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Pacific Historian
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: On Palawan Island, 150 American POWs are incarcerated in a POW enclosure situated on top of the cliffs overlooking the Bay of Puerto Princesa. While working on the construction of an airfield they are made to dig three trenches 150-feet long and 4.5-feet deep within the camp. They are told that the trenches are air-raid shelters and practice drills are carried out. The shelters are small and cramped, the prisoners sitting bunched up with their knees under their chins.
When a USN convoy is sighted heading for Mindoro Island, an air-raid alarm is sounded. The Japanese guards, thinking the island is about to be invaded, herd the prisoners into the covered trenches and then proceed to pour buckets of gasoline into the entrances followed by a match to ignite the fuel. As the prisoners storm the exits, their clothes on fire, they are mowed down by light machine-gun fire or bayoneted, shot or clubbed. Dozens manage to get through the barbed wire and tumble down the 50-foot high cliff to the waters edge only to be shot at by a Japanese manned landing barge which is patrolling the shore.
Only five survive by swimming across the bay and reaching the safety of a Filipino guerrilla camp. One prisoner, who tries to swim the bay, is recaptured and brought back to the beach. There, he suffers the agony of having gasoline poured on his foot and set alight. His screams delight the guards who then deliberately set fire to his other foot while at the same time prodding and stabbing his body with bayonets until he collapses. His body is then doused with gasoline and cremated. His remains, and the bodies of the other dead on the beach, are then buried in the sand. U.S. Forces capture Puerto Princesa on 28 February 1945, and weeks later discover 79 skeletons within the enclosure and they are given a proper burial. In all, 145 Americans are killed.
