67 years ago today, a company of paratroopers jumped into the morning sky over a prison camp

The Los Baños Rescue Raid: February 23, 1945, Los Baños, Luzon

[The following is an excerpt from an article I wrote in 2007 subsequently published in the 511th association newsletter.]

The operation was placed in the hands of the 11th. Using intelligence offered by  escaped inmate Peter Miles and collected by Filipino guerrillas, a plan was created whereby the inmates would be freed not by land, a certain route to heavy casualties, but by lake and air. The 511th’s 1st battalion was given responsibility, aided by the 672nd Amphibious, the regimental Recon platoon, and the Filipino guerrillas. The plan was for the guerillas and the recon platoon to engage the camp guards at the perimeter, drawing their attention as the 672nd sailed across Laguna de Bay on amtracs, while one of 1st battalion’s rifle companies would descend upon the camp itself by parachute.

 B Company was selected for the job. Of all the 511th’s nine rifle companies, Baker was in the best shape, having taken the least casualties both in Leyte and Luzon. With a typical parachute infantry company comprising 150 soldiers, Company B, after Leyte, Cavite, Parañaque, Pasay and McKinley, still had the most men of any of the 511th’s companies, with eighty.

Robert Beightler Jr. would have to organize and transmit the intelligence from division HQ with battalion commander Maj. Henry Burgess and B Company commander 1st Lt. John Ringler. For Beightler, it must have been a bittersweet task. Ringler had led B Company only since Captain Ulrich was promoted after Leyte. Compared to Beightler, who had led B Company’s 1st platoon from its formation at Toccoa to the end of the grueling Leyte campaign, Ringler had yet to truly get to know his men. Beightler knew personally the men Ringler would be leading, men like Charlie Sass, who would take part in the mission. But as battalion S2 he had other responsibilities now. He helped coordinate the reports from the camp, the guerrillas, and the other units, helping Burgess prepare the cover and defense for Baker and the amtracs, while Baker itself withdrew from the front, marching the short distance to where their planes were parked at Nichols Field.

 That night, on the runways the division had bled to capture, B Company slept beneath their airplanes’ wings.

 They rose before dawn.  The flight south to Los Baños took only a few minutes, unopposed by antiaircraft fire.  With B Company were three Filipino boys whom the paratroopers had adopted. As the sky grew light, smoke markers, lit by Hukbalahaps, rose from the drop zone, a clear field just to the east of the camp barracks.  The red light already on, the paratroopers stood up. As they came to the DZ, the light turned green, and they jumped, led by Ringler, with Charlie Sass at his side.

As the sun rose on February 23, 1945, the prisoners of Los Baños heard the commotion at the gate as the Filipino guerillas attacked the camp. Then they heard the rumble from across the water, as if tanks were approaching, and the drone of planes, flying low. Running out of their barracks and huts, they looked up as B Company leapt from the C-47s towards them, their parachutes like diaphanous wings in the morning sun.  “Our angels have come,” they said. As the Recon platoon and Filipino guerrillas—Huks and Hunters ROTC, mostly—engaged the Japanese guards at the camp perimeter and the surrounding area, and the 657th Amphibious steamed across Laguna de Bay in the engineers’ amtracs, B-511th shepherded the captive men, women, and children from their huts and barracks and onto carabao carts to take them to San Antonio on the lakeshore.

 It was hard to make the prisoners leave. Convinced that they were seeing a full liberation force, and not a rescue mission, the civilians wanted to stay put, feeling saved. They were not safe.  Only a few miles away, thousands of Japanese troops were ready and waiting to engage any American drive south. It was the existence of this force that convinced the 11th to undertake the rescue in the first place. Faced with the unexpected intransigence, Ringler ordered the barracks torched, and the civilians bodily herded onto the 672nd’s amtracs, for the risky daylight crossing of Laguna de Bay. As the rumbling of the amtracs grew louder, the freed civilians began to panic, fearing Japanese tanks; but they rejoiced when they saw it was the amtracs.  Loaded, the vulnerable little convoy set off across the lake, to Mamatid north of Calamba. From there, trucks ferried the prisoners to quarters prepared for them at New Bilibid.

 The raiding party suffered 2 KIA and 4 WIA, with two more KIA from the Hunters ROTC guerrilla group, privates first class Atanasio Castillo and Anselmo Soler. All the internees were rescued alive, with only one suffering minor injury. The Japanese garrison in the camp had been destroyed. The raid was a stunning success.

 General Swing had itched to personally observe the operation that, he was convinced, would seal his division’s reputation for years to come.  He demanded of Major Burgess to be able to accompany the amtracs from Mamatid the night of the 22nd. Burgess, surrendering, sent Beightler and a driver in a jeep to pick up the general and take him to the beach.

 The drive from division HQ south through Cavite and Laguna was treacherous. They took a narrow road in pitch darkness. It was a moonless night, which was why it was chosen for the mission date. The jeep was burning only blackout headlights, which were obscured to shield them from detection, producing only narrow downward beams, and the driver was unfamiliar with the area. Beightler rode in front with the 11th Airborne’s commanding general impatiently urging them on from the back seat.

 Suddenly the driver hit the brakes. The tires squealed and smoked as the jeep shuddered and swung about. As Swing demanded to know what was the matter, Beightler and the driver gazed down into a black chasm in front of them. A bridge had been blown up. If they had not stopped, they would have fallen a hundred feet into a ravine.

 With Swing irate and ranting, Beightler and the driver backtracked to a different route to make it to Mamatid. But they were too late; they arrived only in time to glimpse the faint wake of the amtracs in the moonless night, heading off towards San Antonio.

 Swing was furious. He cursed and swore at Beightler, who took the brunt of the general’s anger. Beightler was convinced that was the end of his career, convinced that the general blamed him for missing what undoubtedly would be a glorious mission for Swing’s “Angels”.

 The raid was glorious. But it would not be well-remembered. That same day, thousands of miles away, six U.S. Marines raised a flag on Iwo Jima.

 The Japanese returned to find the camp empty. Led by the camp’s sadistic former second-in-command, Sgt. Konishi Sadaaki, they massacred the Filipinos living in nearby villages. Konishi would later hang.