Introduction
On the morning of February 3, 1945, paratroopers of the US Army’ s 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) staged a daring daylight parachute assault along Tagaytay Ridge on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, part of operations to liberate the island from Japanese occupation. e first 345 paratroopers in the 18 lead transport planes landed near their assigned drop zone, previously scouted and marked the night before by elements of the 511th’ s Demolition Platoon assisted by local Filipino guerrillas.1 However, the succeeding thirty aircra, inexplicably trailing six miles behind this initial element, were confused when leading aircra dropped two supply bundles prematurely. Seeing these two bundles ejected, paratroopers began exiting their C-47 transports. Despite pleas by the pilots to cease the drop because they were not yet over the correct drop zone, the jumpmasters of the 511th continued to send paratroopers out of their planes. Aer all of the parachute drops were complete, the men of the 511th found themselves scattered over an area of six miles, with barely one-third landing in the planned drop zone.2 To add to the confusion, the transport planes had not properly slowed before disgorging their paratroopers, causing many jumpers to experience an especially hard shock when their parachutes opened, resulting in the loss of helmets and other equipment.3 On top of it all, twenty- to thirty-mile-perhour winds caused many paratroopers to experience hard landings. Fortunately for the airborne troopers, the Japanese did not oppose their parachute assault: there were no defending troops on Tagaytay Ridge. As a later letter to the local guerrilla commander acknowledged, the FilAmerican Cavite Guerrilla Forces (FACGF), one of many groups operating on Luzon prior to the Allied invasion, had already cleared the area of major Japanese forces.4 is was one of countless actions where the overt and covert actions of Filipinos, and US servicemen and women le behind in the
Philippines aer the fall of Bataan and Corregidor in 1942, contributed to the Allied war effort and the liberation of the islands in 1944 and 1945.
ree years earlier, on May 8, 1942, General Jonathan Wainwright, commander of US and Filipino forces in the Philippines, surrendered his battered and starving soldiers to units of the Imperial Japanese Army. Resistance to the Japanese did not cease with Wainwright’ s surrender, however. Filipino guerrilla forces, oen led by Filipino or US officers, continued to fight and evade Japanese forces for the next two years until Allied forces landed in the Philippines in 1944 and completed the liberation of the islands in 1945. e guerrillas, who numbered in the hundreds of thousands and spanned the breadth of Filipino society, operated on almost every island in the archipelago.5 Each group had its own motivations and goals indeed, in some cases the only thing they had in common was the goal of resisting the Japanese. How then did US General Douglas MacArthur, commander of the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA), manage to get the guerrillas to provide needed intelligence, attack key Japanese infrastructure, and conduct other operations in the months preceding the Allied landings of the Philippines in 1944?
Aer he found out about these scattered guerrilla units through limited communications and messengers arriving in his headquarters over the course of 1942 and 1943, MacArthur resolved to support and encourage the guerrillas by whatever means he could in preparation for his promised return to the Philippines. Despite some mention in official histories and the papers of MacArthur or his subordinates, the planning of and support for the guerrilla campaign at MacArthur’ s General Headquarters Southwest Pacific Area (GHQ SWPA) has not been studied in detail using a scholarly methodology. Meanwhile, one searches in vain for an account examining the guerrillas holistically.
Overall, the historiography of the Filipino guerrilla movement is fairly limited, especially when considering the movement’ s complexity and numerous actors. Existing sources generally portray the Americans and Filipinos heroically and successfully struggling against the Japanese occupation against overwhelming odds.6 Published in 1965, a key work from the Philippines was Teodor A. Agoncillo’ s two-volume The Fateful Years: Japan’s Adventure in the Philippines, 1941–1945. Fairly evenhanded, this work
discusses the guerrillas in just two chapters of the second volume, but using only limited summaries from archival records. Various Filipino veterans’ groups and former guerrillas published other important sources in the 1960s and 1970s. ese accounts, which fall into the realm of “regimental histories” described by Allan Millett, include Colonel Gamaliel L. Manikan’ s Guerilla Warfare on Panay Island in the Philippines (1977), Colonel Uldarico S. Baclagon’ s They Chose to Fight: The Story of the Resistance Movement in Negros and Siquijor Islands (1962), and Proculo L. Mojica’ s Terry’s Hunters: The True Story of the Hunters ROTC Guerrillas (1965).7 Generally credible, but biased, because of the authors’ personal experiences as guerrillas and their close relationships with other participants, these histories largely focus on the struggles on individual islands and do not incorporate many archival records.
American guerrillas also produced their share of memoirs, several of which were written in conjunction with the late Bernard Norling of the University of Notre Dame. ese works, all of which focus on individual guerrilla groups under US officers, have a positive portrayal of the guerrillas in a heroic struggle against Japanese oppression. ey include The Intrepid Guerrillas of North Luzon; Lapham’s Raiders: Guerrillas in the Philippines, 1942–1945; and Behind Japanese Lines: An American Guerrilla in the Philippines. Other works in a similar vein, popular histories by nonacademic historians, are Scott Mills’ s Stranded in the Philippines: Professor Bell’s Private War against the Japanese; Mike Guardia’ s American Guerrilla: The Forgotten Heroics of Russell W. Volckmann; and Edwin Price Ramsey and Stephen J. Rivele’ s Lieutenant Ramsey’s War: From Horse Soldier to Guerrilla Commander.
Coverage of the guerrillas in American scholarship has been limited. In Ronald Spector’ s seminal one-volume work about the Pacific War, Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan, he mentions the guerrillas in the Philippines in a short three-page section. Spector describes the guerrilla movement as fairly widespread, and says the Japanese occupiers, despite attempts to build “oriental solidarity,” were never able to connect with a Filipino population that valued its Western and Eastern culture.8 In contrast to some accounts, H. W. Brands, in his history of Filipino–US relations
Bound to Empire, discusses the guerrilla movement in his section on World War II, saying it helped preserve Filipino “self-respect” and provide intelligence, but it did not affect Japanese war plans.9 Brands portrays collaboration as more widespread than other historians while emphasizing Filipino attempts to survive the Japanese occupation in contrast to “benign” American rule and informal influence. In the official US Army histories about the Pacific War, the guerrillas are mentioned sporadically and only in relation to wider US military operations during the liberation of the archipelago. ey are, however, portrayed positively, their knowledge of local terrain and ability to gather intelligence for US forces being particularly valued.
Recent works have given the guerrillas more attention. Richard B. Meixsel’ s Frustrated Ambition: General Vicente Lim and the Philippine Military Experience, 1910–1944, although a biography of a leader who failed to build a guerrilla movement as he intended, discusses the interactions between several of the guerrilla groups and their interactions with MacArthur’ s headquarters. MacArthur’s Spies: The Soldier, the Singer, and the Spymaster Who Defied the Japanese in World War II (2017), by journalist Peter Eisner, takes a fresh look at a Manila spy ring that gave MacArthur and the guerrillas important intelligence during the Japanese occupation. Dirk Jan Barreveld’ s Cushing’s Coup: The True Story of How Lieutenant Colonel James Cushing and His Filipino Guerrillas Captured Japan’s Plan Z (2015) examines a crucial intelligence coup that helped the US Navy triumph in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. William B. Breuer’ s MacArthur’s Undercover War: Spies, Saboteurs, Guerrillas, and Secret Missions (2005) portrays the guerrillas and MacArthur’ s intelligence apparatus as shadowy but heroic figures struggling against the Japanese occupation and supporting US efforts to retake the islands.10 Importantly, the edited volume The Philippines under Japan: Occupation Policy and Reaction (1999), though not focusing on the guerrillas per se, contributes to a greater understanding of Japanese occupation policy, especially its economic effects, which bolstered the cause of the guerrillas, and notes that “what caused the failure of various Occupation policies created by the Japanese was in many cases the opposition mounted by the guerrilla resistance movement.”11 ese recent
works have highlighted significant aspects of the guerrillas’ fight against the Japanese, but the most important contemporary work to enter the field has been James Kelly Morningstar’ s War and Resistance in the Philippines, 1942–1944, the most complete account to date of the resistance against the Japanese.
Morningstar’ s account proceeds in a narrative fashion, starting with the Japanese invasion and proceeding through to the end of the liberation, listing actions by day on each island. Morningstar makes important arguments regarding the social and political effects of the resistance against the Japanese on the dynamics in the Philippines, arguing that the guerrilla resistance enabled many Filipinos to eliminate political rivals, furthered the cause of independence, and also helped maintain the existing social order.12 He also argues that the guerrillas prevented full Japanese exploitation of the resources in the Philippines.13 Although Morningstar’ s work provides the most detailed one-volume account on the resistance against the Japanese, there is room for further analysis of other, particularly military, aspects of the guerrilla resistance against the Japanese.
Awaiting MacArthur’s Return differs from Morningstar’ s in a number of key ways. First, Morningstar’ s work discusses the social and political effects of the resistance against the Japanese, but this book provides a deeper analysis of the military effectiveness of the groups resisting the Japanese, alternating narrative chapters with thematic chapters examining the guerrillas’ organization, logistics, administration, intelligence gathering, and support they received from Allied forces and provided to the Allies in turn. is book also uses a greater depth of archival sources to analyze the guerrillas’ participation in the liberation of the Philippines, drawing on US Army unit documents and individual US officers ’ monographs, in particular, to provide a fuller picture of the guerrillas’ organization, effectiveness, and interactions with Allied forces. It also uses naval records to more closely examine support to the guerrillas via US Navy submarines. Finally, whereas Morningstar’ s work gives the Japanese perspective from the higher echelons of the Japanese command structure using the translated Japanese monographs, this book also incorporates more translated Japanese sources from lower-level commanders, staff officers, and units in assessing the guerrillas’ tactical effectiveness.
Integrating extant published sources with the extensive, albeit uneven, guerrilla records in the US National Archives at College Park, Maryland; US Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania; and the MacArthur Library in Norfolk, Virginia, this book reveals not only the nature of the guerrilla movement itself, with a concentration on its military effectiveness, but also examines the interplay of the various groups ’ competing goals and the goals of MacArthur’ s GHQ SWPA. In addition, this book further investigates the frictions within MacArthur’ s own headquarters and disputes at higher levels of the US command structure regarding support to the guerrillas, demonstrating how such disputes were settled and overcome. Finally, this book provides a fuller picture of the nature of the war in the South Pacific and Southwest Pacific, revealing the extent to which the guerrilla movement affected operations throughout the area by providing intelligence and diverting Japanese troops needed elsewhere to counterguerrilla operations.14
From a theoretical standpoint, the experience of the guerrillas in the Philippines during World War II more closely fits into classical counterinsurgency theories developed during colonial wars to retain imperial possessions against native insurgencies, rather than those developed in the Cold War era in fights against either Marxist or Maoist movements. In his classic nineteenth-century treatise On War, Prussian military theorist Carl von Clause-witz discusses five conditions essential for a “general uprising,” conditions met by the Filipino guerrilla campaign against the Japanese:
1. e war must be fought in the interior of the country.
2. It must not be decided by a single stroke.
3. e theater of operations must be fairly large.
4. e national character must be suited to that type of war.
5. e country must be rough and inaccessible, because of mountains, or forests, marshes, or the local methods of cultivation.15
As for Clausewitz’ s first and fih points, the guerrillas fighting the Japanese during World War II were largely able to operate in rugged
mountainous regions in the interior of their respective islands, establishing bases in remote areas that the Japanese had difficulty accessing from the coasts.16 To Clausewitz’ s second point, aer General Wainwright’ s surrender, the guerrillas largely avoided combat operations where they were at a disadvantage, preventing the Japanese from destroying guerrilla units in a single stroke. e Philippines, with more than 7,600 islands (of which approximately 2,000 are inhabited) covering 115,831 square miles, would certainly qualify for Clausewitz’ s third point. As for the Philippines’ “national character,” Filipino nationalism proved significant in mobilizing the guerrillas, but some scholars have argued that this was more a belief in the return of Allied forces to liberate their country than nationalism in the traditional sense.17 Nevertheless, Clausewitz’ s ideas on a general uprising, despite being largely informed by wars from the early nineteenth century, certainly held true for the Philippines during World War II.
e guerrilla resistance against the Japanese occupation of the Philippines can also be viewed through the theories of those focused on socalled imperial policing or small wars, many from the British Empire. Major General Sir Charles Edward (C. E.) Callwell, a British Army officer, delineated three classes of “small wars, ” one of which included “campaigns for the suppression of insurrections or lawlessness.”18 Callwell noted that “the quelling of rebellion in distant colonies means protracted, thankless, invertebrate war, ” but the goal for those fighting the insurrection is “not only to prove to the opposing force unmistakably which is the stronger, but also to inflict punishment on those who have taken up arms. ”19 In addition, Callwell argued that it “is oen necessary to injure property” in such conflicts, but “there is a limit to the amount of licence in destruction which is expedient” ; he acknowledges that even coercive measures could become counterproductive, but does not identify a point when this occurs.20 Although written decades before the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, Callwell’ s ideas remain relevant in this case. Because many Filipinos held out hope for the eventual return of Allied forces under MacArthur, the Japanese were unable to prove that they were stronger than the Allies, even if they were stronger than the guerrillas. Meanwhile, although Japanese punitive expeditions certainly destroyed extensive amounts of property, such wanton destruction oen turned the population against the Japanese.
Another British Army officer, Major General Sir Charles Gwynn, writing in the interwar period, delineated roles for the British Army in socalled imperial policing, which occurs when local civil authorities require military forces to restore order. Gwynn notes that such campaigns are oen difficult for armies because they oen do not have clearly defined objectives and have the added difficulty of distinguishing subversive elements from loyal or neutral populations. Gwynn observes that “excessive severity may antagonize this element [neutral or loyal parties], add to the number of the rebels, and leave a lasting feeling of resentment and bitterness.”21 is was certainly the case in the Philippines, where severe Japanese punitive measures, coupled with food shortages, turned large portions of the population against the occupiers.
Interestingly, theories on guerrilla warfare derived from Cold War Maoist revolutionary thought cannot be fully applied to the guerrillas in the Philippines because, as Morningstar points out, with the exception of the communist Huks most guerrillas were not seeking far-reaching social change.22 For example, Sir Robert ompson, a British officer who served during the communist insurgency in Malaya, posited that “the government must give priority to defeating the political subversion, not the guerrillas” during counterinsurgency operations.23 However, the guerrillas fighting the Japanese were not necessarily conducting political subversion, but instead were trying to restore the previous government and pave the way for the return of Allied forces. Many theories derived from British or American experiences against communist movements may not be as relevant to this case, but other theorists and practitioners from the Cold War are. French officer and noted counterinsurgency practitioner and theorist David Galula, a veteran of the Algerian War of Independence, posits that the population, and its support, must be the objective in a counterinsurgency campaign.24 Had the Japanese been able to deploy sufficient troops to adopt a more population-centric approach, they may have been able to have more success in quelling the guerrilla resistance.
Similarly, Galula’ s contemporary, Roger Trinquier, another French veteran of Algeria, notes that “support of the population is essential to the guerrilla” because “it prevents him from being taken by surprise,” and guerrillas draw their “sustenance and protection” from the population.25 He
also de-cried the effectiveness of sweeps by large units, which “temporarily disperse guerrilla bands rather than destroy them,” and he notes that “only a long occupation of the countryside, which will permit police operations among the people analogous to those carried out in the cities, can succeed.”26 Trinquier’ s assertions on these things are applicable to the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. e Japanese forces’ failure to win the support of the Filipino population, coupled with their ineffective punitive expeditions and inability to secure rural areas for long periods, were key reasons why they were unable to defeat the guerrillas. A number of Trinquier’ s other assertions such as the idea that terrorists should be subject to torture if necessary, or that harshness or brutality on the part of the counterinsurgent are all but inevitable even if wanton acts of violence are to be prevented may not hold true in the Japanese case, but his theories certainly remain relevant to an examination of the guerrilla resistance to Japanese occupation.27
As for those writing in the twenty-first century, many of whom have draed theories around the recent experiences of the United States and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the “ war on terror,” several of their ideas are applicable to the resistance against the Japanese in the Philippines. David Kilcullen, who espoused the idea of “accidental guerrillas” more motivated to fight against foreign encroachment than for any particular (in the cases he examined) “jihadist” ideology, certainly could be applied to many of the Filipino-led guerrilla groups in the Philippines, who viewed the Japanese as foreign occupiers who threatened important aspects of Filipino culture, especially the faith of many Catholics.28 Kilcullen later espoused two fundamentals for counterinsurgency operations, the first to understand what drives conflict in a particular area or for a given people group, and the second to respect noncombatants.29 Japanese operations against the guerrillas frequently violated both of these tenets: the occupiers oen tried to apply blanket solutions across the archipelago, and their mistreatment of the population caused resentment and outright hatred.
General David Petraeus, who commanded coalition forces in Iraq during the “ surge ” starting in 2007, had Kilcullen as one of his advisers and later remarked that one of the most important parts of what made the surge successful was a population-centric view of counterinsurgency. is
involved moving coalition forces to smaller bases in both urban and rural population centers in order to better secure the Iraqi population against the insurgents.30 Aer clearing an area, coalition forces would remain there to continue to improve the security situation and build better relationships with the local population. is contrasts with the Japanese punitive expeditions, which would eliminate the guerrillas from a given area temporarily but allow the guerrillas to reoccupy the area aer the Japanese had moved on. Importantly, the Japanese never had the numbers of troops required to adopt a strategy like that used by the coalition during the surge in Iraq, and also never had a sizable portion of the population on their side to oppose the guerrillas, as occurred during the Sunni Awakening in Iraq.31
Influential journalist and writer Max Boot has articulated twelve statements on guerrilla warfare based on an examination of several dozen case studies over a period of 5,000 years. e experience of the guerrillas in the Philippines during World War II specifically confirms three of Boot’ s statements: “Few counterinsurgents have ever succeeded by inflicting mass terror at least in foreign lands” ; “establishing legitimacy is vital for any successful insurgency or counterinsurgency” ; and “guerrillas are most effective when able to operate with outside support especially with conventional army units.”32 Again, the Japanese were not able to gain much legitimacy as occupiers, and their heavy-handed approaches to combatting the guerrillas oen alienated the population.
Ultimately, the case of the guerrilla resistance movement in the Philippines lends credence to counterinsurgency theories that argue for a nuanced, population-centric approach to combatting guerrillas. e Japanese failed to pacify the Philippines because they did not gain widespread support from the native population and were unable to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the Filipino people. Meanwhile, overwhelming Allied superiority in troops and material during the 1944–1945 liberation of the Philippines meant that the guerrillas and regular Allied troops presented the underresourced Japanese with what some scholars would call a complex hybrid threat that virtually ensured Japanese defeat.33
Beyond the confirmation of general theories, it is important to understand how the guerrillas were able to operate. When we piece together evidence from existing sources and archival records, it is clear that, even
though incapable of completely overthrowing the Japanese occupiers on their own, the guerrillas were able to survive the occupation and conduct effective operations for a number of reasons.
First, the number of Japanese occupation forces was too small to effectively control all areas of the Philippines, something the Japanese themselves acknowledged.34 Concentrated largely on Luzon and in and around population centers on other islands, the Japanese were generally unable to police the countryside and rural areas in which the guerrillas operated. Given Japanese strategic priorities in other areas of the Pacific and China, the lack of troops was not surprising. Japanese “punitive expeditions” in guerrilla territory were sometimes successful in disrupting or even destroying some guerrilla groups, but Japanese success was oen elusive without adequate intelligence on the guerrillas’ whereabouts, a problem that stemmed from a second factor in the guerrillas’ success widespread support from the population.35
e Filipino population provided the guerrillas significant financial and material support, including food, medical supplies, and, in rare cases, weapons. Popular support also allowed the guerrillas to obtain intelligence on Japanese forces and movements. Among Filipinos, hope for and belief in the return of the Commonwealth government made it difficult for the Japanese to gain supporters, and many Filipinos in turn saw Japanese as hindering the road to Filipino independence, an eventuality legislated by the US Congress and slated to occur in 1946. A feeling of loyalty and indebtedness to the United States and “the belief in the ideological worth of democracy over totalitarianism” were other factors in resistance to the Japanese.36 Japanese appeasement policies may have appealed to Filipino political elites eager to maintain their social positions, but at lower levels of Filipino society, and in practice at the local level, the success of Japanese appeasement policies rested on the tenuous ability of the occupiers to prove their military superiority, an increasingly difficult proposition as the war continued.37
Another reason the Japanese lost popular support and the guerrillas in turn gained supporters was that the Japanese occupation proved detrimental to the economy in the Philippines, turning many Filipinos against the occupiers.38 A Japanese reporter who had been in Manila in 1943 would later
write, “Despite all that the Japanese could do, they could not combat rising prices and the influences which the Americans had le behind during the 40 years of rule. e American way of life meant smart clothes, beautiful homes and new motorcars to the Filipinos. e Japanese occupation meant only high prices, controls and regimentation.”39
Japanese attempts to gain popular support, such as the granting of nominal “independence” by the Japanese in 1943 under Jose Laurel and the offer of amnesty for guerrillas, were seen as acts of weakness by most Filipinos. Meanwhile, guerrilla sympathizers infiltrated government and Philippine Constabulary units, nominally working in support of the Japanese forces and puppet government but in fact supporting the guerrillas. ese sympathizers passed significant amounts of intelligence to the guerrillas and even gave the guerrillas weapons. Groups of pro-Japanese militants, such as the Makabayang Katipunan ng mga Pilipino (Patriotic Association of Filipinos, or Makapili), engaged the guerrillas at points, but were relatively weak.40
Beyond the detrimental effect the Japanese had on the local economy, which won the Japanese few friends and drove people to support the guerrillas, another reason the guerrillas gained support was the brutal treatment of Filipino prisoners of war (POWs) and the local population at the hands of the Japanese. Many escaped or released POWs went on to become guerrilla leaders, putting their military experience to good use. e Japanese also employed and abused many Filipinas as “comfort women ” in sanctioned brothels, a well-documented atrocity that also stirred up fear and hatred of the Japanese.41 Although the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police, in some cases tried to reduce the mistreatment of the population to facilitate intelligence-gathering, in others they turned a blind eye to atrocities.42 e Kempeitai themselves, charged with maintaining order and suppressing anti-Japanese ideology and guerrilla activity, became synonymous with torture and death as they carried out their duties with a ruthless brutality.
In addition to sparking resentment among native Filipinos, the brutality of the Japanese in China also inspired Chinese immigrants in the Philippines to resist the Japanese occupation. e Japanese certainly offered carrots to the Filipino population in addition to sticks, but Filipinos largely
viewed the Japanese as occupiers, oen through a racist lens. is view was exacerbated by food shortages during the occupation in large measure caused by exploitative Japanese policies, with the Japanese oen exporting food out of the Philippines to the Home Islands, while the sinking of Japanese merchant ships by the Allies prevented food importation.43
Beyond the lack of Japanese troops and popular support for the guerrillas, a third reason for the guerrillas’ success was their possession of a cadre of competent officers and enlisted soldiers, both American and Filipino, who were able to form and lead many of the groups. Although the Japanese were able to ruthlessly hunt down and kill many guerrilla leaders, especially on Luzon, there were sufficient numbers of other talented people who could take their place. As historians such as Ricardo Trota Jose have pointed out, the Philippine Army was largely untrained and unskilled at the time of the Japanese invasion in 1942. 44 However, those guerrillas who were competent, including Macario Peralta on Panay and Salvador Abcede on Negros, were able to command, build, and train their units to a sufficient level to harass the Japanese and survive punitive attacks, even assuming positions on the frontlines alongside liberating Allied troops when they returned in 1944 and 1945. ese commanders oen created sophisticated intelligence networks and administered their units using extensive staff systems, with correspondingly large amounts of paperwork and records, largely based on American models. Civilians tended to respect the military competence of either US or Filipino military personnel, giving the latter credibility and drawing people to their groups. Unlike the guerrillas fighting against the Americans from 1899 to 1902, who were largely led by untrained rural elites, the guerrillas in the Philippines during World War II benefited from the leadership of militarily competent soldiers.
Despite these factors in the guerrillas’ success, they were far from perfect models of military discipline and efficiency. Significant infighting took place between many of the commanders and their groups, and we will further examine them in chapter 3. It was common for the guerrillas to torture and/or summarily execute individuals suspected of collaborating with the Japanese.45 Additionally, although commanders tried to minimize abuses, the guerrillas did intimidate and take advantage of civilians, and many used the disorder of the war to eliminate political or social rivals.46 On Panay,
alleged abuse of civilians was a point of contention between Lieutenant Colonel Peralta, the guerrilla commander on the island, and the civilian shadow governor, Tomas Confesor.47 On Negros, commanders had to be ordered to “refrain from using hard or threatening words” with civilians.48 Meanwhile, there were many bands that took advantage of the absence of rule of law and were little more than brigands, but guerrilla groups fighting the Japanese found themselves administering rough justice to these opportunists.
Beyond negative interactions with local civilians, the guerrillas sometimes lacked basic military discipline. For example, accidental discharges of firearms on Negros became such a problem that it prompted a memorandum from one of the division commanders.49 However, guerrillas were fortunate in that their missteps were largely inconsequential to the fight against the Japanese.
Nevertheless, for all their ability to survive the Japanese occupation, to conduct harassing operations, and to gather intelligence on their own, support from MacArthur’ s GHQ SWPA was also important for the guerrillas. When MacArthur and President Manuel Quezon gave their approval for a given guerrilla commander to head a certain district, that commander gained significant prestige and legitimacy, increasing his support from the population and strengthening efforts at recruitment. GHQ SWPA, through the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB) and Philippine Regional Section (PRS), also provided material and training support to the guerrillas via submarine. Key material items provided to the guerrillas included arms, ammunition, and radios.
Perhaps the most important contribution of AIB/PRS to the guerrillas’ cause were agents sent into the Philippines to ascertain information on the guerrillas and provide training and support in setting up intelligence networks. Notably, these agents, especially Filipino pilot Jesus Villamor and US Army officer Charles M. Smith, helped consolidate the guerrilla groups on several of the islands, with the effect of reducing or eliminating infighting and increasing their effectiveness. Although, contrary to the hopes of Colonel Courtney Whitney, head of the PRS, AIB/PRS never had full control of the guerrillas because of problems with time, distance, and communications, and also guerrilla unwillingness to have their operations
microman-aged from Australia, the relationship between AIB/PRS and the guerrillas was generally fruitful for both sides.
Because of its successes, the guerrilla resistance against the Japanese warrants comparison against other successful anti-Axis resistance movements during World War II, in particular those of the Yugoslavs and Soviets fighting the Germans. All three movements were disorganized at the outset of hostilities to varying degrees, but each became stronger and more organized over the course of the war. All three also benefited from material support from the Allies and derived varying degrees of legitimacy from recognition by the Allied powers. All three conducted intelligence-gathering and harassing attacks on Axis troops, lines of communication, and bases, but they were also capable of and actually conducted large-scale operations. However, of the three, arguably only the Yugoslav partisans were strong enough to liberate the majority of their territory from Axis occupation; the Filipino guerrillas and Soviet partisans were never strong enough to defeat the Axis occupiers on their own.50
ere are other key differences. One is the size and scale of the guerrilla units themselves. Whereas the guerrillas in the Philippines eventually numbered about 250,000, those in Yugoslavia under Tito were approximately double that by the end of 1944, around 600,000 partisans organized into almost sixty divisions.51 e island geography of the Philippines and a smaller population base account for these differences, and genocidal German policies, harsher still than Japanese tactics, largely turned the vast majority of the Yugoslav population against them.52
Additionally, unlike the Soviet or Yugoslav partisans, the guerrillas in the Philippines had to contend with the distance across the world’ s largest ocean in order to gain Allied material support, largely limiting them to what could be transported via a few dozen submarine missions. In contrast, the Soviet partisans could oen count on regular material support, via air or ground, from Soviet forces.53 Meanwhile, the Yugoslav partisans under Tito, especially aer the Allies withdrew support from the Chetniks, were able to benefit from support from the Western Allies, albeit not as easily transported to Yugoslavia as supplies were transported to the Soviet partisans, but still more substantial than the supplies given to the guerrillas in the Philippines.54
As far as ultimate goals, the guerrillas in the Philippines, similar to many Soviet partisans, were largely seeking to expel their Axis occupiers, but the Soviets were also motivated by communist ideology (or preservation of it).55 is contrasts with the People’ s Liberation Movement of Yugoslavia. In addition to trying to rid their country of foreign occupation, Tito’ s partisans were also fighting a socialist revolutionary war that would overthrow existing systems to establish a federal state with equality among national groups in place of the previous monarchy.56 In contrast, the guerrilla resistance in the Philippines did not overthrow the existing social order, oentimes preserving it instead.
One final difference is worth noting. ere was significant infighting between the groups in the Philippines, which we will detail in chapter 3, but such infighting never reached the scale, brutality, or intensity of the conflict in Yugoslavia, a civil war in the midst of World War II.57 Tito’ s partisans oen had to fight the largely Serbian Chetniks.58 ey also had to contend with a large pro-fascist, Croatian nationalist force, the Ustaša, in trying to combat Axis occupation.59 at Tito’ s partisans were able to succeed despite these challenges is testament to their military prowess and their ability to create a multiethnic partisan force inspired by antifascist feelings, a desire to resolve issues about Yugoslavian statehood (the “national question”) among its many ethnic and religious groups, and the promise of a new socialist order.60
We have now placed the guerrillas in the Philippines in the wider context of World War II resistance movements. e following chapters proceed in both a narrative and thematic fashion to examine various aspects of the guerrillas’ experience against the Japanese, drawing general conclusions about the character of the campaign while pointing out specific differences between time periods and geographic areas. Chapter 1 discusses the aermath of the surrender of the US Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) and the initial establishment of the various guerrilla groups, mostly around Filipino or US military leaders, and notes the ways in which groups formed, which was hardly uniform across the archipelago. Chapter 2 examines the actions of the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB) and the Philippine Regional Section (PRS), organizations that contributed greatly to the survival and success of the guerrillas but had their own share of
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