Awaiting MacArthur's Return, page 20
The guerrilla story did not end in 1945, however. Their forces demobilized or transitioned to become Philippine Army formations, but Filipino guerrilla leaders in many cases went on to have successful postwar careers in the Filipino government. The guerrilla leader on Leyte, Ruperto K. Kangleon, later became the sixth secretary of national defense, and served as a senator in the Philippine Congress.4 In 1962, Macario Peralta, the guerrilla leader on Panay, became the thirteenth secretary of national defense in the Philippines.5 After World War II, Tomas Confesor, Panay’s governor, served as the Philippines’ secretary of the interior and was also a senator in the Philippine Congress before his death in the 1950s.6 Eleuterio Adevoso of the Hunters ROTC guerrilla organization became the Philippine Republic’s labor secretary.7 In 1946, Luis Taruc, the Huk leader, and several of his communist colleagues were elected to the Philippine House of Representatives, having carried on a low-level guerrilla struggle against the new government but trying to gain legitimacy with the election.8 Barred from taking their seats by Nationalist President Manuel Roxas, who had vowed to eliminate the communists, the Huks would carry on a guerrilla struggle until their defeat in 1955.9
Among Filipino presidents, service as a guerrilla, or in support of the resistance, was a common thread in the decades after World War II. Ramon Magsaysay, who had been a guerrilla leader in the Zambales region on Luzon, served as the secretary of national defense in 1950 before he was elected president in 1953, throughout his career overseeing the suppression of the communist Huks.10 Carlos P. Garcia, president of the Philippine Republic from 1957 to 1961, had been a guerrilla leader on the island of Bohol.11 Diosdado Macapagal, who had served under Japanese-sanctioned President Jose P. Laurel during the occupation, was, despite his “collaboration,” still noted for aiding those resisting the Japanese.12
American guerrilla leaders who had been US Army officers often continued their service in a variety of capacities, their expertise in irregular warfare being particularly valuable during the Cold War as the United States tried to combat revolutionary guerrilla warfare. Russell Volckmann, as a lieutenant colonel in 1949, wrote the first US Army manuals devoted to guerrilla and counterguerrilla warfare.13 Donald Blackburn, commander of the 11th Infantry Regiment under Volckmann’s US Army Forces in the Philippines-North Luzon (USAFIP-NL), served in a variety of US Army command and staff assignments, commanding the Seventy-Seventh Special Forces Group (later the Seventh SFG) in the 1950s and the Studies and Observations Group (SOG) of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam from 1965 to 1966.14 Wen-dell Fertig, before his release from active duty US Army service in the mid-1950s, helped establish the US Army’s Psychological Warfare Center, which later morphed into the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School for training US Army Special Forces soldiers.15
For many Filipinos, service as a guerrilla served as a badge of honor after World War II, so much so that prominent Filipinos would fake or exaggerate their service. A notable example was Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos’s contention that he led a guerrilla unit during World War II and was highly decorated with more than thirty medals, claims later proved false by US Army investigators.16 Marcos likely served as a guerrilla, but his assertions were wildly exaggerated.
For ordinary guerrillas, the experiences after the war were mixed. Luis T. Centina Jr., a guerrilla intelligence officer on Negros, served in the Philippine Army as an investigator helping process accused collaborators and war criminals.17 Centina was discharged in 1946 and then took advantage of preferential hiring practices benefiting veterans to find a government job in Iloilo. Returning to Negros in 1950, Centina would eventually emigrate to the United States, and he passed away in 2015 in Belleville, New Jersey.
Antonio A. Nieva, who endured the Bataan Death March before being released and joining the Hunters ROTC, participated in the liberation of the Allied prisoners at Los Baños. He would later decry the withholding of benefits for Filipino veterans by the US government, writing that many guerrillas were “bastards of Bataan, dupes of Corregidor, and guerrilla orphans—with no mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam.”18 Despite his bitterness, Nieva would enjoy a successful corporate law career after the war, and he continued to fight for the rights of Filipino veterans until his death in 1992.19 His daughter published a first draft of his memoir five years later.
In contrast, Rudy de Lara, who had also been with the Hunters ROTC guerrillas, found that the immediate period of liberation saw a certain amount of disorder, and later noted that “people of low character had plenty of chances for criminal activities” until the restoration of security under the Philippine government.20 De Lara would find himself kidnapped and held for ransom by criminals shortly after the war. He escaped, but he would also find himself at odds with the law, accused of murdering an innocent doctor while he was a guerrilla. Although some insisted the doctor had been a collaborator, four of the accused murderers were convicted, but de Lara and two others were exonerated. Despite his rough treatment after the war, de Lara did eventually make his way to the United States and found work as an engineer after completing his schooling.
Besides the effect of the guerrilla experience on individual guerrillas and leaders, the guerrilla movement also enacted some social changes in Filipino society. Some guerrillas used their units and power to eliminate political or societal rivals, and some scholars have argued that the occupation merely saw a continuation of preexisting power struggles in a number of areas.21 As one US officer noted, such infighting even occurred in the wake of the Allied liberation of the islands and continued thereafter, sometimes requiring Allied troops to restore order.22 In the aftermath of the war, the landed gentry, previously in positions of political and social power, no longer retained such power by mere virtue of their status as landlords. Instead, those landed gentry who retained influence “owed power not to their position as landlords but to their activities as USAFFE guerrillas, their control over guerrilla networks and followers, and their connections with army commanders.”23 In some cases, landlords retained their guerrillas as private armies.24 However, change in the power dynamics between landlords and peasants was not complete, as many of the traditional Filipino oligarchs and “wartime Filipino leaders (who had all been Commonwealth leaders) were, throughout the Occupation, politically astute enough to maintain a foothold among key non-revolutionary guerrilla organizations and thus protect themselves in the event of a Japanese defeat.”25
Although collaboration was certainly not viewed favorably by ordinary Filipinos, many leading Filipino oligarchs who had worked with the Japanese escaped harsh punishments because “to purge the elite was to decapitate [Filipino society]” and remove an “anchor of continuity” vital to the revitalization of the archipelago after the war.26 This was especially important to many Filipinos worried about the threat of further social dislocation from Huk agitation. In the postwar period, Filipinos often chose stability over “justice” enacted against collaborators, against the wishes of recently deceased US President Franklin Roosevelt and others. MacArthur’s exoneration of prominent “collaborator” Manuel Roxas, who had also helped the guerrillas and GHQ SWPA, stifled prosecution of collaborators, while President Harry S. Truman’s rejection of a proposal to delay Philippine elections until collaborators could be prosecuted ensured that the vast majority of collaborators would escape official punishment.27
However, this is not to say that there was not violence during and after the liberation of the Philippines from Japanese occupation. US counterintelligence officer Elliott Thorpe would later note that “the tag ‘enemy collaborator’ was soon being used by various groups as an excuse for murder, more particularly after the capture of Manila.”28 Other Filipinos recalled a general lawlessness, especially on Luzon, after the war.29
Regardless, disagreements over how to deal with those who had cooperated with the Japanese did little to damage US–Philippine relations that had been strengthened by the experience of the guerrillas. As one example, the Philippines sent fifty young men, many of whom had served in the US Army or with the guerrillas, to attend the US Merchant Marine Academy in 1947, forming almost a quarter of the class.30 By 1949, a prominent Filipino political leader, a former guerrilla himself, pushed for a “Pacific Pact” against potential communist expansion.31 In 1950, demonstrating strong resolve against perceived communist aggression, an entire Philippine Army battalion, including many former guerrillas, volunteered to fight in the Korean War.32 Memories of the war strengthened relations between former Filipino guerrillas and their US allies.
Beyond the guerrilla veterans in the Philippines, the people and government have expressed memories of the war in a variety of ways. Historians have delineated two competing themes—triumph and tragedy—in the collective memory of World War II in the Philippines.33 The war produced its share of hardship and tragedy, most prominently represented in the battered capital, Manila, but the war also demonstrated Filipino nationalism and the strength of the Filipino people, embodied in the guerrillas, in resisting Japanese oppression.34 Alongside the narrative of triumph were problematic memories in the war’s aftermath, collaboration and guerrilla mistreatment of the population chief among them, but these events were collectively “forgotten” by both Filipinos and Americans.35
Although some state-sponsored historical markers were placed at prominent sites soon after World War II, the most prominent way that Filipinos remember the wartime experience is April 9’s Day of Valor, or Araw ng Kagitingan.36 Originally established as Bataan Day in 1961 to commemorate the fall of Bataan to the Japanese, since 1970 the holiday has been celebrated at the Shrine of Valor, or Dambana ng Kagitingan, atop Mount Samat, a memorial to the dead of World War II. The Filipino president lays a wreath at the shrine every year on April 9. Filipino guerrilla and army veterans of World War II are always in attendance, and the ceremony serves to celebrate the valor and strength of the Filipino people who endured and resisted the Japanese occupation and has often been used to strengthen Filipino–US relations. Additionally, the national day commemorating the Japanese occupation has been a vehicle for promoting democratic ideals as part of the Philippine government’s efforts at nation-building.37
After World War II, memories persisted of the Japanese occupation as a period of three “godless” years, during which the Philippines, as the only Christian nation in Asia, heroically struggled against the occupiers until the return of US forces.38 According to some historians, the guerrillas have been viewed as soldiers of God who fought with Americans, fellow Christians, against the Japanese, who possessed no legitimate religion. Regardless, memories of the guerrillas persist through many private and local governmental memorials. The Veterans Foundation of the Philippines puts up markers naming local guerrilla veterans, and some local governments commemorate locations where US submarines unloaded supplies and arms to support the guerrillas.39 These memorials serve to strengthen Philippine national identity and instill pride in veterans’ patriotism and heroism.
Outside of internal Filipino memories of the war, the memory of the war has also influenced relations with the United States. Indeed, the immediate postwar period marked a high point in Philippine–US relations.40 After that, US exploitation of friendly relations, demonstrated through trade deals that gave preferential treatment to American companies in the Philippines, offended Filipino nationalism, but in many ways close relations continued as the Philippines relied on US financial and military aid. However, despite the fact that the Philippines’ relationship with the United States has been complex since the end of World War II, Filipino guerrilla veterans themselves have remained surprisingly loyal to the country that, in their minds, fulfilled its promise to help them in liberating their country from Japanese occupation.
Despite the loyalty felt for the United States, for many Filipino guerrilla veterans another struggle began after World War II and continues to this day—the struggle for recognition by the Filipino and US governments. As a senator, Ruperto Kangleon championed the cause of Filipino veterans in the Philippine Congress, pushing for legislation to better the welfare of those who had fought against the Japanese.41 During World War II, the US government had authorized the recruitment of Filipinos into the US armed forces, offering the same benefits to those who served as it did to other American veterans. However, with the independence of the Philippines after the war, the US Congress reneged on that offer through a series of rescission acts, resulting in a decades-long fight by Filipino veterans for their benefits to be reinstated.42
Beyond postwar benefits for those serving in the US armed forces, during the war the US government had also offered back pay and benefits to members of recognized guerrilla units. Through 1946, US forces in the Philippines received hundreds of requests for recognition by a number of guerrilla groups. On May 10, 1945, HQ, USAFFE formed a Guerrilla Affairs Section whose primary mission was processing recognized guerrillas and recommending recognition of guerrilla units not already recognized, and its mission continued under various commands until it was deactivated in 1948.43 The process for gaining recognition was often long and tedious, and a large number of those who applied for recognition did not receive it.44
This situation has been partially rectified in recent years. In 2010, one scholar noted, “While FVEM [Filipino Veterans Equity Movement] remains unable to persuade Congress to commit to a wholesale overturning of the Rescission Acts, the veterans have been successful in securing legislation that increases benefits for Filipino veterans in a piecemeal fashion.”45 The Republic of the Philippines provides medical care to those veterans of World War II deemed eligible by their army or guerrilla service. In 2000, under US congressional legislation, veterans of the Philippine Commonwealth Army or recognized guerrilla units were authorized to receive healthcare compensation equal to that of other US veterans if they were “either U.S. citizens or lawfully admitted permanent resident aliens.”46 Legislation signed in 2009 awarded a lump-sum payment of $15,000 to Filipinos who were US citizens and $9,000 to those who were not citizens.47
Beyond monetary compensation, in 2016, the 114th US Congress passed an act awarding a Congressional Gold Medal to Filipino veterans of World War II, including members of the “Philippine Commonwealth Army, the Philippine Scouts, the Philippine Constabulary, and Recognized Guerrilla units.”48 Guerrillas may finally be receiving some public and monetary recognition for their service, which provided, in MacArthur’s words, “the vital aids to [Allied] military operations”—intelligence, troops, mobilization of the local population—that proved indispensable to the successful liberation of the Philippine archipelago.49 Without the guerrillas, liberating the Philippines would have taken more time and Allied resources, and the fact that the Philippines today is an independent country is perhaps the final tribute to the guerrillas’ success.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1. Robert Ross Smith, Triumph in the Philippines: The War in the Pacific (1963; repr., Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2005), 227–28; E. M. Flanagan Jr., The Angels: A History of the 11th Airborne Division (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1989), 239.
2. Of the men in the second lift of transport aircraft, 425 landed on the proper drop zone, with the other 1,345 landing between four and six miles east-northeast of the drop zone. See Flanagan, The Angels, 247.
3. Flanagan, 247.
4. Headquarters, Military Police Command US Army Forces Far East, “Letter to Colonel Mariano M. Castaneda, Philippine Army,” May 31, 1945, Record Group 496, Entry 112, Box 600, “Records Relating to Philippine Island Forces, 1943–1945,” National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. Hereafter cited as NARA II.
5. I use the term “guerrilla” as opposed to other terms such as “insurgent” for a number of reasons, chiefly because this is what the Filipinos and Americans resisting the Japanese occupation called themselves. The use of the term will generally denote an individual (combatant) engaged in irregular combat operations against the Japanese, as opposed to operations by organized US Army or other Allied army units. This corresponds to the US Department of Defense’s (DOD) definition of a guerrilla as “a combat participant in guerrilla warfare” (US Army Field Manual 3-24.2). The DOD defines guerrilla warfare as “military and paramilitary operations conducted in enemy-held or hostile territory by irregular, predominantly indigenous forces” (US Army Field Manual 1-02). Records indicate that the US Army had officially recognized 165,000 guerrillas on Luzon and 95,000 in the Visayas and on Mindanao by 1947. See Grant S. Wilcox, Office of the Chief of Claims Service, “To: Lieutenant Colonel Jay D. Vanderpool,” September 16, 1947, Record Group 407, Entry 1094, Box 258, NARA II.
