In the GI’s book, the ‘‘ capture’’ of a brewery just this side of the last water barrier to the Manila suburbs may rank as the happiest few hours in the long combat record of the Regiment.
At 0930, 4 February, the lead scout of the 2nd Battalion column, 148th Infantry Regiment, walked up to the gate of the brewery, and kicked it open. He saw warehouses, workshops, vats, and office buildings. Twenty- six days and 135 miles ago, the scout had gotten off an LVT on Lingayen Beach, primed and ready for the Japanese, and then had begun hiking south toward Manila. Spearheading the corps drive, he walked, walked, walked. His feet softened by one month aboard ship were full of blisters with blisters. Sporadic clashes with Japanese patrols sometimes slowed his pace.
A bitter three day battle at Plaridel, 20 miles from Manila, stopped him temporarily. There the last Nip resistance before Manila was blocked out and the 1st. Cavalry Division was permitted to speed on in their weapons carriers, jeeps, tanks and armoured scout cars.
The Lingayen Beachhead
The scout motioned the squad leader of the point squad to come up, and together they entered the brewery grounds. They noted broken furniture, vats, warehouses with something burning
inside one of them. The whole place was strewn with broken window glass and beat up desks and chairs. He peered inside a warehouse, then pushed back a sliding door, revealing a huge vat. Dirty brown liquid was pouring out of spouting faucets and from holes chopped in the vats by picks and hatchets. As the scout and the squad leader slushed into the ankle- deep liquid, they noted that the stuff had a yeasty smell. It was ice cold. The scout sniffed a bit more, then took off his helmet, removed the liner, scooped some of it up, and poured it over his grimy head. A few drops trickled down his cheeks and onto a tongue that was expectantly stuck out of his mouth. Sort of half afraid he might be right. He tasted BEER.
‘‘ Cold beer, ’’ he yelped and the squad leader hit the floor, lapping the stuff. Sure enough, cold beer. Pouring out of all the vats, bursting out of the pipes, running out of faucets, shooting out of odd shaped holes. All over the damn place. And thousands of gallons of it. The electric cry of ‘‘ cold beer’’ was telegraphed down the long column. The farther back the news went, the more it was accepted as emanating from the nearest latrine; in other words, just a gag. A grizzled noncom from Company H marching at the rear of the Battalion column, one quarter of a mile from the brewery, saw the BBB sign up ahead and decided that the sign had suggested cold beer to one of the jerks who had started the rumor. No. You didn’t run across cold beer when you wanted it most. They’d probably run across the beer one of these days at Baguio amidst a flurry of snow.
One mile back, at a dilapidated schoolhouse, the regimental adjutant was setting up his field desk, when the morning report clerk related the story. The adjutant wryly remarked that he knew men who saw mirages like that under conditions not nearly so trying, and he wondered why the poor bastards didn’t see eggs in their brew, too. At Division Headquarters two miles in the rear, a liaison captain with the G3 section boldly concluded that it was just a ruse to get rear echelon soldiers to go to the front lines where they would be greeted by the raucous razzberries of the infantrymen and maybe an unfriendly sniper bullet or two. At Corps Headquarters, a helluva ways back, a one star general brushed off his neatly pressed denims, and cursed, ‘‘ I guess the old man will want me to go up and investigate THIS, too. Christ, first it’s the prison camp with 400 beautiful Spanish girls going to bed with our assault troops; then it’s General Yamashito waiting in San Fernando to surrender. Now, it’s cold beer at Balintawak. ’’
By this time, 538 men of the 2nd Battalion (total present- forduty strength that day) swarmed over the brewery. A nondrinking engineer detachment had begun construction of a jeep bridge across the Tulihan. Battalion Colonel Herbert Radcliffe, not one to countermand an act of God, told his men they could take a two hour break, until the bridge was completed. If the men enjoyed the shade of Balintawak, that was OK with him, he remarked with tongue in cheek. Just don’t drink the polluted water. The dirty, thirsty GI’s were indulging in the soldier’s dream. They swam in beer. Bathed in beer. Lapped it off the floors, filled up their helmets, canteens, mess gears, rations cans, jugs– even soaked their handkerchiefs with it. The beer was ice cold and it was green. But it was beer and it was flowing and it was available to all. No rationing. No standing in line. No iceing it up. Some guys just sat on the floor and drank. Others put their mouths against some of the small holes in the vats like calves on a teat and hung on beyond all reason or understanding.
Thank God the brew was mild. As it was, the men were comfortably lit, not dead drunk. They were more intoxicated with delight than with alcohol, but many started to talk about licking the whole damn Japanese army. The regimental commander arrived and chewed right and left until he was informed that the men couldn’t go forward anyway until the bridge was completed. He then called the Battalion CO and told him he couldn’t sanction this beer party but as long as he didn’t know anything about it and as long as Radcliffe’s men would be able to fight when the bridge was built, he wouldn’t object. Radcliffe called his company commanders and passed on the instructions which were heeded only because the beer was weak and the men were strong.
At 1500, General Beightler, Divisional Commander and General Griswold, the corps commander, came forward to find out what was holding up the progress. They went directly to the bridge and noticed that it would take another hour. They inquired where in hell the troops were. A frightened platoon leader explained that the soldiers were gathered in an assembly area shaded from the sun so that they could get the maximum amount of rest. Griswold and Beightler moved to the assembly area and were immediately impressed by the enthusiasm, the singing, and the laughing voices within the walls. Griswold commended Beightler on the high espirit of the men after the long march down the plains, and Beightler (who knew his men) gave his thanks and got awfully suspicious. When the two generals entered the gates of the brewery, a beer- happy G. I. with a helmet full of beer in one hand and his rifle in the other stumbled onto the four stars. He immediately straightened up, dropped his precious weapon to the ground, shifted the beer gingerly from the right to the left hand, came up with a snappy salute and followed it up with a low bow.
The generals demanded to see the officers in charge, but the officers, grade captain and above, had discreetly gone on inspection tours. A second lieutenant was summoned, and he told the generals about the one hour break and the ice cold beer and the long march and the happy men . . . and . . . by God, general, what would you do. Griswold hrmphed and Beightler hrmphed and they stomped out of the gate, telling the second lieutenant: ‘‘ We can’t sanction this sort of thing but as long as we know nothing about it, Old Man Krueger can’t burn us. Just be sure those men are in condition to fight when the bridge goes across. ’’
One hour and hundreds of gallons of beer later, a relaxed, subdued, happy bunch of GI’s lined up on the road, made sure that the water was out of their canteens and the cold beer was substituted. The lead scout started forward, sweating profusely, but still alert and cautious. He crossed the bridge and headed down the Rizal Avenue toward Bonifcaio Monument which he made in a half hour. He perspired excessively, but the cheering crowds and the sight of beautiful girls and lovely suburban homes and imposing buildings made him forget the inevitable stomach ache. At nightfall, the battalion bivouacked several miles from Bilibid Prison. The Battle of Balintawak was over. In about an hour, as dusk settled, the lead elements of the regiment reached the Tulihan River, the last nonhuman obstacle to be crossed before entering the suburban area of Manila. The Japanese had blown all the bridges across the river, but the U. S. Engineers had begun constructing footbridges, out of which, within another 24 hours, reinforced wider bridges would be built to accommodate jeeps and trucks and artillery.
I was in command of a Headquarters Company of about 100 men, and we received orders, along with the rifle companies, to dig in on our side of the river, get a good night’s sleep, and then at dawn the next morning, cross the reinforced structures to launch our attack on Manila.
As we were digging our foxholes, I noticed an entourage of 5 shiny jeeps pulled up to the small area manned by my company. A tall, handsome gentleman, smoking a corncob pipe and wearing, not the prescribed helmet but a fancier scrambled- egg officer’s hat, jumped out of the second jeep and jogged forward, in my direction, followed by aides, journalists, and cameramen.
This was my first and last direct encounter with General Douglas MacArthur, and to admit I was shell- shocked and starstruck was understatement. He called out to my men: ‘‘ Who’s in command here? ’’ By the strangest of probabilities, at that moment, I was. So I walked up to the general, began saluting, and reported: ‘‘ I’m, sir, in command, sir, in this sector, sir; Captain Frankel, sir, Headquarters Company, sir, 148th Infantry Regiment, sir. ’’ Also, as I ‘‘ sirred’’ him to death, I kept pumping away at my salute while I did observe out of the corner of my eye that the cameras were rolling. In a quiet aside, the general whispered: ‘‘ Stop saluting, soldier, ’’ which I did. But I was told later I then started to bow. In any event the general, turning his best profile to the camera, inquired: ‘‘ What are your orders, captain? ’’
I told him, still ‘‘ sirring’’, that we were to dig in on this side of the river for the night and then launch our attack the next morning at dawn, crossing bridges which by then would accommodate heavier loads than just foot soldiers. I watched the starry look in his eye as he started to speak, in theory, to me, but really, to the whirring cameras and microphones: ‘‘ Captain, do you see those flames in the distance? The Japanese are burning down Manila, and they are going to burn and butcher the entire population, including my boys who’ve been dying in Bilibid Prison for three long years. If we wait until tomorrow morning, they will all be dead. We must enter Manila tonight and rescue those men and the rest of the population. ’’ He then came out with a strange statement which still rings in my ears: ‘‘ Captain, if you’ll go in there tonight, I’ll go in with you. ’’
As I stepped back and pondered that statement, I was aware it was for effect. Even if he wanted to go in with the front line troops, his aides would have physically hauled him back. I didn’t know how to answer this question, which was rhetorical anyway, but I was saved by some scurrying on the left as Colonel White, hearing about MacArthur’s presence in regimental territory, had rushed over. The two greeted each other warmly. (As I have noted, White had been a lieutenant under MacArthur in the Philippines, before the war, and had been transferred to the States a few months prior to Pearl Harbor.) Those two then conferred over maps and I stood aside . . . far aside. The decision was made to go in that night, crossing on the foot bridges and bringing with us only weapons which could be hand carried. We did have a few native canoes on which we hauled ammunition and some mortars and machine guns, but, by and large, it was a soldier and his gun walking in to fight what he had been informed were well- dug- in, well- armed Japanese, prepared for a last ditch and more menacing than ever fight to the death.