MacArthur's Spies

by Peter Eisner

  Fely had been able to speak some Japanese before the occupation, but she started taking language classes to improve her comprehension. A number of language schools had opened up and Japanese was now mandatory in grade schools. The officers appreciated her ability to exchange pleasantries with them in their own tongue as she circulated around the room, but they did not know how fluent she was actually becoming. She could now listen in quietly and sweetly, pretending she did not understand when officers spoke about the war among themselves, all the while listening for useful scraps of information.

  The pressure of operating underground while consorting with the Japanese amounted to a difficult dance even for Claire, who was used to maintaining various versions of the truth about her life. She juggled letters and shipments to her friends at Santo Tomas, intelligence gathering, scrounging for increasingly hard-to-come-by provisions. People had been decapitated on the spot for lesser crimes by the same men she was consorting with. She heard constant horror stories of people being humiliated and slapped on the street, beaten to a pulp with whips, and of one case where a woman at another club was forced to drink boiling water.

  Sometimes drunken or surly men slapped women for no reason, just because they could. That was the least of the problem. They bragged, they pawed, and when they went further, Claire tried to say she had a husband out there somewhere whom she was looking for. But she wasn’t sure how long she could stomach the Japanese bravado about the war, about beating the Americans on land and sea, the toasts and the banzais she had to sit through and join.

  As food became scarce, as Japanese officers rotated in and out, there were hard times at the club; business was not always even. Gathering supplies was increasingly time-consuming, and Claire ran up against the rationing system for rice and alcohol. She had trouble getting enough beer. Sometimes there wasn’t any, or maybe the officials were making it too difficult to get. Juan Elizalde and his brother, Manuel, could help with that by way of their legitimate, aboveboard liquor business. Juan Elizalde was capable of giving Claire beer and alcohol on credit, or not charging her anything at all. Behind the scenes Juan had made arrangements on intelligence procedures with his old friend from the Manila Polo Club, Chick Parsons; Parsons by now was back in America, but he was going to find some way of sneaking back into the country to fight the Japanese.

  In the mornings Fely and Claire compiled and copied the conversations they had gathered and did a rendering of the previous evening’s receipts; Fely kept the books and could provide Claire with updates whenever she wanted on how much business they had done and how much money they had on hand. They also had a payroll book, a book of disbursements, and a book that tracked how many drinks of lemon water the hostesses received so they could be paid their 50 percent share of each drink. On average 90 percent of the evening business was conducted in cash but up to 10 percent of the receipts were in scrip or chits to be covered and paid later. They had little recourse when soldiers left town without paying up. They could try gently appealing to the men most dazzled by the show, especially to the ones who were pledging them their undying love and devotion. That might work—maybe one officer would remind another to settle the tab before shipping out. It was equally possible that asking for money would lead to a loss of face and a fight. The probable outcomes were the nonpayer ignoring the request or, just as likely, stopping by to give Claire another slap in the face. It didn’t happen so much to the alluring Fely, but Claire in the light of day was an Anglo, and she was slapped too often. She didn’t want to lose money, but she would be weighing the indignity of being slapped one more time against having a scofflaw officer leave Manila without paying.

  Organized Resistance

  Brisbane, Australia, December 1942

  WHILE CHICK PARSONS was still on the high seas en route back to the United States, a surprising, even suspicious radio message arrived at General MacArthur’s USAFFE headquarters in Brisbane, Australia. For the first time since his flight from the Philippines, the general had proof that Americans and Filipinos were forming guerrilla bands to fight the Japanese.

  The message was addressed to MacArthur himself from Lieutenant Colonel Guillermo Nakar, who had been a battalion commander of the Philippines Army 14th Infantry. He was transmitting from a clandestine wireless set somewhere in Luzon.

  “Detachments of Fil-American forces—we have not surrendered—are actively raiding towns [in central Luzon].” Nakar reported he was distributing a newsletter in Manila and other cities to counter Japanese propaganda and to encourage Filipinos for the fight ahead. “Your victorious return is the nightly subject of prayers in every Filipino home.”

  MacArthur was elated by the contact with Nakar. “Short as it was, it lifted the curtain of silence and uncertainty, and disclosed the start of a human drama with few parallels in military history,” MacArthur said. “I knew that the remnants of my soldiers were not abandoning the fight while they lived and had the means.” MacArthur opened a message exchange with Nakar, who provided a status report on Japanese troop movements and the information available so far about the condition of prisoners of war. However, on August 7, less than a month later, Nakar sent an ominous message: “Intelligence report reveals that enemy has detected the existence of our radio station, possibly by geometric process, and detailed a large force to look for us.” Nakar’s transmitter went silent. The Japanese military police had caught him.

  For three months MacArthur received no further clandestine transmissions. Then, in November, a new round of radio transmissions came in. This time it was Major Macario Peralta, another Philippine Army officer, reporting from the island of Panay. Peralta had massed an eight-thousand-man guerrilla force in the Visayan Islands against only eight hundred Japanese troops. He said that he was in need of supplies that could be air-dropped or brought in via submarine. MacArthur answered swiftly and enthusiastically but warned Peralta about taking offensive action.

  “Primary mission,” he told Peralta, “is to maintain your organization and to secure maximum amount of information. Guerrilla activities should be postponed until ordered from here. Premature action of this kind will only bring heavy retaliation upon innocent people.”

  The contact with Peralta was followed by a series of messages from Mindanao and Luzon via the southern island, with reports showing that U.S. and Filipino soldiers operating clandestinely said they were gathering information and hankering to fight. They awaited MacArthur’s command.

  • • •

  MacArthur saw that organizing and supporting the guerrillas would be important for the morale of those he had left behind in the Philippines and that their success could pave the way for his eventual return. The goal would be in part “to arouse the militant loyalty of a whole people by forming resolute armed centers of resistance around which they could rally [and] to establish a vast network of agents numbering into the thousands to provide precise, accurate and detailed information on major enemy moves and installations.”

  The United States already was reversing the tide of the war. After Japan had blasted across the Pacific during the first six months of 1942 with early victories in the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island, the imperial armed forces had completed the conquest of Burma, Borneo, and the Dutch East Indies. But then, after Jimmy Doolittle’s morale-boosting attack on Tokyo in April, the United States had held off Japan in May in the Battle of the Coral Sea off New Guinea and then scored a decisive victory by stunning Japanese forces at the Midway Islands, a fifteen-mile-circumference atoll thirteen hundred miles northwest of Pearl Harbor. MacArthur understood the importance of Midway. “This decisive victory restored the balance in naval power in the Pacific, and removed the threat to Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States.” As autumn arrived, Britain had begun an offensive in Burma, and the United States was holding off the Japanese at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

  Instead of merely holding defense lines, it was time to challenge Japan
to the south. MacArthur devised a plan to leapfrog across New Guinea, a strategy that would surprise, confound, and outflank Japanese forces. MacArthur’s streamlined offense had one unwavering goal en route to total victory: liberation of the Philippines as soon as possible. Throughout the war MacArthur brushed aside criticism that he was dedicating so much time and equipment to that mission. General George Marshall, the army chief of staff, advised MacArthur at one point later in the Pacific campaign “not to allow our personal feeling and Philippine political considerations to override our great objective, which is early conclusion of the war with Japan.” However, MacArthur disagreed with what Marshall was implying and said that his interest in the Philippines was strategic, not emotional. “I felt that if I could secure the Philippines, it would enable us to clamp an air and naval blockade on the flow of all supplies from the south to Japan, and thus, by paralyzing her industries, force her to early capitulation.”

  Colonel Charles Willoughby, MacArthur’s intelligence chief, said the guerrilla movement in the Philippines had the potential to bog down Japanese operations, “to force upon the Japanese the commitment of large numbers of troops for occupation duty, but, like the inexorable flow of the tides and the winds, it could not be stopped.” There were two immediate questions: How could MacArthur determine whether the radio transmissions were bona fide contacts or ploys by Japanese counterintelligence agents? Even if they were real, what course of action could the U.S. command take?

  The general had the answer on his desk: an analytical report signed by Chick Parsons, who had also turned in his smuggled intelligence documents and had begun lobbying to get back to the Philippines within days of his arrival in the United States.

  • • •

  Once released from FBI detention, Parsons had raced to Washington, DC, for a luncheon reception at the Shoreham Hotel, the headquarters of Manuel Quezon, the Philippine president in exile. (Quezon had taken refuge at Corregidor with General MacArthur in December 1941 and later made his way to Washington.) Lunch quickly turned into a debriefing session for officials and U.S. intelligence officers starved for firsthand information about family, friends, and details of the occupation. Members of the Quezon war cabinet included Joaquín M. Elizalde, a brother of Juan Elizalde, who was involved with Claire and her underground comrades. Parsons told Quezon and the luncheon guests that the occupation was harsh, but the residents of Manila were resilient and defiant.

  On balance, Parsons reported, life goes on. Details about the Bataan death march and the large-scale atrocities had been known in Manila at least by some people while he was still there, but he apparently said nothing at this debriefing, at least not for public consumption.

  “Quezon was thrilled to learn that his radio addresses are heard in the Philippines,” one of those present reported. “Parsons says the Japanese did not seize radios—only took antennae—so the Filipinos have installed new antennae buried in the ground.”

  Parsons had one main message for Quezon: He wanted to serve the U.S. war effort in the Philippines any way he could. After the luncheon he took a few days of personal time to get his family settled, arranging a house for them in Biltmore, North Carolina. Next he paid a quick visit to his parents in Tennessee, then drove back north and reported for duty in the intelligence branch of the Office of Naval Operations. For the next three months he lobbied for a return to the Pacific. Throughout the summer and into the fall Parsons, now promoted to the rank of lieutenant commander, remained insistent that there was work to be done in the Philippines. He wanted to fight. He wrote a detailed report on his travels and observations in Manila and beyond during the first six months of the Japanese occupation. He was certain that he could help organize a united guerrilla front. Washington military analysts had trouble believing that Americans in the hills beyond Manila could amount to a significant factor in the war.

  By now MacArthur had read Parsons’s report and he had his answer. There was no way to sort out the information without a skilled Philippines hand on the ground. MacArthur had known Parsons for years, as long as he himself had been in the Philippines. He knew that Parsons was fearless and that he had wide knowledge of the islands.

  The general fired off a terse message to the Navy Department:

  SEND PARSONS IMMEDIATELY

  (signed) MacArthur

  Parsons reported for duty at MacArthur’s headquarters in Brisbane on January 18, 1943, ready to take up the battle for the Philippines.

  MacArthur gave him marching orders: Assess the guerrilla operations and enforce a unified command structure managed from U.S. headquarters. He had two basic questions: How significant is the guerrilla operation in the Philippines, and how can we support it? Parsons had sensed that the raw capacity was in place, but structure, leadership, and support were required. There was only one way to get the answers MacArthur needed. The goal was “to ascertain the extent of the guerrilla movement in the Philippines—its leadership, armament and personnel; to introduce into the islands and Intelligence organization; to set up coast-watcher and radio stations for the purpose of forwarding word of Japanese movements to the proper Task Force commander; to carry supplies to the unsurrendered soldiers and generally to encourage the people of the Philippines in making intelligent and effective resistance to the enemy.”

  Though some officers scoffed that Parsons was too old, he was assigned to the Allied Intelligence Bureau and received several weeks of intensive commando training. One month after reaching Australia, he was now ready to go. MacArthur issued one final order: He demanded that all intelligence from the guerrillas be delivered directly to him.

  • • •

  On February 18, 1943, Chick Parsons boarded the USS Tambor, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Steven H. Armbruster. The submarine sailed out of Fremantle, the U.S. Navy base on Australia’s western coast just south of Perth. The Tambor was one of several workhorse submarines assigned to a unique supply and espionage mission and destined for the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. Little more than half a year after Parsons had left the Philippines as a Panamanian diplomat, he was returning to fight the occupation.

  The first shipment of equipment was relatively small. The Tambor carried fifty thousand rounds of .30 caliber (7.62 mm) ammunition and twenty thousand rounds of .45 caliber (11.4 mm) pistol ammunition. Parsons was carrying ten thousand dollars in Philippine pesos to distribute as needed. The greater purpose was to establish contact and analyze what needed to be done on the ground.

  “The trip, according to Chick’s mental log, was fairly uneventful. A few torpedoes loosed against careless Japanese shipping. A few depth charges received in return. All very routine.”

  Against all advice, Parsons had not gone to extreme lengths to disguise himself for his eventual infiltration of the islands. As he had done before, he would pass himself off as a peasant, hiding behind his knowledge of Tagalog and Spanish even though he didn’t look like he was Filipino. He had told his superiors at U.S. headquarters in Brisbane that he didn’t need to fool the Japanese into thinking he was a native. “I don’t intend to run into ’em. I’m not going in as a commando. I’m going in as a spy.” He did carry one item that was not often discussed or commented about—a couple of cyanide tablets to use if he ever was captured. He didn’t intend to run into the enemy, but if he did, he didn’t intend to live long enough to be tortured by them.

  The Tambor surfaced late in the afternoon of March 4, 1943, off Tukuran on the south-central coast of Mindanao. Parsons and three others boarded a rubber dinghy and headed for shore. “When our beach patrol saw him, they fired at him,” recalled Roberto de Jesus, a Filipino guerrilla on Mindanao. Parsons shouted “amigo, amigo.” The firing stopped and Parsons and his three comrades waded ashore. To his surprise, the guerrillas on hand already had commandeered some boats and were ready to move. They were able to transfer the supplies from the submarine to shore, and Parsons said he could expect to message
Australia and ask for a pickup in several weeks. It was the start of dozens of submarine supply missions and several forays by Parsons himself into the heart of the Japanese-occupied islands. Parsons delivered the supplies to Wendell Fertig, who had declared himself a guerrilla general. That would not do—this was now a U.S. military operation organized and sanctioned by General MacArthur. “There are no generals in the Philippines guerrilla army.” Fertig was now commissioned as a full colonel in the guerrilla army, commanding the insurgent forces on Mindanao. With broad authority from MacArthur and making clear that was so, Parsons proceeded to make contact with other guerrilla commanders. His assignment was to assess the capabilities of the forces available and then to analyze the need for supplies, logical support, and training. His instinct and brash sense of purpose would range far beyond that.

  The organized guerrilla war in the Philippines had begun.

  Steve the Greek

  Manila, November 1942

  CLAIRE HAD COME back to Manila with three goals—staying alive, supporting the guerrillas, and finding John Phillips, not necessarily in that order. She already had seen suffering and death in the mountains and faced the possibility, even likelihood, that she might die. In the city she was not letting soldiers push her around, even if they tried to kill her. She seemed to be developing a sense of fearlessness born of her willingness to challenge and confront authority. Now she saw more suffering and more people who needed help.

  American men, dazed, thin, wearing prison garb, had become the slaves of occupied Manila. Anytime a work crew marched by, Claire ran to the highest window in the highest building to look at their faces, to search for John Phillips, for any familiar face, and for clues to what she could possibly do. They would pass by—she recognized none of them but she felt somehow she knew all of them. The sight of them marching to their workstations was wrenching.