After I had to all but carry you down off the mountain, Goldman, you have the effrontery to write that? I should have left you lying there!
Immortalized in the words of Rudyard Migoz
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Bataan Barb
- Thread starter Barbaria1
- Start date
Immortalized in the words of Rudyard Migoz
twonines
LIMERICUS
I don`t want to nit pick, but isn`t that a Chinese military uniform that Tanaka is wearing?
8.
At the tail end of the column, Barb and her nurses were relieved to be entering Balanga. It meant the day’s long and grueling march was nearing its end, and that they soon would gain the respite of being bivouacked for the night, as well as possibly being given something to eat.
At the tail end of the column, Barb and her nurses were relieved to be entering Balanga. It meant the day’s long and grueling march was nearing its end, and that they soon would gain the respite of being bivouacked for the night, as well as possibly being given something to eat.
Ooops!
9. Bataan Peninsula, Balanga, night of April 12-13, 1942.
Within hours of nightfall, Balanga’s stately Plaza Mayor had become a scene of total bedlam. Roaming Japanese soldiers were everywhere. Many were drunk and in a destructive mood. At least three buildings facing the square had been set ablaze. Discarded booty of all sizes and descriptions littered the pavements. Queues of boisterous soldiers jostled impatiently before the main entrance to the imposingly columned, white-washed facade of the town hall, anxious to get their few minutes of carnal ecstasy with one of the comfort girls awaiting them inside.
Within hours of nightfall, Balanga’s stately Plaza Mayor had become a scene of total bedlam. Roaming Japanese soldiers were everywhere. Many were drunk and in a destructive mood. At least three buildings facing the square had been set ablaze. Discarded booty of all sizes and descriptions littered the pavements. Queues of boisterous soldiers jostled impatiently before the main entrance to the imposingly columned, white-washed facade of the town hall, anxious to get their few minutes of carnal ecstasy with one of the comfort girls awaiting them inside.
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
General Homma : “Captain Tanaka! What is that uniform supposed to mean!?”
Captain Tanaka : “Well, you see, Sir, incidentally, my luggage truck was parked next to the truck that those vicious partisans have blown up, so I had to find me another!”
General Homma : “But Captain Tanaka! That is a Chinese army service dress!”
Captain Tanaka : “Yes, Sir, I know, Sir, but, actually, the only suitcase of my luggage left intact, was one with souvenirs from our Chinese campaign, so, I thought, better this, than waging war naked, right, Sir!? And may I point out too, Sir, that there is no Chinese soldier within thousand miles, so there is little error possible!”
General Homma : “Captain Tanaka! You have five minutes to report again to me in a decent Japanese uniform, or I send you to the coldest, most remote and dangerous spot of the Chinese front! Four minutes fifty-nine, four minutes fifty-eight…”
Captain Tanaka : “Oooops!”
Migoz2
Senator
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are crashing CF, blaming it on you;
If you can safely drive when all here doubt you,And ignore all their silly wisecracks too;
If you can write and not be tired by writing,Or being laughed about, don't turn brittle;
Or being mocked, do not give way to fighting,And yet you look so good, your tight little:
If you can hand out fair demerits to all,
Spanking each who clearly treats you wrongly;
If neither blows nor vicious crux can hurt y'all,And you lead the rebel's cause most strongly;
If you can fill each thread that does appear hereWith complaints which you creatively hurl,
Yours is CF and everything that’s in it, And—which is Moore—you’ll be our Barb, my girl!
I’m blushing
14. Bataan Peninsula, On the road from Orani to Lubao, Late morning, April 14, 1942
“Rumor goin’ aroun’, Lieutenant, is that the Japs are figurin’ on a load’n us all into rail cars when we gets to San Fernando.” drawled Clem, wiping sweat from his brow.
Since leaving Orani early that morning, the road had veered sharply inland, depriving the marching column of the benefit of any cooling breezes that might waft in off Manila Bay, and making this the hottest day yet on the long march north. The sweltering heat was worsened by the densely humid layer of air that hung low over the extensive marshes flanking both sides of the road.
“There’s going to be quite a few dropping out before long in this sticky heat,” observed Norm.
“Yes, pass the word for everyone to keep sharing those canteens around.”
“Yessir.”
“And how are the girls holding up, Lieutenant?” inquired Whitaker of the tall, sandy-haired, blue-eyed nurse walking at his side. With Barb gone, he’d come to regard Second Lieutenant Nora Heidegger as the latest of the surviving nurses to take charge of the others.
Nora Heidegger, was a no-nonsense sort ... a thirty-year-old Michigander who had joined the ANC to escape the stifling parochialism of her small town upbringing and see the world. Performing a quick head count, she let out a long sigh, and said, “So far so good, but there’s at least a couple nurses that look to be flagging pretty badly. They sure could use a rest stop.”
“Little chance of that happening,” muttered Whitaker. “Seems, unlike the last few days, the Japs are determined to keep us moving no matter what.”
“Nuther rumor goin’ round,” interjected Clem, “is that some a the guys are a thinkin’ we oughta be makin’ a break for it whiles we still can.”
“Nix on that!” snapped Norm. “Look around. They’ve got us marching through a fucking swamp. This is no time to run for it. If they try it the Japs’ll pick them off like clay pigeons at a county fair.”
“Norm’s right,” agreed Whitaker. “Spread the word. None of that today! Maybe tonight. A breakout attempt under cover of darkness and on more hospitable terrain might work, but definitely not now!”
*************
Tanaka felt slightly sick to his stomach as he entered the cool cloistered confines of Balanga’s Poor Clare Monastery of the Holy Spirit. He had just come from witnessing the first gruesome round of civilian reprisals ordered by the local commandant in retaliation for the fire bombing of the town square.
Together with several other officers, Tanaka had watched, hands clasped behind his back, as dozens of townsfolk, both male and female, were lined up against a stone wall, not far from the town’s burned-out center, and summarily shot while hundreds of others were forced to witness the slaughter. And, when it was over, a proclamation was read, stating that the reprisals would continue twice daily ... every morning and afternoon ... until the cowardly partisans responsible for the conflagration that killed so many brave Japanese Imperial Army soldiers were identified and brought to justice.
Grimly performing his duties that day as General Homma’s staff officer on the scene, Tanaka had moved on in the aftermath of the morning’s reprisals to tour the monastery, which in the systemic absence of any serious effort on the part of the Japanese army to provide field hospitals to care for its wounded, had charitably taken in as many of the injured as it could.
Wandering through the makeshift wards, filled with the seriously injured and the badly burned under the care of black-robed nuns, he came across a soldier he happened to recognize ... it was none other than Sergeant Kubo!
Kubo, was lying on his side. He sported a heavily bandaged head through which protruded on one side a damaged ear repaired with sutures. Behind him knelt two nuns, engaged in changing a dressing on his back.
“Sergeant Kubo!” said Tanaka, confronting him, with his hands clasped behind his back in the customary fashion.
Kubo looked up, blankly at first, before a glimmer of recognition animated his face.
“Hurt badly?” asked Tanaka out of politeness.
“I was lucky. Gash on my head. Stitches on my ear. Worst was a nasty wound in my back, but it’s healing. Nothing vital injured. I’ll live. Another day or two and I will return to duty. Possibly even tomorrow.”
“I see. Well then ... carry on, Sergeant,” said Tanaka, moving quickly away, unable to refrain from wondering whether it might have been better for everyone if Kubo hadn’t survived.
***********
Natalie leaned forward from where she and Barb were kneeling amongst the circle of partisans surrounding Alejandro, the better to see the crude map he was sketching in the soil. Barb smiled. She couldn’t help but be amused by Nat’s trademark intensity, so apparent in the way she squinted and slightly cocked her head to one side to favor the one unbroken lens on her eyeglasses.
“Looks like he’s planning some kind of attack or raid,” she reported to Barb in a hushed tone. “And it appears to be on a prisoner compound near one of the coastal road towns. I think he called it Lubao, but the details escape me. I wish I could better understand what Alejandro is saying.”
“We’ll have to ask him later.”
Barb and Natalie, although objects of curiosity, had been well treated since their early morning arrival in the partisan camp. They’d been provided a generous breakfast, allowed to freshen up in a nearby stream ... in relative privacy, not that privacy mattered to them anymore ... and generally given free run of the camp. Although no one spoke to them, they had received plenty of friendly nods and smiles. Alejandro, on the other hand, had been busy and had largely ignored them. And his father had vanished from the scene altogether, presumably to return to the family back in Balanga.
It was only after the planning session ended and the partisans scattered to see to the task of breaking camp, that Barb and Natalie finally managed to corner Alejandro long enough to speak with him.
“Tell us what’s going on!” demanded Barb, planting herself in front of him as he attempted to rush past them.
“We’re going to carry out a mission tonight.”
“Where, and what about us?”
“I heard Lubao mentioned,” chimed in Natalie. “Isn’t that quite a distance from here?”
“Yes, it is a distance ... about 15 to 20 kilometers ... but we travel light and move fast. If all goes well, we’ll be in position before daybreak.”
“To do exactly what?” said Natalie, a frown on her face.
“The plan is to free a compound full of prisoners and lead them to safety.”
“And what about us?” interjected Barb, reprising her earlier question. “Are we to go along or remain here?”
“You’ll come with us, but only as far as a hidden site near the planned raid. We may need your nursing skills once it’s all over. There’s bound to be a firefight with the Japanese guards, and that means there will likely be wounded.
“Do we know if any Americans will be in that compound?” asked Barb.
“Yes, we believe so. Filipinos too. But enough talk now. Time is short and I’ve much to do. We move out soon. Be ready!”
*********
Late that afternoon, Kubo walked through the portals marking the entrance to the Poor Clare Monastery of the Holy Spirit and accosted the first Japanese officer he saw. He asked about the whereabouts of his unit and, after being directed to a nearby command post, learned that the section of the march to which he had been attached would be spending the night at a compound located just to the south of Lubao.
Hitching a ride on a northbound lorry, he was soon on his way.
*********
Tanaka saw him go. The day’s second round of reprisal executions had just ended, and Tanaka was through for the day, He had seen enough and was eager for any excuse that might get him away from Balanga. And Kubo had provided him with exactly what he needed.
Rushing over to his ‘Type 95’, which was parked nearby, he called out to his driver who sat dozing at the wheel, ordering him to start the machine up ... declaring that they were departing post haste, and that they would follow after the convoy of lorries then leaving town and headed north on the coastal road.
***********
By then, Alejandro’s ragtag partisan band had been on the move for several hours, following upland trails that skirted Mount Mariveles and descended gradually towards the coastal plain around the town of Lubao. The men were strung out in single-file, with Barb and Natalie positioned near the rear. They scarcely saw anything of Alejandro, who had positioned himself well ahead near the lead.
In her typical information-gathering fashion, Natalie had attempted a head count, and had reckoned the partisans to be roughly three dozen in number. They appeared to carry all manners of small arms weaponry, and moved along in absolute silence, communicating exclusively by hand signals. She and Barb were of course unarmed, but each bore a canvass rucksack that they had been issued on their backs, stuffed with makeshift bandages and a rather meager assortment of medical supplies.
“Rumor goin’ aroun’, Lieutenant, is that the Japs are figurin’ on a load’n us all into rail cars when we gets to San Fernando.” drawled Clem, wiping sweat from his brow.
Since leaving Orani early that morning, the road had veered sharply inland, depriving the marching column of the benefit of any cooling breezes that might waft in off Manila Bay, and making this the hottest day yet on the long march north. The sweltering heat was worsened by the densely humid layer of air that hung low over the extensive marshes flanking both sides of the road.
“There’s going to be quite a few dropping out before long in this sticky heat,” observed Norm.
“Yes, pass the word for everyone to keep sharing those canteens around.”
“Yessir.”
“And how are the girls holding up, Lieutenant?” inquired Whitaker of the tall, sandy-haired, blue-eyed nurse walking at his side. With Barb gone, he’d come to regard Second Lieutenant Nora Heidegger as the latest of the surviving nurses to take charge of the others.
Nora Heidegger, was a no-nonsense sort ... a thirty-year-old Michigander who had joined the ANC to escape the stifling parochialism of her small town upbringing and see the world. Performing a quick head count, she let out a long sigh, and said, “So far so good, but there’s at least a couple nurses that look to be flagging pretty badly. They sure could use a rest stop.”
“Little chance of that happening,” muttered Whitaker. “Seems, unlike the last few days, the Japs are determined to keep us moving no matter what.”
“Nuther rumor goin’ round,” interjected Clem, “is that some a the guys are a thinkin’ we oughta be makin’ a break for it whiles we still can.”
“Nix on that!” snapped Norm. “Look around. They’ve got us marching through a fucking swamp. This is no time to run for it. If they try it the Japs’ll pick them off like clay pigeons at a county fair.”
“Norm’s right,” agreed Whitaker. “Spread the word. None of that today! Maybe tonight. A breakout attempt under cover of darkness and on more hospitable terrain might work, but definitely not now!”
*************
Tanaka felt slightly sick to his stomach as he entered the cool cloistered confines of Balanga’s Poor Clare Monastery of the Holy Spirit. He had just come from witnessing the first gruesome round of civilian reprisals ordered by the local commandant in retaliation for the fire bombing of the town square.
Together with several other officers, Tanaka had watched, hands clasped behind his back, as dozens of townsfolk, both male and female, were lined up against a stone wall, not far from the town’s burned-out center, and summarily shot while hundreds of others were forced to witness the slaughter. And, when it was over, a proclamation was read, stating that the reprisals would continue twice daily ... every morning and afternoon ... until the cowardly partisans responsible for the conflagration that killed so many brave Japanese Imperial Army soldiers were identified and brought to justice.
Grimly performing his duties that day as General Homma’s staff officer on the scene, Tanaka had moved on in the aftermath of the morning’s reprisals to tour the monastery, which in the systemic absence of any serious effort on the part of the Japanese army to provide field hospitals to care for its wounded, had charitably taken in as many of the injured as it could.
Wandering through the makeshift wards, filled with the seriously injured and the badly burned under the care of black-robed nuns, he came across a soldier he happened to recognize ... it was none other than Sergeant Kubo!
Kubo, was lying on his side. He sported a heavily bandaged head through which protruded on one side a damaged ear repaired with sutures. Behind him knelt two nuns, engaged in changing a dressing on his back.
“Sergeant Kubo!” said Tanaka, confronting him, with his hands clasped behind his back in the customary fashion.
Kubo looked up, blankly at first, before a glimmer of recognition animated his face.
“Hurt badly?” asked Tanaka out of politeness.
“I was lucky. Gash on my head. Stitches on my ear. Worst was a nasty wound in my back, but it’s healing. Nothing vital injured. I’ll live. Another day or two and I will return to duty. Possibly even tomorrow.”
“I see. Well then ... carry on, Sergeant,” said Tanaka, moving quickly away, unable to refrain from wondering whether it might have been better for everyone if Kubo hadn’t survived.
***********
Natalie leaned forward from where she and Barb were kneeling amongst the circle of partisans surrounding Alejandro, the better to see the crude map he was sketching in the soil. Barb smiled. She couldn’t help but be amused by Nat’s trademark intensity, so apparent in the way she squinted and slightly cocked her head to one side to favor the one unbroken lens on her eyeglasses.
“Looks like he’s planning some kind of attack or raid,” she reported to Barb in a hushed tone. “And it appears to be on a prisoner compound near one of the coastal road towns. I think he called it Lubao, but the details escape me. I wish I could better understand what Alejandro is saying.”
“We’ll have to ask him later.”
Barb and Natalie, although objects of curiosity, had been well treated since their early morning arrival in the partisan camp. They’d been provided a generous breakfast, allowed to freshen up in a nearby stream ... in relative privacy, not that privacy mattered to them anymore ... and generally given free run of the camp. Although no one spoke to them, they had received plenty of friendly nods and smiles. Alejandro, on the other hand, had been busy and had largely ignored them. And his father had vanished from the scene altogether, presumably to return to the family back in Balanga.
It was only after the planning session ended and the partisans scattered to see to the task of breaking camp, that Barb and Natalie finally managed to corner Alejandro long enough to speak with him.
“Tell us what’s going on!” demanded Barb, planting herself in front of him as he attempted to rush past them.
“We’re going to carry out a mission tonight.”
“Where, and what about us?”
“I heard Lubao mentioned,” chimed in Natalie. “Isn’t that quite a distance from here?”
“Yes, it is a distance ... about 15 to 20 kilometers ... but we travel light and move fast. If all goes well, we’ll be in position before daybreak.”
“To do exactly what?” said Natalie, a frown on her face.
“The plan is to free a compound full of prisoners and lead them to safety.”
“And what about us?” interjected Barb, reprising her earlier question. “Are we to go along or remain here?”
“You’ll come with us, but only as far as a hidden site near the planned raid. We may need your nursing skills once it’s all over. There’s bound to be a firefight with the Japanese guards, and that means there will likely be wounded.
“Do we know if any Americans will be in that compound?” asked Barb.
“Yes, we believe so. Filipinos too. But enough talk now. Time is short and I’ve much to do. We move out soon. Be ready!”
*********
Late that afternoon, Kubo walked through the portals marking the entrance to the Poor Clare Monastery of the Holy Spirit and accosted the first Japanese officer he saw. He asked about the whereabouts of his unit and, after being directed to a nearby command post, learned that the section of the march to which he had been attached would be spending the night at a compound located just to the south of Lubao.
Hitching a ride on a northbound lorry, he was soon on his way.
*********
Tanaka saw him go. The day’s second round of reprisal executions had just ended, and Tanaka was through for the day, He had seen enough and was eager for any excuse that might get him away from Balanga. And Kubo had provided him with exactly what he needed.
Rushing over to his ‘Type 95’, which was parked nearby, he called out to his driver who sat dozing at the wheel, ordering him to start the machine up ... declaring that they were departing post haste, and that they would follow after the convoy of lorries then leaving town and headed north on the coastal road.
***********
By then, Alejandro’s ragtag partisan band had been on the move for several hours, following upland trails that skirted Mount Mariveles and descended gradually towards the coastal plain around the town of Lubao. The men were strung out in single-file, with Barb and Natalie positioned near the rear. They scarcely saw anything of Alejandro, who had positioned himself well ahead near the lead.
In her typical information-gathering fashion, Natalie had attempted a head count, and had reckoned the partisans to be roughly three dozen in number. They appeared to carry all manners of small arms weaponry, and moved along in absolute silence, communicating exclusively by hand signals. She and Barb were of course unarmed, but each bore a canvass rucksack that they had been issued on their backs, stuffed with makeshift bandages and a rather meager assortment of medical supplies.
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“Looks like he’s planning some kind of attack or raid,” she reported to Barb in a hushed tone. “And it appears to be on a prisoner compound near one of the coastal road towns. I think he called it Lubao, but the details escape me. I wish I could better understand what Alejandro is saying.”
“We’ll have to ask him later.”
“We’ll have to ask him later.”
Fossy
SEXPIOGENTUS
Whatever wonderful weft Barb weaves throughout this excellent tale, I can't help but admit that the thought of Nurse Moore fighting as a Filipino partisan is quite a turn on!
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
Historical side detail. Besides the 'Type 95' four wheel drive service and scouting vehichle, Captain Tanaka is using, 'Type 95' was also the name of a Japanese light tank during WWII.
