Quickly dashing back to boat before she left, the Redfin, all refueled and reloaded, headed back out to sea.

The Fliers, meanwhile, were boarding a plane for Fremantle, where they were supposed to get their clothing allowances, collect their pay, and resupply their uniforms and anything else.  They were also given medical checkups.  Donald Tremaine was already down with malaria, and Wesley Miller was also in the beginning stages of malaria.  To my knowledge, no other Flier survivors were afflicted with malaria, but I have yet to meet all the family members of the Flier survivors.   Due to the condition of their feet, however, all eight were classified unfit for duty and were given rest and relaxation as a part of the cure.

Earl Baumgart found rooms with a family he had met when they were in town just a month before.  Captain Crowley, anticipating an investigation, stayed at Admiral Christie’s residence while both worked on their defenses.  (They were to be investigated together.  Crowley to see if he had any part in his boat’s loss, Christie to see if he had provided all the pertinent information and the latest intelligence to Crowley to assist with the crossing.)  The rest, when not under a doctor’s direct care, stayed at one of the four hotels in the Fremantle area the Navy had completely rented.

And now to wait…

Rounding the eastern side of Timor Island, they were finally in friendly ocean.  Just after dawn, several planes flew overheard.  Austin, knowing Redfin was supposed to receive aerial escort to port, didn’t dive as was standard practice, but rather gave a recognition signal, which was quickly responded to correctly.  They were finally safe.

The Track of Redfin from the moment she was told to head to the area near Brooke's Point for an unknown mission to the day she arrived in Darwin.

The refugees and Fliers were allowed out on deck to see the sun.  A Redfin hand, whose name has been forgotten, had a camera, and started taking more photos.  (I say more because if you look at the Redfin’s website, you’ll see a lot of photos taken aboard Redfin during the course of her WWII career.)  The first photo was likely the photo taken on the aft bridge deck of the two sub commanders, Crowley and Austin, then the seven Flier survivors (Donald Tremaine was bedridden with malaria, so only seven were on deck) then all the survivors.

The Redfin was not met with the usual bands and other trappings of a victorious returning submarine.  Her entrance to harbor was quiet, and in fact, the men soon found out that officially, their fourth patrol was not over, they were expected to leave on the new second leg of patrol in 24 hours, as soon as Redfin was refueled and resupplied.

There were jeeps on the dock.  The non-Flier survivors were loaded up and whisked away, never to be seen again by the Fliers and most of the Redfins.  For the rest of his life, Al Jacboson wondered what became of these people.

The Fliers were put up in a hotel in Darwin for the night.  Captain Crowley and Lt. Liddell had to know that there would be an investigation into the loss of Flier and whether or not they were partially or wholly responsible for the loss of her crew.  All of them faced the choice of whether or not they would want to continue on in the Submarine Force.

So tomorrow, I’ll show you where they are.

A submarine is no place for people who have not been trained to be there.  Officer’s Country is the least complicated (in terms of machinery) and most luxurious (in terms of…well as opposed to the rest of the submarine.  It’s still really, really, spartan) part of a submarine.  My guess, and mind, it’s only a guess, is the Sutherland family was in the Chief’s quarters because that is the only cabin with four bunks, and the Three Amigos (Charlie, George and “Red”) were in the XO’s cabin because that had three bunks, and Garretson and Keirson were in one of the junior officer’s cabins, because those had two bunks a piece.  That’s my guess at any rate.  But the non-submariners were kept to Officer’s Country outside of escorted trips anywhere, including the head, or bathroom, which was likely flushed for them.  (This is not an insult to anyone by the way.   For those who have ever READ the instructions for flushing a toilet on a WWII Gato-class submarine, you’ll see WHY people who are untrained shouldn’t attempt it.  It consists of like fourteen steps to flush the thing, some taking place before, some during and some after.  And if you get it wrong…eeeeewwww)

The Fliers of course, as fully qualified submariners (and, for the next few days, official members of the Redfin crew, they’re still listed on the crew’s Master Crew List) were given freedom  to walk about, and do as they liked if they stayed out of the way, and sleep where they could find an open space (which may or may not be out of the way).  With the nine civilians in Officer’s Country, not only did the Fliers but nine of Redfin’s officer ranks also had to nap where there was an open rack whenever they could.  A fully-staffed submarine feels crowded anyway, but this must have felt so much worse.

The civilians were allowed to take meals in the Officer’s Wardroom, however, and talk together, so it wasn’t like they were in solitary confinement.  One night, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Sutherland discovered a pair of silk stockings tucked under her plate as a gift for her.  She’d never owned a pair before, and thanks to military rationing in the States and Australia, they were quite rare and valuable now.  A sailor who had bought them for someone else decided he could simply get another pair in  a few days when they docked at Darwin.  Mrs. Sutherland may have been forced to be shoeless, but once she could fix that in Darwin, she would at least have stockings to go with!

Other than that, nothing much happened during these days.  The most exciting thing on Redfin’s report other than the gunfight with the mysterious maru, was the sighting on Radar of what appeared to be a destroyer, but on closer examination proved to be an Aircraft Carrier carrying what appeared to be Allied aircraft.  They also saw a few fishing boats and a small patrol craft.  Nothing exciting, compared with the normal fare.

Back to the story.

Midnight passed, and the moon rose higher, causing the people in the kumpit to fear the maru might see them if they were really looking.  Howell kept working the CW Keying on the small radio, and Russo kept flickering the flashlight out into the night, though less enthusiastically than two hours before.

Suddenly Howell, checking his cry of success, told Russo to stop signaling, Redfin saw them!

They heard her before they saw her, she was steaming on the surface from out at sea.  Austin, on deck, ordered Redfin to reverse just before they came up on them to stop the giant steel sub from knocking over these small wooden boats.  They lowered the deck to just above the surface of the water, and Al was so eager to get onboard that he forgot his formal Navy manners and didn’t ask permission to board, just grabbed the first Redfin’s hand that reached for him and scrambled on board.  Of was 0043 (or 12: 43 am) August 31, 1944.  The Flier’s ordeal was over, after 18 days.

Everyone was quickly brought on board, including Mrs. Edwards, embarrassed to be seen without her carefully kept shoes.  Every pair except her best had long since rotted away in the humid environment.  She kept her best pair in their box so she would not have to be rescued, if rescue ever came, barefoot…only to discover, as Redfin approached, that a couple of years barefoot in the Philippine jungle caused her feet to swell so much her shoes would not fit!

Alastair was amazed to be on board a real submarine, though Heather, by most accounts, watched silently from her mother’s arms.

Redfin’s CO had news for everyone too:  faced with Americans needing evacuation, Redfin received orders two hours before to grab the evacuees and head straight for Darwin, Australia, the nearest Allied port, and not to attack anyone or reveal themselves in any way between now and then.

So when the Coastwatchers asked for a few donations (the Redfin agreed during Crowley and Austin’s radio interview the night before to giving a gallon of lubricating oil for the kumpit) the Redfins turned over everything that wasn’t needed for survival for seven days.  The list of things given is really amazing:

(2) .30-caliber Browning Automatic Rifles

(2) .30-caliber machine guns

(2) .45 caliber Thompson Machine Guns

(4) Springfield .30 caliber rifles

(10) .45 caliber Colt Pistols

(3) .30 Caliber M-1 Carbine Rifles

20,000 rounds of  .30 caliber ammo

3,000 rounds of .45 caliber ammo

2,800 rounds of .30 caliber ammo for the carbines

Writing Paper

Pencils

Typewriter Ribbons

(3) Bags medical supplies including sulpha drugs, quinine and atrabrine to fight malaria

Flour

Yeast

Coffee

Canned Fruits and Vegetables

200 cartons cigarettes (it was 1944, lots of people smoked)

Playing Cards

Diesel Oil

Sulpheric Acid

Radio Tubes

Toilet Paper

Soap

And that’s just the list from the official inventory.  According to the Redfins, the men gave some of their change of clothes and one even handed over his pair of 9-1/2 shoes for Mr. Edwards when he heard Mr. Edwards had none.

If the Japanese feared Brooke’s Point before, they would doubly now, since Coastwatchers and guerrillas were well armed, had real ammo, and were well fed, entertained, clothed and shod.  This list, I think, shows something else: how little these people had been operating with for years.  It really makes their story just as amazing as the survivors.

That Japanese ship just sat there though.  Captain Austin,  who was shocked to see Palacido, who he had dropped off two months earlier a hundred miles south, suggested that his men might need some deck gun practice.  If he did, would Palacido  be sure to be responsible and clean the beach of any and all supplies and capture any men who washed up?

Palacido eagerly agreed, and the men left on the kumpits, now heavily laden with the equivalent of four years of Christmas.

The refugees were hustled downstairs and the civilians were quickly assigned cabins where they were required to stay unless they were escorted by a member of the crew to the head or the Mess.  It may sound cruel, but it was a necessary step to ensure everyone’s safety in case of trouble.  Civilians would not be rushing around, getting in the way of crew members who would be trying to help.

George, Charlie and Red, despite being military, were also confined to cabins, since they were not qualified by the Sub School to be on a submarine.

Only the Fliers were permitted some freedom, though it was limited since they had no duty stations, the three Flier officers were not going to be part of the decision making of this crew, and at most, they were free to throw themselves in any unoccupied bunk to try and rest.

Redfin soon shuddered under the  thunder of her three deck guns.  The first flash blinded the gunners themselves, who had to rely on the directions given by the lookouts overhead.

The Maru, now in danger, quickly picked up her anchor and headed south,hugging the the coast all the way.  She must have had a very shallow draft, since she glided over coral reefs Austin didn’t dare send Redfin into, or even shoot a torpedo at (they had a tendency to blow up coral reefs ather than ships over coral reefs)

It was over, the Redfin turned her nose south west, heading away from Flier’s last route through Makassar, and away from Flier’s last position.  Of the eight men who would forever remember their shipmates, only one would ever see those islands again.

And Captain Crowley, once again through no fault of his own, faced investigation into the loss of his boat.  The same boat.

It may or may not be posted to YouTube at some point, and the museum is looking at offering it through the musuem gift shop (between the purchase and shipping prices, we’re afraid we cannot send everyone a disc on their own) soon.

So for those of you who could not make it to the ceremony, or those who want to see it again or show it to relatives who couldn’t make it, it will hopefully be available soon.  I will keep you up to date on any more developments.

The Coastwatchers, of course, were staying.  All of them being on Filipino descent, they at least LOOKED the part, even if they could not speak the language in a tight corner.

Despite being American and having two daughters attending college in the US, Mr. Edwards and his wife and youngest daughter decided to stay too.  Mrs. Edwards, being local to the area, could rely on her family and people to hide her husband if necessary, and the Edwards felt that they could still do a lot of good for the people of the Brooke’s Point area.

The Sutherlands reported to the clearing early in the morning.  Alastair Sutherland was agog that his prayers had come true so precisely, and they were about to go on a submarine.  George, Red and Charlie were ready, as was Henry Garretson, as well as a new member of the party.

He was tall and thin, and likely spoke with an Scandinavian accent.  his name was Vens Taivo Kierson, born in Finland, emigrated with his family to the northwest US when he was about 15, and now experienced world traveler.  He actually left school to become a topper for a lumber company that felled trees for Boeing to build their plane frames.  When aircraft manufacturers started to build frames from steel rather than lumber, he learned to salvage dive and moved to Alaska.  He received a huge bonus from one of his clients when he recovered something from a recent shipwreck which enabled him to tour the Pacific.  Soon, he began working salvage in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and the Philippines.  He fought the Japanese during the (what is now known as) First Battle of Shanghai in 1932, helped the Philippine Army until the invasion of Manila and was Garretson’s partner in the salvage of the SS Panay. Why had the Fliers not seen him before now?

He had been conducting a scouting and trading mission around the island.  A couple of months earlier, a Japanese ship grounded.  The crew got off, but couldn’t take any of the cargo with them.  Kierson salvaged pretty much everything that could be carried off  the ship before the official salvage team could get there.  This haul of rifles, medicine, money, liquor, food stuffs, paper, charts and more was a godsend, and Keirson set off on a tour of the island, gathering intelligence, trading the goods for other needed items and checking in with the local guerrilla factions.

He had one other talent: transforming Japanese mines into ammunition.

Japanese mines of the time period were designed to deactivate if they came loose from their chains and floated to the surface.  This was obviously because a floating mine was dangerous to everyone, friend or foe.  Occasionally, one of these loose mines would come to rest on the beaches of Palawan.  Using a technique he’d invented and developed on Negros, Kierson would dismatle the thing to get at the black powder charge which he would put in the empty ammo shells and top with small, carefully selected and shaped pebbles for bullets, thus keeping the guerrillas on Palawan in ammunition after the official stuff had long since be used up.  It was more than tricky work, and those mines, as it turned out, rarely deactivated when they popped up on the surface, so deactivating the mines was a tricky and dangerous business.

He taught the guerrillas everything he knew, and now, with an opportunity to escape, the guerrillas were insisting that Kierson leave for his own protection.

Eight Fliers, the four Sutherlands, Charlie, Red, George, Garretson and Kierson…seventeen extra people  on an already crowded boat, and more than half unqualified and/or civilians, on patrol for who knows how long.  If Redfin had been assigned a similar length of patrol as Flier, they still had about three or four weeks left.

After breakfast, the group set off for the beach, the Flier’s feet now healed enough that most of them walked a good distance down the mountain.

But an ugly surprise waited for them:  that morning, a Japanese shipping vessel dropped anchor offshore, less than a mile from the planned rendezvous point.  Even more eerie, no one could see any sailors on the decks or pilothouse, it was as if she was abandoned.

Had they been found out?  Was the Maru waiting for Redfin to show herself before blowing them all away?  Was she bait for the rest of the convoy, lying in wait somewhere out of sight?

No one knew, but the three officers of Flier had to make a decision.  If the maru didn’t move by nightfall, would they try to make for the rendezvous point anyway, hoping the maru would miss them in the darkness?  Should they skip the attempt tonight and hope the maru would move during the night or next day and they can try again the following night on the backup date?

In the end, the officers decided to ask the civilians if they would be willing to risk the trip tonight, keeping the small boats further away from the maru and the rendezvous point than previously planned, and using the radio Howell fixed to call Redfin, since there was no way they could safely hang the lanterns in the lighthouse for the “all safe” signal to get Redfin to show herself.    The civilians quickly agreed to try that night.

After sunset, and farewells for a bunch of people who likely would never see each other again, the small crafts took off.   They headed south before looping west in a great arc, keeping a safe distance from the maru.  Howell kept calling with the radio, trying to raise the Redfin, then trying CW Keying (a variation on telegraph) in case there was something wrong.

After an hour of trying to raise the Redfin, Howell suddenly heard a staticy message.  Redfin couldn’t see them, and the CW Keying was coming through more clearly.  Howell abandoned the voice radio to concentrate on the CW Keying, while Russo grabbed a flashlight (some accounts say a shuttered lantern) and began to signal to the Redfin with it.

An hour passed, then another.  It was now midnight.  There was no sign of the Redfin, and no sign of life from the strange maru anchored too closely for comfort.

There were several souls trapped at Brooke’s Point.  In addition to Mr. Edwards, who had married an Filippino woman and therefore, had some family connections. there were other people there too.

Mr. Harry Garretson was convelesing at the Edward’s home.  A salvage diver before the war, he used his skills behind enemy lines during WWII to salavage equipment from sunken boats before the Japanese could get to them.  In one case, while he was on Negros Island, he helped salvage the SS Panay, a ship heading to the guerillas full of ammunition, rifles, gas masks and other equipment for the Allied war effort.  The Japanese caught on and torpedoed the ship before it could reach them.  The Panay tried to beach herself, but it was too late: she sank innearly 100 feet of water and Garretson and his soon-to-be business partner salvaged as much as they could.  They got most of it, and today, the wreck is a popular tourist dive, and you can see the gas masks and ammo boxes scattered around where Garretson left them.

After the Panay, they kept traveling, helping the guerilla movement whenever they could, though always behind the scenes since their pale skin would give them away as foreigners to the Japanese.  They eventually came to the sparsely populated Palawan Island, where Garretson fell ill with malaria, and now, over a year later, he was suffering some severe complications, and was mostly bedridden.  With the addition of the Fliers, he and the Edwards were hoping Garretson at least could go with them on the rescue boat if it came, because he soon would either die, or have to be left behind if the Japanese invaded.

There were also three military men at Brooke’s Point, hunting, fishing, helping all the while waiting fo ra chance to get back to Allie dTerritpory where they could formally fight.  Two of them, George Marquez and William “Red” Wigfield, were Army men stationed at Nichols Air Base near Cavite Navy Base in Manila.  While stationed together, they did not know each other at the time.

On the morning of December 8 (December 7 in Hawaii, across the International Date Line) both men were on duty at the Air Field when the Japanese attacked.  An attack from the Japanese was suspected, but the military was convinced if they did something so foolish, it would happen at Manila, or Hong Kong, not Pearl Harbor.  No one suspected the Japanese would strike all three and more over 48 hours.

They spent the day running around, trying to protect the airplanes at the field, and after the initial fight was over, helped with the cleanup and salvage.

But the Japanese were still coming, and coming hard.  The Air Base was evacuated further south, but when the Japanese conquered Corregidor on May 6. 1942, the surrender tacitly included the surrender of all American Military men in the Philippines.

Red and George decided surrender wasn’t for them, and with many other American military stationed at that base, took to the hills and the seas, trying to get south, or hide behind enemy lines as a part of the new guerilla forces hassling the Japanese forces bit by bit.

At first, they took off for Panay Island, but since it was large, heavily populated and obviously going to be in the path of the Japanese advance, they built rafts and took off for tiny Cuyo Islands.  That worked for about 18 months, though early in the war, the Japanese military sent an officer and enlisted man to the Islands looking to “recruit” the locals.  George claimed to have killed and buried them, but apparently, no one ever showed up to figure out what happened to these guys.

Eventually, however, the time was up.  One morning while George and Red were hunting in the hills, they saw an invasion force land on the beaches and round up the Americans and a number of natives.  These two hid for most of the day and were missed in the round up.  That night, they grabbed one of the rafts and headed further west for the island of Palawan.

They made their way down the spine of mountains that makes up that island until crashing until Charlie Watkins and the guerillas one night in the vicinity of Puerto Princesa.

Charlie was a navy boy who had been on Corregidor Island and was forced to live through the horror that was the Battle of Corregidor.  After the surrender (the one that sent George and Red scurrying for the hills,) he was rounded up and marched to Camp Cabanantuan, and subsequently shipped to Puerto Princesa  to the POW camp there.  During the day, the prisoners were forced to build an airstrip out of the jungle using only crude hand tools.  When the call of nature could no longer be ignored, the guards would permit the men in small groups to go into the jungle to relieve themselves then return.  One day in late 1942, Charlie and a buddy were granted permission to go.

And they took it literally.

They were quickly found by the local Filipinos, who, though formally forbidden from assisting the Americans (death to all who tried) still hung around the camp adn work areas, leaving food, encouraging notes, whispering messages back and forth, to keep the men’s spirits up.  Charlie and his friend, Joel Little, were smuggled beyond the reach of the Japanese.

Whether a direct result of this, or other escapes, soon afterwards, the Japanese counted their work gangs into groups of ten.  The rules were simple:  Ten men go out, ten men come back.  If less than ten men come back, the rest are summarily executed.  It put an end to more escapes.

George and Red's journey and Charlie's journey from the morning of December 8, 1941 to the Flier's arrival. Each man covered well over 500 miles between land and sea travel. To put things in perspective, despite what the Flier's have undergone, they've traveled a realtively short distance. The white-rimmed dot near the Balabac Area is the approx. location of the sinking. You can see the great scale of each man's journey to Brooke's Point, on the off chance they may (someday) be picked up.

The three men stuck around in the area until December 1943.  Unknown to a lot of the locals, the war had started to turn badly against the Japanese, and the rules they were being handed from the Imperial Headquarters were getting more and more strict and severe.  The guerillas near Puerto Princesa decided for everyone’s safety, the group of three Americans should move to Brooke’s Point and wait for evacuation, if it ever came.

Then of course, there were the Sutherlands.   Sandy Sutherland and his wife Maise were Scottish missionaries living in the Palawan area.  They returned to Palawan right before the attack on Manila and suddenly found themselves stranded in Palawan with no way out, a two year old girl and five year old boy, and death warrants on all their heads.  Despite their trust in the local people, the Sutherlands took to the mountains, living a subsistence lifestyle, never sleeping or living in the same place for more than a few days, in case their location was tortured out of someone.  With no airstrips, no harbors and no allied ports nearby, their son Alastair began praying for a submarine to come and take them away, because only a submarine would be able to get in and be able to sneak through the enemy lines to take them to safety.  Sandy Sutherland heard his son praying to God for a submarine to rescue them all, and started to pray too.  It was a two years long prayer.

In the meantime, despite the danger, the Sutherlands helped out wherever they could, with medical expertise, religious services, or anything else needed.

All these people needed a way out.

And Perth decided that the eight Fliers were important enough to retrieve, but they would need time to think about the civilians and the Army boys.

Before the Fliers arrived, a local village was going to throw a party for the Coastwatchers and the refugees to keep up their spirits and the Fliers were quickly included.  The Mayors were coming up the mountain with their children which Mrs. Edwards was going to watch for the evening, and so the Fliers and most of the Coastwatchers were sent ahead while a few waited for the Mayors.

They had just left the clearing when they heard a gunshot.  Dashing back, they discovered that while Palacido was greeting the Mayors, Corpus, unable to deal with his depression any longer, had shot himself in the chest with his .45.  It was a hot evening, and no time could be spared.  The men, all of them, quickly went to various groups, some prepared Corpus in his best coveralls for his burial, some dug a simple grave in the woods, and others built a quick coffin.  Due to the more detailed description of the coffin detail that Jacobson gives in his memoirs, I think that he must have been on this duty.  He said after all the years being cut off from the world, there was hardly any cut wood left,a dn they had to creatively join many pieces, and in the end, Corpus fit, though barely.

It was a hard blow to them all, and as anyone who has lived through the suicide of a friend or family or coworker can attest, each man probably went back over the last several days wondering, ‘What could I have done better?   Could I have said something or done something differently?’

But life had to continue.  Perth called back saying that they had sent a submarine to pick up the survivors.  That night, by arrangement, Crowley radioed the rescuing submarine (he had been told one was being sent, but not who it was) and was shocked to hear his friend Cy Austin, commander of Redfin, who had been parked next to Flier most of the time in Fremantle.  After arranging signals (three lanterns hung in a row from the abandoned light on the point) for safety and a rendexvous point, Austin started to sing “Sweet Adeline” into the radio.  This confused Crowley a bit, but since both had been in the same barbershop quartet, he quickly joined in, singing his part.  Austin was satisfied that Crowley was the real deal and that he wasn’t being set up again.

Crowley told him about the civilians needing a space on the boat, and the desperate straits they were in.  Austin said he would contact HQ but for now, his orders were to pick up the submariners and keep on patrol.

So where was the Redfin all this time?  Off the western coast of Borneo, merrily hunting anything that crossed her path. She was actually sitting at the western entrance to Balabac Straits on August 24 when she was told to head fro Tuabbatha Reefs to wait for a Special Mission.  The quickest way there was through the Balabac Straits, which they were told was strictly closed.  Redfin would have to go all the way around Palawan Island.  And now Austin knew what he was supposed to do.  The rescue was set for August 30.  If something happened that night, like rough weather, that prevented rescue, they were to try again on August 31.  If they STILL could not meet, Redfin was to call HQ for further orders.

A kumpit with and outboard motor and a second one to drag behind were standing by.  All they had to do was motor out and be picked up by a friend.

But things were never that easy.

A video taken of the wreck of the SS Panay in 2006.  Personally, I think whoever did it was more interested in playing with their video editor than showing the wreck, but there you go if you’re interested in seeing the wreck of the Panay as Garretson and his partner left it.

For more information of the Puerto Princesa Prison Camp and the men who lived through it, read “Last Man Out” by Glenn McDole, Survivor of Puerto Princesa.

As an aside, the landing strip the American POWs were forced to build is still in use: it is the international airport of Puerto Princesa.

The message was embedded in the usual weather report (the Japanese could always be listening in, but since what the Coastwatchers sent was, more often that not, weather reports, it wasn’t too likely they’d listen closely), sent to Brisbane and quickly forwarded to Fremantle.

Fremantle, to put it lightly, wasn’t happy.  Not. At. All.

The next night, they sent a blistering scolding to the Coastwatchers, who weren’t even their men, telling them that they were highly disappointed in the quality of the men’s observations and that they were supposed to be watching the straits for things like mines, and they expected much better in the future.

For the commander of the group, Armando Corpus, who had suffered from depression before during this mission, it might have been the last straw.  If he followed the pattern established earlier in this mission, he likely withdrew from the other men and talked openly about how he was useless to do anything.  The other men, lead by Palacido who was the de facto leader of the group, tried to tell him it wasn’t their fault, certainly not Corpus’s alone, and that he was a valuable leader of their band.

From what I have seen, the Fliers certainly never held the Coastwatchers responsible for what happened to their boat, it was the fortunes of war.  Moreover, the Straits had been mined before the Coastwatchers got there.  Personally, I think the accusation a bit unfair, but a lot of these facts came out after the war, and 1944 wasn’t exactly a relaxing time for anyone in the Submarine Force.  Fresh off the realization that Robalo isn’t answering her repeated calls, nor calling in to report when she’d be in port, and is therefore, likely lost, to hear Flier was certainly lost in the same general area, had to be a devastating blow.  To add to that, submarine Hake reported that her hunting partner, submarine Harder, had taken a severe depth charging from the escorts of their last targets, and wasn’t answering Hake’s calls.  Hake suspected Harder was  lost with all hands, including legendary skipper Sam Dealey.  So news of all three submarines lost with their crews was hitting Christie’s office at once.  It might have been too much to take for whoever composed the scathing message.

The Fliers meanwhile were sitting back and relaxing for the first time.  As their feet healed, they started to participate in the activities of the mountain encampment and meet the people around here, including trapped missionaries, survivors of the Bataan Death March, and salvage divers.

But more on that tomorrow.

So we left the Flier survivors asleep at Rio Tuba, and by sunrise the next morning, they were treated to another meal by their gracious hosts, who turned out to be a married couple with their daughter who had recently married a young man from Brooke’s Point area.

The daughter and her husband planned to leave that morning on foot to walk the fifty plus miles to Brooke’s Point,but when the family discovered that was where the kumpit was heading, they asked if there would be room for the newleyweds…and all the bride’s dowry.

On a sixteen foot boat that was already hauling twelve people, there wasn’t really, but custom dictated that they agree, and so the Fliers found themselves sharing the little deck space with two more bodies and all the bride’s worldy goods including sacks of rice, bundles of clothes, kitchen goods, and live chickens.

The kumpit was so weighed down that she only cleared the water by a few inches and could only sluggishly lumber through the waves.  In fact, she was so slow, Sailor opted to leave her in the care of de la Cruz and the two deckhands and run north for a couple hours to visit his wife and kids, then swim out to the kumpit later.

They spent a cramped night aboard, and the following they got to Brooke’s Point, where they met the Captain of the guerillas based at Brooke’s Point, Captain Nazario Major.  As it turned out, the abandoned house they sheltered at on Bugsuk Island belonged to Major before the war, and he was the one who poisoned the cistern in case the Japanese landed.

Brooke’s Point had been a small coastal village before the war, but now appeared bombed and burnt, with little sign of its inhabitants.  Posters looking for American and Scottish families Edwards and Sutherland were scattered around, dropped by planes, offering significant monetary rewards for turning them in to the Japanese.  Only Major’s home remained near the beach.

Mrs. Major invited everyone in for a meal, and while they were eating, Mr. Edwards and Captain Armando Corpus, the leader of the American Army Coastwatchers came in and introduced themselves.  Due to the fact that Mr. Edwards was being hunted by the Japanese and there were too many Coastwatchers to stay on the beach, they lived a few miles inland on the slopes of Addison Peak, where the Fliers would be taken after the meal.

Captain Crowley asked during this meal if the Japanese knew there was such a large contingent of guerillas here, and everyone laughed.  They knew all right, and had actually landed a group of 20 soldiers on the beach on July 20, looking to quash the rebellion.  The official report of that day read like this:

“Enemy casualties-20.  Our casualties-sore trigger  fingers.”

They hadn’t been back.  Nonetheless, if the white skin of the Fliers happened to be seen by a passing patrolboat, the chances of another landing would be high, along with larger numbers of soldiers.

After lunch, Edwards and Corpus took off for the mountain camp  on foot, but the Fliers were in no condition to take that hike, so a carabao cart had been sent for them.

Before leaving however, Howell, the Radio Technician, discovered that the Coastwatchers beach radio was broken and unable to work, limiting the Coastwatchers ability to contact the outside world.  Howell asked and received permission to stay on the beach to fix the radio there.  Thankfully, there was another one on the mountain, but having the second one was important.

The carabao ride was fairly funny to Al.  The carabao decided to wallow in every mudpuddle it found, and there were a lot of puddles.  The young boy entrusted with bringing the Fliers to Addison tried to encourage the carabao to move in every way he could including beating it with a stick, but the carabao moved when it wanted to, and no sooner.

They finally reached the encampment near sunset.   There were two houses there, once built by Mr. Edwards  for his family, and one built by Captain Major for his if the Japanese invaded the beach.  The Coastwatchers stayed in the Major home in the meantime.

The enlisted guys were invited to stay at the Coastwatchers house and the officers to stay with the Edwards house, which already included Harry Garretson, an American salvage diver who was trapped in the Philippines and now bedridden with malaria.

It was a good camp, and now came the hard part: waiting to see what HQ would do.   Would they be rescued, or would they be asked to wait behind enemy lines for a while–or until the end of the war?

If you want to purchase an autographed copy of my book, “Surviving the Flier”  you can finally do so on this website!

There is a shopping cart linked to the Surviving the Flier page here, and I will send one to you.  If you want it personalized, just drop a line to me at ussflierproject@gmail.com telling me who you are, your order # and how you’d like me to sign the book for you, and I’ll be more than happy to do so and mail it right out to you.

If you just want the book, you can get it on Amazon ($14.99) (UPDATE 8/23:  I told Amazon about Barnes and Nobles Price, so now both sites are offering Surviving the Flier for $10.79) ,and  Barnes and Noble, ($10.79)

If you live in Germany, believe it or not, you can order from here for 12,99 Euros

Okay, now I found my book listed in Estonia.

And even my friends in the UK can order through the UK version of Amazon.

I’m sorry if this sounds like bragging, but this is just too fun, almost surreal, to actually see my book in print and available world wide thanks to the Internet.  Who knows if anyone there will ever buy it, but they have the option!  (Though it’s still in English.  They can learn WWII Submarine terminology and slang.  That could be interesting.  Not necessarily useful…might not even be safe, but interesting…)

Next up, the e-books and the Kindle books, then on to the audio book!