During
an advance towards Battery Boston, Lieutenant Calhoun saw that his platoon's
right flank was dangerously exposed to Battery Wheeler's high south parapet.
Even though he had been told by Captain Brown that Battery Wheeler was void
of enemy troops, Calhoun felt very uneasy about his flank being wide open.
He sent his first squad, consisting of Sergeant William Freihoff and three
men, Privates Glen E. Handlon, Delby A. Huff and Albert F. Thomas, to
investigate Battery Wheeler.
The squad was just approaching the rear
of Battery Wheeler when it was surprised by a sudden burst of 6.5 Nambu
light machine gun fire from a concrete tower above the north parapet.
Private Handlon was killed instantly. Freihoff and Huff dashed to the
battery's back wall where they descended a flight of stairs in a single
bound and ran into a large room filled with American artillery shells and
gunpowder canisters that had been sitting there since Corregidor fell to the
Japanese. Private Thomas remained outside where he had hastily taken cover
behind a mound when Handlon was killed only ten feet in front of him.
Recognizing that he and Huff were now
trapped inside the battery, Sergeant Freihoff yelled out to Thomas to go and
tell Lieutenant Calhoun what had happened. Calhoun and the rest of the
platoon arrived a short while later and took up firing positions in a large
crater only fifty yards in back of the battery. A bazooka team started
banging away at the tower where the Nambu was located but its rockets
exploded harmlessly against the battery's thick concrete walls. Meanwhile,
Private Thomas and Sergeant Todd were looking over the crest of the crater
trying to get an exact fix on the Nambu, when a single shot rang out. Thomas
raised up, turned around, and fell face down into the crater, dead with a
bullet through his head.
Gerard
M. Devlin
Back
to Corregidor
St
Martin's Press, New York (1992)
(out of print)
Pfc
Albert Thomas was the second man in 'F' Company to die. After Handlon was
killed, Sgt. Bill Freihoff and Pfc. Delby Huff were trapped in a powder
room of Wheeler Btry. Thomas had been with them and Handlon. He died
as he was pointing out to Calhoun and T/Sgt Phillip Todd the room room
where the two were trapped.
Bill Calhoun
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