Re: The Smothers Bros. (Tom & Dick) ancestry/ MAjor Smothers
-
In reply to:
Re: The Smothers Bros. (Tom & Dick) ancestry
1/04/99
This has recently been researched and postedto a private email list in January 2009. It is posted here by Caroline's permission.
I hope this will clear up the Bataan question about Major ThomasB. Smothers, 45th Infantry Philippine Scouts, who wasawarded the Bronze Starwith Oak Leaf Cluster prior to his capture.
One of the documents I found in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, U.S.A., is a historyof the 3rd Battalion of the 45th Infantry Philippine Scouts. According to that history, Major Smothers joined the battalion around Sunday, April 5, 1942,near trails 8 and 29.No mention of his former unit is made.
The 45th Infantry Philippine Scouts had been ordered to attack the Japanese but in the early afternoon of Wednesday, April 8, 1942,they received orders to withdraw and they were replaced by units of the Philippine Constabulary. The 45th Inf.P.S. was supposed to be taken to the island of Corregidor for beach defense. Going by Trail 8 to 9 and then Trail 9 to a location midway between the junctions of 8 and 9, and trails 9 and 17, they were to meet buses that were to take them down West Road to Mariveles. There was a major mix up and the buses went to the wrong location. Most of the troops walked south towardMariveles.
Many sets of conflicting orders sent some of them back up and back down the road. Rumors of a surrender were rampant. Communication about what was happening on the east side of the peninsula was near nonexistent.
On Friday,April 10, 1942,one Japanese officer, an interpreter, and about 20 soldiers came into the area where Major Smothers was bivouacked. The Japanese officer was described as courteous and "after an exchange of cigarettes asked questions about our force and was shown the stacked arms and equipment. Permission was given to distribute class C rations to the men and for the American officers to be permitted to drive vehicles which were in the bivouac area. We were given two notes, one for each command car that the officers of the 45th Infantry were to drive." Later translated, the note read "No one will take this car" and it was signed by the Japanese officer who was a lieutenant. The men were directed to start marching to Mariveles.
Thirteen officers of the 45th Infantry PS started out toward Mariveles in the command cars:
Major Smothers, CO, 3rd Bn
Major Van Oosten, XO, 3rd Bn
Major Uglow, CO, 1st Bn
Capt. Besbeck, XO,1st Bn
Capt Croom, Co. K
Capt. Berkelheimer, Surg. 3rd Bn
Capt McKiney, Co. A;
Captain McMasters, Co. C;
Captain Bianchi, Co. D
Capt Levitt, Surgeon 3rd Bn
1st Lt. Fruend
2nd Lt Stewart, Co. C
2nd Lt. Kell, Co. D.
One car was taken on Saturday, April 11, 1942,at daylight, and the other car was taken at Balanga, around noon. Clothes, money, and valuables were also taken from them by the Japanese at this stop, but they were fed rice about 2:30pm. There they were put on a bus and taken as far as Orani where they spent two nights. From this point they started marching. The night of April 14, 1942,was spent in San Fernando. They arrived in O'Donnell on April 15th, 1942. "All the officers that left Bataan together in our group made the trip to O'Donnell".
A few of the other 45th Inf. PS officers did get from Mariveles, on the south coast of the Bataan peninsula to the island of Corregidor.
So often families never got the true story of what happened to their loved ones, especially if their loved one did not live to tell it. My father, Thomas F. Burkhart, survived the war and lived until 1972 , was with Headquarters, Hdg. Co. of the 45th Inf. PS.My sister and I knewour father was not part of the DeathMarch. Foryears she andI said that our father watched the Death March from the jungle. We probably heard part of some story when we were little kids. In fact, he might have watched the Death March but it was probably from a bed in Hospital #1. He was so sick when the rumors of surrender came, yet somehow he managed to get himself from KM 199 on the West Road around to Hospital #1 at KM 169 on the East Rd (near Limay) and was there until April 28, 1942 when he was taken to Camp O'Donnell, described as theAndersonville of the Pacific. We were surprisedto learn of his stay in the hospitalwhen we found it and read his journals.~ Caroline
These facts about Major Smothers are certain:
1.Major Smotherswas a survivor of the Oryoku Maru/Enoura/Brazil Maru sequence.
2.He was taken to the Moji Hospital (the YMCA hospital),
3.thence to Fukuoka #3 Yawata POW camp.
4.From Fukuoka #3, Major Smothers was moved to a port (name not known) near Toyama
5.and placed on board a ferry destined for Kiejo POW Camp in Korea.
6. There were a number of field grade officers on same ferry who were previously interned on Taiwan.
7.More than one memoir / affidavit of those senior officers who were on that ferry state that Major Smothers died en route on 26 April 1945, from the effects of malnutrition, specifically, Cardiac Asthma and beri beri.
8.His body was dropped overboard en route;
9.hence, he is listed on the Tablets of the Missing in Manila.
Major Smothers was an authentic hero who truly believed that our cause was just. He brought honor to all those who served and reminds us that the men and women of West Point continue to serve and honor this great nation.
Joel: Did your closeness start when you were children and your father was killed?
Tom: Yes, I’m sure it did. Dad was a West Pointer, from North Carolina and was stationed in the Philippines. When Dickie and I were 3 and 5, World War II broke out and we were evacuated from there to our aunt in North Carolina. He was captured at Corregidor and went through the Bataan Death March and survived. In 1945, when Japanese were transferring POWs to Japan, our planes bombed the wrong ships and he was killed. I’m very anti-war. I think there are better ways to solve our conflicts. We were fired from our television show because we were esoterically and comically against the Vietnam War."
Perhaps their rage should be directed at the Japanese and not the American pilots who bombed the "wrong ships". [www.hellshipsmemorial.org/]
~ Roger[ http://www.mansell.com/pow-index.htmlhttp://www.mansell.com/pow-index.html ]
Researched by Caroline Burkhart, daughter of a Philippine Scout,and Roger Mansell, Director, Center For Research Allied POWS Under The Japanese[ http://www.mansell.com/pow-index.htmlhttp://www.mansell.com/pow-index.html ] to answer a question posed to another list, about the accuracy of Tommy Smothers' reply to Joel in an interview.
(note: the source for this interview question and answer has been unintentionally separated from this fragment and is not known at present)
The Bataan Death Marchtook place in April 1942, on Bataan.
Major Smothers was in the Bataan Death March.
Corregidor was surrendered in May 1942.
There were only a few Philippine Scouts on Corregidor.
The Corregidor survivorswere taken to Manila and paraded up Dewey Blvd to Old Bilibid(Manila city jail).
More Replies:
-
Re: The Smothers Bros. (Tom & Dick) ancestry/ MAjor Smothers
Sue Trout 3/30/09