Escape From Davao Read Online Free PDF

hours later, after the order came in to abandon Nichols Field, Dyess, Grashio, and the rest of the 21st Pursuit Squadron landed at cratered Clark Field amid clouds of pumice and dust. Guided by the
    “eerie glow cast by the smoldering hangars,” they weaved around fire-gutted wrecks and opened their cockpits to a stinging stench of cordite, burnt flesh, and gasoline fumes. Lt. Joe Moore, whose 20th Pursuit had been decimated, summed up the damage tal y in one terse sentence: “We got kicked in the teeth.” Despite sufficient advance warning—nearly ten hours had elapsed between the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines—MacArthur’s air force had suffered a death blow. Twelve of the nineteen B-17s at Clark Field were now charred wreckage and thirty-four of the 5th Interceptor Command’s ninety-one P-40s—

    two entire squadrons—were destroyed. The lone radar station at Iba Field was damaged beyond repair and the one-sided onslaught (Japanese losses totaled seven planes) had also destroyed precious stocks of fuel and parts.
    Two days later, with Japanese planes streaking over Manila and the port area unopposed, MacArthur and Adm. Thomas Hart would be overheard discussing the disastrous calamity that had been delivered upon USAFFE, as wel as al American forces in the Pacific.
    “Oh, God help us,” one of them had reportedly exclaimed, “if Clark Field can’t now.”

CHAPTER 2
A Long War
    No time to falter or catch a breath
    For thought of future, for fear of death …
    THURSDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1941
    Cavite Navy Yard, Luzon, Philippine Islands
    It was one of those rare instances in the life of Lt. Cmdr. Melvyn McCoy when the correct solution was not immediately visible. As the Japanese surged toward Manila, McCoy stalked about his quarters in Cañacao, near the three silver towers of the Cavite radio station, methodical y packing his seabag with the essentials he would take to the fortress island of Corregidor. Two items remained: a portrait photograph of his wife, Betty Anne, and a set of used golf clubs that he had purchased in a Manila pawn shop. He could not take both.
    The thirty-four-year-old radio matériel officer for the 16th Naval District, McCoy had graduated from Annapolis with one of the highest averages in mathematics ever attained by a midshipman. He lived to discover solutions to problems, usual y much more complex ones than this. Others, after al , had recently proved less vexing. Through orders and scuttlebutt, McCoy had deduced that MacArthur, awakening to the reality of the tenuous tactical situation, would order War Plan Orange into effect on the evening of Dec. 23. With no air force, no navy and no prospect of Al ied assistance, MacArthur had no other recourse. Japanese warplanes had destroyed Cavite Navy Yard on December 10, forcing the bulk of the Asiatic Fleet to pul up anchor for the Netherlands East Indies, while the simultaneous sinkings of the capital ships Repulse and Prince of Wales near Malaya on December 10 had essential y eliminated Britain’s strategic military presence in the Far East. The landing of General Masaharu Homma’s 14th Army, 43,000 troops, plus artil ery and tanks, at Lingayen Gulf in northern Luzon on December 22 had effectively sealed the decision. These units, acting in concert with landing forces advancing from Lamon Bay in southern Luzon, were racing toward Manila in a pincer movement. Just barely ahead of them were MacArthur’s forces, stampeding back in a frantic double retrograde because most of the green, untrained Filipinos had thrown away their rifles upon encountering Homma’s armor and airpower, commencing the rout.
    McCoy also figured that as the ranking communications officer in the Philippines he would be staying behind with the smal Navy contingent of ships and personnel. Al around him, the demolition of equipment and stores continued in earnest. Warehouses were opened to mobs and Clark, Nichols, and other airfields were stripped, fired, and