by Ray C. Hunt
18. Panlilio, The Crucible, pp. 206-7.
19. Aubrey S. Kenworthy, The Tiger of Malaya, pp. 61-62.
20. This was done to Jack Langley, who had commanded a small guerrilla outfit before he was captured. Harkins, Blackburn’s Headhunters, p. 182.
21. Ingham, Rendezvous by Submarine, p. 40.
22. Conner, “We Fought Fear,” p. 75.
23. For instance, Agoncillo and Alfonso, Short History, p. 466.
24. Wolfert, American Guerrilla, p. 147.
25. Ibid., pp. 184-85. Appalling atrocities of this genre were commonplace in irregular operations in centuries past. Wars between Balkan peoples and the Turks in medieval and early modern times were notoriously savage and bloody. Russian partisans harrying Napoleon’s army on its retreat from Moscow were extremely cruel. One village elder asked a partisan leader if he knew a new way to kill a Frenchman: all known methods had already been tried. Laqueur, Guerrilla, pp. 15-18, 46, 61.
26. Panlilio, The Crucible, pp. 196-98.
27. Ibid., p. 218; Harkins, Blackburn’s Headhunters, pp. 179, 184, 194; Ingham, Rendezvous by Submarine, pp. 124-25.
28. Volckmann, We Remained, p. 107. Though I subsequently had considerable trouble with Volckmann (see chapters 10 and 13), his assessment of these knotty problems is virtually identical with my own. Volckmann, pp. 125-26, 131.
29. Panlilio, The Crucible, pp. 158-59, 218.
30. Monaghan, Under the Red Sun, p. 142.
31. Ibid., p. 223.
Chapter Nine: The Plight of the Filipinos
1. Willoughby and Chamberlain, MacArthur, pp. 213-14.
2. For an extended analysis of Japanese policy in the Philippines, see Agoncillo, The Fateful Years, 2: 74-150. For brief synopses, see Robert S. Ward, Asia for the Asiatics?, especially pp. 56-58; and Ingham, Rendezvous by Submarine, p. 162.
3. These facets of Filipino psychology are discussed in Steinberg, Philippine Collaborators, p. 26; and Theodore Friend, Between Two Empires, pp. 24-31.
4. Harkins, Blackburn’s Headhunters, p. 139. For an excellent discussion of what constitutes treason on both the intellectual and the practical levels, though mainly in a European context, see Margaret Boveri, Treason in the Twentieth Century.
5. Elliot R. Thorpe, East Wind, Rain, p. 163.
6. For a consideration of traditional Philippine policy in trying circumstances, see Steinberg, Philippine Collaborators, pp. 13, 60; Friend, Between Two Empires, pp. 182-83; and Mahajani, Philippine Nationalism, p. 433. That Quezon urged other Filipino politicians to cooperate with the Japanese when they had to in order to spare the Filipino people is claimed by Antonio M. Molina, The Philippines through the Centuries, p. 335; by Castillo and Castillo, Saga of José P. Laurel, pp. 118-19; as well as by all those prominent Filipinos who did collaborate with the conquerors or appeared to do so.
James K. Eyre, Jr., The Roosevelt-MacArthur Conflict, pp. 55, 76-102, claims that rivalry between the American president and the famous general was more bitter than is usually recognized, that MacArthur and his entourage regarded presidential military strategy as virtual betrayal of themselves and their forces, and that MacArthur not merely saw to it that information about Quezon’s rages and threats made its way to Washington but used Quezon’s outrage to pressure Washington to send more support to his forces in the Far East.
7. Archer, The Philippines’ Fight for Freedom, p. 177.
8. Ricarte’s actions are defended by two fellow Filipinos of quite different philosophical orientation: Lichauco, “Dear Mother Putnam,” pp. 15-16, and Agoncillo, The Fateful Years, 2: 918-19.
9. Information about all these groups, their antecedents, sponsorship, and activities may be found in Taylor, The Philippines and the United States, p. 106; Agoncillo, The Fateful Years, 2: 918-19; Ingham, Rendezvous by Submarine, pp. 163-64; Brines, Until They Eat Stones, pp. 73-75; F.C. Jones, Japan’s New Order in East Asia, 1937-1945, p. 367; Panlilio, The Crucible, pp. 26, 43-44; José P. Laurel, War Memoirs, pp. 25, 64, 301; and Castillo and Castillo, Saga of José P. Laurel, p. 93.
10. For instance, Abaya, Betrayal, especially pp. 35-40.
11. See Steinberg, Philippine Collaborators, pp. 23-24, 73-84, 87-95, 98-99; and, more briefly, Mahajani, Philippine Nationalism, pp. 440-41; and Friend, Between Two Empires, p. 244. Ironically, Laurel was himself an indecisive man. See Buenafe, Wartime Philippines, p. 216.
12. Apologies for Laurel are his own War Memoirs and Castillo and Castillo, Saga. Other sympathetic considerations of his plight and intentions are provided by Lichauco, “Dear Mother Putnam,” pp. 112, 124, 182-83; Agoncillo, The Fateful Years, 2:912-15; and Spence, For Every Tear a Victory, pp. 172-73, 297, 303.
13. See Peter Calvocoressi and Guy Wint, Total War, for an extended description of Japan’s administrative deficiencies (pp. 673-710, 721-22, 783-89, especially pp. 703-5).
14. One of the most unbridled condemnations of all the “collaborators” was delivered in Abaya, Betrayal in the Philippines, for which Ickes wrote a foreword. See especially pp. 9-11, 21-33, 50-53, 86-91, 104-8, 151-62. The quotation is from p. 102. More moderate variations on the same theme are Taruc, He Who Rides the Tiger, pp. 144-47; Kerkvliet, Huk Rebellion; Thorpe, East Wind, Rain, pp. 152-53, 156-58, 163; and Archer, The Philippines’ Fight for Freedom, pp. 193-95.
15. Laurel, War Memoirs, pp. 40-41.
16. Castillo and Castillo, Saga, pp. 3-4.
17. See Lichauco, “Dear Mother Putnam,” p. 119, for Vargas’s ambition to become president of the Republic; p. 77 for the anecdote about the apples.
18. Steinberg, in Philippine Collaborators, discusses Filipino collaborators, their problems and intentions, exhaustively. See especially pp. 37-38, 60-69, 115, 131-66.
19. Ibid., pp. 160-62.
20. See Archer, The Philippines’ Fight for Freedom, pp. 194-95; Eyre, The Roosevelt-MacArthur Conflict, pp. 173-93; and, most vehemently, Abaya, Betrayal, pp. 9-11, 22-33, 59-76, 84.
21. D. Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur, vol. 2, 1941-1945, pp. 691-93.
22. Panlilio, The Crucible, pp. 177, 188-92.
23. Elinor Goettl, Eagle of the Philippines, pp. 181-82, 188, 194.
24. Ind, Allied Intelligence Bureau, p. 153; Spence, For Every Tear a Victory, pp. 173-75; Willoughby, Guerrilla Resistance Movement, pp. 39, 45-61, 205-6, 285, 340, 383, 387, 390-97. Lichauco, Roxas’s prewar law partner, presents the same favorable picture of his colleague’s purposes and activities (“Dear Mother Putnam,” pp. 19, 92, 113-14, 134). A further indication of Roxas’s true colors is that the Kempeitai recorded his name as head of the American spy network in the Philippines, Intelligence Activities, p. 78.
25. Taylor points out that the Huks were avid to punish collaborators because they knew it would divide the country, but adds that true nationalist guerrillas like Confesor and Tomas Cabili also wanted them punished from patriotic motives (The Philippines and the United States, p. 112). Archer notes (The Philippines’ Fight for Freedom, p. 195) that it was difficult to hold trials because the Japanese had destroyed so many official records. Abaya, Betrayal, pp. 110-15, grumbles that the most prominent defendants were to be tried by judges whom they had earlier appointed rather than by “resistance” judges, as in Europe. At the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials the same parties acted as both prosecutors and judges.
Steinberg, in Philippine Collaborators, pp. 131-66, and especially in a lengthy description of the Sison case, pp. 134-41, examines all the arguments from constitutions and laws, both American and Philippine, from precedents and circumstances, from the habits of peace and the exigencies of war, that bear on accusations of collaboration.
26. Taylor, The Philippines and the United States, pp. 101-2.
27. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, who had surrendered Corregidor, was later given the Distinguished Service Cross and the Congressional Medal of Honor, reportedly over the disapproval of MacArthur.
28. Taylor, The Philippines and the United States, p. 99.
29. Reprinted in H. de la Costa
, S.J., Readings in Philippine History, pp. 279-80.
30. Taylor, The Philippines and the United States, pp. 110, 119, thinks this almost certainly would have been the case. Of course at this writing (1986) the communists, now styled New People’s Army (NPA) rather than old Huks, appear once more to have a chance to come to power.
31. Spence, For Every Tear a Victory, particularly pp. 100-200, recounts Marcos’s exploits in war and peace. The tone of the book is laudatory. A reader’s skepticism is aroused, though, by the author’s carelessness about details: e.g., putting the Sierra Madre Mountains on the wrong side of Luzon, locating the province of Nueva Ecija on the Pacific coast when it is in the middle of Luzon, and having Marcos make preparations to meet Walter Cushing at a time after Cushing was dead. See pp. 166-67.
32. For example, Primitivo Mijares, The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. Mijares was once Marcos’s top public relations man. He disappeared somewhere on a flight between Guam and Manila. Officially, no one knows what happened to him.
33. See, for instance, Newsweek, Feb. 3, 1986, pp. 24-25; and, in greater detail, Philippine News (published in San Francisco), Jan. 29-Feb. 4, 1986, pp. 1, 4-5.
34. There are two documents that bear my signature and that call for the arrest of unauthorized guerrilla organizers in Pangasinan. Both are dated October 9, 1944. One of them, hereafter referred to as Annex B, is brief and is addressed to “All Sector Commanders, P.W.A., 2 Military District.” It reminds recipients that the only authorized command in that part of Luzon is the one headed by Major Lapham, and orders the arrest of all organizers not working under that command. It is signed with my full name, and it is unquestionably genuine.
The other document, hereafter referred to as Annex A, is much longer, is written on paper with a printed letterhead rather than a typed one, and even though it bears the same date as Annex B it was clearly written on a different typewriter. It is addressed to a particular individual identified only as “I.C.” A postwar Filipino congressman, Cipriano S. Allas, who identifies himself as a captain and former head of the intelligence division of Marcos’s Maharlika guerrillas, says “I.C.” is Captain Crispulo Ilumin. I never heard of Ilumin and cannot imagine any reason why I might ever have written to him, much less given him orders about anything. Annex A also calls for the arrest of Ferdinand Marcos “specially,” which I would have written “especially,” even had I singled out Marcos, which I almost certainly did not do. At that time I did not know him well or attach any particular importance to him. Finally, Annex A is signed simply “Ray,” a practice I did not follow when issuing formal orders. For all these reasons I think Annex A is a forgery, most likely invented after the war to bolster claims for back pay by supposed followers of Allas and Marcos.
The forgery thesis is supported by another letter, written by Allas in 1947 to “The Commanding General, Philippine Ryukyus Command.” In it Allas, who is clearly trying to secure official recognition of claims that Marcos’s Maharlika forces and his own intelligence unit were well established by 1943, says that some of his men joined my unit in May or June of 1943, when in fact I did not get my own command until June 1944. He adds that there were different guerrilla units in eastern Pangasinan, when only my own were there. Finally, he alleges that Maharlika guerrillas actively supported American regular troops along the Villa Verde Trail in the spring of 1945, though I was there at the time and do not recall seeing any. Thus, I am not impressed by “Captain” Allas’s concern for accuracy.
35. One of the documents secured from the National Archives and reprinted in the Philippine News (Jan. 29-Feb. 4, 1986, p. 5), with a letterhead that reads “Headquarters Philippines-Ryukus Command,” dated March 24, 1948, and sent from Capt. E.R. Curtis to Lt. Col. W. M. Hanes, says that I arrested Marcos in December 1944 “for illegally collecting money to construct an air field near Baguio for the purpose of rescuing General Roxas,” and that I would have held Marcos permanently had not Roxas appealed to Lapham to have him released. All I can say, forty-one years later, is that I have no recollection of this. In a long article devoted to these matters, the Philippine News implies strongly that, far from being heroes, both Allas and Marcos were engaging in black market sales to the Japanese. The Philippine News is decidedly hostile to Marcos. It supported his opponent, Mrs. Corazon Aquino, in the election campaign of early 1986.
36. Willoughby, Guerrilla Resistance Movement, p. 488.
37. Al Hendrickson regards with profound skepticism all claims that Marcos commanded large numbers of guerrillas. Personal communication to the author (B.N.).
38. Robert Lapham, personal communication to the author (R.H.).
Chapter Ten: I Get My Own Command
1. Ingham, Rendezvous by Submarine, especially pp. 20, 38-39, 51-52. General Willoughby expresses his appreciation of Parsons’s talents and achievements (Guerrilla Resistance Movement, p. 101).
2. See chap. 9 herein for the Cruz mission. For an account of the expeditions of Parsons, Villamor, and Smith, see Willoughby and Chamberlain, MacArthur, pp. 215-18, 231.
3. William Manchester, American Caesar, pp. 378-79. Eyre, in Roosevelt-MacArthur Conflict, pp. 168-69, calls Whitney an undiplomatic and belligerent racist.
4. Ingham, Rendezvous by Submarine, p. 131; Dissette and Adamson, Guerrilla Submarines, pp. 69-70. It is worth noting that General Willoughby, who knew Whitney well, calls him a “brilliant executive” and praises him warmly. Willoughby, Guerrilla Resistance Movement, p. 101; Willoughby and Chamberlain, MacArthur, p. 214.
5. Uldarico S. Baclagon, Philippine Campaigns, pp. 238-43, 251-54.
6. Villamor, They Never Surrendered, pp. xiii-xv, 134-35, 200, 207, 215-17, 232-33, 235-36, 264, 272, 284. Villamor wrote most of this memoir but died before it was finished. The book was completed from Villamor’s notes by Gerald S. Snyder.
7. Panlilio, The Crucible, pp. 249-54, 285; Ingham, Rendezvous by Submarine, p. 15.
8. Panlilio, The Crucible, p. 165.
9. Whitney himself describes this evolution in considerable detail in MacArthur, pp. 91, 132-43, 146-47. That he does not exaggerate his own role is indicated by similar though briefer descriptions by James, The Years of MacArthur, pp. 509-10; and Beth Day, The Philippines, p. 104. Neither writer is a partisan of Whitney. Willoughby, Guerrilla Resistance Movement, p. 194, and Robert Ross-Smith, Triumph in the Philippines, pp. 26-27, also describe Whitney’s accomplishments.
10. Blackburn describes all the trouble early guerrillas had trying to rig up some kind of transmitter that would work even part of the time. Their single most persistent problem was keeping batteries charged. Harkins, Blackburn’s Headhunters, pp. 142-45, 151-63, 170-71.
11. Blackburn says this was a misapprehension that arose, possibly, from the consideration that most of Volckmann’s guerrillas were not former soldiers but ex-stevedores, litter bearers, guards, informers, and supply carriers, all men who might routinely carry bolos. Harkins, Blackburn’s Headhunters, p. 251. Blackburn also says that, when Volckmann first tried to organize all the north Luzon guerrillas under his command in November 1943, the move was welcomed by all save Capt. Ralph Praeger (ibid., p. 189). Since Lapham did resist such an effort, and since Praeger had been captured by the Japanese in August 1943, Blackburn’s memory is clearly faulty on this point. It is yet another example of how difficult it is even to reconstruct events accurately in the wartime Philippines, much less interpret everyone’s actions and motives fairly.
12. Baclagon, Philippine Campaigns, p. 237.
13. Donald Blackburn, personal communication to the author (B.N.).
14. Villamor, They Never Surrendered, p. 183.
15. Harkins, Blackburn’s Headhunters, pp. 1-15.
16. Ibid., pp. 166-68, 172.
17. Volckmann, We Remained, p. 118.
18. Intelligence Activities, appendix 5.
19. Whitney, MacArthur, p. 147.
20. Arnold, A Rock and a Fortress, pp. 194-95.
21. Wolfert, American Guerrilla
, p. 278.
22. Activities of this sort were undertaken at the same time by Volckmann’s guerrillas farther to the north. See Volckmann, We Remained, pp. 168-75; Whitney, MacArthur, pp. 183-84.
23. Conner, “We Fought Fear,” p. 86; Frank Gyovai, personal communication to the author (B.N.); Panlilio, The Crucible, pp. 258-59.
Chapter Eleven: The Americans Return
1. Potter, Life and Death, describes Yamashita’s plans. See especially pp. 61, 69, 106, 126, 129, 141.
2. Intelligence Activities, no page given.
3. Conner acknowledged similar awkwardness on both sides after he and several of his men ran into American soldiers after three years in the jungle. “We Fought Fear,” p. 87.
4. Samuel Grashio experienced comparable inability to write to his wife in circumstances not unlike mine. Grashio and Norling, Return to Freedom, p. 140.
5. A lengthy description of plans for liberating the prisoners, and all the problems and misgivings involved, are in Forrest Bryant Johnson, Hour of Redemption, especially pp. 139-40, 163, 208-10, 227, 255-56.
6. Ibid., p. 346.
7. Albert C. Hendrickson, personal communication to the author (B.N.).
8. James, The Years of MacArthur, pp. 642-43.
9. That I am not exaggerating the contribution of the guerrillas to the success of the raid is indicated by the remark of a Filipino historian: “In this rescue the guerrillas covered themselves with well deserved glory.” Buenafe, Wartime Philippines, p. 253.
10. Johnson, Hour of Redemption, pp. 210, 337-38.
11. Lapham recalls General Krueger’s attitude, typical of so many Americans at all times, that all that mattered was defeating the enemy quickly and that anyone who would fight the Japanese was to be welcomed. Lapham discussed the Huk menace with Philippine President Sergio Osmeña and with Carlos Romulo, but they felt powerless to interfere with Allied military operations. Robert Lapham, personal communication to the author (B.N.).