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in front of a battalion of Australians. A second American detachment had its sights set on a spot farther north along the trail. Navigating through hip-deep swamps, the soldiers clashed with a Japanese patrol, lost their bearings, and ended up well short of their destination. Having realized that the main advance was falling apart, another company left the banana plantation and pushed forward in a northwesterly direction through nipa and sago palm. Two hundred yards out it was stopped in its tracks by heavy Japanese cross fire. Ordered to dig in, the men worked fast. They had just settled into their trenches when the Japanese attacked. Hundreds of enemy troops bore down on them. They rushed forward like wild Indians, shouting “Banzai!”, crashing through the jungle, their bayonets drawn. The Americans froze. The Japanese soldiers were almost upon them when the Americans finally fired. The forest filled with the smell of gunpowder. Called forward, two Australian companies hurried to help, and together they drove back the Japanese, inflicting heavy losses. At night, as their foxholes filled with water, the soldiers listened to swamp rats feeding on corpses.

Three days later, having patrolled the area and drawn up rudimentary maps, the Americans again prepared to attack. They opened up with artillery and mortars and then moved forward. One detachment pushed straight north, followed by a platoon of Australians and the regimental surgeon, Major Simon “Sam” Warmenhoven and a portion of his staff. To avoid the swamp, the soldiers clung to the main trail. A hundred yards out, they slammed into the Japanese and were halted by a torrent of fire. When a mortar landed among the Australians, Major Warmenhoven ran forward, dashing past enemy fire lanes. Five men lay dead; another eight were alive, but the shrapnel had done its work—they were badly torn up. Warmenhoven jumped from one man to the next as mortars exploded around him. He gave each soldier a half-grain of morphine, cut away their clothes, and dusted their wounds with sulfanilamide powder. Then he dressed the wounds as best he could and waited with the moaning soldiers for litter bearers to arrive. Later he would receive the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism.

BOOK ONE

Thus it was they wrought our woe

At the Tavern long ago.

Tell me, do our masters know,

Loosing blindly as they fly,

Old men love while young men die?

RUDYARD KIPLING

Chapter 1

ESCAPE TO THE SOUTH

ON THE NIGHT OF March 11, 1942, Douglas MacArthur was preparing to flee the island of Corregidor, headquarters of the Allied forces in the Philippines. Only fifteen miles across the North Channel, his army was trapped on the jungle-clothed Philippine peninsula of Bataan.

MacArthur, his wife, his four-year-old son Arthur, Arthur’s Cantonese amah, thirteen members of MacArthur’s staff, two naval officers, and a technician gathered at the destroyed Corregidor dock. Corregidor rose dramatically from the waters of Manila Bay. What had once been a luxuriant green island was now a devastated, crater-ridden monument to the fury of the battle for the Philippines. Major General Jonathan “Skinny” Wainwright emerged from the shadows.

“Jonathan,” MacArthur said, “I want you to understand my position very plainly. I’m leaving for Australia pursuant to repeated orders of the President…I want you to make it known throughout all elements of your command that I’m leaving over my repeated protests. If I get through to Australia you know I’ll come back as soon as I can with as much as I can. In the meantime, you’ve got to hold.”

Wainwright assured MacArthur that he would do everything in his power to hold Bataan. He wiped the tears from his eyes and MacArthur’s jaw quivered. Then MacArthur composed himself and shook Wainwright’s hand. “When I get back, if you’re still on Bataan, I’ll make you a lieutenant general.”

Wainwright said simply, “I’ll be on Bataan if I’m alive.”

MacArthur’s long personal crusade to return to the Philippines in victory had begun.

Lieutenant John “Buck