Midnight on Mindanao: Wartime Remembances 1945-1946

By Mel Amler DDS

When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Mel Amler was a sociable and motivated dental student completing his first semester at New York University. The following spring, the US Army commissioned him and thousands of his classmates nationwide in the Medical Administrative Corps (MAC) Reserve. Their coursework was accelerated to supply the armed forces with critically needed dental officers. Upon graduation, the newly minted dentists were whisked off to basic training and to combat zones worldwide. Armed with a .45 automatic and carbine, his newly gained profession, and a commission as a First Lieutenant, Mel found himself deep in the jungles of Mindanao, The Philippines. Standing watch duty in the pitch-black rain-flooded midnight, he wondered how this city boy who loved science and music had come to this.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 30, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595632602

Mel Amler DDS

Mel Amler, DDS, MS grew up in New York City and was educated at City College and New York University. He was an infantry dental officer in the Philippines during WWII, and entered Hiroshima shortly after Japan surrendered. Returning home, he launched a successful dental practice and conducted biomedical research.

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Contents

Midnight on Mindanao

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

To my dear Nini, who patiently endured listening to these many war stories for nearly fifty-eight years

Midnight on Mindanao

Wartime Remembrances 1945-1946

Mel Amler, DDS

It was never quiet or peaceful at night in the jungles of Mindanao. The nights were filled with the cries and chatter of monkeys, birds, a various assortment of animals and of course the ever present rains. Intermittent sheets of rain would come down mercilessly as if the intent of a higher power was to wash the entire island into the Sulu Sea. The nightly fog crept in surreptitiously, cloying the jungle underbrush and army tents and practically making our solitary sentries nearly invisible. When thunder came it was oddly comforting to know that the explosions were not rounds of Japanese mortar fire zeroing in and aiming at us, but merely manifestations of the incorrigible misery of the tropical weather fronts.

Sneaking around the jungle underbrush, stalking and always looking for an opportunity to stab one of our sentries in the back were the ever present Moros. They originally came from a group of fierce Moslem tribes who migrated from the Malay Peninsula and took up residence in the Southern Philippine Island of Mindanao during the last fifteen hundred years or so. They carried around those nasty Kris daggers, beautifully engraved, with wavy blades and razor sharp. I still have a few of them I brought home as souvenirs.

It is said that history will never forget the Moros because they did something in the last thousand years down to the late 1800s that was supposedly impossible. They proved too strong for the Spanish conquistadores. The history of the Moro is of continuous warfare. When they had no other opponents, they fought their own people. For the final disarming of the Moros, we must be indebted to General John J. Pershing. He broke down the general organized resistance of the Moros during the time of the Spanish American War. At the same time, unlike the Spaniards, he assured them of absolute religious freedom. But though the primary resistance of the Moros was broken, their war-like spirit was not. There still remained considerable policing to be endured on Mindanao. With the onset of World War I (1917), however, General Pershing was appointed Commanding General of all American Expeditionary troops in Europe, and America discontinued the intermittent Moro campaigns.

Just as they were feared by the Spanish, they were now hated by the Filipinos. There was such animosity between the Moros and the Filipinos that small villages were divided into two separate entities – Moro and Christian. They were, at the same time, actually at war with the Japanese and Filipinos and barely tolerated the Americans. However, they would occasionally do us the honor of coming to our medical units for free treatment. Only male patients came, never women. And when they came, they would bring their own male assistants who would also prepare their meals.

In addition to our guys who stood sentry duty, there was a squad of very loyal Filipino Scouts to help maintain a defensive perimeter around our encampment. All were armed with automatic weapons and all were very, very nervous. Everyone seemed to be firing at any vague movement of palm tree fronds, waving branches, birds, and all sounds, real and imagined, thereby making a night’s sleep very difficult if not impossible.

As 1st Lieutenant, Dental Corps it came my turn for Officer of the Day. I was now required to inspect the guard (make sure they were all awake). The tour started with the duty sergeant waking me up at midnight for my tour of duty. As usual, when not actually pouring with rain, the partial moon was heavily engulfed by clouds making visibility very difficult. After being fed some concoction called powdered eggs (this definitely showed the so-called cook had a stimulating sense of humor), I would put a clip of bullets in my .45 automatic, safety off, strap it on, and pick up my carbine. (Carbines were always supposed to have a clip of bullets in place, a round [bullet] in the firing chamber and safety off). Against orders, we rarely ever wore our helmets. They were too heavy and hot and affected hearing. The last thing you wanted in a jungle was to have difficulty hearing. The steel helmets were used primarily upside down as a basin to hold water when shaving. We usually either wore no head cover or fatigue caps during the rain.

I then trudged to the edge of the encampment perimeter to start my inspection tour by yelling to the sentries on guard, Hey guys, don’t shoot! It’s me – the duty officer.

Luckily, although the sentries were Filipinos, they seemed to understand English – at least the phrase, don’t shoot – and were apparently content not to have to shoot me. In addition, of course, they knew their native languages of Tagalog or the Vasayan dialect.

Now, back to my regular duties as dental officer.

Were we scared? Hell yes! The news we received upon initially landing on the Island of Leyte in the Philippines was that Japan was not a co-signer of the Geneva convention and therefore not only did not honor unarmed medical personnel but that we were now specific targets. Therefore, no Red Cross insignias were to be displayed – only camouflage.

The Japanese reasoning, we were told, was that by focusing on medical installations they would lower the moral of troops. I don’t know about the troops, but they sure did succeed with me. Of course the Moros apparently had never even heard of Geneva, let alone the Geneva convention. Consequently, although medical personnel did not receive firearm training during basic training at Carlisle Barracks Field Medicine and Surgery School back at the good old USA, we were now issued carbines, .45 automatics, machetes, trench knives and of course compasses. What the compasses had to do with firearm training we couldn’t fathom. Maybe to know what direction to move the knife when stabbing an enemy soldier?

The carbines gave us the most problems. They arrived in a very heavy, cardboard-like waterproof material completely embedded in a rust preventative substance called cosmoline. Cosmoline was apparently a petroleum based, smelly, grease-like material, difficult to remove completely and then only by washing with gasoline. This was a dangerous procedure since cigarettes were the cultural norm in World War II and they came with matches. Droplets of grease and oil left over from the cleaning had a tendency to spray into the shooter’s hot and sweaty face.

The training also consisted of target practice. It was obviously important to hit the target you were aiming at, breaking down (taking apart) the weapon for cleaning and oiling and to reassemble weapons in the dark.

Another maneuver the Japanese employed in planning the war in the Pacific was that many islands were highly malarious and by their previous conquests they now controlled most if not all of the quinine, producing areas in the South Pacific. At this time quinine was the only drug for treating malaria. At the beginning of WWII this created a serious problem for combat. But shortly after the outbreak of hostilities a new drug was developed in the United States called atabrine (What a country! ). This drug was at least as good if not better than quinine, and as it turned out was highly successful in controlling malaria.

The Japanese Government decided to do something about this. They employed a former American female newscaster, named Tokyo Rose by the troops, to broadcast to the soldiers. She really had a very pleasant, sexy voice and would play all the popular songs. However, then she would insert all kinds of negative propaganda such as the draft dodgers back home were romancing our girlfriends and wives. Next, she had one beaut of a lie, that the antimalarial drug, atabrine, was a poisonous drug and among many other bad side effects would render our soldiers sterile. This hit a raw nerve with the troops.

What she said, of course, was not true. However, what was true was that the drug made everyone as yellow as a ripe banana. Naturally, no one liked this, and it added some credence to the lies from Tokyo Rose. It got to a point that some men refused to take the drug therapy, making them susceptible to contracting malaria. As a result, the Commanding General of the 31st Division issued an order that an officer had to stand in front of each chow line and before any man was permitted to be fed, the officer was actually ordered to physically put an Atabrine tablet in their respective mouths and make sure that they swallowed it! This was not a pleasant task – not even for a dental officer.

Liberation of the Philippine Islands was critical for establishing a base for intercepting and disrupting the supply route to Japan from Borneo and Sumatra. This would curtail the import of many raw materials that Japan desperately needed for her war effort such as oil and rubber, to mention a few.

It was decided that the Island of Leyte was the most logical and practical site for the initial landings. The first landing on the Island of Leyte, although difficult and costly with many casualties, but highly successful militarily, took place on Palo Beach – later, because of the high number of casualties was to be called Red Beach.

When the island was almost completely secured, General MacArthur made his famous appearance on the beach on October 20, 1944 with overwhelming movie and still-life photography documenting the event. His famous recorded, pompous statement that, I have returned, irritated and antagonized many of the GIs who actually took part in the initial landing.