|
 Callaghan had other things on his mind, however. He was
determined to find his aunt and uncle, Sam and Cecilia Ladic, and
their three young daughters who were imprisoned somewhere in a
cluster of prison camps north of the Pasig River.
Before the war, Sam Ladic had managed a gold mine in northern Luzon,
but the family was captured by the Japanese in December 1941 as they
marched down Luzon Island toward the Bataan peninsula and Manila.
Since their capture, the entire Ladic family had lived a nightmare
existence.
Now three years later, the reports were that the Ladics, together
with hundreds of civilian prisoners as well 300 survivors of the
Bataan Death March, were imprisoned in the notorious Bilibid prison,
just two miles north of where Callaghan’s unit was bridging the
Pasig River.
That bridge gave the Americans access into the heart of Manila’s
governmental sector, where a Japanese garrison was ready to defend
the city to the last man. Once the bridge was completed, Callaghan
pestered his commander for permission to search for his relatives.
 “He gave me permission after a while,” recalled Francis during an
oral history interview over 70 years later, “and then he said, I
think you’re crazy. There’s still fighting going on!”
He left anyway, working his way north through the deserted streets
of the city, past dead bodies and the debris of battle, along
streets still infested with Japanese snipers.
There were no signs of Japanese guards when Callaghan reached
Bilibid Prison. They had fled when an American armored unit moved
through the area. There was also no sign of American troops, who had
bypassed the prison in pursuit of the Japanese.
What Callaghan saw first at Bilibid were the Bataan Death March
survivors in an enclosure built more like a lion’s cage than a
prison cell. They were little more than skin and bones. “They
reached through the wire fence and wanted to shake my hand, and
wanted cigarettes and candy,” said Francis. When he asked about Sam
and his family, someone pointed him in the right direction. Francis
soon found his uncle.
“I said ‘Francis Callaghan from Chicago,’” he wrote in a letter
to his mother later that month. “Boy, he just hugged me all over.
Who was behind him but his three daughters dressed in bright yellow
dress(es) and beautiful blonde hair.”
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The oldest of the Ladic girls, 12-year-old Mary Ann (Koucky), still
remembers the horrors of Bilibid Prison, the awful stench of the
makeshift graveyard where the Bataan boys who died were hastily
buried, and the gnawing hunger that was her constant companion. She
especially remembers the camp’s liberation.
“Oh, it was exciting!” she said in her 2016 oral history interview.
“We heard the rumble of tanks coming.” Then one of the prisoners
called out, “Those are tanks coming. They’re Americans!”
Even though the tankers did not stop at the prison, the next morning
the Japanese guards were gone. That’s when Francis arrived at the
camp and found Sam and the girls. Cecilia, Mary Ann’s mother, was in
an adjacent camp, near death from a severe case of amebic dysentery.
The Americans’ timely arrival saved her life.
After returning from the war, Francis went on to run a successful
brick and stone contracting business in the Chicago area. Mary Ann
came of age in Taylorville, attended Loyola University for a couple
of years, then left to get married in 1954. Seventeen years and nine
children later she finally earned her college degree from Millikin
University, then went on to a rewarding career as a teacher,
administrator, and eventually a financial consultant.
Some 70 years later, a unique bond unites Francis with his cousin
Mary Ann. Although he now lives in LaGrange and Mary Ann lives in
Decatur, they still keep in touch.
Mark DePue is the Director of Oral History at the Abraham Lincoln
Presidential Library. You can listen to both Francis Callaghan’s and
Mary Ann Koucky’s version of their amazing story at the program’s
web site at www.oralhistory.illinois.gov.
[Illinois Historic Preservation
Agency] |
