Lost in Shangri-la

Chapter 13

COME WHAT MAY

BY NOVEMBER 1944, Earl Walter and sixty-six jump-qualified members of the 5217th Reconnaissance Battalion were sweating out the war in “strategic reserve,” stuck in steamy but peaceful Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea. The closest thing to excitement came when their battalion was renamed the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion (Special), known as the 1st Recon. The new name did nothing to change their idle fate. Neither did Walter’s promotion from lieutenant to captain.

As months passed, Allied forces under General MacArthur kept busy retaking the islands of the Philippines—one after another, from Leyte to Luzon, Palawan to Mindanao. As the fight progressed, paratroopers from the 503rd and 511th regiments carried out their dangerous and heroic missions on Corregidor and Luzon.

All the while, Walter and his men yearned to get out of the heat of Hollandia and into the fire of war. Their battalion’s devil-may-care motto was Bahala na! a phrase from the Tagalog dialect of the Philippines that can be translated as “Come what may!” The more time passed without a mission, the more it seemed like a taunt. The problem, as Walter and his men saw it, was that nothing came their way.

While awaiting orders in Hollandia—some eighteen hundred miles southeast of Manila—Walter’s men pressed him for news. With families and roots in the Philippines, they wanted the honor and the satisfaction of driving the enemy from their homeland. They craved payback for more than two years of Japanese occupation. They wanted revenge for the Bataan Death March of 1942, during which Japanese troops killed or brutalized thousands of captured Filipino and American soldiers along a forced hundred-mile march to a prison camp. Newspapers had detailed the atrocities, fueling a combustible mix of fear and hatred of the Japanese, perhaps nowhere more so than among the men in Walter’s unit. One of them, Corporal Camilo “Rammy” Ramirez, had experienced the horrors at Bataan firsthand before making a daring escape.

Walter tried to boost morale and conditioning, leading grueling runs around Hollandia to keep his men’s legs strong for parachute landings. Yet privately, Walter feared it was a waste of time. He worried that he’d spend his life saying, “Nothing much,” when asked what he’d done in the war.

“My men would come to me and say—I was a lieutenant then—‘Lieutenant, when in hell are we going to get to the Philippines?’ ” Walter recalled. “And I’d say, ‘As soon as I can get us there.’ ” One hindrance, at least from Walter’s perspective, was that the Japanese were retreating faster than expected, potentially making unnecessary his unit’s unique language, intelligence, and parachute skills.

Walter proposed one combat task after another to his superiors, to no avail. Showing some moxie, he tried to cut through the U.S. Army bureaucracy by drawing up plans for a behind-enemy-lines parachute drop. He shared the plans with an acquaintance—a lieutenant who happened to be the son of General Courtney Whitney, who oversaw guerrilla resistance in the Philippines and was MacArthur’s closest confidant.

When that gambit didn’t spark a response, on March 13, 1945, Walter took the next step and wrote a blunt letter directly to General Whitney. In it, Walter complained about being idle and fairly pleaded for combat duty in the Philippines. If that wasn’t possible, he wrote, he wanted to be reassigned to a fighting unit in Europe or anywhere at all before it was too late and the war was already won.

“As you know, Sir,” Walter wrote the general, “I came to this theater at my own request, in fact I worked hard for the assignment, but now I find that my efforts were in vain.” After making his case, he acknowledged that he’d violated protocol and jumped multiple levels in the chain of command by sending the letter. “In closing may I add that I admit I have stepped over the line but I am afraid this is a trait I inherited from my father.”

Whitney seemed to admire Walter’s pluck. He responded two weeks later with a letter filled with praise and encouragement. The brigadier general gently explained to the young officer that matters more pressing than personal ambition—however courageous or well-intentioned—took priority in the effort to reclaim the Philippines. Whitney urged Walter to keep his men ready to invade Japan, and offered flattery and morale-building suggestions. “The work of the Battalion and the preparation of your parachutists for active service has been brilliant,” the general wrote. “Your leadership in this latter field has been cause for much satisfaction on the part of every staff officer of this Headquarters. . . . My advice to you is to do all possible to keep your men in trim and keep patient a little longer. I am sure that your desire for an opportunity to employ these men in the manner for which they have been trained will be fully satisfied in the campaigns which yet lie ahead.”

Whitney’s letter cheered Walter. He wrote the general in response: “I took the liberty of reading it to my parachutists, and to the man they were overjoyed, and their morale has climbed to a new high. They are all very anxious to do their part, and the work given us, no matter how difficult, I can guarantee will be a complete success. The men will be kept in trim and when our turn comes we will be ready. Thank you for giving the hopes of my officers and men a new foundation and I can easily say for all, you can count on us for anything.”

General Whitney returned his attention to the war. Weeks passed with no further word on a role for the 1st Recon, and Walter’s excitement ebbed. He grew frustrated to the point of distraction. He became convinced that his father had followed through with the threat he’d made at the submarine landing site. Earl Senior, Walter believed, had voiced concerns about his son’s safety, and by doing so had sidelined the paratroopers of the 1st Recon.

“I was an only son, an only child, and I think my dad worried,” Walter explained. “My dad was strong enough in the guerrilla movement, and known well enough by people in the Army, that when he said, ‘I don’t want you using my son overtly,’ they listened.”

Whether his father had such power is unclear. No records exist to confirm that Earl Senior raised objections to his son’s participation in risky duty. But the fact remained that in May 1945, as Captain C. Earl Walter Jr. approached his twenty-fourth birthday, the war seemed to be winding down, and he and his unit were men without a mission.

THE MEN WHO SERVED under Walter in the 1st Recon had a right to be equally upset. Perhaps more so. Every soldier of Filipino descent had followed a difficult road to service in the American military.

The roots of the tangled relationship between Filipinos and Americans dated back nearly fifty years, to 1898 and the Treaty of Paris, which marked the end of the Spanish-American War. The treaty gave the United States control over the Philippines, much to the chagrin of the Filipino people, who ached for independence after three centuries under Spanish rule. But America was feeling its imperialist oats as a world power. President William McKinley declared in his famous if sometimes disputed quote that it was the United States’ duty to “educate the Filipinos, and uplift and Christianize them.”

Within weeks of the treaty, American and Filipino patrols traded fire on the outskirts of Manila, triggering a forty-one-month clash that became known as the Philippine-American War, the most overlooked conflict in United States history. Before it was over, the United States had suffered more than four thousand combat deaths. The Philippines lost perhaps five times as many soldiers, as well as more than one hundred thousand civilians who died from famine and disease. President Theodore Roosevelt declared victory on July 4, 1902, and the Philippines became a U.S. territory, though skirmishes continued for years. Atrocities by American soldiers were whitewashed, and Roosevelt’s secretary of war congratulated the military for conducting “a humane war” in the face of “savage provocation” by “a treacherous foe.”

The next three decades saw an influx of Filipino immigrants to the United States, with a majority of the newcomers heading to California and Hawaii. At the same time, a mutually beneficial trading relationship developed across the Pacific. One resource the Americans especially valued was hardwood, which is how C. Earl Walter Sr. came to manage a lumber company in Mindanao. But for many Filipinos, the United States was hardly welcoming. Anti-Filipino sentiment ran high, and Filipinos experienced racially motivated attacks and legal restrictions against owning land. Antimiscegenation laws in western states prevented them from marrying white women. For most, economic opportunities were limited to field work, service occupations, manual labor, and jobs in canneries and factories.

Meanwhile, the drive for independence for the Philippines continued. In 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a law establishing a ten-year transition period, at the end of which the Philippines would have its own U.S.-style democracy. Until then, new immigration by Filipinos would be severely limited, and repatriation laws would pressure Filipinos living in the United States to return to the islands.

Then came December 8, 1941. One day after Pearl Harbor, Japan launched a surprise air-and-land attack on the Philippines, centered on the island of Luzon. The outnumbered Filipino and American forces, under General MacArthur’s command, quickly withdrew to the Bataan Peninsula and the island of Corregidor, at the entrance to Manila Bay. The U.S.-Philippine forces surrendered in April 1942, and with help from none other than Colonel Ray Elsmore, MacArthur escaped to Australia to begin plotting his return. Surviving American and Filipino troops and the Filipino people weren’t so fortunate; they suffered through the Bataan Death March and a brutal occupation.

News of the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines made Filipinos in the United States eager to fight the Japanese. By then, more than a hundred thousand transplanted Filipinos lived in Hawaii and on the U.S. mainland. But they were in a strange limbo. They were legal U.S. residents, but they weren’t eligible for citizenship, so they could neither be drafted nor volunteer for military service.

Individually and through their representatives in Washington, Filipinos petitioned Roosevelt, his secretary of war, and members of Congress for the right to fight. Some wanted to serve for practical reasons, such as the opportunities and benefits they expected would come to veterans after the war. But more spoke of vengeance. Although the United States had been attacked by air at Pearl Harbor, the Philippines had been invaded. Sounding like a colonial recruit in the Revolutionary War, one Filipino volunteer declared, “Life is so small a property to risk as compared to the fight incurred for the emancipation of a country from . . . foul, ignominious, barbaric, inhuman treatments.”

Within weeks of the Japanese invasion, Roosevelt signed a law that allowed Filipinos to join the U.S. military. This led to the creation of the 1st Filipino Battalion, which from the outset was expected to help in the battle to retake the islands through overt and covert action. By May 1942, more than two thousand men of Filipino descent had volunteered. So many new recruits volunteered that the battalion was upgraded to the 1st Filipino Regiment. Soon after, the U.S. Army created a 2nd Filipino Regiment. Eventually, more than seven thousand men of Filipino descent served in the two regiments. Roosevelt rewarded their fervor by making Filipino soldiers in the U.S. military eligible for citizenship, and several thousand took the oath.

An American reporter who caught up with the Filipino-American troops a few months after their induction described them with unreserved admiration: “The men of this Filipino regiment are taking the business of sudden death seriously. Their American officers have commended their amazing conscientiousness and ardor, and have encouraged them to add a purely Filipino fillip to the orthodox warfare methods. In simulated jungle fighting, these sons and grandsons of guerrilla warriors . . . like to creep close to the enemy with bayonets tightly gripped in their mouths, and then jump at him, wielding their bayonets as if they were their native bolos.”

In spring 1944, the 2nd Filipino Regiment was merged into the 1st Filipino Regiment and sent overseas as the 1st Filipino Infantry Regiment. Its members made it to the Philippines in February 1945. In one battle on Samar Island, the regiment reported killing 1,572 Japanese soldiers while losing only five of its men. In May 1945, while Walter and his men were still in Hollandia awaiting an assignment, the 1st Filipino Infantry Regiment moved into heavy combat against the Japanese on Leyte Island.

A FEW WEEKS before the crash of the Gremlin Special, Walter was invited to lunch by his former military school teacher, Lieutenant Colonel John Babcock. In the officer’s mess hall, Babcock listened as Walter told him about the Filipino paratroopers he’d trained for behind-enemy-lines missions. Walter poured out his exasperation at being stuck in New Guinea, unable to find a way into action.

Babcock had taught classes at Black-Foxe Military Institute for six years before joining the Army Air Forces, so he knew when a boy became a man. Walter’s transformation couldn’t have escaped his notice. Walter still had the slim-hipped, broad-shouldered build of the All-American swimmer he’d been at school. But the class-cutting, undisciplined boy who sold half-price notebooks to classmates to finance visits to strip clubs had become a sober, determined captain in the airborne infantry. If he listened closely, Babcock also must have recognized that Walter was determined to prove to his father, and to himself, that he could lead troops into danger and back out again.

Babcock and Walter left the lunch with a promise to meet again. But before they had the chance, Babcock became involved in planning the rescue of survivors from the Gremlin Special crash. He learned that Colonel Elsmore believed that no paratroopers were available in Hollandia.

“When Babcock heard that,” Walter recalled, “he said, ‘I’ve got just the people to go in there and get them out.’ ”

A PARACHUTE DROP into Shangri-La wasn’t a combat posting or an intelligence assignment, at least not in a conventional sense. But compared to endless, apparently pointless physical training in Hollandia, it more than fit the bill. When Babcock told him what was happening, Walter leaped at the opportunity. He didn’t know what his father would say about the mission, and since the elder Walter was somewhere behind enemy lines in the Philippines, the younger Walter wouldn’t worry about asking. Babcock relayed word of Walter’s interest up the chain of command.

A series of hastily arranged meetings followed, during which Walter met Elsmore and other senior officers coordinating the search and rescue effort. The meetings were straightforward enough, devoted largely to making certain that Walter understood the situation and the dangers that he and his men would face.

When he’d absorbed the warnings, Walter returned to the tents occupied by his unit. His men gathered around him, the tallest among them a full head shorter than their captain. Even before he began to speak they bustled with excitement, sensing that—at least for some—their months of waiting were over.

When they settled down, Walter explained the situation. Word of the crash had spread throughout the sprawling base, but news of survivors was still trickling through the unreliable pipeline of fact, rumor, and gossip. Walter announced that the paratroopers of the 1st Recon had been chosen for a special mission—to protect survivors of the Gremlin Special crash on the ground and eventually lead them to safety. He needed ten volunteers to join him, including two medics. But before taking names, he delivered a four-part warning.

Captain C. Earl Walter Jr. (back row, center) and the members of the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion outside their “Club Bahala Na” in Hollandia. (Photo courtesy of C. Earl Walter Jr.)

First, Walter told them, the area they’d be jumping into was marked “unknown” on maps, so they’d have nothing but their wits and their compasses to guide them.

Second, the two medics would parachute as close as possible to the survivors, into a jungle so thick it would be what Walter called “the worst possible drop zone.” He and the eight other volunteers would drop onto the floor of the Shangri-La Valley some twenty to thirty air miles away. There, they’d establish a base camp with the goal of eventually leading the medics and any survivors from the crash site down to the valley.

Third, if they survived the jumps, their band of eleven men would confront what Walter described as “a very good possibility that the natives would prove hostile.” Their squad would have the advantage in terms of weapons, but they could expect to be outnumbered by hundreds to one in any confrontation.

Walter saved the worst for last: Fourth, no one had a plan, even a rough one, to get them out of the valley. They might have to hike some one hundred and fifty miles to either the north or south coast of New Guinea, through some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth, with crash survivors who might be hurt and unable to walk on their own. Complicating matters, if they hiked north they’d go through an area “known to be the domain of headhunters and cannibals.” If they hiked south, they’d pass through jungles and swamps occupied by perhaps ten thousand Japanese troops who’d been hiding since the Allies captured New Guinea’s coastal areas.

Walter didn’t mention it, but if they did have to trek their way to the coast, he’d choose to face the Japanese rather than the headhunters. Death seemed a strong possibility either way, but at least they’d go into the fight with a clear idea how Japanese soldiers would react to a group of American paratroopers. Also, unlike the natives, the Japanese wouldn’t have home-field advantage. Maybe best of all, being horribly outnumbered by Japanese troops while leading his men in jungle warfare would mean that Walter had followed in his father’s footsteps.

As Walter stood before his men, he recognized that each one had his own reasons for being there, whether revenge, patriotism, opportunity, or all three. One quality he knew they had in common was desire. All had volunteered for military service, after which they’d all volunteered for reconnaissance work and paratrooper training. Now Walter was testing them again.

When Walter finished his litany of warnings, he waited a beat, then asked for volunteers. As Walter recalled it, every member of the parachute unit raised his hand. Then each one took a step forward. Walter swelled with pride.

“Bahala na,” several said, voicing the battalion’s motto. Come what may.