How a group of New Zealand Army prevented a massacre in Vietnam

ANZAC = AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND ARMED FORCES COMBINED

How a group of New Zealand gunners prevented a massacre of Anzac soldiers during the Battle of Long Tan in Vietnam - The Listener

NOTED.CO.NZ|BY NOTED

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Heroic stories from the war in Vietnam are little remembered, but the actions of a group of New Zealand gunners 50 years ago saved the massacre of almost 100 Anzac troops.

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Anzac soldiers commemorate the Battle of Long Tan in 1969 with the dedication of a memorial cross on the site. Three New Zealanders, attached to an Australian regiment, were directly involved in the 1966 battle on a rubber plantation. Photo/Noel Bell collection courtesy www.vietnamwar.govt.nz

Pinned down by enemy fire in a Vietnamese rubber plantation, 21-year-old Willie Walker thought his number was up. Confronting his company of barely 100 soldiers was a heavily armed force of 2500 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese, some just 10m away. It seemed only a matter of time before he and his New Zealand and Australian mates were overwhelmed.

The battle had been raging for almost four hours in torrential rain. Thunder and lightning added to the intensity of the fierce firefight.

“It was just nonstop bedlam,” Walker recalls. “Tracers, machine-gun fire, mortar fire and artillery fire. But we managed to put into place what we trained for.”

What became known as the Battle of Long Tan, on August 18, 1966, was the bloodiest clash involving New Zealand and Australian soldiers in the entire war – 18 were killed and 24 wounded – but the heroic actions of New Zealand gunners would be instrumental in preventing a massacre of Anzac troops.

Vietnam veterans marked the 50th anniversary of the epic encounter at gatherings in Wellington and Canberra this month. In New Zealand, where public disenchantment persists with our involvement in the war, few would have been aware of it. But for the men who survived that dreadful day and returned to a largely indifferent homeland, it was a big deal.

From left, Murray Broomhall, Morrie Stanley, Willie Walker. Photo/Supplied

There is no question that what happened at Long Tan, in Phuoc Tuy Province, southeast of Saigon, was a defining moment in the lives of the men, some barely out of their teens at the time. Many have battled the depression and despair that beset so many Vietnam veterans. Some, such as Aucklander Morrie Stanley, regarded as one of the heroes of Long Tan, have fallen to sickness or old age. The remaining members of that diminished band of brothers are in their late sixties or early seventies now, but the memories of that day and how they acquitted themselves are still as sharp as ever.

Pat Duggan was deployed to Vietnam as a signaller with 161 Battery, Royal New Zealand Artillery. He was only 19, so he needed parental consent. “Mum refused point blank but Dad knew that the form only required one parent to sign, so he did just that. I don’t think Mum ever forgave him.”

He didn’t even know where Vietnam was at the time but saw the war as an adventure. “It didn’t hit home until I was on the aircraft taking me there that I might not come home.”

Another young recruit was 20-year-old Murray Broomhall, who saw it as his duty to go to Vietnam and “do what the legitimate government of New Zealand ordered me to do”. By mid-1966, the pair were in Nui Dat where 161 Battery operated alongside the Australian Task Force as well as American army and air force units.

Within a week they were in the thick of the action. Duggan was deployed as a signaller with Australian troops providing support for the Americans who were building a road near the Bien Hoa airbase when four battalions of Viet Cong attacked.

“I was scared shitless,” he says. “Flares were dropping right into our area and in the harsh white glare I felt like a sitting duck,” he remembers.

The action lasted most of the night and in the morning, his ears still ringing, Duggan got his first look at the enemy. Three Viet Cong were lying in the track no more than 10m from his position: one had been shot under the chin, another several times in the chest and “a third poor bugger had taken two bullets in the legs and had bled to death.”

Broomhall, meanwhile, attached to the Australian army contingent at Nui Dat, joined a three-man forward observation party with Walker and Stanley, an artillery captain, who was in command.

At 35, Stanley was an experienced officer, held in the highest regard and but for his skill none of the 108 troops besieged in the rubber plantation might have survived.

Walker. Photo/Supplied

Mortar attacks

The first inkling of trouble had come two nights earlier when Viet Cong troops launched mortar attacks on the base at Nui Dat. New Zealand military historian Ian McGibbon, who has written extensively on the war, told the Listener that intention was not entirely clear, but it seems they wanted to overrun the base before it was fully operational and the mortar attacks were part of the preparations.

The following day, B Company of 6 Battalion Royal Australian Regiment fanned out into the countryside east of Nui Dat to find the mortars. They were relieved by D company the next day. Many of the troops, including Stanley, Walker and Broomhall, had been looking forward to a camp concert featuring Australian singers Little Pattie and Col Joye, but found themselves out on patrol instead, listening to the strains of the concert several kilometres away. “Everyone was pissed off,” Broomhall recalls with feeling.

As they made their way through a rubber plantation, they were assailed by heavy fire from Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers, who outnumbered them more than 20 to one.

Before he died, at the age of 79, in 2010, Stanley described the scene: “It was like an exceptionally violent thunderstorm, supplemented by the crack of the rifles and machine-gun fire and the noise of detonating shells. Rain and the intense gunfire caused the area to be shrouded in smoke, steam and fog. It really was bedlam.”

Amid the chaos and confusion, it fell largely to Stanley to direct artillery fire from the 18 New Zealand, Australian and American guns at Nui Dat, five kilometres away, onto the attackers, who were so close to the embattled Anzacs that one misdirected shot would have hit the men he was trying to save.

“I realised how important it was that my communications remained effective and that the guns were able to maintain … constant and accurate fire,” Stanley was later to write. “I needed the comfort of knowing that my battery commander Harry Honnor, an experienced gunner, was on the end of a radio and could provide constant support for me.

“I had to overcome my dread that I would make a mistake.”

Stanley praised Walker, his radio operator, for keeping the set operational “under the most trying conditions”.

For his part, Walker has nothing but the highest praise for Stanley’s actions that day.

“He had a hell of a job trying to gauge where the shells were falling in the rain and the bloody bullets whistling around.

“You couldn’t keep your head up too long looking to see where the artillery fell, but he was pretty calm, I thought.”

Walker has three vivid memories of the battle: of tracer fire “about three or four feet above ground level, so it was a matter of keeping the head down as much as you could”; of bugles that told you “another bloody banzai charge” was coming, and of the weather conditions – the rain, the lightning and the mud.

Ken Ford, left, and Graeme Williams with an American M60 tank.

A prayer or two

As the afternoon wore on, Walker says, things were looking pretty grim.

“I got the feeling that we were not going to make it out of this and I was getting really pissed off, so I think I said a prayer or two and I thought of my family especially. Then moments later the Company Sergeant Major came around asking if we had any spare ammunition and I thought, ‘Christ, this is it. We are down to our last few rounds.’

“So we gave him what we had and we were left with just one magazine each.”

The gravity of the situation was not lost on Stanley, who outwardly, at least, remained as stoic as ever.

“I think many of us were uncertain whether we would [get out] or not,” he later recalled. “I was concentrating on what I was doing and really had no time to think about that.

Back at Nui Dat, Duggan was also in the thick of the action, as 161 Battery gunners fired some 1100 rounds of 105mm high explosive at the enemy over nearly four hours using a procedure called “danger close”, which required every bubble on the gun sights to be exactly right.

The monsoon weather was playing havoc at the base. Lightning strikes took out vital communications systems and the gunners sometimes lost contact with their command post. Lightning also struck two soldiers, leaving them dazed.

“The noise was intense,” recalls Duggan. “To the untrained eye it would probably have looked like hell on earth and total confusion, but that was certainly not the case. We were all pitching in to help and the fire support we were providing was done in a very professional manner.

“Even the cooks were on the position, ladling out soup to the guys, and the Commander of V Force in Saigon, Colonel Smith, who had come down to visit the battery, found himself rolling his sleeves up and helping.”

Ford on patrol in a rubber plantation.

Tough decisions

As the casualties mounted, Stanley had to make some hard decisions, including disregarding a request from a desperate Australian platoon commander. Sergeant Bob Buick, who had taken command of 11 Platoon after his commander was killed, asked him to bring down fire on top of his own position. With only 12 men left out of 28 and under attack on three sides, Buick was gambling that an artillery barrage would kill more Vietnamese than the remnants of his platoon.

Stanley thought otherwise. With pinpoint accuracy, he directed the shells to land almost on top of the Vietnamese, allowing Buick and his troops to beat a hasty retreat.

The scene was witnessed by Second Lieutenant Dave Sabben, the Australian commander of 12 Platoon, which was also attempting to rescue them.

“They were haunted men,” he recalls. “They were out of ammunition, carrying their wounded on their backs and completely emotionally drained.”

Sabben eventually managed to get the walking wounded of 11 Platoon plus his own men back to their Company HQ, which itself was still trapped in the rubber plantation and about to face a fierce enemy onslaught.

“We saw them coming through the mist and the gloom. They would charge, fall to the ground, and then get up and charge again. It looked as if the dead men were coming to life. The buggers just kept on coming and I wondered whether we were going to survive.”

Broomhall, who at this stage was acting as the section commander of the Company HQ machine-gun section, had similar misgivings. As enemy figures appeared in the murk just 40-90m away, he stood up to direct the fire of his machine gunner.

“A few seconds later some of the branches above me started to disappear so I promptly gave that stupid idea up and lay down beside him.”

As night fell and wave after wave of Viet Cong continued to press home the attack, a relief force in armoured personnel carriers finally arrived. The attackers retreated into the night.

“It was like the cavalry saving everyone from the Indians in a western movie,” Buick said afterwards. “I just yelled as soon as I saw them.”

As morning dawned it soon became clear that the Battle of Long Tan was over. “An eerie silence pervaded a scene of utmost devastation,” Stanley wrote, and Broomhall’s recollection is much the same.

“No tree was unmarked, most of them looked as if someone had hit them with a giant flail; there were no leaves, no twigs, just shattered stumps, fallen branches and whole trees toppled over.

“Bodies and parts of bodies were strewn everywhere and we spent the next two days burying the dead and collecting the weapons and equipment that had been left by the Viet Cong.

“After that, the shock set in and we were all zombies, so a couple of days later we went to the beach at Vung Tau and had a massive piss-up.”

Patrick Duggan and his M16.

How many more?

Australian soldiers were no less traumatised by the experience. “After the battle is over, it hits you in the solar plexus and when it hit, it was devastating,” Sabben recollects. “And worse, despite the huge battle and to us enormous losses, the referee hadn’t blown the whistle.

“It was still a match and there was no guarantee that this was the last battle. We were only 72 days into a 365-day tour, so at the back of my mind was, ‘How many more Long Tans will there be for us?’”

As the survivors recovered, others took stock of the human cost and just what had been achieved. Despite being grossly outnumbered, the Anzacs emerged from the battle with the loss of 18 lives and 24 wounded; their antagonists lost at least 245 men, half of them victims of shellfire.

At the time both sides claimed victory: US General William Westmoreland described it as “one of the most spectacular in Vietnam to date”. Members of D Company, which included Stanley, Walker and Broomhall, received gallantry citations from the American and Australian governments, and two of the New Zealanders received individual awards for their role in the action.

Some felt Stanley deserved a Victoria Cross, but he received instead an MBE (military division); Walker was mentioned in despatches.

Not surprisingly, the Vietnamese put a totally different spin on the battle. Radio Hanoi reported afterwards that “the Australian mercenaries, who are no less husky and beefy than their allies, the US aggressors, have proved good fresh targets for the South Vietnamese liberation army”.

“On August 18, it wiped out almost completely one battalion [around 800 men] of Australian mercenaries in an ambush in Long Tan village.”

US President Barack Obama dabs his brow before laying a wreath to mark the Vietnam War’s 50th anniversary in Washington in 2012. Photo/Getty Images

Winner and losers

Half a century later the military historian McGibbon is in no doubt who the winners and losers were, He is full of praise for the New Zealand, Australian and American gunners who undoubtedly saved the day.

“New Zealanders Morrie Stanley and Harry Honnor certainly played a major part in the action because they directed the fire of the 18 105mm guns. Their skill in using this firepower by bringing in fire very close to the defenders’ position played a major part in the successful extrication of the company from its predicament.

“Overall, it is certain that D Company would have been overrun without the artillery support.”

But what did the battle achieve from a strategic point of view? McGibbon does not mince his words.

“From a strategic point of view, the battle had no significance as it had no bearing on the progress or outcome of the wider conflict in South Vietnam. But in terms of the situation in Phuoc Tuy province, Long Tan ensured that the Australian Task Force [ATF] was not subjected to a major assault.

“The action prevented the communists from perhaps inflicting an embarrassing defeat on these newly arrived troops. The battle was therefore a tactical victory for the ATF of limited long-term significance.”

McGibbon’s assessment is shared by two Viet Cong veterans who survived the carnage in the rubber plantation.

The men, Nguyen Minh Ninh and Nguyen Duc Thu, made their views known to Dave Sabben and Bob Buick when the Australians returned to Long Tan 10 years ago.

Asked who won the battle, Ninh replied: “It is a very good question. You won, but we won also. Tactically and militarily you won but politically, we won.”

In Ninh’s eyes it was a political victory because the bloody encounter helped fuel the anti-war movement that led to Australian and New Zealand troops being withdrawn from Vietnam.

And for many Kiwis, such as Pat Duggan, who did two tours of duty in Vietnam, coming home proved almost as traumatic as anything he had witnessed in the Battle of Long Tan.

“The Viet Cong were welcomed home as heroes. We were told to go away and be quiet and not tell anybody,” he says. “That played on people’s minds a lot and it tipped a few over. We were told not to wear our uniforms in public and not tell anybody we were Vietnam veterans.

“That said, I would do it all again in a heartbeat and I stand by that. My military service made me the person I am today and for that I am ever thankful.”

What a miraculous Story from WW2!

 

A real miracle - from WWII

B-17 "All American" (414th Squadron, 97BG) Crew

Pilot- Ken Bragg Jr.

Co-pilot- G. Boyd Jr.

Navigator- Harry C. Nuessle

Bombardier- Ralph Burbridge

Engineer- Joe C. James

Radio Operator- Paul A. Galloway

Ball Turret Gunner- Elton Conda

Waist Gunner- Michael Zuk

Tail Gunner- Sam T. Sarpolus

Ground Crew Chief- Hank Hyland

In 1943 a mid-air collision on February 1, 1943,

Between a B-17 and a German fighter over the Tunis dock area,

Became the subject of one of the most famous photographs of WW II.

An enemy fighter attacking a 97th Bomb Group formation went out of control,

Probably with a wounded pilot, then continued its crashing descent

Into the rear of the fuselage of a Flying Fortress named"All American",

Piloted by Lt. Kendrick R. Bragg, of the 414th Bomb Squadron.

When it struck, the fighter broke apart, but left some pieces in the B-17.

The left horizontal stabilizer of the Fortress and left elevator were completely torn away.

The two right engines were out and one on the left had a serious oil pump leak.

The vertical fin and the rudder had been damaged,

The fuselage had been cut almost completely through

Connected only at two small parts of the frame,

And the radios, electrical and oxygen systems were damaged.

There was also a hole in the top that was over 16-feet long and 4 feet wide at its widest;

The split in the fuselage went all the way to the top gunner's turret.

Although the tail actually bounced and swayed in the wind

And twisted when the plane turned and all the control cables were severed,

Except one single elevator cable still worked, and the aircraft miraculously still flew!

The tail gunner was trapped because there was no floor connecting the tail to the rest of the plane.

The waist and tail gunners used parts of the German fighter and their own parachute harnesses

In an attempt to keep the tail from ripping off and the two sides of the fuselage from splitting apart.

While the crew was trying to keep the bomber from coming apart,

The pilot continued on his bomb run and released his bombs over the target.

When the bomb bay doors were opened,

The wind turbulence was so great that it blew one of the waist gunners into the broken tail section.

It took several minutes and four crew members to pass him ropes from parachutes

And haul him back into the forward part of the plane.

When they tried to do the same for the tail gunner,

The tail began flapping so hard that it began to break off.

The weight of the gunner was adding some stability to the tail section, so he went back to his position.

The turn back toward England had to be very slow to keep the tail from twisting off.

They actually covered almost 70 miles to make the turn home.

The bomber was so badly damaged that it was losing altitude and speed and was soon alone in the sky.

For a brief time, two more Me-109 German fighters attacked the All American.

Despite the extensive damage, all of the machine gunners

Were able to respond to these attacks and soon drove off the fighters.

The two waist gunners stood up with their heads sticking out through the hole in the top of the fuselage

To aim and fire their machine guns.

The tail gunner had to shoot in short bursts because the recoil was actually causing the plane to turn.

Allied P-51 fighters intercepted the All American as it crossed over the Channel

And took one of the pictures shown.

They also radioed to the base describing that the appendage was waving like a fish tail

And that the plane would not make it and to send out boats to rescue the crew when they bailed out.

The fighters stayed with the Fortress, taking hand signals from Lt. Bragg and relaying them to the base.

Lt. Bragg signaled that 5 parachutes and the spare had been "used"

So five of the crew could not bail out.

He made the decision that if they could not bail out safely, then he would stay with the plane to land it.

Two and a half hours after being hit, the aircraft made its final turn

To line up with the runway while it was still over 40 miles away.

It descended into an emergency landing and a normal roll-out on its landing gear.

When the ambulance pulled alongside, it was waved off because not a single member of the crew had

Been injured.

No one could believe that the aircraft could still fly in such a condition.

The Fortress sat placidly until the crew all exited through the door in the fuselage

and the tail gunner had climbed down a ladder,

at which time the entire rear section of the aircraft collapsed.

This old bird had done its job and brought the entire crew home uninjured.

Please pass this on to someone who will also appreciate this amazing story.

 



RAF Museum

Story of Becoming a POW in the Phillippines at start of WW2

 

 

Standing For Her

By Mickey Bennett Sieracki

 

Mary Catherine Connor sadly stood at attention, watching the Japanese flag slowly rise to the top of the flagpole in front of the American High Commissioner’s Office in Manila. It was early January 1942, and her peaceful life had turned into a nightmare that wouldn’t end for three long years. Just that past September she had finished a business school course and had started work as a stenographer in the High Commissioner’s Office. She was busy with her new career and enjoying life in Manila with family and friends. But all that changed on December 7^th.

 

A family friend had been listening to his radio and rushed over to the Connor home to tell them of an attack on Pearl Harbor. Disbelief and shock were soon followed by grim reality the next day as the Japanese bombed Clark Air Force base, north of Manila, and hit the oil reserves in the Pasig depots. Black clouds hid the sky and the family knew the way of life they had known was coming to an end. The next few weeks passed in a blur of news reports and radio, until finally the shocking news that General MacArthur was leaving. On December 26^th he declared Manila an open city. The hope was to spare the city and its residents from total devastation, but the bombing continued for the next few days.[1]

 

As people considered what the coming of the Japanese would mean, there were those who reflected at the horror that had occurred just 4 years previously in Nanking. Mary’s family had all read of the atrocities committed against the civilian residents of Nanking, the rapes, murders and torture of men, women and children by the Japanese troops.[2] Mary’s mother, looking at her three teenaged daughters could not bear the thought of what might happen to them. The High Commissioner’s office had confirmed there would be no evacuations of American civilians, so she considered her options. Near their home was a small drugstore, the Botica Batallones. A discreet phone call brought a delivery of 5 vials of cyanide. They would not have to endure long if the fury of the Japanese was unleashed again.[3]

 

But Mary and her sisters were young, and the blood of Basque, Irish, and English adventurers and soldiers ran strong in their veins. They would survive. Faced with this determination and courage, her mother began new preparations. She began gathering supplies: sleeping mats, toilet paper, two cans of oatmeal per person, one pack of prunes and sugar per individual, and more. A shelter was set up under one side of the house. Pails of water were filled for personal use and, if necessary, to put out fires. Then they waited.[4]

 

On January 2^nd the Japanese marched into Manila in six man squads: one carried a rifle, another rode a bicycle, another carried as much rice as one man could. The others carried souvenirs from their march to the city. Shortly thereafter, Mary Catherine and her fellow employees from the High Commissioner’s office were ordered to report to the office. Civilians, in general, and the rest of her family were advised to congregate in hotels and clubs as it was believed there was safety in numbers. So, here she was, watching the Japanese flag go up, not knowing what the future would hold, separated from her family. At least she knew the American flag had not been desecrated. Only the day before, Mr. Claude Buss and four others from the Office had secretly burned the flag and buried it on the grounds.[5]

 

When the flag-raising ceremony was over, the staff was held on the premises for about 36 hours, and then moved to a private home where they were held for some months. It was a fairly large home and easily accommodated most of the staff. Father Kelly from the nearby Malate Church said Mass every Sunday for the Catholics in the group, and Bishop Binstead of the Episcopalian Church held services for the Protestants. He and his wife were also incarcerated in the house.[6] [7]

 

Almost immediately, Mary fell ill with acute appendicitis. She was fortunate that early on, the staff prisoners were treated well. She was sent to a local hospital and operated on. During her convalescence she heard of the fall of Bataan, and within days a terrified Mary watched from the hospital as the surviving American soldiers were marched through Manila to their destination in Cabanatuan. One of the mud-splattered soldiers stumbling by the house was her Uncle William, but she never knew it. The condition of the soldiers was so grim they were unrecognizable.[8]

 

The weeks dragged by. Word got through sporadically to the staff about events on the outside. Mary was able to get a letter through to her brother in the U.S. letting him know they were all safe, though she was separated from the rest of the family. Her parents and sisters had been taken in early February to the University of Santo Tomas, which had been set up as a huge internment camp. Santo Tomas was a large urban campus, easily secured, with many buildings suitable for housing the thousands of civilian prisoners of war. The university, founded in 1611, was one of the most revered landmarks in Manila.[9]

In late October the staff were given the choice of joining the American consular group at another residence in Pasay City, or going into the Santo Tomas internment camp. Some, including Bishop Binstead, ended up at the Los Baños camp outside of Manila. The thought of being with her parents and sisters, and with a larger group of people was comforting, and Mary quickly chose to join them. The joy she felt on seeing her parents and sisters again was indescribable. Come what may, at least they were together. At the beginning of the Occupation, the Santo Tomas camp was organized by a committee of internees who made rules, kept order, and assigned all internees to jobs. Mary worked as a stenographer initially, and then went on to teach in the camp elementary school.[10] Mary, along with others in the camp, tried very hard to maintain some sort of normal routine for the hundreds of children in the camp. Adults gave up their own rations to ensure the children got enough to eat.

 

When Mary first entered Santo Tomas, her father escorted her through the camp showing her where everything was, stopping to greet old acquaintances from pre-war days. As they were moving around the complex, they came across a group of men chatting on the steps of one of the buildings. Her father introduced her to one of them, a businessman he had known slightly before the War. It was Henry Bennett, a Manila stockbroker. He would come to be the most important person in Mary’s life.

 

Henry had come out to Manila in 1935 with the U.S. Army and had decided to remain in Manila after his tour of duty was over. He had fallen in love with the City, and saw more opportunities there than he could ever hope for back in his hometown in Iowa. He tried several ventures and finally had begun to see some success in his stockbrokerage business when the war broke out. He was immediately called back to active duty. His uniforms hadn’t been delivered yet when the City fell, and under the impression he was a civilian, the Japanese assigned him to Santo Tomas along with the rest of the civilian POW’s.  It didn’t take long for these two to realize they had met their life’s mate. Hours were spent talking about their lives, their hopes, and their future. However, the grim reality was that they weren’t sure they would have a future. Strict separation of the sexes was in place in Santo Tomas. There were separate dorms for the men, and women. The harshest of punishments were promised for women in camp who got pregnant. Needless to say they certainly forbade all marriages. Henry and Mary desperately wanted to get married.

 

Henry turned to one of his close friends in the camp, a Dominican priest, who agreed to help the couple, even at the risk of severe punishment. A secret wedding ceremony was held in 1943. Shortly after that the Japanese finally agreed to marriages in camp. Henry and Mary went through the formal process in order to allay any suspicions of the secret marriage, and on May 31, 1944 a formal marriage ceremony was held, the first in the camp.[11] This couple, whose marriage was to last until Henry’s death in 1981, was finally together as husband and wife. Perhaps their joy at finding each other during the most traumatic time of their lives helped them survive during the following year. As the tides of war began to turn against the Japanese, they became increasingly hostile to the prisoners in Santo Tomas. They gradually cut all the food rations, till eventually people had to survive on approximately 1000 calories of food or less a day.[12] Disease became prevalent, and the death rate began to climb. Who can say what might have happened if the war had not ended when it did? For several days in January 1945 heavy bombing could be heard over Manila from American planes. Finally in early February American planes flew over Santo Tomas and something fell from one of the planes – the pilot’s goggles. Written on them – “Roll out the barrel”. [13]  [14]

 

Mary and her new husband were free at last – ready to begin a new life. Their world for three years had been the confines of Santo Tomas. They all suffered from a host of illnesses: beriberi, severe malnutrition, fatigue, and anxiety. Henry had contracted tuberculosis as well as hepatitis.  Mary had gone from a healthy 140 lbs down to 90.[15] The average loss of weight in the camp was 51 pounds for men and 32 pounds for women.[16] Catching up on three years worth of news began – some happy, much heartbreaking.  Henry’s father had died during the internment years; Mary’s beloved grandparents in New York had both died, not knowing what had happened to their son’s family. Mary’s cousin Betty and her mother were found dead outside their home in Manila, victims of the final bombing of Manila. Next to their bodies was a dead Japanese soldier with a grenade clutched in his hand. There were some happy surprises. Her brother had gotten married in the States. Mary’s Uncle William appeared one day walking up to them in Santo Tomas – he had just been released from a slave labor camp in Manchuria, where he had been sent after surviving the Bataan Death March and the initial camp at Cabanatuan. At first they did not recognize him. Everyone thought he had died during the Death March along with his cousin. [17] [18]

 

The surviving internees and their civilian population had stood the test of fire – and literally so. The great city of Manila was put to the torch in the course of its liberation by the American forces. As the Japanese retreated, they went on a killing rampage. Corpses floated in the Pasig River and lay unburied in the rubble of the streets of the city. The destruction was so complete streets could hardly be recognized. In churches and chapels and in their own courtyards the dead lay stacked like cordwood. All places of refuge became the halls and fields of death as the Japanese threw grenades and burned buildings. In a swimming pool in one area there was no longer water – it was filled with bodies. In an ironic and tragic note, as the Japanese forces withdrew from places where their own wounded lay, their General came and issued grenades to those soldiers who could not walk to ensure them a merciful death, for the buildings were going to be fired.

 

In February 1945 Mary Connor Bennett again found herself standing at attention in a courtyard. But this time it was to watch the American flag raised. The courtyard was filled with a ragged mass of emaciated people. All focused their eyes with tears streaming from them on the American flag. The crowd’s voices lifted in a heartfelt rendition of “God Bless America”.[19] This time Mary and her fellow internees had a future to look forward to, hope for a new life with her family, husband and friends. [20]

 

In January of 2008, Mary Connor Bennett sat in a wheelchair in an assisted living facility in Roseville, MN listening to an afternoon musical program. Her eyes were dimmed by age, her mind robbed of its brilliance and memory by advancing Alzheimer’s. The program ended with “God Bless America”. The song brought back one of those rare flashes of memory and Mary struggled to rise from her wheelchair. The staff rushed over, worrying that she would fall, and assured her she could relax and sit down. But she continued to struggle to stand. She looked at them and clearly said, “I will stand for this song till the day I die.” A hush came over the group as one by one the other elderly residents joined her and rose to their feet. [21]

 

On March 6, 2008, Mary Connor Bennett took leave of her three daughters at her bedside and joined her beloved husband forever. We stand for her now.[22]

 

The Battle of Manila (February 3, 1945 – March 3, 1945) was a major battle of the Philippine campaign of 1944-45 during World War II that was fought by the American and Filipino forces against the Empire of Japan in Manila, the capital city of the Philippines

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Morton, Louis, The US Army in WWII, The War in the Pacific, The Fall of the Philippines, Chapter XIV

[2] CNN World News, December 13, 1997 “Chinese City Remembers the Japanese ‘Rape of Nanjing.’”

[3] Personal Recollections of Frances Connor O’Keefe as related to her niece, Mickey Bennett Sieracki

[4] Personal Recollections of Mary Catherine Bennett as related to her daughter, Mickey Bennett Sieracki

[5] Dialogue, A publication of the Thomas Jefferson Information Center (TJIC), Public Affairs Section, U.S. Embassy, Manila, Volume 2, No. 2, April 2001

[6] Shiels, Margo, Bends in the Road, 1999

[7] Personal Recollections of Mary Catherine Bennett as related to her daughter, Mickey Bennett Sieracki

[8] Personal Recollections of Mary Catherine Bennett as related to her daughter, Mickey Bennett Sieracki

[9] History of the University of Santo Tomas,  UST website, http://www.ust.edu.ph

[10] The Liberation Bulletin of Philipine Internment Camp No. I at Santo Tomas University, Manila, Philippines, February 3, 1945

[11] Stevens, Frederic H., Santo Tomas Internment Camp, p. 441

[12] The Liberation Bulletin of Philipine Internment Camp No. I at Santo Tomas University, Manila, Philippines, February 3, 1945

[13] Ralph DioGuardi, Roll Out The Barrel…The Tanks Are Coming: The Liberation of the Santo Tomas Internment Camp, A Merriam Press Original Publication, Military Monograph MM20

[14] Stevens, Frederic H., Santo Tomas Internment Camp, p. 482

[15] Letter from Mary Catherine Bennett to her sister-in-law Thelma Bennett Grundl, 1945

[16] The Liberation Bulletin of Philipine Internment Camp No. I at Santo Tomas University, Manila, Philippines, February 3, 1945

[17] North, Oliver, War Stories II, Heroism in the Pacific, page 51.

[18] Doll, John G., The Battling Bastards of Bataan”, A Merriam Press Original Publication, Military Monograph MM36

[19] Stevens, Frederic H., Santo Tomas Internment Camp, p. 363

[20] Interview with Mary Catherine Bennett by her daughter, Mickey Bennett Sieracki, 2000

[21] Story related to the family by the staff of Sunrise Assisted Living in Roseville, MN

[22] Obituary, Mary C. Bennett, St. Paul Pioneer Press, March 7, 2008