The story of Fleet Radio Unit Melbourne (FRUMEL) started in Olongapo, Philippines. In late 1929, the U.S. Navy opened an intercept station at a small Naval base at Olongapo in the Philippines on Subic Bay, facing the South China Sea. The site (Station C) was officially opened in July, 1930.
Unfortunately, Station C personnel were delayed by having to assume primary responsibility for all regular Navy communications in and out of the base at Olongapo. As a result, they did not start intercepting communications until August 1932, as Station C (CAST). Station C was destined to move to the below locations in ten years in an attempt to find secure operating spaces, living quarters and antenna sites where Japanese Navy signals could be heard consistently.
- Olongapo, 1930-35
- Mariveles, 1935-36
- Cavite, 1936-40
- Corregidor, 1940-42
- Melbourne, 1942-45
Station C was transferred from Olongapo to Mariveles and then to the Navy Yard in Cavite. In mid-October 1940, Station C would finally establish itself in a special tunnel built for the Navy at Monkey Point on Corregidor. Two months later, Station C absorbed the mission and the personnel of Station Able in Shanghai, China, which was closed.
The Battle for Corregidor
On December 29, 1941, the defenders got their first taste of aerial bombardment on Corregidor. The attack lasted for two hours as the Japanese destroyed or damaged the hospital, Topside and Bottomside barracks, the Navy fuel depot and the officers club. Three days later, the island garrison was bombed for more than three hours. Periodic bombing continued over the next four days and with only two more raids for the rest of January, the defenders had a chance to improve their positions considerably. To the amusement of the beach defenders on Corregidor, the Japanese dropped only propaganda leaflets on January 29. On March 12, 1942, under cover of darkness, General MacArthur was evacuated from Corregidor on four PT boats for Mindanao, where he was eventually flown to Australia.
Henceforth from December 29, 1941, to the end of April 1942, despite incessant Japanese aerial, naval and artillery bombardment, the garrison on Corregidor, consisting mainly of the 4th Marine Regiment and combined units from U.S. Navy, Army units and Filipino soldiers, resisted valiantly, inflicting heavy enemy losses in men and planes. The defenders were living on about thirty ounces of food per day. Drinking water was distributed only twice per day, but the constant bombing and shelling often interrupted the ration. When the bombardment killed the mules in the Cavalry, they would drag the carcasses down to the mess hall and cook them. The continued lack of proper diet created problems for the Corregidor garrison, as men grew weak and lacked reliable night vision. From Cebu, seven private maritime ships under orders from the army, loaded with food supply, sailed towards Corregidor. Of the seven ships, only one was able to reach Corregidor, the MV Princessa commanded by 3rd Lt. Zosimo Cruz.
Evacuation of the Cryptologists
When Japanese troops overran the Bataan Peninsula and threatened Corregidor, Admiral Ernest King, Commander in Chief U.S. Fleet/Chief of Naval Operations ordered the radio intelligence personnel (CT) off Corregidor via submarines on April 8, 1942 to prevent their capture by the Japanese. The knowledge these individuals had about Japanese communication, codes, ciphers, etc., if captured, would have a devastating effect on the intelligence efforts of the U.S. Navy. Before evacuating Corregidor, however, the CTs burned all intelligence records and reportedly destroyed their Purple machine by throwing it into Manila Bay. After their evacuation, the CTs moved to Melbourne Australia and linked up with codebreakers on the Royal Australian Navy. The unit became Fleet Radio Unit Melbourne, (FRUMEL). FRUMEL closed on November 1, 1945.
However, one CT was not evacuated. Chief Commissary man (ship’s cook) Arthur R. Thompson was assigned as cook for the CT detachment on the island. Since he had no knowledge of the duties the intelligence personnel were accomplishing, he was left behind. He survived the Japanese Death march and imprisonment in Mongolia. After the war he wrote a letter to LT John Litewiler (the officer in charge of the CTs on Corregidor 1941-1942) to let him know that there was Japanese spy on Corregidor before the war. When the Japanese came aboard the island, they had not only names, but also pictures of the CT personnel. And he added, they (the Japanese) were quit unhappy about not capturing them.
Unrelenting bombing and shelling
Japanese bombing and shelling continued with unrelenting ferocity. Japanese aircraft flew 614 missions dropping 1,701 bombs totaling some 365 tons of explosive. Joining the aerial bombardment were nine 240 mm howitzers, thirty-four 149 mm howitzers, and 32 other artillery pieces, which pounded Corregidor day and night. It was estimated that on May 4 alone, more than 16,000 shells hit Corregidor. From April 28, a concentrated aerial bombardment by the 22nd Air Brigade, supported by ground artillery on Bataan from May 1 to May 5, 1942, preceded landing operations.
Final assault on Corregidor
On May 5, Japanese forces boarded landing craft and barges and headed for the final assault on Corregidor. Shortly before midnight, intense shelling pounded the beaches between North Point and Cavalry Point. The initial landing of 790 Japanese soldiers quickly bogged down from surprisingly fierce resistance from the American and Filipino defenders whose 37 mm artillery tolled heavily on the landing fleet. The Japanese struggled because of the strong sea currents between Bataan and Corregidor and from the layers of oil that covered the beaches from ships sunk earlier in the siege, and they experienced great difficulty in landing personnel and equipment. However, the overwhelming number of Japanese infantry equipped with 50 mm heavy grenade dischargers (“knee mortars”) forced the defenders to pull back from the beach.
The second battalions of 785 Japanese soldiers were not as successful. The invasion force did not prepare for the strong current in the channel between Bataan and Corregidor. This battalion landed east of North Point where the defensive positions of the 4th Marines were stronger. Most of the Japanese officers were killed early in the landing, and the huddled survivors were hit with hand grenades, machine guns, and rifle fire. Some of the landing craft did however make it to the location of the first invasion force and found themselves moving inland enough to capture Denver Battery by 1:30 a.m. on May 6. A counterattack was initiated to move the Japanese off of Denver Battery. This was the location of the heaviest fighting between the opposing forces, practically face to face. A few reinforcements did make their way to the frontline 4th Marines, but the battle became a duel of obsolete World War I grenades versus the accurate Japanese knee mortars. Without additional reinforcements, the battle would quickly go against the defenders.
By 4:30 a.m. Colonel Howard committed his last reserves, some 500 Marines, sailors and soldiers of the 4th Battalion. These reserves tried to get to the battle as quickly as possible, but several Japanese snipers had slipped behind the front lines to make movement very costly. An additional 880 reinforcements for the Japanese arrived at 5:30 a.m. The 4th Marines were holding their positions at the same time losing ground in other areas. The Japanese were facing problems of their own: several ammunition crates never made the landing. Several attacks and counterattacks were fought with bayonets.
Surrender of Corregidor
The final blow to the defenders came about 9:30 a.m. when three Japanese tanks landed and went into action. The men around Denver Battery withdrew to the ruins of a concrete trench a few yards away from the entrance to Malinta tunnel, just as Japanese artillery delivered a heavy barrage. Particularly fearful of the dire consequences should the Japanese capture the tunnel, where lay 1,000 helpless wounded men, and realizing that the defenses outside Malinta tunnel could not hold out much longer, and expecting further Japanese landings that night, General Wainwright decided to sacrifice one more day of freedom in exchange for several thousand lives. In a radio message to President Franklin Roosevelt, Wainwright said, “There is a limit of human endurance, and that point has long been passed.” Colonel Howard burned the 4th Regiment’s and national colors to prevent their capture by the enemy. Lt. General Jonathan Wainwright finally surrendered the Corregidor garrison at about 1:30 p.m. on May 6, 1942, with two officers sent forward with a white flag to carry his surrender message to the Japanese.
The Japanese losses sustained from January 1 to April 30 and from the initial assault landings from May 5 to May 6, resulted in losses of about 900 dead and 1,200 wounded, while the defenders suffered 800 dead and 1,000 wounded. Corregidor’s defeat marked the fall of the Philippines and Asia, but Imperial Japan’s timetable for the conquest of Australia and the rest of the Pacific was severely upset, and her advance was ultimately checked at the battles for New Guinea, to the turning point in the Pacific War at Guadalcanal. About 4,000 of the 11,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war from Corregidor were marched through the streets of Manila to incarceration at Fort Santiago and Bilibid Prison, criminal detention centers turned POW camps. The rest were sent off in trains to various Japanese prison camps. General Wainwright was incarcerated in Manchuria. Over the course of the war, thousands were shipped to the Japanese mainland as slave labor. Some were eventually freed at Cabanatuan and during the battle for Manila’s liberation.
Edited by Mario Vulcano
3 November 2015 at 00:56
Interesting article, however, I would like to note a few missing items. There were 3 groups evacuated by submarine. The first on 4 February 1942 by the USS Seadragon was evacuated to Surabaya, Java. When the invasion of Java appeared imminent, these personnel were evacuated to Australia aboard the USS Snapper. The second group was evacuated by USS Permit on 17 March 1942 arriving in Fremantle on 7 April 1942. The third and final group were evacuated by USS Seadragon on 8 April 1942 arriving in Fremantle on 26 April 1942. Incidentally, the third group included Ens Ralph Cook who would later become the first Commander, Naval Security Group.
Just to clarify the rating structure. The CT (Communications Technician) was not established until 1948. Those evacuated from Corregidor were Radiomen and Yeomen who performed the Communications Intelligence work until 1948 when CT was established.
CTRCM John Gustafson USN-Ret
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3 November 2015 at 01:01
A special publication “Intercept Station “C” From Olongapo through the Evacuation of Corregicor 1929-1942″ has been published by the Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association. Visit their web site http://www.usncva.org for additional information.
CTRCM John Gustafson USN-Ret
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3 November 2015 at 11:48
Thank you for you input Gus. We are always looking for a guest post – especially from a retired Master Chief and NVCA member! We will be posting the history of the CT rate tomorrow – your work.
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17 December 2015 at 20:49
Besides those 3 groups mentioned by Master Chief Gustafson, “a handful of codebreakers” (probably 6) were evacuated from Manila Bay on 24 FEB 42 aboard USS SWORDFISH. If anyone knows who these men were, I would appreciate hearing from you.
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6 December 2017 at 17:07
Over the years I had the honor to serve with many of those who were evacuated by submarines. They were all humble and rarely if ever spoke of their escape. Great group of men.
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19 November 2020 at 20:34
ESCAPE
by “Arthur”
(Note: this document was manually transcribed from an in-house publication of the General Electric Corporation: QUALITY NEWS, West Lynn Works, Vol. III, West Lynn, Mass., Friday, April 30, 1943, No. 18. The events were gleaned from a letter My uncle Arthur Irving wrote to his mother from Melbourne.)
Escape – by “Arthur”
Many Thrilling War Stories Have Been Disclosed, But Hundreds Remain To Be Told. Here’s One For The Book
The events described in the following article are true. The climax of them all — the final arrival on friendly soil, happened near enough to a year ago for this to be a happy anniversary.
Drawing (no photos in the article; all drawings signed “Joe Beegan”) of the road to Victory.
In that one short year America has suffered reverses, caught unprepared as she was. She’s also seen unparralled [sic] heroism by a few of our brave men to gain time for the many.
We’ve finally overcome our handicaps, and we’re beginning to see the light of Victory on both the fighting fronts and the production fronts. But the road ahead is still steep and will be so until that final day when Berlin and Tokyo surrender.
There’ll be no more “trips” like the one described in this story because of “not enough.” Our production now is tops, and cannot be delayed — except if we slip back in our planned war program to utilize every single bit of war material.
We cannot disclose the name of the writer of the following. It is sufficient to say that the article was taken from a letter written to his Mother by — Arthur.
Drawing of submarine underway, her decks awash, heading to sea with two
destroyers on the distant horizon.
(Captioned: “We hadn’t been aboard ten minutes, before we were headed out to sea, threading our way through a minefield.”)
“I had the midnight watch on December 8th when we received the message from Pearl Harbor that they were being bombed. It was hard to believe but soon another message came through to prepare for a bomb attack at dawn. They came over but dropped no bombs for a week or so. They took pictures but kept out of range of the guns on Corregidor. After they once started bombing us they never stopped. I put in some days and nights of mighty hard work, digging fox holes and standing watch. I will never forget the first bombing we had, talk about thrills that was one of them it was just plain HELL. The sights a man sees is not nice to remember. Once the Japs started bombing Corregidor they never stopped, they usually came over about noontime just to spoil the chow, and for a steady diet it is no good. We went through about 260 air raids, so you can see we had some lively times.
Drawing of seven Japanese dive bombers attacking Corregidor.
Along about February 4th they began shelling us from the beach which was much worse than the bombing as you never know when it is coming and the whine of the shell isn’t a pleasant sound. They started to transfer men from our outfit to Australia about February 1st. Slim Hadley was in the first batch to go, how I envied him. We knew by then that help would never reach us. In the middle of March the second batch left, leaving only a handful of men including myself.
We felt pretty low as this was the last submarine scheduled to come in as the Japs had a heavy patrol outside the bay. We tried not to think about what would happen to us. We had plenty of work to do so that helped. The Japs had it all their own way by this time. We had no air force left. What we had at the start had been destroyed. From the middle of March until the 8th of April it was a nightmare. My nerves were in bad shape and so was everyone else’s. The chow was going from bad to worse and not much of it. It was a treat to know that you were going to have mule meat stew and yes, even the damn rice. On the night of April 8th was trying to get a little sleep on a bench in the radioroom [sic] when our commanding officer passed the word to be ready to leave in five minutes —- HELL, I was ready to leave in five seconds. We couldn’t take anything with us but soap and a toothbrush and the clothes on our backs and damn lucky at that. We got down to a dock and into a motor launch and started out into the bay. Our officer told us that our chances were one in a thousand of ever finding the sub, in fact he wasn’t even sure there was one.
Drawing of of a torpedo room with the torpedo rack areas port and starboard crammed with bags of flour — (captioned: “We climbed aboard and went below. They had about fifty tons of flour in her forward and after torpedo room for Corrigedor [sic].”)
But this was our last chance. You know that a bay is a fair sized place and this one is no exception. It was as dark as the devil and we could show no light. We finally spotted a ship we thought might be a sub tender, we hailed them to find out, they answered with machine gun fire. Some excitement, but no one was hit. It turned out to be one of our own ships out on patrol and they weren’t taking any chances. We finally ran along the beach at Bataan. There sure were plenty of fireworks there, everything seemed to be burning and the heavy guns were booming. Still no submarine, so we took another run across the bay. This time we spotted the submarine. Talk about heaven, that sub sure looked like it to me but I changed my mind about it two days later. Well, we climbed aboard and went below. It was the first time in my life I was ever aboard a submarine.
Uncaptioned drawing of a man with a bandage on his head laying in a rack in sick bay.
They had about fifty tons of flour in her forward and after torpedo room for Corregidor. We turned to and helped unload lt or at least we started to when came over that Bataan had fallen and to get underway immediately. We hadn’t been aboard ten minutes before we were headed out to sea and fifteen minutes before that we had been on the beach at Bataan — talk about close shaves, we had plenty of them that night.
Now the trip on the sub. There was a mine field [sic] we had to go through before getting out to the open sea. We got through all right for a change. Everything went well for two days until we were off Grande Island when we sighted three Jap destroyers. They just had to be Jap as we had no more fleet in those waters. Finally we got close enough to fire three torpedoes at one of them. Then the fun began. One torpedo ran around in circles, one porpoised, and the other exploded before it hit the target. The Old Man cursed and how. We had to dive and fast, those destroyers were making knots right for us. We went down, but I can’t tell you how far as that is a secret, and waited. Soon we could hear the sound of the destroyer screws right over our heads. Fifteen seconds later I wished I had never been born. Depth charges started coming. What a feeling to be away down under the water with someone dropping three hundred pounds of TNT on your head. It was like being a rat in a trap. Shells and bombs had been bad enough but this was by far the worse. Talk about sweat. I didn’t think it possible for men to sweat so, it just ran off our pants legs in rivers. It was so quiet in the sub you could have heard a pin drop, so help me. The least noise would have given our position away, and no one made any.
Those three destroyers kept us down for 22 hours. The air was getting bad. We had to purify it with a chemical. The Japs finally gave us up for lost and moved on. We waited for night and then came to the surface and headed for Australia once more. Everything went well for a few days until a “little incident” happened while we were diving. In the scramble I hit my head on the bulkhead and split it open. I didn’t know it until I found myself in sick bay. We finally arrived in Fremantle. We stayed there for five days as we needed a rest badly. We scouted around and got some clothes as the as the ones we had needed cleaning sadly. We couldn’t waste water on the submarine for that. Also I enjoyed my first bath since leaving the “Rock”. It certainly felt good to have solid ground under our feet once more and the thing we liked best was that we didn’t have to
Drawing of three smiling sailors in dress whites descending a brow departing a ship.
duck bombs and so forth, what a relief. We all got a big kick out of the way everyone looked for a hole to dive into when we heard the sound of a plane motor. I think it was the first of May when we boarded a destroyer bound for Melbourne. That was the roughest trip, bar none, I was ever on in my life. I had to stand lookout watches in the crow’s nest. One day the ship listed forty-seven degrees, I didn’t think she would ever come out of it. Things were just backwards now from when we were in the sub. There, we were afraid of destroyers and now we were afraid of subs. What a life, no peace anywhere. We arrived in Melbourne on May 6th I believe it was. We haven’t had any more excitement since and I’m glad of it. I’ve had enough to last me a life time [sic].
END of the Article
Note:
Arthur was a Radioman 2nd class during the period described; he served with FRUMEL until it shut down in 1945. He visited home on leave during the war, I was born in 1939 and I can remember him in his tan chief’s uniform. He wore a government issue wrist watch with a leather snap lens cover that I can remember clearly. He returned to Australia after the war, married his Australian girlfriend, and worked for a large radio station in Sydney I believe. Years later he phoned his mother long distance; I was allowed to say hello and I was shocked to hear his thick Aussie accent.
His twin brother Albert was also a Radioman during the war (as boys they had been deeply involved in very early amateur radio). Albert spent much of the war as an instructor at Annapolis but was serving at sea in the Pacific on V-J Day. The twins kept in touch by Morse for a great many years.
Their youngest brother Ralph served in the Army infantry and earned a Purple Heart during the Battle of the Bulge.
My father Howard was the oldest and too old to serve in the armed force so worked as a ship-fitter in the Boston Navy Yard during the war.
I had never heard of FRUMEL, but from time to time I would wonder why a Radioman 2nd Class was evacuated from Corregidor while flag officers were left behind. (I’m a Navy vet myself and it didn’t fit in with my experience.) It wasn’t until years later when reading “The Two Ocean War” that the truth started to dawn.
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