Heroic World War II rescue focus of reunion
By LARRY ALEXANDER, Staff
Intelligencer Journal

Published: Sep 29, 2007 3:16 AM EST

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA -

On Feb. 23, 1945, as five U.S. Marines and a Navy corpsman raised a flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, another heroic American action was taking place hundreds of miles away in the Philippine Islands.

A battalion of paratroopers from the U.S. 11th Airborne Division, a contingent of Filipino guerrillas and men of the 672nd Amphibious Tractor Battalion teamed up to free more than 2,000 civilians from what they feared would be certain death at the hands of their Japanese captors at an internment camp outside the town of Los Banos, 25 miles behind enemy lines.

History, however, was unkind to the liberators of Los Banos. The Iwo Jima flag raising pushed the rescue mission — possibly the largest of World War II — off the front pages, and today it is all but forgotten.

The men who took part in the raid remember, though, as do the people they liberated. And this weekend a small group of aging veterans of the 672nd Amphibious Tractor Battalion — their numbers dwindling — and two men they rescued gathered at the Holiday Inn on Greenfield Road to reminisce.

"We weren't sure where we were going, and we didn't care," said Louis Geeza, 83, a retired Pennsylvania State Trooper from Belle Vernon. "They told us we had something to do, so we jumped into our tractors and took off."

The men of the 672nd operated Amtracs, landing craft with tank treads that could run on land or sea. And their role in the raid was critical to its success. The plan was to raid an internment camp near the town of Los Banos, about 25 miles from Manila. There the Japanese were holding 2,146 prisoners, mostly civilians from the United States, Great Britain, Australia and the Netherlands. All had been captured when the Philippines fell in May 1942.

However, by February 1945, American forces were closing in on the camp, and prisoners and guards at Los Banos could see the smoke and hear the crump and thud of artillery from the battle for Manila.

The raid was prompted by American fears the Japanese would execute the prisoners before they could be liberated.

According to the plan, one company of paratroopers would jump into the camp from an altitude of 400 feet. At the same time, the 672nd would carry two more companies of paratroopers across a large lake, Laguna de Bay, right up to the gates of the camp, for a joint attack. The raid would begin 7 a.m., when it was known the Japanese would be engaged in calisthenics.

The plan went off like clockwork. About 80 Japanese guards were killed at a loss of two Filipino guerrillas.

"The paratroopers jumped, and a battle took place, and I think they killed every (Japanese) there," said 86-year-old Steve Stankovic of Gerard, Ill.

He said the attack was over in about 20 minutes and the entire mission, start to finish, in "about four hours." Haste was vital because there were almost 10,000 Japanese troops less than five miles away.

The internees were loaded into the Amtracs and ferried across Laguna de Bay, where food, medical care and safety awaited.

Elwood Guisewhite, 82, of Hughesville, was one of the medics. It was his job to treat the sickly former prisoners. What he saw was "terrible," he said because many were sick or malnourished.

"They began bringing the prisoners out, and whatever we could do for them, we did," Guisewhite said, his voice still cracking at the memory 62 years later. "When they came out, a lot of them said they'd been eating cats, rats and dogs."

Hudson Hess of Houghton, N.Y., and Robert Wheeler of Napavine, Wash., were inside the camp at the time. Hess, then 11, son of American missionaries, and Wheeler, then 12 and son of a U.S. Army civilian worker, attested to the conditions in the camp.

"My mother stopped weighing herself when she got to 80 pounds," Wheeler said.

They were both concerned about their future. On Feb. 18, 1945, the Japanese gave each person a handful of unhusked rice and told them it was all the food they'd be getting. Plus, the fighting was getting closer.

"The last few days before the raid, there were fires all around, and soot just drifted down on the camp," Hudson said. "And you could hear the artillery going day and night, and we knew something had to happen. We thought they would shoot us all."

On the day of the raid, both boys were on their way to roll call when, Wheeler recalled, planes flew overhead and parachutes began to appear.

"Then all heck broke loose," he said.

He ran to his barracks and hid under his bunk "as bullets flew around."

Some of the prisoners were terrified and disoriented. "They didn't know what we were going to do with them," said Marion Titus, 83, of Pasadena, Md.

All were soon taken to safety, but a few weeks after the raid, the Japanese, in reprisal, massacred more than 2,000 Filipinos in the town of Los Banos.

Today, Hudson, Wheeler and other former prisoners gratefully attend the 672nd's annual reunions.

"Without these men, we wouldn't be here, that's for sure," Hudson said.

E-mail: lalexander@lnpnews.com

Ellie