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.