It’s late December 1941–the first fortnight of the U.S.’s involvement in the Second World War. You’re a 21-year old tank platoon commander. Just four weeks earlier, you and your men arrived in the Philippines. When you arrived, complacency ruled. American military members concerned themselves more with nightlife and parties than fighting the Japanese. Now a short month later, you’re at war. The Japanese have landed and are bearing down on your position as American and Filipino forces withdraw all around. Your whole tank company unit is running out of fuel. Someone needs to stop–or at least slow down–the advancing Japanese to facilitate the withdrawal. Your commanding officer informs higher echelon commanders that his company will pool its remaining fuel and that you will be taking your platoon of five tanks into the Japanese force’s teeth to buy the main body more time.

Such was the position Ben Morin of Maywood, Illinois found himself in on December 22, 1941. A child of the Great Depression, Morin enlisted in the Army as a high school senior in 1938. By late ’41, he had been selected as an officer and given command his platoon. On December 22 of that year, Morin’s tank platoon support a mounted–yes, mounted–scout U.S. cavalry unit. As detailed in the book Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and its Aftermath, the cavalry unit bravely “moved their mounts in to a position to attack . . . enemy tanks on the other side of a river.” (1) The tankers offered to take up the attack for the cavalrymen, but the officer in charge demurred. “Get your damn tanks out of the way,” he said, “they are scaring my horses.”

Predictably, this plan failed. As they attacked, the “Japanese … [tore] the American and Filipino horsemen apart with their tank cannon and automatic weapons.” After this “slaughter,” the tankers moved forward. Because of their lack of fuel, only Morin’s platoon–out of the dozens of available tanks–could make the attack. Five tanks against an entire enemy column and thousands of infantry.

It is here Morin showed his mettle as a man and combat leader. In his book The Doomed Horse Soldiers of Bataan, Raymond G. Woolfe, Jr. writes that upon receipt of this mission–“a mission [normally] assigned for a tank regiment, not a platoon”–Morin “accepted his commander’s orders without comment or question” and returned to his men. (2) Back to Tears in the Darkness, authors Michael and Elizabeth Norman continue the story. Morin–and this is what initially attracted me to this story–“positioned his command tank ahead of the others to set the example.”

Morin “knew his men were afraid, and nothing he could say would allay their doubts or lessen their dread.” So instead of haranguing the troops and melting away to the rear like so many ineffective combat officers throughout history, Morin made a decision to “take the lead–give them someone to follow.” And his tankers followed him. The platoon moved toward the enemy and away from friendly forces withdrawing in the opposite direction. “Morin looked on his mission as a kind of last ditch effort to stem the Japanese advance . . . five tanks against a battalion–perhaps even a regiment–of the enemy.” The platoon “rolled forward, unprotected.” “Then, all at once, the enemy found them. Shells slammed into the American columns and ripped through the tanks like a knife through butter.”

His tank’s front hatch took a direct hit leaving his crew completely vulnerable to the Japanese fire. A Japanese tank then rammed Morin’s command tank before backing off to set up a kill shot. Unable to maneuver the immobile tank after the collision, Morin jumped out of his position to both assess the damage and try to repair the tank. Seeing the tank engulfed by flames and recognizing their inability to continue fighting, Morin turned his attention to rescue. The other four tanks in his platoon were retreating and too far away. “In an instant, the enemy was upon them.” Morin recognized reality and surrendered. He felt disgraced. The Japanese forced Morin and his men onto their knees and placed pistols against each man’s head. Seeing no remorse in his captors’ eyes, Ben Morin began his final prayer. “Hail Mary,” he said, “full of grace, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

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A 2015 obituary attempts to sum up a life in a few short paragraphs. The obituary fails. They all do. A Catholic priest died, it says. A member of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). The Jesuit had spent 38 years as a missionary in Peru. The priest wrote before his death that “Peru is my second country, only less dear to me than the United States.” The United States was so dear to this priest that he gave over three years of his life to the country as a prisoner of war in the harsh conditions of Japanese prison camps.

From the obituary:

“[The priest] was beaten, tortured and starved in Japanese POW camps for almost all of World War II, but he was not ruined by his ordeal.

It took a long time, but [the priest] forgave his captors, a shift that made him feel renewed. After his post-war return to his hometown . . . —where he ran up the front porch and swept his crying mother off her feet–he thought of the priests who ministered tenderly to Allied soldiers in the camps. One “said he’d be content to spend the rest of his life there,” he recalled. “He [said he] was very happy in that prison camp because ‘This is where God wants me. Providence has kept me here.’ He was content to be there and to die there.” Inspired by those chaplains, he joined the Jesuits less than a year after his liberation. . . . He went on to serve as a priest in Arequipa, Peru [where he] journeyed deep into the Andean Mountains to say mass by candlelight in primitive towns.”

By now I’m sure you understand, but in case you don’t, the obituary continued:

Rev. Morin, the first U.S. tank commander to engage enemy forces in World War II — and the last surviving officer of the National Guard’s 192nd Battalion — died on April 23 in Clarkston, Michigan, at the Columbiere home for senior Jesuits. He was 94. (4)

 

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In a post attributed to Fr. Morin, he felt the mission succeeded. In describing his capture, he explained:

“We were completely at the tender mercy of the Japanese. Our morale was high because we knew that we had done our best against very heavy odds. I had completed my mission. I had personally led the first U.S. tank attack of WWII, and although I had not stopped the Japs, I had slowed them down. The other four tanks of my platoon had succeeded in returning to our lines.” (3)

Tears in the Darkness authors Michael and Elizabeth Norman ask what could have motivated Morin to accept sure defeat and nearly certain death in an effort give the greater U.S. forces longer to withdraw and prepare for their ultimate defense.

“Ben Morin was a religious man, the son of Roman Catholics. His faith steadied him. “

 

*Note that I am not a historian, and perfect historical accuracy is not the goal of this site. Here are some rough citations to the primary materials for those who wish to dig into these stories more. (1) Elizabeth and Michael Norman: Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and its Aftermath; (2) Raymond G. Woolfe, Jr.: The Doomed Horse Soldiers of Bataan; (3) http://heurisko.org/uncle.html (I encourage everyone to read this site as it appears to be Father Morin’s personal account of some of these events); (4) https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/rev-benjamin-ben-r-morin-soldier-who-survived-japanese-pow-camps-dead-at-94/