Starved Yanks Left To Swim Ashore From Sinking Vessel

This is the sixth in a series by George Weller of the Chicago Daily News Foreign Service on the "Cruise of Death" taken by some 1600 American prisoners from Manila to Southern Japan. Approximately 300 men survived the ordeal. Their stories were gathered in prison camps, rest camps, on hospital ships and at U.S. bases in the Pacific.

In December of 1944 the Japs, reeling under MacArthur's tremendous Philippine offensive, packed 1600 American prisoners -- all heroes of Bataan and Corregidor -- into the three small holds of the Oryoku Maru for shipment to Japan.

The convoy was sneaking up the west coast of Luzon when it was set upon by American submarines and planes and finally had to be abandoned off Olongapo Point. The Japanese passengers were taken off during the hours of darkness on the fourth day and then word was passed that the Americans -- those who had been fortunate enough to survive -- could come up out of the holds in groups of 25 to leave the ship. But, just as the first group was about to go over the side, the ship was again attacked by American planes. All semblance of order vanished as the Japs abandoned ship and the prisoners were left to get ashore by any means possible.

The Americans had spent four horror-filled days with little food, and no water. Many had died of heat, suffocation or at the hands of men driven insane. Those who were able were more like beasts than men when they finally made their way out on deck.

The last American shot by the Japanese while still on the decks of the Oryoku, according to George L. Curtis, 53-year-old native of New Bedford, Mass., and Portsmouth, Ohio, who had been the Packard agent in Manila, was his friend, Scotty" Lees, a Philippine mining engineer whose wife was a school teacher in Freeport, Ill.

"When I got on deck and felt the boat sinking, I saw Scotty a link way off," says Curtis. "I was just starting to go toward him and turned away for a moment to see something. When I turned back he was staggering and I saw the he was shot, for he was bleeding heavily in front."

Dazed from being struck by hatchway’s beams, Curtis barely made his way ashore. An estimated 57 civilians were in the party when it left as prisoners, and less than a dozen are believed to have arrived. More civilians perished from the bomb in the stern of the Oryoku Maru than any other cause

Somehow one of the lifeboats had been lowered and Lieutenant Toshino, in full formal uniform, and Mr. Wada had made their way ashore. The water was full of swimming men, but the Japanese captain still remained at his post on the bridge. He knew a few limping words of English and warned the last prisoners to leave quickly.

There were small fires breaking out in various places. The increasing list had put out the coal dust fire in the hold and the yellow smoke ceased pouring through the hatches.

But suddenly, beside the stern anti-aircraft gun littered with the bodies of the crews killed by strafing U. S. planes with the suffocated American dead piled nearby, the ammunition boxes caught fire. They began to explode. Abruptly the looting of the decks ceased, and all scattered. Some prisoners ran forward to look for life preservers in the cabins of the dead Japanese passengers. All the Japanese except the captain’s immediate circle -- passengers, crew, soldiers -- were gone by lifeboat.

The prisoners pushed open the stateroom doors. Looking in, they saw that theirs were not the only dead of the Oryoku Maru. Huddled together thickly as they huddle in foxholes and cities, the Japanese had died in their staterooms and been left there during the night by those who were already safe on shore.

Chief Boatswain Walter C Smith (San Diego) saw his friend, James Terry, a Navy machinist, also of San Diego, lying under a ladder with his chest torn open, quiet in death. A hand touched him. It was Navy Paymaster O. A. "Mike" Carmichael, another friend from San Diego.

‘I can’t see," said Carmichael. "I seem to be blind.’ Smith tried to lead him toward the ladder. But Carmichael refused to go until he got his jacket. He said his collection of recipes was in the pocket of the jacket. As an escape from talking about food, the prisoners in the Japanese camps often made collections of imaginary receipts, which they swapped and shared like boys trading stamps. The recipe book was the prison equivalent of theaters, concerts and museums.

Smith persuaded Carmichael to mount the ladder, told him he was going to find drinking water and a life jacket and left him leaning blindly against the rail. He came back with the life jacket, put it on Carmichael, and told him to remain while he went away to find water.

All the water taps on the ship had stopped functioning, but in a tiny, secluded tearoom he found a leaky tap. He filled the canteen, and started back for his friend. Carmichael had disappeared. "I searched everywhere from bow to stern, but Mike was nowhere," he said. He never saw him again.

The ammunition ceased exploding, there were now only a dozen or so unwounded men alive on the decks. A man in the water yelled, "Hey, throw us down some shoes." Smith threw him down four pair, which the swimmer tied around his neck, before setting off for the beach. For himself he found another pair of shoes, an officer’s cap, two spoons, a canteen and some Japanese cigarettes. He filled himself up on water, put the cigarettes in the empty canteen, and went to the rail.

The planes began to come back, and for a moment we thought that the men in the water were going to be strafed. But they waved energetically to the planes. The pilots came down low, throttled back to see who was in the water. They must have seen that it was Americans, for they swooped up over the small party that was gathering on the Olongapo beach, and they did not strafe the shore. Smith let himself down over the side and struck out for the beach.

Possibly as many as 30 men may have died reaching shore. There would have been many more but for the fact that cool water followed by a footing on land, with the ever-reviving hope that they would not go to Japan, brought up the morale of the prisoners with a bound. Men began to help each other. Lieutenant Colonel William R. Craig was far gone from heat exhaustion and dehydration. Lieutenant Colonel William North tied him to a board and swain him ashore. Naval Warrant Officer Jeremiah V. Crews of San Diego, a big man and a good swimmer, went into the water with a life jacket strapped on over his shoulders.

A last effort had been made by the men who left the aft hold, including Major John Fowler of Los Angles, to pile the bodies in rice sacks, two to a sack. As the Oryoku Maru began to burn, the bodies on deck could still he seen. Some men who were wounded got a shot of morphine before they went over the rail from Lieutenant Commander Clyde Welsh of Chicago.