By James Baird
During the summer of 1965, I was home from college and working on our dairy farm in Sugar Loaf, N.Y. My grandparents, Percy and Ruth Baird, asked me to drive them to a Grange dinner in Little Britain.
That afternoon, a man I had never met stopped by to visit my grandparents. He appeared to be about 40 or 45 years old. My grandparents invited him to join us for the Grange dinner. While we were there, he and I talked for quite some time.
He told me a story that I have never forgotten.
Unfortunately, I do not remember his name.
He said he had been a prisoner of war of the Japanese during World War II. He described the Japanese guards as extremely brutal. For more than two years, he survived on little more than raw fish heads and a small handful of rice each day. The American prisoners were used as slave labor and transported from island to island to work on military projects for the Japanese.
Most recently, he had been forced to work under horrific conditions at the Lasang Airfield. Many of the prisoners had previously survived both the Bataan Death March and the Mindanao Death March from Dansalan to Iligan—a grueling 42-kilometer march under intense heat with virtually no food and only muddy water to drink.
He recalled one day when the Japanese were transporting a large group of American prisoners aboard a ship. The prisoners were forced to stand around the outside edges of the vessel while still wearing their American uniforms. He believed the Japanese may have hoped that American submarines would hesitate to attack if they recognized fellow Americans on board.
Apparently, bad intelligence led an American submarine commander to believe the vessel was carrying Japanese troops.
After tracking a convoy of eight ships, the submarine fired a spread of four torpedoes. Two struck the ship carrying the prisoners. A short time later, another torpedo hit a second vessel in the convoy.
The Japanese responded by dropping 45 depth charges and bombs over the next two hours. Although the submarine sustained minor damage, it remained operational. According to historical records, the 43rd depth charge came dangerously close before the submarine escaped by diving to a much greater depth.
Amid the explosions, the sinking ship and machine-gun fire directed at survivors in the water, the former prisoner managed to jump overboard. He swam several miles to shore, where he eventually made his way to safety.
He believed he was the only survivor.
Years later, I researched the incident and discovered that the prison ship was the Shinyo Maru, an aging Japanese freighter known among Allied prisoners as one of the infamous “Hell Ships” because of its horrific conditions. Prisoners were packed so tightly below deck they could barely stand. Ventilation, sanitation, food and water were almost nonexistent.
The captain of the Shinyo Maru was said to be exceptionally ruthless. According to survivors, he warned the approximately 750 American prisoners aboard that if the ship came under attack, he would order the guards to kill every one of them.
The man I spoke with had already endured more than two years as a prisoner of war.
During my research, I learned that approximately 135 Japanese Hell Ships transported Allied prisoners during the war. Tragically, Allied forces unknowingly sank about 25 of them because the vessels carried no markings identifying them as prisoner transports. Six were sunk by American submarines, while the remainder were destroyed by Allied aircraft.
The Shinyo Maru was torpedoed on Sept. 7, 1944, by the USS Paddle (SS-263) near Sindangan Bay on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines.
Of the approximately 750 prisoners aboard, 83 Americans managed to reach shore alive.
Filipino guerrillas under the command of General Wendell Fertig hid, fed and cared for the survivors while secretly notifying General Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters of the extraordinary rescue.
On the night of Sept. 29, 1944, the submarine USS Narwhal quietly approached the shoreline and evacuated the surviving prisoners using rubber boats.
As I continued researching, I began to wonder whether the man I met at the Grange dinner might have been Victor Loris Mapes.
Mapes had been captured by Japanese forces in June 1942. When the Shinyo Maru was torpedoed, he suffered a compound fracture of his right leg. Despite severe malnutrition and his devastating injury, he somehow managed to swim to freedom.
Over the years, I became aware that the Mapes family had long-standing ties to Orange County. Several family members were involved in dairy farming in the Chester and Sugar Loaf area. I had two classmates named George and Cheryl Mapes, and I was also acquainted with Thaddeus “Tad” Mapes, who worked in the Goshen Central School transportation department.
Perhaps Victor was distantly related to the local Mapes family.
It is also possible that his father or another relative had worked on our farm before I was born in 1945, which might explain how he came to know my grandparents.
Victor credited much of his survival to the outdoor skills he learned as an Eagle Scout.
Victor L. Mapes died on Aug. 12, 2003, at the age of 85 while living in Silver Spring, Md. In recognition of his extraordinary service and sacrifice, he was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
Trying to piece together fragments of information from a conversation that took place more than 60 years ago has been a daunting task.
At this point in my research, Victor Mapes remains my best guess.
There is, however, one detail that gives me pause.
The man I spoke with never mentioned suffering a compound fracture to his leg.
So, was it Victor?
Or was it another survivor of the Shinyo Maru whose story briefly crossed paths with mine on a summer evening in Orange County?
I cannot say for certain.
But I have obtained a complete list of the survivors, and among those names, Victor Mapes remains the one that stands out the most.
