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Epilogue
- The University Press of Kentucky
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[FILOGU[ In May 1943, Capt. Jordan Hamner led a six-man team to Tawitawi Island, off the northeast coast of Borneo. As one of many AlB penetration parties inserted into the enemy-held islands in the South Pacific , his team's mission was to establish a coast-watching post and to report by radio to the AlB's station in Australia any ship movements spotted in the adjacent sea lanes. A second, but no less important , part of its mission was to gather and report general intelligence information in the Tawitawi-Borneo area. The problem of maintaining his team's security in this area of intense Japanese presence required high mobility. Frequent moves from one vantage point to another were the norm-moves accomplished with great difficulty, considering the weight and bulk of the radio and its supporting gear and the terrain over which the moves were made. Frequently, the equipment was loaded onto a native sailboat and moved from cove to cove to stay one jump ahead of the enemy. No less difficult was the problem of obtaining food, a task requiring frequent visits to native villages to purchase whatever was available. After a few months of inadequate diet and exposure to malaria-carrying mosquitoes, illness became a frequent problem. These problems, and a host of others associated with general wellbeing were solved and Hamner's mission was a success. In early March of 1944, Captain Hamner returned to Australia by submarine. He was soon sent to the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., to present a firsthand account of the Philippine situation to its intelligence community. A month later he returned to Brisbane. Captain Hamner then spent several months giving orientation lectures to army, navy, and air corps personnel destined to take part in the major assault on the Philippine Islands. Many ofhis lectures were 1) 6 Fugitives given to naval and air corps airmen, telling them what they might expect should they be forced down among the natives. Hamner participated in the Allied landing at Lingayen Gulf, Luzon, on 9 January 1945. Although he was not assigned to any particular combat unit, he moved south with the 11th Airborne Division and the 1st Cavalry Division, reaching Manila on 3 February. There he participated in freeing the Allied civilians who were imprisoned at Santo Tomas University. Many of these prisoners had been Ham's co-workers at the Masbate mines. All had endured horrible suffering during more than three years in the hands of their Japanese captors. In March, a recurrent throat ailment caused Ham to seek treatment . He was transferred through a series of military hospitals for diagnosis and treatment. At Birmingham General Hospital, Van Nuys, California, a benign polyp was removed from a vocal cord. After a period of recuperation, Capt. Jordan A. Hamner was relieved from active duty. It was 18 March 1946. He soon returned to his profession as a mining engineer. Hamner's Certificate of Service indicates that he received the usual decorations and citations awarded to all military personnel who participated in the various campaigns in the Pacific Theater. The certificate shows no medals recognizing the perilous nature of his contribution to the war effort. Research indicates that Capt. Jordan A. Hamner was awarded the Legion of Merit medal on 2 October 1945 "... for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services...." This was a very deserved accolade. It is unfortunate that no one in the United States Army bothered to tell Jordan A. Hamner. Capt. Charles M. Smith moved north to Mindanao before Hamner set out for Tawitawi. Late in February of 1943, Smith and Lt. Cmdr. Charles Parsons, a naval intelligence officer, were sent as specially selected emissaries ofGeneral MacArthur to assess the growing guerrilla movement. Captain Smith had an additional assignment-to establish the first of many coast watcher stations. He set up the station on a mountaintop overlooking Davao Gulf to report Japanese shipping movements into and out of Davao City. This station remained in operation, manned by guerrillas from Col. Wendell Fertig's organization , without interruption throughout the war. One of its last trans- [35.173.178.60] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 13:44 GMT) E.pilogue 1) 7 missions reported a U.S. Navy task force moving toward Davao City in May 1945. His assignment completed, Smith returned to Australia in late May of 1943. Smith was then sent to the United States to locate materiel suitable for clandestine missions in the jungles. The radio...