The lumber company in Fabrica was the Insular Lumber Company [ILCO] at one time the world's largest hardwood supplier with headquarters in Philadelphia. Their planing mill employed a great many people and Fabrica was a good sized town. The finished lumber was loaded from the docks on the Himagaan River and moved on barges to the sea and loaded on freighters.

The 2nd Battalion was sent to Fabrica July 7, 1945, after some reports of Japanese activity in the area were received. The 3rd Battalion had been there much earlier. The Japanese were south of the town. ILCO had constructed a rail line that ran south more than 20 miles south of Fabrica to bring logs to the planing mill. The battalion patrolled extensively east and west of the rail line. The operation was centered on the rail line that brought our supplies, evacuated our sick etc. ILCO's American employees who didn't leave were interned by the Japanese. One of the managers was Swiss and stayed in Fabrica to keep an eye on ILCO;s investment.  He helped us get the locomotives working and got train crews to run them. Our units had few casualties and what enemy contacts were made were with small scattered units.

We were there until the war ended and then moved into Fabrica. Eventually the 503d began sending men home for discharge based on a point system. The low point men sailed for Japan and the 11th Airborne Division. The Japanese prisoners left on ships heading for Japan.

ILCO built several large two story frame houses, probably for management people, in a compound close to the mill. After the war the 2nd Battalion used the houses to quarter troops guarding several thousand PW's quartered under the large planing mill nearby. Since the prisoners were going home eventually there was little for the guards to guard. The entire operation was moved elsewhere in the province when the hardwood trees ran out and most of the buildings were as well. 

At war's end I was appointed warden for the stockade and lived in one of ILCO's houses. It was the first time I slept in a house of any kind for more than two years. I found a Philadelphia Yellow Pages directory at the library and looked up ILCO under "Lumber " and there it was. I wrote to the address and got a prompt answer. The owner of the name was a former ILCO employee who bought the rights to it when ILCO was liquidated. He put me in touch with some of the former employees who had some connection with Fabrica. I have several prewar pictures of the ILCO facilities that were given me by Robert List. One of the ILCO alumni gave me a 16 mm film of ILCO operations. ILCO must have been quite a place to work because they have reunions of former workers to this day. I have the impression their days at Fabrica was an exciting part of their life.

John Lindgren