Death March or the conditions in the camp. With the limited Japanese guard, a small group of prisoners had already decided that they would make an escape attempt at about 20:00. Prisoner rescue At 17:00, a few hours after Mucci approved Prince's plan, the Rangers departed from Platero. White cloths were tied around their left arms to prevent friendly fire casualties. They crossed the Pampanga River and then, at 17:45, Prince and Murphy's men parted ways to surround the camp. Pajota, Joson, and their guerrilla forces each headed to their ambush sites. The Rangers under Prince made their way to the main gate and stopped about from the camp to wait for nightfall and the aircraft distraction. Meanwhile, a P-61 Black Widow from the 547th Night Fighter Squadron, named Hard to Get, had taken off at 18:00, piloted by Capt. Kenneth Schrieber and 1st Lt. Bonnie Rucks. About 45 minutes before the attack, Schrieber cut the power to the left engine at over the camp. He restarted it, creating a loud backfire, and repeated the procedure twice more, losing altitude to . Pretending that his plane was crippled, Schrieber headed toward low hills, clearing them by a mere . To the Japanese observers, it seemed the plane had crashed and they watched, waiting for a fiery explosion. Schrieber repeated this several times while also performing various aerobatic maneuvers. The ruse continued for twenty minutes, creating a diversion for the Rangers inching their way toward the camp on their bellies. Prince later commended the pilots' actions: "The idea of an aerial decoy was a little unusual and honestly, I didn't think it would work, not in a million years. But the pilot's maneuvers were so skillful and deceptive that the diversion was complete. I don't know where we would have been without it." As the plane buzzed the camp, Lt. Carlos Tombo and his guerrillas along with a small number of Rangers cut the camp's telephone lines to prevent communication with the large force stationed in Cabanatuan. At 19:40, the whole prison compound erupted into small arms fire when Murphy and his men fired on the guard towers and barracks. Within the first fifteen seconds, all of the camp's guard towers and pillboxes were targeted and destroyed. Sgt. Ted Richardson rushed to shoot a padlock off of the main gate using his .45 pistol. The Rangers at the main gate maneuvered