PORT TOWNSEND — Sixty years after his battalion raided a brutal Japanese prisoner of war camp and rescued more than 500 Americans, a Port Townsend man is reliving the experience through the release of a new movie.
The daring rescue mission has permanently fixed Robert Prince’s name in history.
The rescue mission has been chronicled in at least two books and a 2005 Miramax release, “The Great Raid.”
Directed by John Dahl, the film is based on William Breuer’s book “The Great Raid: Rescuing the Doomed Ghosts of Bataan and Corregidor” and Hampton Sides’ “Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II’s Greatest Rescue Mission.”
Both books describe the 6th Army Ranger Battalion’s 1945 mission.
“It’s amazing to have it come back as the same story,” Prince said Friday.
“I am getting a little more attention than I deserve.”
Prince’s character, played by James Franco, serves as narrator of the film, which opened nationwide last weekend.
It is currently playing at seven theaters in the Seattle area, but not at any Peninsula movie theaters.
Prince also served as a consultant on the film, seeing parts of it during production and judging the scenes for their historical accuracy. He has a copy of the film on DVD.
Time after time, Prince, 85, has retold the story with clarity and calm detail.
On Jan. 30, 1945, Prince’s battalion prepared for a rescue raid behind enemy lines on Luzon Island about 50 miles north of Manila, Philippines.
Their objective was to free more than 500 U.S. prisoners housed in a barbed-wire compound, where they were tortured and starved.
“The command was quite concerned about American POWs because on nearby Palawan Island, the Japanese had killed 150 prisoners,” Price said about the December 1944 atrocity.
At the time, 25-year-old Capt. Prince was second in command with the battalion containing 110 Army Rangers led by Lt. Col. Henry Mucci.
“Our mission was to march 25 miles behind the front lines to the camp, kill the guards and free the POWs,” Prince said.
“Over the four-day period, we accomplished it with the help of Filipino civilians and Filipino guerrillas.”
