American war vet seeks memoir of old Dagupan
AN 86-year old American World War II veteran has an old man’s wish: to find a photograph of the old railroad yard in Dagupan where, 64 years ago, he killed a Japanese soldier to save fellow American soldiers.
John Bennet, a former Private First Class in the 130th Infantry, 33rd Division of the U.S. Army, says he almost lost his life in that encounter on March 21, 1945 at the Philippine National Railways yard in Dagupan.
Bennet’s son, Mark, sent an e-mail to the City Information Office in Dagupan with the request.
“I know this is an unusual request from a stranger halfway across the world, but do you have any pictures of Dagupan in 1945, in particular the railroad yard at that time?” Mark wrote on behalf of his father.
The younger Bennett added his father, who grew up in small railroad town in rural New York, is somehow unsettled by the coincidence which he never talked about up until last year when he started to tell his wartime experiences.
The older Bennett, a truck driver in the US Army unit that joined the Lingayen Gulf landing, found himself struggling with a Japanese soldier who fired on them inside the railroad yard, eventually killing him with his bayonet.
Mark, who is doing a research on his father’s service in the US Army, said no one filed a report on the incident and his father could no longer recall names of people he met during the war.
Aside from the bayonet which John has kept, he has the original letter his father sent to his mother describing the incident with postmark indicating time and place.
In another email excerpt, Mark said “it might carry some weight if I could have independent confirmation that indeed there were enemy soldiers present at the rail yard that day.”—LM
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
