Finding Hershel
Bataan, by David Pratt
of those Bataan survivors who have died the past twelve months.
After each name, a pause, then, from the shadowed night,
A bugle lifts the silver notes of Taps into the coolness of the desert air.
Here, at the White Sands Missile Base, New Mexico is honoring its sons,
who soldiered in the force that called itself the Battling Bastards of Bataan;
Applause spreads through the crowd; three frail old men
with canes and gentle smiles, move through the throng,
"Thank you, God bless, thank you, God bless you all."
A field gun booms. The march begins.
Some sixty years ago, these veterans,
as fit, assured, adventurous young men,
shipped out of San Francisco for the East,
their posting to America's most prized
possession overseas, the Philippines.
Twelve units of the National Guard arrived
civilian soldiers, newly federalized;
cooks from New York, Chicago businessmen,
New England farm boys, miners, lumberjacks
from Oregon, and from New Mexico
Hispanics, Zunis, Pueblos, Navajos.
On evenings free of duty, and weekends,
men headed for Manila, where the way
of life was Spanish, slow and elegant.
They rode cheap pony carts, swam in the sea,
sent postcards home, chased women, drank in bars.
The Philippine Division officers,
in smart white uniforms, played polo, danced,
drank cocktails at their club.
were redolent with bougainvillea scent
mixed with the smell of water buffalo.
But in the Asian north,
seizing Manchuria then moving south
to take Nanking, Tsingtao, Hankow, Canton.
Code-breakers, diplomats, and army staff
knew that the days of peace were running out.
The Japanese will make the Philippines
the target of a multi-prong attack, the officers were told.
Del Carmen, Nichols Fields.
And then word came: Pearl Harbor has been bombed!
The war will last a month, men said,
At Clark they cheered to see planes overhead.
Communication lines were sabotaged,
no warning came, the planes were Japanese.
string after string of bombs came down,
Half of the brand new Flying Fortresses,
B-17s, were wiped out on the ground,
trucks, hangers, and supplies went up in smoke,
the Naval base at Cavite was smashed,
the big oil dump at Sangley Point blew up.
At twenty thousand feet, the Japanese were out of range;
leaked oil, grew hot, seized up, the muzzles burst,
and half the shells from World War I,
As for the few P-40 fighter planes still fit to fly,
maneuvered slowly, and had guns that jammed.
The Japanese invasion force, their tanks,
planes, landing craft, and infantry all proved
in ten years' battle in the Asian war,
advanced toward Manila from the north.
A second army landed to the south.
American and Filipino troops
fought back, dug in, withdrew, dug in again.
The US strategy had been withdrawal
and then evacuation,
"Hold on," wired Washington, "We're sending help,
thousands of troops, hundreds of ships and planes."
Men watched from cliffs with high-power telescopes
to spot the rescue ships.
the government had known right from the start
it had to sacrifice the Philippines.
Day after day, the bombing never stopped.
The troops fell back to new defensive lines.
Gas and oil dumps were fired.
stockpiles of ammunition, medicine,
were left behind as they retreated south;
south to the mountainous peninsula,
Bataan, their rugged, last defensive hope,
tipped by the island fortress of Corregidor.
The Japanese had planned two months
"I shall return," he said.
and sixty thousand Filipino troops.
All ships attempting to bring in supplies
were sunk or captured by the Japanese.
The Quartermaster Corps built bakeries,
sent out the local fishermen at night,
boiled seawater for salt, and commandeered
the horses of the cavalry for meat.
Rations were cut in half,
Men ate iguanas, monkeys, snakes, and rats,
took rice and candy from dead enemy;
their dreams and fantasies were all of food.
Ammo and gasoline were giving out.
The quinine was all gone.
to operate, men held the patient down.
Malaria, typhoid, and dysentery were everywhere.
voicing their plight in their ironic hymn:
"We are the battling bastards of Bataan,
no mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam,
no aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces,
no pills, no planes, no artillery pieces,
and nobody gives a damn."
Two Japanese battalions stormed ashore
behind their lines, attempting to outflank
the desperate defenders, cut them off.
A force of airmen, sailors, and marines
threw back the Japanese,
pursued the Japanese back to the sea
and blasted them from caves with dynamite.
But still, along the twenty miles of front,
a desperate line of foxholes and barbed wire
that ran from coast to coast across Bataan, the Japanese came on.
down to the tip of the peninsula.
The Japanese poured in fresh troops and tanks,
backed by more bombers and artillery.
Incessantly, the Zeroes bombed and strafed
the narrow space still held by the defense.
The walking wounded left the hospitals,
put on tin hats, re-joined the battle lines,
and fought with fevers of a hundred four.
Everything now was ruined or aflame.
The Japanese dropped messages that said,
"Give up or be destroyed." And they fought on.
Nurses were ordered to Corregidor,
and most of them escaped by submarine
and plane to safety in Australia.
Some soldiers joined guerillas in the hills.
Base hospitals came under mortar fire.
All of the food and ammunition gone,
the front began to break.
the last defenders backed up to the sea,
surrender orders came from General King.
"You're not surrendering," he told his troops.
"You did not yield. I am surrendering you."
The soldiers wept as they destroyed the guns.
Then they came out, in ones and twos, or groups,
unarmed, hands up, or carrying white flags.
The worst defeat in US history:
an army of ten thousand fighting men
thrown on the mercy of the Rising Sun.
The Japanese commander charged his troops
to treat their captives with humanity.
Atop their rattling tanks, flushed with success,
the dust-grimed front-line soldiers smiled and waved.
But as the disarmed prisoners made their way
toward the rear, they met the service troops.
their mouths were probed, gold teeth pulled out with pliers,
and swollen fingers cut off for their rings.
All those on whom guards found a coin, a pen
a watch made in Japan,
Then came the March,
or, as they called it at the time, the hike,
four days or more to the O'Donnell Camp:
a ragged army of defeated men,
haggard, unshaved, in tattered uniforms,
some without boots, all of them starved or sick.
The columns would be stopped and forced to stand
or sit for long hours in the sun.
it left some dead and moribund behind.
The marchers breathed the suffocating dust
in temperatures that hit a hundred five.
The guards would halt the squads by running streams
or village wells, and let nobody drink.
Crazy with thirst, a man broke ranks, dropped down
beside a stream, and drank. A guard ran up,
unsheathed his sword, and split the soldier's head
from scalp to chin.
The wounded were the first to fall.
He'd feel them staggering.
their comrade's life between the two of them.
All those who fell were shot or clubbed to death,
beheaded, pushed into the path of tanks,
or cruelly finished off by bayonet.
In one shakedown, three officers were found with Nippon currency.
A comrade in the burial detail in mercy,
Some lost their minds. Some found their own release.
Along a cliff-top path, a young Marine
stopped for a moment, poised himself,
Day after day they walked. In villages,
civilians watched this pilgrimage of pain,
placed water by the road, tossed candy, food,
or gave a hidden V for Victory sign.
Tears in her timid eyes, a pregnant girl
offered a rice ball to a starving man.
A guard dashed up and bayoneted her;
two other laughing guards unsheathed their knives,
cut out the fetus, waving it aloft.
Some prisoners marched four days, some six, some more,
before they reached the railway terminus
at San Fernando, sixty miles away.
There, they were crowded into steel boxcars
that heated up like ovens in the sun.
The next two hours were purgatorial;
men died of suffocation where they stood.
In the few days of the Bataan Death March
more than a thousand US prisoners died.
Those who survived, in rags, with bloody feet,
at last got to O'Donnell prison camp.
"Japan and the United States have been
and always will be bitter enemies.
You think you have escaped.
And they began to die.
In months, most men resembled skeletons.
In crowded huts at night, bedbugs and lice tormented them.
that they weighed down the branches of the trees.
Some dysenteric men, too weak to stand,
fell in the straddle trenches and were drowned.
The guards wore masks against the lethal stench.
Men died from typhus and malaria,
pellagra, jaundice, dengue, jungle sores.
Dry beri-beri stabbed their feet with pains like electricity.
The moribund were taken to a hut they called St. Peter's Ward,
Many a man who knew death was at hand
would ask his friends:
Exhausted burial crews could not keep up.
Monsoons washed up the corpses from the graves,
and dogs dug up the bones and chewed on them.
For trivial infractions, or for none,
men would be bayoneted, shot, strung up,
beheaded, chained out in the sun to die.
A water hose pushed down a prisoner's throat
blew up intestines like a gross balloon,
then guards jumped on his swollen abdomen until it burst.
life had become more terrible than death.
They sat down with a melancholy stare;
withdrawn and hopeless, they'd be dead in hours.
In two months, fifteen hundred soldiers died
at Camp O'Donnell, then the place was closed,
the Filipino prisoners were released,
the others moved to Cabanatuan,
which housed those captured at Corregidor.
The heads of Filipinos, spiked on poles
that was before diphtheria arrived.
The local Filipino bishop came
with serum, which the Japanese refused.
For weeks, men watched their brothers suffocate
from mucus in their throats.
was full of terminal malaria,
whole huts were crammed with those who'd lost their minds.
confused, in fever or delirium
from any work detail outside the wire;
his mutilated corpse would be displayed
next day in mortal warning to the camp.
The food was scarce and indigestible;
some men refused to eat and starved to death,
and some cut short their lives by trading rice for cigarettes.
or sacrificed their food or drugs for those in greater need,
At Christmas, Red Cross parcels were allowed.
A little extra food, some medicine,
much more, the recognition that someone
remembered them, put new heart in the men;
the death-rate at long last began to fall.
So they hung on. Accountants, laborers,
shade-tree mechanics, men who'd known hard times,
before the war seized and consumed their youth,
knowing their nation's armies would return.
The war began to turn.
his forces vanquished on the Solomons
and then pushed back, Pacific isle by isle.
began to move their prisoners to Japan.
More than a dozen ships transported them,
weak with disease, crammed into fetid holds,
and tossed about like ballast in typhoons.
They got an ounce of moldy rice a day,
a cup of water, forty, fifty, days.
With hatches closed, the heat was terrible.
Some drank seawater.
the worst indignities till now, went mad,
bit into others' throats and drank their blood.
Doctors and medics worked until they died;
the dead lay where they fell, and decomposed.
In such extremity, chaplains would try
to still the cries by saying the Lord's Prayer,
and in the stinking air some men drew breath
and hoarsely sang God Bless America.
The hell-ships were unmarked, and US planes
and submarines mistook them for troop ships.
When the Shinyo Maru was sunk, some men
contrived to clamber out and swim for shore.
From motor boats, machine guns at each end,
the Japanese fired at them as they swam.
Two men concealed themselves beneath debris;
a guard attacked them with his bayonet,
they caught him, held him under till he drowned.
A few made it from ships to friendly shores
and joined Chinese guerrilla bands.
Less than a third of the Americans
who were transported from the Philippines
survived the two-month passage to Japan.
Arriving, they were herded through the streets
where they were stoned and beaten by the crowds.
The captives worked as slaves, on roads, on docks,
in factories, in mines and railway yards,
dying from rock falls, overwork, disease.
Feeding blast furnaces in smelting plants
men perished from the heat; working outdoors
in arctic temperatures, they froze to death.
Whenever possible, they sabotaged
machines, put sand in bearings or broke tools,
dropped valuable components in the sea
or quietly kicked them into wet cement.
Now they began more frequently to see
the silver wings of Superfortresses
as Air Force pilots targeted Japan.
They'd stand and watch the bombs fall on their camp
and yell out, "Burn it! Burn it to the ground!"
By 1944, America
was pressing forward strongly on all fronts,
anxious to liberate the camps that held
a hundred thousand Allied prisoners.
Some Japanese authorities resolved
that they would leave no witnesses alive.
to all the camp commandants on Taiwan
for "final disposition" of the camps
as soon as urgent action was required.
"It is the aim," it read, "to let no one
escape, to kill them all, whether by bombs,
decapitation, drowning, poisonous gas."
14th December 1944
on Palawan, the Philippines:
at the Puerto Princesa Prison Camp
one hundred fifty POWs
employed as slaves, had built a landing strip
which US bombers pounded frequently
from bases not six hundred miles away.
Although no planes were seen, at 1:00 PM
the air raid warning went.
into the shelters, trenches roofed with logs.
Troops suddenly ran up with buckets full
of aviation fuel. They flung it in
the entrances and then ignited it.
The air filled with explosions and the screams
of dying men, the smell of burning flesh.
Those captives who got out were shot by guards,
but still, six men, their clothes on fire, escaped,
jumped down the cliffs, swam out to sea, were saved
by Filipinos, made it back alive
to US bases, where they told their tale.
McArthur did return, wading ashore
at Leyte in October '44.
In January, his forces reached Luzon,
four separate landings aimed to execute
a pincer movement on the capital.
of Cabanatuan. Most healthy men
had been dispatched as labor to Japan;
the camp held just five hundred officers
including doctors, amputees, and those
too sick to be shipped out. The army knew
the fate these could expect as it advanced.
While Philippine guerillas blocked the roads
against attack on each side of the camp,
one hundred twenty Rangers walked two days
beyond their lines. At dusk, they stealthily
crept to the camp perimeter, and opened fire.
The guards were cut to pieces. Rangers burst
into the barrack huts. "We're Yanks!" they yelled,
"You're free! Head for the gate!" The prisoners, sick,
confused, as pale as ghosts, stunned by the noise,
night-blinded from the lack of vitamins,
thinking this was the massacre they'd feared,
ran round in circles, and hid under beds.
The Rangers looked like giants, carrying
strange guns, with unfamiliar uniforms.
They picked the prisoners up, many of them
just skin and bones, not more than eighty pounds,
and carried them. The truth began to dawn.
"Thank you! Thank you!" They sobbed.
"Thank God you've come!
We thought the US had forgotten us."
With bullets humming overhead
the freed men headed out, the weaker ones
were borne in farm carts pulled by buffaloes.
The Rangers passed out smokes, ripped up their shirts
for bandages, gave barefoot men their boots.
"We thought that they were gods," one prisoner said.
Their liberation gave the sick new strength,
and, singing as they went, some marched all night.
Then trucks and army ambulances came
from the advancing lines to carry them.
Crowds of GIs stood by the road to cheer.
They passed a tank flying the Stars and Stripes
and struggled to their feet, to the salute,
and wept from open hearts, and without shame.
The European war came to an end in May.
***
In late June, Okinawa fell.
The Superfortresses, B-29s,
destroyed town after town. In Tokyo
close to a hundred thousand died by fire.
Sometimes American slave laborers
were killed by US bombs in these attacks,
and all the rest were dying day by day
from overwork, low rations, and abuse;
men in their twenties now looked twice their age.
Few of the Indians from New Mexico,
Apaches, Pueblos, Zunis, Navahos,
survived the bitter months of slavery.
In grief or agony, you need to speak
with people of your tribe, in your own tongue;
they died of great and crushing loneliness.
The prisoners knew they could not last a year;
what kept them going was not love but hate,
and humor, even at the cost of blows.
When ordered by a commandant to shout
Banzai! each time the Rising Sun was raised
they all yelled out in unison, Bullshit!
And still Japan refused surrender terms,
but built more kamikaze boats and planes,
and organized a huge militia force
of twenty million people, armed with spears.
The army strategists in Washington
concluded the invasion of Japan
would take two years and cost a million men,
and all the POWs would die,
as well as many million Japanese.
Meanwhile, the brightest dawn in history
(or darkest, for the future of mankind)
burst on the desert of New Mexico;
July 16th, the first atomic bomb
exploded in a fireball that was seen
a hundred miles away.
Once more, Japan was offered terms; once more they were refused.
Aircraft dropped leaflets on the target towns
advising people to evacuate.
At 8:15 AM on August 6th,
one bomb razed Hiroshima to the ground.
But still no answer came from Tokyo.
On August 9th, slave laborers across
the bay from Nagasaki felt a shock
and saw a brilliant shivering white light,
and then the mushroom cloud above the town.
Some realized what this meant, began to hug
each other and to scream, We're going home!
One hundred fifty thousand victims died
in these attacks, and with them died the war.
The Emperor spoke: the prisoners saw their guards
bow to the radio. The suffering
must end, he said. The cabinet concurred.
A coup attempt by die-hard officers
was crushed. Camp commandants relayed the news
to the American CO's. "Now that
hostilities have ceased, let us be friends."
A colonel summoned the Americans
"The war is over." There was silence, then
a voice called out, "Well, tell us which side won!"
Men cheered and sang, embraced each other, wept,
or knelt in some quiet place and gave God thanks.
Guards slipped away. When inmates raided stores,
they found Red Cross supplies of medicine
and food withheld for years.
B-29s dropped parachutes with fifty-gallon drums
of fruit and chocolate, whisky, medicine;
a case of peaches hit and killed one man.
They ate until they vomited, then ate
and vomited again. The parachutes,
red, white, and blue, were remade into flags.
The Rising Sun came down, the Stars and Stripes
went up.
US recovery teams arrived to supervise the closing of the camps.
Trains were procured to take the men to ports,
where bands played "When the Saints Go Marching in."
They boarded navy ships, their clothes were burned,
their skin deloused, their parasites killed off,
their wounds and maladies attended to
by nurses who resembled goddesses.
Food was available all day. Men drank
milk by the jug, ate ice cream by the quart,
wolfed cans of Spam, doubled their weight in weeks.
And yet they still hid apples under shirts,
and bread crusts under blankets in their bunks.
So they returned. To army hospitals,
to cities and small towns, where families
awaited them. Some found their parents dead,
or wives remarried, sweethearts disappeared.
But home towns welcomed them with big parades,
and pretty girls would kiss them in the street.
The hospitals all looked the other way
when nurses dated them or brought them booze.
The doctors thought that few would last ten years.
Reunions past, the mothers and the wives
studied the faces of the men they loved
and found they could no longer read the eyes.
Few men could talk of what they'd undergone.
Soft mattresses gave them insomnia,
and when they slept, nightmares would waken them.
They suffered from depression and fatigue,
and sudden rages scared their families.
Good jobs were hard to find; the end of war
had filled the States with stronger, fitter men.
They only found with fellow alumni
of their 'Far Eastern University'
true empathy and lifelong brotherhood.
They knew that they would go again, the day
their country called. But they would not, next time,
be taken by the enemy alive.
The last war's victories were past; defeats
such as Bataan were best forgotten now.
After their trials, nine hundred Japanese
were executed for atrocities.
Others, as guilty but more fortunate,
did well in business and in public life.
Exigencies of Cold War politics
meant that Japan was last year's enemy.
What of the last survivors of Bataan?
Some of them died in mental hospital.
Some died of ills from their imprisonment.
Some died by their own hand, some on Skid Row.
But looking at the rest, executives,
physicians, sergeants, priests, you wouldn't guess
the purgatory these men had endured.
And so, with grace, and, most remarkable,
a signal absence of vindictiveness,
the few survivors reached a calm old age.
At twelve noon, on the White Sands Missile Base,
the temperature is ninety-three degrees.
Three thousand marchers are strung out along
the sandy twenty-five mile desert route.
The walkers have been on the trail six hours,
they breathe the dust raised by six thousand feet,
and shirts and BDU's are dark with sweat.
Hat brims are down, and silence has replaced
the conversations of the first few hours.
As miles go by, a few of them begin
to feel they march in company with ghosts,
a shadow army of those men who died
in battle, in the hell-ships, in the camps.
It's burning afternoon when they attain
the finish line. And there, two veterans
white-haired and dignified, congratulate
each of them as they pass. Two of the few.
It may be no great thing, to walk all day
beneath the hot sun of New Mexico
in safety, fit and healthy and well-fed.
And yet the moment's solemn, as they meet
these two old soldiers, and shake hands with them.
They have today helped shore up memory
against indifference and oblivion,
and honored, as is right, in dust and sweat
the heroes of Bataan.
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Preface
-- In Honor, and in Memory of the Defenders of Bataan, and those interred at POW/MIA Camps in the Southwestern Pacific Theatre, WWII --
For
my grandfather, Hershel Lee Covey.
***
Hershel Lee Covey (January 9, 1915 - July 17, 1942):
SSG T US Army Air Corps 6656424; Bataan Survivor - Bataan Death March, and POW Camps O'Donnell and Cabanatuan.
Unit: HQ & HQ Squadron, 4th Composite Group, which became Headquarters Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group, Philippine Department Air Force, Far East Air Force. (Parent Unit = V Interceptor Command).
Declared Missing: 05/07/1942; Death: 07/17/1942 (Prisoner of War/Missing in Action) • Southwest Pacific Theatre, Philippine Islands.
Found @ Camp 501 Prisoner of War Camp #1 - Cabanatuan 1-2-3, Nueva Ecija, Central Luzon, Philippines. Death #964. Possible UNK: X file 2539 or X 301.
*AGRS team designated the common grave (used on 16-17, July 1942) as "Common Grave 303" and (the burial from 17-18 July 1942) as "Common Grave 311". He was buried at 12:15pm, which may indicate that he may have been buried in grave 311, however the graves were admixed several times.
*Camp records associate his burial with Common Grave 303 (and possibly 311). After the war, remains of prisoners from Cabanatuan were recovered by U.S. forces, but complications and mistakes in the burial and recovery processes prevented the identification of many individuals, including that of Hershel Covey.
Hershel was born in Bedford, Lawrenceville County on January 9, 1915, and entered the service from his hometown in Greencastle on January of 1933 in Indiana at the age of 18. His father, William Everett, passed away in 1918 when Hershel was three years old.
Hershel's last enlistment in the Army Air Corps was on October 15th, 1940, and spanned until he died in the line of duty in the Southwest Pacific Theatre during the Japanese invasion of Philippine Islands in Luzon following the bombing of Pearl Harbor during WWII. With the surrender of U.S. Forces, SSGT Covey became a Prisoner of War of the Japanese, endured the Bataan Death March,
subsequent POW Camp O'Donnell, and later succumbed to cerebral malaria, where he died at POW Camp Cabanatuan on 17 July, 1942. He was 27 years of age.
***
Abie Abraham (July 31, 1913 - March 22, 2012):
Sgt., US Army; Bataan Survivor - Bataan Death March, and POW Camps O'Donnell and Cabanatuan. Abie was shot in the leg, had shrapnel in his back, and also suffered from malaria. He was a volunteer extraordinaire, and eventually passed away at the VA Hospital where he served for over 23 years (logging in over 36,851 volunteer hours accumulated). I am honored to have had many conversations with Abie; he was a true American hero, who lived a remarkable life.
Richard Gordon (Nov. 10th, 1941 - July 26th, 2003):
Major, US Army; Adjutant/Commander of the Battling Bastards of Bataan; Survivor of Bataan - the Bataan Death March, and Camps O'Donnell and Cabanatuan. Major Gordon was also transported to Japan as a slave laborer on the hellship Nagato Maru. He was another hero, who spent countless hours helping others, including myself.
Taken from the book "My Time in Hell" by Andrew Carson - Congressional Record, 1986
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I.
PRE-WAR IN THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC
America to the Philippine Islands
(Robert Galliher, Ellen Galliher, and Hershel Covey)
Robert Galliher, my great-grandfather on my fathers mothers side, was born in 1876, in Robertson, KY. His family were descendants of Irish, British, Welsh, Highland Scot, and German pioneers - immigrants - some of whom can be traced back to George Washington's great grandfather. Sprinkled in between are some lords and ladies, knights of the garter, and even others, back to the 16th century - many whose whose offspring had at some point settled on the East Coast of America. Included amongst them were the sons and daughters of those who fought for the British Empire, and the sons and daughters of those who fought against them during the American Revolution, and many wars in between. Ancestors who left Pennsylvania, and no doubt took what has sometimes been called the Wilderness Road, passing up the Shenandoah Valley and into the Wilderness Road proper, as it is now generally known. It was a long journey considering the condition of the country at that early day. Riddled with the unknown and often facing Indian attacks as well as many other dangers along the way, they traveled along the routes of principal explorers, through early roads and highways, following historic trail blazers such as Daniel Boone (interestingly, close friends of Hershel's familial Covey ancestors).
This is where my grandmother (Ellen) and my grandfathers (Hershel) stories seem to collide - though unrelated, Hershel and Ellen's various branches both experienced similar ancestral history. Though Hershel was orphaned, his family came from a long line of interesting characters, from royalty to historical figures, to sea captains, soldiers and pioneering families who had endured. They too became soldiers who fought in subsequent wars and became pioneers, settlers, and farmers. Roberts family eventually left Kentucky to join the land rush of the newly opened territory of Oklahoma.
As a young man, Robert came home from a day of hunting and fishing to learn that his family was contemplating his betrothal to a young girl he did not like. He ran off to California and enlisted in the Army.
Spanish American War (April 21 – August 13, 1898), WWI through WWII
Philippines
During the Spanish American War, Philippine Revolutionary leaders declared independence from Spain. At that time, the Philippines was still a colony of the Spanish East Indies.
With America at War with Spain, Robert Galliher found himself deployed with the first expeditionary forces to the Philippines. He served in the regiment sent to Mindanao commanded by Black Jack Pershing. (Referred as Moro Insurrection or Moro Rebellion).
Richard arrived in the Philippines during the Spanish American War. Not long after, Admiral Thomas Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet. In December of 1898, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States. General Wesley Merritt (Commander of the Expeditionary Forces) established himself as the first military governor, and General Arthur MacArthur Jr., father of Douglas MacArthur, was appointed military commandant of Manila.
Douglas MacArthur was born in 1880, in Arkansas. He spent his early childhood on western frontier outposts where his Army officer father, General Arthur MacArthur, was stationed. The younger MacArthur once said of his experiences, “It was here I learned to ride and shoot even before I could read or write–indeed, almost before I could walk or talk." This younger MacArthur would grow up to become a general himself - one who would eventually command the Southwest Pacific during World War II (1939-1945), and go on to oversee the Allied occupation of postwar Japan, and lead UN forces during the Korean War (from which he was fired from).
Between the years 1899 and 1913, the invasion of the Philippines prompted a fierce reaction from the Filipino people; approx. 126,000 American soldiers were brought in to quell the resistance. During the war, American occupying forces were instructed to use whatever means necessary to impose American sovereignty over the Philippine Islands.
31st Infantry Organized 1 August 1916 in the Philippines; Assigned 22 October 1921 to the Philippine Division
At that time, according to a memoir written by my great aunt Caroline (Ellen's sister), her father (and my great-grandfather) Robert Galliher fought against Filipino nationalists who under Emilio Aguinaldo, sought Philippine independence. When Aguinaldo surrendered in 1902, the Phillippine-American War ended with many casualties on both sides.
Robert
was a sharp shooter - skills he had acquired from hunting as a young
man. According to what I've been told, Robert told them that he was one
of three sent by the U.S. Army to South America in an Olympic type of
competition to compete in marksmanship. As an active duty soldier later
in the Philippines, he was called into combat on many occasions. My
aunt wrote that he told them stories of his military exploits, including
fighting in China and Mindanao.
In
the southern part of the Philippines in Mindanao, the Muslim population
(the Moros) resisted American colonization just as they resisted
Spanish colonization for three centuries. Robert served with General
John J. "Black Jack" Pershing in military campaigns against the Moros.
He was shot in one of the battles - the only time he was ever wounded.
The conflict in Mindanao lasted more than a decade.
In China, a secret society of peasants identified as the "Boxers" (so called because of the martial arts which they practised) banded together to rid China of foreign influence. Robert was amongst the soldiers sent to China during the Boxer Rebellion (1899 and 1901) to quell the uprising.
Robert then was sent to Vladivostok during WW1 to guard the Trans-Siberian railroad during the Bolshevik Revolution with the 31st Infantry Regiment. The 31st Infantry was a part of American Expeditionary Forces Siberia (AEFS) in 1918 and 1919 under the command of Major General William S. Graves. The 31st (aka the "Polar Bears") left the Philippines in August 1918 for the Russian port of Vladivostok, arriving on 21 August.
The Americans eventually expropriated large tracks of land just south of Manila to establish Fort McKinley, now known as Makati. Robert and his family settled in a house near Fort McKinley. It was there in 1921, that my grandmother Ellen Galliher (Covey) was born.
The 31st INf was relieved 26 June 1931 from assignment to the Philippine Division. The
Japanese Army began their occupation of Manchuria on September 18th
1931. In 1932, fighting broke out in Shanghai, China between Japanese
and Chinese troops. After the Fiftieth U.S. Infantry Regiment stationed at
Tientsin, China was placed on alert, the Thirty-fist Infantry Regiment
(stationed in Manila) was then ordered to Shanghai to save American lives and
property.
After retirement, since Robert came from a farming family, he decided to buy a dairy farm. According to my aunt, it was "the most beautiful house they had ever lived in". At that time, Robert not only owned many heads of cattle, but a dairy truck and a Cadillac as well. (I have a vague memory of being told that he was responsible for the creation of Magnolia ice cream, now a well known and popular ice-cream in the Philippines. I'm not sure how true that story is though.) After some time, they sold their farm and moved back to Makati in the late 1930's.
Ellen Galliher was "...now a stunning beauty and extremely social" according to her sister, and would often go out, taking her younger sister Caroline with her. Their father was said to be very strict with his daughter and did not want them fraternizing with American soldiers.
Hershel Lee Covey, was born in Bedford, Lawrenceville County Indiana, and entered the service from his hometown in Greencastle on January of 1933 at the age of 18. The late 1930's would reflect Hershel's time in the Pacific. It was also during this time that Ellen would meet Hershel who was then stationed with the U.S. Army Air Corps in the Philippines. His squadron was based at Nichols Airfield, not too far from their house.
According to Caroline, Ellen and her friends rented bicycles and Hershel would join them, "When Papa found out Hershel was seeing Ellen, he asked him outright if he intended to marry Ellen. Surprised and probably in fear of Papa, Hershel responded with an emphatic Yes."
They were married in June of 1939.
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II.
WAR IN THE PACIFIC
The United States and the Philippines Enter the War
in the Pacific
(excerpts taken from Circumstances of Loss)
The 24th Pursuit Group (Interceptor) activated in the Philippine Islands on October 1st, 1941 at Clark Field (originally Fort Stotsenburg) north of Manila on the Island of Luzon, in the Philippines.
On November 7th, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor; the American Pacific Naval Fleet suffered significant losses in both lives and ships. The Fleet was destroyed and was rendered incapable of defending anything in the Pacific Rim, and in Asia.
On November 8th, 1941, eight hours later (due to the difference in time zones), Japan launched a planned aerial attack on Philippines.
On December 8th, 1941 - Within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor at 0200 (Manila time), raids ensued against these airfields on northern Luzon.
Ten hours later, Japan began to bomb U.S. military installations - Camp John Hay in Baguio City, Clark Air Base in Pampanga, and Nichols Field. Ellen, who then lived with Hershel at Nichols Field, was unharmed. Hershel was told to report to Clark Air Base. It was the last time she saw him.
The attack on Clark Field was particularly devastating, destroying a third of the 24th Pursuit Group's aircraft.
During that time, my grandmother (Ellen), and my father went to live with the rest of the family. Her father had built an air-raid shelter under the house where "they would sit for hours". Caroline said that they would spend their time in the "detested shelter complaining".
As Japanese aircraft were reported to be approaching Luzon on the morning of December 8th (December 7th in the US), the 24th Pursuit Group (augmented by two attached squadrons at the time - the 21st and 34th, and equipped with both P-35 and P-40 aircraft) tried to intercept, but failed as both "radar and visual sighting facilities were inadequate". Later that day, after the planes had landed for refueling, or had run so low on fuel that they could not fight, the Japanese attacked again. Most of the planes were destroyed while the planes were still on the ground. At that time, the 24th Pursuit Group had comprised the entire pursuit force in the Philippines in December of 1941.
See Aircraft of WWII - courtesy of Aircraft.net Forums. for more information (pictures and videos).
In the days that followed, things began to decline quickly. By that time, two thirds of the aircraft were destroyed. The 24th however, were still flying some patrol and reconnaissance missions, engaging the enemy both in the air and on the airfields. A few days later, Japanese forces, led by Lt. Gen. Homma, landed on the Philippines.
On December 22, 1941 Japanese forces began a full-scale invasion of Luzon.
43,000 soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army flooded ashore in two points - Northern Luzon, and in the Southern Mindanao Islands, beginning a three-month siege that cut supply lines of food, medicine and ammunition.
In response, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commander of U.S. Army Forces Far East (ASAFFE), decided to meet the Japanese at their points of landing instead of sticking to the original War Plan (prior to WW II), which called for the American forces to withdraw into the Bataan Peninsula in case of attack.
*By late December, the ground personnel of the 24th Pursuit Group (Hershel) were absorbed by infantry units while some pilots evacuated to Australia. The remaining pilots continued on in the Philippines with the few planes that were left. Eventually all of the men (except for the few who had gone to Australia), were either killed or captured. Inexperienced and ill-equipped troops failed to stop the Japanese.
By that time, MacArthur ordered a withdrawal to hold out for reinforcement, reverting back to the original War Plan, withdrawing his forces into the Bataan Peninsula, leaving critical ammunition, supplies and rice stores behind. Unfortunately, in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor and other Japanese advances throughout the Pacific, no reinforcements were forthcoming.
By the first days of January 1941, all U.S. Army Far East personnel, including the 24th Pursuit Group (Hershel along with it) had relocated to Bataan. Its squadrons continued to fly interception missions with limited supplies and little to no hope of relief.
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The Battle of Bataan
01/06/1942 - The Battle of Bataan begins.
At that time, most of the soldiers there had zero combat experience. There was a shortage of food, ammunition, medicine and other necessary things. The equipment that they had were leftovers from WWI -
rusted, old and outdated weapons, ammunition. Shells lacked proper fuses, as did many of the artillery shells. Vehicles, tanks and trucks were all in short supply, as was the gasoline needed to power these items of warfare. Poorly trained Filipino troops, most of who never fired a weapon,
were thrown into front line combat against highly trained Japanese
veterans.
Americans from non-combatant outfits such as air corpsmen (Hershel),
and in some instances civilians, were formed into provisional infantry
units. Sick and starving, they survived off of whatever they could - snakes, buffalo, monkeys, a few grains of rice, and horses... just to survive.
"...2,500-3,000 caraboa (water buffalo) were slaughtered on Bataan, between 6 January and 8 April. Toward the latter part of this period and after, forage for animals was exhausted; the horses of the 26th Cavalry (PS) (about 250) and about 48 pack mules were slaughtered for food on a priority basis...".
"By 2 March 1942, individuals had used up their reserve and they were deteriorating rapidly in the physical sense and by 1 April, the combat efficiency was rapidly approaching the zero point."
The American and Filipino Defenders of Bataan held out for over four months, despite a lack of food, medicine and ammunition. Four months of suffering, illness and starvation, while fighting a futile battle.
By January 1942, Manila was occupied by the Japanese. Both American and Filipino government had collapsed.
After many years of searching, I had finally tracked down someone who knew my grandfather. According to Antonio Casanova, he had worked at that time under Hershel. He told me that Hershel was considered an 'old-timer' because of his time in service, and was well respected. He said that he remembered him well and vaguely remembers seeing him with my father - that he used to bring him to work with him at times and remembered seeing my father on his shoulders.
When the 31st Squadron was cut off by the Japanese, he said that Hershel was the one in charge/delegating the motor pool and that Hershel had sent Antonio out on numerous missions to deliver supplies to soldiers stranded behind enemy lines in a command car. He said that twice a day, for 35 days, he drove behind these lines whilst evading Japanese snipers who were hiding in the trees. He added that while he drove through these trees (while getting shot at through both the engine and the windshield), he did not harbor any resentment toward Hershel - that he understood that that was what they had to do to survive. (Note I: 17, 31, 20th comprised the group - 24th was in charge? source: Antonio Casanova)
The Defenders of Bataan continued to desperately hold their ground without reinforcements, and without being re-supplied. Disease, malnutrition, fatigue, and a lack of basic supplies took their toll. They had no air or naval support, yet somehow they held out for 99 long days.
"In a gamble, the Japanese tried to outflank the main line by landing a force of 900 men on Jan. 23 in southern Bataan, followed by another 300 reinforcements on Jan. 27. About 1,000 men from the 24th Pursuit Group and 19th Bombardment Group fought alongside U.S. Army soldiers, sailors, Marines, and Filipino soldiers and police, to drive the Japanese out. The few USAAF P-40s left on Bataan helped prevent further Japanese reinforcement of their beachhead. After three weeks of bitter fighting, the Japanese positions were completely eliminated. This vigorous defense helped Bataan hold out for two more months, which brought more time to prepare Allied defenses elsewhere."
The Japanese were by then conducting house searches. When they got to the house where my grandfather Robert and his family (my grandmother, her sister Caroline, and my father included) were, they made Robert stand in the middle of the room while they pointed their guns at him. According to Caroline, they had discovered a medal (that she had won in school) and thought it was a military award belonging to Robert. The Japanese confiscated her medal. Robert was then told to report to Santo Tomas (University), which became an interment camp for many prisoners. It was the largest prison camp established by the Japanese to confine both American and European civilians. Robert told his children not to report to camp. Not only had they confiscated Caroline's medal, they had confiscated everything they had, property and everything included.
"Robert was interned in Santo Thomas University and also Los Banos. He was later was freed from Los Banos by paratroopers who dropped from the sky. You must know about this amazing rescue which has been made into a film." --
After some time, Robert was transferred to the Hospicio de San Jose, where the old and frail internees were transferred. It was previously an orphanage located on a small island on the Pasig River. Caroline said she would often go to visit him and Ellen would accompany her when she could - that the Japanese soldiers were not as strict in guarding these prisoners as most of them were very old and/or frail. They would sneak him clean laundry, roasted peanuts and fruit. He looked for innovative ways to make money for them to survive (grinding the peanuts to make peanut butter to sell, etc...) Caroline said that although the men were not treated badly, some men lost their will to fight. She said Robert was not among them; he was always looking for ways to endure.
By that time, with Hershel incapacitated, Ellen sold whatever worldly possessions she had left and moved in with their maid, who gave them shelter. Ellen and Caroline barely survived on Red Cross rations of corned beef, a sack of cracked wheat, and milk - while it lasted.
A month after Japanese took control of Manila, Ellen went into labor. She asked Pacia (their maid) to fetch the midwife, but Pacia refused because she was afraid to walk the dark streets and be accosted by the Japanese. Ellen walked with her to the midwifes house, where she later gave birth to another son, Michael. She swaddled the baby and immediately walked back to the house.
In Caroline's words, she had "never seen a braver woman than my sister Ellen. Not ever in my lifetime."
THE FALL OF BATAAN
On April 3rd, 1942, the Japanese Imperial Army launched their all out final offensive to take Bataan.
When Bataan finally fell a few days later on 04/09/1942, an order was issued to the effect that "Every troop which fought in Battan against our army on Bataan should be wiped out thoroughly whether he surrendered or not, and any American captives who are unable to continue marching all the way to the concentration camp should be put to death in the area 200 meters off the highway." -- Colonel Nubuhiko, Japanese Army, Dawn of the Philippines (foreword of Oh God, Where are You, by Abie Abraham)
April 9th, 1942 After General King surrendered Luzon, the Japanese amplified their attacks on Corregidor.
General King (then U.S. commander of all ground troops on Bataan) determined that U.S. forces in Bataan could only fight at 30% of their efficiency due to malnutrition, disease, a lack of ammunition/basic supplies, as well as fatigue. With only two days of extremely limited and dwindling rations left, soldiers were then forfeited by King, who left more than 12,000 American soldiers on Bataan in the hands of the Japanese. Approx. 60,000 or so Filipino soldiers followed suit. Surrendered were thousands of sick and starving troops to the Japanese while riddled with malaria, beri-beri, dengue fever and parasites. They were in god awful shape.
General Wainwright surrendered and by the end of June, resistance in the Philippines had ended.
While the Japanese initially planned for only 10,000–25,000 prisoners of war, they found themselves with what they later estimated to be over 76,000 prisoners. Little by little, men began to turn themselves in after word of King's forfeiture. Although (American) trucks were available to transport the prisoners, the Japanese decided instead to march the Defenders of Bataan to their destinations.
THE BATAAN DEATH MARCH
April 1942, The Bataan Death March (coined by the prisoners themselves) ensued two weeks later. The "Death March" was really a series of marches that 76,000 prisoners of war (66,000 Filipinos, 10,000 Americans) were forced to endure, which lasted from five to nine days. The distance a captive had to march was determined by where on the trail the captive began the march.
Once on the march, they were refused food or water; for six days and seven nights, they suffered. They were repeatedly beaten and treated inhumanely. Once there, the first order of the day was for the Japanese soldiers to execute hundreds (350-400) of Filipino officers.
From Mariveles (southern tip of Bataan Peninsula), they then were forced to march for two weeks - 66 miles in the oppressive heat to the rail head in San Fernando, where they were packed into unsanitary and scorching hot oven-like railroad box cars made for cargo.
They were then railed to Capas, Tarlac - an additional distance of around 24 miles. With around a hundred soldiers crammed in each car (called "fourty-and-eights" as they were made to only fit either 40 men or eight horses), there was nowhere to go. Dozens died standing up in the railroad cars as the cars were so cramped that there was no room for the dead to fall.
Survivors were then marched another seven miles to their final destination, Camp O'Donnell (a former Philippine Army training center), where they were then herded into two camps - one for Filipinos and one for Americans.
This was the first prisoner of War Camp that my grandfather and the others were interred at.
While no one knows the exact number of deaths that occurred during the march and subsequent internment at Camp O'Donnell - from about April to October 1942, it is believed that thousands of men died of sickness and starvation.
In the end, it was estimated that around 52,000 prisoners reached Camp O'Donnell, with over an estimated 20,000 having already perished from illness, hunger, torture or murder along the way. They were starved, beaten, shot and in some cases beheaded.
About 600-650 Americans died on the March. About 9,300 Americans reached Camp O'Donnell after completing the Death March.
By this time, they had witnessed many, many horrific atrocities at the hands of the Japanese. Men were often brutalized for sport - those who could not get up were often buried alive, bayoneted, or beaten to death with shovels. Many a soldier was forced to dig the grave of another. Many were left to die where they lay. The Japanese saw surrender as an act of shame and treated the prisoners of war with utter disdain and disregard. To them, they were 'lower than dogs', and were now considered spoils of war. Japanese soldiers were trained (and forced) to kill, maim, and torture - without thought and without remorse - this was their code.
Of the estimated 72,000 prisoners of war who were on the Bataan Death March, nearly 10,000 died. Those who were glad the march was over however found no relief.
CAMP O'DONNELL
During the first forty days of the camp's existence, approx. 1,600 more Americans were to die. 22,000 in little under a month.
The initial period of captivity at Camp O’Donnell saw so many die like flies; an estimated 20,000 Filipinos and 1,500 Americans died at the camp from “…disease, starvation, neglect, and brutality…” At least 25,000 Filipinos died by July 1942 in the same camp.
All
of the deaths were the direct result of malnutrition on Bataan, diseases,
and by the torture, killings and atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers that ravaged the minds and bodies of the soldiers on the March.
05/06/1942 - Corregidor falls. These troops were taken
across Manila Bay to Manila and then by train to Prison Camp Cabanatuan,
Cabanatuan, P.I.
05/07/1942 - Hershel is listed as "Missing In Action".
Approximately 1,600 Americans died in the first forty days in Camp O'Donnell. Almost 20,000 Filipinos died in their first four months of captivity in the same camp. The healthier prisoners took turns burying their comrades into mass graves just as they themselves would be buried days or weeks later.
Camp O'Donnell did not have the sanitation sub-structure or water supply necessary to hold such a large amount of men. Many died from diseases they had since Bataan. Many caught new diseases while at the Camp. There was little medicine given to the prisoners*. Their inadequate diets also contributed to the high death rate. Diseases such as dysentery (from a lack of safe drinking water) and Beri-Beri (from malnutrition) were common to the POWs. The Japanese soldiers continued to murder and mistreat their captives.
"Sad to say 84 percent of the American deaths (at Camp O'Donnell) were under 30 years of age and most of that group, were 21 to 23 years of age...", "over 1,600 Americans died in less than two months."
Starvation, illness, fatigue and exhaustion as well as torture led to one of the highest rates of POW death in World War II.
06/06/1942 - Due to the high death rate in Camp
O'Donnell, the Japanese transferred all Americans to Cabanatuan, north
of Camp O'Donnell, leaving behind five hundred as caretakers and for
funeral details. Hershel was amongst those who were transferred.
07/05/1942 - The rest were then sent to Cabanatuan.
A rare photograph of POWs marching in formation at Cabanatuan POW Camp on January 1, 1943. (Courtesy of the MacArthur Memorial Library, Norfolk, Virginia.)
The Filipino prisoners were paroled, beginning in July, 1942. The prisoners from O'Donnell were in very bad shape - stark, in comparison to the prisoners from Corregidor.*
[Cabanatuan was the camp in which the men from Corregidor were first united with the men from Bataan. No Americans* from Corregidor ever made the "Death March" or were imprisoned in Camp O'Donnell. Not having suffered the extreme depravations and conditions endured by the men from Bataan, the prisoners from Corregidor were overall much healthier. Cabanatuan, for most prisoners, ended up being a temporary camp. The Japanese had a policy (yet another direct violation of the Geneva Convention) that prisoners were to be used as a source of labor. Eventually, most of the prisoners from there were sent to various other camps in the Philippines, China, Japan and Korea where they were used for slave labor. Some worked in mines, others in farms, others in factories and even others unloaded ships in Port Areas for the remainder of the war. Each subsequent prison camp after Cabanatuan has a story of its own. Left behind in Cabanatuan were approximately 511 officers and prisoners too sick to move. Most of those too sick to move; they never recovered and died in Cabanatuan.]
More than one escape attempt was made from the prison
camp, but most failed. In one attempt, it was documented that four soldiers
were recaptured. The Japanese guards forced everyone to
watch as they were brutally beaten, and then forced to dig their own graves. They made an example out of those four men and threatened the others, telling them that for every one person that tried to escape, ten would die.
I remember being told when I was younger at some point that they subsisted off of a few grains of rice per day, but there are conflicting accounts. There was one spigot - the water was dirty. They were literally starved to death. The Japanese knowingly and completely defied Geneva Conventions. Sometimes American POW soldiers would try to catch anything that found its way into the camp (snakes, mice, etc..) out of desperation in order to try to survive. It was that bad.
DEATH:
On 07/17/1942, it was reported that Hershel had died "in the line of
duty"(the official notation was that he succumbed from "cerebral malaria") on his wife's birthday. His body was said to have been found under one of the POW (hospital?) huts, and was buried that day at 12:30pm in an unknown mass grave. He was 27 years of age.
1944 - It was around this time that the Covey family was split up. My father (William) and his younger brother (Michael) were as well - Michael was sent to live with friends, while my father stayed with his mother.
According to my father, they later took shelter with the retreating US army in to Bataan as a safety precaution because of rumors that the Japanese Occupation Army were killing/bayoneting the children of American soldiers.
By then, Ellen had begun to show symptoms of a cough. When she started to have a fever and chills, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The infection could not be stopped and no medicines were available to her. She progressively worsened. Because she was highly contagious, my father was not allowed to go into her room. Years later, my father would share with me his memories - of constantly standing in her doorway, watching and wanting nothing more than to be with his mother. He was only four years old.
He told me in later years: "I also have memories 1) of laying in bed one night while Aunt Caroline and my mother were telling ghost stories to each other; I was listening to them. My mother was in her own room. They tried to keep me away from her because she had tuberculosis, but I always found a way to go into her room to talk with her and my mother would call somebody to take me out of her room. Tuberculosis is highly contagious. I also remember seeing my mother laying in her coffin with a glass pane separating us. Everybody was crying, so I started crying also. I didn't know why everybody was crying, but I thought to join them."
10/1944 - the Americans led by General Douglas MacArthur landed in Leyete province, in the Visayas.
11/04/1944 - Ellen Elizabeth Galliher died on November 4, 1944, in Clara, Cebu, Philippines, leaving both my father and his brother Michael orphans, and victims of the war as well. She was 23 years old.
In December, my father was taken to another place, during which Japanese soldiers once again came to the house, and questioned everyone there. They began to hear the roar of planes and bombing in the distance. My father said that he was usually the first to hear the planes; terrified, he would run under the house and hide. When they saw him hiding, they knew that planes would soon be flying overhead. The bombings in Manila were now constant and could be heard even from a distance.
Four months later, American troops reached Manila. The ground troops stormed Manila and the internees at Santo Thomas. Not long after, paratroopers from both the U.S. Army Airborne and Filipino guerilla fighters freed the prisoners at Los Banos, Laguna. Robert was one of them.
Caroline later wrote in her memoir that she wished that they had gotten there sooner - that maybe they might have been able to save Ellen.
If they had arrived sooner, they may have been able to save Hershel as well.
Raid at Cabanatuan
01/30/1945 - The rescue at Camp Cabanatuan took place. It was too late for Hershel - he never made it out alongside the others. They eventually made a movie called "The Great Raid" named after the rescue.
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Near the end of 1945, my father had told me that he distinctly remembered when the American G.I.'s arrived - that they came "marching down the street with candy". He said he ran out to greet them (especially the candy), despite being severely admonished as they were afraid of what the Japanese soldiers would do to the children of American soldiers, and to them if, caught. He was five years old.
*1946 - Hershel Covey was recovered from Cabanatuan POW Camp, he is listed as being X-3013. He came out of grave Plot 3, Row O, Grave 303 at Cabanatuan.
*AGRS team designated the common grave (used on 16-17, July 1942) as "Common Grave 303" and (the burial from 17-18 July 1942) as "Common Grave 311". He was buried at 12:15pm, which may indicate that he may have been buried in grave 311, however the graves were admixed several times.
It's interesting because the first tooth chart taken (29 Mar 46) lists the remains as having "perfect teeth" but by 3 Dec 47 the remains are missing most of the lower and over 1/2 the upper teeth and part of the maxilla is missing as well.
*1949 - A 9 Dec 49 tooth chart shows some of those missing teeth as being present. Not a small discrepancy, going from perfect teeth to most of the teeth gone, to some of those being back in place.
12/1949 - Hershel's remains were officially declared unrecoverable.
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POST WAR - PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
Clark Air Force Base Cemetery/Headstone
June of 1991 - The U.S. government planned to transfer Clark Air Force Base to the government of the Philippines. The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 covered Clark Air Base base with volcanic ash, destroying many buildings, hastening US departure. Negotiations over Clark Air Base became moot; the U.S. government withdrew, and turned the base back over to the Philippine government on November 26, 1991.
The cemetery was left unattended, wrought iron fencing and other valuable property looted, the grounds and headstones were covered with ash, and what had been hallowed ground was left desolate, deserted and encroached with heavy vegetation.
Contrary to the warriors creed to “leave no one behind”, the US Government abandoned and left behind thousands of veterans.
"When the U.S. air force left in 1991 there were no provisions made for the perpetual care and maintenance of the cemetery, there was an oversight. Retired U.S. soldiers voluntarily keeping watch over the burial grounds, where some of their comrades lay, don't have much money to fix things."
"It's way too much to try to maintain this cemetery through voluntary contributions," says Dennis Wright.
"The American Veterans Cemetery at the former Clark U.S. Air Force base north of the Philippine capital survives on alms and donations."
"We are attempting to get the US Government to acknowledge and be responsible for the forgotten and abandoned veterans cemetery at Clark. Many of the remains of Fort McKinley, where your grandfather might have been buried, and later became the Manila American Cemetery, were moved to Clark (then Fort Stotsenberg) to make room for the remains of the WWII dead. The Clark cemetery was managed and administered by the US Air Force up until the military left the Philippines in 1992. Since then, no federal agency has been responsible and if it had not been for the local VFW Post 2485, the cemetery would be in even worse condition."
"I recently became aware of your quest for information on your grandfather and an old email you sent. I am hoping your email address is correct. I also recently became aware of a head stone in the Clark Veterans Cemetery that matches your Grandfather’s profile and history, including his wife, Ellen. I am attaching a profile sheet we prepared contrasting the discrepancies tracking his remains as a WWII MIA to potentially being buried at Clark. In addition, I am attaching several recent photographs of the head stone. You will note we had to dig down quite deep to reveal all the text on the head stone. The ash from Mt. Pinatubo covered much of the graveyard and does still today as you can see."
The cemetery at Clark Air Force Base continued to fall into disrepair. Between 1994 and 2013, the Philippine Government allowed members of the Veterans of Foreign War Post 2485 to operate and maintain the cemetery. While the veterans did the best they could, cemetery maintenance required a significant amount of money, so they organized themselves to have the cemetery designated as one of the cemeteries under the auspices of the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC). This however required an act of Congress, so they lobbied in a bipartisan manner for their cause.
Because I had been in contact with ABMC over the years, I was notified of the disrepair that the cemetery had fallen into and so brought it to the
attention of several family members and friends asking that letters be sent to Congress supporting the
designation of Clark Veterans Cemetery to be part of the ABMC. This
meant that the US government would take responsibility for the
maintenance and care of the cemetery.
My aunt and uncle graciously contacted their state senator, Patty Murray, who was chair of the Committee for Veterans’ Affairs. A yes vote from the committee was an assurance that the law would be passed. They wrote a letter of support as suggested, and my uncle signed the letter as he personally knew Senator Murray. While his letter was just one of many, when Senator Murray saw my uncle in the halls of Congress, she acknowledged having received his letter. I will be forever deeply grateful to both of them for their help, as well to Dennis Wright (President of Pergrine Development International, and Chairman of the Clark Veterans Cemetery Restoration Association) together with the CVCRA, and VFW Post 2485 for spearheading the efforts.
January of 2013, President Barack Obama signed into law the Dignified Burial and Other Veterans’ benefits Improvement Act (Public Law 112-260) directing ABMC to operate and maintain Clark Veterans Cemetery following an agreement between the Republic of the Philippines and the United States. That agreement was signed in December of 2013, making Clark ABMC’s 25th cemetery.
"In accordance with the law, the U.S. State Department immediately entered into negotiations with the Philippine government, culminating in today’s signing of the MOU.
While PL 112-260 authorized $5 million to restore the cemetery, no funds were provided to ABMC. Initially, ABMC will perform basic maintenance with staff operating from Manila American Cemetery.
ABMC also will begin an assessment of the maintenance, restoration and operational requirements of the cemetery to determine funding requirements, which will form the basis for a fiscal year 2016 funding request." --ABMC
*To date, calls/messages to ABMC inquiring into the status of funding have gone unanswered a/o yet.
The question over the headstone/burial...
Although there is a headstone marking "Hershel Lee Covey" at the cemetery at Clark at Section C Plot 2B Grave 12H, his remains are not there. Hershel is still listed as MIA - his remains are still as of yet unrecovered as they were admixed (mixed) in burial, and admixed again after they were exhumed during the years following the war. Our government messed up numerous times and maintained many secrets on the mishandling and the bungling of remains. Most of the 10,007+ unknowns were buried as such mainly because of a lack of paperwork, and not because they were in bad shape. Some remains were misidentified and sent to the wrong families. The errors made are of immeasurable and almost insurmountable proportions.
Ellen Galliher Covey, Hershel's wife, is currently located at Clark Cemetery, however she was initially buried in a cemetery in Pasay City (Philippines). In or around 1980, my father and his family were notified that the cemetery (where Ellen was to be buried) would be converted to a commercial site. (A similar circumstance happened to Ellen's mother later when a plaza/shopping mall was built over the cemetery site without exhuming the remains- it used to be the cemetery of San Pedro in Makati near the church of St. Peter and Paul, and is now the Plaza Christopher Rey).
When my father inquired and was notified through the Clark Cemetery mortuary officer (Richard Kaiser) that Ellen was eligible to be buried at Clark Veteran's cemetery ("on the basis of Hershel's military service and in view of the fact that his remains were never recovered"), my father made the necessary personal arrangements and expenses via family members to have her remains (few pieces of her remained after they were exhumed) transferred and re-interred to a temporary plot at Clark Air Base Cemetery. And that is where she is buried today.
Ellen's father, Robert F. Galliher is currently buried at Arlington Cemetery - it is my understanding that there was a plot held vacant for his wife (Ellen's mother) Angela, however those remains are unrecoverable at this time. (Currently there are no records located at Mabalacat City Hall; my family was told during a recent visit that all the files were burned during WWII.)
My concern is that both Hershel and Ellen's remains are still overseas; despite having a temporary headstone at Clark cemetery, they both deserve to be brought home and buried on U.S. soil, preferably at Arlington cemetery.
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Recovering Hershel's Records (generalized/rough dateline)
07/2002 - Contacted office of Commanding General at PERSCOMM for information on Hershel.
09/2002 - Contacted NARA re: Hershel. Requested copies of his service record.
03/2003 - Followed up/contacted the office of Representative Bob Etheridge to inquire about medals to be awarded posthumously. (Congressional Request #1-21561901; (award request #A3B523528F03)
06/4/2003 - the office of Representative Bob Etheridge acknowledges awards
07/2003 - Representative Bob Etheridge awards medals for Hershel posthumously
08/2004 - National Personnel Records Center re: medals/awards
09/2004 - Contacted by National Personnel Records Center re: medals/awards - record needed to answer my inquiry is not in their files (fire on July 12, 1973 destroyed the major portion of records of Army military personnel for the period 1912-1959, and records of Air Force personnel with surnames Hubbard through Z for the period 1947-1963).
10/2004 - Contacted by the Nation Archives and Records Administration in response to email inquiry on October 14th, 2004. (Fire at Records Center in 1973).
DNA Sample
In 2007, I was finally able to organize for my father to submit an oral DNA swab, which was received by the Defense Health Agency on February 5th, 2007. The sample was stored and entered into their database for the purpose of aiding in the identification of Hershels remains. I was told "In future, any comparisons AFDIL may make with DNA data from recovered remains, our family's DNA reference will be searched for a possible match."
My father and I spent many hours talking about his memories, and the traumas surrounding the war. He spent many years trying to find out more information on his father. Despite his efforts in trying to find out more about his father, and my efforts in trying to research and locate his fathers remains, my father passed away the following year, on January 8th, 2008, without the closure he needed.
In 2013, President Barack Obama signed into law the Dignified Burial and Other Veterans’ benefits Improvement Act (Public Law 112-260) directing ABMC to operate and maintain Clark Veterans Cemetery following an agreement between the Republic of the Philippines and the United States. That agreement was signed in December of 2013, making Clark ABMC’s 25th cemetery.
Despite multiple inquiries throughout the years following, since, my family has yet to find out the exact status on Hershel's remains, or that of the unknown Servicemembers buried with him.
2022 As of this year (some twenty years later), after multiple attempts at correspondence with his Service Casualty Officer and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), I am still trying to find out the exact status of my grandfathers remains.
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Sgt. Abie Abraham
While estimates placed the death toll of the Bataan Death March at 20,000, Abie chronicled hundred more deaths at Camp Cabanatuan.
While there as a prisoner of war himself, Abie served on burial duty - when soldiers died, they were
buried en masse in graves that they themselves had dug. Abie kept notes - first on food can labels, and then later in tiny
notebooks (that were smuggled to him by American mechanics, forced to help work for the Japanese at the camps), and a log of all the soldiers who were either murdered or who had died
there despite the grave danger he faced should the log be discovered by the Japanese guards. He knew without a doubt that he would be killed, if not severely beaten and/or tortured, had those notes and logs been discovered.
When the United States landed to recapture the Philippines in 1944, the Japanese high command issued orders to kill all POWs in order to avoid them being rescued by liberating forces. "One method of the execution was to round the prisoners up in one location, pour gasoline over them, and then burn them alive."
Allied forces finally decided to launch a series of covert rescue operations to save the surviving POWs on the islands. When they were finally rescued in August of 1945, only 513 POW's had remained. (One third of which later died within a year.) As I mentioned earlier, my grandfather was not one of them; Hershel had died before the Great Raid and rescue happened. Hershel was subsequently buried in a mass grave there - Abie was may even have been one of the soldiers who buried him.
During our many conversations, Abie took the time to pour through his files, looking for any information on my grandfather. He also would have been the one to document Hershel's death and the one to have submitted it to the War Department. As he dug thrugh his filing cabinet looking for any records that might help me, many hours were spent on the phone (while my family was stationed in Germany). Much time was spent listening to him recount his memories - memories of what happened during the war, and what my grandfather would have experienced alongside both himself and many others. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversations - albeit at times emotional, it was a complete privilege.
Abie's wife and three young daughters spent the war in
an internment camp, as did my great-grandfather. Not long after his family was reunited, Abie was personally asked by General MacArthur himself to go back and lead the effort to find and dig up the bodies of POW's
left behind who had died either on the March, or in the camps, and bring them back. An unimaginable nightmare. But he
survived long enough to see (some) justice served. He was a key witness
at Homma's trial shortly before he was executed. His family refused to return to the
United States without him, and they didn't return home until 1948 - three years later. After their return, Abie later held numerous jobs, to include his work as a recruiter (while also spending time helping at risk teens), and then spent a tour in Germany as a first sergeant until he retired in 1955. In 1988 (the year I graduated from high school), he visited a friend at the local VA hospital and kept returning, helping countless other veterans and their families.
Abie made a profound impact on me during the course of our long conversations. He sent me autographed copies of the books he had written - books written about the War in the Pacific, as well as videotape of himself, Yoggi Barra and Bob Hope.
He chronicled the unimaginable suffering of those soldiers in two books: "Ghost of Bataan Speaks," in 1971, and "Oh, God, Where Are You?" in 1997.
Abie has given hundreds of speeches - as many as five in a week, to make sure younger generations know what life and liberty have cost. (Much of this has not been taught in our schools, and was even forbidden in schools abroad.) He was recorded by the VA, and also featured in various documentaries on both the Discovery and the History Channel.
He said "I always tell the kids, 'When you meet a veteran, shake his hand and thank him for his sacrifice."
Abie's sacrifice lasted long after the war. He once said "the first body I dug up, I just shook," he recalls. "But you just have to make up your mind and do what's needed."
In an interview with his wife in later years, Mrs. Abraham said "He knew those guys in life, and he was digging up their remains in death".
"This is the indomitable spirit of independence we celebrate, and remember."
Abie on WWII: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aqilTGcf3Q
Abie on the Bataan Death March: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsMo0gepbEc
More about Abie: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2016-06-21/html/CREC-2016-06-21-pt1-PgH4008.htm
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Major Richard Gordon
Richard and I spoke multiple times over the years via phone and via email. He also shared his many memories with me and talked with me about my grandfather and what he/they faced during the war - the Death March, and both camps. He spoke in length about the main body of American prisoners who were then transferred to Cabanatuan on June 6th, 1942, where they met Corregidors survivors for the first time.
In the month of June alone, 503 men died there at Cabanatuan due to the conditions. All were from Bataan. July 1942 (the month and year that my grandfather died), saw the greatest number of deaths since capture. 786 died as prisoners of war. Again, all Bataan men. Out of 3,000 Americans who died in that camp, more than 95% of them were the men of Bataan.
In the early days of Cabanatuan, many of those who died and were buried were buried alone and in mass graves without identification. My grandfather was one of those buried in one of those graves. His remains were never found; the Japanese would intentionally wipe out and destroy anything identifying a grave site. Even when records show the cause of death, the Japanese Army made every effort to completely blot out all American handiwork. They obliterated markers, burned crosses, and plot maps, death registers, etc... Natural disintegration under tropical conditions completed the ruin of reliable means of identification - when recovery has been made, it is an "Unknown" classification.
This is what happened to Hershel. While searching for information on his remains, I was told that the fields in which the bodies had been buried had become rice paddy's, and that he was considered "unrecoverable". I continued to try to research as much as I could on Hershel in between. It was important to me to bridge the gap for my father before he died, as he never knew his father. On one visit with my father, I showed him the book that I had put together of all the information I had collected; he immersed himself into reading and broke down heavily in tears as he learned things he did not previously know, and then encompassed by traumatic memories of his childhood.
According to Richard, things at that camp in July were just as chaotic as they were at the previous camp, Camp O'Donnell. The emaciated and diseased soldiers who had arrived at Cabanatuan from O'Donnell and from Corregidor were already in severely dire straights.
Richard was on burial detail at both camps, and could attest to the horrors witnessed there. He explained to me that when the remains were exhumed in 1945 - three years after my grandfather died.
They were then placed in the American
cemetery - those without dog tags (and they were numerous), were listed
as "Missing in Action". This is what happened to Hershel. In later years,
when those remains were in the process of an attempt at being identified, body parts
were admixed, rendering them impossible to identify.
In some of the coorespondence that I requested and was given (unrelated), I was forwarded a copy of information located in Record Group 407 of The Phillipines Archives Collection lists Entry 1070. Records of Japanese Atrocities Against POWs, 1942-45, 1948. 1 ft. Boxes 148-149. Unarranged. These boxes contain investigation reports, affadavits, records from war crimes trials, and similar items relating to Japanese beating, torture and executions of American POWs. Of special note are records of a massacre of POWs in 1942; affadavits relating to accidents in coal mines where POWs provided slave labor; and an account of medical experiments performed by Japanese doctors in POW hospitals. Hershel was in the "Zero Ward" at Camp Cabanatuan.
During my quest to see my grandfather awarded the recognition and medals he deserved, Richard assisted me in seeking Congressional (NC) help to make this a reality.
In 1963, President Kennedy ordered the Purple Heart to be awarded to all former Prisoners of War, but not retroactive to include WWII POWs. In the Mideast war of 1991, several Americans were captured and beaten, for which they received the Purple Heart. Those captured by the Japanese were beaten on a daily basis, yet were never awarded the Purple Heart. The pain and the torture - not to mention the sheer trauma that the Bataan prisoners endured was somehow forgotten. As Richard said, this was a source of irritation to many a former prisoner of war of the Japanese.
I have been honored and privileged to speak a few of these incredible survivors, and took part in many an emotional and heart-felt conversation with some of them - for which I am forever grateful. For some, it was the first time that they had spoken about their experiences since the war; as I said, they often broke down in tears during our conversations, often telling me that "it was the first time they had spoken about the war". I count myself fortunate to have been a part of those conversations - especially so as they are a part of oral history. My subsequent conversations with them, and with Richard, spurred me to pursue Hershel's medals. Not long after, the submission of a Congressional Request under Hershel's name took place.
Because of those conversations, and the difficulty in obtaining Hershel's medals posthumously, I had a keen desire in working to help surmount the obstacles that bar these incredible men from the recognition they so richly deserve, so that they are recognized and remembered properly. Removing any personal connection, Hershel's story is one of literally thousands/tens of thousands of equally important, equally unique stories of countless other Servicemembers. We talked about various things and ways in which to help - from bringing awareness to schools, to even trying to petition a bill
that would award compensation to the survivors; he never gave up. At that time, the original writing of
the bill contained incorrect information and had little support and/or interest.
The bill
was to be rewritten and "re-presented", however garnering support proved very difficult. Soon after, I moved to Germany under military orders with my family, and life became hectic and all consuming with my three children amidst countless deployments with my husband away.
Thanks to Richard, and the many others dedicated to remembering these fallen soldiers, Hershel's name is listed on the wall at the Cabanatuan Memorial site, which the survivors of both Bataan and Corregidor - erected and dedicated in 1986 - two years before I graduated from high school at the International School in Manila, Philippines. I wish I had known. At that time, I knew only a brief history of the war and of what my family - and so many others, endured.
In April of 2000, without any outside help, Richards group of volunteers erected a memorial found on their site (which is how I later found Richard) to the soldiers who perished at Camp O'Donnell.
In May of 2000, Richard wrote to John Podesta (who was at that time Chief of Staff) about the failures of the US Government in seeking basic justice and reparations for our veterans who were forced to work as slave laborers as Prisoners of War in the Pacific. At that time, neither the Japanese nor those private Japanese companies that enslaved our soldiers, had ever offered to make reparations or restitution for the abuses and injuries suffered - much less an apology.
In Richard's words, "equally distressing was the fact that our government - the US Government, stood mute during these same intervening years, and never sought to have fair compensation and restitution awarded to those veterans who were brutally enslaved and deprived of all human dignity".
Incomprehensible, especially as our government awarded reparations to Japanese American Citizens who were interred in US Camps during WWII (one of which is located here in Colorado).
In his letters, Richard petitioned that our government had worked diligently to resolve claims brought by victims of German atrocities during the Holocaust, and pointedly highlighted the fact that nothing had been done for the survivors of Bataan, in the Pacific Theatre during WWII.
He wrote that not many were aware of the differences between prisoners of war in the Pacific Theatre and those held in Europe - mainly Germany. According to his notes, in Germany, 1.1% of the American Prisoners of War died in captivity while Americans in the hands of the Japanese died at a rate of 37.3%. This figure alone sets apart those prisoners of war held by Germany and Japan. British POW's from the Pacific Theatre were also awarded compensation - deservedly so. Richard and the others worked alongside those very same prisoners and experienced the same brutal treatment, lack of food and medicine.
Killings of both American and British POW's occurred in every Japanese POW Camp. As Richard articulated, the war crimes trials, held subsequent to the war, confirm this.
In Richard's words, "It is there for the world to see."
Richard urgently requested that these injustices be remedied not just for for them, but also for our former prisoners of war/slave laborers, who had been studiously ignored by the US Government; especially so, since they were at the end of their lives. Richard said that "one day, when all are dead such an award will be made posthumously, but that it would come too late". And it was true.
He shared his communique's with me, to include Podesta's response acknowledging Richard's efforts and the fact that "There is no doubt that U.S. Veteran's who were held as prisoners of war during WWII were treated inhumanely." He also acknowledged that "Their service and sacrifice for our Nation should be honored and appropriately recognized".
Richard and others worked tirelessly with other Bataan veterans of the infamous Death March, survivors of the horrors of the camps, and the Japanese "Hell Ships", in which so many Americans perished at sea after being brutalized by their captors en route to Japan for slave labor to form the Battling Bastards of Bataan, an organization that was committed to continuing the legacy of those who served in the Philippines and to educating future generations as well as veterans' families. Their motto/song:
We’re the Battling Bastards of Bataan,
No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam,
No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces,
No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces,
And nobody gives a damn. Nobody gives a damn.
--Written by Frank Hewlett in 1942
The Japanese "Hell Ships"
Towards the end of the war, most prisoners who left Cabanatuan in 1942 were placed on Imperial Japan’s appropriately named “Hell Ships” which sailed the Philippines to other places in the Japanese Empire.
These "Hell Ships" sailed from Manila to their various destinations in Japan, Korea, or China. The Japanese did not mark these ships as being prison ships, so they were targets for American planes and submarines; as such, thousands of Americans who were on these ships met their deaths, and drowned at sea.
The indescribable conditions on these ships are said to be far worse than the conditions endured in "Death March" and Camp O'Donnell.
"Historian Gregory F. Michno shows that by the end of the war, 134
Hell Ships altogether embarked on over 156 voyages that carried about
126,000 Allied POWs (US Commonwealth, and others) to other points in the
Empire. Of these POWs, some 1,540 deaths resulted from conditions on
the Hell Ships. More startling is that over 19,000 Allied POWs were
killed in inadvertent Allied air and submarine attacks on the Hell
ships, which were not marked or communicated as prison vessels to Allied
forces. How many of these 20,000+ unfortunate POW’s were Bataan
survivors?" -- https://bataancampaign.wordpress.com/2020/05/25/remembering-bataan-on-memorial-day-2020/
Of the 1,600 POWs embarked, over 1,000 were lost. Of the 6000 survivors shipped out on another Hell Ship to Korea, only 128 survived at war’s end. ()
For the remaining three years of their captivity, the Defenders of Bataan were spread throughout the various slave labor camps in Japan, Korea, China, and the Philippines until each camp was individually liberated in 1945.
These prisoners again endured brutal captors, with similar conditions and mistreatment as those experienced in the "Death March" and Camp O'Donnell - and the uncertainty of when, if ever, their captivity would end. Coming from the warm tropical climate of the Philippines, the men sent to Japan, Korea and China had to adjust to the sub-freezing temperatures of Northern Asia without the proper personal equipment and indoor heating to survive such cold temperatures. In Manchuria, China, the POW's who died in the winter were placed in an unheated shack for their bodies to freeze because the ground was so frozen and hard that they could not be buried until the spring. (*conversations with veterans)
After they were released, these men were sent to various military
hospitals for physical examinations. Many of their ailments (due to
malnutrition) went undiagnosed, as well as many of the fevers. More importantly, the psychological scars
they suffered were never recognized. (It wasn't until after the
Vietnam War that the US government recognized "Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder" or PTSD as a legitimate disorder.) It is safe to say that each
of these men has carried these scars for the rest of their lives, and
indirectly, so did their families. (*conversations with families)
Through Richards efforts, and that of many others, three monuments have been erected in the Philippines, including the memorial wall at Camp O'Donnell. He spent countless hours volunteering and helping fellow Veteran Survivors and their families - including mine.
In July of 2003, I learned that Richard Gordon passed away, and was interred with full
military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
Since then, as of 6 October 2008, a policy change had been implemented to expand and extend eligibility criteria for the Purple Heart award to prisoners of war who died in captivity after the attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7th, 1941). I truly wish Richard had been alive to see it.
Battling Bastards of Bataan https://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-interview-with-major-richard-m-gordon-bataan-death-march-survivor.htm
More about Richard Gordon: https://www.philippinescouts.org/the-society/in-memoriam/richard-gordon
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Agreements
Basic Humanitarian Law - Missing Persons and the Dead
Situations of conflict as well as natural disasters may generate a large number of human casualties, as well as grave social and administrative disruption. Tracing the missing (I) and identifying the dead (II) are crucial to maintain or restore basic human rights and responsible relief activities. Indeed, these concerns must be integrated from the very beginning into any relief set up, to preserve evidence for future identification of bodies and to limit vulnerability of the missing to further intentional abuses. Restoration of family links is paramount...
The ICRC defines missing persons are “those whose whereabouts are unknown to their families and/or who, on the basis of reliable information, have been reported missing in connection with an international or non-international armed conflict, a situation of internal violence or disturbances or any other situation that may require the intervention of a neutral and independent intermediary.”
Missing persons refer to people who are either dead or alive. This uncertainty is in itself an element of great vulnerability and threat. If alive, they may either be secretly detained or separated from their relatives by sudden displacement, disaster, or accident. In both cases, they shall be granted the protection offered by international humanitarian law to whatever category they could belong to: civilian, displaced, detainee, prisoner of war, wounded and sick, dead, or any other.
Protection of Missing Persons Under the Geneva Conventions
The Geneva Conventions of August 1949 spell out the obligations for parties to international armed conflicts to take every possible measure to elucidate the fate of missing persons, to search for persons who have been reported as missing by the adverse party and to record the information in respect of such persons. (GCI Arts. 19–20; GCIU Arts. 16–17; GCIII Arts. 122–25; GCIV Arts. 136–41; API Arts. 32–33).
Parties to the conflict but also international humanitarian organizations shall take all possible measures to ensure that families know the fate of their relatives. The ICRC has a particular role to play through its Central Tracing Agency, which helps to find missing persons once information on such persons has been collected.
° Article 24: For the purposes of this Convention, “victim” means the disappeared person and any individual who has suffered harm as the direct result of an enforced disappearance. Each victim has the right to know the truth regarding the circumstances of the enforced disappearance, the progress and results of the investigation and the fate of the disappeared person. Each State Party shall take appropriate measures in this regard. Each State Party shall take all necessary measures to search for, locate and release disappeared persons and, in the event of death, to locate, respect and return their remains. Each State Party shall ensure in its legal system that the victims of enforced disappearance have the right to obtain reparation and prompt, fair and adequate compensation.
Under Customary International Humanitarian Law
Rule 98 of the study on customary international humanitarian law published by the ICRC in 2005 (customary IHL study) affirms that enforced disappearance is prohibited, both in international and non-international armed conflicts.
According to Rule 117 of the customary IHL study, “each party to the conflict must take all feasible measures to account for persons reported missing as a result of armed conflict and must provide their family members with any information it has on their fate.” This rule is applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts. The obligation to account for missing persons is consistent with the prohibition of enforced disappearances (Rule 98) and the requirement to respect family life (Rule 105).
Protection of the Dead Under the Geneva Conventions
In international armed conflicts, States Parties have the duty to search for the dead (GCI Art. 15, GCII Art. 18, GCIV Art. 16). They shall also try to collect information in order to identify the dead (GCI Art. 16, API Art. 33.2). International humanitarian law also prescribes that the dead must be respected and given decent burial and that gravesites shall be marked in order to facilitate access to and protection of the graves (GCI Art. 17, API Art. 34.1). Moreover, the remains of the dead shall be respected and returned to their relatives, when possible (API Art. 34.2).
The provisions of international humanitarian law on the dead and their gravesites applicable in international armed conflicts are comprehensive; they apply during and after an armed conflict or in a situation of occupation.
In the context of non-international armed conflicts, the duty to search for the dead is set forth in Article 8 of Additional Protocol II of 1977. There are a few substantive norms on the dead and their gravesites in international humanitarian law with regard to non-international armed conflicts. However, parties to non-international armed conflicts remain bound by general international humanitarian law obligations, such as the prohibition of outrages upon personal dignity and cruel and inhuman treatment.
Under Customary International Humanitarian Law
Rules 112 to 116 of the customary IHL study provide dispositions as to the accounting and the collection, treatment, disposal, and return of the remains of the dead.
Rule 112 states that “whenever circumstances permit, and particularly after an engagement, each party to the conflict must, without delay, take all possible measures to search for, collect and evacuate the dead without adverse distinction.”
This rule is applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts. The ICRC recalls that the obligation to search for and collect the dead is an obligation of means. Each party to the conflict has to take “all possible measures” to search for and collect the dead. This rule applies to all the dead without distinction, regardless of the party to which they belong and whether or not they have taken a direct part in hostilities.
Rule 113 states that “Each party to the conflict must take all possible measures to prevent the dead from being despoiled. Mutilation of dead bodies is prohibited.” This rule is applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts.
Rule 114 states that “Parties to the conflict must endeavour to facilitate the return of the remains of the deceased upon request of the party to which they belong. . . . They must return their personal effects to them.” This rule is only applicable in international armed conflicts.
Rule 115 states that “The dead must be disposed of in a respectful manner and their graves respected and properly maintained.” This rule is applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts. The Geneva Conventions specify that the dead must be buried, if possible, according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged.
Rule 116 prescribes that “with a view to the identification of the dead, each party to the conflict must record all available information prior to disposal and mark the location of the graves.”
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In Summary
Specific evidence pointing to particular graves is reason enough to compel all agencies involved to carry out its legal mandate to “locate, recover and identify missing persons from past conflicts.”
The story of Hershel's death, the continued victimization and inadequate treatment of his remains (for decades), and by extension all the other men, is abominable.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) falls under of the Department of Defense (DOD). The motto is "Fulfilling Our Nation's Promise". Excerpts taken from their website are listed below:
Vision: A world-class workforce fulfills our nation’s obligation by maximizing the number of missing personnel accounted for while ensuring timely, accurate information is provided to their families.
Mission: Provide the fullest possible accounting for our missing personnel to their families and the nation.
Values: Compassion: We conduct our work and communication with empathy.
Integrity: We live our lives with truthfulness and objectivity.
Teamwork: We are committed and willing to do all we can to assist each other, thereby strengthening our collective ability to partner with family organizations, veterans, public and private entities, foreign governments, and academia to achieve our mission.
Respect: We always demonstrate the utmost regard for one another, our partners, and our missing personnel and their families.
Innovation: We apply fresh thinking and continuously improve everything we do.
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Thank you to David Pratt, author, for allowing me to share his epic poem "Bataan".
...and also to John Bear, founder of US/POW/MIA Family Locating, whose invaluable time and efforts have helped so many. His podcasts are a source of a wealth of historical information.
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