Before World War II, the islands of the Philippines were governed by the
Commonwealth of the Philippines, in the process of gaining independence from the United States.
As part of this process, under the National Defense Act of 1935 specifically, the Americans
helped establish the Armed Forces of the Philippines and its army branch, the Philippine
Army. Unfortunately, the Second World War broke out before the Philippines gained independence
and before its military was properly ready, and just ten hours after the Attack on Pearl Harbour,
the Japanese invaded Luzon, the largest of the Philippine islands. The next day,
the US Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) was forged, and under its command fell units
of the Philippine Army, tasked with staving off the Japanese offensive.
Crippled by Pearl Harbour, this joint American-Filipino force suffered
disastrous defeats on the Bataan Peninsula and the island of Corregidor in April and May 1942;
this was proceeded by the flight of the Commonwealth government to the United States,
where it operated in exile, and marked the beginning of Japanese occupation. But the
Philippine Army was by no means exterminated, and its fragments -- led in many cases by USAFFE
and other US officers and aided in part by several non-US-associated movements -- formed
hundreds of resistance and guerilla units, killing their occupiers from the inside
right up until Allies returned in full force in Operation Musketeer, launched in October 1944.
Hopefully that set the scene for this rest of this video, in which we're going to discuss Filipino
guerilla units in the Second World War, a topic deserving of far more attention than it gets.
Now, obviously we're not going to cover hundreds of guerilla units,
but we can mention a few, starting with those led,
sponsored, or otherwise associated with USAFFE and other US officers and commands.
In January 1942, US General Douglas MacArthur approved the formation of a guerrilla HQ
in the Zambales Mountains on Luzon, headed by Major Claude Thorpe,
who managed to pass through Japanese lines on Batan and avoid capture.
The force attached to this command was deemed the "Luzon Guerrilla Force" or LGF,
and one of its constituent forces was the West Luzon Guerrilla Force, led by US Army Captain
Ralph McGuire before he was beheaded by Filipinos under his command. After McGuire's beheading,
US Colonel Gyles Merrill took charge, and under this man served Ramon Magsaysay, a Filipino who
was commissioned as a captain and who ultimately commanded a guerrilla unit some 10,000 strong.
Magsaysay played a vital role in clearing the Japanese from the coast of Zambales in the
lead up to crucial Allied landings in Operation Musketeer. Surviving the war, Magasaysay used his
experience in guerilla warfare to fight Communist guerillas persisting in the Philippines -- which
we'll get to soon -- and he then went on to become the 7th President of the Philippines in 1953,
keeping close ties with the US and founding the Manila Pact of 1954. Another constituent
of the LGF was the East Central Luzon Guerrilla Army or ECLGA, led by US Major Edwin Ramsey,
who grew the ECLGA to a force of almost 40,000 and made use of stolen and improvised weapons,
constructing, in Ramsey's words, "arms out of sawed-off pipes that we used as shotguns." The
ECLGA also gathered intelligence and distributed counterpropaganda, aiming to keep the local
Filipinos hopeful for an Allied counter-invasion and the end of Japanese occupation.
US Army Reserve Lieutenant Robert Lapham served in the Philippine Scouts during the Japanese
invasion. Evading capture, he first assisted the aforementioned US Major Claude Thorpe
in a sabotage and recon mission at the Clark Air Base in Luzon and then went to lead a guerrilla
force of his own -- the Luzon Guerrilla Armed Force or LGAF, which was distinct from the LGF.
By May 1945, the LGAF had grown to include more than 13,000 Filipinos and 79 air squadrons. Of
note, the LGAF sabotaged Japanese positions in the lead up to the Battle of Luzon in Operation
Musketeer, and it also gathered vital intel which inspired Allied special forces to undertake the
Raid at Cabanatuan, in which more than 500 Allied POWs were freed from almost certain death at the
hands of their Japanese captors. After the war, Lapham received the Distinguished Service Cross
for his efforts in the Philippines, and during his guerrilla years, he was creeping around
with a one million dollar bounty on his head, placed there by the Japanese. In Lapham's words,
"Most of the guerrilla leaders who died in the war were killed or captured in its first year [...]."
Lapham attributes the survival of those who weren't killed or captured to their ability to
"eliminate or chase off spies and collaborators," establish "effective spy systems of [their own],"
"win the support and trust of civilians," and know when to "hide out and when to show [themselves]."
Filipino USAFFE Captains Juan Pajota and Eduardo Jonson were trained in a camp
near Cabanatuan City, and returning to the camp after withdrawing from Bataan in January 1942,
they found it in the hands of the Japanese, who were using the camp to house Allied POWs -- yes,
this is the very same Cabanatuan camp we just discussed. Forming a Filipino guerrilla unit
under his own charge but in league with Lieutenant Robert Lapham's LGAF, Pajota and Jonson assisted
in the Raid on Cabanatuan directly, working alongside US Army Rangers and Alamo Scouts.
Pajota and Jonson's force, some 200 strong, used their intimate knowledge of the terrain and
enemy activity as well as their rapport with the locals to provide the Rangers and Scouts
with vital intel and tactics, preventing one straight-up suicidal offensive,
suppressing their movement by persuading the locals to muzzle their dogs,
and setting up roadblocks to rebound Japanese reinforcements camped over a nearby river,
among other things. They even persuaded some locals to help transport escaped Allied POWs
away in carabao (water buffalo) carts, and the raid would likely have been a
huge failure without these two Filipino USAFFE captains and the guerrillas under their charge.
Another famed guerrilla unit was Phillippine Military Academy Cadet Terry Adevoso's
"Hunters ROTC." Before Japanese occupation, Adevoso and another 300 academy cadets
were told they were too young to fight in the war and were sent home from the academy.
But Adevoso wouldn't have a bar of it, and he organised the cadets into a guerrilla unit
which assisted USAFFE forces by providing intel and spreading propaganda... initially. After the
Philippines fell, however, Adevoso and his Hunters got a little bolder, banding together with other
resistance groups to take out Japanese spies and ultimately carry out raids with seized weaponry.
On the 24th of June 1944, the Hunters raided New Billibid Prison, and on the 23rd of February 1945,
the unit positioned itself around the Japanese POW camp Los Baños and provided intel to the US 11th
Airborne Division, assisting in the liberation of more than 2,000 Allied military personnel and
civilians. The Hunters also fought alongside the US Army in the devastating 1945 Battle of Manila,
but these are just a few of the unit's many contributions.
Now as we've alluded to, not all Filipino guerrilla units were associated with the
Americans, and some, like the aforementioned Communist guerrillas, came into violent
conflicts with US-associated guerrillas and military forces during and after the war.
The Hukbalahap or just the "Huks" was a Philippine guerrilla movement
founded partly on Communist ideology.
The armed forces of the Huks were led by Filipino Luis Taruc, who, with his vice commander, Castro
Alejandrino, met with Claude Thorpe of the LGF; while they agreed to cooperate against a common
enemy, the Huks were known for their attempts at derailing US-associated guerrilla operations.
USAAC Staff Sergeant Ray Hunt led his own 3000-strong guerrilla force in the Philippines,
and he described the Huks as "not above plundering and torturing ordinary Filipinos"
and "treacherous enemies of all other guerrillas." During the war, the Huks received little support
from US-associated forces, but despite this, they boasted a strength of 15,000 by 1945.
After the war, the Huks clashed with American forces returning to the Philippines,
inciting a lengthy rebellion which was, as we said, brought to a halt in 1954 by
ex-guerrilla warrior and 7th President of the Philippines, Ramon Magsaysay.
Another non-US-associated guerrilla force was the Wha-Chi, which was composed of Chinese and
Filipino-Chinese immigrants and founded from the Chinese General Labour Union of the Philippines
and the Chinese Communist Party. The Wha-Chi grew to a strength of around 700 throughout
Japanese occupation and served under the Huks until 1943, after which it operated on its own.
Like the Huks, the Wha-Chi collaborated with US-associated units against a common enemy.
It's also worth mentioning that the Islamized Moro rebels of the Philippines fought their
Japanese occupiers too, but they refused to cooperate with other guerrilla forces,
going as far to straight-up attack them -- literally boasting about being at war with
the Japanese, the Filipinos, and the Americans all at once. Sounds like a fair fight to me.
Overall, more than 260,000 individuals fought in guerilla forces in the Philippines during
the Second World War, in some 277 separate units. Due to their efforts, the Japanese never
truly occupied the Philippines, controlling only twelve of the islands' 48 provinces
before their home islands were nuked and they were forced to surrender.
Without the sacrifices of these guerillas, Operation Musketeer would very likely have
fallen flat on its face, and many more people would have died before the end of the war.
But what are your thoughts? Did you know about Filipino guerilla units in World War
II? If you did, do you have any information on the topic you wish to share with us?
It's a vast, messy subject indeed, and we're sure there's plenty to discuss in the comments below.