Corregidor's Doom

At Jutland she was a newfangled seaplane tender named Engadine. Now she was the Corregidor, a dumpy, inter-island steamer, and doom hung above her as she pulled away from the dock at Manila.

Aboard her were a few commercial men, headed south for stops in the Visayans and Mindanao, and a great many men, women and children who wanted only to leave Japanese-bombed Manila. Of the 860-odd passengers, hundreds had no tickets, had crowded aboard with only one thought: to get away.

Blacked out, she was led by a Navy launch toward the minefield sown in the harbor's mouth beyond Corregidor's forbidding heights. Somehow in the dark she ran past the launch. The warning shout from the launch was lost in a vast red explosion. The old Corregidor, her hull burst, settled in shark-ridden waters.

Of her passengers, some 500 died beyond the reach of Navy patrol boats that fearlessly whisked through the minefield.

Among the missing were two members of the Philippine Assembly, many another Filipino personally known to wispy President Manuel Quezon. Said he: "My heart goes out to the families of those who perished in this terrible accident, some of whom were dear personal friends who had rendered signal public service."

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