The Terrible Escape Of , William Dyess From The Japanese Prisoners Of War Camp.
On this day in 1943, William Dyess was able to escape from a Japanese prisoner of war camp in the Philippines along with nine other men, and to make his way through the jungle and to a ship that transported him to Australia. Once free, Dyess would be able to reveal to the world the atrocities of the Bataan Death March that had taken place after U.S. and Philippine forces surrendered on April 9, 1942.
When the Bataan Peninsula fell to the Japanese, Dyess, as commanding officer, refused to abandon those of his squadron who could not be evacuated. He gave his airplane to another fighter pilot for last bombing run on April 9. Dyess also supervised the evacuation of Philippine Army Colonel Carlos Romulo, a close friend of General Douglas MacArthur, who would survive the war and would later serve as President of the United Nations General Assembly.
Dyess was captured by the Japanese on April 9, 1942, north of Mariveles, Bataan, and the next morning, he and the others who surrendered at Bataan began the infamous Bataan Death March. He was imprisoned at Camp O'Donnell and then, from June to 26 October 1942, at Cabanatuan. There, his men and he were routinely denied the rights of prisoners of war.
Dyess and others were transported by ship, the Erie Maru, to the Davao Penal Colony on Mindanao, arriving November 7. After two months of planning and preparation, Dyess, along with 9 other American POWs, including Major Jack Hawkins, Austin Shofner, and Samuel Grashio, and two Filipino convicts escaped from Davao on April 4, 1943. It was the only large-scale escape of Allied POWs from the Japanese in the Pacific Theater during World War II.
Dyess and his group spent several weeks evading pursuit, then joined a group of guerrillas for several months. The group decided to split up, with seven joining organized guerrilla forces in northern Mindanao. Dyess and two others were evacuated by the U.S. Navy submarine Trout to Australia in July 1943.
Upon reaching the United States in August, he was thoroughly debriefed on his experiences as a POW by high-ranking military brass.
He was ordered to recuperate, in September 1943, at the Ashford General Hospital in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. From his hospital bed, Dyess worked with Chicago Tribune writer Charles Leavelle to tell the story of the atrocities and brutality his fellow POWs and he had experienced and witnessed while in Japanese captivity. The U.S.
government, however, refused to release Dyess' story for publication on the grounds that it would infuriate the Japanese and risk the death of remaining American prisoners. The Tribune had to wait another four and a half months for the Secretary of War to grant release of the story.
Promoted to lieutenant colonel, Dyess was assigned to fly P-38 Lightnings in preparation for a return to combat. On December 22, 1943, his aircraft, P-38G-10-LO Lightning, 42-13441, of the 337th Fighter Squadron, 329d Fighter Group, lost an engine caused by a fire on take-off from Grand Central Airport.
Dyess had a chance to abandon his troubled aircraft, but was flying over a heavily populated area and did not want to be responsible for any civilian casualties. He remained in his stricken P-38 and died while guiding it onto a vacant lot.
He is buried in Albany Cemetery in Albany, Texas.
Almost one month after his death, the Chicago Tribune finally received permission from government censorship offices to release the deceased aviator's story on January 28, 1944.
The story ran in serial form for several weeks and was picked up by over 100 American newspapers. According to Leavelle, it was the biggest story of the war since Pearl Harbor. Published in book form in 1944, The Dyess Story (later retitled Bataan Death March) became a bestseller.
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