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in the Springfield News-Leader Son retells father's story of survival in PhilippinesThe title for "On a Mountainside" came from a poem written by Malcolm Decker's dad, Doyle. BARBED WIRE PUBLISHING By Mike O'Brien Ozarks Columnist "You have to understand that guys like Bob (Mailheau) feel a very deep obligation and responsibility. At some level or another, they made a promise to their comrades who weren't able to come home with them — a promise to not let the world forget about what happened to them. This book is about keeping that promise." While the new film "The Great Raid" focuses a long-overdue spotlight on the plight of POWs in the Philippines in World War II and their heroic rescue, an Ozarker's new book tells an equally compelling story about Americans who eluded capture and helped pave the way for the U.S. to retake the islands from the Japanese. Malcolm Decker wrote "On a Mountainside" as a tribute to his late father, Doyle Decker, a southwest Missouri farm boy who battled two persistent and deadly enemies — Japanese soldiers and jungle diseases — for more than three years alongside a few fellow GIs, brave Filipinos and members of plucky, Pygmy-like indigenous tribes called Negritos. "My dad probably would be embarrassed by the book," Malcolm admits, sitting at the kitchen table of his Lebanon home. "Like almost all those who survive ordeals like his, my dad didn't consider himself a hero. His heroes were the ones who didn't make it home." But after Doyle died in 1992, Malcolm went through old boxes in the family home in Seneca and found notes by his father along with other wartime memorabilia, and he decided to put together a written account. "My next thought was 'What am I doing?' because writing has never been my strong suit — the only D grade I received in college was in English 101," Malcolm recalls with a chuckle. "But I struggled on, because I wanted to do it for the family." Relatives encouraged the project. They'd heard Doyle talk in little bits about his service in the Philippines, but he was too modest to expound. Something that especially impressed the family about the few stories Doyle shared was that all tellings were identical. "So we knew there was truth to them — we just didn't know all of it," Malcolm says. "And the more we found out, the more we wanted to know." Malcolm spent a decade pursuing the details. Despite running a busy insurance agency in Camdenton, he traveled extensively to research archives and to interview veterans. The result is a 225-page book that is unusually professional in its printing quality and also unusual in writing style. "I wrote it like I'd want to read it, in a conversational tone," Malcolm says of his decision to avoid the documentary style common in history texts and instead write a narrative with dialogue. Although Malcolm knew his father's manner of speaking, he probably wouldn't have dared attempt to put words into the mouths of others if not for the extensive assistance of Bob Mailheau, a Californian who was alongside Doyle for much of the war and remained a close friend after Doyle returned to the Ozarks and eventually became manager of a paint plant in Joplin. Malcolm says that while Mailheau was relentless in pushing him to complete the book, his dad's longtime pal also was a thorny stickler for detail. "You have to understand that guys like Bob feel a very deep obligation and responsibility," Malcolm explains. "At some level or another, they made a promise to their comrades who weren't able to come home with them — a promise to not let the world forget about what happened to them. This book is about keeping that promise." Malcolm, 58, knows about war firsthand from his own experience as an Army artillery officer in Vietnam following his graduation from Southwest Missouri State University. But the book, he emphasizes, is "about survival and relationships more than it is a traditional war story." Malcolm introduces readers to Doyle as a patient in a military hospital in Manila awaiting transfer back to the U.S. after doctors were unable to cure a persistent fever that had dwindled his already-skinny 6-foot frame from 150 to 135 pounds. Doyle was four days from sailing homeward when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and, a few hours later, U.S. bases in the Philippines in December 1941. After helping tend to the wounded during the first days of the war, Doyle was able to overrule worried doctors and get back to his anti-aircraft artillery unit. In April 1942, however, Doyle was cut off from his outfit when the Japanese invaded the island of Luzon. Calling upon his Ozarks heritage, Doyle headed for the hills. There he encountered a succession of other GIs, native villagers and Japanese patrols. Doyle and some other determined and resourceful Americans gained footholds in the treacherous mountains and among the Filipinos and Negritos, and they began doing whatever they could to fight back against the Japanese. Death was commonplace, due to disease and skirmishes with the Japanese. The GIs also had to battle doubts that welled up when it seemed they had been abandoned by their country after Gen. Douglas MacArthur fled to Australia and thousands of captured troops died on the subsequent "Bataan Death March." One of the most touching chapters in Doyle's saga is his unintended adoption of a wild dog with a feisty disposition that earned her the name Firecracker, or Cracker for short. The dog became an invaluable companion, able to sniff out approaching Japanese soldiers in time for Doyle to take cover. "Dad never talked much about Cracker, except for how he got the dog and how it had saved his life on several occasions," Malcolm says. But among the family's pets in the years following the war, a spaniel named Blackie became a favorite of Doyle's. After about 10 years, Blackie fell ill. "He had gotten tick fever and just could not move. Dad had him put down, and it really affected him. I now know why, after getting the full story of Cracker from Bob Mailheau," Malcolm says. Another special story was dramatically documented by news reporters and photographers after the U.S. retook Luzon with guidance from maps and other intelligence provided by the 155th Provisional Guerrilla Battalion, the unit formed by Doyle and other Americans under the noses of the Japanese. On Jan. 31, 1945, United Press correspondent H.D. Quigg filed a moving report, widely printed in newspapers, that began: "Maj. Gen. Oscar W. Griswold, with tears in his eyes, today accepted from a small group of bedraggled American guerrilla survivors of Bataan the regimental flag of the gallant 26th Cavalry. "This American flag, piped in gold, never had touched the ground in three years of occupation. "Its first bearer was killed as he rode into battle. The flag was sewed inside a pillow provided by a Filipino housewife, and later it flew at the head of a guerrilla band of hill-dwelling Negritos. "The six barefoot Americans — bearded and tired, but happy — marched up the Luzon plain with the flag on a bamboo pole, singing as they walked into the American lines. "The Americans in the lead sang 'California, Here I Come.'" "In the group that stood before Gen. Griswold were Cpl. Robert Mailheau, who escaped after 10 days of the 'march of death' in April 1942 ... and Pvt. Doyle Decker. "'This is one of the most touching incidents in the war,' said Gen. Griswold. 'I accept this flag for the U.S. government in humility, in the presence of the brave soldiers who have carried it.'" The stories keep coming ... Another of Doyle's enduring and endearing companions during the Philippine ordeal was Nano Lucero, who served in Doyle's artillery outfit. After the war, Doyle was unsuccessful in attempts to reconnect with Lucero. But Malcolm persisted during his research. In 2001, Malcolm found Lucero still living, and eventually met him in person. Then in 2002, Malcolm received an e-mail from a woman who'd noticed his name in the guestbook at an Internet site dedicated to Americans who served in the Philippines. Malcolm had expressed thanks for the site and noted that it had helped him track down Nano Lucero. In her e-mail to Malcolm, the woman wondered if Nano Lucero could be her long-lost grandfather. After Malcolm acted as a go-between, it was determined that Lucero was the woman's ancestor, via a daughter he never knew. "Over 50 years ago your father helped me escape out of Bataan," Lucero told Malcolm, "and now his son has helped me find my family." The development led Malcolm to conclude: "This book has been watched over by a higher power." The book also was watched over by Malcolm's wife, Janis, and their children, Matt, a reporter and editorial cartoonist for the Lebanon Daily Record newspaper, and Carrie, an English teacher who recently moved from the Branson to the Nixa school system. "When I turned the book in to the publisher, they said it was one of the cleanest manuscripts they'd ever received," Malcolm says. "That's because I'd had a lot of editors in the family looking over my shoulder." The relative whose approval he wanted most is his mother, Evelyn, still living in Seneca. Although she winced at the few smatterings of salty language, "When Mom said she liked the book, I breathed a huge sigh of relief," Malcolm says. The book also is being well-received by veterans. Malcolm has been asked to speak at gatherings as far away as New Mexico and California. He doesn't expect to get rich from sales of the book, which is available at Barnes & Noble and from Amazon.com. (Malcolm sells autographed books directly. Write to 1625 Northbrook, Lebanon, MO 65536.) "The real payoff is when somebody tells me they like the book," Malcolm insists. And he's already started on another. It will be a more traditional history, focusing on brothers Bill and Martin Fosseth, sugar cane growers who courageously established and ran camps to shelter and nourish Americans and Filipinos who were hiding from the Japanese during the war. Malcolm is deep into the research, but hasn't yet settled on a title for the book. It probably won't come as easily as did "On a Mountainside." Malcolm got that title from the opening lines of the only poem his father is known to have written. It was discovered among the notes Malcolm found in those old boxes following his father's funeral. The poem begins: "It was on a mountainside where many friends bled and died ..." Malcolm's eyes fill with tears as he talks about such recollections. "I just have an extreme appreciation for what these men went through and then came home trying to forget the horrors they saw and experienced," he says. "The more I read and research, the more admiration I have for all these men, especially those on Luzon who fought the good fight and suffered for three years at the hands of the Japanese." Reprinted with permission |