that?
Really one, oh yes, here.
Or X worth of that.
Lillipin oh yes, here'ssomething.
Now that Lillipin has come downan inch or a half inch
southeast, okay, I see it now.
Lecom yeah, I see it now.
L-i-c-a-b, I'm not going totell you that, so don't forget
it.
L-i-c-a-b, that's what it is.
(31:29):
With it, frederick Goins saysnothing could be rougher than
LeCobb.
You're a fine joker Boy.
I'll tell you Well, how manyJack, 300 300 against how many?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
How?
Speaker 3 (31:43):
many did you have on your side About five.
Five of us were trying to getthrough there.
We picked them up.
We picked them up after allthis deer at Boone's camp and
Fawcett's camp.
We escaped them up after allthis deer at Boone's camp and
Fossett's camp, and we skivedout there and five of us met up
and we were trying to get north.
They joined up with me.
(32:03):
So, as a result, we got hitpretty hard and we were running
pretty hard and fortunately blewourselves through part of their
troops.
They were all that well trainedand they were just true news
Five of you against 300 Japanesesoldiers.
Yeah, coming in.
(32:24):
They were coming in all the wayfrom three directions.
We took the direction we werecovering out.
We didn't know that.
We were fortunate.
We ran into one side.
We ran into one side, we raninto the other side but see, the
part that left Durfden wassolid bamboo and thicket and the
river and we went throughacross this narrow piece of the
(32:46):
river and through the thicketand got out and they started
mortars, machine guns.
I don't know where we gotthrough that, but we were all
scattered.
I think the worst part of itwas after about an hour of
running.
I got into him.
I was all by myself.
At this point I don't know whathappened to the other guys.
(33:07):
I had gone back to get two ofthem out of these ditches, pull
them out while the machine gunfires going on.
They were definitely lostunless somebody went back and
got them.
But I was with the first two.
Then we got each other out,then we took off and here they
come and they got stuck.
They couldn't get out, too highand muddy, slippery bank.
(33:30):
So I got the two out.
Then we started going.
Then we split up and I got ontothis high coogan grass, which
is eight-seater, laying seedhole Cougan seed.
Yeah, it's very sharp grass,it's got you, I mean and it's
really heavy.
So anyway, it grows on the edgeof banks and stuff like that.
(33:51):
So I got onto thisootenai grassand started digging.
I knew I was in trouble becauseI knew I'd flush me out.
So I started digging into thisand there was kind of muddy and
I dove down under the mud and Istarted to mud back on my body
and I took a reed and put it inthe mulch and left it in some
(34:12):
prairie debris.
You already picked up somejungle techniques, but there's
one about how to survive.
Oh yeah, oh.
So anyway, it's really a coupleof the half-track store.
Who's first and lightened thekugelwit so he could burn it.
It didn't burn too easy, butthey kept at it.
They got out of the metal tostart burning this coven off and
(34:36):
the death tractor coming backand forth.
Those clowns get every person.
They're going to run right over, see, and they must have come
around six or seven too.
That's a lot.
What am I going to do?
I mean, I could do it and I wasthere all day long and it must
(34:58):
have been a quarter and 15degrees.
I don't know what it was, butanyway.
Then I was baked in there andHarrison, this rate of about 6
o'clock in the morning and 6o'clock in the morning turned
out there all the wrong thing.
You know what I call it?
Misshawzy, with the malaria anddysentery.
And when they're all baked inthe red and burning, roving me
(35:23):
and all that code Shh, I get outof there and I look to the
river there.
I'm going to show them theoctagonal water.
They were growing.
At that point they thoughtthey'd done a job.
Really.
They thought it wasn't.
They didn't think you were inthere.
No, nobody could live by law.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
It's just 12 hours and then the other fellows, the
other ones.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
those guys all got rescued by the Filipinos.
In other words, they ran intoareas where the Filipinos
conducted a windage, some kindof hiding, Some kind of hiding,
but you were the only one thatgot kind of left behind.
I got caught.
Well, I went back after theseother two corals and they
happened to pick the rightdirection to escape.
See, you were left behind.
Yeah, I was, I was standingthere firing at these guys with
(36:12):
machine guns, and all with a .45automatically.
You know you've got to bestupid, but that, believe it or
not, they kept it from COVIDafter us.
Well, that slowed them up byyou being in there.
They didn't try to chase afterthe others, it didn't make any
sense.
That's what they were.
That's what they were, but itwas a bad experience.
(36:35):
I finally caught up with myfriend Fred Gervais about must
have been about 7 o'clock thatnight and he was so glad to see
me and all this that I was dead.
Yes, and I remember I was quitea reunion, but once you left
two days in a row, so about aweek later, march 15th and April
(36:56):
1st, we almost had theidentical pattern you get, only
this time we got in with theHucks again.
I missed this in April 1st.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Well, it was your friends, the Hucks.
Yeah, we were right over theHucks.
They were defending an areaover there from the Japanese.
The Japanese quit following us.
I don't know if they knew.
The Huck's had a barricade setup to run.
We were in the Huck's, but thistime the guys.
They said this one Huck leader.
(37:24):
He was really pro-American, infact the Huck's killed him.
He was a college graduate.
He was Julian Paul.
He was one of my old buddies.
How's his last name spelledJulian Paul?
I mean, he was a rumor ofbuddies.
How's his last name spelledJulian Paul?
P-a-l-a-d.
He was former chief of police ofthe road of the towns.
He wouldn't work with theJapanese in Ireland and he was
just a real adventure type.
(37:45):
He was a perjurvia type,well-educated Well, I don't know
about perjurvia a littleeducated, but anyway, this guy
was well educated and he was avery good pitcher.
But he was a lot of fun.
If you didn't know, he wasputting you on, you were a
little trope and Paul.
We ran into Paul and Paul waslater accused, as some of the
(38:11):
Americans were, of betrayingtheir hubs and and was sure
that's unfortunate, veryunfortunate.
It was really great.
I love Jerry Ode.
He taught me a lot of things.
He taught me a lot of thingsabout guerrilla tactics.
He taught me a lot of thingsabout the Philippines and
Filipino.
He taught me a lot of thingsabout the history of the
Philippines, the agrarianmovement, in a logical fashion,
(38:34):
not a bitter, rather like theargument of the ruler to bring
relevant to the liver, which isgoing to solve all the problems
through humility and peace.
When a regular learner runsover the river to lines, it was
ridiculous.
And when we're opposite, whereeverybody is, it was well, the
(38:55):
caretaker.
If you don't care, you go onyour side.
That's not true.
And all of a sudden, paulettewas the kind of way you could
sit down and really talk to himabout the issues.
Okay, so you worked up to themfor probably just a brief period
of time, right?
And this is all April.
About two or three days, two orthree days Now.
Time right, and this is ourApril about two or three days,
(39:16):
two or three days Now.
Had you organized the good carPigment Negritos at this point.
Yet we had to leave.
Paula was in trouble.
He was in trouble witheverything.
He was in the wrong area forone thing, and his would be a
good book to write A good story.
Because here is a real,well-educated Filipino that's
(39:36):
pro-American and has his headscrewed on straight and knows
his story the Valrots grew up onboth sides and has his country
of heart.
He was cured by his own peoplebecause he wasn't going along
with the communist line.
He grew up with the greatmovement.
He grew up with the communistline.
He moved it, he went up to thepale-mute and swore and he said
(39:57):
that he was the difference.
He said the difference, he knewthe difference.
And I came.
Well, anyway, we left and Paultold us we had to get out of
there and he told us we'd betterget back to New England.
He told us to grow in theZambalans.
This is Zambalans, that's whathe said.
That's what he said.
And Prahlad said the Zambalanswill run to Tuba, which is the
(40:21):
highest thing.
And then Barad starts and talksto you.
He says, even though there's20,000 Japanese troops, he says
they can't get rest.
And to Ruben I'm trying toblink this up again because I
don't see these glistening onthe map Well, the Zambalis, the
Pelletubba's, the highest pointdirectly west of the Liguruma
(40:43):
headquarters.
Oh, directly west of the.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Liguruma headquarters yeah, about a half inch or an
inch.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Oh, okay, you see, bell and Pelletubba, that's the
highest point.
That's the highest point.
It's where these wines converge, right there.
Oh, yes, I see it now.
I'll mark that on the map Map.
Go Pinatuba 2-I-N-A-2-B-A.
Go Pinatuba.
I marked that also.
Okay, beautiful culture, largemahogany, giant firings,
(41:12):
fantastic jungle grounds.
Giant firings, fantastic junglegrounds.
We were in Silver, we were inthe area.
We had to go right throughClark Field, right through
20,000 Japanese there atStatenburg, which they took over
, clark Field.
Did you see that Clark Field isthe largest airbase in the area
(41:32):
right now?
But here's Statenburg righthere, just west of that, the
part of that.
Clark Field is the largestairbase in the area right now,
but here's Fort Statenburg,right here, just west of that,
the part of that is Clark Field.
Oh, I see, okay, so that's thelargest installation in the area
airbase right now.
That's where everybody thatwent to Vietnam went through
Clark.
I mean, yes, everybody thatwent to Vietnam and I didn't
know this until 1968, wastrained for general survivor by
(41:55):
the pygmy labrinos that Iorganized.
Their children and some of theold timers that I organized in
World War II trained theVietnamese on what they called
the survival program.
Is that right?
That's amazing, yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
That's the story.
That's not at all known.
Oh no, nobody knows that.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
But see, I was told this by the general at Clark
when I went back in 68 wasdocumented in this one of the
Clarkfield Air Course release.
I think you got a copy of it,okay, see, well, anyway, I'm
going to click on it.
We had to go right throughthere.
(42:36):
We couldn't get across.
We went to the Bam Bam River.
We couldn't get back anywhereback across the Bam Bam River
except at Clark Field to gosouth.
See, we're north Now, if you'rehere, there's 20,000 Japanese
at Clark Field in Statenburg,right.
(42:56):
Here's the main road, and thisis all heavily Japanese.
And we're here.
How are you going to get downhere, out of here, unless you go
across here?
When are you going to cross theBam Bam River?
Well, you can't cross the BamBam River, so you've got to go
(43:17):
right through the camp to getacross the Bam Bam River in
order to get south into thisarea, because there's nothing up
here but Camp Redobble and allthe Japanese emplacements, right
, right.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
So you've, got to go south.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Well, you can't get south Unless you go right
through or down that main road.
Well, you can't go down themain road and you can't go east
of the main road.
So what are we doing?
We go through the west part ofClark Field, right At night, I
hope About midway and there theyare.
There they are.
(43:54):
There were about 15 of usJapanese, filipinos and
Americans and we were just kindof spread out, just taking our
time going out there, trying tomake no noise, just acted like
people in there.
Oh, they're right, incredible20,000 Japanese.
(44:14):
20,000 Japanese.
Yeah, I'm telling you if Ithink back on that.
That's ridiculous, but that'sexactly what we did.
It was a miraculous no comment.
Well, anyway, we got a big kickout of it.
After some of it, let me tellyou, every breath was in
(44:37):
eternity, for we went throughthat.
That must have been a while,and it was like a year, as we
were on the frost there throughthose urban areas.
And then we went back toward thedam and we had to cross the
river.
At the dam there wasn't anyother way to cross this river.
But we had to cross the dam,which is guarded.
(44:58):
See.
Well, how did you get across it?
Well, they just weren't payingattention.
So we're going to go.
We went the other way, we goGauge it through the river, oh,
and they all got across andnobody was paying any attention.
Nobody paid.
Thank goodness If it happened.
We got hit the next morning.
They're paying attention.
Goodness If that happened, wegot hit the next morning.
They're paying attention.
We could only listen for it.
(45:19):
You could just stay watchingand look and you could just do
so much.
We found an on-evacuate Japanesetemporary deal on the river, on
the south side of the river,and we slept there.
Then we got on.
We were leaving there when theymachined that thing coming in
there after us.
They got the message somehowand we just took off back to the
(45:43):
jungle.
We made our retreat down toBonnebotte.
That's where we met the mostpoor American people.
Those people are liless people.
Killers are so happy.
In fact, I brought an Americanto this country.
He lives here in Minneapolis.
His name is Dermot CredoLamonia.
He worked in the stategovernment.
Oh, he works down there at StAdamsville.
Yeah, and I brought him to thiscountry.
(46:05):
His father was the buriallieutenant of Bonneville.
Have you seen Bonneville downthere?
That's true, bonneville offthere, it's high and late.
You see, if you come aroundsouth of Statsenburg and Clark,
you see Angel Lake.
Oh, yes, angel Lake.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
And you know yes.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Lake that goes southwest.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Do you see?
Speaker 3 (46:26):
that?
Yes, I saw that.
Now, when we get down, whereyou come to Porag yes, I see
Porag Go back up halfway andthen to your left and you'll see
a little circle from wherewe're in Bonneville.
That's Bonneville right here.
That was our headquarters, thatwas our contact with
(46:46):
civilization.
And then on, okay, the rest ofthe war, the rest of the war
that was.
And there were two families theLamar-Malon family and Mrs
Hardeen, h-a-r-d-e-i-n.
She was a Filipino woman Afterthe First World War, married
American Hmm, soldier, was itH-A-R-D-I-N-G or just D-R-D-I-N?
(47:09):
H-a-r-d-i-n-d-i-n.
Mrs Harding married an Americanand they had about six or seven
children.
He died, married an Americanand they had about six or seven
children.
He died there.
She married a ton of people andshe you wouldn't believe what
that woman did Going intoJapanese occupied towns around
(47:30):
and dialing the market in abrazen way, and the people had
to know she was loved by herselfand the rumor out was
collecting money and all kindsof stuff in order to give Mrs
Harding and everything else.
And finally the whole place gothit.
(47:50):
A couple of Americans gotkilled and we had to go back in
the mountains and then shecouldn't make it.
She wrote too late and we hadto go around back in the
mountains and then she couldn'tmake it.
She rode touring.
She'd come through themountains in the rainy season
carrying this big basket on herhead.
You know a very sturdy drawing.
I call it tapas dress.
And she was a heavy set Littlewoman with brown skin, beautiful
(48:12):
face.
She had the most beautiful face.
She was the most beautifulwoman I ever saw.
But I was her son.
She was the mercilesslywonderful person.
They wouldn't do it.
My mother and she heard me tellabout this.
After the law, my mothercouldn't go to the police office
often enough to send out allthe things.
She didn't survive the war then, yeah, and then she died later.
(48:34):
But my mother must have senther out of crud of stuff she
collected from her friends andorganized the US Airwaves Guard.
She must have sent that womanto town.
She knew that woman like shewas her own mother, because she
would tell her shit.
That's it.
Extraordinary woman,extraordinary.
Well, in this whole story andthis whole event where you're
(48:58):
filled with extraordinary peopleand you just never forget
Democrito, of course.
How do you spell his name?
D-e-m-o-c-r-i-t-o, democrito.
He goes by Dick Dick Lamond,l-u-m-a-n, l-a-n.
Lamond Lamond.
I have to check him out throughthe staff directory sometime.
L-u-m-a-n.
(49:18):
L-a-n.
Amon Marn.
I had to check him out to thestaff directory sometime Arusha
Wood yeah.
He's an intelligence group, astate government.
You know what I mean.
Red Wood, of course, was on thetan, served with me.
We served together incommunications.
Oh, I didn't know that hebecame state governor, you know.
(49:38):
So I worked with him to get thejob.
I took the money, that's right.
Brett actually got the job andI got him in the country and
they're a very deserving personto.
Oh yeah, very good, he broughthis wife's in and his children
(49:59):
and they know all the conditionwith you those were lovely wives
.
so the area that was yourheadquarters and this is where
we're talking about a betterdate, this thing is is uh, where
would that be?
Uh, that big eggs?
well back above it, that's wherewe're sailing one of the back
(50:21):
of the mountains, about fivemiles west of Clark Field,
because the Japanese cleaned outthe area looking for us, mm-hmm
, okay, I'm just trying tolocate this.
Well, it's the mainheadquarters.
It's where our headquarters arein Linton Beach.
Oh yeah, gorilla, theheadquarters.
That's where our headquartersare in Linton Beach.
Oh yeah, guerrilla, theheadquarters.
That's where we were until theAmericans returned.
(50:42):
Okay, we worked out thatgeneral area.
We weren't in any one spot, butwe were on both sides of the
Bam Bam River and we were in onemountain and then another, and
that's where I organized thePilgrim's Medi-Geritos, and
that's where Sergeant Bottlebrought the 26th Calvary flag
and that's where we raised theflag in the morning and we
taught them manual lines and weshot the fire.
(51:05):
This all comes much later, afterall these other dramatic things
.
So what would be the date thatyou first arrived in that
particular area?
Then I don't see a bound, no,it's not dated, but I just
thought, well, I'd say, well,let's see.
If this is April 1st, I wouldsay by, probably about the 2nd
(51:30):
of April.
We were back in there by June.
May or June.
We did it by degrees.
Or July, okay, july maybe of 43.
Yeah, possibly, and then untilthe actual February of 45.
February of 45.
Now, how did you actually?
You didn't speak the languageDid the Filipinos do the traceti
(51:52):
to get these pygmies organized?
Some of the originally spokesome Tagalog, but I was a kind
of an oddity.
I went blind back there as aresult of falling when the river
and, uh, what I did was, uh, Irealized we were kind of in a
mess because the monologue wasbringing us very little food and
(52:14):
I know we couldn't exist onthis for long because the burden
was too much for him to comethat far back in the bones very
often.
And there were three of us Bob,mayhew and Frank of A and me,
and the room was for oursurgeons.
How was his name spelled?
L-a-r-l-a-g, a-u.
He's where, in Texas, I think.
(52:37):
Okay, he's turned alive.
I'm not sure if he's in Texas,but I think so.
Anyway, I'm going to go backthere for a while and I remember
something had to happen.
I decided I was going back tomeet the Negritos.
I'm out, I am.
(53:01):
I had to hit contact with two ofthese more aggressive
nucleotides called Neural andTito, two
I-T-O-R-E-U-R-A-L-E-A-U,something like that.
But we had a last stage.
Neural and Tito came in thereand I began to talk to them and
I spoke fairly well in Tagalogand they spoke some Tagalog and
(53:21):
I began to and I have some paperin the Benson that I have
gotten from Yosora Bima's books.
At this point they have anybooks that during some of the
times we were hiding out, I raninto many by and such as I've
been doing versus Shakespearean,fulber Kohl, a believer around
Emerson Thoreau.
(53:42):
Some of these vines were acollect of vines because I
looked for them in leatherbindies and I went into some of
those areas and conducted themfor five or six days, or a week
to two weeks, through a marriage.
Take four other vines and taketwo vines, three v them there,
and take one of the vines andtake two vines or three vines
and then send them back.
So I had a lot of reading time.
(54:03):
I did a lot of reading.
By the way, I had some penciland paper maps that I collected
at Kerr, oregon, and I wrotedown the genetics of what they
would say in translation when Imade up a speech and I decided
to go back and I wanted to talkwith the ethnic leaders, so I
had the speech all writtenaround him with some others and
(54:24):
I went back and they, they allspoke down around the fire show
and they were all facing thewoods and they were all
independent.
And here I am back there andthey'd been known to kill all
white men and they'll impacttheir no-good boy, including
Goodwood and Bob Miller youwouldn't go.
And Bob man you wouldn't go,and most of your nuts man
Goodbye, terry.
But I was going to have.
But when I went to LA and Ithought I was a great
(54:45):
adventurist and I had this otherexperience previously where the
river was as crazy, but Ithought there were more of us
Primitive Aboriginals and I'veread much of the history of this
town and those were theaborigines they actually came
from.
Nobody really knows Micronesiaor something.
So I got back there and theystaged me as I wanted to talk to
(55:10):
.
So I read my speech that I'm anAmerican.
The Americans are going to comeback and liberate the food.
Don't kill him.
These are abitionally gentlepeople that have never seen a
white man in their life and itwas totally.
It's like talking to an Eskimoabout a refrigerator.
(55:31):
It was nothing.
Why are you going to liberate aperson who's already liberated?
See, well, they'd see him inthe airplane overhead.
They knew something.
They'd heard the bombs dropdown there and they knew that
things weren't right in thelowlands and they knew something
about.
The Japanese made some raids onthe mountains and they set up
(55:52):
these big traps which were madeout of band and would cut you up
in a minute.
You'd bring your step on theright side of your hips and hang
you up when you're dead, but alittle truck can throw you in
the air and throw you on a bunchof spikes.
So they had set up their owndefenses.
So they knew there wereproblems, but they didn't need
to be liberated.
They were already liberated.
But anyway, they all startedlashing and remember we're
(56:15):
sitting there.
They didn't know what I wastalking about.
They didn't.
They didn't know what I was.
They thought I was funny.
But the funny part to them wasthat I was saying words that
they understood.
I was the first intruder thatever came into their tribes and
tried to communicate at theirlevel.
(56:37):
With their words, they adoptedme right away.
Crucial, I was their man, notonly that I picked a subject
which made sense to them.
I had detected that their bigproblem was salt, because it was
mine.
We must show men's that wouldgive the lowlands.
(56:58):
Now, they had wild animals.
They had banana leaves whichwere keyed in and converted into
wrapping material, and they hadbamboo and they had wild
bananas.
And they had rice moved riceout of the mountains.
They had good trading material.
They had rattan.
Those were their show, but theywere being snookered out of a
(57:19):
lot of valuable stuff fornothing.
And we were with Speech Grocery.
When I put the light He'd getit short and lit.
Here comes the scrounger backin, right, right, I can get you
all sold, boy.
That made you real popular.
Well, they didn't believe it,but they liked it.
Did I do what you said?
So they let me live and theyadopted me.
(57:42):
I had no question about it.
They let me live, but theyadopted me and wonderful to me.
Plus, they tried to put Geraldcall me his brother.
Now you're neither a brother oryou're dead.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
I can't?
Speaker 3 (57:54):
I started running out of labor.
You're not here for me, I,you're dead.
I'm here.
I saw it out there.
You're not here for me, I'mhere, I'm welcome.
I'm welcome, brother.
The ride became as I cried out,and when I became a journalist,
I was you.
You're listening to Risk and Resolve.
And now for your hosts, benConner and Todd Hufford.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Welcome back to another episode of Risk and
Resolve.
I'm your co-host, ben Conner,along with Todd Hufford, and
today we're doing the intro intopart three of seven of my
grandfather's war story, henryClay Con Connor in the
Philippines, about to be missingin action of what happened in
(00:30):
Episode 2.
So we're going to do an Episode2 recap before we launch into
Episode 3.
But Episode 2 was launching in,so he fled into the jungles.
He went straight north fromLittle Bagugio, which was where
he was located, and he wasinstantly sick and he had
(00:53):
malaria, dysentery, dinghy fever, and it was not good.
He was left behind.
He was by himself for five fulldays.
Not a good outlook for tryingto be a survivalist on your own.
Probably not the way that youwant to start.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
No, he also talked about having multiple different,
that you can have multipledifferent kinds of malaria.
Pretty early on talks about howthe Philippine supporters would
get just totally mowed down anddecimated by the Japanese and
that became an obvious problem,problematic.
(01:33):
It prevented other Philippinesfrom supporting them and it also
also just prevented these guysfrom wanting to be helped by
them because they cared aboutthe Filipinos so much.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, he mentioned that the word they used was
delicato.
The relationship between thephilippines wanting to help the
americans was delicate becauseit was more or less a death
sentence.
The japanese would make thempay it was the timeline.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I'm still wrapping my head around some of it.
We talk about how the initialbombing was around, that you
know December 9th, timeframe,11th, whatever 10th when Pearl
Harbor was hit, and you justsort of have to remember that
just because they bombed thatday doesn't mean that the
Japanese forces were ready tocome down.
I mean there was still a war on, so they didn't make it to
(02:19):
Manila until quite a bit later.
And he talks about he'slaughing very jovial about the
fact he said I was the last guyto leave Manila.
And he talks aboutcommandeering all these trucks
and getting all these suppliesand how for a while they were
the best outfitted group in thebunch because they had kind of
planned and taken theopportunity into their own hands
.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, I thought this episode was also well.
Episode two was really asetting the stage kind of
episode of the who, who is who?
Um, kind of what are theconditions on the field now?
Um, and you can hear them goingthrough like literal maps, like
(03:01):
they, they are physically goingthrough maps on their end of
the recording that we get tohear audibly of where things are
located in batam um, or on, youknow, in the peninsula of luzon
, um, so that that was kind ofinteresting.
I had to actually slow down thepodcast to really listen to
like what.
So what did they say there?
Um, but yeah, it was.
(03:22):
It got very uh tactical um, buthe, he introduced a lot of
people, he introduced a lot offactions, if you will.
Uh, one of the factions that heintroduced, um, obviously he
introduced, like, the filipinonationals of you know how they
were engaged in the war, but healso introduced a, a faction
(03:47):
called the Hucks, and he gavethem the, the literal, like full
name, which can't, I cannotrepeat that.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Not that it was bad, it's just a really long name
that I don't even understand.
But they were called the Hucksand the summary was is that they
were an army of the peopleagainst the Japanese that kind
of turned into a politicalorganization.
What did you take away from thedescription of the Hucks, todd?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Well, I took away that it was kind of the first
alliance that took place afterif you think about December of
41, they got bombed.
I checked my local Wikipedia tosee when the official Bataan
death march was.
That was on.
Wikipedia said April 9ththrough 17th.
So you figure that's fivemonths after the bombing.
(04:33):
I don't really remember fromhis recordings him talking much
about falling out of rank.
But I remember from the bookand some other writings that
they were allowed to fall out ofrank and do whatever they
wanted.
And you know, it's just, wejust kind of slid right into I'm
on my own, I'm in the jungle,I'm sick, I've got dinghy fever,
and so the Hucks become thisfirst sort of group that could
(04:55):
be an alliance.
But I think he said that waslike in the December of 42
timeframe.
So this is a year later.
So they're fighting a war forfive months.
They fall out of rank butTandeth March happens.
He's running around.
The Hucks appeared to befavorable to Americans.
But he also mentioned he saysthe more I studied and learned
(05:17):
Now you and I both know hewasn't hanging out at a library
I wish I could say where did youstudy and where did you learn
in the middle of this war.
Because he says that the Huckswere all about.
They were a Chinese agrarianmovement and they were going to
take the land and give it to thepeasants.
And he just says, matter offactly, this is nothing new,
(05:39):
this is Marxian doctrine.
And once he realized that andrealized they were using the
Americans to curry favor withthe Filipinos since the
Filipinos love the Americans theHucks were saying look, we're
taking care of the Americansthat have been left behind, up
until the point they massacredall of them.
So he got himself in asituation where he before he was
(06:01):
in this and he says he learnedtwo different dialects of the
language.
And by learning the languagethey didn't know that he knew
the language and so he picked upthings that they didn't realize
.
He knew and was able to learnwhat they were doing.
And there was a situation wherehe's in a bad situation.
(06:23):
He pulls a gun on the leaderand basically walks him out of
this tent, doesn't say how faraway from the tent, but lets him
go.
And he says after that theyreally respected him, I think,
because he didn't kill him.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, I thought that was interesting.
He really talked about in thisepisode how he practiced with
his 45 and that became his buddy.
Practiced with his 45 and thatbecame his buddy, his unofficial
you know, maybe I personifiedit a little too much, but like
he became very good, uh, withhis 45 and he actually got
talking into, like that for asmall guy, as he called himself,
(06:57):
that he was a good athlete andso, uh, obviously that helps him
navigate a jungle that probablyallows him to be to move around
like he did, as he describes.
So that was that was.
That was pretty interesting tohear him say that.
I think we we failed to mentionthis, but when he was sick right
(07:18):
out of the shoot and you know,was by himself for like
basically his first five days,um, he talked about how he got
sick and, um, you know, theyimmediately go up into the
mountains, but because themountains there's- no water up
there, so they had to go down toget water and he mentioned like
we need water but the water islaced or surrounded by dead
(07:42):
bodies and animals that areeating off of these dead bodies
and it's just totallycontaminated.
so they're drinking water that'scontaminated with dead bodies
and ergo getting sick picture hedrew was devastating was just
disturbing yeah, very disturbing, but just like it's survival,
it just really led into what,what they were doing, and it was
(08:06):
survival and it's like I gottaworry about today, like I can't
I, I have to, I have to, uh, getwater, um.
So, um, you know, he he talkedabout just some other camps and
some other guys that he, he raninto.
So who were some of the guys,todd, that that were notable to
you that he ran into?
So who were some of the guys,todd, that were notable to you
(08:27):
that he bumped into along theway in episode two?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
You start to hear these personalities and even in
one situation he forgets acouple of the guys' names, but
he knows what happens to themand that they didn't.
They got shot or killed laterin the war.
But the two that he spent alittle bit more time with was
this guy named Boone and Gardner, and one of them was just a
beast of a man and he kind oftalks about different stories
(08:51):
around him and how they werecamped out near a place called
Fawcett's Camp.
Now Fawcett appears to be aWorld War I, maybe American
hangover, who is married and hasmarried to a Filipino woman,
has 10 kids.
So this is not Fawcett, is not aWorld War II military guy, and
(09:13):
if you know your history,there's a long history of the US
and the Philippines back intoWorld War I, and so this guy's
got an established camp andBoone and your grandfather are
camped out in some hut of somesort, somewhat some distance
away from the camp and heexplains that the night that the
whole thing broke loose and theJapanese totally devastated
that camp and they were farenough away from the camp that
(09:36):
they were able to avoid captureand being killed.
And you could tell in theinterview your grandfather's
talking to a guy and looking ata map and they'll look over here
and look over there.
And he starts to joke and hesays you know, when you're being
chased like this, where wouldyou go?
Look at this map, when wouldyou want to go?
And he points to this areawhere there's just nothing.
(09:56):
He says we want to go there.
That's where peace, and quietand tranquility are.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, and that reminded me.
So where he went to was a placecalled Moron, which is spelled
Moron, m-o-r-o-n.
But him and Frank went therefor rest and I just got this
really vivid picture of En Gediin Israel when I had a chance to
visit the holy land, and gettywas an area where david fled the
(10:29):
pursuit of saul, king saul, whowas trying to kill him.
I just got this vivid pictureof, like he's going to this
place in the philippines and itis such a similar situation of
what david did, uh, in fleeing,uh, king saul.
Um, so just really fascinating.
(10:51):
Um, you know, that's that'swhere episode two ends and
that's where we get into episodeuh, three.
Um, but before that ends, acouple of things that stood out
to me.
Is you know one?
He actually, since there was abounty on his head, he ended up
(11:12):
changing his name to Sam Whiteand he starts laughing when he
says it because he was Uncle Samthe White man, so Sam White,
uncle Sam the White man, so SamWhite.
And that was just to protecthimself from a troop of 300
Japanese that were looking forhim to kill him.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
They had created a special infantry, if you will,
of 300 men, of Japanese soldiersthat were simply going out to
hunt, particularly the Americangirl, of forces that were left
behind, but they had certainnames of people they were
looking for.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
And he says that's when I stopped using the name
Connor, yeah, and he stoppedstarted wearing different
clothes and shoes, yeah.
So that was really fascinating.
And he also made a commenttowards the end.
He goes.
You know, these guys were doingthis and that, talking about
Boone and Gardner and all theseother guys, and he goes.
And then there's me, just adummy like me, looking for an
adventure.
And again he brought up theword adventure and I think that
(12:14):
that is.
We haven't got through all theepisodes yet, but it seems to be
some connective tissue there ofjust what made his experience
his experience is that he wasn't.
He wasn't a victim, he was on,he was.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
he was on an adventure, yeah he's like 15
months in, so early december of41, faucet's camp gets raided.
He, he says it was on february22nd.
I remember that because it waswashington's birthday.
I'm trying to figure out howyou remember what day it is.
He must've had some sort ofsystem to keep track.
But you're 15 months in.
And he finally says I'm tiredof putting my Filipino friends
(12:52):
at risk.
I'm tired of being chased.
I got to go somewhere deeper,higher, further away from this
action.
And that's where he ends it.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, and he ends it with going to Moran, which is
maybe the En Gedi of thePhilippines, and right at the
end of the episode he goes andhe introduces the Negritos,
which we know from his story wasa really important group for
(13:22):
him, maybe important for eachother, but they really saved his
life.
So I'm really excited to diginto part three.
So enjoy everyone.
Part three of Clay Conner's warstory.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Pygmy Negritos my first contact.
Your first contact with him, andthis will be in January of 33.
I was stressed have you evermet a pygmy in his own
environment?
Not many people have.
No, not many people have.
And both they got to rememberthe vintage of the year, the
year that we're talking about.
And I wrote to him where, at 40, through me, 80 percent I
(14:03):
remember nothing about tribalcustom or their religion or
their superstitions.
And at this point I wasn't.
I didn't have the time to learn, but I was totally fascinated
by them, just intrigued.
I wanted to know everything,but they were very distant.
They weren't hostile but theywere distant and they weren't
(14:24):
hostile, but they were distant.
And I noticed, I learned thatthey did not give me honest
information.
They told me that everythingwas great in Maroon.
Well, everything wasn't greatin Maroon, because Maroon had
also been a place where theJapanese decided to put their
(14:45):
soldiers when they wanted togive them the rest.
This is our spot for theJapanese.
This is where they bring them inby boat to Maroon to get them
away from everything whenthey're sick and everything else
, and set up a headquartersthere.
And the place was loaded withjabs.
(15:07):
I couldn't have picked a worsespot and I was in no place and I
was in no way to get out,except how I came in around by
boat.
There's no other way to get outof this godforsaken area,
although it's beautiful,absolutely fantastic.
(15:27):
I was right about the train andeverything, but you got in that
boat tour.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
No, I came to the moon.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
So you did come all the way, but you had to go back
over the mountain.
Oh, no way you're going to dothat.
If you go back over the moon,where are you?
You're back where you started.
Well, you wouldn't have leftthere in the beginning, unless
you were in big trouble, right,because of that way they lived.
Yeah plus the fact they werewiping out all those cities over
there looking for you, uh-huh.
So anyway, we stayed there twoor three days and we had to get
(15:56):
out.
There was only one way to goand that was north.
So we had to go by boat and theFilipinos rigged up this and I
didn't know what they were doing.
At this point I don't know ifthey're selling us out or not,
but they rigged up this big bunkand that's an outrigger type
thing and they took us out ofthe chair machine along the
coast.
I never got so seasick in mywhole life.
(16:18):
There was, a storm came up andI'm in an outrigger and we're
not that far out, or in thebreak, so to speak, in there and
they start getting sick.
Well, they never got seasick,but I was getting real sick.
And all of a sudden I see theselights going on, these fires
building up, with fires buildingup, being signals to me.
(16:39):
They meet shameless.
So I said we're brewing a shorenorth.
No, you can't do that.
You ain't never find a way.
They go on the shore on thesugar.
No, you're not.
And there were two fellowpeople.
They said we're really, really,you ain't got 30 seconds.
Out comes the gun Boy.
We were on the shore right now.
That was our settler, that wasour settler.
(17:06):
So all of a sudden they put usto share and they were gone
because they knew that thesignals were being set by the
very Japanese Filipinos to claimthe hits.
There weren't too many of them,but that was a bad area, oh boy
.
So we got Marisendo, along withPaul, which was a Japanese
Billy's Primo base Americannaval.
(17:26):
They'd taken over.
But we found former Americans,inland American former.
We found Filipinos who wereformerly in the United States
Navy, live in Malaripo.
They had a solar family out toprotect.
How great.
You finally got to a good areaafter that.
(17:47):
But we had good communications.
They spoke fluent English.
They were very patriotic withthe Americans.
They put us up here two weeksbut said we had the clear round,
Plus the fact that theAmericans had one American who
was from Newark, New Jersey.
I had one American who was fromNewark, New Jersey.
(18:07):
Fred Alvidrez, had beenreleased from San Fernando
prison camp and had been broughtto and on the cold to find us.
They had traced us, see, and hewas released and given certain
privileges in order to turn usin.
And so all of a sudden he showsup in a, like we did, and he
(18:28):
comes ashore and we'recommunicating.
He's from Norvington, which isnext door.
It's kind of like Grand Ripplein Indianapolis or St Paul,
Minneapolis, I don't know howthat goes.
The next.
I had a new feeling about thisbird.
(18:49):
I just thought there wassomething wrong.
He wasn't saying things that,but he was quick and he was
rough.
He was a street fighter.
I mean, I recognized himbecause I was, you know, I grew
up in the area.
He was a good street fighter, Icould tell.
But there was something wrong.
You, I grew up in the area andwhen it was a bit street-trigger
I could tell but there wassomething wrong.
You don't show up like that.
(19:09):
Where'd he been all this time?
Never hooned up?
How could he be on three?
Where'd he been?
Where'd he come from?
You don't come out of the bush.
I mean, everybody knows whereeverybody is.
See, it's a big island, but youknow what's going on Right by
this time.
You better if you're going tostay alive.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
So I went and I told these Filipinos.
I said you better take off andwe'll come leave it.
Now, this was just in threehours after he got there and all
of a sudden, while we're doingthis, heaven was meeting and we
thought he'd disappear and wetook off.
Right now.
I've been to the top of themountain, I've come back up
through here.
You would run up and we wouldrun up the pass into the
(19:48):
mountains.
And you know, we went about.
No, we weren't over.
Okay, we went over a mile awayand they just tore that town all
apart.
Oh boy, well, when in the worldwould he do that?
I mean, see, american isn't he?
The name itself is there, orwhat?
Taurus Ferdowit Veedrus.
He was American.
(20:09):
I mean, his heritage wasMexican, but he wasn't.
He'd take care of FerdowitVeedrus.
You don't know what happened tohim.
No, they killed him.
Oh, the Japanese killed him.
The Japanese killed him beforethe Americans came back.
Oh boy, yeah, and he was ajubilus, he was going to sell
out to Americans.
No, really, just doing whateverit was, survive himself.
He might have been brainwashedor tortured or something.
(20:32):
Well yeah, he was tortured buthe was surviving too and that
was his way of surviving.
He's doing his thing, shane, hewas keeping alive too, but he
was caught in the circumstance.
I was in the circumstance.
I was in the circumstance.
I mean, I wouldn't have killedFred, no matter what.
Fine, even if I had knowndefinitely what he was doing, I
(20:54):
wouldn't have killed him, hewouldn't have killed me.
See, he was doing what he wasdoing, I was doing what I was
doing.
He was trying to keep alive byselling information or giving
any time.
You make judgment after a rulerof this kind and we'll go back
and you say if I had been inthat circumstance I wouldn't
(21:15):
have done that.
It's a bunch of stuff you'dhave heard the hell you do.
Or save your life.
You didn't.
And not only that, it isn'tlike you have to make.
You make that decision when youeat steak and potatoes and hot
granted biscuits and you livedin American stuff.
You don't live those decisionswith that kind of chemistry.
You make the decisions aftermonths of hardships, isolation,
(21:42):
cut off from your own family andyour country.
You cannot rule upon yourself ajudgment after the fact about a
person in that circumstance andsay he should not have.
You can't say what he did waswrong, because the rules.
You don't know the chemistry,you don't remember anything.
(22:03):
But that was probably theexception, though, wouldn't you
say?
There were probably about 20 or30 that did that.
Little survived it.
But you get into the prisonersand you hear the prisoner
stories and they don't tell halfthe damn stories about what
(22:25):
they did to each other tosurvive.
They stole each other's food,they quoted each other in order
to get favors.
That's a damn mission.
It's a risk.
You've ever heard of the one onthe air that they were taking
blood.
They didn't have vampires there.
You just hear all kinds ofterrible things.
Well, they don't want to tellthose stories and you can't
(22:45):
blame them because nothing'sgoing to come out of it.
That's rational or reasonable.
You have to deal with a man andthe environment and the
chemistry and the things.
It's not a reasonablecircumstance in which you can
make a reasonable judgment, andnone of us at this point in time
could ever possibly makejudgment on any of those people
(23:06):
who were involved in thatexperience.
You're only looking at it inthe eyes of a person years away.
That's a good point to make.
Very, very good.
I'm pretty sure that you'rebringing that up.
So you pursued the North.
This is January 6th.
I think I'm getting my timingoff because the road says
February 22nd 53.
(23:28):
It looks like you're comingback up across the road.
That's exactly what we did, I'mpretty sure.
Yeah, I think the raid may havetaken place after this business
with the Strad OliverisAlvindris.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Alvindris, yeah, I think that's probably true.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
In other words, when we went down through there after
the southern raid over there,they came up and then it was the
Boone's deal and then we flednorth.
I was thinking that's how ithappened, right, I'm glad I put
this down.
Then we went up here and seewhere we made our mistake, where
we went north.
We were going to this objectiveup to the near because we
(24:04):
thought, well, if that isn't anygood, these mountains up here
with the Inga Roads, they're themost aggressive and probably
the most talented of allFilipinos.
They do a lot of weaving, livein the mountains, they have a
fine culture, they have a lot ofgood religious background and
the Inga Ro religious were veryindustrious people.
(24:27):
They were the most industrious.
You've seen these pictures ofthe kind of on the sides of the
mountains where they build thesefarms, where the irrigation
goes from one level to another.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Oh yeah, it's, very elaborate.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Yes, they're terrorists.
That's what the Egorics did see.
Oh, marvelous.
So, anyway, we're going to.
That was your objective.
We got into Gaddafi territoryup here, which surrounds the
Filipinos that were brought inwith pro-Japanese around Cabana
Tawan.
Now Cabana Tawan is the primaryprison camp of the Americans.
(25:03):
It was named after the town ofCabana Chihuahua and the
Galapagos were brought in tolive around Cabana Chihuahua.
You see that on the area nearthe X, you see Rapace, just to
the lower right of the X mark.
(25:23):
Yes, sir, and around Rapace,yeah, sir.
And down to Posh, yeah, that'sfor Posh.
And when we come over and yousee, you come down and see
Cabana Jawan is in that area.
I can't find it.
That's where it is.
It's over there.
You want to cut it off?
No, okay, so to a prison campat Cabana Teran, which would be
(25:47):
northeast of where you had beenat the time of that raid, where
they hid Fosser Camp and Boone'sSphere.
So that's where the mainAmerican prison camp was located
.
Yeah, then, it's almostdirectly north of Manila.
That's right, and that wasreally the goal.
(26:08):
On the Bataan Death March, theymarched no, they marched to
O'Donnell.
O'donnell, they marched to SanFernando, which is right below A
and Pampango on the bay.
See Down here.
Oh yes, then they took them bycruff and they took the left way
.
See Down here.
Oh yes, then they took him bytruck and he took the left way.
See Where's North to you.
(26:31):
See where Congolese is,congolese Angeles, right here in
Clarkfield.
Yes, then you go north up toO'Donnell Camp O'Donnell, that's
where the first camp was.
It's north of, is it your copbuses?
Newmont North Cop Bus, the copbus, oh, it's long ago, okay.
(26:54):
You see, Bam Bam over at theBonneville East.
Yeah, bam Bam cop bus, I meancop buses, what's that?
Old Donald, that's Old Donald.
Okay, this was a very salientarmy camp, back in the middle of
the movers.
Okay, that's where 26,000people died, right there at that
(27:16):
place, right there At O'Donnell.
Okay, I'll circle that.
Okay, I see where it is.
Because of O'Donnell 26,000,the place was polluted, they
couldn't even bury him, so theycleared him out and took him
over to Camp Anna to work,because there was absolutely no
(27:38):
place to put them there of CampO'Donnell, and 26,000 died,
26,000.
Let Americans, americans andFilipinos and Filipinos there.
I guess that's one of the realhorrifying cases in the entire.
Yeah you've got to get all thatfrom the guys that were there.
But I can tell you about itbecause I was very close by and
knew what was going on and I hadsome of the escapees from that
(28:01):
thing join me and all that kindof thing.
But you knew, mr, escapees fromthat thing joined me and all
that kind of thing.
Well, there were some escapeesthat got out of the Valdonald
and just linked up with you,just a few, and then they began
to release a few Filipinos andthey were dead to bury and they
weren't, and they nursed back tolife Philippine scouts.
(28:22):
They joined me Later on, a yearlater, yeah, after they were
nursed back.
But anyway, I'm over theretrying to get north and I've got
great respect for Cabana Tawana.
I don't want to get near CabanaTawana.
I'm smart enough.
We got the information.
We've been keyed in by theFilipinas.
(28:43):
We know that's a hot area, sowe're not even going to get
close.
You see how much room we gaveit.
We gave it a wide berth.
We gave it a wide berth.
So we're going in Nueva Escalia, up near the Eagle Rooms, north
Way, north Way up there, northWay opposite Ling Island Gulf,
(29:05):
north Way, north Way up therenorth Way opposite Ling Island
Gulf, but we're about as far asTar, as La Paz, and we suffered,
in two weeks' time, two raidson the part of the Japanese
hitting us, and one in La Cabeand the other in La Paz.
And how we ever got out of thatthing is it's a long.
(29:25):
This was March 15th of 43.
Yeah, around the LePaz area,and April 1st, and April 1st
also Right April Fool's Day.
I can't make out that othertown, I assume L-A-P-A-Z, but
that's LePaz, that's LePaz.
And there was another LeCobb,lecobb, la Cobb.
It was a video.
Was that located near La Cobb?
(29:46):
Yeah, la Cobb is.
I see where you went.
I see La La Cobb.
I'm trying.
I forgot where Exactly.
There was an X near the yeah,where La yeah.
Well, laura was where we werehit, okay, and now we were in
the Cobb also.
(30:06):
Remember, joe, where the Cobbwas In the first of the Cobb.
When did you find it?
April Fool's Day, yeah, that'dbe the Cobb, so it'd be right up
there.
So the Japanese got some priorinformation that you were in the
area and then they went upthere.
Every place we went they knewabout there was some advanced
(30:27):
intelligence again by that 10 or5 percent of filipinos are
informing them about you're atwar we're in the cabana juan
area, silly, yeah.
oh, I'll tell you where to comesee it first.
Hell, in the south east, aboutan inch l-i-c-a-b.
(30:48):
Yeah, all in the city.
See that, all the city.
We'll put first and if I makethat up, we're.
Cobb is southeast.
Where's April 1st?
See it on this one, is it there?
Won't see it on this one.
I see March.
Where you see the X yes Morning.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Was there another X worth of that?
Really one, oh yes, here.
Or X worth of that.
Lillipin oh yes, here'ssomething.
Now that Lillipin has come downan inch or a half inch
southeast, okay, I see it now.
Lecom yeah, I see it now.
L-i-c-a-b, I'm not going totell you that, so don't forget
it.
L-i-c-a-b, that's what it is.
(31:29):
With it, frederick Goins saysnothing could be rougher than
LeCobb.
You're a fine joker Boy.
I'll tell you Well, how manyJack, 300 300 against how many?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
How?
Speaker 3 (31:43):
many did you have on your side About five.
Five of us were trying to getthrough there.
We picked them up.
We picked them up after allthis deer at Boone's camp and
Fawcett's camp.
We escaped them up after allthis deer at Boone's camp and
Fossett's camp, and we skivedout there and five of us met up
and we were trying to get north.
They joined up with me.
(32:03):
So, as a result, we got hitpretty hard and we were running
pretty hard and fortunately blewourselves through part of their
troops.
They were all that well trainedand they were just true news
Five of you against 300 Japanesesoldiers.
Yeah, coming in.
(32:24):
They were coming in all the wayfrom three directions.
We took the direction we werecovering out.
We didn't know that.
We were fortunate.
We ran into one side.
We ran into one side, we raninto the other side but see, the
part that left Durfden wassolid bamboo and thicket and the
river and we went throughacross this narrow piece of the
(32:46):
river and through the thicketand got out and they started
mortars, machine guns.
I don't know where we gotthrough that, but we were all
scattered.
I think the worst part of itwas after about an hour of
running.
I got into him.
I was all by myself.
At this point I don't know whathappened to the other guys.
(33:07):
I had gone back to get two ofthem out of these ditches, pull
them out while the machine gunfires going on.
They were definitely lostunless somebody went back and
got them.
But I was with the first two.
Then we got each other out,then we took off and here they
come and they got stuck.
They couldn't get out, too highand muddy, slippery bank.
(33:30):
So I got the two out.
Then we started going.
Then we split up and I got ontothis high coogan grass, which
is eight-seater, laying seedhole Cougan seed.
Yeah, it's very sharp grass,it's got you, I mean and it's
really heavy.
So anyway, it grows on the edgeof banks and stuff like that.
(33:51):
So I got onto thisootenai grassand started digging.
I knew I was in trouble becauseI knew I'd flush me out.
So I started digging into thisand there was kind of muddy and
I dove down under the mud and Istarted to mud back on my body
and I took a reed and put it inthe mulch and left it in some
(34:12):
prairie debris.
You already picked up somejungle techniques, but there's
one about how to survive.
Oh yeah, oh.
So anyway, it's really a coupleof the half-track store.
Who's first and lightened thekugelwit so he could burn it.
It didn't burn too easy, butthey kept at it.
They got out of the metal tostart burning this coven off and
(34:36):
the death tractor coming backand forth.
Those clowns get every person.
They're going to run right over, see, and they must have come
around six or seven too.
That's a lot.
What am I going to do?
I mean, I could do it and I wasthere all day long and it must
(34:58):
have been a quarter and 15degrees.
I don't know what it was, butanyway.
Then I was baked in there andHarrison, this rate of about 6
o'clock in the morning and 6o'clock in the morning turned
out there all the wrong thing.
You know what I call it?
Misshawzy, with the malaria anddysentery.
And when they're all baked inthe red and burning, roving me
(35:23):
and all that code Shh, I get outof there and I look to the
river there.
I'm going to show them theoctagonal water.
They were growing.
At that point they thoughtthey'd done a job.
Really.
They thought it wasn't.
They didn't think you were inthere.
No, nobody could live by law.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
It's just 12 hours and then the other fellows, the
other ones.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
those guys all got rescued by the Filipinos.
In other words, they ran intoareas where the Filipinos
conducted a windage, some kindof hiding, Some kind of hiding,
but you were the only one thatgot kind of left behind.
I got caught.
Well, I went back after theseother two corals and they
happened to pick the rightdirection to escape.
See, you were left behind.
Yeah, I was, I was standingthere firing at these guys with
(36:12):
machine guns, and all with a .45automatically.
You know you've got to bestupid, but that, believe it or
not, they kept it from COVIDafter us.
Well, that slowed them up byyou being in there.
They didn't try to chase afterthe others, it didn't make any
sense.
That's what they were.
That's what they were, but itwas a bad experience.
(36:35):
I finally caught up with myfriend Fred Gervais about must
have been about 7 o'clock thatnight and he was so glad to see
me and all this that I was dead.
Yes, and I remember I was quitea reunion, but once you left
two days in a row, so about aweek later, march 15th and April
(36:56):
1st, we almost had theidentical pattern you get, only
this time we got in with theHucks again.
I missed this in April 1st.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Well, it was your friends, the Hucks.
Yeah, we were right over theHucks.
They were defending an areaover there from the Japanese.
The Japanese quit following us.
I don't know if they knew.
The Huck's had a barricade setup to run.
We were in the Huck's, but thistime the guys.
They said this one Huck leader.
(37:24):
He was really pro-American, infact the Huck's killed him.
He was a college graduate.
He was Julian Paul.
He was one of my old buddies.
How's his last name spelledJulian Paul?
I mean, he was a rumor ofbuddies.
How's his last name spelledJulian Paul?
P-a-l-a-d.
He was former chief of police ofthe road of the towns.
He wouldn't work with theJapanese in Ireland and he was
just a real adventure type.
(37:45):
He was a perjurvia type,well-educated Well, I don't know
about perjurvia a littleeducated, but anyway, this guy
was well educated and he was avery good pitcher.
But he was a lot of fun.
If you didn't know, he wasputting you on, you were a
little trope and Paul.
We ran into Paul and Paul waslater accused, as some of the
(38:11):
Americans were, of betrayingtheir hubs and and was sure
that's unfortunate, veryunfortunate.
It was really great.
I love Jerry Ode.
He taught me a lot of things.
He taught me a lot of thingsabout guerrilla tactics.
He taught me a lot of thingsabout the Philippines and
Filipino.
He taught me a lot of thingsabout the history of the
Philippines, the agrarianmovement, in a logical fashion,
(38:34):
not a bitter, rather like theargument of the ruler to bring
relevant to the liver, which isgoing to solve all the problems
through humility and peace.
When a regular learner runsover the river to lines, it was
ridiculous.
And when we're opposite, whereeverybody is, it was well, the
(38:55):
caretaker.
If you don't care, you go onyour side.
That's not true.
And all of a sudden, paulettewas the kind of way you could
sit down and really talk to himabout the issues.
Okay, so you worked up to themfor probably just a brief period
of time, right?
And this is all April.
About two or three days, two orthree days Now.
Time right, and this is ourApril about two or three days,
(39:16):
two or three days Now.
Had you organized the good carPigment Negritos at this point.
Yet we had to leave.
Paula was in trouble.
He was in trouble witheverything.
He was in the wrong area forone thing, and his would be a
good book to write A good story.
Because here is a real,well-educated Filipino that's
(39:36):
pro-American and has his headscrewed on straight and knows
his story the Valrots grew up onboth sides and has his country
of heart.
He was cured by his own peoplebecause he wasn't going along
with the communist line.
He grew up with the greatmovement.
He grew up with the communistline.
He moved it, he went up to thepale-mute and swore and he said
(39:57):
that he was the difference.
He said the difference, he knewthe difference.
And I came.
Well, anyway, we left and Paultold us we had to get out of
there and he told us we'd betterget back to New England.
He told us to grow in theZambalans.
This is Zambalans, that's whathe said.
That's what he said.
And Prahlad said the Zambalanswill run to Tuba, which is the
(40:21):
highest thing.
And then Barad starts and talksto you.
He says, even though there's20,000 Japanese troops, he says
they can't get rest.
And to Ruben I'm trying toblink this up again because I
don't see these glistening onthe map Well, the Zambalis, the
Pelletubba's, the highest pointdirectly west of the Liguruma
(40:43):
headquarters.
Oh, directly west of the.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Liguruma headquarters yeah, about a half inch or an
inch.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Oh, okay, you see, bell and Pelletubba, that's the
highest point.
That's the highest point.
It's where these wines converge, right there.
Oh, yes, I see it now.
I'll mark that on the map Map.
Go Pinatuba 2-I-N-A-2-B-A.
Go Pinatuba.
I marked that also.
Okay, beautiful culture, largemahogany, giant firings,
(41:12):
fantastic jungle grounds.
Giant firings, fantastic junglegrounds.
We were in Silver, we were inthe area.
We had to go right throughClark Field, right through
20,000 Japanese there atStatenburg, which they took over
, clark Field.
Did you see that Clark Field isthe largest airbase in the area
(41:32):
right now?
But here's Statenburg righthere, just west of that, the
part of that.
Clark Field is the largestairbase in the area right now,
but here's Fort Statenburg,right here, just west of that,
the part of that is Clark Field.
Oh, I see, okay, so that's thelargest installation in the area
airbase right now.
That's where everybody thatwent to Vietnam went through
Clark.
I mean, yes, everybody thatwent to Vietnam and I didn't
know this until 1968, wastrained for general survivor by
(41:55):
the pygmy labrinos that Iorganized.
Their children and some of theold timers that I organized in
World War II trained theVietnamese on what they called
the survival program.
Is that right?
That's amazing, yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
That's the story.
That's not at all known.
Oh no, nobody knows that.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
But see, I was told this by the general at Clark
when I went back in 68 wasdocumented in this one of the
Clarkfield Air Course release.
I think you got a copy of it,okay, see, well, anyway, I'm
going to click on it.
We had to go right throughthere.
(42:36):
We couldn't get across.
We went to the Bam Bam River.
We couldn't get back anywhereback across the Bam Bam River
except at Clark Field to gosouth.
See, we're north Now, if you'rehere, there's 20,000 Japanese
at Clark Field in Statenburg,right.
(42:56):
Here's the main road, and thisis all heavily Japanese.
And we're here.
How are you going to get downhere, out of here, unless you go
across here?
When are you going to cross theBam Bam River?
Well, you can't cross the BamBam River, so you've got to go
(43:17):
right through the camp to getacross the Bam Bam River in
order to get south into thisarea, because there's nothing up
here but Camp Redobble and allthe Japanese emplacements, right
, right.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
So you've, got to go south.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Well, you can't get south Unless you go right
through or down that main road.
Well, you can't go down themain road and you can't go east
of the main road.
So what are we doing?
We go through the west part ofClark Field, right At night, I
hope About midway and there theyare.
There they are.
(43:54):
There were about 15 of usJapanese, filipinos and
Americans and we were just kindof spread out, just taking our
time going out there, trying tomake no noise, just acted like
people in there.
Oh, they're right, incredible20,000 Japanese.
(44:14):
20,000 Japanese.
Yeah, I'm telling you if Ithink back on that.
That's ridiculous, but that'sexactly what we did.
It was a miraculous no comment.
Well, anyway, we got a big kickout of it.
After some of it, let me tellyou, every breath was in
(44:37):
eternity, for we went throughthat.
That must have been a while,and it was like a year, as we
were on the frost there throughthose urban areas.
And then we went back toward thedam and we had to cross the
river.
At the dam there wasn't anyother way to cross this river.
But we had to cross the dam,which is guarded.
(44:58):
See.
Well, how did you get across it?
Well, they just weren't payingattention.
So we're going to go.
We went the other way, we goGauge it through the river, oh,
and they all got across andnobody was paying any attention.
Nobody paid.
Thank goodness If it happened.
We got hit the next morning.
They're paying attention.
Goodness If that happened, wegot hit the next morning.
They're paying attention.
We could only listen for it.
(45:19):
You could just stay watchingand look and you could just do
so much.
We found an on-evacuate Japanesetemporary deal on the river, on
the south side of the river,and we slept there.
Then we got on.
We were leaving there when theymachined that thing coming in
there after us.
They got the message somehowand we just took off back to the
(45:43):
jungle.
We made our retreat down toBonnebotte.
That's where we met the mostpoor American people.
Those people are liless people.
Killers are so happy.
In fact, I brought an Americanto this country.
He lives here in Minneapolis.
His name is Dermot CredoLamonia.
He worked in the stategovernment.
Oh, he works down there at StAdamsville.
Yeah, and I brought him to thiscountry.
(46:05):
His father was the buriallieutenant of Bonneville.
Have you seen Bonneville downthere?
That's true, bonneville offthere, it's high and late.
You see, if you come aroundsouth of Statsenburg and Clark,
you see Angel Lake.
Oh, yes, angel Lake.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
And you know yes.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Lake that goes southwest.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Do you see?
Speaker 3 (46:26):
that?
Yes, I saw that.
Now, when we get down, whereyou come to Porag yes, I see
Porag Go back up halfway andthen to your left and you'll see
a little circle from wherewe're in Bonneville.
That's Bonneville right here.
That was our headquarters, thatwas our contact with
(46:46):
civilization.
And then on, okay, the rest ofthe war, the rest of the war
that was.
And there were two families theLamar-Malon family and Mrs
Hardeen, h-a-r-d-e-i-n.
She was a Filipino woman Afterthe First World War, married
American Hmm, soldier, was itH-A-R-D-I-N-G or just D-R-D-I-N?
(47:09):
H-a-r-d-i-n-d-i-n.
Mrs Harding married an Americanand they had about six or seven
children.
He died, married an Americanand they had about six or seven
children.
He died there.
She married a ton of people andshe you wouldn't believe what
that woman did Going intoJapanese occupied towns around
(47:30):
and dialing the market in abrazen way, and the people had
to know she was loved by herselfand the rumor out was
collecting money and all kindsof stuff in order to give Mrs
Harding and everything else.
And finally the whole place gothit.
(47:50):
A couple of Americans gotkilled and we had to go back in
the mountains and then shecouldn't make it.
She wrote too late and we hadto go around back in the
mountains and then she couldn'tmake it.
She rode touring.
She'd come through themountains in the rainy season
carrying this big basket on herhead.
You know a very sturdy drawing.
I call it tapas dress.
And she was a heavy set Littlewoman with brown skin, beautiful
(48:12):
face.
She had the most beautiful face.
She was the most beautifulwoman I ever saw.
But I was her son.
She was the mercilesslywonderful person.
They wouldn't do it.
My mother and she heard me tellabout this.
After the law, my mothercouldn't go to the police office
often enough to send out allthe things.
She didn't survive the war then, yeah, and then she died later.
(48:34):
But my mother must have senther out of crud of stuff she
collected from her friends andorganized the US Airwaves Guard.
She must have sent that womanto town.
She knew that woman like shewas her own mother, because she
would tell her shit.
That's it.
Extraordinary woman,extraordinary.
Well, in this whole story andthis whole event where you're
(48:58):
filled with extraordinary peopleand you just never forget
Democrito, of course.
How do you spell his name?
D-e-m-o-c-r-i-t-o, democrito.
He goes by Dick Dick Lamond,l-u-m-a-n, l-a-n.
Lamond Lamond.
I have to check him out throughthe staff directory sometime.
L-u-m-a-n.
(49:18):
L-a-n.
Amon Marn.
I had to check him out to thestaff directory sometime Arusha
Wood yeah.
He's an intelligence group, astate government.
You know what I mean.
Red Wood, of course, was on thetan, served with me.
We served together incommunications.
Oh, I didn't know that hebecame state governor, you know.
(49:38):
So I worked with him to get thejob.
I took the money, that's right.
Brett actually got the job andI got him in the country and
they're a very deserving personto.
Oh yeah, very good, he broughthis wife's in and his children
(49:59):
and they know all the conditionwith you those were lovely wives
.
so the area that was yourheadquarters and this is where
we're talking about a betterdate, this thing is is uh, where
would that be?
Uh, that big eggs?
well back above it, that's wherewe're sailing one of the back
(50:21):
of the mountains, about fivemiles west of Clark Field,
because the Japanese cleaned outthe area looking for us, mm-hmm
, okay, I'm just trying tolocate this.
Well, it's the mainheadquarters.
It's where our headquarters arein Linton Beach.
Oh yeah, gorilla, theheadquarters.
That's where our headquartersare in Linton Beach.
Oh yeah, guerrilla, theheadquarters.
That's where we were until theAmericans returned.
(50:42):
Okay, we worked out thatgeneral area.
We weren't in any one spot, butwe were on both sides of the
Bam Bam River and we were in onemountain and then another, and
that's where I organized thePilgrim's Medi-Geritos, and
that's where Sergeant Bottlebrought the 26th Calvary flag
and that's where we raised theflag in the morning and we
taught them manual lines and weshot the fire.
(51:05):
This all comes much later, afterall these other dramatic things
.
So what would be the date thatyou first arrived in that
particular area?
Then I don't see a bound, no,it's not dated, but I just
thought, well, I'd say, well,let's see.
If this is April 1st, I wouldsay by, probably about the 2nd
(51:30):
of April.
We were back in there by June.
May or June.
We did it by degrees.
Or July, okay, july maybe of 43.
Yeah, possibly, and then untilthe actual February of 45.
February of 45.
Now, how did you actually?
You didn't speak the languageDid the Filipinos do the traceti
(51:52):
to get these pygmies organized?
Some of the originally spokesome Tagalog, but I was a kind
of an oddity.
I went blind back there as aresult of falling when the river
and, uh, what I did was, uh, Irealized we were kind of in a
mess because the monologue wasbringing us very little food and
(52:14):
I know we couldn't exist onthis for long because the burden
was too much for him to comethat far back in the bones very
often.
And there were three of us Bob,mayhew and Frank of A and me,
and the room was for oursurgeons.
How was his name spelled?
L-a-r-l-a-g, a-u.
He's where, in Texas, I think.
(52:37):
Okay, he's turned alive.
I'm not sure if he's in Texas,but I think so.
Anyway, I'm going to go backthere for a while and I remember
something had to happen.
I decided I was going back tomeet the Negritos.
I'm out, I am.
(53:01):
I had to hit contact with two ofthese more aggressive
nucleotides called Neural andTito, two
I-T-O-R-E-U-R-A-L-E-A-U,something like that.
But we had a last stage.
Neural and Tito came in thereand I began to talk to them and
I spoke fairly well in Tagalogand they spoke some Tagalog and
(53:21):
I began to and I have some paperin the Benson that I have
gotten from Yosora Bima's books.
At this point they have anybooks that during some of the
times we were hiding out, I raninto many by and such as I've
been doing versus Shakespearean,fulber Kohl, a believer around
Emerson Thoreau.
(53:42):
Some of these vines were acollect of vines because I
looked for them in leatherbindies and I went into some of
those areas and conducted themfor five or six days, or a week
to two weeks, through a marriage.
Take four other vines and taketwo vines, three v them there,
and take one of the vines andtake two vines or three vines
and then send them back.
So I had a lot of reading time.
(54:03):
I did a lot of reading.
By the way, I had some penciland paper maps that I collected
at Kerr, oregon, and I wrotedown the genetics of what they
would say in translation when Imade up a speech and I decided
to go back and I wanted to talkwith the ethnic leaders, so I
had the speech all writtenaround him with some others and
(54:24):
I went back and they, they allspoke down around the fire show
and they were all facing thewoods and they were all
independent.
And here I am back there andthey'd been known to kill all
white men and they'll impacttheir no-good boy, including
Goodwood and Bob Miller youwouldn't go.
And Bob man you wouldn't go,and most of your nuts man
Goodbye, terry.
But I was going to have.
But when I went to LA and Ithought I was a great
(54:45):
adventurist and I had this otherexperience previously where the
river was as crazy, but Ithought there were more of us
Primitive Aboriginals and I'veread much of the history of this
town and those were theaborigines they actually came
from.
Nobody really knows Micronesiaor something.
So I got back there and theystaged me as I wanted to talk to
(55:10):
.
So I read my speech that I'm anAmerican.
The Americans are going to comeback and liberate the food.
Don't kill him.
These are abitionally gentlepeople that have never seen a
white man in their life and itwas totally.
It's like talking to an Eskimoabout a refrigerator.
(55:31):
It was nothing.
Why are you going to liberate aperson who's already liberated?
See, well, they'd see him inthe airplane overhead.
They knew something.
They'd heard the bombs dropdown there and they knew that
things weren't right in thelowlands and they knew something
about.
The Japanese made some raids onthe mountains and they set up
(55:52):
these big traps which were madeout of band and would cut you up
in a minute.
You'd bring your step on theright side of your hips and hang
you up when you're dead, but alittle truck can throw you in
the air and throw you on a bunchof spikes.
So they had set up their owndefenses.
So they knew there wereproblems, but they didn't need
to be liberated.
They were already liberated.
But anyway, they all startedlashing and remember we're
(56:15):
sitting there.
They didn't know what I wastalking about.
They didn't.
They didn't know what I was.
They thought I was funny.
But the funny part to them wasthat I was saying words that
they understood.
I was the first intruder thatever came into their tribes and
tried to communicate at theirlevel.
(56:37):
With their words, they adoptedme right away.
Crucial, I was their man, notonly that I picked a subject
which made sense to them.
I had detected that their bigproblem was salt, because it was
mine.
We must show men's that wouldgive the lowlands.
(56:58):
Now, they had wild animals.
They had banana leaves whichwere keyed in and converted into
wrapping material, and they hadbamboo and they had wild
bananas.
And they had rice moved riceout of the mountains.
They had good trading material.
They had rattan.
Those were their show, but theywere being snookered out of a
(57:19):
lot of valuable stuff fornothing.
And we were with Speech Grocery.
When I put the light He'd getit short and lit.
Here comes the scrounger backin, right, right, I can get you
all sold, boy.
That made you real popular.
Well, they didn't believe it,but they liked it.
Did I do what you said?
So they let me live and theyadopted me.
(57:42):
I had no question about it.
They let me live, but theyadopted me and wonderful to me.
Plus, they tried to put Geraldcall me his brother.
Now you're neither a brother oryou're dead.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
I can't?
Speaker 3 (57:54):
I started running out of labor.
You're not here for me, I,you're dead.
I'm here.
I saw it out there.
You're not here for me, I'mhere, I'm welcome.
I'm welcome, brother.
The ride became as I cried out,and when I became a journalist,
I was you.
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