The Ghostly Men

Of Corregidor's fall in 1942 Douglas MacArthur wrote: "Through the bloody haze of its last reverberating shot, I shall always seem to see the vision of its grim, gaunt and ghostly men." Last week many of the Philippine wraiths were again flesh & blood, rescued after more than three years of Japanese prison life.

No. 1 on the list of men found "safe & well" was Lieut. General Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, hero of Bataan and successor to MacArthur. He was found in a Manchuria prison camp near Mukden.

Also reported safe: Major General George M. Parker Jr., Wainwright's lieutenant; Lieut. Colonel James Patrick Sinnott Devereux, commander of the marines in the heroic defense of Wake Island in December 1941. (Colonel Devereux's mother and 27 -year-old wife had died since he went to prison.)

In China, Korea, Formosa and French Indo-China, an estimated 33,200 Allied prisoners (including 3,530 U.S. citizens) awaited liberation. In Japan there were perhaps 30,000 more -- Americans, British, Dutch. Planes and hospital ships were assigned to begin the recovery.

Six-Man Teams. Plans for the rescue of Wainwright and other prisoners were laid by U.S. troops in China last month.

Brigadier General George Olmstead, war-plans officer, organized many paratroop teams (six men to a team) consisting of Army & Navy volunteers, mostly medical personnel and signalmen. Each team was equipped with a radio and 500 Ibs. of concentrated foods and medicine. Included in most groups: at least one man who had worked as an Allied spy, maintained communication with U.S., British and Dutch prisoners in the Jap camps scattered from Manchuria to Indo-China.

Last week General Olmstead's men were ready. First, planes flew over the prison camps to drop leaflets warning the Japs that the parachutists were coming on a purely humanitarian mission. Then the transports flew over, unloaded their supplies and men.

One bewildered Jap prison-camp commander at Keijo, Korea said that he had no instructions about surrender--would not the Americans fly back to China if he gave them gasoline? In Peiping the commander said he could not allow the teams to see any prisoners until he had instructions from Nanking; meanwhile, he put them up as guests in Peiping's famed Wagon-lits Hotel. Not a single shot was reported fired at the paratroopers who took the long chance on their errands of mercy.

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