Manila, Philippines ? Martin and Gracia Burnhams, a missionary couple with modest tastes, decided to splurge for their 18th wedding anniversary and travel to an exclusive island resort in the southern Philippines.

The vacation went horribly wrong as kidnappers stormed the resort and rounded up guests to take as hostages.

A year-long ordeal followed: hundreds of nights unprotected in steamy jungles, a diet of mainly rice, death threats from the Muslim extremist captors – and finally, a gunbattle that killed Martin.

Gracia, 43, was shot in the leg but rescued Friday when elite Philippine troops ambushed her captors. Martin, 42, was fatally shot during the rescue effort along with Ediborah Yap, a Filipino nurse also held for more than a year.

The Burnhams, of Wichita, Kan., were kidnapped on May 27, 2001, along with 18 other people – including Guillermo Sobero of Corona, Calif. – during a pre-dawn raid on a coastal resort on Palawan Island where they were spending their anniversary.

Their abductors’ speedboat easily outran the Philippine navy in a five-day chase across the Sulu Sea to the southern island of Basilan, a guerrilla base.

The captives were burnt by the tropical sun, then savaged by mosquitos as they stumbled blindly through ink-black jungle. They repeatedly ducked and cringed under incoming fire, underfed and exhausted.

“We had no light and were only wearing slippers and the children kept on slipping,” said Reghis Romero, a construction magnate who was among the hostages who escaped last June. “When we reached a coconut frond hut, we slept there, but only a few hours because there were so many mosquitos and centipedes.”

The Burnhams’ three children – Jeff, 15, Mindy, 12, and Zach, 11 – then felt confident their parents would be released soon.

“I remember thinking, ‘Why would anyone want to take my parents?'” Mindy said recently. “We thought they’d be right back.”

What followed was months of clashes and mad dashes to avoid capture.

On one occasion, a military patrol spotted the group and fired on the guerrillas. Last June, the rebels holed up in a hospital – and captured Yap, among others – as hundreds of government troops blasted away with mortars and helicopter gunships fired rockets.

But after each military assault, the rebels managed to escape.

As months passed, they beheaded several hostages, including Sobero. Others escaped or were released, some reportedly for ransom.

Edwin Reseroni, a tractor driver who was abducted by the Abu Sayyaf last week to act as a guide and escaped during the raid, said the Burnhams were slipping and sliding in the muddy jungle in their final days as hostages.

He said the Burnhams and their captors were apparently unaware that 600 soldiers were close by in the jungles of the southern province of Zamboanga del Norte.

Their last meal was uncooked rice and they spent the last hours before the raid in a hammock inside a tent, sheltered from tropical rain, as soldiers crept up to within 30 yards away and opened fire on their captors, sparking the fatal shootout.

U.S. troops helped plan the mission, which Filipino soldiers carried out with help from U.S. satellite technology and surveillance equipment.

As part of the U.S. campaign against terror, hundreds of American soldiers are training Philippine troops in an effort to wipe out Abu Sayyaf, an al-Qaida-linked group that says it wants an independent Muslim state in the southern Philippines.

Other former captives held along with the Burnhams said the Americans’ strong religious faith supported them through their 367 days in captivity.

Every time Philippine troops attacked the Burnhams’ captors, “Martin would grab Gracia by the hand as they ran for cover,” said Reina Malonzo, a nurse who was released after five months of captivity.

“He would never let go,” she said, “even if his other hand was being pulled and strained by a rebel guard chained to him.”