POW Witness: He Was Forced to Watch an Execution of U.S. Soldiers/80 Years After WWII, His Story Sparks a Search

Growing up in the Philippines on the island of Mindanao, Ben Hagans and his friends climbed coconut trees on his family’s plantation, fished for tuna and mahi-mahi, and raced homemade boats in the ocean—all without a stitch of clothing. When Ben was 9, his father took him on a six-month sailing adventure to Australia, India, and Vietnam.

But when he was 12, Ben’s 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.

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’s 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.

Fort, who lived on Mindanao Island for four decades, was called “a regular Daniel Boone” 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.

Fort reportedly taunted his executioners to the end, shouting: “You may get me, but you will never get the United States of America.”

https://thewarhorse.org/wwii-pow-execution-remains-search/