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After meeting former WWII vets in Morris and the surrounding area (some who've been in the Philipines), I (Salvador) started to do some re"search" (google) on the internet about historical events in my parents' homeland-Philippines. I took advantage visiting my parents (April 7th-17th of 2005-see Salvador's Family) by asking about their experience in WWII. Each story on my dad's side various because of different experiences between my dad (younger) and his brother (older). My dad (Cansiano) shared about grandpa-Benedicto (his dad), who was taken prisoner during the infamous Bataan Death March. Benedicto was fortunately made a cook in the prison camp, so he was able to eat and survive unlike the rest of the others. He did this for 2 years and returned home when the Japanese were defeated. Unfortunately, my great grandpa died fighting against the Japanese takeover

...previously written related stories

During the Japanese occupation, my dad told me that he fled to the mountains with his family to hide from the Japanese. "Grandpa" Benedicto went back to continue his regular job as bus inspector.

Great Grandfather Taken

I told Mr. Harla about my great-grandfather who was never seen (was actually seen after 3 years of captivity) after being taken away as a prisoner from my famiy during the infamous "Bataan March". I decided to reflect on what my dad told me of this sad time:

My Dad's Story

When I was growing-up, I remember stories of my dad about World War II. He told me that during WWII, he (4 years old at the time) remembered when the Japanese stormed into their county-particularly their hometown of Laguna. His family had to hide in the basement of their house located in the mountains in the city of Narcarlan. When they heard of the Japanese coming, dad told them all to hide (in the basement). However, my grand-father decided to come out of hiding and check above ground to see if the Japanese where still around their neighborhood. He was taken by the Japanese and walked with fellow prisoners during the infamous Bataan March. Fortunately, he survived 3 years (survived with the help of being a cook for the prisoners) in captivity and returned home. This wasn't so with my great-grandfather, who actually fought (with bamboo) against the Japanese and was killed.

My Mom's Story

I interviewed my Mom last week (Friday, July 6th of 2007) at Papa's Restaurant (awesome Italian sandwiches-gyros..hmm!-located on the corner of Maryland and White Bear Ave.) on her personal family's experience during WWII. She was born during the Japanese were landing in the Lingayen Gulf in the province of Labrador, so she couldn't personally tell any personal direct experiences. However, she shared some stories that her parents would later tell her as she got older. Her family was "forced" to house Japanese soldiers, which they were not a threat at all-as long as my mom's family was "nice". Like my dad's family, they escaped to the mountains for refuge. However, my mom's family somehow went back to their home during the Japanese occupation.

My Uncle's Story (father's brother)

Today (Wednesday, August 29th of 2007), I was able to interview my uncle about his WWII experience. My Uncle (6 years old) Totoy (older brother of my dad's) wasn't able to go to school for 3 years, so he was behind the curiculuum by 3 years by the time he started back to school after the war. According to my Uncle Totoy, he told me his dad was working for the bus company when taken by the Japanese. He was part of the "Bataan Death March" and was walking to Tarlac. Along the walk, his co-worker was shot because he couldn't walk. My grandpa fell too, pretending he died too. When he returned home, he became part of the Filipino Guerillas to help fight against the Japanese. His family would escape to the forest whenever Japanese were around the vicinity. Grandma would cook plenty of food at times to make sure they had enough food to eat whenever they hid in the forest. He would carry my dad and Aunt Toni at times when they would run to the forest because they were so small.

Towards the end of the war, the Japanese started hiding where they would hide-in the mountains. The Japanese would start burning towns, but my uncle's family's town was saved. It was a miracle to have their town saved, which he believes patron Saint Bartalame (sp?) was the reason for the town's protection. Unfortunately, many people were killed, which there were mass graves of Filipinos that died. My uncle remembered smelling the "dead" as the Japanese didn't cover the mass graves well. When the Americans came, they would cover the mass graves completely.

The schools in their town became a military camp for the Japanese until the Americans took over it. My Uncle was very pleased of the Americans, which he told me that they were very considerate (e.g. gave medicine, food, etc...). Ironically, just this past summer (2007), my uncle was walking around Battle Creek Park and met some WWII American Vets that fought in the Philippines. He met 3 (83, 86, 80's years old) of them walking together alone by the tennis courts.

Other Filipino Perspective?

ATTENTION!!!

PLEASE WRITE TO ME (Sal) at info@goodnewseverybody.com if you have any stories, links, resources, etc.. that you can recommmend to this site. THANK YOU-SALAMAT PO!

Stories of Americans that Walked with the Filipinos Captured

Related Sites:
-American Perspective

  • Bataan Death March, US Navy ship
  • Bataan Death March Photos, from 4th Marines Band
  • "...Marine Staff Sergeant Thomas R. Hicks, a field clerk in the 4th Marines, kept a �Record of Events� from 8 December
    1941 to 2 May 1942 on Corregidor. It was apparently shipped off the island on the following day on the submarine Spearfish and arrived at Headquarters Marine Corps in Washington on 13 August 1942. When Bataan fell to the enemy on 9 April 1942, Staff Sergeant Hicks enumerated six officers and 71 enlisted personnel (including Navy medical) as presumed prisoners of war. An additional Marine from an antiaircraft unit had contracted polio and was left at Bataan�s Hospital No. 2.
    The majority of captured Marines belonged to two organizations, the USAFFE-USFIP (finally Luzon Force) guard detachment and the Marine Air Warning Unit (an SCR-270B mobile, long-range radar unit). The first was composed of 43 enlisted Marines and two officers. The latter also had two officers and 28 communications personnel. Nearly all made the Death March.
    Former Lieutenant Michiel Dobervich considers himself among the more fortunate of the prisoners. For reasons unknown to him, he was selected to drive a GMC truck loaded with sugar to Camp O�Donnell. En route, Dobervich was witness to the initial looting, face slapping, beating, and bayoneting of American and Filipino captives. Guarded by a Japanese captain and a soldier with a bayonet at his back, he was helpless in the rage that welled in him. At Balanga, he saw an Army brigadier general and other senior staff officers run through a gauntlet of enemy privates, slapped and beaten as they were robbed of their possessions. At the same time, Dobervich lost 500 Philippines pesos, his wrist watch, two fountain pens, and $40 in U.S. currency. A friend from USAFFE�s motor pool and four others were beheaded when a Japanese found occupation money on their persons. "

  • Bataan Survivor, Minnesotan Veteran of WWII finally shares his story after 55+ years online
  • *added a comment here on July of 2007 and read many other comments from familiy/relatives of former POW's
    Related Sites:
    Search the National Archives records

  • Battling Bastards of Bataan
  • The Building of Camp O Donnel Memorial, the final destination of the Bataan "Death March"
  • Capture and Death March -American Experience (PBS)

  • " "A terrible silence settled over Bataan about noon on April 9," remembered General Jonathan Wainwright, the man who had assumed MacArthur's command after he left for Australia. On that day, Luzon Force commander Gen. Edward King, without informing Wainwright, surrendered to the Japanese. Numbering more than 70,000 (Filipinos and Americans), it was the largest American army in history to surrender. Some refused to become prisoners and fled, joining a significant resistance movement which grew to perhaps 180,000 guerrillas throughout the Philippines."
  • Ghosts of Bataan, book written by an American POW on many personal accounts

  • "After rescue of the 6th Rangers in January 1945, in the office of General Douglas MacArthur in Manila, Abie agreed to stay in the Phillippines and exhume the remains of KIA's and murdered Americans, many of whom SGT Abraham knew in the flesh. The next 2-1/2 years were spent in the jungle eluding mines, booby traps, natural dangers, communists, and the Ghosts of Bataan.. Sgt. Abraham walked the fine line between sanity and insanity.
    In the above 2-1/2 years, Sgt Abraham was the key witness against Supreme Japanese Commander Lt. General Matasura Homma who was found guilty of war crimes and shot by a firing squad. During exhuming of graves on Bataan, a Japanese-Filipino came over to Abraham stating that the Japanese in the jungles wanted to surrender knowing the war was over and many were sick.
    Abraham promised the Japanese Major protection from the Filipinos. Abraham called the Army camp at the San Fernando, telling them about the Japanese wanting to surrender two days later a platoon from the anti-tank company arrived and took the Japanese to a prison camp. At a ceremony Abraham accepted the Japanese Samarai saber. "

  • New Work
  • Philippine Scouts-, story of Major Richard M. Gordon and other resources and personal stories (from Latino Americans)
  • Survivor of WWII Bataan Death March dies at 88 By ASSOCIATED PRESS June 16, 2007 (freenewmexican.com)

  • Martinez among 70,000 American and Filipino troops who surrendered on Bataan Peninsula in April 1942
    LAS CRUCES � Clifford �Smokey� Martinez, one of New Mexico�s last survivors of the Bataan Death March, has died. He was 88.
    Martinez died Thursday at Memorial Medical Center, his family said.
    �Smokey was our American hero, a true American hero for everyone,� Joe Garcia, Martinez�s son in-law, said Friday. �He was a very special guy who went through a lot for this country. He really put his life on the line for America.�
    Much of Martinez�s early life was spent overcoming adversity, and he wrote a book titled Hard Knocks, in which he described some of his tough experiences.
    During World War II, Martinez was among the 70,000 American and Filipino troops who surrendered on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines in April 1942 and were forced to march 65 miles without food or water to Japanese prison camps. Those who collapsed along the way were shot or bayoneted.
    About 1,800 of the captives were from New Mexico. Fewer than 900 survived the march or the prison camps.
    Born on Jan. 20, 1919, in Perrin, Texas, Martinez jumped on a train when he was 11 and ran away from home. In 1933, he was adopted by Pedro and Antonia Martinez of Carlsbad.
    He moved to Las Cruces in 1940 and enlisted in the Army. He was assigned to the 7th Cavalry at Fort Bliss.
    �We got up one morning and checked the bulletin board and it had volunteers for overseas duty,� Martinez told the Las Cruces Sun-News in a 2000 interview. �It had Alaska, which we thought was gonna be too damn cold. They had Panama, that was too close to home. Hawaii, we didn�t like the sound of it. Puerto Rico, didn�t like it, and the Philippines.
    �So we figured that was pretty far away. At this time the war was getting pretty strong in Europe. We said, �Well hell, we�ll go to the Philippines, nothing going (on there).�
    After the surrender at Bataan, Martinez initially escaped, but he was recaptured a few days later. For 41 months, he was imprisoned.
    In his book, Martinez said his experiences as a runaway helped him survive his time as a prisoner of war.
    �He told us stories about it all the time,� Garcia said. �We would listen for hours as he told us about the horrors he and the other Americans went through. He talked about his early life, too, and because of those stories we kind of understood why he made it through.� "

    -

    Filipino Perspective


    WW2 Filipino Guerrillas Remembrance
    Related Sites:
    Pacific Wrecks

  • Betrayal of Filipino WWII veterans
  • The Filipino Veterans Movement, from pbs (American Experience)

  • "Their case was probably made most clearly back in 1946, before their sacrifice had been relegated to a distant memory. "There can be no question," said a former World War I artillery captain named Harry Truman, "but that the Philippine veteran is entitled to benefits bearing a reasonable relation to those received by the American veteran, with whom he fought side by side."
    "WW2 in The Philippines : Eyes of a Soldier"

  • Bataan Death March Memorial, in Las Cruces, New Mexico

  • "The idea to honor those who participated in the Bataan Death March originated in the late 1990�s. While meeting with New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici, Las Cruces businessman J. Joe Martinez mentioned the Death March and how it was often overlooked. Domenici agreed and plans to build a memorial ensued. Martinez - whose uncles John and Joe were prisoners of the Japanese army during World War II and at one time presumed dead - became the inspiration behind the memorial.
    Two of the soldiers bear the faces of Martinez� uncles, while the third face is that of Command Sergeant Major Gilbert L. Canuela, who is stationed at White Sands Missile Range in Las Cruces. Canuela, who is of Filipino heritage, also had a family participate in the Bataan Death March. "
  • Philippine Scouts

  • "But they weren't farm boys from Kansas and California, or Italian-Americans from New Jersey as depicted in the black and white movies made during and after the war years. They were mostly Filipinos serving as enlisted soldiers in United States Army units commanded by American officers. They were special men in special units, officially designated "Philippine Scouts." At the beginning of World War II, General Douglas MacArthur's U.S. Army Forces in the Far East, spearheaded by the Philippine Division, were mostly Filipinos."
    Bataan Diary
    "The Philippine Scouts lived up to their reputation in combat, and were the backbone of General MacArthur's United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE). While the Japanese swept through the rest of Southeast Asia at the beginning of the war in the Pacific, General MacArthur's troops held out on Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor Island for more than four months, spearheaded by the Philippine Scouts. When the U.S. Army on Bataan surrendered on April 9, 1942, and Corregidor surrendered on May 6, 1942, virtually all of the Philippine Scout soldiers and officers became prisoners of the Japanese. Large numbers of them, more than half, would die in Japanese prison camps over the next three years...."
    Frank was one of those who did not surrender with the army on 9 April 1942. He moved into the mountains in the northern part of the peninsula and, with the help of various Americans and many Filipinos, survived bouts of malaria and dysentery that almost completely disabled him. In an era when malaria has retreated into a distant, peripheral threat, it is instructive to read just how serious and painful the untreated disease can be. He also kept up his diary on tiny scraps of paper, stuffed the pages into jars and other receptacles and either buried them or gave them to friends to keep for him. Amazingly, he recovered most of them."
  • Remember Bataan, form angryasianman.com

  • 'Mr. Luciano Dimaano, a Filipino World War II veteran who escaped the Bataan Death March recalls "bombs were dropping on the shores of our frontlines. Boats were landing and the Japanese soldiers were coming ashore firing at us. There were so many of them like ants. We were out numbered." After a somber retreat, Mr. Dimaano was ordered to Bataan. Despite courageous efforts by U.S. forces, Bataan fell on April 9, 1942. Mr. Dimaano explains solemnly that "It was the loneliest days of my life." U.S. forces, including hundreds of Filipino soldiers were forced to surrender and suffer from this harrowing experience: leaving them to go without food or supplies, having to suffer without medicine for the wounded and sick soldiers, stumbling from utter exhaustion, and watching comrades be killed by the Japanese.
    Fortunately, Mr. Dimaano was able to escape the Bataan Death March but suffered from malaria and dysentery for eight months. Despite, his suffering and courageous war efforts, he still waits for equity and recognition. "We Filipinos have the longest fight…until now we are fighting. Why do we veterans have to suffer? I urge Congress and the President to give us your blessing before we close our eyes forever."
    On July 26, 1941, approximately 250,000 Filipino soldiers were inducted into the U.S. Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) by military order of President Roosevelt during World War II. The subsequent enactment of the 1946 Rescission Act unjustly stripped these brave soldiers of their veterans' status and instantly deemed their service as "inactive." Today, only 20,000 of these soldiers remain still waiting for their recognition and equity."

  • The Roles of Cabatuan Women During WWII, personal geocities site

  • " Many families evacuated the town proper or the poblacion to go to the barangays or the mountains to hide and to elude the Japanese. The Japanese soldiers were notorious for conducting juez de cuchillio, so called because anyone they met� men, women, children, aged persons and animals� they would bayonet or cut off the heads with samurai swords (Cabatuan Historical Society, 1977: 16). Lucrecia Murga recalled an incident that happened towards the end of the world war: �In our farm in Bulay (a barangay in the municipality of Cabatuan), there were many members of the Janiga and Parre�o families who evacuated there. At first we were living near one another, but later on we (including her sister, Lucia Murga) left the barrio and went back to the town because we learned that the Japanese were retreating. I heard the news that when the Japanese retreat, everyone should be careful not to be caught on their way because they will kill everyone. The Japanese were on foot because the retreat point then was the mountainous portion of Ma-asin (a neighboring town of Cabatuan). The Japanese passed by Pavia and went through Bulay. At that time, the Jainga and Parre�o families hid themselves in holes dug for that purpose but then a child cried. The passing Japanese soldiers heard the baby so that they came to investigate. They massacred all the people there, the women were sliced in two daw ginpakas, (from the Jaingas, there were many and the Parre�o sisters daw gin pakas), and the heads were cut off. Lucky for us we had a place to go but for them they did not have any alternative, thus it happened.....
    As Couriers
    Women in the town were designated to monitor enemy movements, like the number of Japanese military personnel and tanks present, as well as the movement of troops. They would notify resistance fighters of the information gathered.

  • WWII Filipino Veteran History
  • -Overall Perspective

  • Japanese Atrocities in the Philippines

  • "Beginning in 1931 or 1932 and continuing throughout the duration of the Asian/Pacific wars, the Japanese Government instituted a system of sexual slavery throughout the territories it occupied. During that time, women were recruited by force, coercion, or deception into sexual slavery for the Japanese military. These women were euphemistically referred to as "comfort women" by the Japanese Imperial Army. Although historians often disagree about the number of "comfort women," the most widely used figure is estimated at 200,000. The majority (approximately 80%) came from Korea, then a Japanese colony, and another large percentage came from Japanese-occupied China. Others were taken from, among other countries, the Philippines, Burma, and Indonesia. In addition, some women who were Netherlands' subjects were included in the immense roundup. The women were drawn primarily from those the Japanese considered racially inferior and virgins were actively sought."


    Recommended Resources

    LOCAL

  • Military-GoodnewsUMM, personal direct/indirect stories
  • GoodnewsMinnesota.info Stevens County Military-Veterans

    STATE

    Books

    Photobucket

    Events

    Bataan Remembered, Posted at: 04/09/2009 1:33 PM (KSAX.com)
    "A yearly gathering at the National Guard Armory in Brainerd took place today.
    Hundreds gathered today to commemorate the members of company, 194th Tank Battalion and The Fall of Bataan.
    The ceremony began with a wreath laying ceremony.
    This was a tribute to the soldiers who fought and died protecting the Philippines and the prisoners of war who were forced to join the 80 mile prisoner transfer from Baatan Peninsula to Camp O'Donnell, known as the Death March of Baatan.
    The Brainerd Death March has been known to draw Bataan Veterans and even a few surviving Death March Vets."

  • Philippine Scout Heroes of WWII-Willibald C. Bianchi by John A. Patterson
    "was assigned to the 45th Infantry (PS) at the time of the action (February 3, 1942) for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor. He entered the service from his hometown of New Ulm, Minnesota. As noted in the Medal of Honor citation, Bianchi received the nation's highest award "for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy ... near Bagac, Province of Bataan. When the rifle platoon of another company was ordered to wipe out two strong enemy machine-gun nests, 1st Lt. Bianchi voluntarily and of his own initiative, advanced with the platoon leading part of the men. When wounded early in the action by two bullets through the left hand, he did not stop for first aid but discarded his rifle and began firing a pistol. He located a machine-gun nest and personally silenced it with grenades. When wounded the second time by two machine-gun bullets through the chest muscles, 1st Lt. Bianchi climbed to the top of an American tank, manned its antiaircraft machine-gun, and fired into the strongly held enemy position until knocked completely off the tank by a third severe wound."

    NATION

    Books

  • Bataan Uncensored, by E.B. Miller (amazon.com)

  • *currently (June-July 2007) reading this book
    Keywords:
    -American Soldiers Mentioned:
    "General Wainwright" [pp. 93]
    "The tank commander, Sgt. Herbert Strobel, fell out past the driver into my arms. I knew that [He] was mortally wounded. At about 3:00 P.M-he died-the first whom I had known intimately. He was from Brainerd, Minnesota, my hometown. He had a milk route before the war, and the tought kept repeating itself in my mind, "Herb won't deliver milk any more."-[pp. 97]
    "Sergeant Danforth-led his point into the town, under cover and unobserved. Three Filipinos and himself made up the point. He was equipped with both rifle and pistol. on rounding the corner of a building, he was confronted by four Jap soldiers. They were so suprised that they stood motionless and just gaped...Danforth threw his rifle up to fire. The gun missed fire. Dropping the rifle, he drew his pistol. It is quite positive that he killed two of the japs and wounded a third. The fourth took to his heels and escaped. The Japs did not fire a single shot!"-[pp. 176 Ch. 19 "U.S. Propoganda"]
    "The graves registration division at this camp did wonderful work. ...First Lt. Fred W. Koenig, Graves Registration, was largely responsible for the splendid service."-[pp.238 Ch. 25 "Camp O' Donnell-Offspring of Hell"]
    *I mentioned this name because I went to school with a Josh Koenig, and thought that this former classmate of mine might've been related
    -Bataan March
    youtube.com

    "Some of the men had reached a state of mind closely bordering insanity, from the lack of water. In desperation, they would scoop it up from stagnant pools in the road ditches...
    Some Filipinos appeared and we called them over and asked for water. A miracle took place. The Filpinos brought buckets of it and we drank until we could hold no more."
    -[pp 221-222 Ch.24 "March of Death"]
    "It is my opinion that the normal body could not have taken the abuse of the Death March...It was apparent that Quinlen and I could not go much further. I could hardly bear any weight, whatever, on my left foot. I even tried walking on my toes and heels.
    We made up our minds, as we hobbled along, that we would try to make Lubao. And then, we agreed, let happen what would. If the turn of life's wheel meant that our number was up, it was all right with us. We knew that we would not go on in the condition we were in. OUr minds were steadfast, on that. It is most fortunate that the human mind has the ability of adjustment, both to varied conditions and shock...
    Suddenly a Filipino bus came clattering down the road, from the direction of Bataan. In it were quite a number of Americans. The bus stopped close to us. The Americans said they had been picked up in southern Bataan and had been ordered by the Japs to get into this bus, and told the driver to go to San Fernando...

    Quinlen climbed on and found a seat. I started in after him when one of the Jap guards hit me a stunning blow on the jaw with his gun butt.
    I paid no attention to the guard, but simply climbed in the bus alongside Quinlen. The guard grunted, and walked off. The only explanation I am able to produce is, that the guard thought I was trying to leave the bus when it stopped. And so he hit me with the gun butt to get me back inside again!
    It was a miracle from the Lord Almighty and I have always regarded it as such."
    - [pp. 224-227 Ch. 24 "March of Death"]
  • Bataan Death March Survivor, in Tagalog/Filipino from youtube.com


  • *see Bible

    -Blessings!
    "At about 4:00 o'clock the next morning, December 25, 1941-Christmas-Capt. Spoor and I went to the rear, to check on our supply and maintenance echelon at Geona...Across the street from the bivouac, was an old Catholic church...Nearly everyone was kneeling. Mass had not yet started. We looked at Christ upon the Cross. It seemed that He moved. We sat-almost paralyzed..A very old Filipina lady was approaching, hobbing on a cane....She smiled-the most beautiful smile I have ever seen-and said, "Merry Christmas" God bless you." She disappeared, within the church. All of my previous Christmases flashed through my mind. I suppose Spoor had the same thoughts. He broke the spell when he said, "That ought to carry us through Christmas!"-[pp. 91 Ch. 11 "The Agno River Rat Trap"]
    "..After marching a short distance, we were herded into Zentsuji Prison Camp...We arrived at about 10:00am, January 16, 1943. For nearly to and one-half years, this was to be our home.
    Another shakedown was in store for us...Inwardly, my prayers were feverent that the deception would pass again. It did!"
    -[pp. 279-280 Ch.29 "The Session on Food"]
    "Never, do I expect to find the Christmas spirit anywhere, that was displayed at Zentsuji. It is almost indsecribable in its beauty and its sheer strength. It was a spirit fashioned by men who had a so little with which to work-a spirit that was close to Christ. We felt His presence."-[pp. 331 of Ch. 34-Christmas at Zentsuji]
    "On Christmas night, both 1943 and 1944, the American staged "A Christmas Carol." It was a distinct success each time and the audience was truly appreciative. It had been rehearsed quite carefully. Even the Jap interpreters, who, under cam regulations had to be present, seemed to enjoy it. And the the day ended.
    Without doubt, none of us ever experienced a Christmas such as that, before or since. The expensive gifts were missing, to be sure. But in their place was the real spirit of Christmas. It was a spirit, exemplified, in the small, homely offerings from one friend to the other-the shedding of arguments and petty dislikes which come to people living too close togehter. The important part was, what the spirit of the Christmas Child Himself was present, in that prison camp."
    -[pp 334]
    -Camp Zentsuji
    Lawrence Journal World
    Zentsuji POW Camp, Center for Research Allied POWS Under the Japanese
    Zentsuji, Kagawa, from Wikipedia
    -Filipino People
    "We began to see Filipino civilians along the road. They were very sympatheti, noting our misery. They risked death, by covertly tossing raw turnips to us."-[pp. 225 Ch. 24 "March of Death"]
    "We left Cabanatuan Prison Camp at about 3:00am, November 5, 1942. Arriving at the town, we were herded into the hated box cars...
    Whether or not we stopped at stations enroute, the blessed Filipinos were on hand to throw foodstuffs to us. At one station where we stopped, they had brought buckets of a kind of fruit drink. It was delicious. Very strangely, the Japs did not bother anyone at this station."
    -[pp. 259 Ch. 27 "The Hell Ship"]
    -Filipino Scouts
    "The Philippine Scouts (part of our regular army) had numbered 6,000 as a maximum...No finer soldeir was ever found. It was the highest ambition of the Filipino to become a Scout."-[pp. 77 Ch. 9 "The Rice Storage at Cabanatuan"]
    "The Scouts immediately followed up, killing many Japs on either side of the beach, and putting the rest on the run. This was accomplished before the tanks could even make their way up the trail!'-[pp 200 Ch. 21 "Help is On the Way"]
    Related Sites:
    WORLD WAR 2 BATAAN DEATH MARCH - PART 2

    " Uploaded on Jun 20, 2008
    Go to: www.worldwar2treasure.com if you are interested in high adventure and want to participate in recovering World War 2 treasure. Massive looting as an extension of war is nothing new. The Japanese were serious, sober, and deliberate when they methodically and systematically looted thirteen Asian Countries during World War 2. They took treasure including precious diamonds and other gems, gold bullion, and solid gold Buddha's out of every hiding place. Much of this treasure did not make it back to Japan due to a World War 2 naval blockade of the Philippine islands by the United States, and has been recovered recently in underground hiding places. Widespread and systematic looting took place during World War 2 throughout Europe and Asia. For details, go to: www.worldwar2treasure.com "

    Philippine Scouts
    Philippine Scout Heroes of WWII, by John A. Patterson
    "Those who know the history of the Philippine Scouts stand in awe of their exploits during World War II. Even though they performed extraordinarily well before the war as regular U.S. Army soldiers charged with the defense of the Philippines, it is their spirited combat against the Japanese in one action after another from early December 1941, until the fall of the Philippines in May of 1942, for which they are most famous."
    Wikipedia
    "In the midst of the Battle of Bataan, on 11 March 1942, President Roosevelt had General Douglas MacArthur spirited out of the Philippines by PT boat and airplane. With the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor in shambles, and the Japanese Navy blockading the Philippines, there was no way to send adequate amounts of food, medicine, ammunition or reinforcements to Bataan. Even early on in the campaign, in January 1942, because the Fil-American military's food-stocks were judged as insufficient for the planned six-month siege, General MacArthur ordered that his forces be fed one-half daily rations. Of course, such a diet did not provide enough calories for men working and fighting in the tropical heat of the Philippines' Dry season. Nonetheless, the Scouts and the other soldiers held out for more than four months without adequate food or medicine, while malaria, dysentery and malnutrition ravaged their ranks, and Japanese attacks drove them further down the Bataan Peninsula."
    -Hell Ships
    Hell Ships, from harrisonheritage.com
    Hell Ships Memorial
    Wikipedia
    "As Allied forces closed in, the Japanese began transferring POWs by sea. Similar to conditions on the Bataan Death March, prisoners were often crammed into cargo holds with little air, food or water for journeys that would last weeks. Many died due to asphyxia, starvation or dysentery. Some POWs in the heat, humidity, lack of oxygen, food, and water became delirious and unresponsive to their environment. Unlike weapons transports which were sometimes marked as Red Cross ships, these prisoner transports were unmarked and were targeted by Allied submarines and aircraft, unaware of their real purpose."
    -KGEI (Raio station from San Francisco)
    American Forces Radio and Television Service-The First Sixty Years
    "The first radio broadcasts, however, were short-wave transmissions beamed to the Philippines by KGEI in San Francisco beginning in 1939. The response from the field was encouraging. In Asia, it was an answer to Japanese Radio Tokyo broadcasts that covered most of the continent. When McArthur was struggling to save Philippines from the Japanese KGEI broadcasts were the only sources of news and information coming from America. McArthur�s people set up a transmitter at Baatan and then rebroadcast KGEI programs. When the transmitter was, however, moved to Corrrgidor with Macarthur it was used solely for propaganda purposes that did not do anyone any good. In any case, MacArthur�s �Voice of Freedom� was an important step in the right direction." The History Of KTAB and KSFO San Francisco, California By John F. Schneider
    *KGEI mentioned by E.B. many times
    "KSFO's importance as a broadcast station did not end when it parted company with CBS. With the start of World War II, KSFO produced war news that rivaled, and occasionally surpassed, the networks. As the key station for the Universal Broadcasting Company, a new but short-lived network, KSFO provided extensive news coverage, as well as regular news commentator reports, to the rest of the nation. The station broadcast fifteen-minute newscasts hourly, emphasizing the national and world news, along with in- depth reporting and feature stories. And, in the mid and late forties, KSFO provided live coverage of many major news events. For example, the station had its own reporter on the scene to cover the Japanese surrender in 1945"
    Related Sites:
    Company C, 194th Tank Battalion in the Philippines, 1941-42, from military museum
    "The 194th Tank Battalion was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Ernest B. Miller and was comprised of M3 tanks, half-tracks, jeeps, and motorcycles. For nearly a month, the 194th Tank Battalion had fought along a series of phase, obstacle, and holding lines, executing a retrograde delay from both North and South Luzon. It had fought a number of sharp actions and contributed significantly to the success of the orderly delay of American and Filipino forces back to the Bataan Peninsula."
    Miller Range Complex, pdf format from minnesota national guard
    Japanese PSYOP During WWII, various leaflets/propoganda to deceive the countries they bombed!
    *E.B. Miller mentions this in his book

  • Lester Tenney: ex-POW and Survivor of the Bataan Death March
  • Reviews:
    West Point-Publications
    *other good books on this subject listed here too
    "Lt. Boyt, 201st Engr. Bn. (PA), was stationed at Clark Field at the beginning of the war. It tells of his time during the defensive campaign on Bataan, his participation in the Death March and conditions at all the POW Camps he was at in the Philippines (Camp O'Donnell and Cabanatuan) and Japan (Tanagawa, Zentsuji and Roku Roshi). In November 1942 he went from Manila to Japan aboard the Nagato Maru. It also goes into his eventual rescue by American Forces and his trip home. Many names are mentioned in the story itself along with several different POW camps"
    -War Ends
    "The announcement was made to the prisoners, in short terse words...Who won?...Prisoners screamed and danced and wept and prayed. They shook hands and pounded one another on the back. They whislted and stomped. It was stark pandemonium. You talked to yourself, to everyone else-and the Lord. You tried to sing "America" and a lump in your throat knocked the tune apart. But it was there just the same. And so was "Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow" and the heartfelt thankfulness of men who knew the true meaning of thanksgiving"-[pp. 351 Ch. 36 "The War is Over!"]
    "..Any attempt for revenge on the Japs at Rokuroshi was discouraged...It may be suprising, that the great majority of the prisoners, wished only to see the guilty punished, but by legal process. That, to me, speaks well for the code of ethics of Americans."-[pp 358 Ch. 37 "Freedom"]
    MY FARAWAY HOME: An American Family's WWII Tale of Adventure and Survival in the Jungles of the Philippines Mary McKay Maynard The Lyons Press Memoir ISBN: 1585742619, from bookreporter.com
    "We hear a lot about the bombing of Pearl Harbor these days, and for good reason. When it actually happened, there was nothing to compare it to. Unfortunately, Mary McKay and her family were not even on U. S. shores at the time in order to deal with the consequences of this act --- instead they were in the Philippines, the next place on Japan's attack plan, living with other mining families. They fled their comfortable home for a jungle flight that they hoped would last simply days. Instead, they found themselves on the run in the tropics for two years, escaping on submarines dodging torpedoes, surviving natural disasters --- even her brother managed to survive a long stay in a prison camp after being taken in after the bombing of Manila. MY FARAWAY HOME is a memoir that few of us would like to repeat, but it does raise interesting questions about the fights for freedom and how far one must go and what one must suffer in order to preserve our American way of life."--- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano
    Related Sites:
    Book near, order
    Books About Our War Written by Family & Friends, from HarrisonHeritage

    Holidays

  • Memorial Day
  • Key Figures

  • Manuel L. Quezon biography, biography.com

  • "..was governor of Tayabas province before being elected a representative in 1907 to the newly established Philippine Assembly. In 1909 Quezon was appointed resident commissioner for the Philippines, entitled to speak, but not vote, in the U.S. House of Representatives; during his years in Washington, he fought for a speedy grant of independence by the U.S., which happened in 1935..
    more on Manual L. Quezon..http://www.biography.com/people/manuel-l-quezon-9449620
    Manuel L. Quezon (1878-1944), pbs.org
    "In 1904, while in the Philippines on his very first assignment out of West Point, Lieutenant Douglas MacArthur wrote a pamphlet on reconnaissance for the Philippine Constabulary, the newly established paramilitary police force. Captain James G. Harbord, head of the Constabulary, was so impressed that he took MacArthur out to dinner at the swank Army and Navy Club, overlooking Manila Bay. When he arrived, MacArthur found Harbord with a pair of young Filipino lawyers, Manuel Quezon and Sergio Osmeña. Although MacArthur could not have known it at the time, both men were destined to become Presidents of the Philippine Commonwealth and major figures in his life. Quezon's destiny, in particular, would be interwoven with MacArthur's in ways profoundly important to both of them.
    Manuel Quezon was born to Spanish mestizo parents in the remote town of Baler in Tayabas province, on the east coast of Luzon. His father, a former soldier in the Spanish army, operated a small rice farm, but as mestizos the family enjoyed a higher social status than even wealthy Filipinos. Manuel was sent to school in Manila at the age of nine and remained there through college, where he studied law. Although he had supported the Spanish against Filipino nationalists, in 1899 he joined Aguinaldo's guerrilla war against the Americans, and was eventually jailed for six months for allegedly murdering an American prisoner. After being released for lack of evidence, Quezon's sharp mind and considerable charisma caught the eye of American colonial officials, and his stratospheric political ascent began. After serving as a prosecutor in Mindoro, he was elected governor of Tayabas in 1906; the following year, he and Osmeña helped found the Nacionalista party, which would dominate Philippine politics for decades. By 1916, Quezon had become President of the Philippine Senate and de facto leader of the Philippine independence movement. ..

    Jews honor Manuel L. Quezon on his 134th birthday By Nena C. Benigno Philippine Daily Inquirer 1:47 am | Sunday, August 19th, 2012 globalnation.inquirer.net
    "As the country commemorates the 134th birthday today, August 19, of Manuel L. Quezon, he is also honored by thousands of Jewish families who have survived and prospered because they found a home in Manila at the darkest time in their history as a race.
    It was a point of no return.
    German and Austrian Jews—1,200 of them—narrowly escaped Adolf Hitler’s gas chambers just before the German dictator rounded up 6 million Jews who were eventually tortured and murdered in his concentration camps.
    “The mob was screaming bloody murder: ‘Kill the Jews!’” recalls child refugee to Manila John Odenheimer who saw Nazi storm troopers rampaging through their Jewish neighborhood.
    “We caught the last train out of Berlin, they closed the border after us,” recalls German refugee Guenther Leopold, whose house was smashed and ransacked by Nazi soldiers. “There was nothing left (but broken) glass on the floors.”
    The year was 1940. On the other side of the world, a Filipino leader opened his country to fleeing Jewish refugees when no other country would take them.
    President Quezon opened the Philippines’ doors to up to 10,000 Jewish refugees.
    “We went to the Philippines because it was the only place that gave us a visa,” recalled Harry Brauer, one of the Jews who escaped captivity, during that black period of ignorance and anti-Semitism.
    The German and Austrian Jews were given visas to work in Manila.
    ‘Moral courage’
    “Other countries did not think [saving the Jews] was that important, I don’t presume to say,” said Quezon’s daughter Zeneida Quezon Avanceña. “But I know dad had the moral courage to do it because he believed in the sanctity of human life and the right of people to live as they believe they should.”
    The dramatic rescue plan for the Jews was devised by three men who mapped out a strategy over weekend nights playing poker and smoking cigars. They were: Quezon, who would sanction the Jews’ official entry and even donate his own land in Marikina and Mindanao for their settlements; American High Commissioner to the Philippines Paul McNutt, who risked his political career convincing US government officials to issue thousands of working visas for Jews to the Philippines; and Herbert Frieder and his sons, owners of the Philippine-based Helena Cigar and Cigarette Factory, who provided jobs in their factory for the Jews, raised money to transport them to Manila, found them housing and schools for their children.
    ‘Open Doors’ monument
    Quezon was the President of the first democracy in the “Far East,” extending safety and liberty to the Jews who would set up the first democracy and Bible-believing state in the Middle East.
    The tradition of freedom of worship and support for the biblical “chosen people” would manifest again seven years later when the Philippines became the only Asian nation to vote in the United Nations for the partition of Palestine and the recreation of the state of Israel. Many of the refugees to Manila eventually resettled in Israel.
    The Filipinos and Quezon are honored in Israel by an attractive and imposing “Open Doors” monument in Rishon Lezion Memorial Park just off Tel Aviv built in 2009. It commemorates the historic and spiritual ties between two peoples scattered among the nations, united by their commitment to freedom, humanitarian principles and faith in the God of the Bible.
    The story of the Jews’ dramatic escape from the Holocaust and their resettlement in the Philippines is recorded in the book “Escape to Manila,” written by refugee Frank Ephraim. A film that records that modern-day Exodus, titled “Rescue in the Philippines,” is being produced by Frieder Films and 3 Roads Communications, a preview of which will be shown on “The 700 Club Asia” on GMA News TV during a “Special Focus on Israel” beginning on September 15. "


    Douglas MacArthur From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    "..General of the Army Douglas MacArthur (26 January 1880 – 5 April 1964) was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army who was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines Campaign, which made him and his father Arthur MacArthur, Jr., the first father and son to be awarded the medal. He was one of only five men ever to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the U.S. Army, and the only man ever to become a field marshal in the Philippine Army....
    Gen. Douglas MacArthur "I Shall Return"

    Remembering Leyte and MacArthur’s Vow of “I Shall Return” Words James Zobel Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 7:30 am altdaily.com
    "...As far as the American public was concerned, the Leyte landing was the turning point of the war in the Pacific. The D-Day landings at Normandy, France had raised the hopes for an end to the European war, and Leyte had the same effect in terms of the Pacific war.
    For Douglas MacArthur it meant the fulfillment of his sacred vow of, “I shall return.” He had made this pledge to the Philippine people after he had been ordered from the Philippine fortress of Corregidor to Australia by President Roosevelt in March 1942, just before the greatest defeat in American history. The vow haunted him throughout World War II and greatly influenced his strategy in the Pacific. Roosevelt made a similar pledge of redemption to Philippine Commonwealth President Manuel Quezon during the dark days of Bataan and Corregidor, realizing that America’s reputation would suffer in Asia for many years to come if the United States did not return in good faith to liberate its protectorate, the Commonwealth of the Philippines. ....
    With Manila secured, MacArthur then turned his eyes on the southernmost island of Mindanao and the Visayan chain of the archipelago. Guerrilla movements on all the islands, fostered by MacArthur’s headquarters, had waited three years for liberation and he refused to bypass them. Filipinos joined the established guerrilla commands en masse and joined American forces in pushing the Japanese into the mountainous areas and containing them there until war’s end. This strategy ultimately paid off. After the surrender of Japan on the decks of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, General Tomoyuki Yamashita walked out of the mountains of north Luzon with more than 65,000 well fed, well armed troops ready for a fight.
    Though this strategy of containment saved many lives, over a million Filipinos, Japanese, and Americans lost their lives in the battle for the Philippines ....

  • MacArthur Leaves Corregidor By: Callie OettingerDate:March11 , 2011 commandposts.com

  • " Jonathan M Wainwright

  • Jonathan M. Wainwright , britannica.com

  • "...After he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York (1906), Wainwright joined the cavalry and saw action in Europe during World War I. In September 1940 he was promoted to major general and sailed for Manila to take command of the Philippine Division. Thus, when World War II broke out in the Far East (December 1941), he was already a seasoned leader of well-trained U.S. and Filipino troops. When Gen. Douglas MacArthur left the Philippines to assume a higher post (March 1942), Wainwright was given command of all U.S. forces remaining in the islands—a situation that was already militarily hopeless. Retreating finally from the peninsula of Bataan to the island fortress of Corregidor in Manila harbour, Wainwright was forced on May 6 to surrender his hungry, battle-scarred forces to the Japanese. From then until August 1945 he and his men were held prisoners of war in Taiwan and in Manchuria. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, he returned home to receive a hero’s welcome and the Medal of Honor....

  • Jonathan M. Wainwright (general) nndb.com

  • Jonathan M. Wainwright (general) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    and was the son of Robert Powell Page Wainwright, a U.S. Army officer who had served as a 2nd Lt in the US 1st Cavalry in 1875, commanded a squadron at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish-American War, and in 1902 was killed in action in the Philippines....
    . He entered into Freemasonry in May 1946 at Union Lodge No. 7. in Junction City Kansas and Shriner becoming the fastest nonmember-to-Shiner in less than two days; he served for the remainder of his life


  • Sergio Osmeña, (born Sept. 9, 1878, Cebu City, Phil.—died Oct. 19, 1961, Manila) britannica.com

  • '...., Filipino statesman, founder of the Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista) and president of the Philippines from 1944 to 1946.
    Osmeña received a law degree from the University of Santo Tomás, Manila, in 1903. He was also editor of a Spanish newspaper, El Nuevo Día, in Cebu City. In 1904 the U.S. colonial administration appointed him governor of the province of Cebu and fiscal (district attorney) for the provinces of Cebu and Negros Oriental. Two years later he was elected governor of Cebu. In 1907 he was elected delegate to the Philippine National Assembly and founded the Nationalist Party, which came to dominate Philippine political life..


  • Major William "Wild Bill" Massello & Btty Way, corregidor.org

  • "...Between graduation in 1932 and his first of two tours to the Philippines, Massello found himself a soldier in a peacetime army in the US, a country still gripped in the Great Depression. Few billets were available. He eventually found himself assigned as a camp mess organizer and investigator, a kind of troubleshooter for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a job at which he was to excel. He continued in this role, moving from CCC camp to CCC camp fixing problems until the end of 1934 when he was assigned to the 91st Philippine Scouts, Fort Mills, Corregidor, Philippine Islands. This was a marvelous time to be young and single and in a foreign posting. Massello learned his trade as a Coast Artillery officer there and traveled throughout the exotic Orient. Bill loved it.
    Massello returned to the states in 1937. He continued in various assignments in the Coast Artillery for the next two and half years. In July of 1939 he married a “cute little co-ed,” Olga Katherine Neill, whom he met while stationed at Fort MacArthur, California. For their honeymoon, Bill took Olga to the Philippines where he had just received orders for his second tour.
    By 1941 tensions were increasing in the Pacific. Japan and America were at odds and it seemed to many, now-Captain Massello among them, that war was inevitable. In April of 1941 the War Department ordered the evacuation of dependents. Olga and Bill parted, Olga leaving on the liner Republic for the United States and Bill remaining in the Philippines, soon to be swept up in the maelstrom of war. ...

  • George M. Jones Brigadier General, United States Army , arlingtoncemetery.net

  • "..He is a 1935 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York. He is a veteran of World War II. He commanded the 501st Parachute Battalion, an original parachute unit, while it served in the Canal Zone.
    He also deployed to the Pacific Theatre with the 503d Parachute Infantry regiment to act as Gen. Mac Authur's strategic reserve. Later, he was assigned to the parachute school where he assumed the duties of Director of Training. ...

    Miscellaneous

  • History of the Philippines (1898-1946), from Wikipedia

  • "A few hours after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the Japanese launched air raids in several cities and US military installations in the Philippines on December 8, and on December 10, the first Japanese troops landed in Northern Luzon.
    General Douglas MacArthur, commander of the United States Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE), was forced to retreat to Bataan. Manila was occupied by the Japanese on January 2, 1942. The fall of Bataan was on April 9, 1942 with Corregidor Island, at the mouth of Manila Bay, surrendering on May 6 (an act which completely delayed the Japanese war timetable).
    The Commonwealth government by then had exiled itself to Washington, DC, upon the invitation of President Roosevelt; however many politicians stayed behind and collaborated with the occupying Japanese. The Philippine Army continued to fight the Japanese in a guerrilla war and were considered auxiliary units of the United States Army. Several Philippine military awards, such as the Philippine Defense Medal, Independence Medal, and Liberation Medal, were awarded to both the United States and Philippine Armed Forces.
    As the Japanese forces advanced, Manila was declared an open city to prevent it from destruction, meanwhile, the government was moved to Corregidor. In March 1942, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur and President Quezon fled the country. The cruelty of the Japanese military occupation of the Philippines is legendary. Guerrilla units harassed the Japanese when they could, and on Luzon native resistance was strong enough that the Japanese never did get control of a large part of the island. Finally, in October 1944, McArthur had gathered enough additional troops and supplies to begin the retaking of the Philippines, landing with Sergio Osmena who had assumed the Presidency after Quezon's death. The battles entailed long fierce fighting; some of the Japanese continued to fight until the official surrender of the Empire of Japan on September 2, 1945.
    After their landing, American forces also undertook measures to suppress the Huk movement, which was originally founded to fight the Japanese Occupation. The American forces removed local Huk governments and imprisoned many high-ranking members of the Philippine Communist Party. While these incidents happened, there was still fighting against the Japanese forces and, despite the American measures against the Huk, they still supported American soldiers in the fight against the Japanese.
    Over a million Filipinos had been killed in the war, and many towns and cities, including Manila, were left in ruins. The final Japanese soldier to surrender was Hiroo Onoda, in 1974."

    Movies

  • Corregidor (1943) 73 min - Drama | War - 29 March 1943 (USA) imdb.com

  • "..A doctor and his staff in a hospital on the Philippine island of Corregidor shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor try to treat the sick, injured and wounded as American and Filipino troops desperately try to beat back a ferocious Japanese attack. ...
    "The Bataan Death March"
    Directed By: Kris Oskierko

  • 5 People You'll See in Heaven, a cool movie that has scenes relating to WWII when the Japanese held U.S. soldiers captive
  • The Great Raid, from Miramax (2005)

  • *saw this on Memorial Day (Monday, May 28th of 2007)
    Reviews:
    IMDB "Taking place towards the end of WWII, 500 American Soldiers have been entrapped in a camp for 3 years. Beginning to give up hope they will ever be rescued, a group of Rangers goes on a dangerous mission to try and save them."
    "It's too bad this movie won't do well at the office because it doesn't cater to the teens and their expendable income. The limited wide release also won't help it but I know for those who watch it they'll be touched. They'll know that there were and are sacrifices being made to ensure that the country they live in are safe and protected."
    Related Sites:
    "Great Raid" (actual footages) from Youtube.com

    Wikipedia
    "is a 2005 war film which tells the story of the January 1945 liberation of the Cabanatuan Prison Camp during World War II. It is directed by John Dahl and stars Benjamin Bratt, Joseph Fiennes, James Franco and Connie Nielsen with Filipino actor Cesar Montano. In the United States, it is rated R for strong war violence and brief language. The principal photography took place from July 4, to November 6, 2002, but its release was delayed several times from the original target of fall 2003.
    The film opened in theaters across America on August 12, 2005, three days before the 60th anniversary of V-J Day, to widely mixed reviews. Film critics[attribution needed] pointed out that it was too much like classic war movies that simply glorified American troops and demonized the enemy through predictable stereotypes and plot devices.
    "Even audiences predisposed to sagas of American valor or nostalgic for the good old days of unswerving wartime coalitions will find little here beyond the retro patina to grab their attention", wrote TheHollywoodReporter.com.
    The film has a notable difference in tone from other World War II films. Instead of a chaotic battle sequence (such as the one in Saving Private Ryan), it shows a carefully choreographed U.S. Army Rangers raid in the climactic scene, paralleling more closely the actual raid.
    The real-life efforts of Filipino National Forces are also specifically highlighted, especially a courageous stand at a bridge that delayed Japanese reinforcements. These units fought alongside Americans against Japanese occupiers during the war.
    Some critics[attribution needed] complained that the Japanese soldiers were portrayed as uniformly brutal and inhumane. While it is true that there are no positive Japanese characters in the film, it should be noted that the film uses historical footage of the captives after they are freed, that inhumane treatment by Japanese troops of American POWs was widespread, in part because of Japanese occupation practices, and a Japanese cultural belief that it was shameful to surrender."

    WORLD WAR 2 BATAAN DEATH MARCH - PART 4

    Raid at Cabanautan, from Wikipedia
    "Two days later, MacArthur's forces landed on Luzon, and began a rapid advance towards the capital, Manila. During this time, Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger, the U.S. Sixth Army commander, was notified of the Cabanatuan camp's existence by Major Robert Lapham, the senior USAFFE guerrilla leader in Luzon.
    By 26 January, with Sixth Army forward units nearing Cabanatuan, Gen. Krueger became increasingly concerned of the situation at the camp, and with his intelligence officer, Col. Horton White, called in the special reconnaissance unit attached to his Sixth Army�the Alamo Scouts�for a briefing. The next day, Krueger assigned Lt. Col. Henry Mucci and his 6th Ranger Battalion the mission to raid Cabanatuan and rescue the POWs."

    6th Ranger Battalion, from Wikipedia
    "The 6th Rangers were to lead the invasion of the Philippines. The battalion left Finchhaven for Leyte in the Philippines on 10 October 1944. It was to secure the islands of Dinagat, Homonhon and Suluan, located in the entrance to the Leyte Gulf. These islands had the potential to disrupt 6th Army's landing operations if they remained in Japanese hands. After initial delays due to bad weather, the operation went ahead on 18 October, and was a success. The 6th Rangers on Dinagat raised the first American flag on Philippine soil as part of General Douglas MacArthur's 'Return to the Philippines'."
    Captain Robert Prince, from PBS
    Medal of Freedom Recipient Margaret Elizabeth Utinsky War heroine's life story is the stuff of history ... and mystery
    By Elizabethe Holland Of the Post-Dispatch 05/31/2004
    " While trying to track her husband, she undertook a remarkable mission. She organized and led a secret network that smuggled food, medicine, money, shoes - anything that might help - to American prisoners. Her code name was Miss U.
    While her work and that of the numerous people who helped her is credited with saving the lives of many injured, starving Americans in death camps, her story is far from fairy-tale caliber. Suspected of helping prisoners, she was interrogated and tortured in a prison for a month. But worst of all, her search for Jack only yielded heartbreak. She learned he had survived the Death March only to die of starvation in a prison in August 1942."

  • Victims of Circumstances Santo Tomas Internment Camp, DVD documentary

  • *referred this evening by
    Related Sites:
    SANTO TOMAS INTERNMENT CAMP (1942 - February 3, 1945), from cnac.org
    "Held captive during the tide of Japanese aggression against the United States, this film draws the viewer into the horror lived by 3,700 American and allied civilians beginning in that fateful year of 1941.The American presence in the Philippine Islands stranded businessmen, housewives, school children - whole families, who through no fault or plan of their own, were thrown into a set of circumstances which would lead many to sickness, starvation and even death. They were forced to leave their homes and belongings; forced to leave their friends and way of life to live under the domination and whims of the mighty Imperial Forces of Japan. They were interned within the walls of an old university now known as the Santo Tomas Internment Camp. Their poignant saga is a celebration of the human spirit and the will to organize and survive.
    This documentary is presented through the personal recollections of the internees themselves, eyewitness accounts by those who lived through three years and one month under Japanese control. The film includes original photographs from personal collections as well as old film footage and photos from the National Archives.

    Martin recalls when the Japanese arrived

    "Martin Meadows and his parents, an American Jewish family in Manila, were one of the few Jewish families interned at Santo Tomas for just over 3 years. Martin shares his memories of Santo Tomas internment camp (STIC) and recites a poignant recollection of when they were liberated."

    -Documentary

  • Bataan Death March, interaksyon.com

  • "..Hold the line. Three simple words that masked the enormity, nay, sheer impossibility, of the order. Tens of thousands of young Filipino and Americans soldiers were told, in early 1942, to do everything possible to hold back the advance of the Japanese imperial forces. The invaders not only outnumbered them. They were also backed by one of the most powerful war machines assembled at that time, and driven by the vision of a Japanese-led sphere in this part of the world.
    In Bataan and Corregidor, thousands of these young men held the line against the Japanese, for as much and as long as human strength and will can do so; but in the end, 78,000 of them became mere dots in one of history’s longest lines of endurance: the Death March...

    A Legacy of Heroes: The Story of Bataan and Corregidor - 5/6

    ".. Uploaded by PasiGang on May 13, 2008
    "I remember a Filipina girl who used to give me a bibingka (rice cake)."
    This tells the "truer story" behind the "forgotten war" of Bataan and Corregidor -- savage battles that violently hurled falsely reassured Filipinos and an ill-prepared Philippines into the Second World War in the Pacific. Produced by the Department of National Defense of the Philippines and the Philippines Veterans Affairs Office this series of videos documents the outstanding courage, heroism and nobility of Filipinos regardless the inevitable fall of the country to the unrelenting Imperial Japanese military juggernaut. An outcome inevitably irreversible despite the fierce resistance of the mostly Filipino and American defenders as the United States government relegated succor to the loyal but unwarily naive Philippine Commonwealth as secondary to America's commitment to her European allies.
    This historical account belies many of the myths that have long distorted the realities of Philippine American relations and a must for the serious student of history, geopolitics and military matters. On a lighter yet equally revealing note it also gives a glimpse of pre-war Manila and Philippine society. ....

    One hell of a love story 10-Apr-12, 3:13 PM | Aliana Gimena, InterAksyon.com


    "..Curtis Brooks was 13, the son of an American couple in Manila when World War II broke out. Dorothy, also American, was just going on 9 and lived in Cebu. Both were interned with their families and hundreds of other Americans and citizens of Allied nations at the University of Sto. Tomas until the liberation of Manila. But they never met. Decades after, during a reunion of the liberators of UST in 2000, their paths would cross again and the rest, as they say, is one hell of a love story...
    70 years later, a Capas death camp survivor remembers a chant that kept them alive 09-Apr-12, 3:13 AM | Pots de Leon, InterAksyon.com
    "MANILA, Philippines - “Philippine will shine today, Japanese goes down. Philippine will shine today, all over the land. Philippine will shine today, when the sun goes up, when the sun goes down, Japan goes down today . . .” This was the chant, 70 years ago, that prisoners of war used to sing to uplift their spirits and their wounded bodies.
    “It hurt me to see them die … dying fighting is better than languishing in the prison camp,” World War II survivor, Felipe Fernandez Sr. declared in an interview with InterAksyon.com. He was recalling his ordeal in Camp o’ Donnell in Capas, Tarlac, where the Japanese occupation forces had set up a huge prisoners’ camp for those who survived the trek from Mariveles, Bataan, billed in history as the infamous Death March, 70 years ago this month.
    Fernandez, of the 26th Cavalry, Philippine Scouts, himself did not experience the Death March. When Bataan fell, he and others in his unit refused to surrender and went to Corregidor to join the forces there.
    Members of the 26th Cavalry in the Philippines during World War II. Photo courtesy of Philippine Veterans Affairs Office
    The 26th Cavalry was among the units that held back the Japanese invaders long enough to allow American and Filipino troops to withdraw to the Bataan peninsula where they set up defensive lines and staged a fierce four-month resistance.
    Eventually, their lines thinned by battlefield casualties and starvation, the American and Filipino troops surrendered when American field commander General Edward King decided to yield to Japanese General Masaharu Homma.
    King made the fateful decision to surrender rather than see any more of his starving, disease-afflicted men slaughtered by the advancing Japanese Army.
    The four months they tried to hold back the invaders is believed to have prevented the Japanese from moving farther south to capture Australia.
    On May 6, 1942, when the Japanese staged the final assault on Corregidor, Fernandez and his comrades in the 26th Cavalry fought as best as they could to repel the enemy from Hooker Point up to the mouth of Malinta Tunnel.
    “Hooker Point is a beach. And the Japanese came over and landed on Hooker Beach, and I was told to go and stop them. There were people over there that had positions but the line had broken down. I was tasked to go over there and stop them, but how could I stop them, when I only had two machine guns left?” he recalled.
    Among the American soldiers who were forced by the Japanese to join the Bataan Death March in April 1942. Photo courtesy of Philippine Veterans Affairs Office
    Fernandez was wounded and captured, waking up in Lateral Number 8, a ward for the badly wounded inside the Matina Tunnel. When the Japanese did a headcount of wounded captives, intending to kill those too badly injured, he forced himself to stand up.

    Soon after, the troops captured on Corregidor were brought to the Bilibid Prisons and, later, to Camp O’Donnell in Tarlac where they shared the fate of the Death March survivors.
    Pausing every now and then as the flood of memories and emotion filled him, Fernandez recalled his experiences in what he calls the “dreadful war prisoners’ camp.”
    And dreadful it was, with close to 60,000 Death March survivors crammed into a camp built to accommodate only 10,000. There was little running water, barely any food, no medical care. Narrow trenches along the sides of the camp served their sanitation purposes.
    The heat was intolerable. Flies swarmed the latrines and then covered the prisoners’ food, making disease spread so quickly. Malaria, dysentery, beriberi and a host of other diseases felled the men, who began to die at the rate of 400 per day.
    Fernandez said only 17 men from his platoon survived Bataan and Corregidor. Two of them, Ñeves and Private Estrada, would later die in O’Donnel because of sickness.
    Since the Japanese neither understood nor spoke English, their prisoners found ways to rise above their despair. Filipino and American soldiers expressed their anguish and hopes through a chant.
    To this day, seven decades later, Fernandez hears the chant over and over in his mind, undimmed by the years, each time he goes back on that journey to a moment of extreme cruelty -- but also of courage and compassion: “Philippine will shine today, Japanese goes down. Philippine will shine today, all over the land. Philippine will shine today, when the sun goes up, when the sun goes down, Japan goes down today . . .” was what kept them going.
    He himself composed a song to boost his comrades’ morale:
    Are we downhearted?
    No! No! No!

    Bravely we face the foe.
    We have conquered in the past,
    We will fight some more sometimes;
    Are we downhearted?
    No! No! No!

    Aside from the chants and songs, they also read aloud the propaganda write-ups of the Japanese government, just to humor their captors and to find something to take their mind away from the disease and death that was so near to them at all times.
    Fast forward: Seven decades later
    Today, only about 100 of the original 12,000 Philippine Scouts are still alive, scattered around the Philippines and the United States.
    Starting April 7 up till April 10, the Philippine Scouts Heritage Society lined up a series of activities for the survivors, both those who are based in the US and the Philippines.
    Survivors of the Battles of Bataan and Corregidor, and the Bataan Death March banded together at the Hotel Stotsenburg to mark the 70th anniversary of the April 9 Fall of Bataan -- one of those few events in history that have puzzled many younger generations who thought it strange that their elders seemed to “celebrate defeat.”
    Prisoners of war who died at Camp O'Donnell in Capas, Tarlac are buried by their comrades. Photo courtesy of Philippine Veterans Affairs Office. Photo courtesy of Philippine Veterans Affairs Office
    But to Fernandez and those who lived through it, there is no need to explain why they celebrate. They celebrate the life they were able to keep but which was denied tens of thousands of others; they celebrate the freedom of their country; they celebrate the memory of heroism and courage and compassion that formed an invisible thread through that long line of bodies marching from Bataan to Tarlac.
    Last week’s event was the first time, after 70 years, that Philippine and American veterans or survivors held a reunion of this magnitude in the country since the end of the World War II.
    Hosted by the Fort McKinley Chapter of the Society, the reunion entailed two days of discussions of history, business meetings, but mostly, celebration.
    On April 7, Fernandez sat on the Veterans panel, presenting “Life at the Fort before the War.”
    On Easter Sunday he rendered the Eulogy at the heroes’ cemetery at the boundary of Makati and Taguig cities, giving honor to fellow soldiers who fought and died for the country.
    Philippine Scouts: a unique group, a proud legacy
    By hosting yearly gatherings of varying scales, the Philippine Scouts Heritage Society seeks to preserve the sacred memory of war, so that the current generations may cherish the peace they enjoy; and raise public awareness of the heroic role thousands of young men played in the early stages of World War II, and their gallant defense of the Philippines.
    The Philippine Scouts were a unique and special organization within the U.S. Army, consisting of highly-trained Filipino soldiers, and American Filipino officers, who formed the backbone of General Douglas MacArthur’s United States Army Forces in the Far East.
    USAFFE included the Army of the Philippine Commonwealth, the US Army’s Philippine Scouts and U.S. National Guard units that were brought from the States shortly before hostilities began, and were then ordered to hold back the Japanese advance."

    WRAPPED AND BURNED

    "San Fernando, Pampanga WW II veteran Aniceto A. Guzman, 96, who was forced to joined the April 1942 Bataan Death March recalls that many of his fellow soldiers who were too weak to ride the train in San Fernando, Pampanga going to Tarlac were thrown out in the gutter. Those who died in San Fernando were wrapped in blankets and then burned. "

    Filipino-American Friendship Park , manila-philippineshotel.com
    "..is one of the parks located in Corregidor Island in the Philippines. It is a small formal garden that was created in commemoration of the partnership and shared experiences of the Filipinos and Americans who had fought together in the Pacific War during World War II in the Philippines. The park's most distinctive feature is Brothers in Arms, a 10-foot-high bronze sculpture by Filipino artist Manuel Casas, depicting an American soldier supporting a badly wounded Filipino soldier...
    Brother in Arms statue/sculpture..http://www.manila-philippineshotel.com/attractions/Filipino_American_Friendship_Park.htm

    GLOBAL

    UMMAlpha: Military "World's Wars"

    Provinces (mentioned with the Bataan March):
    -Zambales

  • Zambazles Province, where Subic Bay Base is located

  • "The name of the province was derived from the Malay word �Samba� meaning to worship as the inhabitants were found by the Spaniards to be �worshipping spirits� called �Anitos�. The inhabitants were then referred to as �Sambali� or the hispanized form �Zambals�."
  • Zambales.net, tourist attractions/events

  • +Cities
  • Olongapo City, where Subic Bay is located
  • Welcome to Olongapo City
  • Landmarks

  • WWII Panorama-Corregidor

  • Corregidor - Manila Tour - WOW Philippines Travel Agency

    "Published on Jul 3, 2012
    Come with us as we tour the island of Corregidor located at the entrance of Manila Bay. Corregidor Island was instrumental in helping the Americans and Filipinos win the war against the Japanese during WWII.
    https://www.manilacitytour.com/tours/corregidor-war-memorial/index.php "

    Corregidor Philippines Tour 2012

    Battle of Corregidor From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    "..(5-6 May 1942) was the culmination of the Japanese campaign for the conquest of the Philippines during the Second World War.
    The fall of Bataan on 9 April 1942 ended all organized opposition by the U.S. Army Forces Far East to the invading Japanese forces on Luzon in the northern Philippines. The island bastion of Corregidor, with its network of tunnels and formidable array of defensive armament, along with the fortifications across the entrance to Manila Bay, was the remaining obstacle to the 14th Japanese Imperial Army of Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma. The Japanese had to take Corregidor; as long as the island remained in American hands, they would be denied the use of the Manila Bay, the finest natural harbor in the Far East.
    The U.S. and Filipino army recaptured the island in 19...

    Malinta Tunnel

    "..To the east of Bottomside a hill rises abruptly to an elevation of 390 feet. Called "Malinta," it severs Bottomside from the tail end of the island. The North and South Shore roads curved from its slopes and girdled the hill and ran on down the curving tadpole tail. To facilitate passage and to create a bombproof shelter, the Americans drove a shaft from a rock quarry at Bottomside directly through the hill, creating the famous Malinta Tunnel. Construction of the tunnel took about 10 years. Work was initially started in 1922 and it was substantially completed in 1932. The 835 feet long East-West passage served as the main tunnel which is 24 feet wide and the height at the top of its arch is 18 feet. Branching from it are 13 laterals on its north side and another 11 laterals on the south side. Each lateral averaged 160 feet and 15 feet in length and width, respectively. A double-track electric trolley line used to run through the main tunnel which is reinforced with concrete walls, a concrete floor, and overhead arches. Blowers were installed to allow the circulation of fresh air.

    The tunnel had been dug through solid rock and offered complete protection from artillery or air attack. Command communications and medical units were located there. Gen. MacArthur set up the headquarters of USAFFE inside the tunnel where men and women would live and work during the siege of Corregidor. The tunnel was originally designed to house huge quantities of ammunition, food and supplies, and an underground hospital with a 1,000-bed capacity. The location of the tunnel beneath Malinta Hill made it ideal as a bomb-proof headquarters for the embattled Filipino and Americans defenders of Corregidor during World War II. During the siege of Corregidor, a number of shops and storage areas were added. ..

    Corregidor Inn
    " Strategically located at the middle of Corregidor Island. It provides comfortable accommodation amidst the green and serene ambience of the island. This is a place to stay for people who want peace and quiet, away from the hustle and bustle of city life. "
    more..http://www.corregidorphilippines.com/corr_inn.html

  • Paratroopers of 503rd Paratroop Infantry Regiment put on parachute packs on Mindoro in the Philippine Islands. Location: Mindoro Philippines Date: 1945, February 15 Duration: 1 min 6 sec Sound: NO SOUND criticalpast.com

  • more..http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675070643_paratroop-invasion_503rd-Parachute-Infantry-Regiment_parachute-pack

    Conquering Corregidor Island 6: Parade Grounds of Topside 3:07 PM pransisempilipinas.blogspot.com
    "...The Topside apparently contained the important buildings of the American forces in Corregidor Island. A small plateau-like area serves as the parade grounds and the quarters of the soldiers stationed in the island at that time. On the parade ground we were able to see some of the surviving firearms used by the soldiers and a breath-taking, unobstructed view of the sky...


  • The Old Spanish Lighthouse of Corregidor Island
    By Teenee – April 28, 2011 visitpinas.com

  • "..The lighthouse, built by the Spaniards and first lighted in the 1850s, stands at the highest point of Corregidor, which name is derived from the Spanish term corregir, meaning “to correct”. Corregidor Island used to be a checkpoint for vessels entering Manila Bay. It was a Spanish Island for 327 years, since 19 May 1571 when Miguel Lopez de Legaspi first occupied it in the name of Spain. ..



    Ayala Bridge Between P. Casal Street and Ayala Avenue, Manila, Philippines mytravelguide.com
    "Ayala Bridge was constructed during the building boom of the 1920's, which is considered to have been Manila's most glittering decade. It was at about the same time that the nation's government center (around present-day Rizal Park) was being developed into a showcase of Neoclassical architecture. Ayala Bridge is counted among the four bridges (the others are Jones Bridge, Quezon Bridge and MacArthur Bridge) that are historically identified with the Pasig River, Manila's main waterway....

    AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE

  • Battle of Corregidor, u-s-history.com

  • "Following the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941, the Japanese invaded the Philippine Islands. The American-Filipino military force under the command of General Douglas MacArthur was forced onto the Bataan peninsula, where they carried out a delaying action.....
    It was not until early February that Japanese artillery opened fire on Corregidor. All of the fortifications sustained damage and part of the Malinta Tunnel on the island was breached, killing 28 men. The bombing also continued and the Japanese increased the amount they were firing on three nearby island forts. The enemy had experience with island warfare and had camouflaged his guns, making it nearly impossible for the Americans to aim at any targets.
    The capitulation on Bataan on April 9 resulted in the seizure of thousands of Americans and Filipinos who would be forced to begin the infamous Bataan Death March, to the hellhole called Camp O'Donnell.

  • HONOR, COURAGE, FAITH: A Corregidor Story, Wednesday, May 16, 2012 steveandmarciaontherock.blogspot.com

  • "..Many of you know that we have been working for a long time on a book about Steve’s father, Walter, who was a soldier on Bataan and Corregidor during the beginning months of World War II. We are pleased to announce that the book is now available throughout the Philippines at all National Bookstores and Powerbooks. On Corregidor, you can purchase a signed-by-the-author copy from Sun Cruises during your tour...
    Honor Courage Faith: A Corregidor Story,nationalbookstore.com.ph
    " Author: Stephen A. Kwiecinski nationalbookstore.com.ph
    Format: Trade Paperback PHP 495.00
    "
  • New book remembers fall of Corregidor ABS-CBNnews.com Posted at 05/09/2012 12:55 PM | Updated as of 05/09/2012 3:28 PM

  • "MANILA, Philippines – The son of a World War II veteran who served in the Philippines has written a book recalling his father’s experiences during the fall of Corregidor.
    “Honor Courage Faith: A Corregidor Story” by Steve Kwiecinski tells the story of Staff Sgt. Walter Kwiecinski, an American soldier who became a prisoner of war in the Philippines.
    The elder Kwiecinski was one of Corregidor's defenders, manning the last 12-inch mortar firing on Battery Way. After the fall of Corregidor 70 years ago, the US and Filipino soldiers on guard were taken captive by invading Japan forces. The Japanese rounded up their prisoners on the beach and were taken to various prison camps in Bilibid, Camp O'Donnell ad Nueva Ecija.
    ...The defense of Corregidor is considered “the last heroic stand” of the battle for the Philippines in 1942 and the worst military defeat experienced by the US.
    “Honor Courage Faith: A Corregidor Story” is now available at all National Book Store branches.

    SIEGE OF CORREGIDOR ( America's last stand )

    Angels of Bataan Nurses General Homma Red Cross Nurses

    Friendship Park statue..http://www.haringlakbay.com/post/corregidor-filipino-american-friendship-park/

    FILIPINO PERSPECTIVE

    A Legacy of Heroes: The Story of Bataan and Corregidor - 1/6

    " Uploaded by PasiGang on May 10, 2008
    "The Filipinos did most of the fighting and most of the dying..."
    This tells the "truer story" behind the "forgotten war" of Bataan and Corregidor -- savage battles that violently hurled falsely reassured Filipinos and an ill-prepared Philippines into the Second World War in the Pacific. Produced by the Department of National Defense of the Philippines and the Philippines Veterans Affairs Office this series of videos documents the outstanding courage, heroism and nobility of Filipinos regardless the inevitable fall of the country to the unrelenting Imperial Japanese military juggernaut. An outcome inevitably irreversible despite the fierce resistance of the mostly Filipino and American defenders as the United States government relegated succor to the loyal but unwarily naive Philippine Commonwealth as secondary to America's commitment to her European allies.
    This historical account belies many of the myths that have long distorted the realities of Philippine American relations and a must for the serious student of history, geopolitics and military matters. On a lighter yet equally revealing note it also gives a glimpse of pre-war Manila and Philippine society. "

    A Legacy of Heroes: The Story of Bataan and Corregidor - 4/6

    Lingayen Gulf Invasion
    Invasion of Lingayen Gulf From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    "..was an Allied amphibious operation in the Philippines during World War II. In the early morning of 6 January 1945, a large Allied force commanded by Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf began approaching the shores of Lingayen. U.S. Navy and Royal Australian Navy warships began bombarding suspected Japanese positions along the coast of Lingayen from their position in Lingayen Gulf for three days. On 9 January, the U.S. 6th Army landed on a 20 mi (32 km) beachhead between the towns of Lingayen and San Fabian.

    Background
    During World War II, the Lingayen Gulf proved a strategically important theater of war between American and Japanese forces. On 22 December 1941, the Japanese 14th Army—under Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma—landed on the Eastern part of the gulf at Agoo, Caba, Santiago and Bauang, where they engaged in a number of relatively minor skirmishes[1] with the defenders, which consisted of a poorly-equipped contingent of predominantly American and Filipino troops, and managed to successfully invade and occupy the gulf. Following the defeat, the next day General Douglas MacArthur issued the order to retreat from Luzon and withdraw to Bataan. For the next three years, the gulf remained under Japanese occupation prior to the Lingayen Gulf Landings. ..

    Other:
    Boyd Blumer World War 2 Lingayen Gulf Bronze Star

    "First person account of World War Two 2 II by Boyd F Blumer. There are about 9 different videos and can be viewed in this order: Enlisting - Kwadulene, Guam, Peleliu, Leyte - Typhoons, Lingayen Gulf where Boyd talks about being ambushed, saving a man's life, and was then awarded the Bronze Star, Kamikaze Airplane attacks, and Tokyo and the end of the war. There are also a few extra videos. One is the interpretation of a Japanese soldier's diary. There are two music video montages, and Hymn, and also a report on the dedication of the WW2 Memorial. Produced 2001 - 2005"

    Wars

    Intramuros, The Walled City in Manila, Philippines

    " http://www.worldhistoryclass.com Philippine history is rich with European influence. The Spanish colonized the archipelago in the mid 16th century. They ruled the Filipinos until the Spanish American War, which begin in 1898, with the first major battle in Manila Bay, when Commodore Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet.
    Intramuros is the walled city in Manila. Construction began in 1571 by the Spanish. The city was home to Spanish and Mestizos, mixed race, during Spanish colonization. The native Filipino people were not allowed to live inside the gates of Intramuros. These walls protected the city and the gates of the city were locked at night for security.
    Some unsuccessful attacks came from the Chinese, Dutch, Portuguese, and pirates from Sulu, the southern part of the Philippines. During World War II, the Japanese used Intramuros as their garrison and prison. Today you can go to Intramuros and find Spanish influence in the Philippines. While many parts of the country have Spanish churches, Intramuros is the place to go and see what the Philippines looked like during Spanish colonization.
    When the Spanish American War ended, the American era in the Philippines began and lasted until 1946 when the Philippines gained their independence. The American era was interrupted in World War II when the Japanese took over the Philippines in 1942. The Japanese occupation lasted until 1944 when Douglas MacArthur returned to the Philippines, leading the landing in Leyte, after the Battle of Leyte where the United States navy defeated the Japanese navy. This event gave the Americans a foothold back onto the Philippines. The Americans and Filipinos desperately fought to free the country of Japanese. The Japanese made a last stand in Manila and was defeated in September 1945. The result of the war left parts of the Philippines in ruins, with the Filipinos loss of life estimated at one million. The country had experienced a lot of trials during its history, but independence was the next test for the Filipino people."

    SPANISH

    Crucible of Empire, The Spanish-American War 1/8

    Crucible of Empire, The Spanish-American War 2/8 , from youtube.com
    *imperialism agenda proven (McCinley & Theodore Roosevelt), Spanish fleet controlled the waters in SE Asia, so they wanted to take Manilla
    Crucible of Empire, The Spanish-American War 3/8 , from youtube.com
    *propoganda by U.S. Gov't using the "planned U.S. Maine (ship) explosion (by mine-similar to what they used to get to war against Vietnam)" as an excuse to go to war
    Crucible of Empire, The Spanish-American War 4/8 , from youtube.com
    * Theodore Roosevelt nobelprize.org
    "...n 1897 he joined President McKinley's administration as assistant secretary of the Navy. While in this office he actively prepared for the Cuban War, which he saw was coming, and when it broke out in 1898, went to Cuba as lieutenant colonel of a regiment of volunteer cavalry, which he himself had raised among the hunters and cowboys of the West. He won great fame as leader of these «Rough-Riders», whose story he told in one of his most popular books....
    African-American ("Blackey") troops were recruited because they were "immune" to the tropical diseases in Cuba
    Crucible of Empire, The Spanish-American War 5/8 , from youtube.com
    *Carnegie rejected (offered $20 million to U.S. President McKinley) the Treaty of Paris (Imperialism-refuse to give Philippines their independence)
    Crucible of Empire, The Spanish-American War 7/8 , from youtube.com
    Women Christian Temperance Union (anti-imperialist) didn't like how American soldiers came back with diseases (HIV) after "using" Filipino women as "prostitutues"
    "give a young 18 year old a gun and telling them to kill the enemy, they will do "unimaginable" things"
    *Americans re-voted for Pres. McKinley despite his genocidal act and imperialistic intentions because the Americans got out of the recession of the 1890's.
    Crucible of Empire, The Spanish-American War 8/8 , from youtube.com
    *Pres. McKinley got assassignated by anarchist and Theodore Roosevelt became President. Uprisiing of Filipinos in the island of Samar
    *finally admitted that the Maine wasn't sunk by a mine, but a combustible reaction in ship, Philippines finally got their indpendence in 1948 after WWII, etc...

    -Spanish -American War, from Wikipedia
    "..On August 13, with American commanders unaware that a peace protocol had been signed between Spain and the United States on the previous day, American forces captured the city from the Spanish.[10] This battle marked an end of Filipino-American collaboration, as Filipino forces were prevented from entering the captured city of Manila, an action which was deeply resented by the Filipinos and which later led to the Philippine-American War.[11]"
    -Philippine-American War, from Wikipedia
    "Admiral George Dewey, having engaged and defeated the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, ferried Aguinaldo back to the Philippines on May 19.[15] In a matter of months, the Philippine Army conquered nearly all of Spanish-held ground within the Philippines. With the exception of Manila, which was completely surrounded by the Philippine Army of 12,000, the Filipinos now controlled the Philippines. Aguinaldo also turned over 15,000 Spanish prisoners to the Americans, offering them valuable intelligence. On June 12, Aguinaldo declared independence at his house in Cavite El Viejo.
    By August, the Spaniards had surrendered Manila, and the Americans had occupied it. Governor-General Fermin Jaudenes had made a secret agreement with Dewey and General Wesley Merritt. Jaudenes specifically requested to surrender only to the Americans. In order to save face, he proposed a mock battle with the Americans preceding the Spanish surrender; the Filipinos would not be allowed to enter the city. Dewey and Merritt agreed to this, and no one else in either camp knew about the agreement. On the eve of the mock battle, General Thomas M. Anderson telegraphed Aguinaldo, �Do not let your troops enter Manila without the permission of the American commander. On this side of the Pasig River you will be under fire�.[9]
    The June 12 declaration of Philippine independence was not recognized by the United States or Spain, since the Spanish government ceded the Philippines to the United States in the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which was signed on December 10, 1898, in consideration for an indemnity for Spanish expenses and assets lost.[17]"

    AMERICA-U.S.A.
    Philippine American War Images

    American Opposition to the war:
    "Some Americans, notably William Jennings Bryan, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, Ernest Crosby, and other members of the American Anti-Imperialist League, strongly objected to the annexation of the Philippines. Other Americans mistakenly thought that the Philippines wanted to become part of the United States. Anti-imperialist movements claimed that the United States had betrayed its lofty goals of the Spanish�American War by becoming a colonial power, merely replacing Spain in the Philippines. Other anti-imperialists opposed annexation on racist grounds. Among these was Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina, who feared that annexation of the Philippines would lead to an influx of non-white immigrants, thus undermining white racial purity in America. As news of atrocities committed in subduing the Philippines arrived in the United States, support for the war flagged.
    English Education:
    "In August of 1901, hundreds of American teachers arrived in Manila aboard the U.S.S. Thomas. These "Thomasite" teachers quickly founded schools all over the Philippines. As soon as the Thomas anchored, the destruction of American power and control of the Philippines was preordained. It was inevitable once the Americans chose to allow � indeed, helped and supported � education in the Philippines that they could not long remain in control of the islands. The Americans, in a sense, planted the seeds of education and in planting those seeds ensured a harvest of freedom and an understandable disdain among Filipinos for conquerors.[56]"
    Mark Twain famously opposed the war by using his influence in the press. He felt it betrayed the ideals of American democracy by not allowing the Filipino people to choose their own destiny.
    -Korea

  • Filipino Soldiers in the Korean War, in 1950 from youtube.com

  • -Iraq
  • Astig Pinoy, live war footages from youtube.com
  • Religious

    -Islam

  • The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)

  • "... is the most violent of the Islamic separatist groups operating in the southern Philippines and claims to promote an independent Islamic state in western Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Split from the Moro National Liberation Front in the early 1990s, the group currently engages in kidnappings for ransom, bombings, assassinations, and extortion, and has ties to Jemaah Islamiya (JI). The ASG operates mainly in Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi Provinces in the Sulu Archipelago and has a presence on Mindanao. Members also occasionally travel to Manila.
    The ASG has used terror both for financial profit and to promote its jihadist agenda. In April 2000, an ASG faction kidnapped 21 persons—including 10 Westerners—from a Malaysian resort, and, in May 2001, the ASG kidnapped three US citizens and 17 Filipinos from a resort in Palawan, Philippines, later murdering several of the hostages, including one US citizen. On 27 February 2004, members of ASG leader Khadafi Janjalani’s faction bombed a ferry in Manila Bay, killing 116, and on 14 February 2005 they perpetrated simultaneous bombings in the cities of Manila, General Santos, and Davao, killing at least eight and injuring about 150. In 2006 Janjalani’s faction relocated to Sulu, where it joined forces with local ASG supporters who are providing shelter to fugitive JI members from Indonesia.
    In July 2007, the ASG and Moro Islamic Liberation Front engaged a force of Philippine marines on Basilan Island, killing 14. In November 2007, a motorcycle bomb exploded outside the Philippine Congress, killing a Congressman and three staff members. While there was no definitive claim of responsibility, three suspected ASG members were arrested during a subsequent raid on a safehouse. In January 2009, the ASG kidnapped three International Red Cross workers in Sulu province, holding one of the hostages for six months. Philippine marines in February 2010 killed Albader Parad, one of the ASG’s most violent sub-commanders, on Jolo Island.

    Abu Sayyaf fighters speak out - 17 Sep 07

    "Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish on Sep 17, 2007 The Philippines's military has been engaged in long-running offensive against the Abu Sayyaf, a group responsible for numerous killings in the south of the Philippines. Al Jazeera' Marga Ortigas met former Abu Sayyaf fighters who are trying to distance themselves from the group's acitvities. "
  • Filipino militants free US teen after 5 months APBy HRVOJE HRANJSKI | AP – Sat, Dec 10, 2011 http://news.yahoo.com

  • " MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A 14-year-old American boy who was abducted with his mother and cousin by suspected Muslim militants in the southern Philippines was released from five months of jungle captivity, the Philippine military said.
    The boy, Kevin Lunsmann, was recovered late Saturday by a village official in Lamitan town on southern Basilan Island, a stronghold of al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf rebels who are believed to be behind the kidnapping, said military spokesman Lt. Col. Randolph Cabangbang.
    He is now safe in military custody, Cabangbang said, without offering other details.
    U.S. Ambassador Harry Thomas said the boy would be reunited with his family soon.
    "In this holiday season nothing makes me happier than knowing that an innocent victim is returned to his family in time for holiday celebrations," Thomas said in a statement Sunday.
    "I also want to acknowledge the courage of Kevin himself, and his family, throughout this long ordeal," Thomas said.
    He said there would be a "speedy investigation and prosecution of all those involved in the kidnapping of American citizens."
    The boy's Filipino-American mother, Gerfa Yeatts Lunsmann, was freed two months ago after she was dropped off by boat at a wharf on Basilan. Their Filipino cousin, Romnick Jakaria, dashed to freedom last month when special Philippine army forces managed to get near an Abu Sayyaf camp in the mountains of Basilan.
    They were believed to be held for ransom, but Cabangbang did not say whether any was paid.
    The three were vacationing with relatives on an island near Zamboanga city when they were snatched July 12 and taken by boat to nearby Basilan. The captors then called the family in Campbell County, Virginia, to demand a ransom.
    The U.S. and Philippine governments did not pay any ransom for the mother's release, Interior Secretary Jessie Robredo said in October, adding that he was unaware whether any private group did.
    Ransom kidnappings have long been a problem in the impoverished region and are blamed mostly on the Abu Sayyaf, a group on a list of U.S. terrorist organizations and notorious for beheadings and bombings over the past two decades.
    Its stated goal has been the establishment of an Islamic state in the southern Philippines, home to minority Muslims in the predominantly Christian nation.
    The Abu Sayyaf was founded on Basilan in the 1990s as an offshoot of a violent Muslim insurgency that has been raging for decades.
    Hundreds of U.S. troops have been stationed in the southern Philippines, including Basilan, to train and equip Philippine forces but are prohibited from engaging in local combat.
    On Monday, suspected militants abducted Australian Warren Richard Rodwell, 53, from his seaside house in Zamboanga Sibugay province, near Basilan, but it was not immediately confirmed if they also belonged to the Abu Sayyaf.
    The militants are also holding an Indian, a Malaysian and a Japanese. ___
    Associated Press writer Teresa Cerojano contributed to this report.

    Teen, 14, Escapes After Being Held Hostage for Five Months, ABC NewsBy ALICIA TEJADA | ABC News – 11 hrs ago
    [VIDEO
    "An American teenage boy outsmarted the members of a suspected al Qaeda-linked militants, escaping after five months of being held hostage in a jungle in the Philippines.
    Kevin Lunsmann, 14, was lost for nearly two days, roaming without shoes, before he was found by villagers, his father said.
    ABC News affiliate WSET spoke to the boy's father, Heiko Lunsmann, who said he's so happy he's getting his son back.
    "I'm so proud of my son, he's a hero, he wandered two days through the jungle," Heiko Lunsmann
    said.
    "That was a tough time, it was tough five months," he said. "I only know he is a hero and I'm so happy he escaped."
    When he spoke to this father for the first time the boy proudly said, "I did it on my own, Dad, they didn't release me, I did it," family friend Jean Gowen told ABC News.
    Kevin Lunsmann said he convinced his four armed captors that he was going to take a bath at a nearby stream, but then he decided to make a run for it. He followed a river down a mountain in Basilan province before being found with bruises on his arms and feet late the next day by villagers.
    Police Senior Superintendant Edwin de Ocampo told The Associated Press that Lunsmann was exhausted, hungry and still stunned when he was found. He initially feared the villagers and fled from them as well.
    "He was in fear, so there was a bit of a chase before the villagers convinced him that they were friends," de Ocampo told the AP.
    This past summer, Lunsmann was vacationing in the Philippines with his Filipino-American mother, Gerfa Yeatts Lunsmann, and his cousin Romnick Jakaria. On July 12 the relatives were on an island near Zamboanga City when they were snatched and taken by boat to Basilan.
    The captors then called the family in Campbell County, Va., to demand a ransom.
    Gowen said Heiko Lunsmann paid an undisclosed ransom amount intended for the release of the boy and his mother two months ago, but only the mother was released.
    "The deal was for them to release both Kevin and Gerfa at the time, but they only released one of them," Gowen said. "I think they wanted more money."
    The mother was freed when captors dropped her off at a wharf on Basilan. Lunsmann's cousin also escaped from hostage holders last month, when Filipino army forces managed to get near the camp where they were held.
    Army Coronel Ricardo Visaya told the AP the kidnappers are believed to be led by a militant, Puruji Indama, of Abu Sayyaf, an al Qaeda-linked group on a list of U.S. terrorist organizations. They are reportedly responsible for kidnappings, beheadings, and bombings.
    Visaya said troops were hunting down the militants and clashed with one group in nearby Akbar town, which may have distracted the kidnappers and gave Lunsmann a chance to flee.
    Ransom kidnappings have long been a problem in the region and are blamed mostly on Abu Sayyaf. The group was founded in Basilan in the 1990s as part of a violent Muslim insurgency.
    On Monday, suspected militants abducted Warren Richard Rodwell, 53, of Australia from his house in Zamboanga Sibugay province. The group is also believed to still be holding three other foreign hostages in another island near Basilan.
    Teen Hostage Reunites With His Mother
    Gowen said Lunsmann's father ran to neighbors last night, excited to share the miraculous update on his son.
    "He banged on my door and broke down crying when he told me," Gowen said. "I cried and screamed, too. It was at the point where we all feared they were going to kill him, we've all just been devastated."
    Heiko Lunsmann said he has been in contact with both his wife and son, and that they've been reunited and are currently at a hospital in Manila, Gowen said.
    "That was a tough time, it was a tough fine months," Heiko Lunsmann told WSET. "It wasn't easy for me."
    Gowen says she's happy her son's best friend will be back.
    "He's such a fine boy. He's very quiet and polite. He's been my son Zach's best friend for 10 years," Gowen said. "Kevin is like another son to me. Life just hasn't been the same without him."
    Family and friends are hoping the Lunsmanns will be home sometime next week in time for the holidays.
    "His father is decorating the house as we speak," Gowen said. "They want everything to be as normal as possible for Kevin's arrival." "
    Teen Escapes Al-Qaeda Captors in the Philippines , from youtube.com
    US Hostage, 14, Escapes in Philippine Jungle

    WWII

    -Humanitarian

    =>Documentary

    *see GoodnewsEverybody.com: Middleeastern-Israelites Persecuted History

  • “Rescue in the Philippines: Refuge from the Holocaust", rescueinthephilippines.com

  • "... recounts the story of how moral courage of an influential few half a world away saved the lives of 1,300 Jewish men, women, and children in Nazi Europe in the days leading to WWII. This eclectic mix of politicians, military minds, and businessmen made the decision to save lives over cigars and poker, risking their reputations and careers all “because it was the right thing to do.” ..

  • 18 Minute Video Excerpt


  • 3 Roads.com
  • -Japanese Perspective

    We had a short stop, so I wasn't able to look around more. Here are some more about this particular area..http://www.markmaranga.com/corregidors-japanese-garden-of-peace/

  • Corregidor’s Japanese Garden of Peace December 14th, 2010 by Mark Anthony Maranga markmaranga.com

  • "One of the attractions in Corregidor aside from its huge mortars is the Japanese Garden of Peace. It is located in the tail side of the island and is the site for various soldier’s memorials and anti-aircraft gun relics. It was made for the Japanese soldiers that died during the war. Many of these soldiers fought for their country and some even committed suicide as a sign of pride an honor.
    Japanese Garden of Peace in Corregidor is used as a praying area for Japanese war veterans and the families of Japanese soldiers who died in the island during World War II. The construction of this garden is made possible through funds generated by a Japan-based private group.
    The garden has a 10-ft high stone Buddha, a reflecting pool, a Shinto shrine and other markers with Japanese inscriptions. It is said that the stone Buddha is a fertility god and touching it would help you bear a child. On the hill’s edge, anti-aircraft guns line up looking out in the sea. Souvenir shops can also be found in the garden with items like Japanese and American currencies as well as some old photographs. There are also printed t-shirts, key chains, beverages and snacks."

  • Before the People’s Tribunal By Hiroyuki Mizuguchi Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 19:38:00 04/17/2011 newsinfo.inquirer.net

  • "Excerpted from Jungle of No Mercy:? Memoirs of a Japanese Soldier? by Hiroyuki Mizuguchi, Anvil Publishing (2010).
    I REGAINED consciousness with a sharp pain in my ribs. A man standing by me with hatred on his face must have kicked me. I was being laid on the bamboo floor with my hands tied behind my back. This seemed like a guerilla kangaroo court? There sat a stern-looking man across the oil lamp staring at me with piercing eyes. He might be a prosecutor and a judge concurrently. There were some sturdy men sitting at both sides of the important man? The man at the center asked my name in perfect English. The investigation had started. All the people in the room looked at me with glaring eyes as if I were a beaten fighting cock in the arena of a cockpit. ?Arturo de Jesus, sir!? I answered. With my answer, the audience started buzzing; they must have expected to hear a Japanese name from the mouth of this skinny man who came out of the jungle. ?I will shoot you if you lie!? he shouted at the top of his voice. How could I tell him the truth? If I did, I would be in hell immediately! He asked questions in rapid succession, followed by the routine investigation procedure for Japanese deserters? I was the only one being investigated and my investigators were so many and excitedly trying to prove that I was Japanese. They were determined to execute me through means at their own discretion. I was fighting for my life. I never had any experience before of being confronted mentally by so many people. I had to consistently answer all their questions with fabricated facts. I had to act like an innocent Chinese mestizo, and I was very confident that all my performances were perfect. After a little recess, a man on a horseback with a tick came into the office and gave a piece of printed paper to the main investigator. The investigator?s eyes glared triumphantly as he read the printed paper? He ordered his assistant to pull me to his side. Then he pushed the paper towards me and ordered me to read it? I pushed the paper nearer to the oil lamp and I saw several English words and a few sentences, all using the letter ?L?. They were typewritten on an old bond paper. These people must have known that Japanese could not pronounce ?L? properly. Manila, Leyte, Luzon, Laguna, or Manuela could be pronounced properly, but Tarlac, Romblon, Polillo, lemon, Castillo, which include some Spanish common or proper nouns, would be a little more difficult. A Filipino, even a kid, could easily pronounce LEMON. But most Japanese pronounce it as REMONG. Filipinos have the natural gift for music; they have exceptional sensitivity to sound, and their sensitive ears can detect even a little mispronounciation. I studied from grade one to seven [in Daliaon Elementary School], and first year to fourth year in Davao City High School. The war broke out when I was a senior. I was twelve years old when my father brought me to Davao, and I did not know ABC yet. My father sent me to a special tutor who trained me to pronounce ?L? correctly. My tongue froze many times? After many investigators cross-examined me and tested my pronunciation of the letter ?L? there was still nothing to prove my identity as Japanese. The main investigator, shaking his head, said, ?It seems you are not Japanese, but if you happened to be Japanese, you will end up like those Japanese!? And he pointed at the dark shadow of a huge mango tree. I focused my poor sight on it and saw what looked like dead bodies hanging with stretched arms, eagle style, from a big mango branch? I would be tried at the Angadanan People?s Tribunal!? The guerrilla chief who accompanied me from the mountain started speaking in Ilocano with his finger pointing at me. From the audience could be heard voices swearing, cursing and demanding that I be punished. One of the two Philippine Army soldiers who stood in front of me kicked my face squarely with his new boots. I was not able to evade his unexpected assault and I fell on my face, and smashed my nose. Blood spurted out. I tried to stand up but since my hands were tied at the back, I just wriggled like a caterpillar? One of the men who entered the arena pointed at me and raised his voice. ?I happened to know this Japanese very well!? He declared pompously to the audience that I was a Japanese! The people responded with roars and outcries. I was on the ground with my blood soaked face downward and thought, this must be another wise guy who was trying to make himself popular by taking me to my doom? ?This man here, tied with a rope, claimed himself to be Filipino. It may be so, or it may not be so! What I am interested in is what harm did he do to us Filipinos? Did he rape our women? Did he maltreat our people? Or, did he kill? Did he commit any atrocities against any Filipino? His trial should be able the crime he committed!? He paused a moment, looking at everybody present, at me, and outside the arena. He continued. ?I and my friends who are with me know this young man pretty well! When he was escaping with the Japanese Army from the American Army, he passed by several villages along the road. We were desperate then, almost no hope to live. We were planning to abandon our homes. Then, he visited our houses and told us that the war would come to an end soon and we should not leave. He told us to be patient and gave us some food and salt. It was not much, but the encouragement he gave us was tremendously helpful to us! When the man who spoke first sat down, another man stood up. ?Even if he happens to be 100 percent Japanese, we have no right to kill this young man. If anyone of you has some reason for this man to be punished, please let us know!? But no one answered? I sincerely wanted to thank the men who appeared during the crucial moment of my trial. But no words came out of my mouth as my tears choked up my throat. The men seemed to be proud of what they did, a righteous act in the name of humanity. Hiroyuki Mizuguchi was a 20-year-old high school senior student who played baseball for the Davao provincial team when WWII broke out. During the Japanese occupation, he became an interpreter for, and was later drafted into, the Japanese forces. After the war, he was repatriated to Japan, but is now back residing in Davao City. His last wish, he says, is absolute peace?no more war, no more bullets, no more killing. The book is available at National Book Store."

  • Buried WWII Treasures in the Philippines by Tony Wells fepow-community.org.uk

  • "..Because the Japanese General, Yamashita Tomoyuke (a.k.a.-The Tiger of Malaya), was in command of the Philippines when it was invaded by the Americans, these hidden treasures have become known as Yamashita's Gold or the Tiger's Gold. Shortly following the end of World War II, Yamashita was tried for war crimes and hung in the Philippines. He never disclosed any of the secret locations of Asia's buried looted war treasures.
    During the earlier part of the war W.W.II looted treasures were being shipped back to Japan for badly needed war finances. However, when American patrolling naval vessels made the shipping of these looted treasures to Japan much too risky to continue with due to almost certain loss, another plan was devised.
    Investigative reports show that a great bulk of World War II treasures reached the Philippines from the latter part of 1943 through October, 1944, at that period when Field Marshall Count Terauchi was in charge of the Japanese Imperial Forces in the southeast area of the Pacific. He had ordered Admiral Masaharu (then over-all military commander of the Philippines before General Yamashita) and several other admirals and generals (including Yamashita) that all war booties taken from their respective occupied territories comprising Java, Sumatra, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, and Northern India be collected and thereafter transferred to the Philippines. ...
    However, before this U.S. invasion, the Japanese were very busy hiding and securing its Asian W.W.II loot. Elaborate tunnels were dug, some down to depths of a few hundred feet, to the final "storage chambers" where the gold was to be kept. Most, if not all of these tunnels, were booby-trapped and rigged with 1,000 and 2,000 pound W.W.II bombs and poisonous gas. This trick would help deter the buried loot from falling into enemy hands. Detailed maps of the sites were drawn up on rectangular rice paper--all written in the 2,000 year-old Japanese script known as "Kungi", which hasn't been used for the past 150 years. Numerous concrete markers, which were to be left as clues, were also buried at strategic locations that would later lead the looters back to the hidden caches. These markers were in the shapes of different animals and had Kungi writing on them. ...It is estimated that the total worth of this war loot ranged up to three billion 1940's dollars--the equivalent of over $100 billion today. According to various post war estimates, the amount of gold bullion alone was 4,000 to 6,000 tons. Top U.S. and Japanese sources claim that it would take at least one hundred years to unearth all of these hidden treasures.
    If you're wondering why the Japanese themselves haven't gone back to the Philippines to try and secretly recover some of this hidden booty, the answer is: They certainly have...but only a very small percentage of what was actually buried! Ex-president Ferdinand Marcos himself managed to recover several sites (with the assistance of some ex-Japanese soldiers) and that is how he became so wealthy.
    Tony Wells is President of SEARCHMASTERS, a salvage group based in Singapore, and he is the author of Shipwrecks & Sunken Treasure in Southeast Asia. Searchmasters is seeking investors to participate in the recovery of billions in W.W.II treasures buried in the Philippines. MD of Searchmasters: (http://www.singnet.com.sg/~twells/smloot2.htm) E-mail:

  • The Spoils of War - The Secret Story of WWII Japanese & Nazi Gold by David Guyatt 2002 from DeepBlackLies Website bibliotecapleyades.net

  • "...THE PRINCE OF PLUNDER
    History should have recorded him as the world’s most ruthless and avaricious bandit of all time. Instead, it has passed him by virtually unnoticed, thanks to the onset of the cold war and the well-laid designs of western elites.
    Prince Chichibu was the younger brother of Japan’s Emperor Hirohito and had been named by the Emperor to head the ultra-secret Golden Lily – a secretive group tasked with looting China of its wealth – both government and privately owned hard assets. Beginning in 1937, with the Rape of Nanking, the plunder teams set to work with a vengeance. The spoils were far larger than had been imagined. It is believed that 6,000 metric tonnes of gold, plus a bounty of silver and precious gemstones fell in to the hands of Japan’s imperial treasury as a consequence. [2]
    The phenomenal wealth of East and Southeast Asia had accrued over thousands of years and Japan wanted it all. Over the next seven years the Orient was wrung dry of its precious metals, solid gold religious artifacts and an unbelievable quantity of gemstones.
    Most of this was shipped by the Japanese to the Philippines as a collecting point, for onward shipment to Tokyo. However, by 1943 the sea-lanes had been cut by US submarines and the decision was taken to bury the plunder throughout the Philippines. This was based on Japan’s expectation of a negotiated truce that would leave them ruling the Philippines. Thereafter, the recovery of the plunder could take place in secret over many years making Japan one of the wealthiest nations in the world.
    That, however, was not to be. The United States had its own well-laid plans to become the imperial world power of post WWII. These plans had been formulated before the Second World War by The Council on Foreign Relations an organization founded by wealthy Americans in the wake of WWI, in tandem with England’s Royal Institute of International Affairs, known as “Chatham House” for short.
    The CFR plan called for a “Grand Area” that was to come under US control. Included was the Western Hemisphere, Western Europe, the Far East and the former British Empire. The latter was being actively dismantled for this purpose. Also listed was the Middle East, whose colossal oil resources were eyed with great passion. In fact, if it was possible to achieve, the entire planet was to come under US domination. [3]
    In this scheme, Japan and Germany were assigned the role of the “great workshops” of productivity. In short, there was no place for a separate imperial power and Japan (and Germany) had to be thoroughly defeated. Roosevelt’s call for “unconditional surrender” of the Axis powers not only smashed Japan’s comfortable view of what would be, but also sealed the fate of the post WWII world.
    In addition to the Philippines, treasure plundered by the Japanese is believed to have been stashed in Indonesia and, probably Korea, too. But the Philippine Islands were the key. Here treasure sites were excavated – usually using prisoners of war as slave labour. The plunder was then stashed in these sites and booby traps were set to deter would be treasure hunters.
    With the prisoners of war still inside the sites were sealed and disguised – leading hundreds to die a grisly death in the name of greed and secrecy. .....

    *see GREED

    Not least amongst those at the 1954 Bilderberg conference was Ralph Assheton – later Lord Clitheroe. Assheton was Deputy CEO of RTZ Chemicals (Rio Tinto Zinc) during the years 1973-87. 1973 also saw him appointed a director of Halliburton, a position he held until 2002. [38] During that period he would certainly have been aware that the late Ferdinand Marcos was a large Halliburton shareholder via several cloaked foundations he owned that were managed by Swiss banks. These included the Winthrop Foundation, The Palmy Foundation, The Xandy Corp and the Scolari Foundation. [39]
    Meanwhile, Peter Carrington is also a member of the Trilateral Commission. The Trilateral Commission – which can be said to be the Bilderberg group dressed in another frock (membership critically includes Japan’s elite) - has been deeply involved in black gold, according to several accounts. Prior to the ousting of Ferdinand Marcos as president of the Philippines, representatives of the Trilateral Commission tried to persuade him to turn over 63,000 metric tonnes of gold to them. Marcos didn’t like the terms presented and refused. A few days later his reign as President came to an abrupt end. [40]
    But the last word about the involvement of the Trilateral Commission in plundered gold comes from Mr. Goldfinger himself – Severino Garcia Santa Romana. Prior to his death in 1974, Sta. Romana told his wife that he was a senior member (indeed, he claimed to be the head) of the Trilateral Commission that he said “controlled world finance.” He also revealed he was deeply involved with a secret society known as the “Illuminati” which he maintained had set in motion a fifty year plan to “corner the major part of the worlds gold supply” [41]
    In 1986, a business company called Nippon Star that had a tangled ownership and shadowy connections, set out to recover some of the gold buried in the Philippines. This was to be used to fund right-wing activities. Sitting behind Nippon Star were a group of former military and intelligence officers. These included the CIA’s Ray Cline; General John Vessey, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Robert Schweitzer formerly of the Pentagon and National Security Council and, not least… General John Singlaub. [43]
    Whoever now controls the spoils of war buried in the Philippines by the Japanese Golden Lily has arguably “cornered” the major part of world’s gold supply. Whether this was by design or default it would seem that Santa Romana’s boast has come true.
    *see Government
    UPDATE
    Looting of Asia for British Royals (via Hirohito) during WWII and the cover up « on: April 14, 2011, 01:13:50 AM » forum.prisonplanet.com
    "...I was in Federal Prison for 54 months and in that time I met a man named MITCHELL LESLIE REISMAN he found the last 3 remaining bunkers in the Philippines. He also found and verified the 200 bank accounts that Santa Romana had hidden for the CIA. Well Mitchell went to the CIA for help by himself (big mistake) I have copies of those documents that he was there and singed paper of the CIA agent, talking about extracting the assets from those bunkers. The CIA & the FBI put him in Prison on trumped up charges, because he refused to give them the location of those bunkers. after discussing with them the contents and what not the CIA agent told him that after they had gotten everything from all 3 bunkers they would then tell him what he would get. I have copies of pictures of bars of gold stacked 6 feet high & 45 feet long im told its over 10 thousand metric tuns of gold. Also tuns of led, copper, silver, tin. its all there. message me for pictures. But my main point is to try and get this in the open as the US Government is trying to keep this from getting out. I we need help to blow the lid off this thing. Below is something Mitchell Reisman has written up for me for this forum. Quote..

  • The War is Over . . . Please Come Out By Jennifer Rosenberg, About.com Guide

  • "In 1944, Lt. Hiroo Onoda was sent by the Japanese army to the remote Philippine island of Lubang. His mission was to conduct guerrilla warfare during World War II. Unfortunately, he was never officially told the war had ended; so for 29 years, Onoda continued to live in the jungle, ready for when his country would again need his services and information. Eating coconuts and bananas and deftly evading searching parties he believed were enemy scouts, Onoda hid in the jungle until he finally emerged from the dark recesses of the island on March 19, 1972. ..

    The War is Over...Come Out! Onoda first saw a leaflet that claimed the war was over in October 1945. When another cell had killed a cow, they found a leaflet left behind by the islanders which read: "The war ended on August 15. Come down from the mountains!"2 But as they sat in the jungle, the leaflet just didn't seem to make sense, for another cell had just been fired upon a few days ago. If the war were over, why would they still be under attack? No, they decided, the leaflet must be a clever ruse by the Allied propagandists. Again, the outside world tried to contact the survivors living on the island by dropping leaflets out of a Boeing B-17 near the end of 1945. Printed on these leaflets was the surrender order from General Yamashita of the Fourteenth Area Army. Having already hidden on the island for a year and with the only proof of the end of the war being this leaflet, Onoda and the others scrutinized every letter and every word on this piece of paper. One sentence in particular seemed suspicious, it said that those who surrendered would receive "hygienic succor" and be "hauled" to Japan. Again, they believed this must be an Allied hoax. Leaflet after leaflet was dropped. Newspapers were left. Photographs and letters from relatives were dropped. Friends and relatives spoke out over loudspeakers. There was always something suspicious, so they never believed that the war had really ended.

    During the 30 years that Onoda had remain hidden on Lubang island, he and his men had killed at least 30 Filipinos and had wounded approximately 100 others. After formally surrendering to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Marcos pardoned Onoda for his crimes while in hiding. When Onoda reached Japan, he was hailed a hero. Life in Japan was much different than when he had left it in 1944. Onoda bought a ranch and moved to Brazil. In May 1996, he returned to the Philippines to see once again the island on which he had hidden for 30 years. ..

  • Simon Jeffery and agencies guardian.co.uk, Friday 27 May 2005 10.47 EDT guardian.co.uk

  • "..Ten weeks short of the 60th anniversary of Tokyo's second world war surrender, diplomats were today investigating claims that two octagenarian Japanese soldiers had emerged from the mountains of the southern Philippines. According to Japanese media reports, the men were separated from their division six decades ago. Although they wanted to return home, they feared they would face a court martial for withdrawing from action. ..

    Quoting unnamed sources, Japan's Sankei Shimbun newspaper said there were around 40 soldiers living on Mindanao, all of whom hoped to return home.
    Goichi Ichikawa, the chairman of a veterans group in Japan, said he had learned of at least three Japanese men living in the mountains of Mindanao from someone who went there late last year. "It's amazing they were able to survive for 60 years," he told reporters. "I was stunned."
    The last known Japanese straggler from the war was found in Indonesia in 1975.
    The Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, said he hoped the mystery would be cleared up soon. "We are checking it now," he told reporters. "It is a surprise if it's true, but we have to check first."

    -Stories

    Bataan Death March Survivor

    "Lolo Juan M. Ilaw recounts his excruciating experience in the Bataan Death March. Please see the one in the actual Brownout show to see the one with the intact video (complete with the moving images, sound and subtitles). Here is the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKJS-tRjEV8 *You have to fast forward the video to the timecode 01:48."
    Grandpa Joe's Account of the Bataan Death March

    "Uploaded by chadcells on May 26, 2008 The Bataan Death March (also known as The Death March of Bataan) took place in the Philippines in 1942 and was later accounted as a Japanese war crime. The 60-mile (97 km) march occurred after the three-month Battle of Bataan, part of the Battle of the Philippines (1941--42), during World War II. Grandpa Joe Talks about his experience in the March and later about the concentration camp... "

    -Veterans

    The Filipino Veterans' Project: Marcelo Arellano

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