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Published Sunday, October 12, 2008 in Local

Humphrey viewed aftermath of war in Japan, Philippines

By Alex McRae

The Times-Herald

After weeks in the field on Luzon Island in the Philippines, Sergeant Jack Humphrey and the other five men in his survey unit barely resembled soldiers. The team worked alone and set its own rules. Maintaining a proper uniform was not a priority for anyone and the soldiers usually worked in fatigue pants or shorts, boots and straw hats. Uniform shirts were optional and rarely worn.

Near the end of one job, the men looked down from the hill where they were working and got a huge shock. In the valley below were several hundred soldiers with heavy trucks and even heavier guns.

The Americans wondered what was happening. The question was answered moments later when an artillery shell whistled overhead and exploded a few hundred yards away. Minutes later, it happened again.

Humphrey was chief of the survey party and ordered his group to get moving.

"We got down that hill as quick as we could," he says. "And before you know it, we were captured."

Tension was high, but the Americans were not as terrified as they were confused.

First, because World War II had been over for more than a year. Second, because the Americans had been captured by a wartime ally... the Filipino Army.

"They didn't know what to think of us," Humphrey says. "We weren't wearing uniforms and we were carrying a huge red flag we used for survey work. The flag looked a lot like the ones used by the local communist insurgents. That's probably who they thought we were."

Humphrey convinced the Filipino commander to let one of his men return to the nearest American base and bring back someone to vouch for his survey crew. An American captain came back, conferred with his Filipino counterpart and soon the Americans were leaving on an Army truck.

"It was a very interesting situation," Humphrey says. "Things were a bit uncomfortable there for a while."

Humphrey was born in 1928 in Valdosta, Ga. His father was an attorney, but during the Great Depression times were tough for everyone.

"Daddy got a lot of his pay in chickens and turnip greens," Humphrey says. "We got awful tired of chicken but it certainly beat the alternative."

When Humphrey was a child the family moved to Nashville, Ga., where Humphrey's father practiced law with E.D. Rivers, who later became governor of Georgia.

Times were better, but not good enough, and Humphrey signed on as an attorney for the Federal Land Bank. After Humphrey's father spent a short time in Columbia, S.C., the family settled in Milledgeville, Ga., where Humphrey started elementary school. When Humphrey was in third grade, his father was made head of the land bank's legal department and the whole family moved to Columbia.

When Humphrey's father died unexpectedly in 1941, the family went back to Bainbridge, Ga., where Humphrey's mother and father had grown up and still had family.

"It was a hard time for all of us," Humphrey says. "But everyone took us in and took care of us. We even had a side of beef and some ham, and that was really a nice change."

Humphrey was a high school freshman when America entered World War II. At the time, he and his friends weren't too concerned.

"We figured it would be over with before we were involved," he says. "We just weren't that bothered with it."

When Humphrey graduated from Bainbridge High School in May 1945, Germany had surrendered, but the war with Japan still raged.

Earlier that spring an Army representative had visited the school to recruit upcoming graduates for a special program that sent young men to college to prepare them for a career as an Army officer.

Humphrey was accepted into the program and after graduation, entered the Army Specialized Training Reserve Program (ASTRP) at Clemson University.

"We were all ready to go to war if we had to," he says. "The attitude was 'let us at 'em.' We couldn't wait to get in the fight."

It never happened. During Humphrey's first session at Clemson, Japan surrendered and the war came to an end.

Soldiers got a 48-hour pass and Humphrey headed straight back to Bainbridge. He spent a few hours there, then returned to Clemson only to learn that Army students had been given another 48-hour pass. Humphrey headed home again.

"It was a wonderful time," Humphrey says. "We all knew that nobody else was going to die in that war and that families would be reunited very soon."

Humphrey remained at Clemson to continue his studies at Army expense, but that fall, the Army program was discontinued. Humphrey's grades had slipped, too, so he left school and headed home to ponder his future.

During the Clemson program Humphrey had officially been on reserve status. Two of his father's brothers suggested he enlist in the regular Army.

"They told my mama to let somebody else raise me for a while," he says. "And since there wasn't a chance of getting shot anymore, it seemed like a good idea."

Humphrey enlisted in the Army and a few days later, was on a train from Atlanta's Fort McPherson bound for Fort Lewis, Wash.

"I barely knew were Washington was," Humphrey says. "But I was ready to go."

The train was routed through North Dakota. The Army recruits were packed into three passenger cars at the end of a long freight train. Because of his Army experience at Clemson, Humphrey was in charge of the three cars of recruits. But all the experience in the world couldn't prepare Humphrey or the others for what happened a few miles out of Fargo, N.D.

It was January. The weather was brutally cold and the train tacks were icy. The three cars filled with Army recruits slid off the tracks and turned over.

Dozens of men were left bruised, battered and stranded in several feet of snow. It would be 48 hours before they were picked up by another train.

The recruits burned railroad ties to stay warm and boiled snow for drinking water. Most managed to get by, but Humphrey remembers one young boy who developed flu that turned into pneumonia.

"He was a little scrawny boy with bad teeth and he needed a haircut and when he got sick it was just awful to watch," Humphrey says. "He was scared to death and kept crying for his mother. I don't know what happened to him."

The troops were finally rescued and proceeded to Fort Lewis for basic training. Humphrey says the training was only tolerable but the surroundings were spectacular.

"I'd never been in a place like that," he says. "You could see rain and sun and snow in the same day and just 50 miles away Mount Rainier towered over everything. Where I grew up in south Georgia the tallest thing was a pine tree. Mount Rainier was simply a marvel."

After basic, Humphrey went to Fort Belvoir, Va, to study mapmaking and surveying and learn to take field measurements and draw them to scale.

After a few months in Virginia, Humphrey got orders for the Philippines. The orders included a 30-day delay en route, basically a one-month pass. Humphrey dashed home, had a nice visit with relatives and then went to see a favorite uncle in Mississippi.

The visit went so well Humphrey lost track of time and was shocked when he woke up one day and realized he had to be at Camp Stoneman, Calif., in less than 48 hours.

"I got a little worried," he says.

Humphrey dashed over to a military air base in Jackson to learn the base was closed. He then hitchhiked to Montgomery, Ala., hoping to catch a plane out of Maxwell Field. Before he entered the base, Humphrey showed some creativity.

He called the base and spoke to the flight consolidator, who booked troops on military aircraft when space was available. Using his deepest, most authoritative voice, Humphrey identified himself as "Colonel Martin" and said he had a soldier that needed to get to California immediately.

The flight consolidator said the best he could do was get "Colonel Martin's" soldier to Wright-Patterson Air Force base in Ohio, where many more planes were available.

An hour later Humphrey was on his way to Ohio. Once there, he called a real relative who happened to be an Army officer, Captain Martin. Humphrey explained the situation and 30 minutes later Captain Martin called back and told Humphrey to head for the flight line. Captain Martin had arranged to bump some equipment from a California flight to make space for a few soldiers and Humphrey made it to Camp Stoneman by the skin of his teeth.

"The last thing I wanted was to report late," Humphrey says. "Things really fell into place that time."

After a brief stay at Camp Stoneman, Humphrey boarded a troop ship in San Francisco Bay and two weeks later, sailed into Yokohama, Japan.

During his brief stay in Yokohama, Humphrey and several others were taken on a tour of war-torn Tokyo.

"It's impossible to describe the devastation," Humphrey says. "Most of the buildings were made of wood and they had been totally destroyed by the bombing. It was a terrible sight."

Humphrey was soon shipped to Manila, and joined the Basic Survey Battalion. The unit was assigned to identify, replace or repair surveying benchmarks that had been lost or damaged during the war. The unit worked near Manila, on Bataan and Corregidor and the north end of Luzon Island.

The men often worked at night and on a couple of occasions, drew fire from Americans who couldn't identify them in the darkness.

"We'd holler 'Whoa, whoa,' whenever that happened and always got it straightened out real quick," Humphrey says. "We sure didn't intend to get shot by our own boys."

During the battle for Manila, most of the city was destroyed. But the Japanese artillery had spared some places, including the Manila Hotel, which Humphrey says was comparable to New York's Waldorf-Astoria.

Humphrey visited the hotel a few times. Army "guests" slept on cots in guest rooms, but the sheets and mosquito nets were made of silk.

"It was as nice as things got over there," Humphrey says. "A marvelous place to visit."

Humphrey was discharged in 1947 and used his GI benefits to enroll at Emory Junior College in Valdosta. The first day he was there, Humphrey went on a blind date with Julianne Blount from Senoia. It changed his life forever.

"I chased that girl for the next three years, "Humphrey says. "And it was worth every minute."

When Miss Blount transferred to the University of Georgia in Athens, Humphrey followed and the courtship continued. They were married in June 1950 at the end of their junior year of college.

"That romance went on for 53 years, "Humphrey says "She was truly the love of my life."

After college Humphrey worked a few years for Atlantic Refining Company, then took a job selling books to schools, school libraries and colleges. He sold his last book at age 77.

"I loved every minute of it," he says.

In 1955, Jack and Julianne Humphrey moved to Senoia, where they raised four boys. Thirteen grandchildren later joined the extended family.

"The military was good to me," Humphrey says. "They took care of me and gave me a warm place to sleep, and when I got out I found a wonderful wife and a great job. I'm glad I got to serve. But I sure wouldn't want to go back."