"THE TRUCK"
_________________
Chet Nycum*

 

 

 

 

Corregidor wasn’t called The Rock for nothing. Digging fox-holes was a very difficult business, and many preferred to find easy shelter rather than go into the mining business.

As we secured for the evening,  a few of the men, some slightly worse for wear, took cover under the remainder of a Japanese truck located on the road that ran parallel to Malinta Hill, about a third of the way down to bottomside. It was here earlier that day that, on the point just above where the road turned to the right towards the North dock that Lt. Gordon English was killed by a sniper bullet originating from the ice plant which was to his left front.

English had walked out on the point of land with a pair of binoculars and was scanning the area over the ice plant when he was hit.  We were on higher ground on the road near the disabled truck and witnessed the Lt.'s death. The picture (above) looks like the truck, though the vegetation behind it whispers in my old ear that perhaps I don’t always recall the topography as well as I should like.

During the night, the truck was the scene of a fatal drama.  One of the men who had sheltered under the truck, a medic, saw a Jap attempting to traverse the road, using the truck itself as cover.  Whether because there was no weapon handy, or because it’s early morning discharge would have invited more of the same from troopers nursing sore heads from the evening before, I can’t say, but the Jap was despatched silently with a trench knife.

*Paul Whitman from an interview with Chet Nycum

BOOZE AND BOOTY | THE TRUCK | THE CORREGIDOR BRASS TURKEY SHOOT | FT MILLS PLAQUE | BOB HOPE AT NOEMFOOR | NO SUICIDE CLIFF | 'DOC' BRADFORD | MYSTERIOUS WAYS | MY FIRST COMBAT PATROL | THE DEATH OF BENNY SLOWE | MIRACLE AT NOEMFOOR | THE DEATH OF KARSTEN HALL | SONGS & SLOGANS |WATER, WATER NOWHERE | NO SMOKING! | BRONZE STAR AT BANZAI POINT | ON THE BEACH AT CORREGIDOR | REUNION GOSSIP 1949  |  CORREGIDOR WHISKEY

 

 

 

         

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Last Updated: 20-09-13