WWII Palawan Massacre Civil Defense Lessons

How Glenn McDole, USMC, Survived It's Horror, and Shared His Knowledge

NOTE: Today, March 2, 2024, when a major rainstorm wreaked havoc on West Virginia, once again proving the necessity of civil defense, I offer another Substack post in hopes of educating American families about the critical importance of tactical civil defense for the survival and prosperity of your family. To prepare for natural and manmade disasters, please go to The American Civil Defense Association TACDA.ORG website for free civil defense instruction and goods.

N.B.: If you find the Imperial Japanese Army soldiers behavior described below to be brutal, imagine what the Red Chinese People’s Liberation Army has planned for you in WWIII. They take vital organs out of their own citizens while they are alive. What they would do to what they consider subhuman “foreigners?”

Introduction

In the European War only two percent of American and allied prisoners of war died in German prison camps. In the Pacific War, nearly forty out of a hundred prisoners died in Japanese prison camps. P. 39

On December 14, 1944, Japanese Imperial Army soldiers massacred 139 of the 150 American Prisoners of War (POWs) at the Puerto Princea Palawan Prison Camp 10A. Glenn “Mac” McDole was one of 11 Americans to escape and survive. Mac’s story of survival is chronicled by the writer Bob Wilbanks in the book Last Man Out: Glen McDole, USMC, Survivor of the Palawan Massacre in World War II.

Here is a summary of his story from the back cover: “Beginning in December 8, 1941, at the U.S. Navy Yard barracks at Cavite, the story of this young Iowa Marine continues through the fighting on Corregidor, his capture by the Japanese Imperial Army in May 1942, his entry into the Palawan prison camp in the Philippines on August 12, 1942, the vile conditions he and his comrades endure there, and the terrible day when 139 young soldiers were slaughtered.

The book offers details of the escapes of the few survivors — who dug into refuse piles, hid in coral caves, and slogged through swamp and jungle [to survive]. It also contains an account of the war crimes trials of the Japanese guards…and a roster of the names and hometowns of the victims of the Palawan massacre.”

The Japanese Imperial Army had 300 prisoner of war camps stretching throughout Asia during World War II. There were camps in China, Manchuria, Burma, Formosa, Japan, French Indochina, Korea, the Philippines, Sumatra and Thailand. Thousands of prisoners were crammed into these camps, and most were put to work as slaver laborers. Some were Japan’s was machine running. p. 57

Mac and hundreds of other starving, diseased, and brutally beaten American soldiers were turned into slaves to build an airstrip for the Japanese Imperial Air Force. For several years, they would work nonstop clearing the jungle, leveling the field, moving coral, and mixing and pouring concrete to build an airstrip.

It was exhausting work. They had no heavy bulldozers, no earth-moving equipment or trucks to haul away the dirt and debris. Instead, they relied on picks, shovels, one axe for each group of men wheelbarrows, and what energy each man could muster for the workday. P. 51

Mac was one of hundreds of thousands of WWII POWs whose stories were never told. Fortunately, we have in Last Man Out a remarkable and true story of his survival under brutal conditions. It offers many tactical civil defense lessons due to Mac’s experience using survival tactics and strategies that can only be learned in such extreme circumstances that are summarized below.

You Survive with Others, not Alone

Mac, Smitty, and Roy [two Marine buddies from Corregidor] would share water, food, and any other item to stay alive “What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine,” they said, and their pact would prove to be a lifesaver. P. 32

So far, Mac, Smitty and Roy Henderson were free of disease. None of them had come down with malaria. All three took Quinine pills from the big bottle Mac had managed to smuggle out of the hospital in Corregidor. P. 39

This pact to help each other was a daily routine that paid dividends under extreme torture, beatings, starvation, disease, and unbelievable horror. Dozens of examples are detailed in the book.

Eat What is Available to Survive

If anything was constant at the Palawan prison camp, it was hunger. When he had the time to think of home, food was always a part of Mac’s daydreams…If you were lucky enough to trap a python, cobra, lizard or monkey, there were eaten right away — even rotten fish heads were added to the pot when available. p. 68

Self Control is Critical

Mac had an temper and it flared when first captured leading to his being beaten severely. He realized he had to control his tempter to reduce the number of his beatings by the guards, and he did.

The prisoners were not to be killed, but kept alive — kept alive at least long enough to produce for the Japanese Empire. If the guards couldn’t kill the prisoners, at least they could brutalize them. The number of beatings increased daily…one day as Mac was cutting down a coconut tree, a guard started jabber at him. Mac didn’t understand Japanese…and he said, “OK.” The guard’s club hit him squarely in the mouth. As he lay on the ground with a bloody mouth and loose tooth, he felt fortunately. He’d watched beatings of other prisoners that were much worse, and he thought to himself he was starting to control his temper. Difficult to do, he admitted, but at least he was controlling his temper and surviving. p. 57

Ingenuity, Imagination and Creativity Will Save Your Life

1. Medical

   Even a full ration of rice [one service of rice ball the size of a baseball daily} was barely enough to keep the hard-working prisoners alive, and malnutrition became so bad that many prisoners suffered from thin skin. There skin tore easily, and special care had to be taken , especially in the crotch and under the arms. An ulcer infection in the crotch was painful and always immobilized a prisoner. Mac had his share of skin ulcers. His formed on his butt and legs but they didn’t slow him down. Lacking salt, he rubbed seawater into the sores. As painful as it was, the home remedy worked. p. 69

   One day Mac collapsed while working and the guard beat him. When he was taken back to the camp, Doc Mango knew immediately Mac’s appendix had burst. With no anesthetic, Doc Mango operated on him and removed the burst appendix. After sewing him up with catgut, Mac’s incision would not heel and was infected despite three cleanings with war water a day for a week. Doc Mango had to open him back up and clean the wound, and here is where the ingenuity comes in.

   For the next week, the washing routine continues. Smitty and Doc Mango rinses his incision three times a day until Mango decided it was time to close the incision for the last time. By this time, the Doc had run out of catgut, and he begged the guards for more. All he got from them was, “Nie, Nie.” There had to be a way, and the good doctor fount it. Looing at the buttons on Mac’s shirt, a shirt he’d saved by never worn, Mango asked the guards for some string. They came up with string and more buttons. Mango took the buttons and began sewing them into Mac’s body, six on each side of the incision. He then pulled more string through the buttons and pulled them all together closing the incision. pgs. 76-77

2. Entertainment

   Entertainment helps in extreme survival situations, which is why the U.S. military spends so much for it during wartime. Mac and his comrades created plays and made playing cards to distract from their beatings, overwork, torture, and boredom.

   As they marched into Puerto Princesa to their trucks…Mac raised his hand, a signal to the Jap guards that he needed a “piss call. Smitty watches as Mac runs into an abandoned school and scavenges paper and pens. That night, he makes playing cards. Mac drew the Jokers to look like the guards, and he Kings were all U.S. Marines. They played cards that night and the card-making paid off. When they took their “percentage” off the top of all the gambling proceeds, Smitty had all the cigarettes he needed for a long time, and Mac, the non-smoker, came out of it with when he wanted most, extra food.” Pgs. 67-68

   Clarence Clough ran across an old piano. He tore out the piano fire and found an old wood box. Clough took the box and he wire back to the barracks where he used a rock to hone the wire down to what he considered the right pitch. He strung the wire, five different strings in all, into a homemade banjo. He had a good voice, and so did Sergeant Doug Bogue. he two men entertained at night They sang for hours. Entertainment fever hit the barracks and it wasn’t long before other prisoners joined in. One end of the barracks was cleared for their stage productions. p. 72

Pre-Planning ALWAYS Increases your Chances of Survival

When the American USAAF began to bomb the Palawan runway, the Japanese ordered the American POWs to build air raid shelters, ostensibly to protect them from the bombings. In truth, they were where they wanted the POWs when they massacred them.

Mac, who always looked for opportunities to escape but never took the few opportunities that presented themselves so as to not endanger the lives of his buddies who would be killed if he fled, still always looked for opportunities to increase his chances of survival.

One was that, when forced to dig an air raid bunker, he dug an exit hole in the last one near a cliff to that would get him to the bay if there was ever the opportunity. He filled it with six inches of earth to disguise it.

“Smitty told Mac, “Look out, Dole and see if you can see anything goin’ on” Mac looked out the opening of the trench and saw soldiers entering the camp dressed in full battle gear and carrying lighted torches, buckets of gas, and rifles. he watched as the soldiers poured the gasoline down the only entrance to Shelter B. The torch went it, and there was a muffled “WHUMP!” as the gas exploded. Then came the agonizing screams from those trapped inside. Mac ducked back into the shelter and told everyone what he’d seen. Smitty decided to look out the opening, and a rifle shot forced him to duck back into the bunker. He had seen enough. “They’re murdering the men in B-company pit! he screamed. “Finish diggin’ the tunnel!” There was a frenzied scramble to claw their way out of the shelter. It wouldn’t take long to push out the six inches of dirt and move the rock aside. Shelter C was last on the list for extermination, so they had a little more time. P. 115.

In Shelter C, the prisoners finally broke through the hole, and it was every man out and on his own as they fell and stumbled down the cliff. Mac and Smitty were among the last men out of the bunker. A bucket of gas had been thrown into the bunker entrance, soaking Navy Corpsman Everett Bancroft, Jr. of Canon City, Colorado. Some of the gas had splashed on Mac’s backside as he ran from the entrance to the exit. When the torch was thrown into the shelter Bancroft burst into flames and fall to the floor. Mac’s shorts, soaked with gasoline, were set afire. He ripped them off as he ran down the shelter to the hidden exit, right behind Smitty. There he stood for a moment — shoes lost somewhere in the mad scramble, no clothing, naked as he was the day he was born. P. 117

Helping Others Helps You

Just as Mac was about to take the wild plunge, he looked down to see Pop Danielson, paralyzed with fear and squatting on the shelter floor. He yelled, “Cone on, Pop!” but Pop would not move. Mac dragged him to the shelter exit and put his hands on Pop’s butt, flipping him out of the hole where he tumbled down the hill to the beach. Corporal McDole was right behind him, the last man out, his butt burned red and his feet cut and bleeding from the sharp coral as he frantically fell and stumbled to the beach below. P. 117

Institutional Help will Not Help You

Just before the Red Cross visit to the Palawan Prison Camp, Mac and the other prisoners handed in their rags and were given fresh clothes.

No prisoner was allowed to talk to the inspectors, nor were the inspectors allowed to talk to them. The whole thing took only about a half-hour, and then the inspectors walked out of the gate without so much as a look back. No sooner had the gate closed than guards rushed into the barracks and forced the men to return the denim trousers and shirts. When they discovered that it had been a Red Cross inspection, they complained it was all a hoax to trick the Red Cross into thinking everything was fine. And so far as Mac was concerned the Red Cross really didn’t care. He would say later, “The inspectors could tell we suffered from malnutrition, but nothing came of it. They made their half-hour inspection and that’s all they cared about.” p. 67

Lack of Vices will Help You Survive

Mac didn’t smoke. He had no use for cigarettes, and he remembered his days on Corregidor, when he’d watch men in their foxholes up pages from their bibles to roll homemade cigarettes. …he traded his cigarettes for food, figuring the cigarettes were probably saving his life because he had more food than the other prisoners. p. 77

Things Can Always Get Worse

Life at Palawan Barracks had always been brutal and, with the arrival of the front-line troops and new guards, it was even worse. McDole and the other prisoners had formerly been allowed to seek shade while they ate lunch at the airfield, but no more. Under the new rules, they were given fifteen minutes to eat while standing in the sun, and there were no rest periods. P. 100

Things Can Always Get Better

Then they looked out to the bay, where they saw a lone-four-engine plane coming out of the clouds, skimming low over the water toward the prison. camp. Neither had ever seen a plane quite like it. It had a twin tail; its overhead wing and bulky body bristled with bombs and machine guns. The group shook as the bomer hedge-hopped over the camp and, for the first time in a long, long time, Mac and Smitty saw the Stars and Stripes on a plane’s wings.

Both of them went crazy — whooping, yelling, screaming, dancing and jumping with joy —and they weren’t alone. Every prisoner in the camp went wild. Their pith helmets, creased and recreased by the blows of Japanese clubs, went flying in the air. Every prisoner broke down emotionally, some of them crying. Others laughed as the plane rumbled over the camp, the pilot flapping his wings in greeting to the POW below. Pgs. 101-102.

The Power of Prayer

After Mac escaped the bomb bunker and went down a cliff to the coral beach and hid in a maggot infested garbage dump. What happened that day can only be described as an answer to prayer, or a miracle.

He could hardly breathe as the worms, maggots and other creatures in the dump found him and started making a home for themselves. He did not move. P. 119

Mac wanted to run, but something kept telling him to stay put. He did, all the while praying to God to give him the strength to survive. As he prayed, he could hear the laughter of the guards and smell the stench of burning flesh. The odor of flesh burning and garbage was overwhelming, but he managed again to fight off a powerful urge to vomit. There were other sounds, along the beach: screams of other POW's as they were bayoneted, burned, beaten and sho9t, then the laughter of the guards as they sett fire to the living and the dead. Then it was quiet. very quiet. The killing on the beach lasted about an hour. By then, the Japanese believed they had killed all the POSs, but there would be another body count and another search.

The Japanese finally realized they had not killed all the POW’s. The next morning, they began a methodical search of the beach, probing into the cliff’s small caves and holes along the shoreline. When the sun came up, Corporal Glenn McDole looked out on the beach from a very small peephole he’d made in the garbage. Suddenly, and without any warning, a Japanese soldier was on the pile, looking directly down at hi. Mac thought he could smell the guard’s breath and body odor, and the thought he’d soon feel the thrust of a bayonet. All he could think of was what they would do with him. What kind of torture would they put him through? If he ran, would he be able to dodge the bullets? He closed his eyes and did not move. He sight guidance, this time from a much higher power. It was wasn’t the first time he’d prayed during the years he’d spent in captivity, and he asked again for guidance and protection. When Mac opened his eyes, the guard was gone. P. 124

Sometimes Bad Rumors are True

Most of them never for a moment thought the Japanese would kill them, but the thought did occur to sergeant Douglas Bogue. He had been told by a Japanese guard that all the Americans would be killed if American troops landed on Palawan. Other POWs had ignored that statement. Bogue believed it. P. 112

Doug Bogue watched as a prisoner, engulfed in flames, rushed a Japanese guard, grabbed his rifle and shot him. He saw another guard bayonet a prisoner in the back. Bogue knew that if he were to survive, he’d have to make a run for it from his three-man shelter and slash his way through the barbed wire enclosure. Others had tried and failed, shot by soldiers lining the barracks veranda, but he had nothing to lose. He make a frantic scramble to the wire. P. 115

Doug Bogue made it through the wire, down the cliff, hid in a cave until the shooting stopped, ran into the jungle, and a few days later swam 5 miles across the bay to freedom. He had taken the rumor seriously and lived as a result.

It is Healthy to Break Down after Extreme Trauma

After Mac’s escape, he moved from the garbage dump to a crab infested cave and broke down from the extreme trauma of the massacre.

“The cave’s protection from bayonets, rifles and gasoline gave him no other choice. He’d tolerate the crabs. As he sat there in the dark, all the killing and torture he’d been witness to returned, and he started shaking. He closed his eyes and tried to think of other things, pleasant times back home in Iowa, the good times in the Philippines, before the war, but it didn’t work,. All he could se, all he would think of, was the burned, bayoneted and bullet-ridden bodies of his fellow prisoners. A chill swept through him. He wanted to vomit, but there was nothing in his stomach. He sat in hat little cave, a cramp in his guts, and he suffered through the dry heaves. P. 125

All is NOT as it Appears

Almost everyday a Filipino would arrive at the Palawan camp and spit on the Americans and curse them. But he was actually spying for American forces.

“When the man moved closer, Mac recognized the turncoat Filipino scout, Pedro Pajie, Mac could hardly believe it. He couldn’t help but smile and shake his head in disgust. He’d made it this far, and now the stupid son of a bitch in front of him was was going to turn him over to the Japanese…Pedro Pajie just laughed and told Mac that e he was not who Mac thought he was, but was spying on the Japanese and relaying all the information to the U.S. forces. Pajie explained he had to play that role to get the Japanese to trust him, so he could count the number of planes and ammunition dumps the Japanese had on the island He’d then take the information back to Iwahig and radio it to U.S. forces, Mac learned that not only was Pajie the Assistant Director of the Iwahig Penal Colony, he was in charge of all underground activities against the Japanese in that area. P. 131

Later, Mac would provide information to exonerate Pajie when he was charged with treason by the Philippine government. For some unexplained reason, the Philippine government charged guerrilla leader Pedro Pajie with treason when the war ended. When he went on trial, depositions from both Glenn McDole and Rufus Smith helped clear Pajie of the charges. p. 147

God’s Creatures will Help You Survive

After he escaped the massacre, Mac swam 5 miles across a bay in hopes of reaching freedom. He encountered a shark that attacked him and a dolphin that saved him from the shark trying to eat him. Multiple downed pilots in WWII detailed similar stories of dolphins coming to their aid.

He saw a shark’s fin cutting through the water toward him. He swam faster, trying to outrun it, but the shark bit down hard on his arm, and he could feel the teeth sinking into him as it tore away pieces of his flesh. Luck was with him the night of December 14. Just when he thought he’d reached the end, he spotted more fins coming toward him. They were not sharks. A school of dolphins moved quickly through the water to his rescue. They drove off the shark, and, as he swam, they kept a protective shield around him. He could hardly raise his arms to swim and tried to hitch a ride on one of the dolphins, but it wouldn’t cooperate. They stayed with him through the night and escorted him to within sight of the shoreline. P. 123

There is no Justice in this World

He received a letter from the War Crimes Branch in Washington, asking if he’d be available to testify at the war crimes trials to be held in Japan, Mac didn’t hesitate. he asked for and received a leave of absence from the patrol [he was an Iowa State Trooper]. The two helped identify the former guards and officers at Palawan. In all 33 men had been found and were held for trail. Well before U.S. occupation forces moved into Japan, thousands of records, dispatches, orders and other reports had been burned by the Japanese military. This allowed soldiers accused of war crimes to meld into Japanese society with new names and occupations. p. 140

Mac was sent to Tokyo to identify those who had been arrested and jailed in Tokyp’s Sugamo Prison. Again. he told his story of the Palawan Massacre…One guard after another was questioned, but none of them would admit guilt. p.141

“While being held for trail at Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison, Sawa opened up a blank loose-leaf notebook and began writing a letter of confession. He admitted his part in the brutal beatings, bayoneting, beheadings, shootings, and burnings prior to and during that fateful day of December 14, 1944. He told it all, including his own brutal treatment of prisoners working at the airfield. He admitted that he preferred cutting the thin-skinned prisoners after he had knocked them to the ground. He told of his involvement the day of the massacre, how he shot and killed three POW’s as he stood on the veranda of the prison barracks, how POW’s, many of them on fire, ran from their bomb shelters begging to be shot. For his part in the Palawan massacre, Sawa received a five-year prison term, but it was reduced to three and a half years for time already served. p. 145

Many weeks after Mac’s return to the U.S., the trials ended and the verdicts were returned. For the survivors and the dead of the Palawan Massacre, the scales of justice were decidedly well off-balance. Of the thirty-three Japanese officers and men brought up on war crimes charges in connection with the Palawan Massacre, only sixteen men were put on trial, and six of them were acquitted. p. 143

Lieutenant General Kizo Mikama, Commanding General of the 4th Air Division, 4th Air Army, received a twelve-year sentence for his part in the massacre.

Lieutenant Colonel Mamoru Fushimi, who headed up the 11th Air Sector Unit of the 4th Air Army, would spend ten years in prison. Four others were sentenced to terms ranging from two to five years. Six of those charged in the Palawan Massacre were acquitted.

Master sergeant Taichi Deguchi, probably the most feared man at Palawan Barracks, was charged with beating and killing two POWs, beating and abusing seven American POWs…killing two unidentified American POWs and ordering his men to beat them to death and on December 14, 1944. He took part in the slaughter of 139 American POWs. P. 145

Shortly after Deguchi’s death sentence was pronounced, General Douglas MacArthur signed an order commuting the Sergeant Major’s sentence to 30 years in prison. Neither Deguchi nor Lieutenant General Terada would serve the long sentences handed down to them. A general amnesty for all Japanese war crimes prisoners was announced in 1958, and both men walked out of Tokyo’s Sugamo Prison. p. 145

Across the International Dateline, it was December 17, 1944. On a snow-covered field near Malmedy, Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge, German SS troops gunned down eighty American Prisoners of war in hat became known as the Malmedy Massacre. When word of he massacre reached the U.S. some weeks later, it made banner headlines across the country, and America was outraged. By the time word of the massacre at Palawan reached America, it received little attention — no headlines, no cries of indignation —as America listened and read about the huge American and Allied armies sweeping through Europe and the thousands of ships and men crossing the Pacific to Japan. P. 127

Conclusion

There are so many other stories and civil defense lessons, such as the way Mac made four pairs of shorts for he and his buddies out of a duffle bag when they were naked) in this remarkable book, but every Substack must end.

One of the greatest civil defense lessons of this story is that Glenn McDole, who could have been bitter and was an actual victim unlike the fake ones celebrated by the media today, instead of playing victim contributed mightily to his family, community, and the country into his 80’s.

He was an Iowa State Policeman for 29 years and served as a Sheriff for another 12 years. He got married and had two daughters. He continued in the Marine Reserves for 5 years and served a year in 1950 as a Korea War intelligence analyst. He kept active in his church, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Shrine. Over the years, he gave hundreds of talks to schools, churches, civic groups, and veterans organizations about the American soldiers massacred at Palawan.

He never forgot them and the sacrifices they made for their fellow Americans.

Semper Fidelis, Mac.