Cmdr. Earl Schweizer
Cmdr. Schweizer Rose From Ranks
War Prisoner Days Are Recalled
By Miriam J. Angell
When Mrs Florence Schweizer
opened her door to a Western
Union messenger an February 19,
1945, the wire she read brought
to fortuitous close more than 33
months of anxious waiting. The
message read, Lu part, “The Navy
Department is pleased to inform
you that official information just
received states that your husband,
Ra<Iio Electrician Earl Godfrey
Schweizer, last reported to be a
prisoner of war, has been rescued
by our forces.”
Gf the 18,000 Army, Navy and
Marine personnel captured on Ba
taan and Corregidor Earl Schwei
zer was one of a scant 1447 men
returned home upon the Japanese
surrender of the Phillipines. The
’ enormous discrepancy included
3t2S0 known dead, and 13,000 un
accounted for and presumed im
^prisoned in .Japan,
M C i was .stationed at the Naval
WB0tdio station- in Cavite, near Ma
•nljla, in 1940. “Crndr Schweizer be
Igan.” “My wkte, Florence, and our
®t\^o boys were with me until the
ZjNavy made all dependents in the
w Rhillipines come home in Novem
ber of that year. We were getting
ready for war in 1940-’41. When
it came and the Japanese out across
to Manilla, our N.ivye unit was
transferred to Bataan. We spent
six weeks there.”
When the fall of Bataan became
imminent, the i idio unit evacuated
to Corregidor, the famous ‘Rock’
where General ‘Skinny’ Wain
v, right and hi.s men fought for
five grim, hopeless months. In that
last ditch stand against the inva
ders of the Phill'pines. Corregidor
was bombed, viciously shelled,
starved, finally pounded into sub
mission. The gallant defenders
surrendered on May 6, 1942.
“We lived in tunnels on Cor
regidor, though some men were
in fox holes. I was 100 and some
foet underground in a hill where
we had set up the Navy radio trans
mitters. Wre were shelled day and
night and conditions got worse and
worse. We were running out of
amunition and food; we were lucky
to have twro meals i day, but that
was nothing to what came later.
GAME NIGHT
Every Wednesday
8:30 P. M.
at the
ELKS CLUB
“Yes, the Japanese were very
arrogant and aggressive when they
came ashore; after all, they were
the victors. Right away they put
us on a rice diet and herded us
into a small area. I was in a group
of 5,000 men crowded together on
a small seaplane ramp. The dysen
tery and malaria started even be
fore we were put aboard a trans
port for Manilla. The ship anchor
ed out and we were made to wade
ashore and then, still soaking wet,
paraded through the streets of
Manilla in a victory march. It was
supposed to impress the Filipinos
but we saw many we knew; they
jusrt looked at us in sorrow.
“I was put in Bilibid, the prison
hospital for the prison camps in
the area. The Japanese appointed
me warden which was actually a
liason job. I kept the medical re
cords and acted as go-between in
disputes between our side and the
enemy, and to try to keep the
punishment of our men as light as
possible. Sure, there were beat
ings and cruelties for violation of
camp rules and for trying to es
cape. As to escape, few men were
strong enough to try and there was
an electrified fence around the
walls - 2300 volts. Violation of
camp rules included thievery
among our own men; after all hun
dreds and thousands of people
came and went at our camp be
cause it was first of all the hos
pital for the other camps, Santo
Tomas, Cabanatuan, and Los Ban
os, and also the staging point for
prisoners being shipped to Japan.
“Along with the records I kept
for the Japanese I made separate
ones on each man who came into
the hospital, and hid them. At
night I broke through the con
crete floor, dug a hole for the re
cords, and replaced the earth and
cement. That’s what my two Navy
commendations are for, that and
my work at the hospital.’’
Bilibid Prison was managed like
(Continued on Page 13)
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