chance to reunite former WWII POWs and displaced civilians with their liberators. In most cases they have neither seen nor spoken with each other since the day of liberation, and in many cases, the prisoners never even knew the names of their liberators. The following account is one such account of the SyCip family and its liberators. Please leave feedback if you enjoyed the story--and more importantly--pass it on.
Lieutenant John Dove and his team of Alamo Scouts gently hoisted a tiny, pigtailed girl aboard their rubber raft into the waiting arms of her mother. Priscilla, the frightened two-year-old, did not fully comprehend what was happening, but she understood the seriousness of her mother’s face. Thirty minutes later she was aboard a PT boat speeding her and thirty-eight others to safety. The mother strained to see tiny Fuga Island rapidly fading into the night. She recalled that Fuga, meant ‘escape’ in Latin, and the significance was clear. She hugged her daughter and allowed herself a tiny smile. For her and the rest of SyCip family, the war was over. A year earlier, in the summer of 1944, Alfonso SyCip, an influential Chinese national living in Manila, fled the capitol city with his extended family and their Spanish domestics, the Elordi family, and moved to tiny Fuga Island, some sixty-five nautical miles off the northern coast of Luzon in the Babuyan Island Group. The Japanese suspected that SyCip, a Chinese community leader, prominent businessman, and the first vice-president of the Manila Rotary International, might be spying for the United States. His situation grew even more dangerous as time passed, especially as the Americans readied for a return to the Philippines. Since the unoccupied island, which was owned by SyCip, had no electricity and was relatively undeveloped, SyCip hoped that his family could wait out the war in safety. Unfortunately, a Japanese force from Formosa (Taiwan) occupied the island on September 21, 1944, and life quickly changed. The Japanese commander confiscated all cattle and forbade the SyCips from buying food on the economy. Instead, he ordered that they grow their own, and after food became scarce, the garden was taken over by the Japanese garrison. By July 27th, 1945, only one day’s rations remained. The elder SyCip gathered his family in prayer and asked God to cause the Japanese commander to rescind the order and to allow them to buy food or to send help. Their prayers were answered. That same day, the nephew of Alfonso SyCip arrived in Claveria from Manila, bearing a letter from General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the Southwest Pacific, who had previously been approached by Albino SyCip, Alfonso's younger brother and president of China Banking Corporation in Manila, in an attempt to learn the status of the family on Fuga. The letter stated that the SyCip family was close personal friends, and that anything that could be done to assist the family would be considered a special personal favor. The Alamo Scouts happened to be there. Formed in November 1943 by then Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, commander of the Sixth Army, to conduct raider and reconnaissance work throughout the islands, beaches and jungles of the Southwest Pacific, the Alamo Scouts, a top secret ad hoc organization officially known as the Sixth Army Special Reconnaissance Unit, performed 110 known missions behind enemy lines without losing a single man killed or captured. The unit’s unmatched military record included two daring prisoner camp liberations and countless incursions behind enemy lines to gather information, capture prisoners, rescue civilians, and to organize, supply, equip, and train Filipino guerilla units in operations against the Japanese. Volunteers for the Alamo Scouts underwent a rigorous selection process at the division, regimental, battalion, and company levels before selection to one of the six Alamo Scouts Training Centers that were established throughout the war. Class size ranged from 80-100 candidates, with an attrition rate of over 40 percent, and as Sixth Army advanced, old training centers would close and new ones open. The intensive six-week training course featured instruction in rubber boat handling, survival, navigation, communications, intelligence collection, scouting & patrolling, physical conditioning, and hand-to-hand combat, and focused on teaching the skills necessary to survive in a jungle environment. Moreover, much of the training was conducted in enemy-held territory. At the end of each training class, remaining candidates voted by secret ballot for the four men they would most like to go on a dangerous mission with and for the officer they would like to lead them. In turn the officers voted for the men they would most like to serve on their team. Such a selection has not been used by the military since the Civil War, but unlike the mixed results of that time, the Alamo Scouts experienced resounding success. Retained graduates then were formed into elite 6-7 man teams led by a junior officer, with the team taking the last name of the officer. By many accounts, Dove was the best.
“The timing of the letter’s arrival had to be a miracle,” said Dove. “Unexpectedly, the next day we received orders from 6th Army Headquarters to scout Fuga Island where the family was detained.” Dove, a good-natured lieutenant of deep religious faith from Hollywood, California, had participated in two previous rescue operations, and his experience would be invaluable. The first occurred in October 1944, when two teams of Alamo Scouts rescued 66 Dutch and Javanese civilians from a Japanese camp on Cape Oransbari, Dutch New Guinea, and the second at Cabanatuan POW camp in central Luzon in January 1945, where a combined Alamo Scout/6th Ranger/Filipino Guerrilla operation freed 513 prisoners in a daring night raid. Both operations were executed flawlessly, and are heralded as two of the finest such operations in U.S. military history. More recently, on 18 July, Dove and two PT boat crews had helped evacuate twenty civilians from the Japanese on nearby Ibahos Island. This was the type of mission Dove could sink his teeth into.
"I always considered Fuga the Miracle Mission,” Dove recalled. “Its success depended upon a series of miracles, and that is what happened. It was the best kind of mission because we got to help civilians.”Dove had been on the island before but knew nothing of the SyCips’ plight.
“We were on Fuga twice. On June 20, 1945, Hobbs Team and my team, along with Company A of Anderson’s Guerillas, came up from Infanta aboard an LCS looking for downed airmen. We conducted a patrol and learned that the fliers had been used as bayonet dummies, so we left. Had we known about the SyCips then, we would have taken them off right away.”
The airmen were part of a bomber air crew from the 309th Bombardment Wing that had crash landed on the island on June 5th upon return from a bombing mission on Formosa. Six of the crew died in the crash and two were captured. Two others eluded capture with the help of Walberto Agarpao, a Filipino civilian, and were picked up by an American seaplane.
“The civilians gave us the shirts of those two airmen,” added Alamo Scout Peter Vischansky.
“The Japanese had held them in a cave for two weeks and had bayoneted them. We brought their shirts back.”
But it might have been the SyCips who alerted the Allies as to the airmen’s fate. When SyCip’s son, John, and a friend, learned that the fliers had been captured and killed by the Japanese, they signaled Allied reconnaissance planes by spelling out a message on the beach using the trunks of banana trees. They also added,
“Please rescue us!”The message was received. Unfortunately, it resulted in great personal loss to the SyCips. In an attempt to flush out the Japanese, American bombers mistakenly dropped three bombs on a row of houses occupied by the SyCips. One was a direct hit and killed sixteen people. The others did not explode, but were such a threat that the Japanese advised the family to move to an unoccupied part of the island. Meanwhile, Dove’s Alamo Scout team, consisting of First Sergeant Fredirico Balambao, and Sergeants Estanislao Bacat, Paul Draper, Pete Vischansky, and Filipino radioman Agrifino "Pee Wee" Duran, along with civilian Bernado Swarez, left Claveria at 11p.m. on 28 July aboard PT-379 and PT-383 of Motor Torpedo Squadron 28. The PT boats had picked up twenty such downed air crew members from June 5-13th, and Dove wanted only the best.
“We knew Dove quite well,” recalled Ralph Kleeberger, a gunner aboard PT-379.
“Our boat supported a number of Alamo Scout missions along northern Luzon late in the war. We were all happy to be part of this mission.”
The patrol arrived shortly after 3 a.m. the next morning. Dove and his team quickly boarded their rubber boat and landed four miles west of the eastern tip of the island at 3:30 a.m.
“We began the mission under the cover of a total eclipse of the full moon,” said Dove. “Under the protection of darkness we slipped up on three Filipino fishermen and secured their assistance, which was remarkable, since the Japanese had posted an order that Filipinos could not be near the coast during darkness under the penalty of death.”
The fisherman informed the Scouts of the enemy situation and then guided the patrol to Kobitan, a tiny barrio on the northeastern end of the island, where they discovered two Japanese soldiers sleeping in a hut. The pair, consisting of the garrison Supply Sergeant and First Sergeant, had come to the barrio in search of food. At 5:30 a.m., the Scouts moved in.
“
We took two prisoners after a fairly simple alley fight,” chuckled Dove.
“By the time we were through, they were ready to come with us.”
“The Filipinos led us to where they were sleeping,” added Vischansky.
“Dove was in that hut pounding the Japanese about the head with his .45, but once we captured them, he treated them kindly.”
"After Dove had his man tied up, he left Bacat and I with the Japs and he, Vischansky and Balambao went to contact 3 civilian families that we were going to evacuate with us," added Paul Draper. "
In about half an hour, Dove returned and we took the two Japs down to the beach where we had landed. The boats were to return at 11 p.m. that night, as it was now about 8 a.m. and we had to spend the whole day on the island, so we found a good vantage spot where we could put up a good fight if any Japs came snooping around. The fishermen then led the patrol another 400 yards to the outskirts of the village where the SyCips lived. The Scouts remained in hiding while the fishermen went to SyCip’s home and brought back John SyCip, the son of Alfonso. Following a brief conversation, the son left and later returned with his father. The elder SyCip bowed.
“We knew you would come,” he said softly.
Dove nodded.
“How can we help you?”“Take us off,” replied SyCip.
“Please take us off.”
Dove told SyCip to prepare his family for evacuation. A storm was brewing, and it was imperative that he get the civilians off the island before the storm set in. But how?
“The only radio we had with us at the time was a line of sight radio that could be expected to carry about five miles,” explained Dove.
“I doubted that we could be heard by anyone, yet our call traveled over four miles of the island’s dense foliage and over several miles of ocean. Remarkably, the call was received by an operator who happened to pick up the tail end of our message as he tested his equipment. By clearing the message before schedule, the PT boats could rendezvous four hours early. Hopefully, this would allow us to beat the storm.”At 8:30 a.m. Dove and his team, along with two prisoners, returned to the beach and contacted the PT boats to arrange for the evacuation. With the help of the fishermen and other villagers, civilians were called in from all over the island to provide information on the Japanese garrison. For the next several hours the Scouts collected information and learned that between 550 and 600 enemy soldiers were garrisoned on the island, and that many were in poor health suffering from malaria, dysentery, and malnutrition. Also, the Scouts located three artillery pieces. With the present condition of the Japanese, Dove realized that the civilians were in danger.
“I remember the long and somewhat frightening walk to the beach that night to wait for the Americans to come and rescue us,” recalled Dr. Jane Lin-Fu, then a teenager.
“What would happen if we encountered some Japanese soldiers on the way? What excuse do we have for going down to the beach? What would happen to us?”
“We were told to just bring the clothes that we wore,” added Priscilla.
“So we wore three-to-four outfits one on top of the other.”
“Using the inflatable raft, we began shuttling the prisoners, the civilians, and the Scouts to the PT boats,” said Dove.
“The storm was moving in and we had to get everyone aboard before it stranded us there.”But due to the size of the SyCip family, the Scouts needed help.
“Once at the rendezvous, two members of our crew inflated a and proceeded to assist with the evacuation,” said Handy Stinson, a crewmember aboard PT-379.
“The skipper asked for volunteers to row ashore and to help with the evacuation.”
“It was a spooky affair,” added crewmember Bill Rankin.
“We all stepped forward together as you might imagine in a war movie.”
“I recall Lieutenant Dove carrying Mrs. SyCip in his arms like a baby,” said Vischansky.
“She was an elderly Chinese woman and her feet were bound, and Jack placed her gently in the raft.”By 9:45 p.m., everyone was aboard and heading toward Claveria.
“The storm was so loud that we could have played band music while we disembarked from the island,” chuckled Dove.
“But it the storm was a blessing in disguise. Enough good things cannot be said about the PT skippers and the support that they and the crews provided. Without them the Scouts never could have accomplished what they did. I enjoyed these types of missions more than any other. The missions where I got to help people. The Oransbari camp liberation; the Cabanatuan raid; and the Fuga Island rescue. They will always stand out in my mind because I got the chance to save people—not kill them.” “I engineered two PT boats to go up to Fuga," said Mayo Stuntz from Special Intelligence, Sixth Army."I got authority of course, to go up and to affect the rescue of this Chinese family. And so I got a little Cub plane and went up and arranged for a C-47 to pick up the evacuees. So we all went up there at the same time and Dove came down on the two PT boats."Today, Priscilla SyCip-Bogner, lives a quiet, comfortable life in Illinois, far removed from pigtails and the threat of execution by the Imperial Japanese Army. Her thriving family is spread out across the United States and in Republic of the Philippines. Every day she is thankful for the Alamo Scouts and the men of Motor Torpedo Squadron Ron 28 who rescued her and her family from an uncertain fate. Someday, she hopes to reunite members of the SyCip family with the PT boat crews and the families of the Alamo Scouts. For many it would be a daunting task, but given her firsthand experience with miracles, anything is possible.
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This card was mailed from Abuyog, Leyte, Philippine Islands. Note the bombed out church, army tents, and carabao carts. Priceless.
