Redemption Raid

Cabanatuan Barracks

Members of the 6th Rangers.

Now, the raid on Cabanatuan.  


One thing about the Pacific campaign that stands out to me is that there weren't a lot of special forces troops involved..  You don't read about a lot of airborne drops, Ranger operations and the like, such as you do in the war against the Nazis.  One of the subjects I want to cover in the future is the density of special troops in the Italian campaign - you may be surprised at how much of that conflict was at a special operations level.


On the other hand, one could make the argument that the whole Pacific campaign was a special op.  I mean, the British looked at amphibious warfare as a special tactic, and formed their whole Commando forces under what they dubbed "Combined Operations," which meant amphibious assault.  So, every Army unit that went over a beach in the Pacific could fall under that definition.


The Marine Corps traditionally resisted the phrase, "special forces,"  for their few special-task men, like Raiders or snipers. They considered their whole corps to be special forces.  In an egalitarian way, the whole Pacific war land forces were amphibious operators, and special tasks were their common forte.


This being the case, then, the stories of what are usually described as special forces troops operating in the Pacific Theater are few.  There were Merrill's Marauders, who fought in Burma.  Also, the Marine Raiders, who took part in raids on Makin Island and the Solomons.  Consider, too, the 503rd Parachute Infantry, US Army, who parachuted onto Corrigedor.


But the raid on Cabanatuan was the first operation, fought all the way near the end of the war, in late January, 1945, for the 6th Ranger Battalion of the US Army.  The rest of the Ranger units, 1st through 5th battalions, fought the Nazis in Europe and the Mediterranean Theater.  And, coincidentally, by the start of 1945, the last year of the war, these Ranger battalions had mostly been  attrited or broken up and scattered among various infantry units.  Their utility, in the time when all armies were converging onto a contiguous area, Germany, was considered not critical.  However, in the Philippines, General Walter Krueger, commanding the US Sixth Army, had much fighting ahead and needed special operators for tough tasks.


The tough task that presented itself in the early days of the invasion of Luzon, The Philippines, was what would become known as The Great Raid.  This raid was necessitated by the cruel treatment, and potential killing, of the prisoners at the large POW camp at Cabanatuan.   These prisoners were the Battling Bastards of Bataan, the survivors of the Bataan Death March and now survivors of over 2 years of cruel imprisonment where starvation and summary execution were ever-present perils. Two-thirds of the American prisoners from Bataan died in captivity.


General Kruger wanted to try to rescue these allied and American prisoners whom he feared might be massacred as his troops moved off the beaches and approached the POW camp.  He had available the Alamo Scouts, the 6th Rangers and a contingent of the excellent Philippine Scouts.


Next: the players.


Consider: 
The Great Raid on Cabanatuan.
Hour of redemption: The ranger raid on Cabanatuan.