The story of how Escape From Davao came to be published started, fatefully and appropriately enough, with Motts.
Motts – Mario Tonelli to those whom he did not know personally, which basically amounted to all of four people in the Greater Chicago area – was a late 1930s Notre Dame football player and pro with the NFL’s old Chicago Cardinals who had the misfortune of being sent to the Philippines to serve a stint in the U.S. Army in 1941. It was only supposed to have been a one-year hitch. Basic training. Army chow. Some drilling and lessons in physical training and military discipline, which he figured would prove useful when he went into coaching. Then an honorable discharge, a train back to Chicago, his new wife and football. But fate, as it always did, had other plans for Motts.
Yet Motts was not all that unlucky. In fact, quite the opposite. He credited his survival in World War II, the infamous Bataan Death March and more than three years as a prisoner of the Japanese due to an extraordinary combination of fate, faith, luck and incredible circumstances which I chronicled in a popular USA Today cover story nearly eight years ago.
What made that story – a tearsheet of which Tonelli later signed and now hangs, framed, in my office – unique was the fact that the sensational content by far surpassed anything one usually reads in the sports pages. And it had nothing to do with my writing ability. It was basically because Motts, as I came to understand during the brief period of our friendship, was much more than a former football player.
That friendship began on the day in June 2001 that I knocked on the door of Tonelli’s Skokie, Illinois home. While Tonelli’s special story was well-known in Notre Dame circles, it was virtually unknown outside the shadow of the Golden Dome. I wanted to bring it before a national audience. It was only due to the Notre Dame connection, the fact that we both shared the same alma mater – I graduated from Notre Dame in 1999; Motts was a member of the Class of 1939 – that I even set foot in his kitchen for an interview. Tonelli divulged to me that he was working on a book with a newspaper writer who evidently wanted to protect his story. I had a feeling that although Tonelli was a friendly, folksy old timer, no one had previously passed the threshold of his foyer. “The only reason I’m talking to you,” he said while beckoning me inside, “is because you went to Notre Dame, too.” So Motts Tonelli started talking to me. I had no idea that he would not stop talking until about a week before his death in January 2003.
The stories. There were, quite literally, hundreds of them. Of games. Of events. Of people. Tonelli wasn’t a name-dropper, but he couldn’t help it. Red Grange. Frank Sinatra. Dean Martin. Red Smith. George Halas. Joe Foss. Mickey Rooney. You name ‘em – movie stars, athletes, politicians, war heroes – Motts knew ‘em. The list went on and on. The guy had more friends than Will Rogers, more tales than Mark Twain. Yet anyone who spent a minute in his presence immediately understood why. Tonelli was warm, chatty, and charismatic, qualitieswhich served him well in his post-war, post-football career in Chicago politics. And he was real, genuine – perhaps the most honest politician in Chicago history.
Still, I found one of his stories to be a bit far-fetched: that a large group of American POWs had escaped from an Imperial Japanese Army prison camp in the Pacific Theater. Although a student of World War II history, I had never heard anything of the sort. It defied logic. Group escape was possible in Europe. I knew because there was proof. Steve McQueen and James Garner celluloid proof. Who hadn’t seen “The Great Escape?” Any group of men, with some civilian clothing, forged documents, skill and luck could conceivably reach friendly lines from even the most remote reaches of the Third Reich.
Tonelli’s tale of a purported Pacific escape, on the other hand, raised eyebrows and questions. How? When? Who? Where? Seriously, where could these guys have gone? Distances in the Pacific were unbelievably vast. The obstacles to freedom significantly more difficult to overcome. Any Japanese prison camp was likely deep in enemy-controlled territory. Territory blanketed by lush, malarial jungle and brimming with hostile wildlife, if not unfriendly natives. Territory that was most likely an island – an island also surrounded by the Japanese navy. “Believe me, it happened,” Tonelli said. “I was there. I knew these guys.”
Tonelli, as it turned out, was right. It did happen. He was there. And he knew the prime movers. I did some perfunctory digging on the Internet and in some old books and discovered that a group of ten American POWs, doomed remnants of the gallant defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, aided by two Filipinos, had indeed successfully escaped from a camp in the southern Philippines. More interestingly, I learned that the camp, the Davao Penal Colony, had been described as escape-proof and the escape story was at the time that it came to light perhaps the biggest of the war up until that point, the time period of late 1943 and early 1944. So why hadn’t I, or anyone else for that matter, ever heard of this escape? Why hadn’t there been any books written on it? Or movies made? Well, for one thing, there was no shortage of news from 1941-1945. The escape was naturally overshadowed by subsequent historic wartime events such as the Normandy invasion, the flag raising on Iwo Jima and the atomic bomb.
Even so, there remained a sad shortage of information on this scintillating subject, as well as surviving participants, which any historian knows is the key to opening a long-locked story. Although Tonelli was friends with several of the men – namely two Army Air Force pilots named Sam Grashio and Ed Dyess, and a former Tennessee football player and Marine Corps officer named Austin Shofner – none were still alive. But Tonelli seemed insistent that I not give up on the matter. There were others who I could talk to, he said. “Bert Bank’s in Alabama – he went to school with Bryant (as in the famed Crimson Tide coach known as “Bear;” everything came back to football with Motts) – he’ll tell you. He was there, too.” Bank, I would learn, was a good friend and fellow prisoner of Tonelli’s at “Dapecol.” And Tonelli remained in contact with Grashio’s widow, who lived in Spokane, Washington. Tonelli gave me Devonia Grashio’s phone number and instructed me to call her. Intrigued, but still not sold, I used the escape story and a brief blurb on Shofner in a sidebar that I filed with usatoday.com the same day that Tonelli’s USA Today feature hit newsstands. I filed Devonia Grashio’s number, as well as the story of the Dapecol escape, away.
In early September 2002, I met Tonelli on the campus of our alma mater to shoot a feature story on him for ESPN’s College GameDay show. Notre Dame was playing Michigan and this particular weekend was also the annual reunion of Leahy’s Lads, the group of former players who played for legendary Irish coach Frank Leahy. Although he had not played for Leahy, Tonelli was the center of attention during the festivities at the Varsity Club in Mishawaka. He received a distinguished alumni award from the Lads, as well as the lion’s share of attention at the Friday night banquet. He was surrounded by other, more famous names – Heisman Trophy winners, All-Americans, Super Bowl coaches, even Notre Dame’s famed president-emeritus, Fr. Ted Hesburgh – and yet people were crowding him for an autograph, for a handshake, or just for a word. It was during this weekend that I finally got to see the Motts mystique up close.
During the shuttle ride to campus on Saturday morning, Tonelli struck up a conversation with a stranger. No surprise there – Motts talked to everyone. The stranger, however, turned out to be the son of Notre Dame’s radio announcer in the 1930s. This man, when Tonelli revealed that he had played for Notre Dame during that time period, asked Tonelli if he knew the player who had scored the winning touchdown versus Southern Cal in 1937 and then survived the Bataan Death March. He had just read the story in USA Today and was mesmerized. Tonelli could not help but grin. At the stadium, Tonelli said that he had been invited to a tailgate and wanted to say hello to someone. That someone was none other than another famous Notre Dame survivor, Rocky Bleier, a Vietnam vet and key member of four Super Bowl championship teams with my hometown Pittsburgh Steelers! Later, I watched Tonelli flirt with Michigan coeds younger than myself. Then, while standing on the field near the tunnel during pre-game warm-ups, I saw legendary Los Angeles Dodgers’ manager Tommy Lasorda cut through the endzone – dodging some giant football players in the process – to shake Tonelli’s hand. It was all too mind-boggling. And yet these stories weren’t the best memories of the weekend.
Earlier that morning, word went out that my father, who had accompanied me to South Bend for the weekend, was in need of a game ticket. It was a big game – Notre Dame vs. Michigan usually is – and it was doubtful that I could get an extra press credential. But we needn’t have worried. After breakfast, someone from the Lads group handed my dad a ticket. “You’re Motts’s friend?” My dad nodded. “No charge.”
After we had finished eating, Tonelli signed some photos and old game programs for autograph hounds, as well as my last copy of the USA Today article. “Do me a favor and take these over to that guy,” Tonelli said, handing me the memorabilia. When I returned, I saw that he had taken advantage of my brief absence to settle our bill with the waitress. Here was a guy who had single-handedly defeated the Southern Cal Trojans, survived the Bataan Death March and knew Sinatra – translation: he had probably last bought a drink in 1945 – scheming to buy my breakfast.
It was only later, months in fact, that I took a long, inquisitive look at the inscription preceding his wobbly signature on my tearsheet – “Thanks for everything” – and understood. Motts had always known he had an incredible story, but was too unassuming to tell it himself. For all his talents, he was too humble to pursue publicity. He was a good, solid player at Notre Dame, but never a household name like those who could be considered his gridiron contemporaries, Berwanger, Baugh and others. And the war and the long years in prison camp had cheated him of his prime, of his physical skills, of his ability to make a living by playing the game he loved professionally. But because of me, he had finally become a household name in 2002. He was grateful, grateful for the fleeting fame that I had provided him, yet perhaps most grateful for the long-deserved attention that he and his Bataan buddies, many of whom had been buried for six decades, were finally receiving.
After we finished shooting some b-roll for the GameDay piece prior the game, the head usher, Cappy Gagnon, insisted that Tonelli stay and watch the game from field level. Two folding chairs were produced and Tonelli and I sat down on what were perhaps the two best seats in the house from which to watch a thrilling, back-and-forth contest. There was plenty of action in our endzone – which began to worry me. We were literally seated on the endline, directly below the crossbar of the goal post. There were several instances in which incomplete passes and even mouthguards bounced to our feet. The sound of the players’ cleats churning the turf that close to us resembled that of a stampede of buffalo. I envisioned an errant pass being thrown to the back of the endzone and several players crushing the frail 86-year-old man seated to my right. That was not the way I wanted the ESPN story to end. But Tonelli never flinched, never scooted his chair back an inch. Fearless. I knew he had won the bronze star for valor on Bataan, but whenever I inquired about the medal, Tonelli became elusive. He was immensely proud of his military service, but always hesitant of being labeled a hero.
During time outs, I asked him about his playing days, how this modern incarnation of football compared to the game he played. I asked what it felt like to run out of the tunnel behind us. I asked him about his time in prison camp, if there were times when he thought he might not live to see another football game again. I also asked him, for reasons I can’t remember, about that escape story he told me about, and why he didn’t go along with his friends. It was not for any lack of bravery on Tonelli’s part. “They didn’t invite me,” he said, matter-of-factly.
Motts and I kept in touch, speaking usually once a week throughout the last few months of his life. During this time period, many others had followed the path to his door that I had blazed, including CNN and Sports Illustrated. But Motts graciously invited them inside, too, despite his increasingly weak physical condition. Cancer was slowly eating away his stomach, trying to finish a job that the Japanese had started in late 1941. I had little idea of how seriously ill Motts really was during this time. That’s because he never complained. Complaining doesn’t do anyone any good, he told me. “If I tell you my troubles, you’ll tell me your troubles, then we’ll have double troubles,” he was fond of saying. Instead, he frequently changed the subject, often inquiring about my current projects. Although the USA Today story was probably the most important and noteworthy publishing achievement of my young career, he always seemed to have an interest in the Davao escape story, a sense that I was destined for bigger things. “Have you called Sam Grashio’s wife yet?” he would ask.
Finally, several weeks after Tonelli passed away, I called Devonia Grashio. To my wide-eyed surprise, she told me that yes, one of the Dapecol escapees was still alive: Jack Hawkins, a retired Marine colonel, lived in Virginia. I asked for Hawkins’s phone number. Though I was a complete stranger, she provided the information without hesitation. A recommendation from Motts was all that was needed, I guess.
Within no time, I was in touch with Hawkins, who delivered a bombshell of his own: he believed that Paul Marshall, one of the enlisted escapees, was still around, too. Sure enough, with Hawkins’s help, I tracked down Marshall just outside of Portland, Oregon. From there, the project began to snowball. Marshall relayed me to his best friend, the third and final surviving escapee, Bob Spielman. Not long after, I located Ed Dyess’s sister and a host of other relatives. Calls to archivists around the country revealed the discovery of a surprising amount of long-buried documentary evidence. I excitedly contacted my literary agent, Gail Ross, with whom I was developing another project, and it did not take us long to decide that we had something special on our hands.
The rest, as they say, is history. Seven years later, there’s a book. And this website. I look up at the framed USA Today tearsheet in my office. No, Motts – thank you for everything.