‘WE’VE COME TO FREE YOU'

Marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Bilibid Prison

Story by Joshua Mann, Ohio National Guard Historian

On Jan. 9, 1945, the U.S. Sixth Army, which included the 37th Infantry Division, landed on Luzon at Lingayen Gulf. Luzon is the main island of the Philippines and home to its capital city of Manila. The “Pearl of the Orient,” Manila had been under Japanese occupation and control since being invaded in December 1941. After landing, the Buckeye Division’s mission was to drive down the central plains of Luzon and liberate Manila from the Japanese.

“Ringing in my ears, however, were the words of Gen. (Douglas) MacArthur who had visited me on at least three occasions as I headed down the road. Each time when he departed, he said, “White, go to Manila; go to Manila!” recalled Col. Lawrence K. White, commander of the 148th Infantry.

The fates of thousands of service members, families and American citizens captured by the Japanese after the fall of Bataan in April 1942 were unknown. Reports indicated that they were concentrated at two locations in the city: Santo Tomas University and the Bilibid Prison. The 1st Cavalry Division, in a motorized column, reached Santo Tomas on Feb. 3. However, Bilibid, to the southwest of the university, remained under Japanese control.

At 6:30 a.m. on Feb. 4, the leading elements of the division crossed the Tuliahan River and entered Manila’s northern suburbs. Leading the 148th Infantry down Rizal Avenue was the 2nd Battalion. When a platoon from Bowling Green, Ohio’s Company F, 148th Infantry did not return from a patrol, the company commander, Capt. Sidney Goodkin, sent Tech. Sgt. Rayford Anderson and a squad of nine men out to look for them.

Snaking their way through the abandoned streets, the squad members found themselves opposite the main entrance of the large prison. An eerie silence and sudden void of cheering Filipinos forecasted bad things to come. The squad spotted two Japanese sentries near the prison’s gate and dropped them with a burst of rifle fire. An enemy machine gun then opened fire, forcing the squad members to change their route to the rear of the prison. The men soon found a side door. A Soldier fired two rounds from his M1 rifle into the door lock and then used the rifle butt to force open the door to a large storage room.

The dark room contained a row of boarded up windows that faced into the prison yard. One Soldier took out his bayonet and pried a board away, which enabled Anderson to survey the courtyard, where he could see a group of 50 people huddled together in the open space.

“Hey!” Anderson whispered. “We’re Yanks. Come over here.”

The group froze, fearful that this was another trick being perpetrated by their Japanese captors. The Buckeyes tried to persuade them by singing a few bars of God Bless America, to no effect. Then, Staff Sgt. John Smith tossed a pack of Philip Morris cigarettes into the courtyard. One brave prisoner moved forward and picked them up and stared at them, then into the Soldiers’ eyes and exclaimed, “By Jesus, it’s the Yanks!”

Quickly a mob of prisoners and internees flooded the Soldiers with handshakes, hugs, smiles and tears. One Army doctor upon seeing the Soldiers asked, “Who are you?

“I am an American Soldier of the 37th Division,” replied one of the GIs. “We’ve come to free you.”

Some 800 military prisoners and 450 civilian internees were liberated that day. Many of them were in poor physical condition after three years of brutal treatment at the hands of the Japanese military.

On Feb. 7, MacArthur, who commanded all U.S. Army forces in the Pacific theater, arrived at the prison. He was accompanied by Maj. Gen. Robert S. Beightler, 37th Infantry Division commanding general. An officer who had served with MacArthur at Bataan approached the general, dressed only in a filthy undershirt and underwear.

“Awfully glad to see you, sir. Sorry I am so unpresentable,” he said.

“Major,” MacArthur said, shaking his hand, “you never looked so good to me.”

“I will never know how the 800 prisoners there survived for three long years,” MacArthur later wrote. “The men who greeted me were scarcely more than skeletons.”

While the Bilibid liberation marked a significant benchmark for the Buckeye Division in its mission to free Manila, the job was just beginning. For the next month, the 37th fought street to street in the most vicious urban combat of World War II. The horrors uncovered at Bilibid provided only a glimpse of the enemy’s penchant for brutality, which U.S. forces would encounter on a near daily basis, moving forward.

“That 125-mile march down from Lingayen was awful tough,” Anderson later told his company executive officer. “But by God, lieutenant, the look on the faces of these people paid me back for every damn blister. “I’ll never forget that look in their eyes.”