The reference to POWs being killed refer primarily to the massacre at Palawan.
The prisoners knew something was up, some had seen shiny new American dimes months prior to the raid. They knew that Manila was being bombed, and they knew that American forces knew they were there as a couple of American fighters had buzzed the camp in the weeks prior to the raid.
Hearing my parents tell it, and mentioned in some of the books I read, the internees were so slow in going to get what possessions they still had and deciding what they would bring back home that the decision was made to set fire to the dorms to get them moving at all, not just herding them. The internees were on an 800 calorie a day towards the end.
I thought it might be helpful to note that due to the number of internees the amtracks had to make two return trips over Laguna de Bay to pick them up and San Antonio. My mother was in the first group and remembers getting fired on.
One other part is that no casualties are mentioned in your account. One of the remarkable events of the war in my opinion is the fact that all 2,100+ internees were evacuated with only 3 or 4 getting wounded, and they were minor (one got burnt by a shell casing ejected from a .50 cal on one of the amtracks that was returning fire from the shore). The 3 military deaths occurred in the overland task force.
Konishi was recognized as he was on a maintenance detail on a Manila golf course, arrested, tried, and put to death.
| 'I doubt that any airborne unit in the world will be able to rival the Los Banos prison raid. It is the textbook airborne operation for all ages and all armies.' -- Colin Powell |
Angels at Dawn Bump for the Freeper Foxhole
Regards
alfa6 ;>}