12 November 1942
Why The Early Guerrillas In Mindanao
Factors Favorable For Guerrilla Growth:
a) Natural Barriers: Mindanao turned out to be a fertile field for originating, nurturing, maturing and welding into a compact organization, guerrilla units. The island abounds in jungles, irregular land surface, rivers, mountains, steep cliffs, swamps and two big lakes (Lanao and Mainit), all offering obstacles in the way of travel.
b) Absence of Highway, Good Roads: Battles fought on Mindanao, can hardly be engaged in by mechanized units, except on the Sayre and National Highways. Good roads, passable by bulky vehicles, are very rare. In place of roads are trails, most of them so small that when abandoned for a short time, they become untraceable. These trails cross and crisscross each other through a most irregular terrain covered with thick forests and rocky ledges, forbidding cliffs and other natural barriers. Such natural difficulties were to become a strong ally for the successful movement of guerrilla forces.
c) Food Plentiful: Mindanao lands are essentially agricultural that even in the middle of well-nigh impenetrable jungles, a ‘small clearing planted with corn, rice, bananas, camotes or other food-yielding plants, can support families. Even forest food products like sago, rattan shoots, edible wild tree’s fruits as durian, lanzones and pulps of certain forest trees, were plentiful. The jungles too offer plenty of game such as wild hogs, deer, monkeys, wild chickens and various birds. To cap it all, Mindanao is one of the most sparsely populated islands in the Philippines, taking into consideration its size. It has, by the census of 1900 less inhabitants than the province of Cebu. There was no scramble for food in the early days of the guerrilla movement!
(Photographs courtesy of the MacArthur Memorial Museum and Library, Norfolk, Va.)
d) USAFFE Officers and Men add their experience: A considerable number of USAFFE officers and men did not surrender or if they had surrendered, many escaped or were released from the concentration camps. Outside of Japanese control, they became potent material for the guerrilla movement. It should also be said here with regret, that many USAFFE personnel made no effort to contribute in any way to the guerrilla resistance movement and reported to military authorities only after the landing of American troops in Leyte. Of the 33,000 guerrilla forces on Mindanao, all but thirty per cent comprised USAFFE men. Seventy per cent were civilian volunteers!
e) Americans were leaders: A total of 187 American officers and men, in various branches of Army service, but mostly from the Air Corps, plus a few American civilians, managed to elude the clutches of the enemy and were mainly responsible in solidifying into a strong organization the different and diverse guerrilla groups on Mindanao, assisted by Filipino guerrilla leaders. Mindanao guerrilla units, some springing into action immediately after the surrender, were whipped into line and in mid-1943, there were approximately thirty-thousand enlisted men and three-thousand officers in the solidified Mindanao Guerrilla Command. This was known and officially recognized by Gen. MacArthur as the Tenth Military District, United States Forces in the Philippines (USFIP), under the strong leadership of a non-pareil “Guerrilla Chieftain”. All of these units were activated in accordance with the Tables of Organization of the Philippine Army (Reserve Division).
How this organization came into being and succeeded in pushing its missions to a successful conclusion, is a story of so many stories, linked and interlinked to become an interlaced whole, one and indivisible. It is in great part, the story of Colonel WENDELL W. FERTIG.
Nucleus Of The Tenth Military District:
WILLIAM A. TATE, American-Negro-Filipino mestizo, who before the war was an employee of the Mindanao Autobos Co., and late Chief of Police of Momungan, Lanao (present day Balo-i, Lanao del Norte) under the Japanese, decided to revolt. Past midnight of 16 September 1942, TATE, in compliance with a prior arrangement made with Capt. LUIS MORGAN. American mestizo PC officer, crossed Panguil Bay in a sailboat with thirty-four men from Baroy, Kolambugan, Lanao to Tangub, Misamis Occidental. They were poorly armed but determined in their mission.
The intention was to surprise the puppet Japanese-sponsored officials in that and other municipalities and take away the arms and ammunition scheduled to be ready for delivery to the enemy authorities. These were kept in the municipal halls. TATE met no opposition, and the move was highly successful. He arrested several puppet officials, ordered them jailed and confiscated eighty-seven firearms which were waiting collection by the Japanese military.
Fertig Assumes Command – 4 October 1942
MORGAN followed two days later. The two guerrilla leaders moved from town to town in the Northern portion of Zamboanga, attempting to consolidate guerrilla units already in existence and creating new militia groups in places where there were none.
MORGAN and TATE, lacking in the fundamental essentials of strong leadership and knowing their own limitations, sought Col. WENDELL W. FERTIG through Capt. CHARLES W. HEDGES (later promoted Colonel), asking FERTIG to head the planned organization of the Visayas-Mindanao Force. Before the outbreak of the war, Col. HEDGES was the Logging Superintendent of the Findlay-Millar Timber Co at Kolambugan, Lanao with a commission as Captain in the Reserve, United States Army. He was a very close friend of Col. FERTIG. He also knew personally MORGAN and TATE and, in fact, met them at the Baroy beach when they came to request Col. FERTIG to command the proposed Visayas-Mindanao Guerrilla Force. Lending the weight of his friendship and influence, he aided in convincing Col. FERTIG to accede to the request of MORGAN and TATE. Col. FERTIG recognized the immediate need for united and concerted action in the attainment of a common purpose and agreed to assume command of the Mindanao Guerrillas, then going by the name “Mindanao-Visayan Force”. This was on October 1942. In his own words, quoted from a radio message to Gen. MacArthur:
“The unification of the scattered guerrilla forces is made with the end in view of eliminating dangerous friction ‘between them and coordinating their efforts against the enemy x x x.”
Thereafter he concentrated his efforts, time and energy in the reorganization, organization and administration of different guerrilla units in Mindanao, beginning with Misamis Occidental and Zamboanga. All guerrilla groups, one by one, fell in line under the new leader, Col. FERTIG, who was soon to initiate similar plans to unify all scattered guerrilla units on the island under one unified command.
On 12 Nov 1942, the guerrilla units in Misamis Occidental and Zamboanga were formed into the 106th Infantry Regiment, the first regiment to be activated under the command of Col. FERTIG.
WENDELL W. FERTIG, an American mining engineer in the Philippines, was called to active duty with the Corps of Engineers early in 1941; served on Bataan and in March 1942, was flown to Mindanao to continue the construction of airstrips. When the order of general surrender came, he refused to surrender but stayed in Kolambugan, Lanao where, when TATE and MORGAN started the guerrilla resistance movement, he accepted the offer to take command of the organization. A man of vision, Col. FERTIG saw in the movement tremendous possibilities ahead though attendant with multiple hardships, deficiencies and heartaches, but the coming events justified his hopes.
FERTIG’s immediate goal resolved into:
a) Smoothing out rivalry among loose, roving bands of scatter-ed guerrillas to prevent the development into serious, internal conflicts resulting from petty misunderstandings and feelings of distrust between themselves;
b) The unification of all guerrilla groups into one compact command to be more effective in the prosecution of plans against the enemy; and
c) Making definite provisions for the security, protection and maintenance of the fast-expanding troops. The last included the organization of an essential intelligence net to know the strength, movements and plans of the enemy.
Source: History of the Mindanao Guerrillas by the American Guerrillas of Mindanao (AGOM) Unpublished Manuscript
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