On To Corregidor

with the 2nd Engineer Special Brigade

The is an extract from History of the Second Engineers Special Brigade, which   describes the training and Pacific combat experiences of the Second Brigade, reproduced here by permission.  The book, which is out of print, appears there in its entirety courtesy of Robert B. Lewis, and here by permission. The unit which made the Corregidor landings was Co. F, 532nd Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment.

On the morning after the Mariveles landing, Task Group "A" of the 532nd E.B. & S.R. sent twenty-five LCMs to participate in the assault on Corregidor.  Leaving Mariveles early in the morning they landed parts of the 34th RCT "on the Rock" at 0830. The value of right living was well shown on this job because the opposition and obstacles were never tougher. All waves encountered heavy machine gun fire from the caves along the beach and many hits were scored on our LCMS. One barge turned up with forty-eight bullet holes in her hull, but only one below the waterline. T/4 Joseph Kaplan of Richmond Hill, New York, was shot in the stomach and died the next day.  Five other boatmen were wounded but fortunately all survived.

The Navy did not know whether or not LSMs could land on Black Beach on Corregidor, so Colonel Keyes offered to take in the crash boat "Gotuit" (now the "Sweeney") and find out. 1st Lt Paul C. K. Smith of New York City was at the helm during the reconnaissance.  Criss-cross machine gun and small arms fire from the beach raked their course, but T/4 Thomas Benedict of Bay City, Texas, flanked by Colonel Keyes and Lt Colonel Tucker, stood on the bow casting the leadline and they got in and out again with the desired information. T/4 Robert Collins of East Hampton, New York, and T/5 Howard B. Calkins of Bangor, Maine, were at their twin fifties during the run.

The Shore Party on Corregidor also did a wonderful piece of work.  An example of the beach conditions on Corregidor may be seen from the work of Sergeant Ira E. Reed, Company F, of Kerns, Virginia.  Under the flanking fire from small arms and machine guns which were located in caves on either side of the beach, Sergeant Reed was directing his men in their task of unloading bulk stores and vehicles from the landing craft. They did not seem to be making much progress, for the heavy water distillation units and other trailers without prime movers were presenting a particularly difficult problem.

"If we only had a bulldozer," he said to himself, "we could get those things off of there in jig time."

He looked up and down the beach. All the other dozers seemed to be busy.  Then he spotted one that was apparently idle.  He was in luck, but look where it was - fully exposed to enemy fire and in the middle of a minefield where six other vehicles lay in wreckage sat the dozer.  Maybe he could get it out and maybe not.  He felt it was worth the try.  Picking his way across the mine-strewn beach, he was subjected to a renewed burst of enemy fire, but that did not faze him. Reaching the dozer, he climbed aboard and as rapidly as possible he got it started and withdrew to the beach. With the help of this equipment the unloading was speeded up and the landing craft were able to retract a short while later.

As all waves came into the beach they were riddled with enemy machine gun bullets from the left flank. The beach itself seemed to be exploding as vehicles unloading from the LCMs set off land mines buried in the sand. LCM 474 of the first wave ran into trouble on the beach when the crew could not raise the ramp. They were having difficulty trying to back out of range when T/4 Clyde Hyatt, Company A, coxswain of LCM 685 in the second wave spotted the distressed barge. In spite of the heavy enemy fire, Sergeant Hyatt moved in and took the disabled boat in tow getting it safely out to the maintenance barge.

The trials and tribulations of being an Amphibian were again well illustrated when the fifth wave hit Black Beach On the approach to the beach the boats were running parallel to a high rocky cliff which extended out for about seven hundred yards. LCM 734 was the left flank boat and was an ideal target for the Jap machine gunners. By the time 734 hit the beach there were several holes in her hull and some of the infantrymen in the well deck had been wounded.  There were land explosions on the beach as vehicles coming off the boats hit land mines and blew up. The coxswain of 734 called repeatedly for the vehicles on his boat to unload but neither of the two jeeps moved. Apparently the driver of the first jeep had been hit because he could not be found.  PFC Robert J. Meheran, Company A, Hartford, Connecticut, was still at his post behind the twin fifties, but realizing that his boat was blocking the narrow beach and endangering lives, he jumped into the first jeep and drove it off the ramp. Returning to the ramp he was thrown to the ground and wounded by a terrific explosion behind him.  The driver of the second jeep had hit a land mine. Both vehicles and the other driver were blown up in the explosion.

T/4 Gerard Cavan, Hq Co Shore Battalion, of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, had charge of the Communications Section for the Shore Party which landed on Corregidor.  Though under intermittent rifle and automatic weapon fire from well concealed enemy positions surrounding the small beachhead, the party immediately opened up in the 610 radio net and stayed in twenty-four hour contact with Mariveles for the duration of the operation.  T/5 Frederick H. O'Neil, also of Hq Co Shore Battalion, of Binghamton, New York, was killed by enemy fire on the second day and for thirty-six hours, Sergeant Cavan operated the radio until another relief operator could be sent over from Mariveles.

It was soon after the landings on Corregidor that Lt Colonel Tucker and his Survey Unit had all their fun. Late in February the unit was proceeding to Orani to survey the harbor there.  About a mile from Corregidor they picked up a Jap who was floating around on a log.  The Jap, upon being searched, struck T/3 Glenn Cornett, Hq Co Boat Battalion, of Anco, Kentucky, several jui jitsu blows. Cornett quickly "subdued" the Jap and the party proceeded.

About noontime the survey party observed a long canoe-type boat which was trying to avoid mortar fire from shore.  It looked like an enemy barge, so Lt Colonel Tucker, T/3 Robert E. Rhodes, Company B, of San Francisco, California, and T/5 John F. Buggie, also of Company B and from St. Joseph, Michigan, attacked the boat in their LCVP. Five Japs jumped into the sea but the remaining occupants continued to fire at the oncoming LCVP.  These five were picked up and the battle suddenly ended when the other Japs destroyed themselves with two hand grenades.

On the way back to Mariveles this same party found three Japs on a raft off Pilor. The Japs refused to surrender and, since ammunition was getting a bit low, the problem was solved by ramming the raft with the LCVP.  Only one Jap rose to the surface - and he did not live long.  They next sighted twenty Japs swimming in the sea about a mile off Corregidor. These Japs were "rescued" with comparative ease.  Colonel Tucker and his party returned to Mariveles with a total of twenty-six prisoners to show for their day's work.

On 25 February* two of our LCMs were swinging around Corregidor when they saw a smoke grenade go off in the vicinity of Wheeler Point on the "Rock". Since this was a prearranged signal for distress, the boats moved shoreward to look over the situation.  They found a paratroop patrol fighting furiously but pinned on the beach, which offered little protection from the heavy machine gun fire coming from the heavy brush and caves on Wheeler Point. One LCM headed full steam for the beach while the other remained offshore to cover her approach. By this time the enemy fire was now directed at both barges as well as at the patrol on the beach. The shoreward bound LCM under the direction Of T/5 Stanley Jarris of Beacon, New York, made its way through water infested with “niggerbeads” and with partially submerged rock reefs. Then it happened.  A heavy swell lifted the barge and dropped it fast on a jagged rock.  The other LCM of Company A, crewed by T/4 Raymond E. Enos of Cudahy, Wisconsin, PFC Paul T. Clifford of Oil City, Pennsylvania, T/5 Hershel W. Hall of Jackhorn, Kentucky, and T-5 Jordon C. White of Texarkana, Texas, moved in under concentrated enemy fire and pulled the damaged craft off the rock. Its bilge pump kept it up. Then both boats went ashore and hastily took aboard the besieged paratroopers, well and wounded, and got off the beach successfully.

The fight for Corregidor continued for a few more days until finally all enemy resistance was overcome. One objective of the Luzon Campaign had been accomplished the stars and stripes were again flying over Corregidor.  The detachment of the 592d Boat and Shore Regiment that had performed so admirably in the capture of that fortress was awarded by direction of the Presidential Unit Citation on 8 May 1945. "Their magnificent courage, tenacity, and gallantry avenged the victims of Corregidor of 1942, and achieved a significant victory for the United States Army." This was the Brigade's third Presidential Unit Citation, an honor of which every brigade member will be forever proud.

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VIEW #1 FROM THE CORREGIDOR SIDE

 It sounds true to me since the part about the LCM rescue of the paratroopers stranded on the beach is in fact the ambush of D Company close to Monja...a Tale that has been verified by several D Company men...and appears in some detail, from my point of view, elsewhere on this website. On occasions some details vary but in essence everyone tells it more or less factually.  The men talked about in that message were obviously not from the 503.  It appears they were a boat company from some other army unit station on Mariveles...It would be interesting connecting with them and following up the details.  Further if all falls true maybe we could have them to our reunion and let the bullshit sessions continue with a new element thrown in.   I am going to try to make the connection.  If you have more of this type info, help.

Tony Sierra
D Company
Second Battalion.

VIEW #2 FROM THE CORREGIDOR SIDE

D Company had moved down Cheney Ravine for the third time on 24 February and went south on the rocky beach. Very quickly the company took three casualties, first in a brief skirmish.  As they advanced south, shots fired from the cliffs felled nine more men.  It was no accident how the LCM's got to the beach to take the company off.  D Company had three dead and nine others wounded and it would have been impossible for them to go up Cheney Trail to Topside with this great burden. LCM's were on call and Jim Gifford, the company commander asked they be sent to the beach north of Wheeler Point.

Some battalion headquarters people and others 500 feet or so above the beach near Banzai [Wheeler] Point watched the company patrol. The request to pick up the company and its casualties was radioed to battalion who had the boats dispatched. It's possible I suppose the LCM's could have been out cruising around the island but they did not find the company by chance.  The company had withdrawn to the questionable safety of the cliffs and inexplicably the enemy firing stopped as the vessels approached. A phosphorus grenade was thrown when the boats came in sight traveling at a snails pace. [The 50 ton landing craft mechanized top speed was 12 knots.]    This may have been some kind of a distress signal for the 592nd Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment but the grenade was thrown to show the boats where to land. There was no firing as the LCM's came in nor when the men waded out with the dead and wounded. No more casualties were taken.

Years later I twice walked the entire route down the ravine to the point where the ambush exploded. I climbed the cliffs near Battery Monja whence the fire came and looked down; it must have been like shooting ducks in a barrel that terrible day.

John Lindgren

* This was more likely the action by "D" Company on 24 February described by Tony Sierra in "The Attack on Battery Monja, 24 February 1945".

Robert B Lewis Sr.  served during World War II in the 4th Engineer Special Brigade (4th ESB). His unit in that brigade was the 594th Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment (594th EB&SR). He started his site to organize and preserve history about the 594th EB&SR. He is the contact point for the website.

H Version 09.09.11