Escape from Bataan

Safe in Australia, TIME'S Philippine Correspondent Melville Jacoby last week cabled the first detailed story of an escape by sea through the Jap blockade around Bataan. With him on his hazardous, 20-day journey were his pretty bride of four months, Annalee Whitmore Jacoby, and A.P. Correspondent Clark ("Chang") Lee, with whom Jacoby and his wife made their last-minute getaway from Manila on New Year's Eve.

Said General MacArthur a couple of days before his own departure (his trip was "far worse than ours"): "Do you want to go now?" MacArthur shook hands said: "I believe you will make it." They traveled by boat between the islands, traveling only at night and holing up on shore by day.

In bright moonlight their boat slipped through the minefields, past the Cavite shoreline, where Jap artillery blazed intermittently at Forts Drum and Hughes. Beyond the bay they laid a tricky course to freedom. "A tight feeling in our stomachs," they sat on deck with legs and arms crossed as well as fingers. When a member of the crew wrung a chicken's neck, "the agonized squawk made us jump, our stomachs rejoining us some time after."

Twice they were spotted by a Jap plane--it looked like "Photograph Joe," a reconnaissance pilot who flew over Corregidor every morning--but the expected bombers failed to follow. At native villages where they stopped by day the Filipinos, overjoyed at sight of their boat flying the U.S. flag, told them tales of rape in towns occupied by the Japs.

Once, putting to sea at dusk, they were spotted by a German priest; soon afterward, signal fires bloomed on the hills around them. Several times they fled from islands when reports were relayed that a Jap destroyer was approaching. They gave it the slip, only to be followed by another enemy ship. Quick dodges through small islands saved them. Their luck held as they scooted past Jap bombing bases. Darkness saved them from an auxiliary cruiser.

During alarms, Correspondent Jacoby's wife "filed her nails over and over again." Twice she nearly filed them to the quick. The first time was when they sighted eight Jap warships steaming parallel to them in line. But the enemy--presumably damaged ships heading home for repairs--paid no attention to them.

Another time, chased by a big Jap ship, they raced into a dark rain squall. When they came out, the ship was still after them. They circled furiously, doubled back; it looked, this time, as though the game was up.

During these frantic maneuvers, the engineer came on deck smiling, because he was damn proud of his boys--the Filipinos in the engine room were sticking without a murmur, not even asking questions. Pokerfaced deckhands buckled on automatics and bolo knives. An hour later, saved by darkness, the deckhands "were strumming a guitar and ukulele, singing their version of American jazz tunes, vintage 1930."

In friendly port at last, the engineer came on deck, smiling again. And well he might:

"Just as we'd pulled alongside the dock and he'd shut off the motors, a piston cracked. The motors wouldn't have turned another time."

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