Behind Japanese Lines (43 page)

25. Agoncillo,
The Fateful Years
, 2: 655-66.

26. Conner, “We Fought Fear,” pp. 70-87, describes his exploits at length.

27. Albert C. Hendrickson, personal communication to the author (B.N.). Volckmann provides a long description of Walter Cushing and his activities (
We Remained
, pp. 26-36), as does James Dean Sanderson,
Behind Enemy Lines
, pp. 196-218. On one of his trips to Manila, Cushing persuaded high Filipino officials to give him three sets of identity papers showing him to be (1) a Filipino of Spanish extraction, (2) an Italian mestizo, and (3) a priest. This was probably the source of the allegation, made by many writers, that Walter Cushing and his brothers Charles and Joseph were mestizos. See Sanderson,
Behind Enemy Lines
, p. 214.

28. Robert Lapham, personal communication to the author (B.N.).

29. Willoughby,
Guerrilla Resistance Movement
, p. 418.

30. Volckmann,
We Remained
, pp. 82-90, describes the journeys and adventures of Moses and Noble, and Blackburn describes the variegated, often ragtag, outfits they “unified.” See Harkins,
Blackburn's Headhunters
, pp. 96-100. About the latter, Robert Arnold observes that while many American guerrillas put personal rivalry and political ambition above other considerations, at least they did not shoot at each other as their Filipino counterparts did (
A Rock and a Fortress
, p. 201). Filipinos were not above settling personal feuds by turning each other in to the Japanese.

31. Harkins,
Blackburn's Headhunters
, pp. 94, 100.

32. Volckmann,
We Remained
, p. 139; Albert C. Hendrickson, personal communication to the author (B.N.).

33. Dissette and Adamson,
Guerrilla Submarines
, pp. 39, 233, for example. Jesus Villamor turned in a similar official report to USAFFE headquarters in Australia in 1943. See Willoughby,
Guerrilla Resistance Movement
, pp. 263-75.

34. After the war both Volckmann and Blackburn left long accounts of their tribulations, both before they managed to get to northern Luzon and while they were building guerrilla organizations there; see Volckmann,
We Remained
, and Harkins,
Blackburn's Headhunters
.

35. Harkins,
Blackburn's Headhunters
, pp. 87-88; Robert Lapham, personal communication to the author (B.N.).

36. Wolfert,
American Guerrilla
, p. 157.

37. Donald Blackburn, many of whose experiences and problems paralleled my own, came to the same conclusion I did about drinking when one of his guerrilla liaison men, bearing the sadly appropriate name of Fish, was caught by the Japanese while drunk. Harkins,
Blackburn's Headhunters
, p. 174.

38. Ibid., p. 131.

39. Estrada,
Historical Survey
, pp. 28-29.

40. Harkins,
Blackburn's Headhunters
, p. 101.

41. Margaret Utinsky,
Miss U
., pp. 129, 137.

42. Ingham,
Rendezvous by Submarine
, pp. 107-8.

1. Most of the debts of peasants were incurred not to improve their lands and to increase their incomes but to finance weddings, funerals, and fiestas, and to bet on cockfights. Spence,
For Every Tear a Victory
, p. 230.

2. A good brief account of the rise of the Philippine Communist Party is given by George E. Taylor,
The Philippines and the United States
, pp. 92-97.

3. More than twenty years after World War II, when Taruc was still in prison, he wrote
He Who Rides the Tiger
, with assistance from Douglas Hyde, an Irish ex-Communist. In it, Taruc chronicles his gradual disillusionment with communism, a process spread over some twenty-five years. At first he resented chiefly communist discipline. Then he gradually became aware that the Philippine communists were using resistance to the Japanese to serve the ends of the international communist movement, just as other communists employ local discontents for this purpose anywhere. Once these realizations became clear, he was more quickly alienated by their ruthlessness, inhumanity, dogmatism, and self-seeking, which he saw as destroying all the goodness that had infused their original common effort. Taruc,
He Who Rides the Tiger
, especially pp. 17-18, 20-22, 30-31, 34, 50-53, 79, 167-68.

Long before, Taruc had written another book,
Born of the People
. In
He Who Rides the Tiger
he says that José Lava, general secretary of the Philippine Communist Party, wrote a lot of doctrinaire Marxism in it that did not truly reflect Taruc's own state of mind at that time (pp. xiii, 7). William Pomeroy, an American communist, later claimed that he wrote all of
Born of the People
for Taruc. See Morton J. Netzorg,
The Philippines in World War II and to Independence
, p. 151.

4. Teodoro A. Agoncillo, in
The Fateful Years
(2: 674), argues that Thorp's capture and execution by the Japanese were important factors in the breakdown of cooperation between USAFFE guerrillas and the Huks. Blackburn says Thorp (whom he chooses to call “Crabtree”) ruined any chance for concerted action by behaving in a stupid and arrogant fashion toward the Huks. Harkins,
Blackburn's Headhunters
, p. 79. Clay Conner, William H. Brooks, and Al Hendrickson, all of whom had considerable experience with the Huks, think the political differences between the two groups would have precluded cooperation in any case. Conner, “We Fought Fear,” pp. 73-75, 78; Albert C. Hendrickson, personal communication to the author (B.N.); William H. Brooks, personal communication to the author (R.H.).

5. Among many examples of this view of things, see David J. Steinberg,
Philippine Collaborators in World War II
, p. 93; Teodoro A. Agoncillo and Oscar M. Alfonso,
A Short History of the Philippine People
, pp. 514-17; Usha Mahajani,
Philippine Nationalism
, pp. 459-60; Benedict J. Kerkvliet,
The Huk Rebellion
, especially pp. xv, 67, 69, 71-79, 105-18, 255-67; Jules Archer,
The Philippines' Fight for Freedom
, pp. 179ff.; and Hernando J. Abaya,
Betrayal in the Philippines
.

6. Conner, “We Fought Fear,” p. 76.

7. The phrase is that of Monaghan in
Under the Red Sun
(p. 144) but the sentiment is mine.

8. For a good summary of how Marxist irregulars proceeded in this manner in Europe, see Laqueur,
Guerrilla
, pp. 223-38; in China and the Philippines, see ibid., pp. 256-93. See also Taylor,
The Philippines and the United States
, pp. 96-97.

9. Even Kerkvliet, so understanding toward all Huks, acknowledges this (
The Huk Rebellion
, pp. 50-51). When Vincente Lava left Manila hurriedly in January 1942 just ahead of the Japanese, he left on his desk plans for a village defense corps identical to those drawn up by Chinese communist guerrillas in 1937 after the Japanese invasion there (Taylor,
The Philippines and the United States
, p. 95). What USAFFE headquarters in Australia knew and surmised about the Huks during the war is summarized in Willoughby,
Guerrilla Resistance Movement
, pp. 453-57.

10. Monaghan,
Under the Red Sun
, p. 144.

11. Agoncillo,
The Fateful Years
, 2: 668, 672.

12.
Intelligence Activities
, October 23, 1944, no. 81, pp. 3-4.

13. For other estimates see Taylor,
The Philippines and the United States
, pp. 121-22; Abaya,
Betrayal
, p. 219; Spence,
For Every Tear a Victory
, pp. 211-12; and Kerkvliet,
Huk Rebellion
, pp. 87, 93-94. Spence notes that the Huks themselves claimed to have killed thirty thousand Japanese in “1,200 pitched battles.”

14. Robert Lapham, personal communication to the author (B.N.).

15. Russell Brines,
Until They Eat Stones
, pp. 48-51.

16. Buenafe,
Wartime Philippines
, pp. 226-28.

17. Willoughby,
Guerrilla Resistance Movement
, p. 363. Marcial Lichauco, a law partner of Manuel Roxas, says he asked a Constabulary patrolman late in 1943 what he would do if American and Filipino troops landed some day and the Japanese put him on the firing line. The man replied that he and several of his friends had put the same question to their commanding officer. He had told them that every man would have to decide for himself, and that he wished all of them well. Lichauco,
“Dear Mother Putnam
,” pp. 136-37. It was well known among Constabularymen that General Francisco's sentiments were similar. See Teofilo del Castillo and José del Castillo,
The Saga of José P. Laurel
, p. 304.

1. Allison Ind,
Allied Intelligence Bureau
, p. 116.

2. Harkins,
Blackburn's Headhunters
, pp. 223-26. Arnold, in
A Rock and a Fortress
, p. 192, also alludes to his plight then.

3. Panlilio,
The Crucible
, p. 111.

4. Ibid., pp. 239, 248-49.

5. Panlilio acknowledges that for all the trouble she and Marking had with their guerrillas, much of their time was spent a good deal like most of ours. She said Marking himself was the only doctor they had, and his knowledge came from a correspondence course in nursing he had once taken. She learned some from him, and everyone learned from experience. Marking's guerrillas were often close to Manila. There many of them posed as civilians and got jobs on the Manila docks, where opportunities for sabotage were much greater and more diversified than they ever were for our men.
The Crucible
, pp. 56, 58, 110.

6. Blackburn says
Enoch
French was killed by a Filipino subordinate who thought French had given him too little Japanese military scrip for his wedding; that the killer surrendered to the Japanese, who then let him join the Philippine Constabulary; and that one of French's officers ambushed him on a patrol soon after. Harkins,
Blackburn's Headhunters
, p. 175. I think this is a reference to the same person and the same incident, and that either Blackburn's recollection of the details, or mine, is faulty, but it is impossible to be certain so long after the events. Conceivably, there were two different persons and two separate events. Either way, the moral is the same: one could never be entirely sure of the loyalty of even his closest associates.

7. Panlilio,
The Crucible
, p. 185.

8. Blackburn relates that he once let a Filipino subordinate ambush a Japanese patrol just to keep up everyone's spirits, only to have the man botch the job. Harkins,
Blackburn's Headhunters
, p. 201. My luck was better.

9. Laqueur,
Guerrilla
, cites many examples of guerrillas' efforts to cope with bandits, going back as far in time as the Spanish resistance to Napoleon, 1808-13. See especially pp. 36, 95.

10. Vernon Fassoth, personal communication to the author (B.N.).

11. Laqueur believes that one of the main reasons for the effectiveness of Russian guerrillas in World War II was that they were in regular radio communication with their general staff and thus were never burdened with a feeling of isolation and abandonment (
Guerrilla
, p. 212).

12. Ibid., p. 21.

13. For a thoughtful survey of the problems and dilemmas of the Japanese, see Steinberg,
Philippine Collaborators
, pp. 56-58.

14. Monaghan describes such an episode that took place in Tayabas province early in the war (
Under the Red Sun
, p. 147).

15. This particular ruse seems to have been commonest around Manila. See Panlilio,
The Crucible
, p. 192.

16. Willoughby,
Guerrilla Resistance Movement
, p. 247. Rufino Baldwin, a north Luzon guerrilla, was captured in 1943 when his ex-fiancée
learned that he had acquired a new girlfriend and turned him in to the Japanese. They tortured him every day for two weeks in Baguio, then sent him to the infamous Fort Santiago in Manila, from which he never emerged. Harkness,
Blackburn's Headhunters
, pp. 158, 175.

17. This particular barbarity was even inflicted on women, one being the Filipina wife of Fish, Blackburn's liaison man who had been taken by the Japanese while drunk. Fish himself was flogged into unconsciousness before being executed. Harkins,
Blackburn's Headhunters
, p. 184.

18. Panlilio,
The Crucible
, pp. 206-7.

19. Aubrey S. Kenworthy,
The Tiger of Malaya
, pp. 61-62.

20. This was done to Jack Langley, who had commanded a small guerrilla outfit before he was captured. Harkins,
Blackburn's Headhunters
, p. 182.

21. Ingham,
Rendezvous by Submarine
, p. 40.

22. Conner, “We Fought Fear,” p. 75.

23. For instance, Agoncillo and Alfonso,
Short History
, p. 466.

24. Wolfert,
American Guerrilla
, p. 147.

25. Ibid., pp. 184-85. Appalling atrocities of this genre were commonplace in irregular operations in centuries past. Wars between Balkan peoples and the Turks in medieval and early modern times were notoriously savage and bloody. Russian partisans harrying Napoleon's army on its retreat from Moscow were extremely cruel. One village elder asked a partisan leader if he knew a new way to kill a Frenchman: all known methods had already been tried. Laqueur,
Guerrilla
, pp. 15-18, 46, 61.

26. Panlilio,
The Crucible
, pp. 196-98.

27. Ibid., p. 218; Harkins,
Blackburn's Headhunters
, pp. 179, 184, 194; Ingham,
Rendezvous by Submarine
, pp. 124-25.

28. Volckmann,
We Remained
, p. 107. Though I subsequently had considerable trouble with Volckmann (see chapters 10 and 13), his assessment of these knotty problems is virtually identical with my own. Volckmann, pp. 125-26, 131.