11-309 Garand Picture of the Day

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Exhausted Army Rangers sleeping on straw covered ground in front of some of the Allied POW's they rescued from a Japanese prison camp.
Location: Cabanatuan, Philippines
Date taken: February 1945
Photographer: Carl Mydans

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Rangers on the way to Cabanatuan. Jan 30, 1945.
(Army Photo Photo)

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Members of the Nellist and Rounsaville Teams after the raid on the Cabanatuan Prison Camp. Back row (L-R): G. Cox, W. Wismer, H. Hard, A. Smith, F. Laquier. Front row (L-R): G. Kittleson, R. Vaquilar, W. Nellist, T. Rounsaville, F. Fox. Three team members (T. Siason, S. Asis, A. Alfonso) who participated in the raid are not in this photo; neither is LT J. Dove, the teams' Contact Officer. (W. E. Nellist)


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Cabanatuan POW Camp Memorial, Present day.

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Galen Kittleson,who holds the distinction of being the only man in U.S. military history to participate in four POW liberation attempts in two wars, the book chronicles Kittleson’s journey from a fresh-faced 19-year-old Iowa farm boy in World War II to a 45-year-old seasoned Green Beret in Vietnam.
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Good book! The Ghost Soldiers is a good one also.

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On January 28, 1945, 121 hand-selected troops from the elite U.S. Army 6th Ranger Battalion slipped behind enemy lines in the Philippines. Their mission: March thirty miles in an attempt to rescue 513 American and British POWs who had spent three years in a surreally hellish camp near the city of Cabanatuan. The prisoners included the last survivors of the Bataan Death March left in the camp, and their extraordinary will to live might soon count for nothing—elsewhere in the Philippines, the Japanese Army had already executed American prisoners as it retreated from the advancing U.S. Army. As the Rangers stealthily moved through enemy-occupied territory, they learned that Cabanatuan had become a major transshipment point for the Japanese retreat, and instead of facing the few dozen prison guards, they could possibly confront as many as 8,000 battle-hardened enemy troops.

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In the third pic the guys are wearing helmets (with camo covers). My understanding after reading William Breuer's book is that they were required to leave those behind to keep the equipment noise down.

Bob

Also when patrolling, you can't hear sh*t with those on. Most uncomfortable for that job too. I would rather only have worn mine on the defensive position.

debated about that picture and the source information being correct - but it may have been some time other than the Cabanatuan operation

It may have been an after the mission publicity shot also.

Big pic up top... typical mudrollers, sleep anywhere. Note one guy just about standing on the sleeping troop.