yellowwing
09-22-06, 05:46 AM
Marines' 'Pied Piper' dies, aged 80
By Philippe Naughton and agencies
Times Online September 05, 2006 (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2343223,00.html)
An American Marine who became known as "the Pied Piper of Saipan" after single-handedly persuading more than 1,000 Japanese soldiers to surrender during the war for the Pacific in 1944 has died at the age of 80.
Guy Gabaldon was brought up as a tough Chicano kid in the barrios of eastern Los Angeles and signed up for the Marines on his 17th birthday.
He arrived on Saipan, a Japanese-held island in the Marianas, as an 18-year-old Marine Private First Class, only 5ft 4in tall, but managed to use street Japanese picked up from a foster family back home - along with bribes of cigarettes and candy - to persuade enemy troops to abandon their posts.
In one single day, on July 8, 1944, Gabaldon was said to have enticed 800 Japanese, both soldiers and civilians, to surrender with a mixture of threats and a promise that all prisoners would be well treated.
"My plan, as impossible as it seemed, was to get near a Japanese emplacement, bunker, or cave, and tell them that I had a bunch of Marines with me and we were ready to kill them if they did not surrender," Gabaldon wrote in his 1990 memoir Saipan: Suicide Island.
"I promised that they would be treated with dignity, and that we would make sure that they were taken back to Japan after the war."
The first time the young Marine pulled off the trick, he arrived back in camp with seven prisoners and was immediately threatened with a court-martial for having deserted his post.
The following morning, he returned from another unauthorised trip with 50 Japanese prisoners and from then on he was allowed to operate as a "lone wolf".
Altogether Gabaldon was said to have persuaded as many as 1,500 Japanese to lay down their arms, despite a military code that saw death as preferable to surrender.
But although Gabaldon was recommended by his commanders for the Medal of Honor - the United States' highest military award - he received only a Silver Star, which was later upgraded to a Navy Cross.
The citation for that medal said that Gabaldon had displayed "extreme courage and initiative" in capturing enemy personnel.
"Working alone in front of the lines, he daringly entered enemy caves, pillboxes, buildings, and jungle brush, frequently in the face of hostile fire, and succeeded in not only obtaining vital military information, but in capturing well over one thousand enemy civilians and troops," it said.
His family and friends campaigned unsuccessfully for him to be awarded America's highest honour, comparing him with the First World War hero Alvin York, who won the Medal of Honour for having captured 132 Germans in a single action in 1918.
Gabaldon's military career was cut short by injuries from machine-gun fire and he spent his later life running a variety of businesses, including a furniture store, a fishing operation and an import-export firm. He also ran unsuccessfully for a California congressional seat in 1964.
His exploits on Saipan were captured in the 1960 feature film Hell to Eternity, in which Jeffrey Hunter played the young Chicano war hero.
Gabaldon died last Thursday of a heart attack at his home in Old Town, Florida. His funeral is due to be held later today.
Semper Fidelis Guy Gabaldon :iwo:
By Philippe Naughton and agencies
Times Online September 05, 2006 (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2343223,00.html)
An American Marine who became known as "the Pied Piper of Saipan" after single-handedly persuading more than 1,000 Japanese soldiers to surrender during the war for the Pacific in 1944 has died at the age of 80.
Guy Gabaldon was brought up as a tough Chicano kid in the barrios of eastern Los Angeles and signed up for the Marines on his 17th birthday.
He arrived on Saipan, a Japanese-held island in the Marianas, as an 18-year-old Marine Private First Class, only 5ft 4in tall, but managed to use street Japanese picked up from a foster family back home - along with bribes of cigarettes and candy - to persuade enemy troops to abandon their posts.
In one single day, on July 8, 1944, Gabaldon was said to have enticed 800 Japanese, both soldiers and civilians, to surrender with a mixture of threats and a promise that all prisoners would be well treated.
"My plan, as impossible as it seemed, was to get near a Japanese emplacement, bunker, or cave, and tell them that I had a bunch of Marines with me and we were ready to kill them if they did not surrender," Gabaldon wrote in his 1990 memoir Saipan: Suicide Island.
"I promised that they would be treated with dignity, and that we would make sure that they were taken back to Japan after the war."
The first time the young Marine pulled off the trick, he arrived back in camp with seven prisoners and was immediately threatened with a court-martial for having deserted his post.
The following morning, he returned from another unauthorised trip with 50 Japanese prisoners and from then on he was allowed to operate as a "lone wolf".
Altogether Gabaldon was said to have persuaded as many as 1,500 Japanese to lay down their arms, despite a military code that saw death as preferable to surrender.
But although Gabaldon was recommended by his commanders for the Medal of Honor - the United States' highest military award - he received only a Silver Star, which was later upgraded to a Navy Cross.
The citation for that medal said that Gabaldon had displayed "extreme courage and initiative" in capturing enemy personnel.
"Working alone in front of the lines, he daringly entered enemy caves, pillboxes, buildings, and jungle brush, frequently in the face of hostile fire, and succeeded in not only obtaining vital military information, but in capturing well over one thousand enemy civilians and troops," it said.
His family and friends campaigned unsuccessfully for him to be awarded America's highest honour, comparing him with the First World War hero Alvin York, who won the Medal of Honour for having captured 132 Germans in a single action in 1918.
Gabaldon's military career was cut short by injuries from machine-gun fire and he spent his later life running a variety of businesses, including a furniture store, a fishing operation and an import-export firm. He also ran unsuccessfully for a California congressional seat in 1964.
His exploits on Saipan were captured in the 1960 feature film Hell to Eternity, in which Jeffrey Hunter played the young Chicano war hero.
Gabaldon died last Thursday of a heart attack at his home in Old Town, Florida. His funeral is due to be held later today.
Semper Fidelis Guy Gabaldon :iwo: