Douglas Valentine - The Hotel Tacloban

For the first time I heard about the nightmares, visions and flashbacks that had driven my father to the brink of madness. I learned how, at the age of fifty-six, the faces which had haunted him day and night for almost forty years finally became too much to bear. I learned how he sought psychiatric help after his second open heart surgery, and how the doctor convinced him to tell the truth about what happened in the war, even though by doing so he risked arousing the wrath of the U.S. Army. Never one to worry too much about risk, Dad took his doctors advice and told me the whole unbelievable story.

Douglas Valentine, Jr.

This horrifying and unforgettable story is not just a searing picture of life in a terrible POW camp, it is also a significant historical document about a place that the U.S. military says never existed.

Publishers Weekly

Vivid and compelling. A devastating account that shows how a logic of events can sanctify the crimes of mutiny and murder.

Newsday

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

Originally published by Lawrence Hill & Co., Inc.

Copyright 1984, 2001 by Douglas Valentine

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3276-6

Distributed in 2016 by Open Road Distribution

180 Maiden Lane

New York, NY 10038

www.openroadmedia.com

to Alice

to Chris

and

to Dad

As is probably the case with most boys born during the postwar baby boom, I was fascinated by the glorified accounts of World War II I watched regularly on television and at the movies: John Wayne fighting to the finish on Bataan; Vic Morrow and his scruffy buddies rolling across France in Combat; Robert Mitchum, Van Johnson, William Bendix and a battalion of Hollywoods bravest leading men making the world safe for freedom and democracy. I must admit, as a little kid I was very impressed. My friends and I thought that nothing could be finer than to follow in the foxholes of our fathers. We asked for, and got, toy guns at Christmas, with which we fought make-believe battles in the hardwood forests behind our Westchester homes. The Japs were everywhere and you had to be careful not to expose yourself unnecessarily.

Bang! Got ya!

No you didnt! I got you first! Etc.

Some of us playing soldier, myself included, were lucky enough to have a father who had actually been there (if you did, you might even have in your possession an authentic US Army helmet, or a genuine Japanese bayonet with inscriptions), and I, for one, was always pestering mine to tell me exactly what he did in the war. Did you shoot any Japs? Huh, Dad? He chuckled, rubbed my head, and satisfied my curiosity with a slew of bizarre anecdotes, all of which, cross my heart, were absolutely true.

Like the time he saw a tank roll over an unsuspecting GI on a beach at Fort Ord, California, just before he was shipped overseas. The incident occurred during a mock amphibious landing being staged for some visiting brass. It was early morning, low tide. A line of infantrymen was spread out along the shoreline while behind them an armored company was disembarking from LSTs. The site itself had been chosen specifically because the sand there was unusually loose and granular and would demonstrate just how effectively the DUKWs and other assorted amphibious vehicles were at maneuvering over difficult terrainthe type the US Army was expecting to encounter in the South Pacific. Anyway, in the noise and confusion, one tank accidentally veered off course and in a split second, before anyone had a chance to react, it had rolled over some poor son-of-a-bitch who was napping when he should have been wide awake. What happened next, however, is the truly amazing part: the soldier popped-up uninjured to a chorus of cheers and a standing ovation from his slap-happy comrades. The tank had merely pressed him into the sand. According to my father, it was the sort of extraordinary experience that left a lasting impression on anyone whod witnessed it.

Then there was the time, several months later and halfway around the world, when he saw a spent bullet enter a soldiers helmet about an inch above the guys left ear, spin around the back, exit about an inch above the right ear and spit out onto the ground. The startled GI removed his helmet to see what damage had been done, and when he did, his hair came off with it. Hed been scalped!

Dear old Dad had an endless supply of war stories like those two, most of which centered on jokes played on inept second lieutenants by mischievous enlisted men. Nevertheless, as I grew older and began asking harder questions, like, Whatever became of the fellows standing next to you in the pictures in the family photo album? Dad suddenly became defensive, or got annoyed, or brushed me aside with the same old excuse that, Soldiers dont like to talk about those things. I sensed that he was holding something back, something significant, and wanting to get at the truth, I persisted. But my fathers will was stronger than mine. As the years went by, he steadfastly refused to break his vow of silence, and eventually I just stopped asking why.

My father was not like other veterans I knew. He did keep some treasured, faded photographs of friends in uniform, but he wouldnt march in the Memorial Day parade, nor would he allow real guns in the house, nor would he have anything to do with the US Army or with veterans organizations like the VFW or the American Legion. He didnt like the way those people went around patting each other on the back and bragging about battles theyd never fought. Most of them, he insisted, werent combat soldiers anyway, because the majority of front line soldiers were still there, right where theyd fallen.

When it came to explaining my fathers reclusive behavior, or why he held a grudge against the US Army, my mother wasnt much help, either; I got the feeling that shed been sworn to secrecy, if she knew anything at all. She was forever pleading with Dad to seek financial aid from the VA for the multiple medical problems hed incurred during the war (he had terrible malaria attacks which laid him up for a few days every spring and fall, and his front teeth were missing, and there were other things wrong, toothings I didnt know about at the time), but he wouldnt hear of it. He avoided the Army like the plague. And rather than stooping to ask it for help, financial or otherwise, he buried himself in two jobs; he worked days driving a truck for Railway Express out of Mount Kisco, and he worked six nights a week part-time at the Kings Crown liquor store in Pleasantville. Not just for the money. It was like he was running away from something horrible. Like he was trying to hide from his past.

For a long time I had the feeling that my father was avoiding me, and as I grew older, through junior high and high schoolthrough the first years of the Vietnam Warhe and I grew progressively further apart. We disagreed on just about everything, including Vietnam, and when it came time for me to head off to college, I couldnt get away from home fast enough. Meanwhile, Dad continued to grind himself into the ground, the war dragged on, and I acquired a small amount of knowledge sufficient to do myself harm. I dropped out of school in my senior year, came home to collect my belongings and, during a heated argument that ensued, accused my father of harboring a death wish. How I came up with a statement like that Ill never know, but two months later, as if to prove me right, on spite, he had his first massive heart attack. I hit the road for California a few weeks after that.