become a matter of record, now, with the hope that this treatment
                    
will be improved if the Japanese ever expect to be viewed on a
 
basis of moral equality with civilized peoples. Finally, we feel that the 
 
very highest authorities in Japan should be warned before
 
all the world--and warned now, so that there can be no evasion of
 
responsibility--that we are fully aware of Japanese treatment of 
 
captured Americans in the Philippine military prisons.
                                 
      In addition, this story is being told--and an unpleasant
 
story it is--with the fervent hope that it will increase by even a
 
small particle the American people's feeling of urgency and
 
necessity for a supreme effort in the Pacific, an effort which
 
must not be allowed to diminish until the complete goal has been
 
reached.
               Although this report has been prepared as a personal
 
narrative by the senior Army and Navy members of the escape party,  
 
we cannot emphasize too strongly that no one person deserves
 
mention above any other. Of the other eight, each lived up to
 
the highest traditions of his individual service. Included in
 
the party were Lieutenant Commander (now Commander) Melvin H.
 
McCoy, USN, Annapolis '27; Major (now Lieutenant Colonel)
 
Stephen S. Mellnik, Coast Artillery, West Point '32S three Air
 
Corps officers, Captain W. E. Dyess and Second Lieutenants
 
L. A. Beelens and Samuel Grashio; three Marine Corps officers,
 
Captain A. C. Shofner and First Lieutenants Jack Hawkins and
 
Michael Dobervich; and two Army sergeants, R. B. Spielman and
 
Paul Marshall.