Edgar D. Whitcomb (1917–2016)

Escape From Corregidor, Edgar D. Whitcomb, 1958, pub Henry Regnery Company, Library of Congress 58-6754 274pp, a few simple maps.
The copy of the book I read does not appear to 60+ years old and looks to be less than 10 years old.

This is the autobiography of Edgar D. Whitcomb, former Governor of Indiana. He was a navigator with the ill-fated 19 Bombardment Group, destroyed on the ground at Clark Field, Philippines on 8 Dec 1941. Subsequently he was relocated to Bataan to support air and show more ground operations and eventually escaped capture there by taking a boat to Corregidor with several other men, where he was captured when the island fortress surrendered in May 1942.

Ultimately, he escaped from Corregidor with another captive. As he attempted to make it to Australia with two miners, he was betrayed by Filipinos in a small village. Upon capture, he assumed the made-up persona of a miner and began his odyssey across the globe.

The book was fairly well written and held my interest. His memory was pretty good and he followed up with the fates of many other soldiers and airmen he spent time with during the war. The maps, while somewhat crude, did help to show the route of his travels in the Philippines.

Generally I can no longer read books about PoWs of the Japanese, but as this man was a captive for a short period of times, he was not witness to the large number atrocities committed by the Japanese on US military personnel.

8/10 Well worth reading. show less

This is the story of the first class of navigators produced at the University of Miami in 1940. The dramatic events are described in such remarkable detail. I couldn't put this book down. Then, each went on to serve in his own way, from navigating for the president to bombing Japan to escaping from Bataan. Each had a unique story, as does life. The story is not so much about the techniques of celestial navigation, in fact there's little of that except star identification, as about how each show more contributed to the next five years of history. And, if one reads about the author, one finds that he contributed much to his state and to his country after the war. show less

Trials and vicissitudes of an American boy caught in the defense of the Philippines early in WWII. It was he who made the all night swim with author thru the shark-infested waters from Corregidor to Bataan and escape