During World War II, after U.S. and Philippine forces on Mindanao surrendered to the Japanese in May 1942, Brigadier General Guy O. Fort (commander of the 81st Philippine Infantry Division) and other Americans—including Lt. Col. Robert Vesey, Capt. Albert Price, and 1st Sgt. John Chandler—were imprisoned at Camp Keithley (a former U.S. Army post in Dansalan City, now Marawi).
On July 3, 1942, in retaliation for the escape of four American POWs two days earlier, the Japanese selected Fort, Price (Alabama), and Chandler (Louisiana) for execution. They were tied to wooden stakes in front of fellow prisoners. Vesey (a West Point graduate and 73rd Infantry officer) volunteered to take Fort’s place and was also staked. All three—Vesey, Price, and Chandler—were then bayoneted to death; Vesey reportedly took about 2½ hours to die.
Fort was spared at that time but was executed separately on or about November 11, 1942, near Camp Keithley. The Japanese had demanded he order his former Moro guerrilla troops (whom he had equipped before surrender) to lay down their arms; he refused and was paraded through Dansalan before being shot by firing squad under Lt. Col. Yoshinari Tanaka. His reported last words: “You may get me but you will never get the United States of America.”
All four men’s remains were never recovered despite postwar searches and are memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery. Tanaka was later convicted and executed for ordering the killings. Eyewitness accounts (including from former POW Benjamin Hagans) have recently guided new efforts to locate the burial sites. Asymmetric MIA Accounting Group (AMAG) team of researchers and recovery experts in coordination with descendants of the Moro men Fort led are working to recover their remains.
