 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. I'm Marcia Joyner and we are navigating the journey. Today is just a tad bit different than what we usually do. We are going to talk to my dear, dear friend, and you all know how I feel about dear friends. This is somebody that everyone in Hawaii knows, Domingo Las Baños. And I first met him, I don't remember when, at the memorial at the submarine veterans have every year on Memorial Day, where they recognize all of the submarines that were lost during World War II. And so, and he was there. And you kind of think, well, why is somebody from the Army at a submarine event? But we will talk about that. But first, let's introduce Las Baños. So, aloha, thank you so much for coming. Nice to see you, Marcia, and you look bellisima, bellisima. See why I told you about having friends yet? I got to say it. Why we invite dear friends? Bellisima. So first, tell us about Las Baños. And you were a child when you went into World War II. So tell us about Las Baños and World War II. Well, first, let me say I'm so proud of my family because my mother was a five-star, gold-star mother. My five brothers were five brothers. We were all in the Army. And we fought in World War II, Korea, Vietnam. We were all in there. And my father was a Navy man. First World War. And my mother's father was fought against the American and the Spanish-American war. So now, you were here. You were born here in America? I was born here in Oahu. But your other family was in the Philippines? Yes. Oh, no, my brothers were all born here. We were all born here. Yeah, but your grandfather was in the Philippines in that horrible war. Early on. Against the Americans. Yeah, I know. But you know what the Americans call, you know, anyway, it was your war, the Filipino's war. So tell us about being in Oahu. You were born in Oahu? Well, I was born in Oahu. I grew up until we were fourth grade. And then we moved to Kauai. But my father, when he first came in the 1920s, he jerk-sold it on Chinatown and worked in a literate bar right next to Hawaii Theater. But during the day, he went to University of Hawaii Pineapple Institute and he became a technician in chemistry and pineapple. So every pineapple field has an experiment block. My dad was in charge of that. Oh, great. And many of us grew up, we helped dad pick up pineapple, big pineapple. That was how we grew up. So each pineapple is different? Pineapples are not just pineapples? Yes, but I think he was checking the amount of fertilizer and all those things. That's why they have an experiment block. So our days with our father was always working in the pineapple field. And it is tiring work, hard work. It is. So you were 16 when you went into World War II, is that correct? No, no. I was about 60. When war hit, they took our high school away on Kauai. And so we had to go to other schools, to other places for schools. But I went to work for U.S. ED, suckers every day. You know the songs, U.S. ED, suckers every day? That's us. So I was a timekeeper for all the vehicles that built Mana Airport. And Mana Airport on Kauai is now with the ballistic missiles going. I also ran a gunite machine which shoots cement to the tunnels that were built. And we did that. I was only 16 years old. Wow. So when we went back to school, well we had, and nights were blacked out. But so we all had our dances with army bands and boogie-woogie and all that. Jitterbug, we had afternoon dances. So that's how I grew up. And I spent a year at the University of Hawaii and then getting into the war, into the army. So let's talk about the war. You know, when I say the war, this young generation looks at me and said, what is the war? And so let's say that World War II is still the war. I grew up with every day with the war. You know, my father was in the war. Everybody's father was in the war. So tell us about the war so that young people understand what we're talking about. Well, World War II was a terrible era. And just recently, just recently, I saw a review of Nazi Germany taking over Czechoslovakia and the next one and the next one. And then they took Russia in the tight turn. So I saw movies of this. I saw the growth of Mussolini, Franco, and also the Japan with its navy and its experimentation of taking over in Asia. All that just a month ago, a review. And then the times that, the time when America got in. On the day, I'm going through my participation and my knowledge of World War II. I was a youngster about 17, 18, 17. And that morning when Pearl Harbor was hit, they hit Manila also. I was in the camp on Kauai, watching the young Filipina boys training their chickens for cock fighting. And I saw my kid brother and he said, hey, war, war! Over the radio came the news that Pearl Harbor was being attacked. That was our first knowledge of the war. And that was the beginning of my childhood, really, in a way. Because immediately after that, and one year in college at University of Hawaii, I went to battle. Where were you in battle? Well, we trained in Camp Roberts, California. In San Luis Obispo. Borded a train. The train took us to San Francisco Harbor. We got to Holandia. There we joined a convoy of ships with troops, material supplies going to Philippines. So you were, because for people that may not know, the same time that Pearl Harbor was bombed, Manila was bombed, Guam was bombed. Exactly the same time. But because of the time difference, it looks like, if you read the history books, it looks like a day difference, but it was exactly the same time. So you were part of the invasion? No, I came later. And this is where I'd like to say that the Filipinos say, when Pearl Harbor was hit, there were about 150,000 Filipinos who were in the States, working in fruit farms, hotels, houseboys to the movie stars, couldn't marry white girls, prejudiced against dismal life. It was. But when war hit, they wanted to join the army. They could not. So the old folks, the old Filipino fellows, were wise enough to invigorate President Roosevelt to sign an executive order, which he did. When he did, 3,000 Filipinos who were in the mainland showed up. MacArthur gets excited because these people knew the land, they knew the language. So he picked 500 of the cream of the crop of those who volunteered, 3,000, sent them to Australia, Trinitum, all the green beret, hand fighting, jungle fighting, armed them with radio skills. And he spread these people by submarines, snuck in secretly, and these MacArthur submarines, for the three years that MacArthur was away, he scattered these men along the 7,000 islands of the Filipino archipelago. And that's, we were part of the Australian coastal machine, coastal watch. And we're going to talk about MacArthur's Navy is what I call it now. I don't know what its real name was, but as we know, in fact, this is a very little story that I love, and because I'm going to tell it, that's how I met Las Baños. And it is, what am I going to say, a very special story, right? At the, every year, the submarine veterans, what they call sub-vets, have a memorial, on Memorial Day, and they recognize all 52 submarines that were lost in World War II. And so there's one, and it's gorgeous, gorgeous. If you ever, I don't know if anybody can get out there to see. The, do we have a picture of Las Baños at the, at the wall? At the funeral. Can you raise it just a little bit more, let me see if there's a picture. Is there a picture here? No, no, no, Ray, in the story here. Yeah, there we are. Anyway, Las Baños was there to place the lay on the plaque, and I kept wondering why we have army on a submarine. So the story goes, and this of course was in the 40s, and there was discrimination in the Navy, and all around. And so they were, despite being treated as second class citizens, they campaigned for the U.S. government to allow them to serve in the military. And the secret commandos of General MacArthur's battalion sent by submarines to act as spies behind the Japanese enemy lines. The Filipino soldiers became indispensable in taking the Philippines and winning the war in the Pacific. Let me tell you this, because of the discrimination, and in the Navy, the only one, Filipinos, blacks, Chinese, Chamorros, were all messmen. Cooks. They were cooks, and they served. Yes, messmen. Yes, messmen. It was their official rank. They served the officers. So as spies, they were dressed in messmen uniforms so that they could move in and off of the submarines, and they took money, information, all kinds of things in and out and in and out of the submarines. And it started in 1942 in Australia when the seven boys were dressed as messmen, and they boarded the grunion. Saluted the colors and proceeded quickly down the gangplank. The grunge and then slipped away from the dock and gently moved out to sea. So these messmen went for the whole time of the war, in and out, in and out, thoroughly disguised until the end of the war. And on the way back, after they had promised, like MacArthur said, I will return. And then, at the end, on the ship, on the seawolf, coming back home. Coming back home? Coming back. Oh, gosh. Coming back. And everybody's feeling like the war. Oh. And. Coming back. Coming back. Coming back. That's worse. It is. And then the ship, the submarine, was lost at sea. And so. There were 17 men. 17. From my outfit. Yeah. 17. Of the 3000, October 3, 1944. And it was carrying the 17 Filipino-American soldiers off Moritaro Island. It was inadvertently sunk by friendly fire. Friendly fire, yeah. All aboard were lost. So the names of the 17 soldiers are inscribed on the wall along with the crew of the seawolf. Now, some of them have not been identified. I mean, they all have been identified because the Navy keeps good records. Yes. But some of them, they're still family that haven't acknowledged. Yes. There's still some who are, we don't have pictures of. Well. But if you go to the, what is it? Oh, my gosh. Since the old ages. If you go to the, if you have siblings. Yes. Or family members who fought in World War II and were buried for you to get the ceremony of the bugle and the flag, you had to show your discharge paper to 14. That's valuable. And if your relatives are buried, any of the local senators here and in on the outside islands, I had a meeting with the association just last week and they have their 214. That 214 will verify they were, they were in World War II. Second, it will give the address of the, of the fellow who died. And hopefully the next of kin, you can take that and we can run it through the process and you can get a medical, the Congressional Medal of Cross. And that's what we're showing today. What we have here. And for those 17, they are included with the Navy. And at the museum, the Bofen, there is a file and it has all of them listed. And some of them still haven't been, their next of kin haven't sent pictures. We have to find them. And we have to find them. So we really want anybody who's, they think you can go to the Bofen or you can go to the Bofen online, www.BofenMuseum. And they're, they are, are listed. The Navy has done all they can to find them. Okay. Good. You, anyone, the Filipinos, if you're background Filipino and you know some relative was in World War II, this medal is waiting for you. This, can we, did we show the medal? This medal is, it's... Can we get a close-up of the medal? Congressional Medal of Honor. You want to flip it, if you want to. It's a beautiful medal. The original is in Smithsonian. This has a touch of bronze, but it's waiting for you as long as you get the proper information. Now, we are, we had one awarding and I was disappointed because for me, I was first sergeant to 300 local boys whose parents worked in a plantation. And all those 300, we are only five people left alive. The rest are dead. So I appealed to any Filipino family, if your boys and the ones I was in charge of, they were all 18, we were teenagers. Yes. Having a lucky love, dancing and all of that stuff. And what I was saddened when I got mine just on May 6th, when only eight of us got it and the rest are still, I don't, it's been in the papers, but they're not remembering whether their parents or relatives fought or not. So I appealed to the Filipino public hearing this, please respond. Remember where you put your family's body, go to that mortuary and you can get the 215, 214, the discharge paper and then they could begin the process. It's very important that you do that. And again, like I said, with the Bo-Finn Museum, they have everything and you may not know that your relative was on that submarine because it was so secret. Secret, yeah. So if you are Filipino, please, please go to the Bo-Finn Museum and they will help you because we need those people identified. I mean, the names are there, but we need the families too. Yes. Now these are families in the mainland. I mean, in the Philippines, but these are Filipinos. These are local Filipinos, some of them are local, some of them are mainland. Now I met Miss Joner when I went to one of these celebrations of the shift at town and I asked the admiral, could you, because he would give one chime. They ring the bell for every ship that's lost. Sure. So I said, in this case, Commander, can you give me, when you come to the Seawolf, can you give me 17 bells because we had 17 men on it? And the interesting thing when you mentioned about discrimination early on, well, most Filipinos and other colored groups were mess boys. So on the manifest, they carried men as stewards to hide their identity. So that's how I met Miss Joner. And ever since my buddies and I, we proudly and reverently attend their memorial every year. Every year. We need to take a break and we'll come right back and talk some more with our dear friend because he's got lots to tell us. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. And then we'll call the Delighted to visit with my dear friend, Domingo Las Bañas. And we've been talking about his time in World War II and the sailors, the soldiers who were in MacArthur's Navy, which were what we called, because they were on the submarine. Now tell us, since you have been out of the military and you've worked so hard with documentaries and all kinds of things to tell this story. So in the few time, little time we have left, tell us about your documentary. Okay. We have a documentary that took us five years to do, about $400,000, which gives the key battles that the First and Second Proprietary Infantry were involved in. But the three years that MacArthur was in, out the Philippines, all mission men were the only ones observing the Japanese, and life was hard and cruel and brutal and ugly. Those were the times when our people were doing secret mission. So when MacArthur came back after three years, all boys were the only ones and plus the people of the Philippines who were in, well they were the guerrillas and the Philippine scouts, they were the ones that helped MacArthur keep his promise to the people of the Philippines and America of I shall return. And return he did. When it came to summer and then began to come up the island chain and that's where we were, that's where I was as a scout, I was in combat. So we're happy, we're pleased that we can tell this story of the brilliant work of these Filipinas and guerrillas. See this medal is being issued to 260,000 Filipino soldiers from the Philippines and America. So how can we see the documentary? Okay, the documentary, we have that, you need to contact Mr. Manuel Izon. And it's, I don't have his address on my hand, but his name is Manuel Izon. And by the way, for this gold medal, we are going to plan another ceremony to award it to the proper people but we want to make the connections clear so that you, Filipino parents, please, or your necks of kin, get with it. Okay, now we have to go but tell us how they can reach you. Give us your phone number? Yes, my phone number is 497-1461. 497-1461. 808-497-1461. 1461. Okay, well, thank you, my dear. It has been a real pleasure to spend this time with you, especially for you to come this far to be with us. Yeah. And you will come back. Oh, anytime. Great. Because we must get this given to the proper people. Yes. So please, you Filipino residents, yeah. Give him a call. Take care. And let's make sure that everybody gets their medal. Thank you. Aloha.