Behind Japanese Lines

by Ray C. Hunt

  In the last months of 1944, especially after the Leyte landings in October made it evident that American landings on Luzon could not be far off, general headquarters directed us to save our new weapons so they would be a surprise to the enemy when we went into serious action. We had always had trouble restraining the more impetuous of the Filipinos. Now that the tempo of everything was picking up visibly, and they had new guns in the bargain, I could not always contain them. When the bazooka was fired accidentally, the destructive force of its shell made an indelible impression on everyone nearby. At once my men begged me to let them take it down into the lowlands, well away from where we happened to be just then, and try it out against a Kempeitai outpost. After an argument, I relented. They dashed off, jubilant as six-year-olds at a birthday party. The bazooka was a tremendous success: those in the Japanese outpost never knew what hit them. There were no known survivors.

  The whole episode typified a problem that guerrilla leaders had with Filipinos everywhere. Ordinarily they would listen to reason and would not attack Japanese in their own locale because of the reprisals against civilians that would follow. But now and then they would burn to retaliate for some enemy atrocity, or they would just get “antsy” and want some action, so they would go some distance away and attack Japanese there, thus insuring that enemy vengenance would at least fall on civilians under the wing of some other guerrillas.

  An unauthorized, and more private, venture by a Filipino lieutenant was comparably noisy but much less successful than the bazooka attack. One day, dressed as a member of the Constabulary and armed with one of our new carbines, he stopped three Japanese riding along a dusty road in a buggy. He asked them to dismount and accompany him, saying he would take them to a village where a party was to be given in their honor. His real intention was probably to shoot them, since we had by then a standing rule that no Japanese prisoners were to be taken. Before long the presumed honored guests noticed the lieutenant’s carbine, a weapon they had never seen before. Soon they put two and two together and started to run off. The lieutenant promptly laid down a hail of lead with his new firearm. Though he killed one Japanese, he was such a bad shot that he missed the other two, who of course rushed back to their garrison to tell their compatriots about the new American weapon. I was disgusted. If our man had killed all the Japanese it would have been fine: instead, he had revealed to the enemy a weapon we had planned to conceal. Thus, instead of being commended or decorated for bravery he was reprimanded and disciplined for bad judgment. So fine the line between hero and goat. . . .

  As the foregoing incidents indicate, and especially when it became clear that the Japanese anticipated American landings soon, guerrilla morale bounded upward. Fortunately, there were many ways to keep the men busy, most notably after we were told by SWPA headquarters in Australia to be ready to give all-out support to the invasion forces whenever we received pertinent directives, five days before the landings. We started twenty things at once. We mapped towns and buildings where the enemy had stored supplies so American planes would (hopefully) not do unnecessary damage when bombing. We made plans to cut enemy communications and supply lines, and to sabotage fuel dumps. We picked strategic spots along roads and trails where we could set last-minute road blocks and ambushes. We built storehouses in the mountains and foothills in northern and eastern Pangasinan, and stored rice in them. We made arrangements to rescue and hide downed American pilots; and assigned each company specific duties in all these spheres before the anticipated invasion and during it.22 Morale problems developed in some U.S. units during the fighting in northern Luzon in 1945, but among the guerrillas late in 1944 our main problem was to keep our men cool.

  As mentioned before, among my constant vexations was dealing with nuisances who posed as guerrillas, as well as adventurers and bandits who formed “paper” guerrilla organizations as covers for illicit operations of various types. This grew much worse in the last year of the war and in the immediate postwar period. In particular, all the collaborators rushed to join some irregular unit in order to expunge their guilt and appear to returning American forces as fellow warriors in the struggle for freedom.

  Another common type was the ambitious opportunist who wanted to be able to claim guerrilla service in order to promote himself in postwar Philippine politics. Men of this sort were forever raising imaginary armies which they invariably “commanded.” One particular rascal of the political type I ordered arrested. One of my men, in ordinary Filipino dress, apprehended the man in broad daylight in a village full of Japanese troops, and told him “Captain Hunt wants to see you.” The aspiring politician tried to offer some excuse to depart, but the guerrilla replied that he had orders to deliver the man alive or leave him dead in the dust. This information clarified the troublemaker’s understanding marvellously, and he walked briskly in the direction of my current hideaway with the guard right behind him. Quite likely his thoughts were on an incident he had recently witnessed in his home village. There a guerrilla, like the present one tailing him, had simply opened a hollow gourd, pulled out a gun, and shot two Japanese at point blank range.

  When the pair reached my abode, I let the prisoner wait a considerable time. When I came to see him at last, his forehead was covered with beads of perspiration. Probably he thought this day was going to be his last. I spoke to him quietly, asking him only about his recruiting efforts and whether he was in contact with American forces outside the Philippines. To the latter he replied eagerly that he did indeed have such contacts and that only a few days before he had received some smuggled American magazines which he now planned to distribute. I listened to this for a time, then asked Greg to bring me a new .45 grease gun. I pointed it out the window and shot some bark off a nearby tree. The man’s eyes widened. Then I asked him if he knew what kind of gun it was? All he could answer was that it was new. I then asked him which he thought would do more harm to our common enemy, the magazines he proposed to distribute or the gun? He assured me profusely that he understood my meaning and that he would never do anything that would in any way interfere with the activities of true guerrillas. So I let him go. Similar pests got similar warnings, or else they were invited to take guns and become guerrillas on the spot. With most, that ended the conversation and we had no trouble from them afterward.

  One day late in 1944 I was standing outdoors when I heard a long, low rumble. As I strained my eyes southward I saw something I had dreamed about for two and a half years; columns of smoke climbing into the sky, in this case from the direction of Clark Field in Pam-panga. It indicated that American planes had bombed an enemy stronghold. All of us burst out with cries of joy and pummelled each other on the back with wild abandon. Every guerrilla on Luzon must have responded just as we did. Clay Conner called the bombing “the most beautiful sight imaginable.” Frank Gyovai said it was the grandest sight he ever saw. Yay Panlilio wrote that even Marking’s dog succumbed to the hysteria: whining, barking, and quivering with excitement as their guerrillas whooped and hollered and cried.23

  A few days later we actually saw some American planes of a new type; P-38s, as it turned out. Then we saw occasional dogfights. Unlike those in the early days of the war, these invariably ended with the P-38s downing or chasing off their Japanese opponents. Soon navy planes began to fly over regularly. I thought of their pilots who would sleep between white sheets that night, with no fear of the Japanese. This, in turn, brought back thoughts of home, of seeing my parents and younger sisters again, of sleeping in a soft bed without either the company or the buzzing of insects, and of ice cream, cake, cheese, a cold bottle of beer, white bread, white women, merely the companionship of ordinary Americans again.

  Those last three months of 1944, blurred in my memory now after the passage of four decades, were a strange mixture of matters of the utmost gravity, some bizarre personal adventures, and some mere frivolity. The serious part was that I knew time was growing short, and I worried about the accuracy of the intelligence we had gathered
and whether I had drawn the proper conclusions from it.

  Other concerns were less vital. One day on my way to our regular headquarters near San Quintin, I received an invitation to visit the home of a Spanish mestizo named Juan Bautista. Juan owned 7,500 acres of fine rice land, and from the standpoint of our guerrillas was an admirable fellow since he had once given us ten thousand pesos. To be sure, he had given it in Japanese scrip and now wanted a receipt indicating that he should be repaid one day in sound Philippine or American money. While I had to turn him down politely on that score, he must not have expected anything else, since he treated me royally to drinks and a feast of barbecued pig, followed by a siesta, and then a dance to a string band. The whole performance stretched over many hours in a beautiful house and was seasoned with pleasant conversation on a variety of topics.

  The only puzzling aspect of the whole splendid evening was that at various times during it Juan introduced me to five fine looking young Filipinas, each one of whom he identified as his wife. Eventually curiosity got the better of good manners, and I asked him how he could possibly have five wives in a Christian country where divorce was illegal. He said it was really quite simple: they were all common-law wives, the daughters of various of his tenants, all of whom acquiesced in the arrangement since it made possible a better life for the girls and also for their families. Still curious, I asked him if the women ever became jealous. He said this was rare, since he treated them all equally, setting aside one night per week for each one; but if one became dissatisfied or made trouble she was simply returned to her parents and the arrangement with her was cancelled. He added that he also owned a fishing fleet and that on weekends he often fished. He probably did so in self-defense, from need of rest. I also noticed that despite the five wives there were no children on the premises. Juan admitted ruefully that he had none. Perhaps his exceptional romantic exertions had rendered him infertile. To top off the evening, Juan suggested that I stay in the Philippines after the war. He said he would give me some land to cultivate, build me a house, and help me collect five wives just as he had. For a young man it was a hard offer to turn down.

  Some guerrillas have written that many of their people were hungry and sick much of the time, especially in 1944-45 when the Japanese began to strip the islands of much of their food to maintain their own troops. As my visit to Juan Bautista indicates, that forlorn condition was not universal. Where I was during the last half of the war, we had about the normal amount of sickness, malaria primarily; and we were always handicapped by lack of medicines and medical supplies and by a scarcity of trained doctors; but we were never seriously short of food. This was made evident to me again on December 11, 1944, one of the happiest days of my life. This was not merely because it was my twenty-fifth birthday, nor because it would be my last birthday in the Philippines (something I could not know); but because five hundred guerrillas and the poor farmers of the village of Pantabangan, near San José, gave me a tremendous party. There was much food and even a children’s string band that delighted me by playing a lot of American numbers I hadn’t heard since the war began. Everybody ate and drank and danced, and for a night forgot the war. It indicates how self-confident, not to say reckless, we had become by now, that the whole soiree took place with a Japanese garrison only three miles away. I remember the day distinctly for another reason as well. For the first time in three years, when Filipinos asked me when the Americans would return, I no longer had to put them off with “six months.” Now I could honestly say it would be a good deal sooner.

  It was about this time, too, that I had my last confrontation of the tempestuous sort with Minang. An outsider would doubtless say that this one, like some of our earlier squabbles, was my fault. In general, Filipinas make good wives. Most of them are used to work and hardship, and they ordinarily remain faithful to one man. Of course, Minang and I were not married, but she had been for some time my common-law wife. My attention span was somewhat short in those days, though, and one day when she was gone I was having a private tête-á-tête with a pretty young Filipina when Minang returned unexpectedly. Greg tried to intercept her, but she was suspicious, and when she came into the room her eyes were blazing. My new friend fled at once, and Minang proceeded to deluge me with a torrent of unladylike language. I have seen signs in taverns to the effect that one might as well have another drink since his wife can get only so mad, but in Minang’s case this was not true. She still berated me that night after we had gone to bed, and everything she said seemed to intensify her outrage. For some time I closed my eyes and tried to tune her out. Then I became dimly aware that she was moving beside me. Next I heard the creak of leather. I sprang awake at once and grabbed in the dark for Minang. I caught her by the hand just as she was pulling my .45 from its holster. For the rest of that night I kept track of all the guns—and did not sleep much. I have often wondered since whether Minang intended to shoot me, herself, or both of us. Whatever the case, it would have been a helluva way to get a Purple Heart—or a funeral.

  In retrospect, I believe I was attracted to Minang more because of her fiery, indomitable spirit than by romantic considerations of the usual sort. On one occasion—when we were not quarrelling—she had told me quietly and deliberately that if I left her and went back to the United States when the war was over she would be sad but would understand; but that if I ever left her for another Filipina she would kill the other woman. She added that if I was killed by the Japanese she would personally kill the Japanese commander responsible if she had to sacrifice her own life in the effort. It was hard not to take a woman like that seriously.

  In truth, I owed Minang a lot, as did all our guerrillas. Near the end of the war I was able to get her commissioned a lieutenant in recognition of her wartime services. It was a position that secured for her some much needed money but, more important, she deserved it, and it pleased me greatly to get it for her.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Americans Return

  While the struggle for Leyte raged during the last two months of 1944, farther north both the Japanese and ourselves were laying plans. For the enemy, Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, whom the Japanese called “The Tiger of Malaya,” had about 100,000 men on Luzon. With that irreverence which never seems to desert Americans even in the most dire adversity, GIs later renamed Yamashita variously as the “Badger of Baguio” or the “Gopher of Luzon,” but Tiger, Badger, or Gopher, by now Yamashita had no illusions about his prospects. He did not control either the Japanese navy in Manila or the Fourth Japanese Air Force. He knew there would be no reinforcements from Japan, and that food shortages would eventually become his most pressing problem. Long before, he had urged his troops to behave with dignity toward civilians and prisoners of war, but by now he knew that they had done neither and that they were, consequently, hated wholeheartedly by nearly all Filipinos. The roads and railways of Luzon, once the best in the Orient after those of Japan itself, had fallen into ruin from a combination of Japanese neglect and sabotage by guerrillas. Munitions were in short supply, and there was so little gasoline that distilled pine root oil was being used as a substitute.

  Yamashita knew that defeat in Luzon was inevitable. All he would be able to do would be to defend the island for as long as possible, weaken the American invaders as much as he could, and thereby give his government the maximum time to prepare the Japanese home islands for the titanic battles that would decide the war. In short, Yamashita’s predicament was not unlike that of Douglas MacArthur three years earlier. Where MacArthur had made his last stand on Bataan and Corregidor, Yamashita decided to try to hold the two-hundred-mile-long Cagayan Valley in north Luzon until he could strip it of stored food and harvest the rice crop there. He would hold down the civilians by terror, and then retreat into the northern mountains to wage a protracted, suicidal war against the Americans and Filipinos.1

  Of course, I was not privy to all of General Yamashita’s plans, but I had learned enough to be filled with foreboding. Our intelli
gence indicated that thousands of Japanese troops were streaming into Luzon, massing in towns and along beaches, determined to fight to the death. Some eight thousand of them were in Pangasinan alone.2 The fact that they paid little attention to us guerrillas now was in itself ominous. Even if many of the worst battles of the war might now be behind for the American army as a whole, it was virtually certain that my fiercest battles lay in the near future. I thought of all the faithful Filipinos who were certain to lose their lives, or their property, or both. What could be left for survivors after the showdown? I thought every day about our growing conviction that, because of the strength of the enemy fortifications at San Fernando, the Americans should land in Lingayen Gulf. It was imperative that this be judged correctly since we had been forwarding our opinions about it to Australia and we planned to send runners in advance of the landings to convey our final information and advice. If we were right, many American lives would be saved. If we were wrong, our own men might never get ashore. Every day more U.S. bombers and fighter planes crisscrossed the skies. Tension mounted apace.

  The first break came January 4, 1945. Our camp was then situated in the mountains east of San Quintin along the eastern border of Pangasinan province. That morning I came upon one of our guards peering intently at a narrow pathway that snaked upward from rice fields into the foothills far below us. Slowly my man slipped his submachinegun off his shoulder, flipped the safety catch, and edged into a firing position. He was absorbed in some sort of movement down the trail. My immediate thought was that enemy troops must be approaching. I asked the guard what he had seen. He said someone was on the trail, coming our way. I called at once to Greg to bring me one of our prized possessions, a set of captured Japanese artillery binoculars, heavy and clumsy but extremely useful because they were powerful and graduated with range markings.