Intelligence reports, no matter how raw and incomplete, are crucial sources of information that helped military planning during conflict. Bringing out the accounts and dispatching them to authorities for substantial leads help strategists shape the field missions.
As assessment made by Maj. Gen. C.A. Willoughby, GSC, US Army, which has formed part of the ‘Intelligence Activities in the Philippines During the Japanese Occupation’ (1948), includes a backgrounder of Davao Penal Colony as a prisoner of war (POW) camp submitted by Lt. Col. Stephen M. Mellnik.
Lt. Col. Mellnik underscored some of the difficulties to be addressed, such as making contact with prisoners. The camp, in general, was easy to access for guerrilla units given that it was lightly guarded but its location was a challenge. Maj. Gen. Willoughby summarized the report:
“This camp is located 52 km northeast of Davao, and about 12 km from Davao Gulf. There is one second-class road to it from Davao, with numerous bridges. The camp is in the center of a jungle and was originally built to house Filipino convicts with 20-year sentences. The camp is the shape of a rectangle, one by two miles in dimension
“It contains 2,000 American POWs, of whom 600 are officers. About 1,000 go to work each day in the colony grounds. The camp also serves as a labor pool for outside work details for the Japs. These include 1) 20 men in the motor repair and truck drivers’ pool in Davao City; 2) 30 men making salt on Davao Gulf; 3) 100 men on a Japanese abaca plantation; [and] 4) variable number (of) stevedoring in the Davao dock area.
“The 1,000 who work in the camp itself are divided into about 50 groups of various sizes, from 150 repairing the road to Davao, to three or four doing Jap. K.P. [kitchen patrol].”
With a sizeable population of inmates and war prisoners confined in the camp, Dapecol was a beehive of activities. Details were scattered in many part of the territory and the visibility of security officers was confined to supervising and directing the work of prisoners. Many of the assigned tasks included cutting of trees, gathering firewood and stripping abaca—which made the securing of premises impossible.
“[The sentry],” the report said, “merely counts noses at noon and prior to return to camp. The orchard and coffee picking details had no sentries, as those details were composed of old and sick officers, too weak to do much work, much less escape… All POW are brought back of the prison compound at 6 p.m. each day. The compound is surrounded by barbed wire, with tall sentry placed at intervals.”
Around the garrison, there were over two hundred fifty Japanese that secured the premises. The security officers included mess and administrative personnel, outpost guards, work detail guards, and an interior camp guard. Overall, there were about fifty different work details.
1943, however, would enter history books as the time when the greatest escape from the Pacific theatre by a bunch of POWs was made. Dwight Zon Zimmerman, reporting for the Defense Media Network in 2013, wrote:
“On the morning of April 4, 1943, two POW work details made up of Lt. Cmdr. Melvyn H. McCoy, U.S. Navy; Maj. Mike Dobervich, Capt. Austin Shofner, and 1st Lt. Jack Hawkins, U.S. Marine Corps; Maj. Stephen Mellnik, Lt. Leo Boelens, Sgt. Paul Marshall, and Sgt. Robert Spielman, U.S. Army; and Capt. William Edwin Dyess and Capt. Sam Grashio, U.S. Army Air Corps, began their trek through the compound of Davao Penal Colony. To the Japanese guards, it was just another morning watching two groups of POWs on their way to tend the fields…
“Thirty minutes later they rendezvoused at a plower’s shack where they had secretly hidden supplies… they [met] with two local Filipinos who had agreed to guide them through the impenetrable swamp around Dapecol… At 6:00 p.m. the guards began counting. Then they did a recount – then a third counting… The unthinkable had happened – 10 American POWs had escaped!…
“The first two days in the swamp were hell for the weakened escapees. Despite having a compass, initially they got lost and found themselves going in circles… Compass readings taken at regular intervals ensured they maintained a northeasterly course.
“But, on their second day of freedom… the morale of some of the exhausted men, some sick and delirious, collapsed. Dyess… knew he should say something to restore the situation but felt the better person for that was the most religious member of the group, Sam Grashio… to lead them in prayer. Grashio, a Catholic, went to his knees and began reciting the ‘Memorare,’ a prayer to the Virgin Mary, pausing after each sentence, allowing the others to repeat it:
“’Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence I fly unto you O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to you I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in your mercy and kindness, hear and answer me. Amen.’”
A miracle took place; the boys eluded their pursuers and made their way to freedom.
