to bring the guard barracks and officer quarters under fire, while the ones at the rear eliminated the enemy near the prisoners' huts and then proceeded with the evacuation. A bazooka team from F Company ran up the main road to a tin shack which the Scouts had told Mucci held tanks. Although Japanese soldiers attempted to escape with two trucks, the team was able to destroy the trucks and then the shack. At the beginning of the gunfire, many of the prisoners thought that it was the Japanese beginning to massacre them. One prisoner stated that the attack sounded like "whistling slugs, Roman candles, and flaming meteors sailing over our heads." Prisoners immediately hid in their shacks, latrines, and irrigation ditches. When the Rangers yelled to the POWs to come out and be rescued, many of the POWs feared that it was the Japanese attempting to trick them into being killed. Also, a substantial number resisted because the Rangers' weapons and uniforms looked nothing like those of a few years earlier; for example, the Rangers wore caps, earlier soldiers had M1917 Helmets and coincidentally, the Japanese also wore caps. The Rangers were challenged by the POWs and asked who they were and where they were from. Rangers sometimes had to resort to physical force to remove the detainees, throwing or kicking them out. Some of the POWs weighed so little due to illness and malnourishment that several Rangers carried two men on their backs. Once out of the barracks, they were told by the Rangers to proceed to the main, or front gate. Prisoners were disoriented because the "main gate" meant the entrance to the American side of the camp. POWs collided with each other in the confusion but were eventually led out by the Rangers. A lone Japanese soldier was able to fire off three mortar rounds toward the main gate. Although members of F Company quickly located the soldier and killed him, several Rangers, Scouts, and POWs were wounded in the attack. Battalion surgeon Capt. James Fisher was mortally injured in the stomach and was carried to the nearby village of Balincari. Scout Alfred Alfonso had a shrapnel wound to his abdomen. Scout Lt. Tom Rounsaville and Ranger Pvt. 1st Class Jack Peters were also wounded by the barrage. A few seconds after Pajota and his men heard Murphy fire the first shot, they fired on the