{"id":81941,"date":"2025-09-12T15:48:26","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T15:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2025\/09\/12\/one-mans-memory-sparks-search-for-us-soldiers-he-saw-executed-in-wwii\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T14:07:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T14:07:36","slug":"one-mans-memory-sparks-search-for-us-soldiers-he-saw-executed-in-wwii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2025\/09\/12\/one-mans-memory-sparks-search-for-us-soldiers-he-saw-executed-in-wwii\/","title":{"rendered":"One man\u2019s memory sparks search for US soldiers he saw executed in WWII"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Editor\u2019s note: This <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/thewarhorse.org\/wwii-pow-execution-remains-search\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\" title=\"https:\/\/thewarhorse.org\/wwii-pow-execution-remains-search\/\"><i>article<\/i><\/a><i> first appeared on <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/thewarhorse.org\/\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/thewarhorse.org\/\"><i>The War Horse<\/i><\/a><i>, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service, under the headline \u201cPOW Witness: He was forced to watch an execution of U.S. soldiers. 80 years after WWII, his story sparks a search for their remains.\u201d Subscribe to their <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/thewarhorse.us11.list-manage.com\/subscribe\/post?u=2dfda758f64e981facbb0a8dd&amp;amp;id=9a9d4becaa\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/thewarhorse.us11.list-manage.com\/subscribe\/post?u=2dfda758f64e981facbb0a8dd&amp;amp;id=9a9d4becaa\"><i>newsletter<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Growing up in the Philippines on the island of Mindanao, Ben Hagans and his friends climbed coconut trees on his family\u2019s plantation, fished for tuna and mahi-mahi, and raced homemade boats in the ocean\u2014all without a stitch of clothing. When Ben was 9, his father took him on a six-month sailing adventure to Australia, India, and Vietnam.<b> <\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But when he was 12, Ben\u2019s idyllic childhood abruptly ended. Imperial Japan invaded the archipelago nation just hours after bombing Pearl Harbor. And after Allied forces surrendered to the Japanese on Mindanao Island six months later, Ben and his parents spent most of World War II in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, where his mother was forced into sexual slavery and Ben and his dad nearly died from starvation and illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, in the twilight of an extraordinary life, Benjamin Broadwell Hagans has emerged as an eyewitness to the savage executions of three U.S. soldiers on July 3, 1942. The 96-year-old retired firefighter\u2019s still-vivid memory of the killings is providing solid clues to finding the remains of not only those soldiers but also those of Army Brig. Gen. Guy Fort, the highest-ranking American military officer executed by enemy forces in World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fort, who lived on Mindanao Island for four decades, was called \u201ca regular Daniel Boone\u201d because of his wilderness skills and deep immersion in the local culture and languages. He is also remembered for his courage and unwavering resistance to the Japanese after his superiors ordered him to surrender 46 Americans and 300 Filipinos under his command in May 1942. He was executed by his captors that fall because he refused to order bands of fierce Muslim Moro guerrillas to stop fighting after supplying them with rifles and military equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fort reportedly taunted his executioners to the end, shouting: \u201cYou may get me, but you will never get the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The general and the three U.S. soldiers executed on July 3\u2014Lt. Col. Robert Vesey, Capt. Albert Price, and 1st Sgt. John Chandler\u2014are memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery. The tablets are inscribed with the names of 36,286 Americans who perished in the Pacific theater during the Second World War but have no known graves.<\/p>\n\n\n<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link smg-interstitial-link--fallback wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thewarhorse.org\/what-happened-to-crew-of-us-spy-plane-shot-down-by-north-vietnamese\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__fallback-link\"> Fifty-two years after a U.S. spy plane was shot down over Laos, a family still fights for answers: Did the crew all perish or were half of them LEFT BEHIND?<\/a><\/aside>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the late 1940s, the U.S. military failed to find the remains of Fort, Vesey, Price, and Chandler and deemed them \u201cnonrecoverable.\u201d But a newly formed POW\/MIA group is now hoping Ben Hagans\u2019 sharp memory will lead to identifying the remains at the site of a former Japanese POW camp where the four Americans were executed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNever in a million years did I think that someone would still be alive who could help our family\u2014someone who actually knew Brig. Gen. Fort and someone who knows the Philippine islands so well because he actually grew up there,\u201d said Barbara Fox, a Southern California banker and real estate consultant whose stepfather, James Fort, was the son of the general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"795\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/YOUNG-BEN-with-MOM-web.webp_.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-111660\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/YOUNG-BEN-with-MOM-web.webp_.jpg 900w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/YOUNG-BEN-with-MOM-web.webp_.jpg?resize=300,265 300w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/YOUNG-BEN-with-MOM-web.webp_.jpg?resize=768,678 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Ignacia Hagans, 5-year-old Ben, and their dog, Pal, on the family\u2019s coconut plantation in Illigan on Mindanao Island in the Philippines.  (Photo courtesy of Hagans family\/The War Horse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The War Horse set out to unravel the remarkable series of events that led to the renewed search for the remains of the four soldiers more than 80 years after the executions\u2014which ultimately resulted in the 1949 hanging of Japanese Lt. Col. Yoshinari Tanaka for war crimes. Interviews with Ben Hagans and family members\u2014along with transcripts and documents from international war-crimes tribunals in postwar Japan, as well as U.S. and Philippine military and POW records\u2014all tell the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was a flurry of emails and phone calls between Barbara Fox and POW\/MIA researcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.storiesofsacrifice.org\/people\/john-bear\/\" rel=\"\">John Bear<\/a> last September that prompted Bear to take an intense interest in the Fort execution and begin digging into the Philippines\u2019 wartime history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In May, Bear came across a post by Kelly Hagans, Ben\u2019s daughter-in-law, on a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/117885454917949\" rel=\"\">Facebook group <\/a> aimed at protecting the legacy of the Philippine Scouts, a highly respected supplemental U.S. Army force that was mainly composed of Filipino soldiers and commanded by U.S. officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The post highlighted her father-in-law\u2019s life and led Bear to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ww2online.org\/view\/benjamin-hagans#prewar-life\" rel=\"\">spellbinding interview<\/a> Ben gave to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans in 2022 as part of an oral history project. Deep into the interview, Ben mentioned that he had witnessed the execution of American soldiers when he was a POW after serving in the Philippine Scouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bear subsequently found a 1932 aerial photo of Camp Keithley, a former U.S. military installation on Mindanao Island that the Japanese had turned into a POW camp. He then tracked down Marty Hagans, Ben\u2019s son, a retired California State Police officer who lives with his wife and his father in Dayton, Nevada. Bear asked Marty to show the photo to his dad to see if he could pinpoint where Vesey, Price, and Chandler were executed and buried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As Kelly recorded a video of the conversation between her father-in-law and husband, Ben pointed to specific Camp Keithley features such as the nearby Agus River and a bridge that crosses the river\u2014features that were not easily seen in the photo because of the camera angle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI knew then that his memory was sharp as a tack,\u201d Bear recalled. \u201cOnce Ben had oriented himself to the photo, he pointed out where he remembered the execution taking place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben also pointed to the spot where he believes Vesey, Price, and Chandler were buried\u2014close to an obelisk monument that was erected in 1939 to honor Pvt. Fernando Guy Keithley, a hero in the Philippine-American War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Marty Hagans says when he explained the historical significance of his father\u2019s vivid memories to him, he immediately agreed to help in the decades-old search for the soldiers\u2019 remains. \u201cHe was absolutely stunned when he found out that the remains of these heroes haven\u2019t been returned to their families,\u201d his son told The War Horse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Through his research, Bear is convinced that when teams of American soldiers searched in vain for Gen. Fort\u2019s remains in the late 1940s, they were looking on the wrong side of the Agus River because the north-south axis of the hand-drawn map the soldiers were using was substantially off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mike Henshaw, a 25-year U.S. Army veteran from Virginia who has taken part in scores of recovery missions that have led to the identification of the remains of more than 100 service members missing from past wars, reviewed the new evidence and believes there\u2019s a strong chance of locating the four sets of remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The timing was auspicious. In January, Henshaw founded the <a href=\"https:\/\/amagonline.org\/\" rel=\"\">Asymmetric MIA Accounting Group<\/a>, an all-volunteer nonprofit dedicated to bringing home the remains of missing service members. He and his recovery team plan to travel to the Philippines sometime this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The obelisk monument is now gone, but finding its buried foundation with ground-penetrating radar \u201cshould be straightforward\u2014and could provide the key to solving the mystery,\u201d Henshaw said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"909\" height=\"900\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/OBELISK-web.webp_.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-111662\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/OBELISK-web.webp_.jpg 909w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/OBELISK-web.webp_.jpg?resize=150,150 150w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/OBELISK-web.webp_.jpg?resize=300,297 300w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/OBELISK-web.webp_.jpg?resize=768,760 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 909px) 100vw, 909px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">This monument to a Philippine-American War hero may be the key to finding the remains of U.S. soldiers executed by the Japanese during World War II. According to former POW Ben Hagans, the bodies of three executed soldiers were buried close to the obelisk. It\u2019s no longer there, but the monument\u2019s foundation might be easy to find with ground-penetrating radar. (Photo by V. Nery\/The War Horse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jay Silverstein, a prominent POW\/MIA forensic anthropologist, told The War Horse that Henshaw\u2019s team should be able to find identifiable remains if the new information from Ben Hagans and Bear helps them locate the graves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere\u2019s a very good chance that you\u2019ll find teeth, and there\u2019s a fair chance you\u2019ll find bones as well. Some of the denser areas of the skull preserve well and are also good for extracting DNA. But it really depends on the environmental conditions. From my experience, skeletal remains\u2014although in some cases degraded by insects and roots, or fragile due to moisture and soil chemistry\u2014endure for hundreds or even thousands of years in most environments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The task of locating and retrieving the four soldiers\u2019 remains became more daunting in May 2017 when Philippine security forces conducted an operation to capture an ISIS-aligned emir believed to be hiding in the Islamic City of Marawi, formerly known as Dansalan. The operation was met with violent resistance by Islamist militants, sparking a five-month-long battle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because the U.S. State Department still considers the area unsafe to visit, the U.S. Defense POW\/MIA Accounting Agency has expressed concern about operating there. But Henshaw, a Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom combat veteran with two Bronze Stars, said his organization was formed to operate in difficult environments where official agencies cannot. \u201cI plan to move forward cautiously but remain determined to honor the fallen,\u201d Henshaw said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"646\" height=\"900\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/HENSHAW-web-2.webp_.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-111665\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/HENSHAW-web-2.webp_.jpg 646w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/HENSHAW-web-2.webp_.jpg?resize=215,300 215w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 646px) 100vw, 646px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Mike Henshaw, then the senior sergeant with a joint U.S.-Laos recovery team, digs a trench in January 2000 in southern Laos. Three Special Forces soldiers who were part of a March 1968 firefight were left behind after a failed rescue operation during the CIA\u2019s secret war in Laos. Henshaw uncovered a tooth that led to the identification of one of the soldiers. (Photo courtesy of Mike Henshaw\/The War Horse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The executions of Vesey, Price, and Chandler occurred several weeks after Ben Hagans\u2019 regiment of the Philippine Scouts surrendered in May 1942, when the prisoners were moved to Camp Keithley. Ben\u2019s mother and father, a U.S. Army officer, also were taken captive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Japanese warned the new prisoners not to try to escape. If they did, the captors vowed, they would execute an equal number of POWs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After four American soldiers escaped on the night of July 1 or July 2, the Japanese showed their captives it was no idle threat. The next day, the captors tied Gen. Fort and three other American soldiers to wooden stakes and prepared to execute them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then, Ben said, Lt. Col. Vesey stepped forward and told the executioners: \u201cCut the general down. I\u2019ll take his place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"675\" height=\"900\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/FORT-WITH-FAMILY-web.webp_.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-111668\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/FORT-WITH-FAMILY-web.webp_.jpg 675w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/FORT-WITH-FAMILY-web.webp_.jpg?resize=225,300 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Brig. Gen. Guy Fort and his first wife, Marguerite, and 2-year-old son, Bobbie, at their home on the Philippine island of Mindanao in January 1926.  (Photo courtesy of Fort family\/The War Horse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the last minute, the camp\u2019s commander also granted a reprieve to one of the four Americans originally targeted for execution, Col. Eugene Mitchell, at the request of a Japanese lieutenant who had befriended Mitchell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fort\u2019s reprieve proved to be temporary. On or about Nov. 11, 1942, the Japanese executed him by firing squad at Camp Keithley for continually spurning their pleas to tell the Moro guerrillas to lay down their arms. He was buried less than a mile from the graves of the other executed soldiers, researcher Bear has calculated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the 12-year-old Ben, Vesey\u2019s execution was excruciatingly painful. Vesey was a 1918 West Point graduate whose hometown was Hope, Arkansas, and he was a longtime friend of Ben\u2019s father, Broadwell Hagans. A major in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Hagans worked closely with Gen. Douglas MacArthur (who called Hagans\u2019 precocious son \u201cBenny\u201d) on the Malinta tunnel complex on Corregidor Island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"754\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Young-Ben-with-DAD-web.webp_.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-111669\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Young-Ben-with-DAD-web.webp_.jpg 900w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Young-Ben-with-DAD-web.webp_.jpg?resize=300,251 300w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Young-Ben-with-DAD-web.webp_.jpg?resize=768,643 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Civil engineer and plantation owner Broadwell Hagans with his son, Ben, and their dog, Pal. As a major in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,  Hagans had worked with Gen. Douglas MacArthur on the Malinta Tunnel project 25 miles southwest of the Philippines\u2019 capital of Manila.  (Photo courtesy of Hagans family\/The War Horse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCol. Vesey was a great man,\u2019\u2019 Ben told The War Horse. \u201cHe was loved by everybody. I probably saw him three times a week when I was growing up. He would come by our house to talk to my father, but he always greeted me and always told me, \u2018It was a pleasure talking to you.\u2019\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben recounted how he and about 100 other prisoners were forced to stand about 50 yards from the execution site as Vesey and the other soldiers were repeatedly bayoneted. \u201cIt took them two and a half hours to bleed to death as we stood there,\u201d Ben said. \u201cI put my eyes down and tried not to look.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The next day was the Fourth of July, and Ben and his parents were among the hundreds of Filipino and American soldiers and civilians forced to march about 25 miles in one day from Camp Keithley to Iligan, where Ben grew up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Mindanao Death March, which the Japanese had mockingly dubbed \u201cThe Independence Day March,\u201d has been overshadowed in history books by the infamous Bataan Death March on the island of Luzon. But it was no less brutal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the scorching tropical sun bore down on them, Ben said, the Mindanao marchers hiked through a mountainous jungle and were given little food and water. Those who were unable to keep up were often shot to death, usually in the forehead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Americans were tied together with telephone wire in groups of four. The Filipino prisoners, many dressed only in rags, were forced to walk barefoot on a hot and rocky dirt road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben recalls Filipino villagers along the way slipping the marchers gourds of rainwater, bananas, and rice. Those villagers caught helping the prisoners were beaten or fatally shot, and their homes were torched as a warning to others to stay away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"705\" height=\"581\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/POW-HAT-web-705x581.webp_.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-111670\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/POW-HAT-web-705x581.webp_.jpg 705w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/POW-HAT-web-705x581.webp_.jpg?resize=300,247 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 705px) 100vw, 705px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Ben Hagans was only 12 when he was imprisoned by Japanese troops.  (Photo by Marty Hagans\/The War Horse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After arriving in Iligan, the prisoners spent two nights in a dilapidated school building and then were crammed onto a cannon boat that sailed to Cagayan de Oro, where they spent two days on a pier waiting to be taken to a network of POW camps. Ben told The War Horse he watched in horror as Japanese troops raped his mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben and his father were sent to different camps for military POWs. His mother, Ignacia, who was born in the Philippines and was of Spanish and Scottish descent, was sent to the sprawling Santo Tomas Internment Camp for civilians in Manila and forced to become a \u201ccomfort woman\u201d\u2014the Japanese euphemism for a sex slave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She was one of as many as 200,000 women and girls forced into sexual servitude during Japan\u2019s conquest of Asian countries. The overwhelming majority of the women were Asian\u2014mostly Korean, Chinese, and Filipina. But a tiny percentage were European and American civilians captured during the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cShe never got over it,\u201d Ben said. \u201cShe was very, very bitter and became reclusive and stayed in the Philippines her whole life. I did not resent her for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben was only 12 when he joined the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.philippinescouts.org\/the-scouts\/units\/43rd-infantry-ps\" rel=\"\">43rd Infantry Regiment of the Philippine Scouts<\/a> just two days after Pearl Harbor. He had tried to join the U.S. Army, but was turned down because of his age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Scouts were thrilled to have him because he not only spoke fluent English but had also mastered Cebuano, the main language spoken on Mindanao Island. So after three days of military training, he was put to work as a courier. He was also issued a .30-40 Krag-J\u00f8rgensen rifle and was once gravely wounded when the shrapnel from a mortar round ripped into his legs and left arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In his two and a half years as a POW, he was shuttled from camp to camp\u2014seven in total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe food was almost nonexistent,\u201d Ben said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His diet consisted mostly of watered-down rice and only an occasional vegetable. The POWs, he said, were often forced to kill their own food, eating virtually anything that moved for protein\u2014snakes, dogs, cats, rats, and millipedes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"672\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MacArthur-Lands-Leyte-web.webp_.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-111671\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MacArthur-Lands-Leyte-web.webp_.jpg 900w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MacArthur-Lands-Leyte-web.webp_.jpg?resize=300,224 300w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MacArthur-Lands-Leyte-web.webp_.jpg?resize=768,573 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Gen. Douglas MacArthur wades ashore on the Philippine island of Leyte in October 1944 after Allied forces secured the beachhead. MacArthur had famously vowed to return to the Philippines after President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 ordered him to leave the archipelago nation when Allied forces were overwhelmed by  Japanese troops.  (Photo courtesy of National Archives\/The War Horse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Oct. 20, 1944, Gen. MacArthur\u2019s forces landed on Leyte Island, marking the start of the Philippines liberation campaign. But little information filtered into the POW camps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben\u2019s eyes light up when he talks about the January day in 1945 when he was transferred to the Santo Tomas camp and saw his parents for the first time in two and a half years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cUntil then I didn\u2019t know where they were, or if they had survived or not,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He also cracks a smile when he talks about Feb. 3, 1945.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt was about 9 p.m. when I looked at the front gate of the camp, and I saw this tank coming in and thought it was a Japanese tank,\u201d he said. But soon a soldier from the U.S. Army\u2019s 1st Cavalry Division popped out of the top of the tank and asked Ben and his fellow POWs where they could find their Japanese captors. \u201cThen the soldier reached down and started throwing candy bars at us,\u201d Ben said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After a ferocious firefight in which the Japanese held more than 200 internees hostage in a building, the enemy troops were granted safe passage in exchange for releasing the hostages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then, at midnight, the 1st Cavalry laid out a great spread for all the prisoners. \u201cApples, pears, oranges, sweet rolls, oatmeal, ham, good old Spam,\u201d Ben recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben\u2019s teeth were so loose that all he could eat was the oatmeal. But he went through the line nine times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The next morning, Army medical officers gave all the prisoners a series of shots and vitamin pills and put everyone on a scale. Ben, then 15 years old, weighed 56 pounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"705\" height=\"682\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/BEN-WITH-FAMILY-web-705x682.webp_.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-111672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/BEN-WITH-FAMILY-web-705x682.webp_.jpg 705w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/BEN-WITH-FAMILY-web-705x682.webp_.jpg?resize=300,290 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 705px) 100vw, 705px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Ignacia, Ben, and Broadwell Hagans just days after the U.S. Army\u2019s 1st Cavalry Division liberated the Santo Tomas Internment Camp. Ben, 15, weighed 56 pounds when Army medical officers put him on the scale the day after liberation.  (Photo courtesy of Hagans family\/The War Horse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few days after the camp was liberated, Ben thought he spotted someone he knew from a distance, but suspected it might be a mirage. Could that be his older brother Bill? In a U.S. Navy officer\u2019s uniform?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s Bill! It\u2019s Bill!\u201d he shouted to his parents, who refused to believe it until they all fell into each other\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bill was one of Ben\u2019s four half-siblings from his father\u2019s first marriage. The four had all left the Philippines before the Japanese invaded in 1941. But Bill enlisted in the Navy in Michigan and was sent on a three-year mission in the Philippines to find out the location of the POW camps and who was in them. The short, fair-complected Bill had posed as a Filipino peasant by taking the bark of betel nut trees, mashing it into pulp, and rubbing it over his skin to darken it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two months after Mindanao\u2019s camps were liberated, Ben boarded a ship to the States to be treated for a host of diseases, including dysentery, beriberi, parasitic flatworms, dengue fever, and malaria. He was in three military hospitals for a year and a half before a physician discovered Ben had cholera and that all his other diseases were masking the symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once he was treated for cholera, Ben recovered and was released within weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben, who had been homeschooled in the Philippines, settled in California\u2019s San Joaquin Valley and entered Fresno State to study agriculture and forestry. He had just finished his freshman year when North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel into South Korea, and President Harry Truman ordered the U.S. military to intervene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"574\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/BEN-PROCLAMATION-web.webp_.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-111673\" srcset=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/BEN-PROCLAMATION-web.webp_.jpg 900w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/BEN-PROCLAMATION-web.webp_.jpg?resize=300,191 300w, https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/BEN-PROCLAMATION-web.webp_.jpg?resize=768,490 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Ben Hagans before heading to Fort Benning for paratrooper training. (Photo courtesy of Hagans family\/The War Horse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An Army reservist, Ben was called up in his sophomore year. Although Army officials told him he wouldn\u2019t have to go to Korea because he was a former POW, he didn\u2019t ask for an exemption and was sent to Fort Benning in Georgia to train to become a paratrooper. He ended up doing two tours in Korea and getting promoted on the battlefield to second lieutenant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After that war was over, he joined California\u2019s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and became a firefighter. He ended his 32-year career as a battalion chief in Tulare County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He earned a fistful of medals from his wartime experience, including three Purple Hearts and a POW medal. But the one that would mean the most to him\u2014a medal for his service in the Philippine Scouts\u2014has eluded him for decades. He and his son were told the records were among the millions destroyed in the 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben still has nightmares about the time his Japanese captors beat him severely for stealing oats and rice meant for the horses, the three days he was forced to drink his own urine to survive a \u201chell ship\u201d transporting POWs, and seeing fellow prisoners having their heads lopped off with swords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe has these dreams every single day and every single night,\u201d his son said. \u201cI hear him, and I know which are the bad ones.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ben uses a walker now. But that didn\u2019t stop him from <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/6U233gkSA4E?si=zMDcv4uXLZc8ShDB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\" title=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/6U233gkSA4E?si=zMDcv4uXLZc8ShDB\">celebrating his 96th birthday in July by skydiving<\/a>. It was his second birthday jump in two years. Counting his jumps as a paratrooper in Korea, that makes 117.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Is he going to stop now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNope,\u201d he said with a chuckle. \u201cThe next jump is when I turn 100. That will be the last one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>This War Horse story was edited by Mike Frankel, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headlines.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Ken McLaughlin is a freelance writer based in Scotts Valley, California. He spent 35 years at the San Jose Mercury News as a reporter, editorial writer and editor. He\u2019s written extensively about politics, marine science, Vietnam, immigration, and race and demographics. He has a master\u2019s in journalism from Stanford University and taught aspiring science writers for a decade at UC Santa Cruz.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Retired firefighter Benjamin Broadwell Hagans, 96, has emerged as an eyewitness to the savage executions of three soldiers in 1942, The War Horse 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By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>One man\u2019s memory sparks search for US soldiers he saw executed in WWII - Navy Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Retired firefighter Benjamin Broadwell Hagans, 96, has emerged as an eyewitness to the savage executions of three soldiers in 1942, The War Horse reports.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"One man\u2019s memory sparks search for US soldiers he saw executed in WWII\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Retired firefighter Benjamin Broadwell Hagans, 96, has emerged as an eyewitness to the savage executions of three soldiers in 1942, The 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