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Arthur Wermuth didn't look like a U.S. Army
officer. Sporting a mustache and Vandyke beard, the former
football star from South Dakota endured his baptism of combat in
the last week of 1941 and into first week of 1942. Departing
Manila on the day after Christmas with the 150 men of Company D,
57th Infantry (Philippine Scouts), he had been ordered by Colonel
George Clark to put his small force in the lines on Northern Luzon
and "Dig in and hold!.
Facing Wermuth's small and generally
untrained but equally determined force of Philippine Scouts was an
entire division of Japanese, rapidly pressing south after landing
on the northern coast of Luzon. After ten days of resistance,
Captain Wermuth no longer had a force to command--only 37 of his
soldiers had survived. They, along with other units of General
Jonathan Wainwright's Northern Luzon force had been finally forced
to fall back.
Meanwhile,
General Wainwright aligned his forces south of the the Calaguiman
River which flowed from nearly-mile-high Mount Natib which splits
the Bataan Peninsula, eastward into Manila Bay. The river was a
defining geographical feature in what became known as the Abucay
Line, a final defensive position in efforts to hold out against
Japanese General Homma's advance down the east side of Bataan,
until promised reinforcements arrived. Straddling the river was
the important junction barrio of Kalaguiman.
On January 9, when the Japanese launched the
first in a long series of ferocious attacks against the Abucay
Line, Company A of the 57th Infantry (Philippine Scouts) held
positions near Kalaguiman, which was north of the Abucay Line and
the main force of defenders. The Filipino soldiers and their
American officers were battle-weary and demoralized in the face of
continuing, and seemingly futile resistance. To bolster moral,
Captain Wermuth, whose Company D had been nearly annihilated, was
sent to to join them. Three days earlier Wermuth had demonstrated
his uncanny combat abilities by proceeding alone past thousands of
Japanese troops to reach an outpost isolated behind enemy lines.
It had been the beginning of an incredible series of actions that
would make the imposing figure of a man, who went into combat with
a Thompson sub-machine gun slung over his shoulder and two .45
caliber pistols holstered like a western gunfighter, one of the
first American heroes of World War II.
By the following night the continuing
onslaught had forced the Philippine Scouts further south and the
Japanese had entered and controlled Kalaguiman. At Allied
headquarters it was
determined that the only effective way to delay further advance
was to destroy the barrio and then blow the wooden bridge across which
enemy troops continued their advance south. Captain Wermuth volunteered
to do the job.
Setting out before dawn, and toting two
five-gallon drums of gasoline, Wermuth slipped past infiltrated
enemy snipers, deep behind what was now the enemy line, and into Kalaguiman. With the wind blowing from the north, he crept all the
way through the town, now inhabited by hundreds of Japanese
soldiers, most of them still quietly sleeping in the huts of local
villagers that their invasion had displaced to the surrounding
jungles. Behind him, back behind the friendly lines, Filipino
artillerymen were preparing their big guns for a major fire
mission. The plan, worked out earlier that morning, was to begin
shelling the city five minutes after the first wisps of smoke from
Wermuth's fire were seen. The delay was all the time that would be
allotted Wermuth to blow the bridge with a satchel charge of TNT
he also carried, and effect his escape.
Creeping quietly all the way through the
city, Wermuth reached the northern limits and then retraced his
steps, spreading his gasoline against the walls of thatched-roof
hamlets, inside which many enemy still slept despite the fact that
it was nearly 10 a.m. The dangerous task at last done, he struck a
match and began to head for the all-important bridge. The ensuing
fire alerted the entire enemy force, many of whom streamed into
the hard-packed dirt main street aflame and dying. Others began
quickly to search for the intruder. Creeping through a dark alley,
Wermuth found his way blocked by three enemy soldiers. So far the
shadows had masked his presence but he knew
time was running out. He also realized also that any attempt to shoot
them down would expose his location and subject him to immediate
and merciless gunfire. He glanced nervously at his watch as
precious seconds ticked away. With four minutes left he started to
raise his Thompson when the three Japanese finally moved away.
Creeping quickly through the alley, he finally broke into
the bright sunshine and began a desperate zigzag race towards the
bridge.
Bullets began to spray all around him, one
of them drilling into Wermuth's leg and forcing him to stumble
briefly. Ignoring the pain he raced on, even as the first rounds
of what might now be not-so-friendly artillery began to rain down
on Kalaguiman. Fortunately, the firepower did distract the enemy
enough to give Wermuth the time he needed to plant his charges,
blow the bridge, and then carefully crawl his way back through the
hidden Japanese snipers to reach friendly lines. There, doctors
removed a small-caliber bullet that had lodged in his calf, barely
missing bone, and Captain Wermuth earned his first Purple Heart.
For Captain Arthur Wermuth, it had been a
risky but necessary venture. Behind him, beyond the burning ruins
of the bridge and inside the smoldering ashes of Kalaguiman, lay
the blackened bodies of more than 300 Japanese
soldiers.
Heroes
of Bataan
The fighting along the Abucay Line that
second week of January was fierce, brutal, and critical to the
efforts to hold. Captain Arthur Wermuth's
heroic actions in destroying the bridge at Kalaguiman only
temporarily delayed the Japanese advance on the Allied main line
of resistance. On the night and following day of January 11-12,
not far distant from Kalaguiman, Second Lieutenant Arthur Sandy Nininger found himself
confronted by hordes of advancing enemy soldiers. Though assigned
to Company A, 57th Infantry, during the brief respite from combat
Wermuth's action had provided, Nininger had attached himself to
Company K in efforts to recapture positions along the
line, taken when the Japanese infiltrated a cane field.
On the night of January 11, following an
artillery barrage, hoards of Japanese had attacked the line in a
Banzai charge. Waves of screaming enemy soldiers streamed into the
lines in the face of intense fire, men of the leading wave
throwing their bodies over barbed wire barricades to create
"bridges" over which the following waves could pass.
Narcisco Salbadin manned a water-cooled machine gun in efforts to
beat back the enemy. He killed dozens of attackers but each time
one fell, it seemed two more rushed forward to replace him. When
his machine gun jammed, Salbadin began firing with his .45 pistol,
killing five. His thumb was severed when one Japanese soldier
attacked him with a bayonet, but despite the loss he maintained
his grip, wrested the rifle from the attacker, and then reversed
it to ram the bayonet into the enemy soldier's chest.
As the Banzai charge at last began to falter,
the Scouts turned offensive to throw back the enemy and regained
ground now claimed by the Japanese. Lieutenant Nininger's subsequent Medal of Honor citation
reveals his own uncommon heroism: "In
the hand-to-hand fighting which followed, Second Lieutenant
Nininger repeatedly forced his way to and into the hostile
position. Though exposed to heavy enemy fire, he continued to
attack with rifle and hand grenades and succeeded in destroying
several enemy groups in foxholes, and enemy snipers. Although
wounded three times, he continued his attacks until he was killed
after pushing alone far within the enemy position." In
that action Second Lieutenant Nininger became the first member of
the U.S. Army to earn the Medal of Honor in World War II.
Ultimately, the Japanese advance had been temporarily halted, but
the charge had left hundreds of Japanese snipers alive, and hidden
in trees and trenches all along the Abucay line. The task of
finding, and destroying them was going to take days of deadly
fighting.
For Arthur Wermuth, the continuing attacks mean
no time to recover from his own wounds. Five U.S. Marines,
displaced from their own unit during the battle for Bataan,
arrived at the 57th Infantry Headquarters. Sergeant Bill Eckstein
described his men as on "detached service with the U.S.
Army to teach them how to fight." Eckstein and his
comrades were quickly welcomed by Wermuth, who wasted little time
putting them into action.
On January 15, Captain Wermuth deployed what
was left of his company along the cane field that bordered the left
side of the main road between Kalaguiman and Abucay. He then
dispatched two patrols to begin burning the field, leading one
patrol himself and placing the other patrol under the charge of
Marine Sergeant Eckstein.
Eckstein's patrol reached the center of the
field first, an elevated clearing, and the displaced Marine raised
up to peer beyond. Suddenly five rounds slammed into his body,
severely wounding him. Marine privates Bill Brown and Al Sheldon
crawled forward to their sergeant, amid a continuing hail of enemy
fire. "Get out of here with the Sarge," Brown
shouted, even as scores of Japanese raced, firing as they ran, at
his exposed position in the clearing. While Sheldon dragged his
sergeant to safety, Brown knelt and coolly snapped off deadly
single-shots for five minutes, dropping Jap after Jap. Then his
luck began to run out. More than 100 Japanese raced to the edge of
the clearing, setting up a machine-gun to rake Brown's position.
Repeatedly hit by enemy fire, Brown maintained his position,
holding an entire Japanese company at bay until his sergeant had
been removed to safety.
For his heroic actions to save the life
of his sergeant, at the cost of his own life, Private First
Class Robert Joseph Brown became the FIRST of 31 U.S. Marines
to be awarded the Army's Distinguished Service Cross in World
War II.
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For extraordinary heroism in action in the vicinity of Abucay, Bataan, Philippine Islands, on 15 January 1942. While on legal leave from his proper unit, Private First Class Brown voluntarily joined a detail from the 57th Infantry which was charged with the mission of destroying an enemy position through which snipers were infiltrating into our lines. During the performance of this mission this intrepid soldier, observing that one of his companions had been severely wounded, and was unable to move, proceeded without orders in the face of enemy machine gun fire at close range in an effort to evacuate the casualty. Silencing a hostile gun by a well-placed hand grenade, and inflicting several additional casualties on another enemy group which prevented his reaching the vicinity of the wounded man, Private First Class Brown had thereby disclosed his position to the enemy and was mortally wounded by the ensuing enemy fire. |
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For Captain Arthur Wermuth, watching that young Marine's
valiant stand was at once both inspiring and heart-rending. Even when Private
Brown was dead, the Japanese continued to vent their hatred by raking his body
with machine-gun fire. Yelling above the fray, Wermuth shouted, "Jock,
burn the field," and then to his men, "Shoot every little
son-of-a-bitch who comes running out." By sunset, 207 dead Japanese
lay in and around the cane field.
"JOCK" was Sergeant Crispin Jacob, Captain
Wermuth's closest friend. Described by Wermuth as "a huge black native
from Zamboanga (a southern Philippine Island)," the
half-Filipino/half-oriental giant would join his commander in exploits that
would become legendary.
General Douglas MacArthur awarded Captain Wermuth the
Distinguished Service for his actions in and around Kalaguiman during the week
of 10 to 16 January 1942. On February 23, 1942, TIME magazine detailed
Wermuth's exploits under the headline "One Man Blitz", describing
one of Wermuth's missions:
"On one of his reconnaissance patrols Captain Wermuth,
from a foxhole, spotted a long line of Japanese crossing a ridge. 'I
worked them over with my Tommy gun,' he said, 'and got at least 30
like ducks in a Coney Island shooting gallery.' Attracted by the
shooting, five Filipino Scouts rushed to the scene, helped Arthur Wermuth
polish off '50 or 60' more of the enemy party."
By the time that story gave the American public one of
its first LIVING heroes of the war, throughout the Philippines Captain Arthur
Wermuth had become known as the ONE MAN ARMY OF BATAAN. Among the
Japanese, who now had placed a reward, dead or alive, on Arthur Wermuth or his
band of 84 volunteer snipers, Wermuth was known by another nickname--Bataan
ne Yurei....
The GHOST of BATAAN
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Sergeant Crispin Jock Jacob and Captain
Arthur Wermuth
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When the stories of Captain Arthur Wermuth began
circulating back in the United States, they contained the information that the
One Man Army of Bataan has "Absolutely accounted for at least
116 Japanese dead and an inestimable number of prisoners." Hearing
this, Colonel Royal Page Davidson, Superintendent of Northwestern Military and
Naval Academy at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, told Time magazine, "Is
that all? He'll have to do better than that!" No doubt it was a
comment made with both pride and expectation. Colonel Davidson knew Wermuth
well as a young man, and Wermuth would in fact do better than that
before he was done.
The son of a World War I veteran and prominent Chicago
family that subsequently moved to a ranch in South Dakota, Arthur Wermuth grew
up in that tough Old West fashion. During summers he worked the ranch,
and the rest of the year attended classes at Northwestern, where he excelled
at football, in at nothing else. In fact, Wermuth's poor grades and, perhaps
even more his rough lifestyle, preempted his initial goal of attending West
Point. Wermuth once told a friend that is was because of his "old-fashioned
Dutch temper" and "because of these mitts (that) have gotten
me into plenty of trouble" that he was forced to settle for a ROTC
commission while attending classes at North Park University.
In 1940 Wermuth wrote to the War Department to request
active duty, and arrived in the Philippines in January 1941 to assist in
training the Philippine Scouts. After Pearl Harbor was attacked he was quickly
promoted to Captain. Thus began a month-long campaign that turned the former
football star into the subject of one of the few stories in the first few
months of World War II to spark the hopes of our nation. The public loved the
legend, for all of America was desperate for any good news from the war zone,
and hungered for epochal heroes. Wermuth provided both, but it also made him
one of Japan's most hated, and singled-out enemies.
Wermuth's actions on the Abucay line were just a
beginning of a campaign that saw him develop and train a team of snipers that,
turning guerrilla, began to wage war on the Japanese with the same jungle
tactics they had honed themselves. Author Lowell Thomas noted in 1943, in one
of the first books written about the heroes of World War II:
"His fame during the Bataan fighting was featured
by his exploits behind the enemy lines, that being his favorite theater of
action: deep in the rear of the enemy positions, where an American soldier
would be least expected and where the Jap hunting would be the best. Wermuth
had a weird knack of getting through, an uncanny skill typical of the
tactics of guerilla warfare, skill in passing through enemy forces, creeping
and shooting his way through when necessary. He had a genius for concealment
and cover, and besides, he was thoroughly familiar with the terrain."
On one of Wermuth's solo missions deep behind enemy
lines, while hidden in dense jungle, a Japanese patrol passed by with one
member nearly stepping on him. Wermuth noted the patrol was headed towards the
Allied lines--and his comrades, and quickly stood in the darkness to join the
enemy column. Hunching low, he followed along for miles in the dark jungle,
even "Shushhhhing" the Japanese soldier ahead of him when the man
stumbled and created too much noise. When the patrol neared the fortified
positions of the Philippine Scouts, fearing he might be taken under fire by
his own comrades, Wermuth intentionally stumbled into the soldier ahead of
him, handing off a live grenade before quickly melting back into the jungle.
One enemy soldier died in the subsequent blast, the remainder died when their
position was thus exposed to the Scouts who promptly opened fire. These, and
countless missions like it, are what earned Wermuth the Japanese title, Ghost
of Bataan.
More often than not, however, Wermuth's solo-missions
were at the least carried out with his comrade, Jock. Every time the intrepid
Captain headed behind the lines, Jock would plead his case and ultimately get
permission to participate. In all too many cases, it was a fortunate decision
by Wermuth, for again and again Jock's innate jungle sense proved invaluable.
Also, more than once, the Filipino giant who stood 6'4" and weighted in
at 220, saved his Captain's life. Such was the case in what might well have
been Wermuth's most famous escapade.
During the efforts to hold the line on Bataan, at one
point it became obvious that the Japanese had located and tapped into the
wires that provided communications between Allied units. Again when volunteers
were needed, Jock and Wermuth set out to find the source of the deadly problem
that provided the enemy with intimate knowledge of Allied strength, positions,
and movement.
Daringly once again penetrating enemy-held jungle and
muddy paddies, the two men searched in vain for the wire tap. Returning in
disappointment to their own lines, Captain Wermuth found the tap by accident.
While moving down an overgrown trail a hidden wire caught Wermuth's foot,
tripping him and causing him to fall into an equally camouflaged ditch. He
landed directly in the lap of an equally surprised Japanese soldier who was
monitoring Allied transmissions through head phones.
Scrambling backward as quickly as he could, Wermuth drew
his revolver in a fashion reminiscent of the gun fights of the old west, even
as the Japanese soldier reached for his own. Wermuth won the draw and, his aim
true, quickly killed his opponent.
The
immediate threat dealt with, Wermuth was so fascinated by the Japanese
equipment in the hidden position, he never saw the two other Japanese soldiers
that crept up on him until they were almost ready to pounce on him. This time
Wermuth's draw was too slow, and a Japanese bayonet pierced his arm, chipping
bone and pinning him to the wall of the ditch. "Jock," he
yelled, "Japanese...two more down here."
Crispin raced to his commander's aid but, finding the
two Japanese soldiers in a virtual hand-to-hand struggle with Wermuth,
hesitated to pull the trigger for fear of hitting his comrade. So Jock used
the strength of his uncommon size to bludgeon one enemy with the butt of his
rifle, then turned and shot the other. Wermuth was nearly passed out from the
excruciating pain in his arm, but Jock removed the bayonet, freed the captain,
and then carried him safely back to his own lines for treatment--and another
Purple Heart. The problem of the enemy-tapped lines was solved, and shortly
thereafter one of the cards that came packaged with war gum of the period
immortalized that brief skirmish by Jock and Wermuth in a camouflaged ditch
behind enemy lines.
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Reverse of Wermuth
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Throughout February and March, Captain
Wermuth, Jock, and other of Wermuth's highly trained guerilla
fighters continued their heroic efforts to stall the enemy advance.
Despite the futility of that valiant campaign, their work put the
enemy on edge and certainly slowed the inevitable collapse of the
Bataan defense. Estimates were that at least 500 enemy were killed
by the small team of snipers, and generally it was concluded that
the estimate was overly conservative.
Late in March Wermuth's snipers were assigned
to recapture the vital heights of Mount Pucat. It was a near-suicide
mission, and Wermuth called for volunteers. Virtually every member
of his command who was still alive stepped forward.
While slowly working their way through the
jungle, a hidden enemy soldier rushed Wermuth at the point of his
bayonet. Wermuth slammed his huge fists into the Jap's face as the
two of them fell to the ground in a life and death struggle. Pain
surged through Wermuth's body when the struggling opponent slammed a
knee into his groin, but Wermuth drew his own knife and killed his
enemy. The patrol moved out again, killing sixty-five more invaders
over the 36-hour trek to the mountain. Once the objective was
reached, despite a valiant attempt, the attack failed. For more than
half of Wermuth's men, it was indeed a suicide mission. This drastic
depletion of his forces signaled what would soon be the end of
Wermuth's unprecedented success on Bataan.
A few days later near Anayason Point, machine
gun fire from dug-in positions on the other side of a small stream
held up the advance. Wermuth led his snipers across the stream,
fully exposed to a withering fusillade of enemy bullets. While out
in front and in the open however, Wermuth had just jerked the ring
from a grenade with his teeth and lobbed the orb when he was struck
in the left breast by an enemy round. The bullet chipped a rib
before passed through a lung, once again sidelining the One Man
Army--this time far more seriously.
Wermuth was carried to an aid station where
the bullet was removed, but he languished in pain and was near death
for days while hemorrhaging continued. Slowly he did begin to
heal, though he was still week and the hole in his chest was oozing
puss ten days later when, against doctors' orders Captain Wermuth
strapped his revolvers on his hips, slung his Thompson sub-machine
gun over his shoulder, and returned to the field to join his men.
What little remained of Wermuth's fighters were holding desperately
to a bitterly contested piece of ground on Signal Hill between
Mariveles and Bagac. Wermuth, despite his courage and determination,
arrived with too little and far too late. He was still too weak to
accomplish much, and on April 9 during the retreat down Trail Ten,
behind Mount Sumat, the One Man Army of Bataan slipped in the
wet grass, tumbled down the jagged mountain, and was rendered
unconscious when his head hit a rock.
When Wermuth regained
consciousness he found himself at Field Hospital Number 2, now in
Japanese hands. The Ghost of Bataan had finally been
captured.
Following torturous days in the infamous Bataan
Death March, Captain Wermuth was held prisoner of the Japanese,
who despite the fact that their most hated enemy was now under their
control, feared the One Man Army. Elliott Junior Smelser, a
fellow POW recalled in 1993 of his own captivity: "The first
year of my captivity I worked on building an airfield for the
Japanese. Life was not bad because they were afraid of the Major in
Charge. His name was Major Wermuth and the Japanese called him
'Wermuth the Lion'."
After spending time at Cabanatuan, Lipa,
Bilibid, and then back to Cabanatuan, in December 1944, Major Arthur
Wermuth joined 1,618 of his fellow prisoners aboard the unmarked
Japanese prison ship Oryoku Maru, for a voyage to prison
labor camps in Japan. On the night of December 14, American
airplanes bombed the Oryoku Maru, little realizing more than
1,500 Allied prisoners were aboard. The Japanese beached the vessel,
leaving the prisoners and only a few guards on board despite the
fact that all of them knew Allied planes would return soon.
The
American planes from the U.S.S. Hornet did indeed return the
following morning, and, still unaware that the ship contained Allied
prisoners, the pilots unleashed a torrent of bombs that killed 300
POWs. Following the attack, the Japanese guard at last allowed the
prisoners to abandon ship and swim to shore. Many never made it.
Those who did created the pattern of white spots seen on the water
in this photograph that was taken from an American airplane from the
Hornet shortly after the attack.
Major Wermuth was among the survivors of the
first Hell Ship, swimming ashore at Olongapo. All the
prisoners were quickly rounded up by their captors, and transported
to San Fernando in box cars. Two days after Christmas the Brazil
Maru and Enoura Maru crammed more than 1,000 prisoners
into their small and filthy holds. The Brazil's most recent
cargo had been horses, and the hold was still soiled with
un-removed manure. Wermuth was among those that suffered hell in the
belly of Enoura Maru, the hold of which was filled with dust
and residue from its recent cargo of coal. On December 31 the two
ships reached the Formosan harbor of Takao. The Japanese held up
there to celebrate the New Year, leaving the prisoners cramped below
with little food or water, and no medical treatment, though nearly
all prisoners were sick and many had already died.
The Enoura Maru was still at Takao on
January 9, 1945, when aircraft from the U.S.S. Hornet again
attacked an unmarked Japanese ship, unaware that the bombs they
dropped into the front hold immediately killed one half of the 500
Americans crammed into that space. Nearly every man who wasn't
killed, including Major Wermuth, were wounded by flying shrapnel. It
was friendly fire that netted Wermuth his FOURTH Purple Heart.
For three days the Japanese left the bodies of
the American dead where they fell, littering a hold still crammed
with wounded and bleeding American prisoners. Finally, on January
12, the dead were carried out and the surviving 890 prisoners were
transferred to the Brazil Maru for the final leg of their
journey to Japan. By the time the prisoners reached Moji, Japan,
there were fewer than 500 survivors from among the 1,691 POWs who
had boarded the Oryoku Maru less than a month before.
Within three months, another 100 prisoners died of disease and/or
wounds received on that tragic journey from prison camps in the
Philippines to labor camps in Japan. Fewer than 400 survived the
war.
Early in 1945 the U.S. Army changed the status
of Major Wermuth from Prisoner of War to Killed in Action, believing
the man who had become legendary as the One Man Army of Bataan three
years earlier was now a casualty of Japanese brutality.
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