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From today's NY Post. Astounding and just damn!

Lee Casper and Dick Schmeelk served on board the submarine USS Blackfinn off the Philippines in 1945, fighting in the Pacific theater of WWII. Casper shared the following story from 1944 with Schmeelk and James MacGuire, who relates it here to share with our readers on Memorial Day.
We were on patrol before Christmas in the South China Sea. We’d just torpedoed merchant ships and tankers and attempted an attack on two Japanese battleships and three heavy cruisers, which sighted us and forced us to dive deep.
Suddenly our orders changed.
When we surfaced, our skipper received a coded radio message ordering us on a secret mission. Captain Laird called 12 of us to the control room. We were to rendezvous at sea with a group of Filipino guerilla fighters and their leaders, two American army officers. These men had managed to capture a Japanese patrol boat and, with it, a set of their top-secret patrol books — a tremendous prize the US Fleet commanders wanted to take advantage of before the Japanese high command learned of their loss.
Our instructions were to meet these men in the waters off the shore of the large island on Mindoro, about 100 miles south of Manila, where a fierce battle for that city was then under way.
Because I had been sent to the Navy’s night-vision school, I was selected as one of the lookouts to be stationed topside. What a shock when I saw less than a quarter-mile away a major Japanese fortification! Even without binoculars I could clearly see soldiers milling about the gun emplacements. We got a coded message from the Army saying that enemy patrol boats had been too close for them to come out: “Let’s try again tomorrow night, same time and place.”
When we surfaced and took our watch positions the next night, we were rewarded very quickly. A dim shape appeared off our port bow. We heard a low voice call out, “Ahoy! The submarine.”
Up on the bow, Gunner Signore, boat hook in hand, answered, “Who the hell are you?” The voice came back, “Captain somebody, US Army, and seven crew.” Captain Laird ordered the men on deck to secure the vessel alongside and assist its crew to come aboard.
The vessel turned out to be a long native canoe called a banco. The American officers were dressed in khaki shorts and tattered skivvy shirts. The Filipinos were bare from the waist up.
The two Army captains, it turned out, were escapees from the notorious Bataan Death March. Friendly natives kept them alive and assisted them to Mindoro, where they discovered a small band of young men who were doing whatever they could to sabotage and disrupt the Japanese. They eagerly accepted the Americans as leaders and were trained into an effective fighting force. In addition to the Japanese code books they had acquired, the Americans had mapped all the troop locations, gun emplacements, ammunition and supply dumps on the entire island.
The Army guys handed over two large, waterproof satchels containing the captured codes and maps to Captain Laird. The captain passed the word among the entire crew that whatever clothing we could all spare would be greatly appreciated by the guerrillas. Laird then ordered all of our small-arms ammunition, Thompson submachine guns, hand grenades and a dozen Colt .45s to go with the guerrillas. We were headed for Australia as soon as this job was finished and were quite generous, even throwing in our mattress covers and cigarettes. When the stuff was ready to go, it was all passed topside and offloaded into the canoe.
That was when we got our biggest surprise.
We had all assumed that the two Army officers, having survived the torture and inhumanity of the Bataan Death March and led these Filipino men in heroic resistance to the Japanese, would call it quits and come to Australia with the rest of us.
But no: When the last Filipino man ascended the conning tower ladder, the two Army guys shook hands and said goodbye to all around. Then they followed the guerrillas, climbed quietly into the canoe, picked up their paddles and slipped away into the darkness.
Later, Captain Laird told us he had urged the men to join us. But the Americans replied that the guerrillas had become like brothers to them, and they could not even consider leaving until the Japanese had been completely driven out.
We waited an hour before starting our motors to make sure our new friends were well away. Because our commander was anxious to get the code books as quickly as possible, we rendezvoused with the Australian destroyer H.M.A.S. Kiama off the island of Morotoi in the Molucca Sea, made the transfer and arrived in Perth for two weeks of R&R well before Christmas.
A small postscript to the story: You’ll remember we had been sworn to secrecy? Imagine our surprise when the Christmas issue of LIFE Magazine contained a feature story about the taking of Mindoro Island by US forces without the loss of a single life thanks to an unnamed US submarine that had obtained maps of the island’s installations ahead of the American attack.
I’ve never heard another accounting of this incident or the incredible valor of the two American Army officers who risked their lives all over again to make it happen. Whoever they were, and wherever they are now, today we should all offer a long overdue “Thank you.”

Awesome story!!!

Certainly is..

Great story ET, many brave men came out of WW2, the two captains were no doubt uncommonly brave men as we're the friendly natives that nursed them back to life.

How many of these stories will we never hear? I have a feeling we hear of a lot less than actually happened.

My MIL witnessed the Death March pass through her town when she was a little girl, she said everybody wanted to aid the prisoners who were suffering so bad but the Japanese guards wouldn't let them.

She spent the rest of the war in a small village out in the boonies while her father fought with the guerrillas. Wev'e offered to take her to the Nimitz Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg where she could leave a recorded account for posterity, but it upsets her too much to talk about.

Sobering that all of this occurred within living memory; my mom for instance, who as a little girl was bombed out of her house in Manchester by the Luftwaffe, and who still recalls what German aircraft engines sounded like.

Great story, EvilTwin.

Thanks for Sharing Jim! Great story....

Mike, I remember a lot of the stories of the war years in Britain from when I was a kid over there... it had only been 20 years previous...

From folks who were adults during the war.... but moreso the memories of those who were friends of my parents, and parents of my friends... telling about their experiences being kids during the depression....

my favorite pair were Tom and Ella... Tom was captured at Durkirk.. and spent the war in a POW camp... and was part of 17 unsuccesful escape attempts.. he was even one of the guys to get out, but captured and not shot, on the escape that became the Movie "The Great Escape".. Tom was from Scotland...

his wife Ella was from London... she had a baby when her husband was taken at Dunkirk...she had no idea if he was dead or alive...

during the Battle of Britain, the air raid sirens go off... she's half way between home with a baby carriage full of groceries and a baby... and the Subway Station that were of course used as bomb shelters...so with the groceries, she decides to dash for home... all 5 feet tall...pushing a big pram..

She hears a plane engine, like it is coming down for a dive, and starts running with her pram... it opens up on her.. but misses...
it was a Stuka, which had evidently dropped its bomb already...

and old man in the Home Guard appeared, and as the Stuka comes down for another pass, he runs out in the middle of the road to catch its attention away from her...fires and kills him...

it then turns for another pass... she runs out in the road, leaving the pram on the sidewalk, grabs the guy's weapon which was some sort of automatic weapon... points it at the Stuka, turns her head, as she pulls the trigger as the recoil frightens her.. bullets flying all around her....

The Stuka pulls up and its engine is missing...she runs to her pram after dropping the weapon and runs home....

The Stuka levels out and the two crew men bail out...it was witnessed by some other home guard guys... and they capture the Germans....

after the Battle of Britain is over, Ella receives an award from the King.. she still had it, although she use to complain to her husband when he'd show people...Tom would always say when showing it... " here's me sitting in a POW Camp, and me lovely bride's back home shooting down the Luftwaffe, and taking care of me baby"....

We use to think as kid Andy Capp and Flo were modeled after Tom and Ella....always knew when the pub closed up the street, you could hear Tom riding home on his bicycle singing songs about Scotland... and you could tell when he fell off, as the singing would stop....then he'd get back on, and he'd pick the song up where he left off...

loved those folks...

A friend and fellow I trained and worked with grew up in Scotland. One Sunday, after church, the family went to the park for a time. He remembers a German plane coming over and strafing them, with his father standing and raising his fist at the German.

thanks for posting something worth reading Jim


May God bless our veterans and particularly their families that have had to soldier on without them.

Truly "The Greatest Generation".

Birdie, if you have a recorder, you might get the lady to talk about her experiences and mail that to the museum. You could also do the same over the phone. The person to call is Reagan Grau. If you need any other info, let me know.


Jim