Three Phases of World War II in the Philippines

FIRST PHASE: 8 DEC 1941 – 6 MAY 1942.

On 8 December 1941, Japan struck vital United States territories without warning or formal declaration of war. One of the first Japanese bombs fell in Davao, Mindanao. The whole Philippines awoke horror-struck at what was the inception of a most horrible national cataclysm.

Girded for battle were a handful of American and Filipino fighting men, the latter consisting mainly of young inexperienced “trainees” with no previous taste of battle conditions and hastily mustered into line to stem the tide of invasion. But the issue had long been decided before the actual hostilities began. There was no stopping the enemy. He had absolute superiority in the air, on land and sea. He came in overwhelming numbers in men and material.

Bataan Falls

Lieut. NORMAN REYES, one-of Brigadier General ROMULO’S Propaganda Staff, in a broadcast from Radio Station, “VOICE OF FREEDOM”, in the besieged Corregidor in the early morning of 9 April 1942, uttered the deathless words:

“Bataan has fallen. The Philippine-American troops on this war-ravaged and. bloodstained peninsula have laid down their arms. With head bloody but unbowed, they have yielded to the superior force and numbers of the enemy.

“The world will long remember the epic struggle that Filipino and American soldiers put up in the jungle fastnesses and along the rugged coast of Bataan. They have stood up uncomplaining under the constant grueling fire of the enemy for more than three months. Besieged on land and blockaded by sea, cut off from all sources of help in the Philippines and in America, these intrepid fighters have done all that human endurance could bear.

American prisoners of war celebrate the Fourth of July at risk of discovery and death at the hands of their captors. The Visayan-Mindanao Force under US Army Brigadier General William F. Sharp was composed of the 61st, 81st, and 101st Infantry Divisions of the Philippine Army. Major General Jonathan M. Wainwright, in nominal command of all the Allied Forces in the Philippines, ordered Sharp to surrender on May 9. Sharp complied and most of his men entered captivity at Camp Casisang, Malaybalay, on May 10. Camp Casisang had been a training ground for the Philippine Constabulary. The barracks were of crude construction, some with corrugated steel roofs but most were made of either thatched wood or nipa palm fronds. Water was a scarce commodity and the prisoners were limited to one canteen of water per day for all purposes. One pump was the sole source of water for about 1,000 Americans and 11,000 Filipinos. On August 15, 1942, All Generals, Full Colonels and their orderlies left Camp Casisang. There had been a large number of full Colonels plus five Generals at the camp. One of them was Philippine General Manuel Roxas, who after the war became the President of the Philippines in 1946. The Japanese gathered 268 men and marched them to Bugo where they boarded the Tamahoko Maru on October 3, 1942 for a 3-day voyage to Manila. At Manila they were marched to Bilibid Prison to wait for transportation to Japan. Many did not survive the war. On October 15, 1942 Camp Casisang was closed. All remaining prisoners were moved on the Japanese frieghter Maru 760 to Davao.

“For what sustained them through all these months of incessant battle was a force that was more than merely physical. It was the force of an unconquerable faith—something in the heart and soul that physical hardship and adversity could not destroy! It was the thought of native land and all that it holds most dear, the thought of freedom and dignity and pride in these most priceless of ail our human prerogatives.

“But the decision had to come. Men fighting under the banner of an unshakable faith are made of something more than flesh, but they are not made of impervious steel. The flesh must yield at last, endurance melts away, and the end of battle must come.

“Bataan has fallen, but the spirit that made it stand a beacon to all the liberty-loving peoples of the world – cannot fall!”

On 6-7 May, midnight Corregidor capitulated. Lt. Gen. JONATHAN M. WAINWRIGHT left in command of the Fil-American Forces, after Gen. DOUGLAS MacARTHUR had gone to Australia to prepare for the “long march back”, had no other choices.

SECOND PHASE: 7 MAY 1942 – 19 OCTOBER 1944.

Sporadic flare-ups of guerrilla movements, few and far between, took place. It was not however, until 16 Sept. 1942 that guerrilla activities in Mindanao assumed serious proportions…enough to distract the enemy on that island in the enjoyment of his booty, peace of mind, and security as a Conqueror.

During the last lap of the third quarter of 1942, no less than seventy odd guerrilla bands all over Mindanao came into existence, without previous understanding among themselves, yet appearing as if by a prearranged signal. Enemy patrols were ambushed, garrisons attacked; convoys waylaid; puppet officials seized, some jailed; local civil government formed. In effect, a war, however unequal, was declared by tiny guerrilla units, each operating against the gigantic war machine of a victorious empire. The move was more than audacious. It bordered on the preposterous. The conservatives, more or less defeatist in attitude, called it untimely and mad. But there was no stopping the surge of the new resistance government.

Despite difficulties and reverses, the resistance movement in time took definite forms organized, solidified, unified – a striking force that asked no quarters from the enemy and gave none.

Unification of the Mindanao Guerrillas brought into being the Tenth Military District, recognized by higher commands and operating as an Army: Intensifying intelligence coverage through strategically situated radio stations; harassing the enemy, pinning him within the narrow compass of isolated sectors. Before the coming of the American Liberation Forces, eighty-five per cent of the island of Mindanao was under the control of the Tenth Military District.

THIRD PHASE: 20 OCTOBER 1944 – 5 JULY 1945.

The reconquest of the Philippines began when the American Liberation Forces, led personally by General MacARTHUR, landed on Leyte on 20 October 1944. On 24-25 October 1944, one of the most decisive naval battles in all United States History was fought in the Philippines, with Leyte as the focal point. In this naval battle, the enemy was so badly battered that he emerged from it with his naval arm torn in half. In the whole Pacific campaign of MacARTHUR, that was the only time when the Japanese Navy came out and fought gamely and with considerable strategy, even though it ended in destruction and rout.

That was the stern beginning of the fulfillment of MacARTHUR’s pledge to return and drive the enemy from the Philippine shores!

Then followed subsequent death-blows dealt in rapid succession – Leyte, Samar, Mindoro, Luzon by way of Lingaven Gulf, the rest of the Visayas.

Then on 10 March 1945 was launched the first American offensive of Mindanao – with troops landing in force on Zamboanga west coast. This was followed by another offensive, by a landing at Parang, Cotabato on 17 April 1945.

On July 5, 1945, Gen. MacARTHUR announced that the entire Philippine Islands were liberated, and that the Philippine campaign as a whole could be regarded as virtually closed. Of the 450,000 Japanese or a total of twenty three divisions, only some 30,000 were left, scattered widely and isolated. Only seventeen American divisions were pitted against the total Japanese forces in the Philippines. There were reported 54,000 Americans killed, wounded and missing in the campaign. Gen. MacARTHUR cited the drives that followed the American landing as one of those rare instances in any long campaign where a ground force, superior in numbers and well-entrenched, was entirely destroyed by a numerically inferior opponent.