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GORDON J. ENGLISH
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Gordon J. ENGLISH 1st Lt., G Co. 503d PRCT KIA, Middleside, Corregidor 19 February 1945 |
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He was out of place in the Paratroop Infantry. He was a scholarly type, baby face and glasses, small frame and reserved - seemed to apologize before he spoke or gave an order, but the guys thought he was an OK Officer. We start moving towards the north, "towards the ice plant," I am told. The patrol puts us on a road that crosses past the Hospital and then in front of the parade ground on Middleside, and as we move down the road we can see Lt. English, one of our officers, standing alone out in the open, to the left of the ice plant. He has his field glasses to his eyes, and is intent on his inspection of something that interests him. We shout at him to take cover, but he does not seem to hear us. I borrow a rifle from someone to put a bullet close to him but my effort fails. As I am looking at him, he falls, dead. Clearly a Japanese soldier, hidden somewhere in the landscape through his field glasses, perhaps at the ice plant, was looking back at him. Through him I learn to avoid any lingering affection for the Corregidor landscape.
Chet Nycum
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Lt.
English joined 503d at Port
Moresby during the first week in Jan, 1944. He was killed at Middleside
on the fourth or fifth day.
