Dressed as Filipino peasants, the two American Scouts slipped into an abandoned hut about 300 yards from their objective. It was 11:30 AM, January 30, 1945, and time was of the essence. Lt. William Nellis and Private Rufo Vaquila were two of 14 Alamo Scouts who had penetrated Japanese lines just three days earlier. They then trekked 30 miles through back country to avoid observation, before taking-up a position of surveillance. Their objective was a Japanese prisoner of war camp, now clearly visible below them, located near the Filipino town of Cabanatuan, where it was believed some 500 American prisoners had been held in wretched conditions for years.
On October 20, 1944 General Douglas MacArthur had landed his forces on the island of Leyte, vowing to retake the Philippine Islands. Now, as his forces drove north, the Japanese were fleeing before MacArthur's advance, and the Americans had good reason to fear the Japanese would slaughter all of the POWs still under their control before withdrawing, which – given the tactical situation – could be at any moment.
The Cabanatuan camp had previously housed over 5,000 prisoners, however most of those had been removed to the Japanese mainland as slave labor prior to MacArthur’s landing. Then, on October 20, 1944, the Japanese high command issued a “kill all” directive to their officers in the Philippines, ordering the extermination of all POWs still under Japanese control. General Tominaga, the commander of the Fourth Army, for instance, sent this directive to the commander of the POW camp on the island of Palawan: “At the time of the enemy landing, if the POWs are harboring an enemy feeling, dispose of them at the appropriate time.”
Then, on December 14, the Americans learned that the Japanese had ordered all 150 American POWs on Palawan into air-raid shelters, then locked them in. Dousing the structures with gasoline, the guards set the shelters on fire, burning the helpless POWs alive. Those few who somehow managed to crawl-out were machine-gunned to death. Now, as Nellist and Vaquila watched, a full Japanese division was withdrawing north on the main road that ran past the prison. The two Scouts had every reason to believe that, once that division had cleared the area, a similar, or equally barbaric, fate awaited the emaciated men imprisoned at Cabanatuan.
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