How to Hide an Empire

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How to Hide an Empire Page 53

by Daniel Immerwahr

31 “to erase”: Ibid.

  32 “This war is not”: Quezon to Roosevelt, January 28, 1942, in World War II and the Japanese Occupation, ed. Ricardo Trota Jose (Quezon City, 2006), 79. Quezon describes the interchange in The Good Fight (New York, 1946), 259–74.

  33 “While enjoying security”: Douglas MacArthur to George Marshall, February 8, 1942, FRUS 1942, 1:894.

  34 Quezon demanded immediate independence: Ibid.

  35 “the temper of the Filipinos”: Ibid., 1:896.

  36 “You have no authority”: L. T. Gerow to Douglas MacArthur, February 11, 1942, FRUS 1942, 1:900.

  37 “So long as the flag”: George Marshall to Douglas MacArthur, February 9, 1942, FRUS 1942, 1:898.

  38 “Germany first” strategy: Louis Morton, “Germany First: The Basic Concept of Allied Strategy in World War II,” in Kent Greenfield, ed., Command Decisions (Washington, DC, 1959), 11–47.

  39 “There are times”: Manchester, American Caesar, 241.

  40 “Guess what I learned”: Mellnik, Philippine Diary, 116.

  41 secret spot: John G. Hubbell, “The Great Manila Bay Silver Operation,” Reader’s Digest, April 1959, 123–34.

  42 half a million dollars: Carol Morris Petillo, “Douglas MacArthur and Manuel Quezon: A Note on an Imperial Bond,” Pacific Historical Review 48 (1979): 110–17.

  43 “We’re the battling bastards”: Jonathan Wainwright, General Wainwright’s Story (Garden City, NY, 1946), 54.

  44 “The Americans, rulers and idols”: Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, A Question of Identity: Selected Essays (Manila, 1973), 202.

  45 “gallantry and intrepidity”: James, Years of MacArthur, 2:132.

  46 “All the people” … “I’ve never wanted”: Hersey, Men on Bataan, 4, 5.

  47 bestseller list: www.booksofthecentury.com.

  48 highest directorial salary: Camilla Fojas, Islands of Empire: Pop Culture and U.S. Power (Austin, TX, 2014), 39. On Philippine World War II films, see Fojas, Islands of Empire, chap. 1, and Charles Affron and Mirella Jona Affron, Best Years: Going to the Movies, 1945–46 (New Brunswick, NJ, 2009), chap. 4.

  49 466 towns and cities: Carlos P. Romulo, My Brother Americans (Garden City, NY, 1945), 21.

  50 “Filamericans”: Romulo, Fall of the Philippines, 217–18.

  51 “How I wished,” etc.: Carlos P. Romulo, Mother America: A Living Story of Democracy (Garden City, NY, 1943), 1.

  52 “thirty-six thousand” … “trapped like rats”: They Were Expendable, dir. John Ford (MGM, 1945).

  53 Filipinos served largely: A notable exception is Back to Bataan (1945), written and directed by two leftists later blacklisted for their politics. Though it focuses on a white colonel (John Wayne), it features numerous Filipino characters. However, the film was completed after the U.S. reconquest of the Philippines and so did nothing to stir up support for a military rescue.

  54 His idea was to play: Michael P. Onorato, ed., Origins of the Philippine Republic: Extracts from the Diaries and Records of Francis Burton Harrison (Ithaca, NY, 1974), 203.

  55 “shocked and horrified”: Frank S. Adams, “Visitor from Bataan,” NYT, June 24, 1945.

  56 “crowded with little Neros”: Romulo, My Brother Americans, 8.

  57 pouring sake: Virginia Benitez Licuanan, Filipinos and Americans: A Love-Hate Relationship (Baguio, 1982), 145.

  58 MacArthur’s penthouse: Richard Connaughton, John Pimlott, and Duncan Anderson, The Battle for Manila (London, 1995), 46.

  59 Leonard Wood Hotel: A.V.H. Hartendorp, The Japanese Occupation of the Philippines (Manila, 1967), 1:481.

  60 One idea was to name: Manuel E. Buenafe, Wartime Philippines (Manila, 1950), 172.

  61 now commemorated: Pronouncement of Jorge Vargas, 1942, in Jose, World War II and the Japanese Occupation, 122.

  62 Quezon had languished: Quezon, Good Fight, 83.

  63 Romulo remembered how … “I made up”: Romulo, Fall of the Philippines, 48.

  64 “a sense of betrayal” … “No change”: Romulo, Mother America, 92, 96.

  65 “America has wasted”: Propaganda Corps, Imperial Japanese Forces, Significance of Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (Manila, n.d.), 4. See also America: A Revelation of Her True Character (Manila, n.d.). Both in AHC.

  66 “morally unassailable”: Carlos Romulo, “Asia Must Be Free,” Collier’s, October 20, 1945, 11.

  67 “in the past”: Gerald Horne, Race War: White Supremacy and the Japanese Attack on the British Empire (New York, 2004), 36.

  68 “whole native land”: First Proclamation, January 3, 1942, Proclamations of the Commander-in-Chief, Japanese Expeditionary Forces (Manila, 1942), in AHC.

  69 seventeen acts … “against the interests”: Seventh Proclamation, January 14, 1942, in ibid.

  70 “It was as if”: Eliseo Quirino, A Day to Remember (Manila, 1958), 79.

  71 “Every day on my way”: Marcial P. Lichauco, “Dear Mother Putnam”: A Diary of the War in the Philippines ([Manila], 1949), 26.

  72 Japan’s access: A fine overview is Jonathan Marshall, To Have and Have Not: Southeast Asian Raw Materials and the Origins of the Pacific War (Berkeley, CA, 1995).

  73 “The Japanese swarmed”: Hartendorp, Japanese Occupation, 1:191.

  74 scoured the city: Quirino, Day to Remember, 138–39.

  75 tearing down empty gas stations: Lichauco, Mother Putnam, 158.

  76 Jungle University … currency board: Earl Jude Paul L. Cleope, Bandit Zone: A History of the Free Areas of Negros Island During the Japanese Occupation, 1942–1945 (Manila, 2002), 64, 79.

  77 repressive techniques: Quirino, Day to Remember, 67; Lichauco, Mother Putnam, 120; and Joan Orendain, “Children of War,” in Under Japanese Rule: Memories and Reflections, ed. Renato Constantino (Quezon City, 1993), 112, 116.

  78 reconcentration zones: Described in Cleope, Bandit Zone. A more common spatial technique was “zonification,” in which the Japanese military would lock down an area until everyone in it was screened by informants and declared loyal or not.

  79 half a million: Reynaldo C. Ileto, “Wars with the U.S. and Japan, and the Politics of History in the Philippines,” in The Philippines and Japan in America’s Shadow, ed. Kiichi Fujiwara and Yoshiko Nagano (Singapore, 2011), 48.

  80 “The applause” … “irrepressible satisfaction”: Antonio M. Molina, Dusk and Dawn in the Philippines: Memoirs of a Living Witness of World War II (Quezon City, 1996), 153.

  81 His father had died: With Japan’s encouragement, wartime Filipinos articulated the suppressed trauma of U.S. colonial violence. On this, see Reynaldo C. Ileto, “World War II: Transient and Enduring Legacies for the Philippines,” in Legacies of World War II in South and East Asia, ed. David Koh Wee Hock (Singapore, 2007), 74–91, and Ileto, “Wars with the U.S. and Japan.”

  82 twenty-one-gun salute: Hartendorp, Japanese Occupation, 1:648.

  83 five times as many aircraft, etc.: Michael H. Hunt and Steven I. Levine, Arc of Empire: America’s Wars in Asia from the Philippines to Vietnam (Chapel Hill, NC, 2012), 78.

  84 “shoestring equipment”: Rem., 168.

  85 to little effect: Manchester, American Caesar, 284–86.

  86 “pitifully small”: George C. Kenney, The MacArthur I Know (New York, 1951), 70, 48.

  87 prepared to sacrifice: Manchester, American Caesar, 296.

  88 “pocketed and cut off”: Rem., 195.

  89 “hit ’em where”: Ibid., 169.

  90 George H. W. Bush: James Bradley, Flyboys: A True Story of Courage (Boston, 2003).

  91 inclined toward the Taiwan plan: Robert Ross Smith, Triumph in the Philippines (Washington, DC, 1963), part I.

  92 “American territory” … “undergoing”: Willoughby and Chamberlain, MacArthur, 235–36.

  93 “personal feelings”: Marshall, quoted in Max Hastings, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944–1945 (New York, 2008), 27.

  94 “Promises must be kept”: Manchester, American Caesar, 368.

  95 “Douglas, you
win”: John Gunther, The Riddle of MacArthur: Japan, Korea and the Far East (New York, 1951), 10.

  96 Hundreds of buildings: Brendan Coyle, Kiska: The Japanese Occupation of an Alaska Island (Fairbanks, 2014), 76–77.

  97 the ensuing battle: Ibid., 122–23.

  98 “a scale and length”: Henry I. Shaw, Bernard C. Nalty, and Edwin T. Turnbladh, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II (Washington, DC, 1966), 3:448.

  99 “The heads lay like”: Quoted in Robert F. Rogers, Destiny’s Landfall: A History of Guam (Honolulu, 1995), 192.

  100 four-fifths of the island’s homes: Ibid., 201.

  101 interned thousands: On this sort of “friendly” internment, which occurred on many Pacific islands, see Lamont Lindstrom and Geoffrey M. White, Island Encounters: Black and White Memories of the Pacific War (Washington, DC, 1990), 61.

  102 Japanese army stopped paying: Teodoro A. Agoncillo, The Fateful Years: Japan’s Adventure in the Philippines, 1941–1945 (Quezon City, 1965), 2:556.

  103 Laurel declared: Pacita Pestaño-Jacinto, Living with the Enemy: A Diary of the Japanese Occupation (Pasig City, 1999), 205.

  104 “a noticeable decrease”: Lichauco, Mother Putnam, 182.

  105 dropping dead in the streets: Daniel F. Doeppers, Feeding Manila in Peace and War, 1850–1945 (Madison, WI, 2016), 324–25.

  106 “slapping Filipinos,” etc.: Claro M. Recto to T. Wachi, June 20, 1944, in Documents on the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines, ed. Mauro Garcia (Manila, 1965), 113–14.

  107 Panay: William Gemperle statement, in General Headquarters, South West Pacific Area, Military Intelligence Section, General Staff, Report on the Destruction of Manila and Japanese Atrocities, February 1945, appendix, 13.

  108 “I have returned”: Rem., 216.

  109 “winging very low”: Mañalac, Manila, 90.

  110 They aimed for anything: Smith, Triumph, 91.

  111 Yamashita’s army had already reduced: Ibid.

  112 Yamashita ordered the army: The Yamashita/Iwabuchi conflict is described in ibid., part 4, and Alfonso J. Aluit, By Sword and Fire: The Destruction of Manila in World War II, 3 February–3 March 1945 (Manila, 1994), 372–79.

  113 “We slammed the back door”: Stanley A. Frankel, The 37th Infantry Division in World War II (Washington, DC, 1948), 73.

  114 “the strategic blunder”: Connaughton et al., Battle for Manila, 142.

  115 When Allied troops arrived: The Battle of Manila is chronicled in numerous diaries and memoirs (many cited here). Three overviews are indispensable: Smith, Triumph; Aluit, Sword and Fire; and Connaughton et al., Battle for Manila.

  116 a captured diary: Diary of member of Akatsuki 16709 Force, in Report on the Destruction of Manila, 35.

  117 “bomb the place”: Kenney, MacArthur I Know, 98.

  118 “friendly” … “unthinkable”: Quoted in Smith, Triumph, 294.

  119 “use of heavy firepower” … “This reputation”: Robert S. Beightler, Report on the Activities of the 37th Infantry Division, 1940–1945, quoted in Connaughton et al., Battle for Manila, 175.

  120 “alarming”: Robert S. Beightler, Report After Action: Operations of the 37th Infantry Division, Luzon P.I., 1 November 1944 to 30 June 1945 (M-1 Operation), September 1945, 51, New York Public Library.

  121 “Putting it crudely” … “To me”: Beightler, Report on Activities, quoted in Connaughton et al., Battle for Manila, 175–76.

  122 more than one per second: Aluit, Sword and Fire, 355.

  123 “like lightning bolts”: Owens, Eye-Deep in Hell, 122.

  124 “We made a churned-up pile”: Beightler, Report on Activities, quoted in Connaughton et al., Battle for Manila, 176.

  125 “the rule rather”: XIV Corps, Japanese Defense of Cities as Exemplified by the Battle for Manila (Army Chief of Staff, G-2, Headquarters, Sixth Army, July 1, 1945), 20.

  126 “Block after bloody block”: Frankel, 37th Infantry, 283.

  127 Philippine General Hospital: Aluit, Sword and Fire, 389; Frankel, 37th Infantry, 281–83.

  128 “days of terror” … “I can”: Miguel P. Avanceña, quoted in Aluit, Sword and Fire, 391.

  129 Elpidio Quirino: The following is derived, except where noted, from two survivors’ accounts: Tommy Quirino’s in ibid., 217–301 passim, and Vicky Quirino’s in Connaughton et al., Battle for Manila, 133–38.

  130 “darkest hour”: Elpidio Quirino, “Oration on President Quezon,” in The Quirino Way: Collection of Speeches and Addresses of Elpidio Quirino, ed. Juan Collas ([Philippines], 1955), 23.

  131 Dody, who had sought: Sol H. Gwekoh, Elpidio Quirino: The Barrio School Teacher Who Became President, 2d ed. (Manila, 1950), 85–86.

  132 “If you escaped”: Elpidio Quirino, “The Sad Plight of the Philippines,” November 14, 1945, in Quirino: Selected Speeches, ed. Carlos R. Lazo (Manila, 1953), 15.

  133 A woman who saw him: Kiyoshi Osawa, A Japanese in the Philippines, trans. Tsunesuke Kawashima (Tokyo, 1981), 195.

  134 Arellano’s Legislative Building: Smith, Triumph, 303–304; Frankel, 37th Infantry, 293–94.

  135 sixth-largest city: Manila contained 623,492 people in 1939, according to the census. But by the war’s end it had roughly 1 million. Aluit, Sword and Fire, 398.

  136 “The largest buildings” … “This seemed”: Hartendorp, Japanese Occupation, 2:604–605.

  137 In the month of fighting: Fatality figures from Connaughton et al., Battle for Manila, 174.

  138 extrapolated from figures: Aluit, Sword and Fire, 398–99.

  139 “The whole city”: Jose P. Laurel, War Memoirs (Manila, 1962), 35.

  140 Those planes dropped: Beightler, Report After Action, 118.

  141 “We levelled entire cities,” etc.: Paul V. McNutt, address at Beta Theta Pi Fraternity, November 27, 1946, “McNutt, P. V., Correspondence and Speeches, 1945–46” folder, box 7, HC–DC.

  142 Senator Millard Tydings surveyed: Millard Tydings, “Report on the Philippine Islands,” June 7, 1945, 22, “Philippine Rehabilitation Commission” folder, box 2, ser. 4, Tydings Papers.

  143 1,111,938 war deaths: Reported in “Our Bid for Survival,” 1947, in Collas, Quirino Way, 51, and Joaquin M. Elizalde, “The Case for the Prompt Ratification of the Japanese Peace Treaty,” 1952, 5, in AHC.

  144 Add Japanese: Miki Ishikida, Toward Peace: War Responsibility, Postwar Compensation, and Peace Movements and Education in Japan (New York, 2005), 12.

  145 mainlander fatalities: 10,640 dead (not counting the Leyte and Samar campaigns) according to Smith, Triumph, 652.

  146 “How’d ya learn,” etc.: Oscar S. Villadolid, Born in Freedom: My Life and Times (Quezon City, 2004), 191. Similar stories discussed in Daniel Immerwahr, “‘American Lives’: Pearl Harbor and the United States’ Empire,” in Pearl Harbor and the Attacks of December 8, 1941: A Pacific History, ed. Beth Bailey and David Farber (Lawrence, KS, forthcoming).

  13. KILROY WAS HERE

  1 fewer than one in ten: James T. Sparrow, Warfare State: World War II Americans and the Age of Big Government (New York, 2011), 202.

  2 “first and foremost”: Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon (New York, 1999), 548.

  3 nearly every independent nation: Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley, Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940–1943 (Washington, DC, 1955), 39.

  4 “disintegration of the British commonwealth”: Quoted in ibid., 48. The mechanics of aid to Britain in Egypt are described in Edward R. Stettinius Jr., Lend-Lease: Weapon for Victory (New York, 1944), chaps. 12–13 and 26; Ivan Dmitri, Flight to Everywhere (New York, 1944); and Hugh B. Cave, Wings Across the World: The Story of the Air Transport Command (New York, 1945), part 3.

  5 “I have seen many”: Max Hastings, Inferno: The World at War, 1939–1945 (New York, 2011), 361.

  6 “It marked in fact,” etc.: Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War (1950; Boston, 1985), 4:541.

  7 “tremendous supply base”: Stettinius, Lend-Lease, 288.

 
8 Factories in Palestine, etc.: Ibid., 294.

  9 “probably more far-reaching”: John G. Winant, quoted in Steven High, Base Colonies in the Western Hemisphere, 1940–1967 (New York, 2009), 6.

  10 “Nothing is more”: Rexford Guy Tugwell, The Stricken Land: The Story of Puerto Rico (Garden City, NY, 1946), 113.

  11 expected that they’d fall: Annette Palmer, “Rum and Coca Cola: The United States in the British Caribbean, 1940–1945,” The Americas 43 (1987): 441–43; John Gunther, Inside Latin America (New York, 1941), 420.

  12 The Soviet Union, alone: Kenneth S. Coates and William R. Morrison, “The American Rampant: Reflections on the Impact of United States Troops in Allied Countries During World War II,” Journal of World History 2 (1991): 217. Stalin did allow some exceptions: three bases in Ukraine toward the end of the war and two navy-manned weather stations near the Japanese frontier. See Alexandra Richie, Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising (New York, 2013), 538–40.

  13 Nukufetau, etc.: A full list of Seabee locations is in William Bradford Huie, From Omaha to Okinawa: The Story of the Seabees (1945; Annapolis, MD, 1999), appendix.

  14 “what happens in Africa”: Henry Cabot Lodge, quoted in “Colony Plan Stirs Senate,” NYT, February 1, 1919.

  15 thirty thousand installations on two thousand: James R. Blaker, United States Overseas Basing: An Anatomy of the Dilemma (New York, 1990), 33.

  16 “Almost anywhere,” etc.: Cave, Wings, i.

  17 Presidents, too, began to: “Travels Abroad of the President,” Office of the Historian, U.S. State Department, history.state.gov/departmenthistory/travels/president.

  18 “Because of the ethnic distribution”: Security Technical Committee Minutes 7, February 3, 1943, Records of the Advisory Committee on Post-War Foreign Policy, 1942–45, Box 79, Notter Records. The sudden onset of U.S. planetary interests is discussed helpfully in Andrew Preston, “Monsters Everywhere: A Genealogy of National Security,” DH 38 (2014): 477–500; John A. Thompson, A Sense of Power: The Roots of America’s Global Role (Ithaca, NY, 2014); and Stephen Wertheim, “Tomorrow the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy in World War II” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia Univer sity, 2015).

  19 “a mental hazard”: “Maps: Global War Teaches Global Cartography,” Life, August 3, 1942, 57–65.

 

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