DRAMATIC ESCAPE

Evening Star, Issue 24331, 21 October 1942, Page 2

DRAMATIC ESCAPE

U.S. OFFICERS FROM PHILIPPINES SAFE ARRIVAL IN AUSTRALIA (N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) SYDNEY, October 20. 'Two American officers who have arrived in Australia after dodging the Japanese for 160 days, while escaping from the Philippines, came closest to death olf the Australian coast. Eor 15 minutes they lav Hat in a native-built motor boat while a Japanese plane riddled their craft with machine-gun bullets. The officers are Captain William Lloyde Osborne, of Los Angeles, and Flight-lieutenant Damon Gause, of Georgia. Their journey began tin? day Bataan fell. On their journey they charted a 1,500-mile course with a compass that worked only in still water. They survived a two-day typhoon and stopped at islands to plug the holes in their leaky craft.

“ We arc not here by navigation, lint by the grace of God,” one of the men declared. Eor as long as Hi days they were out of sight of land in their old ’22-foot motor boat, the Diesel engine of which finally ran on n mixture which included cocoanut oil collected from island natives. They had only two gallons of this left on October 11, when an Australian motor launch encountered them and guided them to a remote harbour.

Eor as long ns three days they had gone without food, and sometimes for two days without water, but both arrived in the best of health.

The two officers escaped separately after the fall of Bataan, Osborne lived for two mouths as a hermit near a volcano, while Gause was once captured, stripped of his clothes, and herded with 300 other American prisoners, but he managed to escape.

After some weeks the men learned of each other’s presence by “ bamboo wireless.” It took months of travel for them to meet, and another month to plan their escape. The sailing time to the Australian coast was 58 days, and their first meal after 159 days of rice and cocoa nuts was a tin of sliced peaches' Their great worry was that the Japanese might have arrived in Australia before thev did.