10 October 1943
On 10 Oct 1943, a combined force of the Regimental Co, the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 114th Infantry Regiment, led by Lt ROBERT B. SPIELMAN and other Regimental Officers, attack the Japs entrenched at Placer, Surigao Province.
Enemy casualties could not be determined but it was certain that their loss was heavy.
Lt. SERGIO RAGAS, Sgt BUTIONG, Corp V. REYES, Pfc ANICETO UNDANGA, Pvt SEVILLA and Pvt PIEDAD of the guerrilla forces were wounded.
A few months earlier on 4 Apr 1943, American Air Corps pilots 2LT Samuel Grashio and LTC William Dyess, US Army Air Corps Officer 2LT Leo Boelens, USMC officers 1LT Michiel Dobervich, CPT Austin Shofner and 1LT Jack Hawkins, US Navy LCDR Melvin McCoy, US Coast Artillery MAJ Steve M Mellnik, US Army Sergeants Paul H Marshall and Robert Spielman, along with two Filipinos were able to escape from a POW work camp, Davao Region, in the Philippines.
Over the course of the next few months, 7 were transported a few at a time by submarine to Australia while 3 stayed behind to continue fighting with the guerrillas. Leo Boelens, was later killed by the Japanese.
This was the only successful mass escape from a Japanese POW camp. Along with recon information provided by these men, they also provided some of the first reports of the atrocities inflicted upon US military personnel by the Japanese.
Sources: History of the Mindanao Guerrillas by the American Guerrillas of Mindanao (AGOM) (Unpublished Manuscript) & findagrave.com/memorial.
