Movie recalls WWII's ''Great Raid'' in the Philippines

Since 08-11-05

From: Waspscpo@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2005 8:29 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Movie recalls WWII's ''Great Raid'' in the Philippines

http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=90414&ran=191812

Movie recalls WWII's ''Great Raid'' in the Philippines

Logan Marshall Green, left, stars as Lt. Colvin and Joseph Fiennes plays Maj. Gibson in “The Great Raid,” the new movie about the Bataan Death March. PIERRE VINET / MIRAMAX FILMS


By MAL VINCENT, The Virginian-Pilot
August 10, 2005

THEY TRUDGED forward, five abreast, through malarial forests skittering with monkeys and monitor lizards. The American prisoners were forced out front, followed by the Filipinos. If they fell from exhaustion, they were beaten by their captors – or worse. 

If they could no longer walk, they were shot. Then, to make sure they were dead, they were bayoneted. The bodies were left by the roadside. Cornado B. Dabu of the Ghent section of Norfolk was only 11 years old, but he remembers it well. The infamous retreat that was to become known as “Bataan Death March” went through his village.

"When they could no longer walk, the prisoners would sit on the street. The Japanese would kick them and, if they didn’t move, shoot them." – Cornado B. Dabu, of Norfolk, who as a child in the Philippines witnessed the Bataan Death March.

Web links:

Official "The Great Raid" site, with movie trailer

Hampton Roads Movie

“The Japanese would beat them with bamboo if they stumbled. If they didn’t move, they would shoot them,” he said. The scene was the tiny barrio of Del Carmen in the farming region of the Pampanga province, some 50 miles from the site of a rescue mission that some historians now call one of the most heroic of World War II.

All but forgotten, until now, it is dramatized in the new movie “The Great Raid” opening Friday. The film depicts American and Filipino soldiers’ trek 30 miles behind Japanese enemy lines to rescue more than 500 prisoners of war at Cabanatuan. The raid took place on Jan. 30, 1945, about three years after the prisoners had marched through Del Carmen. The rescued prisoners were part of a group of 70,000 American and Filipino troops who were surrendered to the Japanese army by Luzon Force commander Gen. Edward King on April 9, 1942.

The surrender took place after Gen. Douglas MacArthur had been ordered to leave the Philippines for Australia. It was the largest army surrender in United States history and resulted in the 65-mile march. Hundreds of U.S. soldiers and thousands of Filipinos died of starvation, trauma and disease or were executed during the march. “My mother urged us to get out on the street and watch,” recalled Dabu, who eventually immigrated to the United States as a Navy man and, in 1986, became the first Filipino to run, although unsuccessfully, for the Norfolk City Council.

“We thought my brother might be one of the prisoners. My eldest brother had joined the U.S. Navy years before, but we didn’t know where he was. We thought he might have been at Bataan. We thought that helping these prisoners might, in some way, be helping him. It was not until years later that we learned he was stationed in Alaska, far away from us.” “The Japanese,” he said, “didn’t mind us because we were children, so we would slip food to them – rice or a bit of chicken wrapped in banana leaves.

Maybe enough to keep them alive. If an adult had approached them with food, they would have been shot, but the children could do it. When we had no food, we would slip them a bit of sugar cane so that they would have something to chew.” “When they could no longer walk, the prisoners would sit on the street. The Japanese would kick them, and, if they didn’t move, shoot them.” Dabu said he knew nothing of the raid as a child, but he remembers the Filipino resistance.

“I knew that the adults around me wanted the Japanese dead. There was no doubt about that. The guerrillas got weapons from Bataan and Corregidor. They usually could be well-armed. In my village, once, there were families hiding 10 Americans. We would all have been killed if they had been found. There was no escape, though. There was nowhere for them to escape to.”

The movie is set three years after those prisoners staggered through Del Carmen on the way to Camp O’Donnell. From Camp O’Donnell, they were later transferred to a camp at Cabanatuan. In the meantime, MacArthur fulfilled his promise to return to the Philippines on Oct. 20, 1944, and the Japanese War Ministry issued a “Kill All Policy.” At Palawan POW camp, 150 Americans were herded into a ditch, doused with gasoline and burned.

Only 11 escaped death. It was expected that Cabanatuan would be next. It was a race against time to stage a rescue. Dabu recalled, “As a child, and as a people, we had always been told that MacArthur would return, but we didn’t know when, or if. Meanwhile, we lived under the Japanese.

If adults were caught attending a meeting, they would all be shot. The Japanese suspected it was a meeting to plot against them. I was 14 or 15, when I saw an American soldier lying in the field, ready to fight. I was not afraid. I knew he was there for the good. It was the first sign I had that the Americans had come back.

He asked if there were Japanese in my village and then asked me to lead him to my house. As a group, all the young people informed on the Japanese all the time. We would find where they were and then tell the Americans. ”After the war, Dabu studied electrical engineering for one year at the University of the Philippines, but in 1960 joined the U.S. Navy and was a steward on the carrier Forrestal. He retired from service in 1979 as a first class petty officer and has since been a businessman and real estate investor in Norfolk.

He was chairman of the Council of the United Filipino Organization of Tidewater and is a volunteer at the Philippine Cultural Center in Virginia Beach. Romy San Antonio, president of the Filipino-American Veterans of Hampton Roads, hopes the movie will help in his efforts to get benefits for Filipino vets who were drafted as American allies .

The film chronicles the role of the Filipino guerrillas in carrying out the successful raid, over great odds. Filipino resistance fighter Capt. Juan Pajota is played by one of the Philippines’ biggest stars, Cesar Montano, who pointed out that “they knew the ins and outs of the country, the valleys, the mountains, everywhere. It was said that a Filipino guerrilla could steal a Japanese weapon while the Japanese was tying his shoe lace.”

Filipino actor Ebong Joson was surprised to find that he was actually playing Capt. Ebong Joson, his own grandfather, in the movie. His auditioned for the part with no knowledge of the connection.

In Los Angeles Sunday the cast of the film gathered for a premiere that was coming after three years of waiting. “The Great Raid” was shot that long ago. Star Benjamin Bratt, who plays Lt. Col. Henry Mucci, commanding officer of the 6th Ranger Batallion which carried out the raid, discussed the delays.

He said Miramax had focused on “The Aviator” last year. But now, with Disney taking over Miramax, the film must be released before that transition occurs in September. John Dahl, the film’s director, is usually associated with more intimate thrillers, such as “Red Rock West” or “The Last Seduction,” but he actively wanted to helm “The Great Raid” because his own father had participated in the liberation of the Philippines during World War II. Dahl decided against filming on location in the Philippines.

“No major film has been shot there since 'The Year of Living Dangerously’ in 1980. The reason is political unrest. We considered Thailand, but it was the rainy season. We wanted Hawaii, but that would have added $10 million to the budget. To double as the Philippines, we chose Queensland, Australia.” Joseph Fiennes, who plays the senior commanding officer among the prisoners, is best known for playing Shakespeare in “Shakespeare in Love.”

He said the film is similar in style to “The Bridge on the River Kwai” in that it is set in a prison camp. That film was directed by David Lean. “We can’t approach him,” Fiennes said, “but this, too, has psychological touches of what it is like for men to be in rebellion at the same time they are held prisoner.” Dahl said his movie’s suspense is all in the planning of the raid. “It is very important that the audience know every step – and every risk.

I kept thinking of 'Apollo 13.’ The drama is in the details, in the planning. It’s that way here. The audience knows all the plans before we go in. Then, the action scenes have meaning. The thing is that the reality of this raid is much more exciting than anything scriptwriters could have come up with.”
Reach Mal Vincent at (757) 446-2347 or mal.vincent@pilotonline.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)