<p>
Iron Birds fill the sky</p>
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When clouds are red;</p>
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In the grass I lie</p>
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Dying amid the dead;</p>
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-Iron Birds flying</p>
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Through the Red Sky</p>
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Over the dying.</p>
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Where I, too, die;—</p>
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Iron Birds scream and soar-</p>
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War-birds bom of wars.</p>
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THOSE WORDS WRITTEN by Louis Nathaniel Dosh when he was still only 17 and just before he entered the Academy now seem prophetic of his own death.</p>
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Ironically, the “Iron Birds" which cost the life of Captain Dosh were U.S. bombers.</p>
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Captain Dosh and the other U.S. prisoners of war were aboard an unmarked Japanese cavalry boat that was en route from the Philippines to a work camp on the island of Honshu. Captain Dosh and his brave little band of guerrillas had escaped the “hell” of Bataan and Corregidor only to meet tragic fate at the bombs of U.S. planes unaware of the real nature of their target.</p>
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After the Japanese bombing of Manila, Captain Dosh and a small contingent of mixed U.S. troops of the 57th Infantry and Filipino Scouts escaped to the hills near Luzon, where stores had been cached, and lived and fought in the hills for three years after 7 December 1941, the “Day of Infamy.”</p>
<p>
It was ironic, too, that the last letter received from Captain Dosh by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Nathaniel Dosh Sr., of Ocala, Florida, was dated 6 March 1942 and datelined “In The Field.” The letter had been censored but the envelope bore this significant wording: “Service Mail; Postage Not Available.”</p>
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“We have plenty of food, plenty sleep, and plenty work,” Captain Dosh wrote in part. “I was going to say plenty of Jap bombers, too, but something has happened...lately. They must need most of their bombers somewhere else.</p>
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"I'm very proud of my company. After every engagement some of my boys come away with medals for gallant and courageous conduct. It has proved to everyone that the Filipino Scout is a courageous and fierce fighter.”</p>
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During the three years in the hills above Luzon, Captain Dosh kept the morale of his men high with his singing and his endless repertoire of songs, from "Benny Havens” to light opera. With his Episcopal “Book of Common Prayer,” Captain Dosh conducted devotional services for the men, and buried the dead.</p>
<p>
While Captain Dosh and his comrades were fighting in the hills above Luzon, their only contact with the outside world was through a Filipino nurse, Lt. Hipolita San Jose, who smuggled medicines, supplies, and notes to the U.S. Filipino guerrillas, catching them in a special remote hiding place. Affectionately called “Ding” by the guerrillas, the nurse had been commissioned in the field after leaving her teaching post when the Japanese occupied the islands. She was promoted to first lieutenant because of her valiant work with the guerrillas and the underground.</p>
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The last communication to “Ding" from Captain Dosh, acknowledging a letter from her and requesting certain additional supplies, was dated 23 August 1943. This letter was given to Chaplain Henry McDonnell who forwarded it to the family.</p>
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“I receive twenty pesos (SI0.00) per month,” wrote Captain Dosh. “I buy fruit and tobacco. All our gang are in good health.”</p>
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The last communication regarding Captain Dosh, written by Chaplain McDonnell to Mrs. Louis N. (Betty) Dosh, contained information that the last contact with Captain Dosh was in early December 1944, when a leader in the underground saw him near the Manila city hall in a contingent of prisoners being marched to board a ship believed bound for Japan. Chaplain McDonnell said Captain Dosh made the “V” sign but could not speak.</p>
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Later information reported this ship was bombed as it left the harbor, and the prisoners were returned to Manila and herded on a tennis court under heavy guard. Later, they were herded onto the cavalry boat, which had no markings, and it was bombed at sea. There were some 1,616 prisoners aboard the ship. All but 942 survived. The survivors were transported to the Honshu prison camp.</p>
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Before his capture, Captain Dosh placed his West Point ring and other personal effects in the secret cache. These were found by another Filipino nurse and forwarded to his family.</p>
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Captain Dosh was promoted to the rank of major in the field, but the orders never were received and registered by the military authorities. He was sent to the Philippines in 1939, after his first tour of duty at Fort Scriven, Georgia, following graduation in 1938.</p>
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In a letter to his sister in Chattanooga, Tennessee, dated 23 November 1941, and received a week or so after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Captain Dosh reported that “we are expecting an enemy attack at any time, and it probably will come at Lingayen Bay.” The Japanese did attack, but first from the air and then arrived in Lingayen with their fleet.</p>
<p>
Captain Dosh was graduated from Ocala, Florida, High School, only a block from his home, in 1932, when he was still 16. Already possessing an appointment to the Academy, he attended Stanton-on-the-Hudson military preparatory school before reaching West Point in the summer of 1934. His ambitions were to be an operatic singer and writer, not a soldier. His rich baritone voice was trained largely by his mother, a piano teacher. He also played several band instruments.</p>
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At the Academy, he was a member of the Cadet Choir all four years and the Glee Club two years. He was an accomplished thespian and a member of the Cadet Players all four years. He was rated a pistol sharpshooter.</p>
<p>
The 1938 HOWITZER gave this profile of Captain Dosh, written by his roommate and art editor of the 1937-38 “Pointer," retired Lt. Col. Edward Walter Jacunski, now Dean of Engineering at University of Florida:</p>
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“Louie hit West Point with a pillow under his arm and two ambitions in mind. One was to get his lessons each night and go to sleep early...Good books and good music pleased him as much as shining and polishing for S. I. irritated him. Although he was a member of the choir and glee club, and a devotee of the opera, his incessant warbling was never fully appreciated by the lovers of peace and solitude in his division. He wanted the doughboys, and his choice was not contested by the Academic Department or the Tactical Department, which employed a good many of his hours with practice marches and maneuvers about the clock area.”</p>
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How true. On 9 June 1938, on the afternoon before graduation, there was Louis walking off accumulated demerits in the “bull ring." On Graduation Day, Louie was married to the former Betty Bloxsom of Boston in the Chapel. <em>Life</em> magazine covered the wedding, devoting the cover of its 4 July 1938 edition and three inside pages to the event.</p>
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Numerous honors came to Captain Dosh after his death. Perhaps the one that would have pleased him most was the commissioning of the victory ship S. S. Ocala, named for his hometown and in his honor. It was christened in December 1944, by his wife Betty.</p>
<p>
Captain Dosh had two other brothers to graduate from West Point: Robert Nathaniel Dosh Jr., Lt. Col., USAF, Retired (Class of 1946), and Laurance Condon Dosh, Captain, USAR (Class of 1950). A third brother, Sidney Perry Dosh, served in the U. S. Army with the “Checkerboard Division” (99th Infantry Division) in Europe during World War II.</p>
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Captain Dosh was a communicant of Grace Episcopal Church, Ocala, where he served many church on the occasion of his mother and father's fiftieth wedding anniversary, the Rev. Maurice M. Benitez (Class of 1949) read these lines from an ode to Captain Dosh titled, "Fortier in re Suaviter in Modo”:</p>
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Facile princeps, his valiant, living memory, Among the green vales and everlasting rocks, Is etched on proudest scroll: Fama semper vivat.</p>
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As from the Distance that tolerates no doom, We hear his lively voice, resonant with eclat, Calling clear with Holy Promise: “Adsum...Adsum!”</p>
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<em>—The Family</em></p>