Bethlehem gun barrels, visit by Corregidorian

Our friend John Lukacs, author of “Escape from Davao,” has a nice article entitled “Return to the Rock” in the Nov/Dec issue of “World War II Magazine.”  In it he writes about his visit to Corregidor in May of last year.  We really enjoyed his visit, and are grateful that John mentioned spending time with us.  We have already received two emails from readers of the article.

One of the emails came from an 81-year-old man in Hellertown, Pennsylvania.  Richard had taught history for 35 years.  Since he lives near Bethlehem, PA, he was wondering if any of the guns on the Rock were cast at Bethlehem Steel.  We were able to verify that the barrel of gun # 1 and the spare barrel at Battery Crockett (two 12-inch disappearing guns) were made by Bethlehem.  Crockett’s gun # 2 was made at Watervliet, New York.  See attached pictures.  You might notice that the barrels are also stamped with the model year (1895) and date of manufacture, 1905, 1904, and 1899 respectively.

Our information, gathered from the corregidor.org website, states that a couple of barrels at Battery Wheeler (two 12-inch disappearing guns) were also made in Bethlehem.  It is impossible to verify all of this, as the end of the spare barrel at Wheeler is partially covered by dirt, and appears to be so corroded as to be unreadable.  Barrel # 2 at Wheeler says Bethlehem.  On the back (breech) of this barrel there is a note saying the gun was relined in 1935.  According to our friend Glen Williford, the rifling in the barrels eventually wore out and the barrels would have to be sent back to Bethlehem or Watervliet to be relined.  One can only imagine the process of having to dismount, transport, and remount barrels that weighed more than 50 tons!

The almost-totally-destroyed Battery Ramsey (three 6-inch disappearing guns) reportedly got at least three barrels and two of its three carriages from Bethlehem.  However, the vast majority of the island’s guns were cast in Watervliet, located on the Hudson River just north of New York’s State Capitol in Albany.

It has been a slightly less rainy “rainy season” than the past couple years, but that’s not to say that it’s not extremely humid.  It’s hard for Marcia to decide when to do laundry, since it takes so long for clothes to dry – even more so, of course, when it has recently rained.  But in reality it is always humid here.  We notice that when we open a multi-pack of crackers or cookies and the last one eaten is not as crisp as the first.  We have to treat the surfaces of our wardrobes at least twice a year with pure Lysol to have a chance at preventing mildew all over them.  Clothes sitting in a stack for any time at all will not smell fresh.  Of course if we had the house closed up with air-conditioning running (in the Philippines, called simply “aircon”), that would not be the case.  Just another thing we have had to learn to live with here.

 Something that we have come to realize about Corregidor is that, from a geological standpoint, “The Rock” could hardly be less descriptive.  Obviously the name comes from the fact that it was for a long time an island fortress that guarded Manila Bay, which stood like a rock in the face of the enemy.  In geological terms, “The Sponge” would be more appropriate.  For the most part, what we have observed is that the island is made up of a mixture of small rocks and compressed volcanic ash.  A geologist informed us that the deeper structure of the island is primarily limestone, which allows for aquifer storage of rainwater.  Most of the many tunnels in the island would have been relatively easy to dig.  In fact, using dynamite would have been disastrous.  The major exception appears to be Malinta Tunnel, which was dug through limestone and iron ore (we think hematite) which is the basis for the millions of bloodstones found here.

We base this not only on the observation of the tunnels, but also on what happens to the water when it rains heavily.  Recently we had four inches of rain over night.  We expected that the little waterfall that we have nicknamed “Little Eaton Rapids” would be flowing like crazy.  Instead, it was barely a trickle.  This indicates that the tremendous amount of rainwater that fell right above it at Middleside Parade Ground had seeped through into the earth, something that a “rock” could never do.  This is of course extremely important here, since without that seepage there would not be fresh water in the underground cavities which provide us with our drinking water all year long, including after some very dry “dry seasons.” 

Every once in a while we start writing a story and then put it away for another newsletter.  In looking back, Steve discovered one that he had written in April, 2011.  Since there’s not much news here right now we’ll include it in this one.

Corregidorian Angel (ahn-HELL) Guanlao lived on the island as a boy from 1936 until the children were sent off in anticipation of war in 1941.  At age 82 he returned for the first time, accompanied by his wife, Aurora, one son and one daughter.  Angel is from the province of Pampanga, while Aurora is from Iloilo, more specifically, the town of Pototan, where island manager Ronilo hails from.  Angel suffers from Parkinson’s but his mind is still clear.  It didn’t take very long on the tranvia before Angel became agitated.  When Steve asked him what was wrong, he said that he did not recognize Corregidor anymore, in great part because there are so many more trees here now than what he remembers.  Looking at old photos of Corregidor, he is absolutely correct.  Although there were areas of undeveloped jungle, anywhere near the main buildings, gun batteries and the many observation points the ground was kept clear.  Angel was very unhappy to see the island so heavily vegetated.  He said that you used to be able to see long distances, and now all you see is trees.  It could not be any more obvious than when you visit former observation posts and all you see is jungle when previously there would have been open views to Manila Bay and the South China Sea.

Finally, some of our readers have expressed an interest in obtaining “Honor, Courage, Faith: A Corregidor Story” as an eBook.  Anvil Publishing has been working on that project and tells us it will be available in November.  We will keep you informed.

Steve and Marcia on the Sponge

Readers respond

We have settled back in on the Rock.  This is the slow time of the year and we have not had much contact with visitors with the exception of Bill and Midge Kirwan, whom we have written about on a few occasions.  It was wonderful to visit with them again!  They try to come here at least twice a year and stay for several days each time at the Corregidor Inn.  We first met them in 2008, soon after our arrival on the island.

The weather has been eerily similar each day.  We have been having almost full sun from 9:00 AM until 3:00 PM.  It’s hot and humid.  We usually hear the first thunder between 1:30 and 2:30 each afternoon.  It clouds up late in the day, and we have been getting some rain most nights.  When there are big storms, they are over the mainland.  One night we had a period of frequent lightening with almost unending rolls of thunder…but no rain here!

We had reported to you that Manila was inundated with rain while we were vacationing in the States.  A few people from other parts of Luzon wrote to say, “Hey, we got it here, too.”  Of course we did not mean to imply that only Metro Manila was affected.  Certainly when a large rainstorm affects Manila, outlying areas also suffer.  Corregidor is pretty much flood proof, but building and especially tree damage is always possible.  Speaking of storms, a friend of a friend passed along a few photos taken during the flood.  No one seems sure who took the photos.  In any case, we pass them along, once again to show the resilience of the Filipino people.  By the time we had returned to Manila, by all outward appearances, life was pretty much back to normal.

We received several responses about our last newsletter.  Our friend Leslie Murray of the Filipino-American Memorial Endowment wrote this about the cinema restoration:

I would like to add that FAME assisted CFI considerably in effecting the restoration of Cine Corregidor. FAME - through the American Chamber - engaged the pro-bono professional technical assist of Palafox Associates (www.palafoxassociates.com) under their founder "Felino "Jun" Palafox, in an advisory capacity for this project. 

Architect Palafox sent a team of four engineers to the island (Beth Romulo, Art Matibag and I accompanied them) to survey the site and give their recommendations.  However the actual work was done by a government agency; best possible efforts within the allowed budget.  (I have to say I question the metal window frames - given the sea air erosion factor.)

So, FAME is not just "markers" – we have assisted in other aspects of preservation including lighting the Eternal Flame and the original rehabilitation of the Pacific War Memorial - with assist from the staff of the former Museo ng Maynila and the Ayala Museum.

Thanks, Leslie, for that information.

Dear Steve and Marcia,

Maligayang pagdating! May I sincerely add: Welcome home!

Reading between the lines of your narrative re the repairs/construction done on The Rock, am far from privy of knowing the real score but I venture to say that IT'S MORE FUN IN THE PHILIPPINES is attending to the needs of The Rock which is being taken cared of - not for quite sometime but it seems - throughout the life span of a "heaven sent couple.” 

Admittedly we have a very limited browsing of information channels containing info bits re the activities of our government particularly on the upgrading/improvement of tourism facilities. We truly believed that the secretary of the Department of Tourism is doing his best to upgrade/improve the popular tourism facilities in our country - for obvious reasons. Thank you for painstakingly noting the notable improvement of the tourism facility which I am sincerely noting - de facto - to be "under your care!" Maraming salamat po, for informing us!
Very truly yours
Fred

Fred, we are glad to report on what has taken place, but as you can see, the credit goes to the Corregidor Foundation, Inc., and FAME.  We do hope that our being here encourages more work to be done, and hope that FAME, CFI, and the Department of Tourism continue to make improvements while at the same time maintaining “the best-preserved battlefield of WW II.”

Steve, regarding General MacArthur and President Quezon's car . . . MacArthur’s car is in National Historical Institute (NHI) Building and President Quezon’s car is in a museum in Baler, Quezon Province . . . Ronald from CFI

Thanks, Ronald, for letting us know.  In addition, a couple of our readers sent the following link:

http://oboi-laboy.blogspot.com/2011/12/gen-macarthur-car-in-baler.html

Finally, we received this anonymous comment on our blog website, which contains all of our previous newsletters:

This is my first time reading your blog and honestly I am hooked. I have been reading articles about WWII for the past 7 years now since my grandmother passed away around 2005. My grandfather was also a war veteran, but he missed the Bataan Death March when he was courting my grandmother that time, he saw glimpsed of the march but eventually ran away for his love to my grandmom, a love story I will never forget, an AWOL to remember indeed. :) Thank you for building history and can't wait to see more.

All comments submitted to the blog-site are anonymous unless a writer includes his/her name and email address in the actual message.  So we don’t know who sent this encouraging comment.  If any reader of the blog would like to contact us directly, send an email to steveandmarciaontherock@gmail.com.

Steve and Marcia on the Rock

We're back and love the renovations

As you’d expect, our time in the States went quickly.  We’d especially like to thank each of you who gave us a place to stay or treated us to a meal.  We had a good time, with our last three weekends taken up by the Great Lakes Folk Festival in East Lansing, Michigan, a friend’s wedding in Eveleth, Minnesota, and our niece Angela’s wedding, which took place in Edina, Minnesota.  Each of these events gave us opportunities to catch up with relatives and friends.  We are sorry that we were not able to accept every invitation this summer, but we can only do so much in the given time.  Maybe next year.

We’d like to say that our return flights were uneventful.  Unfortunately, once again our connecting flight to Tokyo, Japan, was delayed – by about six hours – so we spent the night in Hotel Nikko Narita outside Narita Airport.  This time the 747 scheduled to take us from Chicago to Tokyo was grounded due to a fuel leak.  Given the alternatives of leaving on time in a leaky jet or waiting for a replacement plane, we were glad that the airline chose the latter.  It was nice to have the hotel room between the long flights, and this time we arrived in Tokyo early enough to enjoy a full night’s rest.  We completed the trip Thursday morning, arriving in Manila not long after noon.

We spent our first night back with our much appreciated friends Ray and Esther, managing to get in a little shopping for a few necessities and to make a few deliveries of items brought from the US for fellow ex-pats.  Then we took the Friday morning Sun Cruises ferry back to Corregidor.  Despite it being “rainy season,” the first few days have been fairly sunny, although we have had rain most evenings.  Needless to say it is very humid, but the nights have been cool enough that the only trouble with sleeping can be credited to a bit of jetlag.

While we were gone, a number of projects were completed on Topside.  The roof of the Pacific War Memorial Museum had been leaking for several years.  Not only has the roof been replaced, but the entrance has been enhanced with a roof extension to provide shelter from rain and sun.  In addition, the road along the north side of Cine Corregidor was paved with concrete, allowing the tour buses to drive quite close to the museum entrance. Thus tourists can stay much drier during rainy days, and those with limited mobility can much more easily access the building.

In addition, the road which leads between the one remaining bachelor officer’s quarters (BOQ) building and the old Post Headquarters to the Eternal Flame has been concreted, making it much easier for the tour buses to pick up tourists at the flame.  Some of the original, pre-war road was left in place.

The biggest renovation was to “Cine Corregidor,” the once beautiful movie house on Topside.  We have gone through some old photos from Paul Whitman’s corregidor.org website to find pre- and post-war photos of the cine.

The first cine photo (photo 3) shows the building, which appears more or less white, on the left of the photo.  At bottom center is the old trolley stop.  The buildings running through the center of the photo are several of the BOQ buildings.  In the background you can see four large water tanks and the lighthouse.  From the angle, we assume that this photo was taken from the Topside Barracks.

The next photo shows the same area from the air, taken during the invasion of Corregidor by the returning American forces on February 16, 1945.  The cinema is at the top right.  Close examination shows that the roof is gone, but that the supporting steel beams are still in place.  Nine BOQ buildings are visible, as is the lighthouse and the Post Headquarters, which is on the upper left.

Following is a photo of the front of the cine, during or after the return of the Americans.  Next is a photo taken inside the cine, again at or near the end of the war.  You can see the walls, roof beams, and piles of rubble on the cine floor.  We’ve included two new photos, one showing the front of the cine, the other of the interior.  Note the metal framing on all windows and doors.  The beams are attached through the walls as well, making the cine now one of the strongest buildings on the island.  All exposed steel – including the rebar, much of it twisted from falling walls – has been covered with rust-preventive paint.

We are personally very glad that the Corregidor, Foundation, Inc. was granted the funds to accomplish these important projects.  Especially in the case of the cine, something had to be done or the building would have had to have been cordoned off for safety’s sake.  It is impossible to do this type of shoring up without leaving evidence.  This is a much less obvious approach than the retrofitting undertaken several years ago at Middleside Barracks, a project which was unpopular with many of Corregidor’s loyal supporters.  We realize that preservation of any kind will be undesirable to some purists.  All we can say is we’re sorry that the buildings (in this case the cine) are in such bad shape that something must be done, and we were pleased to see the results.  We are well aware that some believe that the ruins should be left to deteriorate, and others believe that they should be preserved.    

We only wish we could have been here to witness some of the work, especially installing the beams in the cine – without a crane! – and handing the huge amount of concrete necessary to pave several hundred yards of road.  After all, there is no cement factory here.  It is nice to think that many generations to come will be able to see the remains of the cine.  We wish we could ask Steve’s father, Walter, whether he ever watched a movie in the theatre.  By the way, the last movie shown was reportedly “Gone with the Wind.”  Now that the inside is safe, maybe it can once again be used to host movies or stage shows.

Every once in a while, we are asked what happened to the two Cadillac Cabriolets (circa 1937) that were used by Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Pres. Manuel Quezon while they resided on Corregidor in late 1941 and early 1942.  Our answer is: we don’t know.  They were here in 2002 and 2003, when we first visited Corregidor.  (See picture taken in 2003.)  We’ve heard that they were returned to the place from which they were on loan, due to concerns about constant exposure to the high humidity and salt air.  If anyone knows of their present whereabouts please let us know so that we can pass on that information to our readers.

Steve and Marcia on the Rock

Devastating Manila rains while we are in the dry United States

We send our newsletter through our Gmail accounts, some through Steve’s and the rest through Marcia’s.  To Steve’s surprise and dismay, he recently discovered that many email addresses of our readers had somehow been removed from our reader list.  So Steve went through name by name and recreated the list to the best of his ability.  We realize that this may mean that you have been re-added after having asked to be removed, or you may now be in both lists, in which case you are receiving two of these emails.  So please inform us so if you would like us to change your status – to be removed, or to be taken out of one mailing list to avoid duplication.

We have no idea how long ago this glitch occurred, so if you had stopped receiving the newsletter and want to read the ones you missed, you can go to our on-line blog site.  Just go to your favorite search engine and enter “Steve and Marcia.”  Much to our surprise and delight, we are the first entry to appear on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Duckduckgo!  We are fast approaching 35,000 hits on our blog site.  So we know someone out there is interested in what is happening on Corregidor!

We are very saddened to learn about the terrible rains that have devastated Manila in the past few days.  Our friend Karl happened to be in Manila and took many pictures of the flooded streets.  We are including several of Karl’s photos showing just how much water was in the streets.  Notice how, despite the miserable conditions, most of the people are smiling.  This is the Filipino way.  Given the population of Manila, we can certainly understand how one million people were temporarily displaced from their homes. The floods were not due to a typhoon but rather by thunderstorms that just settled in and continued to pour out rain.  To our many friends in Manila, we hope you are safe and dry.

Ironically, here in the States most farm areas are so short of rain that yields are going to be much lower than anticipated, with some farmers losing their entire crops.  For example, there will be a severe corn shortage this year, with yield predictions of only 30% in many areas.  Currently we are experiencing our first real sustained rain since our arrival in the States six weeks ago, but do not know if rainfall at this point in the growing season can improve those yield predictions or not.

We have been in Michigan since late last week, busy with family and friends.  We have especially enjoyed spending time with our grandchildren, seven in number.  The oldest is almost 13 years old and the newest will reach the 3 month mark next week.  Brian constructed a spider web ‘house’ from left-over yarn from their mom’s knitting projects.  A number of friends from our years living and working in Michigan have contacted us to make dates, much appreciated opportunities to reconnect on a face-to-face basis.  We’re facing the “we’re not as young as we used to be” issue, realizing that late nights – and especially after-dark driving on roads frequented by deer – are better avoided.  That makes it a challenge to visit busy friends who live on later schedules than we do.

Highlights included spending some time with our friends Al and Renee.  They treated us to lunch, and then we walked together around the Michigan State University campus for a couple of hours.  MSU, which was originally an agricultural college, has beautiful gardens and riverside walks.  Notice the photo with the young boy jumping on tile panels.  He is playing music, and you can see how eagerly his sister anticipates her turn.  Notice also the huge flower peacock, and Al spinning the large stone in the water fountain.  We also made a stop at the justifiably acclaimed MSU Dairy Store on Farm Lane.  The biggest problem is deciding which of the many fantastic ice cream flavors from which to choose.

Once again, Dick and Nancy Adams treated us to dinner, with their daughter Kim and son-in-law Christian joining us.  You may remember Dick from several blogs as the last member of the 503^rd Parachute Infantry Regiment to visit Corregidor.  Dick, who just turned 90, is looking forward to returning to Corregidor in a few years to reclaim the “oldest returning veteran” record (unofficial, of course) on the Rock.  Note the photo showing the back of Dick’s jacket, a gift to him at a recent veterans’ reunion.

Steve and Marcia on the Rock