On the morning of September 21, they heard the unmistakable sound of airplane engines. Prisoners looked up from their places of toil on the farm or poured out of their flimsy bamboo and thatched-roof barracks to see dozens of unfamiliar aircraft in the viewable distance, heading for points unknown. As the prisoners peered intently at the unfamiliar planes, they gradually came to realize that they were American, the first they had seen in two and a half years. Throughout the day, groups of these planes materialized in the skies over or near Cabanatuan. Though the prisoners could not know it,
...more
