Remember The Pied Piper Of Saipan
Guy Gabaldon, sometimes called the "Pied Piper of Saipan" has died in California. He was 80 years old. (I do not believe I had heard of Gabaldon before today). But he single-handedly talked as many as 1,500 Japanese soldiers into surrendering during the battle for Saipan in the Second World War.
Gabaldon died of a heart attack Thursday at his home in Old Town, his son, Tech. Sgt. Jeffrey Hunter Gabaldon, said Monday.
Using an elementary knowledge of Japanese, bribes of cigarettes and candy, and trickery with tales of encampments surrounded by American troops, Gabaldon was able to persuade soldiers to abandon their posts and surrender. The scheme was so brazen — and so amazingly successful — it won the young Marine the Navy Cross, and fame when his story was told on television's "This Is Your Life" and the 1960 movie "Hell to Eternity."
"My plan, as impossible as it seemed, was to get near a Japanese emplacement, bunker, or cave, and tell them that I had a bunch of Marines with me and we were ready to kill them if they did not surrender," he wrote in his 1990 memoir "Saipan: Suicide Island."
"I promised that they would be treated with dignity, and that we would make sure that they were taken back to Japan after the war," he wrote.
The 5-foot-4-inch Gabaldon used piecemeal Japanese he picked up from a childhood friend to earn the trust of the enemy, who believed his story of hundreds of looming troops. In a single day in July 1944, Gabaldon was said to have gotten about 800 Japanese soldiers to follow him back to the American camp.
His exploits earned him the nickname the Pied Piper of Saipan.
The private acknowledged his plan was foolish and, had it not been pulled off, could have resulted in a court-martial. His family suspected his initial disobedience — though they say officers later approved — might have kept him from receiving the Medal of Honor.
"My actions prove that God takes care of idiots," he wrote.
A brave and honorable man who helped save many lives that would have been lost otherwise. There is quite a lot more on Gabaldon here. It is important to remember men such as this when the revisionists try to rewrite history years later. Thank you for your service. Rest in peace.
By Donald Sensing, Monday, 4 September , 2006 @ 7:54 pm
I remember seeing the movie many (many) years ago. In the movie Giy is portrayed as being fairly fluent in Japanese. It’s a pretty good flick, as I recall. He was quite a hero and with every passing of one of his generation we become poorer.
By Gaius, Monday, 4 September , 2006 @ 8:03 pm
I can’t recall seeing it, I’ll have to see if I can find it. Yes, we do become poorer as these men pass away from us. I have known a lot of these men who served in WWII, and I miss too many of them these days.