The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-10-11
Continued from Page One)

crashed through the thickets in a
valley east Of Clark and rounded
them up at some risk to the hiers.
FINDS AMERICAN GIRL
rode back to. Stotsenburg about
3 o'clock that afternoon for lunch,
and found an American girl a
Mrs. Necker, wife of the manager
of the Radio Corporation of Amer
lea station at Manila - sitting on
my front porch. She had been up
to Baguio with friends over the
weekend and had driven down to
Stotsenburg before the Baguio raid.
Her husband was supposed to meet
her at Stotsenburg, but the Japs
had knocked down one of the rail-
road bridges on the line leading
up from Manila.
She was stuck, one of the first
of so many defenseless American
women caught in the machinery of
war. Tom Dooley quickly found that
there would be no train to Manila
until the bridge was repaired. So
fixed up a room for Mrs. Necker
and got through a call to her hus-
band.
Mr.. Necker seemed very CRATE
full and asked me what he could do
to repay me.
''Send a message to my wife and
tell her I'm okay," I asked him.
He did this, and sent other such
messages, one of the last of which
was Christmas wire to Mrs. Vain
wright just before the RCA station
closed down.
I had thought of Adele a lot that
first day of the war; had thanked
God that she was out of it. But
l missed her badly. There were so
many things to say that cannot be
said to anyone but a wife.
Tom Dooley drove Mrs. Necker
to Manila the next morning, and
on the same day the unchanged
and patched-up bombers at Clark
Field took off and went south -
along with the unscathed bombers
at Nichols Field. What was left Of
the fighters stayed on Luzon, to be
whitfield down in time to two planes.
Throughout the whole coming cam
paign our fighters were used main
ly for reconnaissance. There weren't
enough of them to fight the enemy.
The rest of December 9 was spent
in telephoning MacArthur's head
quarters and working at the job
of getting all the personnel of my
command at Stotsenburg under as
much cover as was available. The
tTwenty Sixth Cavalry was moved
from it's barracks and stables and
camped in nearby woods. The
horses of the pack battery also
were l e d to similar shelter. The
men of the pack battery stayed at
their gun positions in front of head
quarters.
And that day I started to get
some transportation for the North
Luzon force It was transportation
of laughable kind, though not at
the time. I hired a number Of or
binary passenger BUSES from two
commercial firms, which eventual
ly helped us in the long and heart
breaking withdrawal into Bataan.
BUYS SMALL CARS
Irented and bought smaller cars,
too, for staff work, administration
and couriers. When diligent efforts
failed to unearth additional cars to
rent or buy, 1 sent junior officers
out on the roads and we got those
cars by stopping them and requisi-
tioning them on the spot. I was
sorry about that, but our main
chance of survival depended on
our mobility. That sensed, on top
of sensing that Macarthur would
be able to send me few of the sup
plies requested in the list which
Johnny Pugh, my aide, had carried
! to Manila.
On December 8 MacArthur's
chief signal officer, Brig. Gen.
Aiken, came to Stotsenburg to in
quire what I needed in the way
of communication equipment. My
own signal officer, Josh Stansell,
semi-explosively pulled out of his
pocket carbon copy of an un-
answered requisition he had sent
to Macarthur headquarters some
time before.
Gen. Aiken looked through it and
shook his head. He handed it back.
eve can't do very much for
you," he said. you'll have to i'm
provise.
So as of December 8 we had only
the public telephone and telegraph
system for our communications,
and our borrowed and appropriated
transport system ranged from lop-
sided buses to sports convertibles.
We had no Navy and no air force
beyond the reconnaissance P-4O's.
All five of my divisions were still
mobilizing. The Twenty-Sixth Cav
airy, my pack battery and Philip
pine Scouts outfits were the only
efficient combat units we had.
I drove up to Lingayen Gulf the
next day, the 10th, to inspect the
beach defenses of the Eleventh and
Twenty-First Divisions. A number
of Jap planes shot over us on the
way, going south as we went north.
But we were not molested. It
seemed like a good omen at the
time, but when I got back to Stot-
senburg that night knew where
the bombers I saw earlier in the