August 27, 2025 • 59 mins
In Part 4 of the conversation with WWII guerrilla fighter Clay Conner, we dive deep into his final months in the Philippine jungle before meeting American forces. Clay recounts life-or-death battles, rescuing downed pilots, and the ingenious traps that kept Japanese troops from advancing. From resourcefulness in survival to the emotional moment of seeing U.S. planes overhead after years in hiding, this is a raw and unforgettable look at courage, strategy, and resilience in war.
What you’ll hear in this episode:
• Clay’s unique relationship with local leaders and the trust they built.
• The daily challenges and dangers of jungle life.
• Ingenious defenses like “pig traps” to halt Japanese advances.
• The rescue of downed American pilots and the secrecy surrounding it.
• Life-or-death battles fought with minimal supplies and firepower.
• Clay’s emotional first sighting of American planes in December 1944.
• Coordinating with local forces to prepare for the American landing.
• The intense final battle before marching to meet U.S. troops.
• Why Clay’s wartime experience never fit into post-war veteran groups.
• Reflections on recognition, memory, and telling untold stories.
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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.
We're going into episode fourof Clay Conner's war story.
But before we go into episodefour I wanted to recap episode
three, where he went to respitein Morong.
Turns out it wasn't.
(00:29):
It was not respite, there was alot of Japanese soldiers there,
so he had to make an adjustmentthere.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
It may have been like in Getty, as I mentioned in a
previous episode, but Saul wason the pursuit, and that's also
where he met some of these earlyinteractions with the Negritos,
and his quote was he wastotally fascinated, just
intrigued, and wanted to knoweverything about them, yet they
were distant.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, so he was highly fascinated with, uh, the
Negritos, and and we'll circleback to them Actually that's,
the Negritos are woven into thisepisode and obviously we're on
a pathway of of getting moreinvolved with them but, they had
to go by boat.
He got super seasick Um, so uh,he got, he got out of there.
(01:28):
And then I found it fascinating.
They started talking about um.
His name was fred, I don't knowif you caught the last name,
but he talked about this guynamed fred who was a prisoner of
war um and was released by thejapanese really to go kind of be
their bird dog, if you will.
That's right.
So that was really interestingto hear him really double click
(01:48):
into that, because the peopleinterviewing him, as anyone else
would be like man, like thatdude was.
That dude was a traitor, he was, he was doing, he was turning
you guys in.
And what did you take away fromClyde's response?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
He said he's from Newark, had a bad feeling about
him and I think that's somethingyour grandfather just had great
intuition.
He had it with the Hucks, hehad it with, eventually, the
Negritos.
He had it with this guy andthey were talking to this Fred
guy from Newark about what he'dbeen doing and they said all his
answers were wrong.
And his quote was it's a bigIsland, but you know what's
(02:25):
going on.
He says or by this time youbetter.
So you know there was nonewspaper he was reading, but
man, he knew the news, he knewwhat was going on.
Yeah, His other comment wasthat I don't have any hostile
feelings.
He's doing his things, keepingalive too.
And then he goes into thislittle dissertation about
(02:47):
anytime.
You make judgment after thefact, and if you weren't there,
you're just on ground.
You shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah he talked about.
You know he was in acircumstance and I was in a
circumstance and you know we'retrying to do, we're trying to,
we're all trying to figure itout and it's easy to make
judgment when he goes, whenyou're having steak and potatoes
, but when you're, when you'resurviving, that situation is
totally different, which that'sinteresting.
(03:16):
Knowing that someone waspotentially trying to turn you
in and have you killed, that youwould be that diplomatic about
it.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
He's also had 40 years to get over it.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
That's true, that was fascinating, but you're right,
he was.
Not only are we learning abouthis survivalist nature, but this
episode really showed thestrategist in making decisions,
and with intuition and withinformation.
He kept talking about how, youknow, I studied this, or I made
(03:53):
sure that you know he was doingcertain things, um, but anyway.
So this Fred guy came from, uh,cabana Tawan, uh, which was a
primary American prison camp,you know, and he was saying that
there are about 20 or 30Americans working for the
Japanese and that the Japaneseall ended up killing them anyway
(04:17):
, which is just really sad tothink about.
What I found myself doing inthis episode.
Todd was, I'm listening to it.
I'm starting to pull up GoogleMaps a little bit.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Well, he and the interviewer are looking at a map
, so I figure we should look ata map too.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, so it's pretty fascinating to watch how, all
over the place he is.
He's in the mountains, he'scoming down to specific towns
and cities and he's movingaround to accomplish different
things.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
And as the war goes on, I would think before the
Japanese really came down theycould probably move by Jeeps and
other powered machinery theyhave, but now they got to move
on foot because they got to beso stinking quiet and they got
to move at night.
And then he talks about goingthrough some of these thickets.
That just doesn't even soundlike you can even get through it
(05:10):
.
It just sounds terrible,honestly.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah.
So I thought there was likethree really critical moments
that he touched on in episodethree.
One was right at the beginning,when they were leaving marang
and kind of getting out of there, how, as they left, like there
was japanese all over the place,um, in fact, uh, they were
(05:34):
surrounded on three sides threesides by the japanese forces,
and they escaped in the luckily,to the area where they weren't
um, and he ended up being byhimself again, but he didn't
know where the other guys were.
So he went back in to try tofind them and that's where he
had to make a critical decisionof really, in this bamboo,
(05:58):
grassy, thicket area, riverbedish situation, he ended up like
really covering himself in mudand breathing through a reed and
buried himself and Japanesesoldiers were within six or
seven feet of him as they'reburning up this field.
And 12 hours later he emergesand goes out and finds, finds
(06:23):
frank, who thought he was dead,and sees these other guys he
went in looking for and thehumor in his voice around, and
then I saw those clowns I wentin to look for yeah and you know
, then, then they move on, but atotal brush with death, even
mentioned, is a miracle.
I don't know how I got throughthat, um, but that, but that was
(06:44):
.
That was one of the stories.
Um, you know, that came, thatcame out of that, um, you know,
uh, and then he mentioned therewas five Americans against 300
Japanese.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, you sit there and kind of wonder like how true
is that?
Like who am I to question it?
But even if it's 50, it's aridiculously small number.
The whole episode.
He bounces around so manydifferent situations I think
they're chronological, but hekind of goes back on a couple of
them.
So it's a little hard to followat times.
But I couldn't help but thinkyou've made some good decisions,
(07:18):
but you've had some real divineprovidential protection.
Divine providential protection.
Making this turn, getting awayfrom um fred as quickly as they
did the third, you know, gettingaway from on the fourth side of
being trapped on three sides.
It's like I don't think I wouldhave gotten lucky that many
times yeah, definitelyprovidential.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
um then he talks about got back in with the hucks
Got back in with the Hucks, theenemy of my enemy is my friend.
Yeah, and how.
A gentleman named PaladP-A-L-L-A-D is just someone that
he really sat down and had alot of conversations with.
That was part of the Hucks.
He really talked about Paladand how ultimately unfortunately
(08:06):
, he ended up getting.
Pallad ended up getting killedby his own people because he
didn't follow the communist line.
But clearly that individualmade a huge mark on his
education about what was goingon, the politics, the
circumstances around the islandand the situation.
(08:27):
That was important.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
It was like his professor and he even mentioned
that back then when he wasteaching him.
He knew he was different, thatthis Palad guy was against the
Japanese and believed some ofthe things, but he wasn't so
into the communist movement.
So it's interesting that attimes the Hucks are his friends,
because when you're running orchasing behind you and you run
(08:50):
into a wall of Hucks, well youjump in and get behind them
because they're also against theJapanese.
So in that situation it wasvery beneficial.
But just to your point, youcan't get too close to the fire
because if you don't totally towthe party line you're done.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah.
So then he talks about gettingyou know, getting around Clark
Air Force Base or Clark Airfield, and how there's really only
one way to cross over to wherethey needed to get to, and it
was right through the mainthoroughfare and there was
20,000 Japanese forces that werebetween him and where he needed
(09:29):
to go, and 15 of them atmidnight just strolled right
through the place.
Sounds like it was kind of oneat a time and they made it
through, walked right throughenemy territory of 20,000 people
.
We just walked throughconfidently and they got to the
other side.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Shortly after they figured it out somehow, because
shortly after where they landedgot raided, early the next
morning they hightailed it outof there Again, missing a near
death.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, he said this verbatimim.
When I think back about that,that's ridiculous.
And he also said every breathwas an eternity.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, um, so, just uh I wonder how far it was.
Was it a mile?
Was it too?
You know how long was thestretch where they felt like
they were highly exposed?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
he didn't really say well, then they get to the other
side.
Um to bonnaba is where theywere going, but he said it ended
up being the headquarters forthe rest of the war and that's
where they really paired up withthe negritos.
That's real.
I think this is where thisguerrilla situation really
started and he talked about itand you mentioned he bounced
back and forth and he didbecause he even mentioned
(10:42):
halfway through the episode ofhow clark airfield is describing
it and that was where peoplelanded as they're going to the
vietnam war.
Yes, and the forces that claytrained through the negritos.
That program still existed andthey helped train american
soldiers as they were going intovietnam about guerrilla warfare
(11:02):
Fascinating, which is totallyfascinating.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
What did he say?
He didn't know that until hewent back in 1968 or 69.
Do you know how many times heactually went back to the
Philippines?
Was it just the once?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I don't, something to find out.
So the last thing is the thirdthing.
So you had the Japanesesoldiers on three sides and
burying yourself, you hadwalking through the middle of
enemy territory of 20,000soldiers.
And the third was hisinteraction with the Negritos
and meeting Kajero, and again hetalked about, just fascinated
(11:41):
with who they were, and aboutthe adventure he said that word
again the adventure of learningabout them, um, and how he
showed up and spoke in a dialectthat they understood when he
first approached them, um, andhe said he was the first
intruder that came into theirtribe and tried to communicate
(12:03):
in their language.
And that is such a fascinatingthing when you think of just
what he learned there andprobably what that carried
through.
In business, when you're tryingto work with somebody, you need
to communicate in the languagethat they understand.
And I kept thinking about thatas he said it.
(12:25):
I was like that is just atimeless lesson.
And obviously he learned it in alife and death situation and
we're applying it to a businesssituation.
But he showed up and talkedabout how the Americans were
coming to liberate the islandand he just started laughing at
himself about how silly that is.
And he just started laughing athimself about how silly that is
(12:47):
.
They are going to a people thathave they can see what's going
on because they can seeairplanes, but they have no idea
what they're talking aboutbecause they're living free on
their own, how they want to live.
And he goes I'm talking aboutliberating the people who are
already liberated.
And he just got more or lesstickled with that, but with
speaking their language.
He said they adopted me rightin with that, but was speaking
their language.
He said they adopted me rightin.
(13:07):
He said I was their man.
Um, and you know, kajero, hegoes you're either a brother or
you're dead.
And he said but it was apayadelka.
He said payadelka, we'rebrothers and that's the word for
brothers.
So, and he started organizingthem of how to use their
(13:30):
resources and he knew materialsthat they wanted, which was salt
.
So again back to that strategyof like helping them with trade
and really being a guinea pigfor them with.
I'll help you get what you want, what you want with the, with
the materials that you have.
So just just fascinating.
There's just so much in thisepisode.
He talked about Ed Widcombe,who ended up being the governor
(13:51):
of Indiana, and how he servedalongside Ed Widcombe while he
was over there, and how one ofthe Negritos, democrito Lumanlon
, who came over after the warand worked in the police force
here in Indianapolis, and howthe governor helped get that
going.
Democrito was Filipino.
(14:13):
I believe Democrito wasFilipino.
I believe, oh, he was Filipino,excuse me.
So he came over and startedmoving to the United States,
brought his family, brought hisfamily.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
You missed one person , Mrs Hardeen.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Mrs Hardeen.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
She was married to a World War I serviceman, had
multiple children.
He died it did sound likenatural causes and she remarried
another Filipino.
So she's Filipino, so they'vegot mixed kids.
And so when she sees theseAmerican soldiers again some 25
years later, I think she seesher own kids, she sees her
(14:53):
husband, she sees herself inthem and it sounds like she's
willing to risk just everythingto help support them.
And then he talks about how hismom, once Clay got back home,
would send her stuff and I don'tknow if it was food or clothing
or money, but I can onlyimagine I'd be sending
everything I have to that woman,knowing that she protected my
child woman, knowing that sheprotected my child absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Um so anyway, fascinating episode, episode
three.
Um so now we're pleased torelease episode four of clay
connor's war story.
So enjoy.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
The king was the.
He was the heritage for thesuccessor pop, arie key a r hi.
But he was tough successor, ariA-R-I.
But he was tough public.
I never made it with Ari.
I was tolerated by Ari but Iwas never really taken in.
He would have taken me in, allright, but it wouldn't be for
(15:50):
the same reasons.
But Coggero liked me.
I was his brother.
How do you spell Coggero's name?
K-o-d-a-r-i-o, k-o-d-a-r-i-o,k-o-d-a-i-r-o?
Okay, for the transcript, y'all, there's pictures on the phone.
Okay, that's all right, I canmake the connection now.
Yeah, coggero, as theypronounced him, was on the phone
like met.
(16:10):
He was thirsty for education.
He was thirsty for knowledge.
He was thirsty for information,straightened him in.
He wanted to get more than whatthe average Peking and
Greenland people had.
They didn't know everythingabout what countries were, what
(16:30):
people did.
He had to visualize it allbecause all they ever saw was
from the top of the mountain.
He shot a China sin, but henever.
That was the other side of thebone, but he shot all the way in
.
But he never had any outsidecontact with the outside world
except through my eyes, from mydescriptions, and I told him
(16:53):
about a lot of things he knewnothing about.
How do you visualize a shedwhere he it's just like the
story in the Marpo Polo, when hegoes to meet.
What was it Genghis Khantelling about the West?
He just had this great thirst.
He left him alone, you know,because Marco would tell him all
these extraordinary thingsabout what was going on on the
other side of the world, a placehe'd never seen before.
(17:15):
He didn't know what it was like.
So that was a similar situationthat you could describe that
for him.
So then you had real goodrelationships, but did you
really have to train them orwere they just pretty?
Well, it sounds like they wereready for that.
Well, you couldn't reallyconvert the negrito.
They really trained me, becauseyou don't train a person in the
(17:40):
jungle to live like an American.
You convert an American in thejungle to live like a pig-eating
ebrieto.
The biggest problem I had goingthrough the jungle was the
height of the trails, theovergrowth.
The trails were through thetrailers, the overgrowth, the
trails were through the jungle.
They were only cut about fiveand five and two or five.
(18:02):
Three high five foot two inchesor three inches, and I'm five
or five nine.
That was.
My biggest problem wastraveling at the rate of speed
through the undergrowth when wereached areas of big clearing
through the forest.
That was a different story, butI learned to really run with
(18:24):
them.
Did your two friends also thenjoin up then with you?
Frank was six foot tall.
He had a lot of trouble in thebeginning.
He started cutting his owntrees.
He was rugged.
He was a former West Virginiacoal miner.
Of course he was actually inFrank Gavay Gavay.
Okay, there's a ruggedindividual.
He was Hungarian by extraction.
(18:45):
Yeah, he was tough.
But a tough man, oh, tough,yeah, as far as me is.
So it used to be you threeAmericans in these pigments.
Well, this Bob Dale, you stayed.
He went on back down to thelowlands and tied in with the uh
, filipinos in the world.
He would stay with us.
So just basically, you andFrank Cabay.
(19:07):
Right, we had a couple ofothers, a distant in another
area, but they were split upbecause of Chuchicua.
You had a limited amount of andthen I organized these negritos
in this whole area.
And when Filipinos began toretreat to the old lands, when
the Japs put the heat on themand as the throws did on them,
(19:30):
they had to find a retreat.
So we took them in, but intothe perimeter areas not really.
Far back, not, we took them in,not that, but into the
perimeter areas not really farback, not that far back in.
Then we put them in caves anddifferent places and find
retreats for them, because theJapanese are going to kill them.
So we had quite a contentionbefore it was over.
(19:51):
Wow, it's amazing.
Did you then launch raidsagainst the Japanese to get the
salt and the?
Other supplies from the lowlandareas.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
We tried.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Our raids were primarily in areas outside of
areas where we could hit,because if we didn't the limits
of where they were living,they'd throw houses and
everything.
So we had our little stations.
By this you mean you couldn'tlaunch attacks very far away
from your own base of operations, so you had to stick pretty
(20:24):
close to the barriers in thatarea, or did you?
I guess I missed the point.
We had to hit them in the openfields, oh, between barriers, or
outside.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Oh, I see what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
So it wouldn't be, linked up with any.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Berrios.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
It would tie us in with any one area of the
continent.
But did you have casualties onthe Japanese or your allies, or
did you just manage to get inthere by stealth and really get
these supplies?
We did a few, but mostly wedidn't attack them.
(20:59):
We would go after what wewanted, like I told you earlier,
and whatever casualties beinflicted, we did it on a
retreat basis to keep with thecaptures, no more more.
We didn't have to win.
That was ridiculous.
It was to prevent any of themfrom getting us.
(21:21):
It was an escape, trying to getout, or a killer attack in
order to go and hide.
That sounds logical.
The reason I ask the question isbecause some people can
visualize your force.
Even though it may have been, alarge number of people didn't
have the firepower.
Certainly the japanese didn'thave any place to go, and if
(21:43):
they really wanted to turn thenotice, which they did a few
times.
You see, lake fire brings over,rob, bones and stray of our
area.
But I so in what way should?
You wouldn't believe this.
I forgot this one anyway.
The nereidos, for one of ourraids, got a machine gun, 30
caliber machine gun.
I couldn't believe it.
(22:03):
Anyway, this fellow fiend,scout Vato knew all about 30
caliber machine guns, and so heset those three up and copped
them out.
So here comes.
They weren't ever expected themto come in and raid and
strangle them.
They got upset with us and thepropaganda that we were kind of
the glory boys out there.
We were defending thePhilippines, two Americans and
(22:28):
two Americans over here.
We didn't have enoughammunition to find our way out
of anything.
We had some, but not like yousee in these movies or TV shows
where these guys sit there androll out.
It sounds like they're rollingout about 15 clips and they've
only put in one.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I don't know where they get all that at.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I mean, they're shooting and firing, shooting
and firing.
They never change clips.
I don't know where they do Well, how they ever do that, I don't
know.
They must have some kind of anoisemaker attached to that,
dude.
You know, I never had a gunlike that, must have never done
it.
Anyway, we used it sparinglyfor defense, but in any event
(23:08):
the Bato had this 30-calibermachine gun sitting up there
outside of him I'm most in top.
Here comes the Japs.
Davy didn't shoot it down, shotdown a zero.
He hit it.
They came in and he happened tohit that thing and the zero
goes right into the side of themountain.
And the Japs bailed out rightwithin time.
(23:30):
And the Greek was descendant ofhim.
He had at least 150 arrows inhim before he hit the ground.
So you know, they would onlyshoot six feet high, or even 10
feet, 12 feet, but by the timehe hit the ground he must have
had 150 arrows.
So he came out on a parachute.
To him he was a bailout, yes,but Sergeant Bonnet now this
Bonnet shot the plane down.
(23:50):
He shot the plane down.
He's the one that carried theflag on him.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Yeah, Wado shoots the plane down.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
He shot the plane down.
He's a big hero now.
He shot the plane down so theydismantle his plane.
I've actually I've got theclock out of that plane upstairs
.
Amazing, get it Call.
Sure, he shot the plane down,they shot it.
They killed us.
And when they took the jacketoff, this guy had about 16 or 17
, probably 25 arrow holesthrough it and gave it to me as
(24:20):
a present.
Oh yeah, the king decided thatwe'd been there a couple of
years, he could live 10 years.
He's trained before him outsideof night.
So the king cut all his timberand he managed to timber a log
cabin, put a nipper roof on roofon it and then put it in the.
(24:41):
What's a nipper roof?
Nipper grass, oh, the nippergrass.
Okay.
And he built it up on the sideof the mountain with these large
giant shallow bean, lagoon-yforest type clod it's these
giant ferns and beautiful orange.
And they put in a cornfield andplanted a bunch of beans grow
inside the trees, and so, anyway, I was planting some
(25:04):
commodities, just like a potato,and the ladder was about 200
feet, probably 200 yards up themountain, a real cool stream.
And so what he did?
He took a banana tree and cutthe banana tree down and
stripped halves of the bananakind of like the bark, it's not
(25:26):
very pliable and he put it intocertain wise as prompts and
staged it in a drop all the wayfrom the stream to our house and
we had this pretty droppingabout an 80-inch stream of water
(25:46):
, cold water, where we had freshmountain water dropping
constantly within about threefeet of our room and man, that's
fantastic.
We built a Revin and a SterlSounds almost like Robinson
Crusoe.
By this point you really gotjungle acclimated.
Oh, frank could build anything.
(26:08):
He's unbelievable.
He's a trilogy carpenter, he'sa cook, he's a butcher.
We got a Python.
Laurel stayed in there as herfriend and they were on our way
down the wall as afraid to getsome rice 100 pound bag of rice
carry.
Well, we have buried five milesor something there through a
jungle and three thousand feetup anyway.
(26:31):
And we're in this tree.
Moral sounds, python.
It was about 20 feet long andthey had this woodbob.
They shot it through the headand it slowed back down to its
retines with arrows and theystarted yelling the horse all
through the jungle.
The worm got out it must havebeen 50 to greet us Came in
there and cut that python up theskin the first one that cut the
(26:53):
skin and then they started.
This python was like cuttingpork chops, right down through
the back and the meat is justlike fish and it's has its
throne and it's very tender andit's very juicy and it's really
wonderful.
And we cooked a whole thingwhen it's fat.
And remember they had it allcooked up in three hours and
(27:16):
divided it up and everybody gottheir share.
And guys came through and hecooked it up.
Yeah, well, they all did.
They showed him how you do it,see, whether they'd get it or
not, whether they'd share it,you know, it didn't matter.
I think probably when I realizedhow primitive society I was.
(27:37):
I didn't, I was not.
I was too busy with all of myorganizations to be involved
with all this cooking andbutchering.
But they caught this wildcarabao.
Now, that's tough, tough stuffto catch Wild carabao.
It's a carabao, yeah, they'rewild, and the wild carabaos are
(27:58):
very vicious.
They've got these great biglonghorns that have a water
vessel, oh, I see, and they'retough, they're hard gear on hand
.
One of the ways these Negritasrope this thing with a gun or a
carabiner, the way they kill it.
They don't shoot it to the headand carry it and then butcher
(28:18):
it.
They're folding it along bothsides, see, and they've got to
start cutting the back legs offwith a bull and a ball of steel.
They haven't even killed it andthey start cutting the back
legs off.
Oh boy yeah.
Then another guy jumps in andcuts the front leg off.
Hmm, why, kurt?
Imagine that the animal reallydoesn't like you too well.
(28:39):
They could have made it a loteasier for themselves if they'd
got a clean shot.
I don't think there's anythingahead.
See, that hits you reallydredged so to keep your morale
up and everything.
It probably wasn't too difficultbecause you're busy.
You're busy the whole time.
I kept busy.
What was a typical day like?
I mean, there were probably nosuch thing as a typical day.
(29:03):
But what did you do during aday just to keep your sanity,
and I mean this alienenvironment?
Well, every day you were on themove, even though you had that
house there.
You didn't just sit there.
You just shouldn't come up.
You moved around, you werearound.
You were visiting this tribe orthat tribe.
Where was that tribe of words?
For one thing and the tribe ofwords were usually a little bit
(29:25):
of a race who were up for whatgirl was showing to what guy?
And there could be more overthis.
I mean, would you act as like apeacemaker or an intermediary?
Well, they wouldn't get'd shotthe middle of it.
But I learned very early thatCogero was an influential
character and he was feared andUri was even more feared.
(29:48):
As long as I was in the area ofthe two Edens who were related
somehow.
I never did figure out how, butthe other tribes did not try to
kill me, except one night A Jewcame in there and I got shot on
the chin and there was aproblem about the moon was up,
it was a very bright element ofTitanhurst in the middle of the
(30:10):
night and he came in there andwoke us up.
And we got up and man, thistribe from the west side of
Zambalans came with their nerveof them and they had turned in
Barker or McGuire and McGuirehad been taken into I can't
think of any name of the townover there on the west side and
(30:31):
they had strung him up.
You don't call McGuire's firstname, do you, mr Conner?
No, they strung him up.
Batalon Point and Purok.
No, we're in none of thoseplaces.
It's right in here.
Diba, diba, let's see if I canfind that.
(30:52):
It's right along the coast.
Yeah, we're going to chat upthere.
Sure, he was around with me.
Oh, guys, I see it's right atthe edge of this map, this copy
of the map Right here.
Yeah, yes, I think I see itright there at this point IBA.
Uh-huh, yeah, they had aAmerican air strip.
Iba Took them in there andstrained them up by the heels
(31:14):
and swung them around in thetree limb in the middle of town,
said that they could chop themup with a bayonet.
All of you Sold them out, andfor cigarettes and stuff like
that.
They were upset.
Anyway, I was creating problemsfor them.
I didn't know I was creatingand they were like the Japanese
raiding the mountains andlooking and all this, and said
(31:36):
they're going to eliminateved ofwhat Cogero got to wear.
And he came in there andgrabbed us out just as they were
.
I mean, they had us for a first, probably about 30 of them.
So you probably would have beenkilled if it hadn't been for
Cogero's Italian warning.
Oh yeah, we were looking forthat, especially from the left
(31:56):
side, right.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
You had a couple of Japanese.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
They were coming in from the west.
Oh, I see, okay, in fact theywere supposedly the most rugged
tribe in the Philippines.
On the west side there was ahorse herdery right here which
was on the Hunters.
On the West Side there was aplumber on the 100-foot tariff
county.
This was all the tariff thatthey were getting.
(32:25):
Some.
All the lot of root percussiongot through here.
Japanese clear out this area andthey were running these rivers.
Japanese were running theserivers and it cost them a lot of
trouble.
And so they figured there was aColonel Merrill was right
behind San Marcelino.
I see, san Marcelino, okay,colonel Merrill was about five
(32:49):
miles back in the mountainsbehind Colonel Merrill and we
are all around.
We are all around, colonelMerrill.
So me R-R-R-A-L out, r-r-r-a-l.
Colonel Merrill.
So Merrill was causing troubleand I was causing trouble, and
so there were literally both ofus and in the middle of all this
, mcguire got caught and Merrilldidn't and I didn't.
(33:12):
But Coggero was the reason Ididn't and somebody other than
the Greer group was the reasonMerrill didn't.
Whether I didn't, but Cogerowas the reason I didn't and
somebody other than the Greergroup was the reason Merrill
didn't.
I remember this raid took place.
You probably don't have anyidea.
What are the dates on that?
Well, let's see.
Let's say, uh, ed Hall,meninger, fumes, mons, desue,
ruggiero Perry, I'd say aboutmiddle of 44.
(33:35):
Middle of 44?
Yeah, when all those took place, jerry, something like that.
Hmm, hmm, did you lose track oftime while you were in there?
No, did you lose track of thejumbles?
No, I had a diary.
I kept a diary.
Oh, has that survived?
No, threw it on it overboard onthe way out.
(33:59):
Why'd you do that?
Just didn't want to remember itanymore.
I thought that it was.
I would probably bring too muchpersonal data, which was really
personal data about a lot ofmen which probably would be
better off forgotten as a resultof all the things that happened
, and would be better forgottenand might be incriminating in a
(34:26):
way.
The fact is I never.
In fact, fred Almedrash I reallyshouldn't have committed his
name to that say he did what hedid.
Sure, good, the United Statesgovernment called me down to the
Pentagon.
They interrogated me andeverything.
Oh, they did.
(34:47):
They knew they had the list ofnames.
Yeah, it's public record.
Oh, it was public record.
Yeah, all right.
Well, I told them.
I said you have to draw yourown conclusions.
I didn't see him with theJapanese no, no.
I didn't see him with theJapanese no, no.
I didn't see him in Japaneseprison yet I didn't see him
(35:07):
released by the Japanese.
I didn't see him go back to theJapanese.
All I know is what thePhilippine was telling me, and I
know that I was hit withinabout an hour after he left.
That's the only time that youread and expressed that to
yourself about that Americanservice man turning into a See
now what his family put in for$10,000, gi insurance and they
(35:33):
wanted to investigate and theyhad heard through their
investigation of the Philippinesfor Filipinos about Fredo Ligas
.
Amazing how they found out allthis stuff, incredible.
So that even comes up becauseI'm pretty well known in the
guerrilla forces.
It's funny being about it.
(35:54):
Following the war, I was prettywell known in the guerrilla
forces and pretty well knowndown at Pentagon as a result of
some of these things.
But as the war has gone throughthe years, the POWs organized
POWs.
I'm not a POW.
The POWs established themselvesas the post-war people and I'm
(36:19):
not a POW.
So where is my reunion?
Well, I go to the Bataansurvivors, the Bataan and
Corridor survivors, which iscalled the American Defenders,
and Bataan and Corridor See man,those people were in ADBC.
(36:40):
Adbc, yeah, they hold thesemeetings and they got the
Kentucky in a chapter and I go.
But what are they up against?
They're up against all POWs, noguerrillas.
Who do I talk to?
What do they have to say to me?
Nothing.
How do I fit in?
(37:00):
Nothing.
99% of them are enlisted menand I was a lousy officer and
didn't know what I was doing andgot them involved in this thing
and I was totally responsibleand stinking war to begin with
because I was an officer.
That was incredible as that maysound.
I'm not trying to be obnoxious,but that's the way it is.
(37:21):
That's the way it was.
So I just dropped out of allthat baking mess and hadn't had
any promises, one thing oranother.
Now we got all these bookscoming out about Moutain.
You'll never see my name in anyof that Because not good.
Now the reason is because I'venot been involved in any of the
(37:42):
post-war, because I went to afew.
I didn't fit in.
Would you go?
No, you wouldn't.
After a while, it's just likeall those.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Well, nobody talked to you.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
They're not discourteous.
You had a totally differentexperience than any of them.
I had nobody to talk to.
Frank and Van are the only twoguys that talk to each other.
He comes down and sees me and Igo up and see him, and Ralph
Edwards thought I had a prettygood story.
He had it on.
This Is your Life and my ordersare all in good shape.
Did you get any medals?
(38:17):
Merrill said that I was worth abronze star.
You were worth a bronze star.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yeah, as a result of my messenger service.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Bronze star.
I think you deserve maybe amedal of honor.
Well, that's what Ralph Edwardstried to get accomplished, but
it was too long after the war,too long after the war to be
accomplished.
I think it's fortunate that Ilived through it.
Certainly we always have aboost on that.
So were you able to keep up yourmorale?
I had an excellent attitude forreal.
(38:50):
Well, what I did?
I got a hold of some maps SouthPacific maps and I got a hold
of Japanese vanilla tribute andthey would only show an island,
just an island.
They would not give the islandreference, to say the New
Hebrides or New Zealand or NewGuinea or Australia or anything
(39:15):
like that, or Carolinas, onlythe island.
Well, with my maps, I'd takethat island and I would see how
far they went from that island.
They're fighting on this island.
Well, with my maps, I'd takethat island and I would see how
far they went from that island.
They're fighting on this island.
The Japanese were alwayswinning.
But fortunately I could placethe retreat.
I had about a year of that whenI started plotting this and I
(39:39):
saw that the MacArthur wasapparently either going to
island hop or bypass.
And I saw that MacArthur wasapparently either going to
island hop or bypass, and Ididn't know which, but he had a
heck of a time getting throughthe Guadalcanal and that New
Zealand, new Britain and allthat New Guinea coming up
through that.
So then when I saw this, Iplotted it and my time factors
(40:00):
and I predicted they'd be backin early 45.
Isn't that amazing?
Yeah Well, frank will confirmthat.
And always, if you got in touchwith these external forces like
Bush and Boone, but these guys,you couldn't get these guys
together if they were not awareof the congressional middle, I
mean, you just can't get themtogether, they're not going to
(40:22):
get together.
So that's one of the reasonsI'm here to talk to you about
this.
If we don't get this thing andyou've got to write this book
with collaboration of thesesurvivors that somehow get this
down on paper it's so incrediblethat a lot of people probably
wouldn't believe it happened.
In fact, the survivors of thedeath march would probably say
there wasn't anybody out theredoing anything.
(40:44):
It was a helpless situation.
But there you have it.
They do know that.
They do know that.
But there were some.
And not only that, they knew it, and not only that, we had some
escape routes set up for them.
We had several escape routesset up for several of them.
However, there was a law thatif one escaped, they killed ten.
However we had a full detachmentready to spring, but you can't
(41:09):
blame them for not springingthem.
We had it set.
Botto had the thing wired atClark with a root detachment at
the bottom I imagine 25.
And we had it absolutely set up.
We had contact with them and hehad to.
We had an absolute setup.
We had contact whether theywere running straight up and the
time came they were runninggood.
And you can't believe it.
(41:31):
It was an unknown quantity.
They didn't know if we werethere or not.
They hadn't seen us.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
It's just a word, of one word.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
They knew there was something and they knew they
heard it about us.
They knew that there would beother sources.
They knew that for sure.
But they didn't know how theywould have lived or where they
would have lived or what theydid, and they had not been to
that environment.
And you really can't believethe traumatic world of the Alps.
We had a couple of times wherewe had it ready but they
(41:59):
wouldn't go.
Well, there were a few who didescape with war detachments and
we didn't.
We took in, for example, theAmerican ship that was sunk off
shore here that they were takingI don't know, I guess a little
of them had been here in themiddle of Brown.
This is the prisoners.
(42:20):
Right, they talked about thesinking Right, and this warship
was sunk.
They talked about the sinkingRight and this work ship was
sunk by the Americans right here.
Right, they talked about that.
Three or four of them cameashore and swam ashore, got
ashore and then took them in All.
Their throats and nose wereburnt to ash.
Incredible, they were broughtthrough the mountains to you
folks.
Were we loose?
Oh, yes, thank you, that's anincredible.
(42:43):
But not to get any kind ofrecognition or anything After
this it's kind of mind-boggling.
Who are we?
Well, after the war, you know,somebody wouldn't write you up
for it, you and Frank and allthe rest of these people and
boom Wouldn't get any kind ofrecognition whatsoever after
this, I mean.
(43:05):
There's a lot of war going onout there there's a lot of war,
and I guess you would considerpretty small potatoes if you
didn't get written up in thehometown paper every other week.
Oh, you did get written up,though.
Oh, I can't.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
How did you?
Speaker 3 (43:20):
get news about your exports out of the Philippines,
did Sergeant Botto?
No, no, you mean when theAmerican troops returned.
Oh, the media picked it up.
Lowell Thomas said that Icarried the flag, didn't ever
touch the ground.
There were the Newark EveningNews.
A guy who won the PulitzerPrize, luke Pease, drew a
(43:42):
cartoon for me.
It's down at the office, whichis this cartoon on the fly.
It never touched the ground.
In the New York Evening News itwas syndicated.
Okay, now this brings us downto about February of 45.
You've been keeping posted thatthe Americans were getting close
because you were getting thesenewspapers in Japanese language.
(44:05):
They never told what the islandwas, but you had maps that
would indicate the geographicalarea.
So you knew, probably by early1945, and this was right on your
timetable that if they'regetting close, in any day now,
the Americans are going toarrive.
But what was the reaction toyou and your friends when you
(44:26):
first made contact, or what didyou say?
I mean, did you know that theywere in the area?
Well, let me tell you about themost exciting day of my whole
life.
We actually met the Americansabout.
Tell me where it's, at February2nd of 1945.
But let me tell you aboutDecember 17th.
Must have been February 4th2012.
Yeah, but let me tell you aboutDecember 17th Must have been
February 4th, why, Okay?
(44:46):
On December the 17th.
Here comes wave after waveafter wave of airplanes.
Then we leave our house thatFrank and Bill were on the side
of the mountain and the waterpiped in you did and all of a
sudden we see waves.
We've never seen this manyairplanes.
They must be Americans, don'tyou think they're Americans?
(45:09):
And we're running like mad tothe top of the mountain doodoo,
which is about probably a milefrom our hideout.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
And we're in the top of the mountain also, but this
is the peak.
And we run to the top of themountain also, but this is the
peak.
And we run to the top of themountain, overlooking Clarkshire
and Stottsonburg, and you'reclaims diving in and dropping
bombs and strafing.
It looked like 100 or 200 or300 air.
That wave left and here comesanother wave and then another
wave and the strafing and thebullets were hitting all around
(45:42):
us.
Frank says we're going to getkilled.
I says Americans can't kill us.
We're Americans, frank.
Oh, it was so exciting Icouldn't believe it.
December the 17th we really hadall those years saw Americans
again.
Our plagues it was so wonderful, just excellent.
(46:03):
Our plagues it was so wonderful, just absolute.
Our first contact with our homewere those plagues and the most
disastrous thing was to seesome of them disintegrated in
the air as their results lagged.
The tragedy of an ising was aand then about a week, but it
(46:24):
was about the week of 10 dayslater, one of them was shot down
.
We saw the parachutes open andClever Hogan and Jack McGrath
bailed out and our pigglies wereout and got them and brought
them to our headquarters.
Now, clever Hogan, youmentioned he was a pilot.
He was a pilot.
(46:44):
He's still alive, though.
He's still at the border.
He's a wonderful fellow andthey brought him down to our
headquarters after they foundhim, which was a couple hours
later, and brought him all theway down.
He had been told that if he gotin trouble and got shot, to go
up the mountains or aguerrilla's area, and that their
focus was in the guerrillaforces, but if they bailed out
(47:06):
in Japan, they'd be shot beforethey got to the ground.
So he headed for the mountainsand he got a little far back.
The breakmans had to go way onback to get him, but he did the
right thing.
So he comes down the trail andhere he is, all nice and neat,
just off the ship, and he'swell-fed and everything all nice
and white.
(47:27):
You have a beard, yeah, and I'mwearing all this.
And he reaches out his hand andhe says my name's Clay.
I said your name is Clay thefirst man I had met in three and
a half years and his name isClay.
He says, yeah, my name's ClayHogan.
I said my name's Clay Connor,right in the middle of the
(47:50):
jungle, you know that's thefirst one.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
You know what I said to him.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
I think I've lost my mind.
I've been here too long.
You're not real, are you?
I can understand the feeling.
Yeah, clay, he's just real are?
Speaker 1 (48:04):
you is that I can understand the feeling.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Yeah, clay, just you're just like a couldn't be,
couldn't be anyway, we, we, webegan to talk and unfolded this
story going.
He knew, he knew he had, hejust knew that I was there and,
uh, he told us about thebriefing.
That morning was the firstbriefing that they would have
when they were going to land andwhere they were going to land.
And he gave me the entirebriefing and I knew exactly
(48:29):
where they were going to land,when they were going to land and
the whole thing.
So we began to prepare for thatand we didn't let that out.
I mean, we didn't even tell ourtireless confidence.
We just began to stage ouractivities in preparation for it
(48:51):
.
Well, how did you?
How did the activities varythen?
I mean change based on this newinformation about the land?
Okay, well, we're now behindClarkfield, stottsonburg, where
there's 20,000 Japanese Right.
If the Americans are going tocome south, they're now behind
Clarkfield and Stottsenburg,where there's 20,000 Japanese
Right.
If the Americans are going tocome south, they're going to
land and come in, which they'regoing to land in Lengard.
(49:11):
Same as the Americans did, sameas the Japanese had done three
and a half years ahead of time.
Okay, now what they're going todo is they're going to hit
Clark and Stottsenburg and Irepeat the two names.
I don't know why I do.
We just.
We never called it Clark, wecalled it Stottsonburg in those
days.
Stottsonburg, they're going toget it from the east and come
(49:32):
west.
They're going to drive theJapanese the same thing that
they did to us.
They're going to drive theJapanese back into our areas.
They've been there for yearsand they're going to cause a lot
of problems for the Negritos,right, right?
So what we did is we organizedthe Negritos to begin to
establish an entire area ofabout three miles north and
(49:56):
south of Belize.
Do you know what a Belize is?
A pig trap, oh, a pig trap.
Okay, just one, right afteranother, right after another,
just intermittent.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Not in a straight row .
Speaker 3 (50:08):
But a three-mile column about six or seven deep.
Took us two or three.
It took them let's see if thisis over.
January.
Took them two and a half monthsJanuary.
It took them a month and a halfto set up all of the lice,
every kind of absolutedevastating killing device and
(50:32):
trap.
You described it briefly.
Could you go into some detailnow again about what that looked
like?
This pig trap he called it.
It was really a man trap.
In other words, in the heavyjungle area you've got trees
growing close together.
You can spring.
You cut one narrow tree downwhich is maybe four inches or
(50:53):
three inches, which has somespringing ability.
In other words, you can pry itbetween two other trees.
Imagine taking thissix-foot-long tree which is
three inches or four inches andputting it between two other
trees in kind of a leverage andpulling it back.
You understand?
Speaker 1 (51:15):
You can visualize that.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
Yes.
So when you're pulling backit's on the horizontal, the
trees are vertical and they'regrowing close together.
So you stick the one in betweenthe two and you pull it back
and it has.
If you let loose of it, it'sgoing to spring forward, right?
So you take this six foot long,or seven foot long or however
it is, and tie it onto thatrazor sharp, razor-sharp, bamboo
(51:40):
, arrow-type things.
They're just like knives andyou may put 15 or 20 of them
along there, one next to theother, tied very tightly.
Now the tripping device may beabout a foot and a half out, so
(52:00):
that when you hit that foot anda half out, three feet out or
whatever the ability of thisparticular spring was, the guy
steps on this dude or trips itand it comes forward at hip
height and three or four ofthose things will just tear him
in the middle and hang him thereand he just lays there and
yells until he's dead, which maybe four or five hours, oh awful
(52:23):
.
And the poison out of that justpermeates his body and there's
no way to release him from it.
I mean, you couldn't take himoff of it without tearing the
meat out of his hips, because italso had poison on them.
No, they're poisonous to beginwith.
In other words, the innate tothe body, it's poisonous.
Oh, I see.
In other words, the innate tothe body, it's poisonous.
Oh, I see.
(52:43):
In other words, you cut yourfinger on a piece of paper.
There's a certain amount ofpoison involved.
Right, I see what you're saying.
You see what I mean.
Oh, wicked.
Oh, it's a terrible way to die,just a terrible, terrible,
agonizing way to die becausethere's no way to rescue the guy
(53:04):
.
He couldn't get him off of it,no matter, without just tearing
all the meat off his bones, see,because it's jagged.
Anyway, we had that backed upfor half a mile, a long
three-mile quarter, and so wekept moving on to the mountains.
They never did.
They never did get in themountains.
Because of that.
(53:24):
They didn't do that, theysurrendered.
They surrendered rather thangoing there.
Remember what surrender means.
Remember that Dishonorable tothe Japanese.
So a lot of them suicides andeverything else.
So the Americans actuallydidn't know.
You prevented them and a lot ofthem surrendered and a lot of
them probably committed suicideafterwards.
(53:44):
Harry Carey, is the method thatthey used?
But your method did keep themout of the mountains and
probably kept the world frombeing prolonged any longer than
it was.
Well, they were locked in, butthe unfortunate part was the
death of so many Americans.
Taking Clark this is a storythat's not too well known 40 and
(54:08):
the 40, I think it was the 44thDivision, 41st or the 2nd or
3rd.
Is that the Ohio and the Ohio.
My Uncle David told me aboutsome of the guys that went in
there.
Some of the Indiana boys wentover there too the Philippines
when they retook and he saidthat just about everybody on
that train.
He went to Camp Atterbury andhe said he was held off and some
(54:29):
AWOLs were put on the trainahead of him.
And after the war he sayseverybody on that train was
killed as Hoosiers, except forthree or four guys on the train.
So you were lucky rather forthat.
You weren't on that train withus.
So that's probably the actionor one of the actions that he
was talking about.
I don't think I ever told thisstory for a record.
(54:53):
Do you want to tell it for therecord or I can take it?
Yeah, I suppose I, of course,was an interesting person to the
journalists of the service, oronly the one in there.
We take Clarksfield becauseClarksfield is an important
target in order for theAmericans to begin to fly in all
(55:14):
their soldiers and ammunitionand keep.
But we have to realize thatyou're talking to a guy that's
been in the journal for threeyears and he probably can't
express himself too well.
I'm sitting here at age 65 andI've given a lot of time and
(55:34):
thought to writing and publicspeaking and so on and can
reasonably tell a story byretrospect, which is a lot
different, but I attached myselfreasonably.
Tell a story by retrospect,which is a lot different, but I
attached myself.
As I said earlier, I wasrepatriated, I was involved in
the retaking, I was involved inthe Rangers' operation to
(55:59):
release the prisoners atCabanatua and I was at a
distance in that, but I wasinvolved and most people don't
know that, and I wasn't supposedto be, but I was there.
And then nobody knows aboutthat but I like to be in what
was going on and then you, just,you just stepped away and got
up there to help them out, or,uh, you said you weren't
(56:21):
supposed to be there.
They told did we give you adraft order?
No, no, no, nobody ever gave meany orders.
You got a little early.
You know what I mean.
Let's face it, you're just likethat.
Captain Boone, I'm with theRangers, man, you wouldn't
believe here.
I am with the Rangers becausewe're very active all over the
(56:44):
place, you know, but this timewe're Well.
I was going to tell you aboutthis is after I repatriated,
sent north and I was supposed toget on a ship or airplane and
go down to LAD and back to theStates where I left.
There I didn't look for themready, I had to get them at
Greaves.
But before that, back inFebruary, 2nd, 3rd, 4th HAG and
(57:08):
the Rangers came in, I was veryactive in the defense.
Plus, the Japanese werebeginning to group very heavily
and were able to clear out andgot continental ice.
And then they flankaked southand started taking a little more
.
He started south after we gotcaught in the blights and we had
(57:29):
to flank the Japanese and wegot in the combat with them and
they were really in a posturewhere they wanted to clear out
all of the area in order todefend their positions.
And we happened right on it,for we had one fierce battle and
(57:50):
that was the last combat we hadwithin three feet full of sheet
, hand-to-hand bayonet.
Nice, the whole bit.
You were battling thishand-to-to-hand combat.
I mean, they were right on topof us.
How many Rangers would you saywere in battle?
Oh, this is not the Rangers.
(58:10):
This is Frank and my Pygmiesand my Negritos and my Filipinos
, and Frank, hmm, boy.
And we had a real mess.
Which battle?
Oh, for about four hours thatnight and we lost quite a few
(58:30):
men and finally we defeated thiscontingency and then retreated
back into Clark and we ranaround and took a position and
stayed there through the night.
We had it heavily guarded.
And then the next morning waswhen we went out on the main
(58:53):
road and we unfurled the flagand marched north and led the
American forces and they camedown the road with tanks.
And, boy, I wish I could see aphotograph of that.
It says something in the movies,yeah, and they jumped out of
their tanks and these yellowAmericans all were crying when
they saw us and they offered uscigarettes and candy, Things you
(59:20):
hadn't seen in three and a halfyears.
Yeah, they didn't really knowwhat to say, because, you see,
they knew We'd already been incommunication by this time, do
you think?
And that we had been in adistant communication, we'd sent
out messages.
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.
We're going into episode fourof Clay Conner's war story.
But before we go into episodefour I wanted to recap episode
three, where he went to respitein Morong.
Turns out it wasn't.
(00:29):
It was not respite, there was alot of Japanese soldiers there,
so he had to make an adjustmentthere.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
It may have been like in Getty, as I mentioned in a
previous episode, but Saul wason the pursuit, and that's also
where he met some of these earlyinteractions with the Negritos,
and his quote was he wastotally fascinated, just
intrigued, and wanted to knoweverything about them, yet they
were distant.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, so he was highly fascinated with, uh, the
Negritos, and and we'll circleback to them Actually that's,
the Negritos are woven into thisepisode and obviously we're on
a pathway of of getting moreinvolved with them but, they had
to go by boat.
He got super seasick Um, so uh,he got, he got out of there.
(01:28):
And then I found it fascinating.
They started talking about um.
His name was fred, I don't knowif you caught the last name,
but he talked about this guynamed fred who was a prisoner of
war um and was released by thejapanese really to go kind of be
their bird dog, if you will.
That's right.
So that was really interestingto hear him really double click
(01:48):
into that, because the peopleinterviewing him, as anyone else
would be like man, like thatdude was.
That dude was a traitor, he was, he was doing, he was turning
you guys in.
And what did you take away fromClyde's response?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
He said he's from Newark, had a bad feeling about
him and I think that's somethingyour grandfather just had great
intuition.
He had it with the Hucks, hehad it with, eventually, the
Negritos.
He had it with this guy andthey were talking to this Fred
guy from Newark about what he'dbeen doing and they said all his
answers were wrong.
And his quote was it's a bigIsland, but you know what's
(02:25):
going on.
He says or by this time youbetter.
So you know there was nonewspaper he was reading, but
man, he knew the news, he knewwhat was going on.
Yeah, His other comment wasthat I don't have any hostile
feelings.
He's doing his things, keepingalive too.
And then he goes into thislittle dissertation about
(02:47):
anytime.
You make judgment after thefact, and if you weren't there,
you're just on ground.
You shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah he talked about.
You know he was in acircumstance and I was in a
circumstance and you know we'retrying to do, we're trying to,
we're all trying to figure itout and it's easy to make
judgment when he goes, whenyou're having steak and potatoes
, but when you're, when you'resurviving, that situation is
totally different, which that'sinteresting.
(03:16):
Knowing that someone waspotentially trying to turn you
in and have you killed, that youwould be that diplomatic about
it.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
He's also had 40 years to get over it.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
That's true, that was fascinating, but you're right,
he was.
Not only are we learning abouthis survivalist nature, but this
episode really showed thestrategist in making decisions,
and with intuition and withinformation.
He kept talking about how, youknow, I studied this, or I made
(03:53):
sure that you know he was doingcertain things, um, but anyway.
So this Fred guy came from, uh,cabana Tawan, uh, which was a
primary American prison camp,you know, and he was saying that
there are about 20 or 30Americans working for the
Japanese and that the Japaneseall ended up killing them anyway
(04:17):
, which is just really sad tothink about.
What I found myself doing inthis episode.
Todd was, I'm listening to it.
I'm starting to pull up GoogleMaps a little bit.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Well, he and the interviewer are looking at a map
, so I figure we should look ata map too.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yeah, so it's pretty fascinating to watch how, all
over the place he is.
He's in the mountains, he'scoming down to specific towns
and cities and he's movingaround to accomplish different
things.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
And as the war goes on, I would think before the
Japanese really came down theycould probably move by Jeeps and
other powered machinery theyhave, but now they got to move
on foot because they got to beso stinking quiet and they got
to move at night.
And then he talks about goingthrough some of these thickets.
That just doesn't even soundlike you can even get through it
(05:10):
.
It just sounds terrible,honestly.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah.
So I thought there was likethree really critical moments
that he touched on in episodethree.
One was right at the beginning,when they were leaving marang
and kind of getting out of there, how, as they left, like there
was japanese all over the place,um, in fact, uh, they were
(05:34):
surrounded on three sides threesides by the japanese forces,
and they escaped in the luckily,to the area where they weren't
um, and he ended up being byhimself again, but he didn't
know where the other guys were.
So he went back in to try tofind them and that's where he
had to make a critical decisionof really, in this bamboo,
(05:58):
grassy, thicket area, riverbedish situation, he ended up like
really covering himself in mudand breathing through a reed and
buried himself and Japanesesoldiers were within six or
seven feet of him as they'reburning up this field.
And 12 hours later he emergesand goes out and finds, finds
(06:23):
frank, who thought he was dead,and sees these other guys he
went in looking for and thehumor in his voice around, and
then I saw those clowns I wentin to look for yeah and you know
, then, then they move on, but atotal brush with death, even
mentioned, is a miracle.
I don't know how I got throughthat, um, but that, but that was
(06:44):
.
That was one of the stories.
Um, you know, that came, thatcame out of that, um, you know,
uh, and then he mentioned therewas five Americans against 300
Japanese.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, you sit there and kind of wonder like how true
is that?
Like who am I to question it?
But even if it's 50, it's aridiculously small number.
The whole episode.
He bounces around so manydifferent situations I think
they're chronological, but hekind of goes back on a couple of
them.
So it's a little hard to followat times.
But I couldn't help but thinkyou've made some good decisions,
(07:18):
but you've had some real divineprovidential protection.
Divine providential protection.
Making this turn, getting awayfrom um fred as quickly as they
did the third, you know, gettingaway from on the fourth side of
being trapped on three sides.
It's like I don't think I wouldhave gotten lucky that many
times yeah, definitelyprovidential.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
um then he talks about got back in with the hucks
Got back in with the Hucks, theenemy of my enemy is my friend.
Yeah, and how.
A gentleman named PaladP-A-L-L-A-D is just someone that
he really sat down and had alot of conversations with.
That was part of the Hucks.
He really talked about Paladand how ultimately unfortunately
(08:06):
, he ended up getting.
Pallad ended up getting killedby his own people because he
didn't follow the communist line.
But clearly that individualmade a huge mark on his
education about what was goingon, the politics, the
circumstances around the islandand the situation.
(08:27):
That was important.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
It was like his professor and he even mentioned
that back then when he wasteaching him.
He knew he was different, thatthis Palad guy was against the
Japanese and believed some ofthe things, but he wasn't so
into the communist movement.
So it's interesting that attimes the Hucks are his friends,
because when you're running orchasing behind you and you run
(08:50):
into a wall of Hucks, well youjump in and get behind them
because they're also against theJapanese.
So in that situation it wasvery beneficial.
But just to your point, youcan't get too close to the fire
because if you don't totally towthe party line you're done.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah.
So then he talks about gettingyou know, getting around Clark
Air Force Base or Clark Airfield, and how there's really only
one way to cross over to wherethey needed to get to, and it
was right through the mainthoroughfare and there was
20,000 Japanese forces that werebetween him and where he needed
(09:29):
to go, and 15 of them atmidnight just strolled right
through the place.
Sounds like it was kind of oneat a time and they made it
through, walked right throughenemy territory of 20,000 people
.
We just walked throughconfidently and they got to the
other side.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Shortly after they figured it out somehow, because
shortly after where they landedgot raided, early the next
morning they hightailed it outof there Again, missing a near
death.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, he said this verbatimim.
When I think back about that,that's ridiculous.
And he also said every breathwas an eternity.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, um, so, just uh I wonder how far it was.
Was it a mile?
Was it too?
You know how long was thestretch where they felt like
they were highly exposed?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
he didn't really say well, then they get to the other
side.
Um to bonnaba is where theywere going, but he said it ended
up being the headquarters forthe rest of the war and that's
where they really paired up withthe negritos.
That's real.
I think this is where thisguerrilla situation really
started and he talked about itand you mentioned he bounced
back and forth and he didbecause he even mentioned
(10:42):
halfway through the episode ofhow clark airfield is describing
it and that was where peoplelanded as they're going to the
vietnam war.
Yes, and the forces that claytrained through the negritos.
That program still existed andthey helped train american
soldiers as they were going intovietnam about guerrilla warfare
(11:02):
Fascinating, which is totallyfascinating.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
What did he say?
He didn't know that until hewent back in 1968 or 69.
Do you know how many times heactually went back to the
Philippines?
Was it just the once?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
I don't, something to find out.
So the last thing is the thirdthing.
So you had the Japanesesoldiers on three sides and
burying yourself, you hadwalking through the middle of
enemy territory of 20,000soldiers.
And the third was hisinteraction with the Negritos
and meeting Kajero, and again hetalked about, just fascinated
(11:41):
with who they were, and aboutthe adventure he said that word
again the adventure of learningabout them, um, and how he
showed up and spoke in a dialectthat they understood when he
first approached them, um, andhe said he was the first
intruder that came into theirtribe and tried to communicate
(12:03):
in their language.
And that is such a fascinatingthing when you think of just
what he learned there andprobably what that carried
through.
In business, when you're tryingto work with somebody, you need
to communicate in the languagethat they understand.
And I kept thinking about thatas he said it.
(12:25):
I was like that is just atimeless lesson.
And obviously he learned it in alife and death situation and
we're applying it to a businesssituation.
But he showed up and talkedabout how the Americans were
coming to liberate the islandand he just started laughing at
himself about how silly that is.
And he just started laughing athimself about how silly that is
(12:47):
.
They are going to a people thathave they can see what's going
on because they can seeairplanes, but they have no idea
what they're talking aboutbecause they're living free on
their own, how they want to live.
And he goes I'm talking aboutliberating the people who are
already liberated.
And he just got more or lesstickled with that, but with
speaking their language.
He said they adopted me rightin with that, but was speaking
their language.
He said they adopted me rightin.
(13:07):
He said I was their man.
Um, and you know, kajero, hegoes you're either a brother or
you're dead.
And he said but it was apayadelka.
He said payadelka, we'rebrothers and that's the word for
brothers.
So, and he started organizingthem of how to use their
(13:30):
resources and he knew materialsthat they wanted, which was salt
.
So again back to that strategyof like helping them with trade
and really being a guinea pigfor them with.
I'll help you get what you want, what you want with the, with
the materials that you have.
So just just fascinating.
There's just so much in thisepisode.
He talked about Ed Widcombe,who ended up being the governor
(13:51):
of Indiana, and how he servedalongside Ed Widcombe while he
was over there, and how one ofthe Negritos, democrito Lumanlon
, who came over after the warand worked in the police force
here in Indianapolis, and howthe governor helped get that
going.
Democrito was Filipino.
(14:13):
I believe Democrito wasFilipino.
I believe, oh, he was Filipino,excuse me.
So he came over and startedmoving to the United States,
brought his family, brought hisfamily.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
You missed one person , Mrs Hardeen.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Mrs Hardeen.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
She was married to a World War I serviceman, had
multiple children.
He died it did sound likenatural causes and she remarried
another Filipino.
So she's Filipino, so they'vegot mixed kids.
And so when she sees theseAmerican soldiers again some 25
years later, I think she seesher own kids, she sees her
(14:53):
husband, she sees herself inthem and it sounds like she's
willing to risk just everythingto help support them.
And then he talks about how hismom, once Clay got back home,
would send her stuff and I don'tknow if it was food or clothing
or money, but I can onlyimagine I'd be sending
everything I have to that woman,knowing that she protected my
child woman, knowing that sheprotected my child absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Um so anyway, fascinating episode, episode
three.
Um so now we're pleased torelease episode four of clay
connor's war story.
So enjoy.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
The king was the.
He was the heritage for thesuccessor pop, arie key a r hi.
But he was tough successor, ariA-R-I.
But he was tough public.
I never made it with Ari.
I was tolerated by Ari but Iwas never really taken in.
He would have taken me in, allright, but it wouldn't be for
(15:50):
the same reasons.
But Coggero liked me.
I was his brother.
How do you spell Coggero's name?
K-o-d-a-r-i-o, k-o-d-a-r-i-o,k-o-d-a-i-r-o?
Okay, for the transcript, y'all, there's pictures on the phone.
Okay, that's all right, I canmake the connection now.
Yeah, coggero, as theypronounced him, was on the phone
like met.
(16:10):
He was thirsty for education.
He was thirsty for knowledge.
He was thirsty for information,straightened him in.
He wanted to get more than whatthe average Peking and
Greenland people had.
They didn't know everythingabout what countries were, what
(16:30):
people did.
He had to visualize it allbecause all they ever saw was
from the top of the mountain.
He shot a China sin, but henever.
That was the other side of thebone, but he shot all the way in
.
But he never had any outsidecontact with the outside world
except through my eyes, from mydescriptions, and I told him
(16:53):
about a lot of things he knewnothing about.
How do you visualize a shedwhere he it's just like the
story in the Marpo Polo, when hegoes to meet.
What was it Genghis Khantelling about the West?
He just had this great thirst.
He left him alone, you know,because Marco would tell him all
these extraordinary thingsabout what was going on on the
other side of the world, a placehe'd never seen before.
(17:15):
He didn't know what it was like.
So that was a similar situationthat you could describe that
for him.
So then you had real goodrelationships, but did you
really have to train them orwere they just pretty?
Well, it sounds like they wereready for that.
Well, you couldn't reallyconvert the negrito.
They really trained me, becauseyou don't train a person in the
(17:40):
jungle to live like an American.
You convert an American in thejungle to live like a pig-eating
ebrieto.
The biggest problem I had goingthrough the jungle was the
height of the trails, theovergrowth.
The trails were through thetrailers, the overgrowth, the
trails were through the jungle.
They were only cut about fiveand five and two or five.
(18:02):
Three high five foot two inchesor three inches, and I'm five
or five nine.
That was.
My biggest problem wastraveling at the rate of speed
through the undergrowth when wereached areas of big clearing
through the forest.
That was a different story, butI learned to really run with
(18:24):
them.
Did your two friends also thenjoin up then with you?
Frank was six foot tall.
He had a lot of trouble in thebeginning.
He started cutting his owntrees.
He was rugged.
He was a former West Virginiacoal miner.
Of course he was actually inFrank Gavay Gavay.
Okay, there's a ruggedindividual.
He was Hungarian by extraction.
(18:45):
Yeah, he was tough.
But a tough man, oh, tough,yeah, as far as me is.
So it used to be you threeAmericans in these pigments.
Well, this Bob Dale, you stayed.
He went on back down to thelowlands and tied in with the uh
, filipinos in the world.
He would stay with us.
So just basically, you andFrank Cabay.
(19:07):
Right, we had a couple ofothers, a distant in another
area, but they were split upbecause of Chuchicua.
You had a limited amount of andthen I organized these negritos
in this whole area.
And when Filipinos began toretreat to the old lands, when
the Japs put the heat on themand as the throws did on them,
(19:30):
they had to find a retreat.
So we took them in, but intothe perimeter areas not really.
Far back, not, we took them in,not that, but into the
perimeter areas not really farback, not that far back in.
Then we put them in caves anddifferent places and find
retreats for them, because theJapanese are going to kill them.
So we had quite a contentionbefore it was over.
(19:51):
Wow, it's amazing.
Did you then launch raidsagainst the Japanese to get the
salt and the?
Other supplies from the lowlandareas.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
We tried.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Our raids were primarily in areas outside of
areas where we could hit,because if we didn't the limits
of where they were living,they'd throw houses and
everything.
So we had our little stations.
By this you mean you couldn'tlaunch attacks very far away
from your own base of operations, so you had to stick pretty
(20:24):
close to the barriers in thatarea, or did you?
I guess I missed the point.
We had to hit them in the openfields, oh, between barriers, or
outside.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Oh, I see what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
So it wouldn't be, linked up with any.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Berrios.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
It would tie us in with any one area of the
continent.
But did you have casualties onthe Japanese or your allies, or
did you just manage to get inthere by stealth and really get
these supplies?
We did a few, but mostly wedidn't attack them.
(20:59):
We would go after what wewanted, like I told you earlier,
and whatever casualties beinflicted, we did it on a
retreat basis to keep with thecaptures, no more more.
We didn't have to win.
That was ridiculous.
It was to prevent any of themfrom getting us.
(21:21):
It was an escape, trying to getout, or a killer attack in
order to go and hide.
That sounds logical.
The reason I ask the question isbecause some people can
visualize your force.
Even though it may have been, alarge number of people didn't
have the firepower.
Certainly the japanese didn'thave any place to go, and if
(21:43):
they really wanted to turn thenotice, which they did a few
times.
You see, lake fire brings over,rob, bones and stray of our
area.
But I so in what way should?
You wouldn't believe this.
I forgot this one anyway.
The nereidos, for one of ourraids, got a machine gun, 30
caliber machine gun.
I couldn't believe it.
(22:03):
Anyway, this fellow fiend,scout Vato knew all about 30
caliber machine guns, and so heset those three up and copped
them out.
So here comes.
They weren't ever expected themto come in and raid and
strangle them.
They got upset with us and thepropaganda that we were kind of
the glory boys out there.
We were defending thePhilippines, two Americans and
(22:28):
two Americans over here.
We didn't have enoughammunition to find our way out
of anything.
We had some, but not like yousee in these movies or TV shows
where these guys sit there androll out.
It sounds like they're rollingout about 15 clips and they've
only put in one.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I don't know where they get all that at.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I mean, they're shooting and firing, shooting
and firing.
They never change clips.
I don't know where they do Well, how they ever do that, I don't
know.
They must have some kind of anoisemaker attached to that,
dude.
You know, I never had a gunlike that, must have never done
it.
Anyway, we used it sparinglyfor defense, but in any event
(23:08):
the Bato had this 30-calibermachine gun sitting up there
outside of him I'm most in top.
Here comes the Japs.
Davy didn't shoot it down, shotdown a zero.
He hit it.
They came in and he happened tohit that thing and the zero
goes right into the side of themountain.
And the Japs bailed out rightwithin time.
(23:30):
And the Greek was descendant ofhim.
He had at least 150 arrows inhim before he hit the ground.
So you know, they would onlyshoot six feet high, or even 10
feet, 12 feet, but by the timehe hit the ground he must have
had 150 arrows.
So he came out on a parachute.
To him he was a bailout, yes,but Sergeant Bonnet now this
Bonnet shot the plane down.
(23:50):
He shot the plane down.
He's the one that carried theflag on him.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Yeah, Wado shoots the plane down.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
He shot the plane down.
He's a big hero now.
He shot the plane down so theydismantle his plane.
I've actually I've got theclock out of that plane upstairs
.
Amazing, get it Call.
Sure, he shot the plane down,they shot it.
They killed us.
And when they took the jacketoff, this guy had about 16 or 17
, probably 25 arrow holesthrough it and gave it to me as
(24:20):
a present.
Oh yeah, the king decided thatwe'd been there a couple of
years, he could live 10 years.
He's trained before him outsideof night.
So the king cut all his timberand he managed to timber a log
cabin, put a nipper roof on roofon it and then put it in the.
(24:41):
What's a nipper roof?
Nipper grass, oh, the nippergrass.
Okay.
And he built it up on the sideof the mountain with these large
giant shallow bean, lagoon-yforest type clod it's these
giant ferns and beautiful orange.
And they put in a cornfield andplanted a bunch of beans grow
inside the trees, and so, anyway, I was planting some
(25:04):
commodities, just like a potato,and the ladder was about 200
feet, probably 200 yards up themountain, a real cool stream.
And so what he did?
He took a banana tree and cutthe banana tree down and
stripped halves of the bananakind of like the bark, it's not
(25:26):
very pliable and he put it intocertain wise as prompts and
staged it in a drop all the wayfrom the stream to our house and
we had this pretty droppingabout an 80-inch stream of water
(25:46):
, cold water, where we had freshmountain water dropping
constantly within about threefeet of our room and man, that's
fantastic.
We built a Revin and a SterlSounds almost like Robinson
Crusoe.
By this point you really gotjungle acclimated.
Oh, frank could build anything.
(26:08):
He's unbelievable.
He's a trilogy carpenter, he'sa cook, he's a butcher.
We got a Python.
Laurel stayed in there as herfriend and they were on our way
down the wall as afraid to getsome rice 100 pound bag of rice
carry.
Well, we have buried five milesor something there through a
jungle and three thousand feetup anyway.
(26:31):
And we're in this tree.
Moral sounds, python.
It was about 20 feet long andthey had this woodbob.
They shot it through the headand it slowed back down to its
retines with arrows and theystarted yelling the horse all
through the jungle.
The worm got out it must havebeen 50 to greet us Came in
there and cut that python up theskin the first one that cut the
(26:53):
skin and then they started.
This python was like cuttingpork chops, right down through
the back and the meat is justlike fish and it's has its
throne and it's very tender andit's very juicy and it's really
wonderful.
And we cooked a whole thingwhen it's fat.
And remember they had it allcooked up in three hours and
(27:16):
divided it up and everybody gottheir share.
And guys came through and hecooked it up.
Yeah, well, they all did.
They showed him how you do it,see, whether they'd get it or
not, whether they'd share it,you know, it didn't matter.
I think probably when I realizedhow primitive society I was.
(27:37):
I didn't, I was not.
I was too busy with all of myorganizations to be involved
with all this cooking andbutchering.
But they caught this wildcarabao.
Now, that's tough, tough stuffto catch Wild carabao.
It's a carabao, yeah, they'rewild, and the wild carabaos are
(27:58):
very vicious.
They've got these great biglonghorns that have a water
vessel, oh, I see, and they'retough, they're hard gear on hand
.
One of the ways these Negritasrope this thing with a gun or a
carabiner, the way they kill it.
They don't shoot it to the headand carry it and then butcher
(28:18):
it.
They're folding it along bothsides, see, and they've got to
start cutting the back legs offwith a bull and a ball of steel.
They haven't even killed it andthey start cutting the back
legs off.
Oh boy yeah.
Then another guy jumps in andcuts the front leg off.
Hmm, why, kurt?
Imagine that the animal reallydoesn't like you too well.
(28:39):
They could have made it a loteasier for themselves if they'd
got a clean shot.
I don't think there's anythingahead.
See, that hits you reallydredged so to keep your morale
up and everything.
It probably wasn't too difficultbecause you're busy.
You're busy the whole time.
I kept busy.
What was a typical day like?
I mean, there were probably nosuch thing as a typical day.
(29:03):
But what did you do during aday just to keep your sanity,
and I mean this alienenvironment?
Well, every day you were on themove, even though you had that
house there.
You didn't just sit there.
You just shouldn't come up.
You moved around, you werearound.
You were visiting this tribe orthat tribe.
Where was that tribe of words?
For one thing and the tribe ofwords were usually a little bit
(29:25):
of a race who were up for whatgirl was showing to what guy?
And there could be more overthis.
I mean, would you act as like apeacemaker or an intermediary?
Well, they wouldn't get'd shotthe middle of it.
But I learned very early thatCogero was an influential
character and he was feared andUri was even more feared.
(29:48):
As long as I was in the area ofthe two Edens who were related
somehow.
I never did figure out how, butthe other tribes did not try to
kill me, except one night A Jewcame in there and I got shot on
the chin and there was aproblem about the moon was up,
it was a very bright element ofTitanhurst in the middle of the
(30:10):
night and he came in there andwoke us up.
And we got up and man, thistribe from the west side of
Zambalans came with their nerveof them and they had turned in
Barker or McGuire and McGuirehad been taken into I can't
think of any name of the townover there on the west side and
(30:31):
they had strung him up.
You don't call McGuire's firstname, do you, mr Conner?
No, they strung him up.
Batalon Point and Purok.
No, we're in none of thoseplaces.
It's right in here.
Diba, diba, let's see if I canfind that.
(30:52):
It's right along the coast.
Yeah, we're going to chat upthere.
Sure, he was around with me.
Oh, guys, I see it's right atthe edge of this map, this copy
of the map Right here.
Yeah, yes, I think I see itright there at this point IBA.
Uh-huh, yeah, they had aAmerican air strip.
Iba Took them in there andstrained them up by the heels
(31:14):
and swung them around in thetree limb in the middle of town,
said that they could chop themup with a bayonet.
All of you Sold them out, andfor cigarettes and stuff like
that.
They were upset.
Anyway, I was creating problemsfor them.
I didn't know I was creatingand they were like the Japanese
raiding the mountains andlooking and all this, and said
(31:36):
they're going to eliminateved ofwhat Cogero got to wear.
And he came in there andgrabbed us out just as they were
.
I mean, they had us for a first, probably about 30 of them.
So you probably would have beenkilled if it hadn't been for
Cogero's Italian warning.
Oh yeah, we were looking forthat, especially from the left
(31:56):
side, right.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
You had a couple of Japanese.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
They were coming in from the west.
Oh, I see, okay, in fact theywere supposedly the most rugged
tribe in the Philippines.
On the west side there was ahorse herdery right here which
was on the Hunters.
On the West Side there was aplumber on the 100-foot tariff
county.
This was all the tariff thatthey were getting.
(32:25):
Some.
All the lot of root percussiongot through here.
Japanese clear out this area andthey were running these rivers.
Japanese were running theserivers and it cost them a lot of
trouble.
And so they figured there was aColonel Merrill was right
behind San Marcelino.
I see, san Marcelino, okay,colonel Merrill was about five
(32:49):
miles back in the mountainsbehind Colonel Merrill and we
are all around.
We are all around, colonelMerrill.
So me R-R-R-A-L out, r-r-r-a-l.
Colonel Merrill.
So Merrill was causing troubleand I was causing trouble, and
so there were literally both ofus and in the middle of all this
, mcguire got caught and Merrilldidn't and I didn't.
(33:12):
But Coggero was the reason Ididn't and somebody other than
the Greer group was the reasonMerrill didn't.
Whether I didn't, but Cogerowas the reason I didn't and
somebody other than the Greergroup was the reason Merrill
didn't.
I remember this raid took place.
You probably don't have anyidea.
What are the dates on that?
Well, let's see.
Let's say, uh, ed Hall,meninger, fumes, mons, desue,
ruggiero Perry, I'd say aboutmiddle of 44.
(33:35):
Middle of 44?
Yeah, when all those took place, jerry, something like that.
Hmm, hmm, did you lose track oftime while you were in there?
No, did you lose track of thejumbles?
No, I had a diary.
I kept a diary.
Oh, has that survived?
No, threw it on it overboard onthe way out.
(33:59):
Why'd you do that?
Just didn't want to remember itanymore.
I thought that it was.
I would probably bring too muchpersonal data, which was really
personal data about a lot ofmen which probably would be
better off forgotten as a resultof all the things that happened
, and would be better forgottenand might be incriminating in a
(34:26):
way.
The fact is I never.
In fact, fred Almedrash I reallyshouldn't have committed his
name to that say he did what hedid.
Sure, good, the United Statesgovernment called me down to the
Pentagon.
They interrogated me andeverything.
Oh, they did.
(34:47):
They knew they had the list ofnames.
Yeah, it's public record.
Oh, it was public record.
Yeah, all right.
Well, I told them.
I said you have to draw yourown conclusions.
I didn't see him with theJapanese no, no.
I didn't see him with theJapanese no, no.
I didn't see him in Japaneseprison yet I didn't see him
(35:07):
released by the Japanese.
I didn't see him go back to theJapanese.
All I know is what thePhilippine was telling me, and I
know that I was hit withinabout an hour after he left.
That's the only time that youread and expressed that to
yourself about that Americanservice man turning into a See
now what his family put in for$10,000, gi insurance and they
(35:33):
wanted to investigate and theyhad heard through their
investigation of the Philippinesfor Filipinos about Fredo Ligas
.
Amazing how they found out allthis stuff, incredible.
So that even comes up becauseI'm pretty well known in the
guerrilla forces.
It's funny being about it.
(35:54):
Following the war, I was prettywell known in the guerrilla
forces and pretty well knowndown at Pentagon as a result of
some of these things.
But as the war has gone throughthe years, the POWs organized
POWs.
I'm not a POW.
The POWs established themselvesas the post-war people and I'm
(36:19):
not a POW.
So where is my reunion?
Well, I go to the Bataansurvivors, the Bataan and
Corridor survivors, which iscalled the American Defenders,
and Bataan and Corridor See man,those people were in ADBC.
(36:40):
Adbc, yeah, they hold thesemeetings and they got the
Kentucky in a chapter and I go.
But what are they up against?
They're up against all POWs, noguerrillas.
Who do I talk to?
What do they have to say to me?
Nothing.
How do I fit in?
(37:00):
Nothing.
99% of them are enlisted menand I was a lousy officer and
didn't know what I was doing andgot them involved in this thing
and I was totally responsibleand stinking war to begin with
because I was an officer.
That was incredible as that maysound.
I'm not trying to be obnoxious,but that's the way it is.
(37:21):
That's the way it was.
So I just dropped out of allthat baking mess and hadn't had
any promises, one thing oranother.
Now we got all these bookscoming out about Moutain.
You'll never see my name in anyof that Because not good.
Now the reason is because I'venot been involved in any of the
(37:42):
post-war, because I went to afew.
I didn't fit in.
Would you go?
No, you wouldn't.
After a while, it's just likeall those.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Well, nobody talked to you.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
They're not discourteous.
You had a totally differentexperience than any of them.
I had nobody to talk to.
Frank and Van are the only twoguys that talk to each other.
He comes down and sees me and Igo up and see him, and Ralph
Edwards thought I had a prettygood story.
He had it on.
This Is your Life and my ordersare all in good shape.
Did you get any medals?
(38:17):
Merrill said that I was worth abronze star.
You were worth a bronze star.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yeah, as a result of my messenger service.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Bronze star.
I think you deserve maybe amedal of honor.
Well, that's what Ralph Edwardstried to get accomplished, but
it was too long after the war,too long after the war to be
accomplished.
I think it's fortunate that Ilived through it.
Certainly we always have aboost on that.
So were you able to keep up yourmorale?
I had an excellent attitude forreal.
(38:50):
Well, what I did?
I got a hold of some maps SouthPacific maps and I got a hold
of Japanese vanilla tribute andthey would only show an island,
just an island.
They would not give the islandreference, to say the New
Hebrides or New Zealand or NewGuinea or Australia or anything
(39:15):
like that, or Carolinas, onlythe island.
Well, with my maps, I'd takethat island and I would see how
far they went from that island.
They're fighting on this island.
Well, with my maps, I'd takethat island and I would see how
far they went from that island.
They're fighting on this island.
The Japanese were alwayswinning.
But fortunately I could placethe retreat.
I had about a year of that whenI started plotting this and I
(39:39):
saw that the MacArthur wasapparently either going to
island hop or bypass.
And I saw that MacArthur wasapparently either going to
island hop or bypass, and Ididn't know which, but he had a
heck of a time getting throughthe Guadalcanal and that New
Zealand, new Britain and allthat New Guinea coming up
through that.
So then when I saw this, Iplotted it and my time factors
(40:00):
and I predicted they'd be backin early 45.
Isn't that amazing?
Yeah Well, frank will confirmthat.
And always, if you got in touchwith these external forces like
Bush and Boone, but these guys,you couldn't get these guys
together if they were not awareof the congressional middle, I
mean, you just can't get themtogether, they're not going to
(40:22):
get together.
So that's one of the reasonsI'm here to talk to you about
this.
If we don't get this thing andyou've got to write this book
with collaboration of thesesurvivors that somehow get this
down on paper it's so incrediblethat a lot of people probably
wouldn't believe it happened.
In fact, the survivors of thedeath march would probably say
there wasn't anybody out theredoing anything.
(40:44):
It was a helpless situation.
But there you have it.
They do know that.
They do know that.
But there were some.
And not only that, they knew it, and not only that, we had some
escape routes set up for them.
We had several escape routesset up for several of them.
However, there was a law thatif one escaped, they killed ten.
However we had a full detachmentready to spring, but you can't
(41:09):
blame them for not springingthem.
We had it set.
Botto had the thing wired atClark with a root detachment at
the bottom I imagine 25.
And we had it absolutely set up.
We had contact with them and hehad to.
We had an absolute setup.
We had contact whether theywere running straight up and the
time came they were runninggood.
And you can't believe it.
(41:31):
It was an unknown quantity.
They didn't know if we werethere or not.
They hadn't seen us.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
It's just a word, of one word.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
They knew there was something and they knew they
heard it about us.
They knew that there would beother sources.
They knew that for sure.
But they didn't know how theywould have lived or where they
would have lived or what theydid, and they had not been to
that environment.
And you really can't believethe traumatic world of the Alps.
We had a couple of times wherewe had it ready but they
(41:59):
wouldn't go.
Well, there were a few who didescape with war detachments and
we didn't.
We took in, for example, theAmerican ship that was sunk off
shore here that they were takingI don't know, I guess a little
of them had been here in themiddle of Brown.
This is the prisoners.
(42:20):
Right, they talked about thesinking Right, and this warship
was sunk.
They talked about the sinkingRight and this work ship was
sunk by the Americans right here.
Right, they talked about that.
Three or four of them cameashore and swam ashore, got
ashore and then took them in All.
Their throats and nose wereburnt to ash.
Incredible, they were broughtthrough the mountains to you
folks.
Were we loose?
Oh, yes, thank you, that's anincredible.
(42:43):
But not to get any kind ofrecognition or anything After
this it's kind of mind-boggling.
Who are we?
Well, after the war, you know,somebody wouldn't write you up
for it, you and Frank and allthe rest of these people and
boom Wouldn't get any kind ofrecognition whatsoever after
this, I mean.
(43:05):
There's a lot of war going onout there there's a lot of war,
and I guess you would considerpretty small potatoes if you
didn't get written up in thehometown paper every other week.
Oh, you did get written up,though.
Oh, I can't.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
How did you?
Speaker 3 (43:20):
get news about your exports out of the Philippines,
did Sergeant Botto?
No, no, you mean when theAmerican troops returned.
Oh, the media picked it up.
Lowell Thomas said that Icarried the flag, didn't ever
touch the ground.
There were the Newark EveningNews.
A guy who won the PulitzerPrize, luke Pease, drew a
(43:42):
cartoon for me.
It's down at the office, whichis this cartoon on the fly.
It never touched the ground.
In the New York Evening News itwas syndicated.
Okay, now this brings us downto about February of 45.
You've been keeping posted thatthe Americans were getting close
because you were getting thesenewspapers in Japanese language.
(44:05):
They never told what the islandwas, but you had maps that
would indicate the geographicalarea.
So you knew, probably by early1945, and this was right on your
timetable that if they'regetting close, in any day now,
the Americans are going toarrive.
But what was the reaction toyou and your friends when you
(44:26):
first made contact, or what didyou say?
I mean, did you know that theywere in the area?
Well, let me tell you about themost exciting day of my whole
life.
We actually met the Americansabout.
Tell me where it's, at February2nd of 1945.
But let me tell you aboutDecember 17th.
Must have been February 4th2012.
Yeah, but let me tell you aboutDecember 17th Must have been
February 4th, why, Okay?
(44:46):
On December the 17th.
Here comes wave after waveafter wave of airplanes.
Then we leave our house thatFrank and Bill were on the side
of the mountain and the waterpiped in you did and all of a
sudden we see waves.
We've never seen this manyairplanes.
They must be Americans, don'tyou think they're Americans?
(45:09):
And we're running like mad tothe top of the mountain doodoo,
which is about probably a milefrom our hideout.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
And we're in the top of the mountain also, but this
is the peak.
And we run to the top of themountain also, but this is the
peak.
And we run to the top of themountain, overlooking Clarkshire
and Stottsonburg, and you'reclaims diving in and dropping
bombs and strafing.
It looked like 100 or 200 or300 air.
That wave left and here comesanother wave and then another
wave and the strafing and thebullets were hitting all around
(45:42):
us.
Frank says we're going to getkilled.
I says Americans can't kill us.
We're Americans, frank.
Oh, it was so exciting Icouldn't believe it.
December the 17th we really hadall those years saw Americans
again.
Our plagues it was so wonderful, just excellent.
(46:03):
Our plagues it was so wonderful, just absolute.
Our first contact with our homewere those plagues and the most
disastrous thing was to seesome of them disintegrated in
the air as their results lagged.
The tragedy of an ising was aand then about a week, but it
(46:24):
was about the week of 10 dayslater, one of them was shot down
.
We saw the parachutes open andClever Hogan and Jack McGrath
bailed out and our pigglies wereout and got them and brought
them to our headquarters.
Now, clever Hogan, youmentioned he was a pilot.
He was a pilot.
(46:44):
He's still alive, though.
He's still at the border.
He's a wonderful fellow andthey brought him down to our
headquarters after they foundhim, which was a couple hours
later, and brought him all theway down.
He had been told that if he gotin trouble and got shot, to go
up the mountains or aguerrilla's area, and that their
focus was in the guerrillaforces, but if they bailed out
(47:06):
in Japan, they'd be shot beforethey got to the ground.
So he headed for the mountainsand he got a little far back.
The breakmans had to go way onback to get him, but he did the
right thing.
So he comes down the trail andhere he is, all nice and neat,
just off the ship, and he'swell-fed and everything all nice
and white.
(47:27):
You have a beard, yeah, and I'mwearing all this.
And he reaches out his hand andhe says my name's Clay.
I said your name is Clay thefirst man I had met in three and
a half years and his name isClay.
He says, yeah, my name's ClayHogan.
I said my name's Clay Connor,right in the middle of the
(47:50):
jungle, you know that's thefirst one.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
You know what I said to him.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
I think I've lost my mind.
I've been here too long.
You're not real, are you?
I can understand the feeling.
Yeah, clay, he's just real are?
Speaker 1 (48:04):
you is that I can understand the feeling.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Yeah, clay, just you're just like a couldn't be,
couldn't be anyway, we, we, webegan to talk and unfolded this
story going.
He knew, he knew he had, hejust knew that I was there and,
uh, he told us about thebriefing.
That morning was the firstbriefing that they would have
when they were going to land andwhere they were going to land.
And he gave me the entirebriefing and I knew exactly
(48:29):
where they were going to land,when they were going to land and
the whole thing.
So we began to prepare for thatand we didn't let that out.
I mean, we didn't even tell ourtireless confidence.
We just began to stage ouractivities in preparation for it
(48:51):
.
Well, how did you?
How did the activities varythen?
I mean change based on this newinformation about the land?
Okay, well, we're now behindClarkfield, stottsonburg, where
there's 20,000 Japanese Right.
If the Americans are going tocome south, they're now behind
Clarkfield and Stottsenburg,where there's 20,000 Japanese
Right.
If the Americans are going tocome south, they're going to
land and come in, which they'regoing to land in Lengard.
(49:11):
Same as the Americans did, sameas the Japanese had done three
and a half years ahead of time.
Okay, now what they're going todo is they're going to hit
Clark and Stottsenburg and Irepeat the two names.
I don't know why I do.
We just.
We never called it Clark, wecalled it Stottsonburg in those
days.
Stottsonburg, they're going toget it from the east and come
(49:32):
west.
They're going to drive theJapanese the same thing that
they did to us.
They're going to drive theJapanese back into our areas.
They've been there for yearsand they're going to cause a lot
of problems for the Negritos,right, right?
So what we did is we organizedthe Negritos to begin to
establish an entire area ofabout three miles north and
(49:56):
south of Belize.
Do you know what a Belize is?
A pig trap, oh, a pig trap.
Okay, just one, right afteranother, right after another,
just intermittent.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Not in a straight row .
Speaker 3 (50:08):
But a three-mile column about six or seven deep.
Took us two or three.
It took them let's see if thisis over.
January.
Took them two and a half monthsJanuary.
It took them a month and a halfto set up all of the lice,
every kind of absolutedevastating killing device and
(50:32):
trap.
You described it briefly.
Could you go into some detailnow again about what that looked
like?
This pig trap he called it.
It was really a man trap.
In other words, in the heavyjungle area you've got trees
growing close together.
You can spring.
You cut one narrow tree downwhich is maybe four inches or
(50:53):
three inches, which has somespringing ability.
In other words, you can pry itbetween two other trees.
Imagine taking thissix-foot-long tree which is
three inches or four inches andputting it between two other
trees in kind of a leverage andpulling it back.
You understand?
Speaker 1 (51:15):
You can visualize that.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
Yes.
So when you're pulling backit's on the horizontal, the
trees are vertical and they'regrowing close together.
So you stick the one in betweenthe two and you pull it back
and it has.
If you let loose of it, it'sgoing to spring forward, right?
So you take this six foot long,or seven foot long or however
it is, and tie it onto thatrazor sharp, razor-sharp, bamboo
(51:40):
, arrow-type things.
They're just like knives andyou may put 15 or 20 of them
along there, one next to theother, tied very tightly.
Now the tripping device may beabout a foot and a half out, so
(52:00):
that when you hit that foot anda half out, three feet out or
whatever the ability of thisparticular spring was, the guy
steps on this dude or trips itand it comes forward at hip
height and three or four ofthose things will just tear him
in the middle and hang him thereand he just lays there and
yells until he's dead, which maybe four or five hours, oh awful
(52:23):
.
And the poison out of that justpermeates his body and there's
no way to release him from it.
I mean, you couldn't take himoff of it without tearing the
meat out of his hips, because italso had poison on them.
No, they're poisonous to beginwith.
In other words, the innate tothe body, it's poisonous.
Oh, I see.
In other words, the innate tothe body, it's poisonous.
Oh, I see.
(52:43):
In other words, you cut yourfinger on a piece of paper.
There's a certain amount ofpoison involved.
Right, I see what you're saying.
You see what I mean.
Oh, wicked.
Oh, it's a terrible way to die,just a terrible, terrible,
agonizing way to die becausethere's no way to rescue the guy
(53:04):
.
He couldn't get him off of it,no matter, without just tearing
all the meat off his bones, see,because it's jagged.
Anyway, we had that backed upfor half a mile, a long
three-mile quarter, and so wekept moving on to the mountains.
They never did.
They never did get in themountains.
Because of that.
(53:24):
They didn't do that, theysurrendered.
They surrendered rather thangoing there.
Remember what surrender means.
Remember that Dishonorable tothe Japanese.
So a lot of them suicides andeverything else.
So the Americans actuallydidn't know.
You prevented them and a lot ofthem surrendered and a lot of
them probably committed suicideafterwards.
(53:44):
Harry Carey, is the method thatthey used?
But your method did keep themout of the mountains and
probably kept the world frombeing prolonged any longer than
it was.
Well, they were locked in, butthe unfortunate part was the
death of so many Americans.
Taking Clark this is a storythat's not too well known 40 and
(54:08):
the 40, I think it was the 44thDivision, 41st or the 2nd or
3rd.
Is that the Ohio and the Ohio.
My Uncle David told me aboutsome of the guys that went in
there.
Some of the Indiana boys wentover there too the Philippines
when they retook and he saidthat just about everybody on
that train.
He went to Camp Atterbury andhe said he was held off and some
(54:29):
AWOLs were put on the trainahead of him.
And after the war he sayseverybody on that train was
killed as Hoosiers, except forthree or four guys on the train.
So you were lucky rather forthat.
You weren't on that train withus.
So that's probably the actionor one of the actions that he
was talking about.
I don't think I ever told thisstory for a record.
(54:53):
Do you want to tell it for therecord or I can take it?
Yeah, I suppose I, of course,was an interesting person to the
journalists of the service, oronly the one in there.
We take Clarksfield becauseClarksfield is an important
target in order for theAmericans to begin to fly in all
(55:14):
their soldiers and ammunitionand keep.
But we have to realize thatyou're talking to a guy that's
been in the journal for threeyears and he probably can't
express himself too well.
I'm sitting here at age 65 andI've given a lot of time and
(55:34):
thought to writing and publicspeaking and so on and can
reasonably tell a story byretrospect, which is a lot
different, but I attached myselfreasonably.
Tell a story by retrospect,which is a lot different, but I
attached myself.
As I said earlier, I wasrepatriated, I was involved in
the retaking, I was involved inthe Rangers' operation to
(55:59):
release the prisoners atCabanatua and I was at a
distance in that, but I wasinvolved and most people don't
know that, and I wasn't supposedto be, but I was there.
And then nobody knows aboutthat but I like to be in what
was going on and then you, just,you just stepped away and got
up there to help them out, or,uh, you said you weren't
(56:21):
supposed to be there.
They told did we give you adraft order?
No, no, no, nobody ever gave meany orders.
You got a little early.
You know what I mean.
Let's face it, you're just likethat.
Captain Boone, I'm with theRangers, man, you wouldn't
believe here.
I am with the Rangers becausewe're very active all over the
(56:44):
place, you know, but this timewe're Well.
I was going to tell you aboutthis is after I repatriated,
sent north and I was supposed toget on a ship or airplane and
go down to LAD and back to theStates where I left.
There I didn't look for themready, I had to get them at
Greaves.
But before that, back inFebruary, 2nd, 3rd, 4th HAG and
(57:08):
the Rangers came in, I was veryactive in the defense.
Plus, the Japanese werebeginning to group very heavily
and were able to clear out andgot continental ice.
And then they flankaked southand started taking a little more
.
He started south after we gotcaught in the blights and we had
(57:29):
to flank the Japanese and wegot in the combat with them and
they were really in a posturewhere they wanted to clear out
all of the area in order todefend their positions.
And we happened right on it,for we had one fierce battle and
(57:50):
that was the last combat we hadwithin three feet full of sheet
, hand-to-hand bayonet.
Nice, the whole bit.
You were battling thishand-to-to-hand combat.
I mean, they were right on topof us.
How many Rangers would you saywere in battle?
Oh, this is not the Rangers.
(58:10):
This is Frank and my Pygmiesand my Negritos and my Filipinos
, and Frank, hmm, boy.
And we had a real mess.
Which battle?
Oh, for about four hours thatnight and we lost quite a few
(58:30):
men and finally we defeated thiscontingency and then retreated
back into Clark and we ranaround and took a position and
stayed there through the night.
We had it heavily guarded.
And then the next morning waswhen we went out on the main
(58:53):
road and we unfurled the flagand marched north and led the
American forces and they camedown the road with tanks.
And, boy, I wish I could see aphotograph of that.
It says something in the movies,yeah, and they jumped out of
their tanks and these yellowAmericans all were crying when
they saw us and they offered uscigarettes and candy, Things you
(59:20):
hadn't seen in three and a halfyears.
Yeah, they didn't really knowwhat to say, because, you see,
they knew We'd already been incommunication by this time, do
you think?
And that we had been in adistant communication, we'd sent
out messages.
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