Behind Japanese Lines

by Ray C. Hunt

  During these months the Japanese were engaged in building an airfield at San José near Tarlac City. When it was finally completed, the first plane to land on it, a big Betty, flew directly over my current hideout on its final approach. My mind was flooded with fantasies. I longed to blast it out of the air. I dreamed of stealing a Japanese plane and flying away, though I was neither a pilot nor a navigator. Of course, I understood the mechanism of planes, I had watched many takeoffs and landings, and I had often ridden in planes piloted by others; but I knew little geography, and had I managed to steal an enemy plane and get it into the air I would not have known where to head. Besides, it would have been just my luck to run out of gas, or encounter Japanese fighters, or even be intercepted by American fighters somewhere. They would see the “flaming meatball” Japanese insignia on the side of the plane and shoot me down. Of course, there had not been an American plane over that part of the Philippines in more than a year, but one day I was certain I heard one, a P-40. I rushed out excitedly to watch it come—and go. No others followed. Most likely the Japanese had captured or repaired one, and one of their pilots was testing it.

  The mere sight of the American plane affected me strangely. I began to tell everyone I met that American planes were bombing Tokyo daily and that U.S. ground forces were now scoring victories regularly in the South Pacific. These stories were all fabrications. I hadn’t heard a radio broadcast since the fall of Bataan, and I had no idea how the war was going beyond what one could guess from seeing an occasional Manila newspaper printed under Japanese auspices. About all one could glean from that source was where fighting was taking place.

  Psychologists have long known that if you tell the same lie often enough you gradually come to believe it yourself. In my case the process was accentuated by the eagerness with which most Filipinos accepted the tales and spread them. Why did I do it? I still don’t know precisely. Self-delusion, I suppose. I had never doubted that the United States would win the war someday, somehow. At the moment I wanted badly to hear some good news, and to bring some to the Filipinos too. Maybe war makes us all a little crazy.

  Crazy or not, it was at about this time that I began to organize a band of guerrillas; and one of my first discoveries was that spreading news about the war, even though it was spurious, possessed practical utility: it helped recruiting.

  I did not undertake my new career lightly. The thought had been in my mind for a long time, and by now I had seen and heard enough about guerrillas to understand what would be involved. The most disagreeable prospect was that I might have to kill people personally and that I would surely be responsible for the deaths of many at the hands of those under my command. Guerrilla life would not be for the squeamish.

  My thoughts went back to a time before I fled Pampanga province. A Spaniard had told me he could get me forged papers attesting that I was a Spanish national, and that I could then live and move about freely, even in Manila. I had turned him down for the simplest of reasons: I did not want to go to Manila and wander around in civilian clothes. Moreover, if a soldier is caught doing this in wartime he is usually executed. When the war was over, I was decorated at the same time as Maj. Edwin P. Ramsey, an officer from the Twenty-sixth Cavalry who became a Luzon guerrilla leader and who did spend considerable time roaming from town to town pursuing various personal adventures, though he also managed to lead his guerrillas effectively when he was with them. But I just did not want to do this: I wanted to fight the Japanese.

  Now I began to gather my first recruits. They were Filipino laborers whom the Japanese had conscripted to build their airstrip. I talked furtively with various of them whom I trusted and outlined plans for guerrilla activity. They kept me informed of everything that went on among both Japanese and Filipinos. As mutual confidence developed, plans grew more elaborate, and long-hidden guns began to appear as if by magic.

  Perhaps the thesis that I had temporarily lapsed into insanity is strengthened by the consideration that precisely when I was simultaneously filled with fears, entertaining fantasies, bemusing Filipinos with imaginary American victories, and trying to recruit a personal army of irregulars, my interest in the opposite sex began to revive for the first time in more than a year. When one is sick and starved, thoughts of romance are remote, but as I regained health and strength the girls began to look prettier. My interest in them had taken an abrupt leap upward one night before I left Pampanga when a beautiful Filipina, accompanied by a guitar player, had treated me to a moonlight serenade on the veranda of a hacienda. Most Filipinos can’t conceal their dialect when they sing English songs, but this girl was not only gorgeous personally but a flawless singer in English as well. No matter. Before anything could develop, I had had to leave Pampanga one jump ahead of the Japanese.

  My next encounter with romance was strictly as a spectator, and it was considerably more sobering. In most parts of the Philippines then courtship was still patterned on the Spanish model. Young men serenaded girls, and if a meeting took place there was a chaperone. One day in a small village where I was hiding, a handsome young fellow arrived begging for food, lodging, and employment. He was accepted by the local inhabitants and given work cutting sugarcane. One day he either misinterpreted the feelings of a young Filipina or could not control his emotions: he grabbed the girl and kissed her in front of others. Whatever the girl’s true sentiments, in the circumstances her only respectable recourse was to complain, which she did by screaming loudly. Soon the entire village had learned of the incident. Barrio leaders took counsel and solemnly asked the boy why he had so rashly bussed the girl. He said he loved the dalaga (maiden) and wanted to marry her.

  Though this sounds like the prelude to an idyllic romance, it didn’t turn out that way. The girl was asked, in private, how she felt about her suitor’s unorthodox advances. She said she was unimpressed. The village leaders then told the boy a lie: that the girl had accepted him and that all of them should have some drinks to celebrate the joyous occasion. They took him to an isolated hut, and amid the drinking one of them split the boy’s skull with a bolo. He was then buried secretly in an unmarked grave. I learned about the whole matter only later when I missed the boy and asked what had happened to him. It cooled my romantic ardor abruptly.

  Love will not be denied forever, though. One day two Filipina sisters came to see me. I was astonished not only by the beauty of their features and complexions but also by their excellent command of English. They belonged to the de Leon family, which was partly Spanish. Their father owned a small roadside store in San José, Tarlac. They were brave enough to invite me for dinner at their home, situated just behind the family store. One of them, whose name was Chinang, I fell for immediately. She obviously liked me, too, and soon I began to pay her almost daily visits, to the distress of her father, who feared that the Japanese would see me. After many lingering conversations I decided I wanted to get married; partly from genuine affection for Chinang but more, I think, from the fear that I would not survive the war and the consequent desire to leave behind some trace of myself: a son, I hoped. Chinang accepted my proposal readily, though I did not tell her that I had no intention of taking her with me on the constant travels that I knew would be an inescapable part of my life if I ever got my guerrilla band organized.

  Whoever said the path of true love was never smooth could easily have been thinking about us. While Chinang appreciated the practical necessity of being married secretly, managing this was not easy. The first minister she contacted advised her against the marriage. Considerable time passed before she worked up nerve enough to approach another. This was not just timorousness on her part. There was some risk involved in telling any minister about even the existence of an American, not to speak of the danger the minister would court by officiating at a Filipino-American wedding or the risk involved for anyone else having anything to do with the matter. Perhaps equally frustrating, Chinang had the normal feminine desire to tell her friends all about her impending wedding, but she dar
ed not do it.

  As if matters were not complex enough on the matrimonial front, I developed a severe toothache that throbbed with every heartbeat, day and night. There were no dentists in the vicinity nor even any dental instruments. In fact the only tool I had seen thereabouts that bore any resemblance to a dental implement was a pair of pliers owned by a Filipino friend, Felix Garrovo. One day I grew sufficiently desperate to try to pull my own tooth. It was no use. A dentist’s forceps are curved to fit a tooth. Pliers are not, and squeeze and pry as I might all I accomplished was to chip off enough enamel that my mouth felt like it was full of sand. By now the pain was so bad I began to think favorably of that ancient mode of anesthesia, hitting the patient alongside the head with a flat rock. I even asked Felix if he could gather some strongarm types who could knock me out and pull the tooth before I regained consciousness.

  Then Chinang came to the rescue. Somewhere she found a dentist, who was properly armed with the weapons of his trade. He came to see me barefooted, with his pants legs rolled up and his eyes darting furtively as if he feared a Japanese might be lurking behind my door. He gave me a shot of worthless Japanese novocaine, then applied his tools and yanked out the tooth. The pain was excruciating momentarily, but relief was almost as fast. How many people in ages past must have endured horrendous pain that modern drugs and medical procedures alleviate routinely!

  Alas! the tooth was still not the end of our troubles. When Chinang at last told her father that she planned to marry me, he burst into such a rage and talked so wildly to village people that they feared he would report my existence to the Japanese. This caused Chinang to grow so despondent that she attempted suicide. That was enough for me. I gathered my meager belongings and headed off northward once more, this time accompanied by a few followers.

  But a woman in love is hard to shake off. Chinang followed after and spent a night with me. That was enjoyable in an obvious way, but, more important, we had a long, serious talk in which I gradually convinced her that the best course for her was to return home. I promised to visit her when I could later on, but I never saw her again. It was not that I forgot her utterly, or deliberately avoided her; in fact, I once visited her village in 1945 after it had been liberated by American troops. I came to deliver some food to the local inhabitants. It so happened that Chinang was out of town that day.

  This was a major turning point in my odyssey. A fugitive I remained until the end of the war, but from this time forward I was at least a fugitive at the head of a body of armed men.

  Chapter Six

  Early Guerrillas of Luzon

  An enormous amount of nonsense has been written about guerrilla warfare, especially since World War II. Much of it is mere hagiography of the political Left. Irregular operations were not invented by Spaniards resisting Napoleon, or by T.E. Lawrence in the Arabian desert, or by Marx, or Lenin, or Mao Tse-tung, or Castro, or Che Guevara or Regis Debray, and none of them had much to say about it that had not been known for centuries. Guerrilla operations have existed since the dawn of history. Basic strategy and tactics have differed according to particular circumstances but have always been the same in essentials, since they are based on common sense and imagination: e.g., when you are the weaker party in a war you avoid major battles and instead harass the enemy. You cut his communications, ambush small detachments of his forces, cut off his stragglers, try to sap his strength and morale, and seek to win civilians to your own cause. Such modes of fighting have been applied by revolutionaries and reactionaries, by peasants and urban rebels, in all sorts of circumstances for all sorts of purposes. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries guerrilla activities have usually had some strong ideological basis: religious fundamentalism, communism, or, commonest and most important, nationalism.

  Many men have found guerrilla warfare attractive. It offers greater opportunities for personal initiative and daring than does conventional war; it appeals powerfully to those with intense ideological commitments; it requires strong feelings of comradeship and personal loyalty to leaders; and it involves less onerous discipline than regular operations.

  Most professional soldiers, by contrast, have been impressed mainly by the dark side of partisan operations and so have despised them. Guerrillas, unhappily, almost always attract more than their share of unsavory human types: smugglers, poachers, bandits, congenital haters, and sadists. By necessity, but often by disposition as well, they hide behind hapless civilians, and often plunder and coerce them in the bargain. Their operations run heavily to ambushes and the taking of hostages, and they commonly give no quarter to their foes. They pose as civilians themselves, and do not wear uniforms or distinctive emblems. Thus, no matter how heroic they may seem to those whom they aid, they are criminals in international law and entitled to no quarter from regular troops. To professionals, guerrilla leaders often look like mere undisciplined adventurers, interested in either plunder or promoting a political career at least as much as in fighting. To them guerrilla operations seem amateurish, erratic, irrational, unpredictable, and retrograde; a relapse into the sporadic and uncontrolled violence that so often characterized warfare centuries ago and which persists in the twentieth century primarily among backward peoples in primitive parts of the world. Finally, professional soldiers dislike as innately defeatist the basic assumption of guerrillas, that one’s own side is the weaker party.1

  I agree with the professionals that guerrilla war is a disagreeable way to fight. But neither the considerations enumerated above nor my personal feeling about them diminishes the fact that irregular operations have often been remarkably effective. During the American Revolution Francis Marion badgered the British relentlessly from the swamps of South Carolina, where they could not use their artillery or cavalry. Napoleon sent 670,000 men and 520 guns across the Pyrenees between 1808 and 1813. Spanish civilians and irregulars fought the invaders savagely, by every means human ingenuity could devise. French firing squads shot them down in reprisal, episodes immortalized in the paintings of Goya. But Napoleon did not conquer Spain, and only 250,000 of his men and 250 guns ever returned to France. Russian Cossacks decimated another Napoleonic army in the famous retreat from Moscow in 1812. By employing guerrillas the Boer generals De Wet and Botha lengthened their war against the British in South Africa by two years (1899-1902). It took the United States three years to overcome Philippine guerrillas at about the same time. T.E. Lawrence and Arab irregulars made endless trouble for the Turks in World War I and set them up for the final decisive blow from the regular British army, an exploit that involved nothing new in the realm of warfare but got much publicity because Lawrence was a romantic figure who could write well. In World War II Russian guerrilla operations carried on in close conjunction with the regular Soviet army cost millions of Russian casualties but had much to do with the ultimate defeat of Germany. Since World War II, guerrilla operations have become close to standard operating procedure for revolutionary groups in underdeveloped parts of the world.

  In World War II the eyes of most Americans were fixed on Europe much of the time. Propaganda, either orchestrated by governments or manufactured wholesale by journalists, glamorized European “resistance movements” generally and the French “maquis” in particular. By contrast, the war in the Pacific was viewed mostly as a defensive action against Japanese conquest in 1941-42, and then as a slow process of reconquest, 1943-45, in either case conducted by regular armed forces. Actually, the Philippine resistance was at least as impressive as any of its counterparts in Europe, and it was carried out under more difficult conditions. It was always harder for Philippine guerrillas, whether Americans or native Filipinos, to secure either outside aid or sanctuary, since in the Far East there were no equivalents of the Swiss or Spanish frontiers to slip across when circumstances grew desperate. The tortures and beheadings perpetrated by the Japanese in the execution chambers of Fort Santiago in Manila were lesser in scale than the deeds of Hitler’s Gestapo but no less ghastly. Loyalty to America and resis
tance to the Japanese cost the Filipinos dearly: 5 percent of them were killed; millions were terrorized by unbridled Japanese torture and rape; and scores of thousands were crippled permanently. They were impoverished from wholesale theft and destruction of their resources, and their capital was laid waste more thoroughly than any cities on earth save Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Warsaw.

  If it ever could be written fully and accurately, the history of the resistance in the Philippines would fill many large volumes. It will never be written thus, for several reasons: (1) many of the most important figures involved have long since died; (2) many guerrillas never kept records lest they fall into the hands of the enemy; (3) during the war rivalry between various groups and leaders was rife, resulting in postwar accounts by survivors that vary dramatically, especially in their assessment of individuals; and (4) near the end of the war and afterward hordes rushed to become “guerrillas” or to pay someone to manufacture papers attesting that the bearer had played some heroic role in the “resistance.” Gleaning anything like the truth from this mountain of grain and chaff is problematical at best. The present account cannot claim to do more than indicate the general character of guerrilla activity on Luzon, explain my role in it, and offer some personal estimates of others with whom I dealt.