As you can see from the above title we are combining our Jottings for November and December. It is because by the time we arrived back in Florida almost half of the month of November had passed. During the last half of the month we had the additional problem of our computer not working. The problems with the PC are now somewhat resolved but we are now convinced that we need to upgrade the processor after 6 1/2 years of use.
The return to our home and all its comforts was one more reason for us to give “thanks”. It reaffirms the message of the old adage, ‘there’s no place like home’. Mary Lou progressed sufficiently to join us for the holiday. We also had Mike and his family and our good friend Shirley and her grandson Matt. Mary Lou came in on Tuesday before the big day and flew out on the following Tuesday.
We were sitting around a table chatting. Old friends, some former runners like myself, who hadn’t seen each other for some time. It seemed natural to talk about the past, about things we did and didn’t do, which we liked to remember. So it happened that I was led to talk about my brother John and his past. He was known to some of these friends as a track official, particularly for work at the Penn Relays. Some I believe even knew he was an ex-Marine. But they had never heard, as I told them, about his miraculous survival on Guadalcanal in 1942 and his adventure later in the Philippine Islands. It is a story that supports the old saying “truth is stranger than fiction”.
John was a Marine in the landing at Guadalcanal. It was the major turning point in the war in the Pacific. The Marines landed in August 1942 and it was finally secured in January 1943.A short time after landing his platoon was seemingly surrounded and his buddies were falling all around him. He found himself on the ground watching Japanese bayoneting Marines. As they neared him he closed his eyes and prayed. He then opened them upon hearing firing and found the enemy had fled. He was taken with others to a medical center. He had survived! He had minor wounds but was ordered out of the area and back to the States. He was given the choice of going to any other part of the Corps and he chose the Marine Air. He went to Pensacola with the idea of flying but didn’t make it as a pilot. He was trained as a gunner /photographer on a Douglas dive-bomber. It was in this capacity that he next found himself in the Philippine Island engaging in the cleaning up of guerillas still fighting in different parts of the Islands. MacArthur as he promised had “returned” in September of 1944. The city of Manila and the area around it of Luzon was soon once again in American hands. But scattered about the lower islands, especially the island of Mindanao, the Japanese survivors were still active as a guerilla force.
I wrote part of this while sitting at Rich’s computer in his home in North East, Maryland. Rich is a son of John. While writing it I could hear explosions coming from the Aberdeen Proving Grounds some 15 miles away. It seemed appropriate that as I wrote about the war I could hear echoes of it. I discussed the story of John with Rich. He reconfirmed what I had heard. John returned to America in 1946. John did not often mention this episode and I believe I first heard it from another brother, Joe or from my eldest sister, Winifred.
The Philippine Islands played a major role in the life of our family. When John found himself there, he knew that somewhere on those islands he had two older brothers. (Dick in his autobiography states that John for this reason had requested duty in the Philippines.) Frank had arrived in 1939 and was a missionary priest in the lower part of island of Mindanao in Cotabato. The other brother was Dick who was teaching, as part of his Jesuit training, in a school on the western side of Luzon at a place named Naga. By the time of John’s survival in Guadacanal they were both prisoners of the Japanese. The Japanese had transported Frank in early 1942 to Manila and then to the Santo Tomas University, now an internment camp. Dick was taken from Naga by them to Manila and was interned at the Ateneo de Manila. He learned that Frank was interned at the University. Prior to that Dick was in house arrest, which was a great deal better than when he was confined with the other Jesuits in a jail in Naga. Still later he and others were transported to Santo Tomas. While sitting on the basketball courts with many others before a stage Dick knew his brother was around here someplace. The Japanese were calling out names and you had to respond. So after having responded Dick wondered if there was some way he could contact Frank. The name-calling ended and then he saw him! He was pushing a wheelbarrow full of watery rice. Behind him walked a Japanese soldier with a rifle and fixed bayonet. Frank, when he reached the middle of the basketball court set down the wheelbarrow and turned to the crowd and shouted “Dick! Where are you?” Dick jumped up and said, “Here I am”. The soldier began beating Frank with the rifle. He said, “Don’t worry about this monkey. I’ll see you in few minutes” Sure enough after Dick sat down Frank came from behind him and sat down. He was one of the “Food Managers” of the camp so he knew how to get around. They talked for an hour. Dick learned news about the family, like one of his sisters had gotten married, another entered the convent, a brother had joined the Marines and another the Navy. After Dick ate he was packed up again and shipped out by train to Los Banos about 2 hours south of Manila.
Los Banos was by this time “Internment Camp #2” and held about 2500 prisoners. It had 250 Japanese guards. Dick awoke on January 6, 1945 to find the guards had left. They dug up a hidden radio and listen to the news. They expected that the American forces would land in the nearby gulf, which had been the landing area of one of the Japanese attacks. The guards however returned. Then on the morning of February 23rd American planes flew low over the camp. Soon in the darkness of the night they saw paratroopers floating in the air towards earth– thus began a dramatic rescue. After the guards had been chased Dick with others were hustled in to amphibious tanks, called “alligators”, that had worked there way up the river that ran near and by the camp. They were taken to a landing down river and put on trucks. They were then taken to a Filipino prison camp at Munting Lupa. About a week later Dick heard the loud speaker belting out, “Is there anybody here named McSorley? A soldier is looking for you outside the Mess Tent” Dick goes to the entrance of the Mess Tent and is embraced by a soldier whom he knows is one of his brothers but must ask him his name! So Dick meets John, the Marine, a mere child when Dick had left some six years before.
John had apparently learned of where Dick might be from Frank. He now drives Dick back to Manila. Dick then learns that John was in one of those planes that flew low over the camp photographing it before the assault. When they get to Santo Tomas and meet Frank, he seeks out a media reporter and thus on the front page of a Philadelphia newspaper appears of a picture of the three brothers. I remember the joy in our house for having confirmation of the fact that the two eldest brothers had survived. The Red Cross could never confirm for my Mom and Dad where exactly they were and whether they were alive. They received little or no help from the Japanese.
Dick heads home. John heads with his air group to the southern islands to continue rooting out the guerillas. On one of his mission a 40-mm shell shoots down the plane. The pilot and he survive. On the Douglas dive-bomber the pilot and the gunner/photographer sit back to back. The shell hit the rear of the plane and John legs, facing the rear, received most of the explosion.
The medical treatment recommended for him is the amputation of one of his legs. He is transported to Manila for the operation but Frank learns of it and the amputation is prevented. John spent the rest of his life with leg problems but as he often said it was a lot better than having a fake one. He is sent to the States. He is awarded a “Purple Heart” and was then on his way to discharge. Once again “He had survived!”
As a footnote to the McSorleys in the Philippines some more of the family went there. Jim after his ordination was a missionary priest in the province of Cotabato and Joe as a naval officer during the Korean War ended in Manila Bay. John’s son Rich, whom we mentioned before, attended Notre Dame of Jolo, a college founded by his uncle Bishop Frank from the years 1969-1971. With credits transferred from two years at West Chester College he graduated with a BA in History. Jolo was the capital and largest island of the Sulu Islands. Marge, my sister, and I went out to the Philippines in 1970 to participate in the burial ceremonies for our brother Frank, then the Bishop of Sulu Islands.
We wish you all the joy of Christmas and many blessings in the year to come! Pax tecum!