MISSING PAGE/PAGES
VOL. I JULY 1943 No. 5
Philippine Independence
0 Fallowin? is the portion of Premier General Tozyo’i addressbefore the82nd extraordinary session ofthe Japa
neseDiet relative to Philippine independence:
W
ITH Regard to the Philippines Jorge B. Vargas, chairman of the executive commission, and other leaders are earnestly devoting their best efforts toward the re
construction of the islands as well as toward cooperation with Japan for the prosecution of the war, while the people in general who have come to understand our true intentions are extending us positive service.
Our attitude regarding the inde
pendence of the Philippines ’ has al
ready been clarified in our repeated pronouncements in the past. At this juncture we wish to go a step further and declare that we will accord the
honor of independence to the Philip* pines in the course of the current year.
• The foliowin? is an extract from the speech of the Director-General of the Japanese Military Administration implementing the Premier's message:
The people of the Philippines, who had been toiling under the crafty American rule and who have long been violently chasing after the mirage of independence, are now to attain their long-cherished aspiration within less than two years of the outbreak of the present war. We can well ima
gine the feeling of gratification on the paid of the Filipino people. This, indeed is a matter for sincere con
gratulation for the Philippines in par
ticular and for Greater East Asia in general.
T
HE independence of the Philippines has been the dream of your forefathers It was the cherished hope and the ideal for which your national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, died. Today, as I repeat the assurance made by the Illustrious Premier, I call to the souls of those
brave young men who died in Ba
taan for the same ideal; 1 call to the memory of the great revolutionary heroes led by General Aguinaldo and others; I call to all the cherished hopes, ambitions and undying desires of the millions of Filipino people who have long awaited the coming of in
2 Philippine Review July dependence.
It is a long standing conviction of mine that the independence of a peo
ple can be effected only through di
vine intervention. The independence of 18,000,000 Filipinos is not the handiwork of the humble man. It is the creation of Heaven itself. This has been my long standing conviction and as I recall various incidents, triv
ial as they may seem on the surface, which took place here in the Philip
pines after the declaration of war, I can attribute these incidents to the working of a power and a will far greater than ours.
The coming of Premier General Hideki Tozyo to the Philippines and the conviction that he formed by his coming are great steps towards the culmination of Philippine independ
ence. So I say, in the depth of all my religious belief, that the independ
ence of the Philippines under the sponsorship and active cooperation of Japan is a fact attested to by Divine Providence and that it was left by Divine Will for an Oriental country like Japan to sponsor the independ
ence of another Oriental country like the Philippines. You may have pos
sibly obtained independence from the Americans but we not only doubt the occurrence but we question very much whether you could have main
tained that independence for a great length of time. The independence of
the Philippines must be granted, and the independence of the Philippines must be maintained; and the grant
ing and maintenance of Philippine, independence is left by Divine Will to the people of the Japanese Empire.
The independence of t,he Philip
pines is a matter completely in the hands of Divinity. I say that the in
dependence of this country materializ
ing within six months and sooner if conditions warrant, is again in the hands of Destiny steering the fate of mankind.
At‘this moment I wish to call upon every single individual composing the 18,000,000 Filipinos that it is now within their power to accelerate the century-old ambition of their fore
fathers, the complete independence of this country. I appeal mostly to you, leaders of your people, to show within the next six months c<jmplete self- effacement, complete self-abnegation and complete self-sacrifice for the in
terest of the greater whole. Forget your individuality because today your country requires complete harmony and solidarity as never heretofore seen in these islands. The indepen
dence of the Philippines within the next six months will depend to a pre
ponderant degree on the unity of ef
forts and'on the interest and the com
plete self-abnegation shown by you leaders as well as by your people in the interest of the entire nation.
1943 8
x-
On Increased Cooperation *
By LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIGEN0R1 KURODA New Highest Commander, Imperial Japanese Army in the Philippines
1
AM deeply gratified to note that the desolation and destruction wrought by the war are gradually being repaired, and .hat the condition of peace and order in this land seems to me generally satisfactory except for the existence of some rem
nants who are still hiding in remote mountain fastnesses. I am also pleased to acknowledge that this hap
py result was no doubt due to the energetic joint efforts exerted by the Army and civilians as well as the sin-, cere and earnest cooperation offered' by the Filipino officials and citizens under the good command of my pre
decessors ... I sincerely hope to be able to witness in the future a more brilliant achievement as a result of your increased effort and collabora
tion.
While the Philippine campaign was still in progress Premier General Hideki Tozyo made an important pub
lic pledge concerning „he future inde
pendence of Burma *nc the Philip
pines. Last January, one year later, Premier Tozyo solemnly reaffirmed this pledge in an address before the 81st session of the Imperial Diet.
Finally, the Premier himself recently made a flying visit to the Philippines, in spite of the heavy pressure of his official duties at home, in order to reiterate the same pledge in person and to give the Filipino people the benefit of his warm personal encour
agement. I heartily hope that the Filjpino people will continue to work shoulder to shoulder with us, always bearing in mind that such coopera
tion is the only sure guarantee of
their future prosperity and happi
ness, arjd the only means whereby a reconstructed Philippine, can ulti
mately become a worthy and power
ful member of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Today, the Japanese Empire is determinedly fighting this Holy War in the vast expanse of the Asiatic continent and the Pacific in order to eradicate, once and for all. the Anglo- Americans. This unprecedentedly tremendous struggle vvill never cease until the Anglo-American power has been completely crushed and de
stroyed.
The brilliant war results achieved by the Imperial Japanese Forces dur
ing the last eighteen months have placed us today in a strategically in
vulnerable position. From this ad
vantageous position, we are ready to carry the war to a decision, as cer
tain as ever that the ultimate victory will definitely be ours.
It is a well known fact that one of the attempts of the enemy to un
dertake a counter-offensive this year was completely frustrated by our ever-alert, and invincible forces on the Indo.-Burmese border in the early part of this year.
Before concluding, I wish to em
phasize the ’undeniable fact that Japan today firmly controls the ini
tiative positions in all the vital fronts of the Greater East ’Asia, and that it is to the best interests of the Fili
pino people to unite, without hesita
tion, their efforts, with ours in order to accomplish the task that remains before us.
Extract from hie maaiagauponhla arrivalin Manila. May 36. 1643.
4 July
z I Like Japan
By PIO DURAN- world as one household”—
I that is the finality of the am- bition of a people now lead
ing a crusade in Asia against its op
pressors. It is the fundamental basis upon which the mightiest Empire of the Far East was founded; more than that, it is the commandment fHom God above to the first of an unbroken line of Emperors fully 2603 years ago that inspired the creation of an Empire co
eval with heaven and earth.
But for Hakko I tin Japan and the Japanese would have been just an
other nation, just another people. The spirit and the significance of that term which permeates the life of the entire nation has distinguished Japan as the powerful, leading moral force, which, according to unmistakable ma
nifestations in the light of past and contemporary history, is oound event
ually to redeem entire mankind.
No other people in the world have evaluated the spirit above matter more than the Japanese have done.
In the material achievements in science, commerce, and other human activities, one always hears the Japa
nese explain that these were all pos
sible of accomplishment because of an unseen, inspirational, guiding and generating power not susceptible of explanation by words, not capable of perception by man’s senses, and yet eternally known to him and to his people to be the Spirit of Nippon. 1 like Japan for that.
II.
A CORRECT and accurate description of that term is hard to translate into words, for it will fail to be inclusive of all the conceivable inherent virtues thereof. Nevertheless, it is susceptible of comprehension through proper ap
proach and appreciation and per
chance, I may say, perception of its
articulate manifestations irt the daily life of the Japanese people.
Let us begin with patriotism, it being the most common descriptive term oftentimes associated and even confused with the “Japanese Spirit.”
To the Japanese mind what we term
“patriotism” is more than love for one’s country. Rather, it is the loyalty to the Emperor. That loyalty tran
scends the ordinary, abstract affection for one’s native land. It is a personal attachment, the roots of which may be traced through the ancient pre-his
toric era of Japanese civilization to the mythological period. It is the feel
ing of filial piety which every Japa
nese bears for his Father-Emperor.
What makes the Japanese soldier without peer in all the world? It is his loyalty to his August Emperor for whom and in whose service he would gladly lay down his life. As that learned Yutaka Hibino says in his book, Nippon Slundo Roh:
. . . each one ot the Empire offers true hearted loyalty tohis Emperor, never neglect
ing the Imperial commands. The people serve their Emperor with greater affection than the child accords its mother, with greater fear than the trembling son feels for bis stern father . . The subjects o( Japan whether from the waterside or from themountain are everready to serve their Emperor with their last breath. Weapon in handthey will devote themselves
* unreservedly to driving out the enemies oftheir Sovereign. I do not hesitate to maintainthat this is the true spirit ofthe subjectsof Japan.
The loyalty of the Japanese soldier is the envy and admiration of all the world. It is this all-powerful, all-con
suming passion that has endowed him with undaunted courage and valor, with the will to win and to conquer, and with the vision of exalted service to his August Emperor. This is why he has always conquered, has always won, and has never known defeat. His
1943 I LikeJapan 5 spirit of loyalty is his shining shield,
his invincible armor, his unending inspiration.
It is hard for a foreigner to under
stand the true nature of that loyalty but I shall try to explain what its source and meaning are. The Sover
eign Ruler of Japan occupies a three
fold position in the hearts of the Japa
nese people. Firstly, He is the de
scendant of the Sun-Goddess and on earth He is God himself. Secondly, He is the Father of that great family known as the Japanese nation because all Japanese subjects have descended in some form or another, in times too remote for man’s memory to remem
ber, from the Emperor’s Family or Court. Thirdly, He is the Sovereign Ruler of Japan from whom all sover
eign powers emanate and as such is the sole and only arbiter of all polit
ical matters in the Empire.
Every Japanese subject regards His Majesty as his God, his Father and his Sovereign. All the religious fervor with which a man’s soul is en
dowed, the sublimest feeling of filial piety that emanates from man’s being since childhood and the respect and obedience due from a subject to his Sovereign are all concentrated in one indissoluble and powerful, invisible spiritual force known as the loyalty of the Japanese to his Emperor.
Loyalty to country as we conceive it does not have the three cardinal elements pointed out ab'ove and at best it is but an impersonal and de
tached feeling isolated as it were from the noblest concepts arising out of religion and fatherly love.
The foregoing is a very superficial portrayal of the true spirit of loyalty which a Japanese bears for his Em
peror. Years of study of the Japanese spirit and its manifestations has con
vinced me that no foreigner can truly grasp the meaning of Japanese loyalty to his Sovereign unless he becomes one of the Japanese people. By that I mean that unless a foreigner be
lieves in the divinity of the exalted
Father-Sovereign, he will not be able to conceive correctly what true loyalty in the Japanese sense is. It is a mat
ter ntore of feeling than of compre
hension. It is a subject more of the heart than of the mind. It is dis
tinctively and uniquely Japanese, i like Japan for that.
hi.
Loyalty goes hand in hand with courage and valor. To the Japanese fighting services nothing is more im
portant than loyalty and courage es
pecially in the field of battle. The role which personal valor play3 in the life of the Japanese soldier may per
haps be clearly brought to mind by citing contemporaneous events well within the reach of our memory.
Again permit me to draw attention to the exemplary and almost miracu
lous courage displayed by the Japa
nese soldier individually and by the Japanese Army collectively in actual warfare. Although the Japanese is essentially a sentimentalist and peace- loving, still when the occasion calls for service to the Emperor in the field of battle, his courage asserts itself un
surpassed, and his decision to sacri
fice all for his country becomes a mat
ter of awe to the western mind.
The life of the individual in the Japanese perspective is only valuable and useful in so far as it can be of utility for the promotion of the wel
fare and existence of that one great family known a- the Great Japanese nation of which the Emperor is the head. To comprehend fully the mean
ing of that statement, I shall quote one of Admiral 'Pogo’s instructions to his men:
Do not be concerned that our guns are smaller thanthoseof the enemy. Ifyou get away from them because you find theirshells are concentrated upon you, while your shells do not reach them, it shows that .you have neither courage nor wisdom. In that way, you can never win victory. Advance furth&r and enter our shooting range before you fire.
As will be seen from the foregoing instructions, Admiral Togo regards not so much the safety of his men as
PhilippineReview July their ability and accuracy to inflict
damage oil' the enemy.
’ 'the Special Attack Flotilla of-mi- niature- submarine* ^organized espe
cially for the assault on Pearl Harbor at the start of the Greater East Asia war on December 8, 1941, was con
ceived fundamentally along the prin
ciples enunciated by Admiral Togo yearly forty years ago. That is why the diminutive under-water craft first penetrated Hie defenses of Pearl Har
bor, irrespective of the dangers atten
dant thereto and approached Ame
rican warships *at zthe closest conceiv
able range" before the attack’was ac
tually made. It was, of course, a for
gone conclusion that these miniature water craft as well as the men that directed them under Commander Nao- zi Iwasa would be totally and com
pletely destroyed.
This phase of Japanese psychology may perhaps be made clearer by illus
trating differences of points of view between the Japanese and the Anglo- Saxon fighting forces. It is not an uncommon experiment for the Amer
icans to try to devise ways and means by which bombs could be dropped and directed, and warships man
euvered by means of radio devices operated from land, the idea being to avoid the sacrifice of human lives. To the Japanese fighting forces, however, experiments of such nature are not conimonly entertained, for to them the human element is precisely the vi
brant factor that generates and stim
ulates the desire to sacrifice for the State. It is the one factor that con
verts the Japanese nation into one liv
ing, solid and united whole in the service of the Emperor.-
The three human bombs which im
mortalized the Japanese capture of Shanghai in 1932; the heroes of the Special Attack Flotilla that entered Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941;
as well as the Japanese airmen who deliberately crashed lheir planes against the battleship Prince of Wales and the battle-cruiser Repulse, are elo
quent proofs of this psychological na
tional trait of despising completely the safety and value of human lives in the interest of the nation.
The difference in national training and outlook which I have pointed above between the Japanese on the one hand and the Americans on the other has resulted in a difference ’n the code of conduct in the battlefield.
The American soldier believes in sur
render as a part of his military code.
Diametrically opposite we have the Japanese soldier who courageously pre
fers death to surrender. Every Japa
nese soldier once captured becomes au
tomatically an outcast of the nation and is permanently ostracized and never allowed to go back to Japan He loses his Japanese citizenship and thereby ceases to become a son and subject of his Father-Emperor. To the Japanese nothing can be more dis
honorable than that.
But this valor is not confined only among the fighting forces of the Em
pire. It is the spirit in which the Japanese child is born, through which he grows to manhobd, and which he carries unto his grave. Anyone who has read and analyzed the history, the traditions and customs of the Japa
nese people knows that each and everyone of the one hundred million Japanese men and women should the occasion arise, would prefer to commit harakiri or suicide on a national scale rather than see the defeat of the Japa
nese nation. You may destroy but not conquer the Japanese people. You may annihilate but not subdue them.
To the mind of the Japanese nothing could be more glorious than the exhi
bition of courage in death for the service of his Emperor and State.
Hence the last words of a dying Japa
nese soldier are always; Tenno Heika Banzai! At the time these words are uttered the Japanese soldier reaches the most sublime phase of human life for at that moment his departing spirit becomes suddenly confused with those of his innumerable ancestors
1948 I LikeJapan
w.ho had preceded him and his mind becomes engulfed in one last reveren
tial prayer for his Emperor. That is courage and loyalty as the Japanese conceives it. 1 like and adinire Japan for that.
IV.
Loyalty and courage alone will in
evitably lead to nowhere unless such loyalty is born, bred and nourished by the life-giving springs of mental hon
esty. Mental honesty is nothing more than honest-to-goodness sincerity.
Not without'reason do the Japanese lay great stress on sincerity. For un
less a person is sincere in his exalted mission, unless he has faith in his work, unless he puts into it not only his mind but his whole heart and soul, he is bound Lu be a failure. “Murder
will out” says an old proverb. Yes.
and so will truth. You cannot hide it; you cannot keep it secret. Very true and apropos are these lines from a well-known Tagalog poem which shows that sincerity is likewise an admired attribute of4he Filipinos, the existence of insincere politicians not’
withstanding:
Sapitomang suson ng lupa ilibing At pito mang bundokma’y idagan sa llbita, Ang katotobanan ay mababayag din Kapag ang tadhanang araw ay dumating.
To the Japanese sincerity is of the utmost importance. To work half
heartedly, or with mental reserva
tions is, to them, to be a failure. And not only a failure; it is to be a hypo
crite to oneself, a moral coward to the service, and a traitor to one’s coun
try. TTaat is why 1 like the Japanese,
The Fall Of Corregidor'
By LEON MA. GUERRERO
S
HORTLY before the fall of Corregidor the main flagpole on Top
side was snapped during the course of a Japanese barrage and the American ensign fluttered limply to the ground A gloup of its defenders leaped out of their shelters and won citations for raising Old Glory once again under heavy fire. But it was an unhappy omen for that proud flag.
Across the narrow powerful stream of the North Channel, behind a mys
terious screen of jungle, the Imperial Japanese Forces were completing their preparations for the final as
sault on the lonely fortresses of Ma
nila Bay. Special units, whose lives were already forfeit to victory, strenu
ously 'and with terrible patience, re
hearsed landing operations in a Ba
taan gully which reproduced the chosen battleground in Corregidor.
Their commanders assiduously studied plans and maps and the terrain itself of the forbidding and forbidden is
land. One installed himself with a spy-glass atop Mariveles mountain.
Others, in daring night patrols, scouted no less than 12 times the dan
gerous waters around Corregidor.
For the tactical problem that faced the Japanese was formidable indeed.
An open thrust had to be made bold
ly, recklessly, across the mined and death-swept waters of the. North Channel of Manila Bay. Not even the initiative of the attacker could be fully enjoyed. Nature had limited
* I am indebted to Mr. KasumaroUno, editor of Astana magazine andtbe Shanghai Ei-eriuig Post and Mtrcary. for cba record of the Cabcabeo conversation between General:* Homma a.'.J Wainwright.
8 Philippine Review July the choice of a beach-head. The coast
of Corregidor facing Bataan was. but
tressed with steep cliffs; only toward the tail of the tadpole-island, between Infantry and Cavalry Points, was a rocky beach open^ and the American high command could be expected to
’concentrate the main force and fire of its garrison on this lone breach in the natural battlements. Isolated and abandoned though it was, Corregidor was still a bristling prize for which, it seemed, there could be no bargain
ing.
Characteristically the Japanese de
termined to pay the price in full. A general offensive was decided upon.
As in Bataan, where the final offen
sive was commenced on April 3, Zim- ritii-Tennu-sai, an equally appropriate occasion was chosen for Corregidor, April 29, Te'ntyii-setu Again as in Bataan, the advantage of surprise, which was slight enough, was sacri
ficed in favor of an intensive artillery and bombing preparation.
The garrison of Corregidor, with elementary means of observation, noted at least 20 batteries—80 heavy siege guns—firing along the entire width of the Bataan coast. Meantime wave after wave of gleaming planes raised to a new pitch the concerted bombardment which hid already broken the spirit of the besieged.**
At the summit of the crescendo Cor
regidor suffered 14 air-raids in three days while one typical barrage con
tinued for five hours. Thus for one week thousands of explosive steel fists searched every yard of strategic coastline and pounded and pulverized the remnants of its defenses.
Meantime a fleet of secretly- designed and specially-constructed landing-barges had stolen down the western coast of Luzon, from the gulf of Lingayen to the captured naval base of Olongapo, and thence, on May 2, under cover of night and the steady roar of a barrage which muffled the motors of the barges, around the tip
of Bataan through the narrow waters of the North Channel to Limay, in
side Manila Bay. One careless move on the part of the stealthy fleet of barges—one alert look-out on Corre
gidor—and the assault on the fortress would have been nipped in the bud.
II.
On may 2 the blackout was lifted in Manila and the city sprang into light across the desolate waters of the bay, meantime Station KZRH spoke soothingly and reassuringly of a magnificent banquet given by the Highest Commander of the Japanese Expeditionary Forces in honor of the Philippine Executive Commission.
But these broad hints of inaction could not mislead the American high command or lull its premonitions of impending doom; the grim purpose of the intensified bombardment and barrage was too plain for misinterpre
tation, and the twinkling lights of the gay boulevard conveyed merely the melancholy message that the remain
ing American airfields in Mindanao had finally been captured. The last plane for the outside world had left Corregidor iind would not return and now, at long last, putting aside the stubborn hopes of rescue or escape, the garrison turned its haggard face to the fate prepared for it in Bataan.
Two giant flying-boats, one of which was later to founder on a hid
den rock in Lake Lanao, had taken off what had turned out to be the last batch of evacuees from Corregidor:
intelligence officers. Armv-Navv wives and daughters, and the women- nurses, except those who volunteered to stay behind.
Lieutenant - General tVainwright himself had been urged to follow the example of his predecessor anu leave the doomed fortress to its fate in or
der to establish; his headquarters as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Forces in the Philippines‘some
where in the open plains of Mindanao, where he cou.d have direct contact
M Raad 77i« LastDaysat Cerrsgidor (Vol. 1, No. 3) by the sameauthor.
1943 The Fall Of Corregidor 9 with the larger portion ot his com
mand and enjoy greater freedom of action. Ent the gaunt, close-cropped, brooding veteran was a fighting man.
He had not hesitated .urat, the days of his Bataan command to hunt for snipers.with an automatic lifle in his hand. So he now dictate* his refusal
■ to abandon Corregid* r and, although the renunciation was not publicized, the grapevine carried the news around the tunnels to the men who were never to forget this leader’s taciturn loyalty.
The sacrifice made by “Skinny”
Wainwright was doubly great because there was nothing to be gained in Corregidor, not even the -. partan glory of self-immolation, not even the terrible apotheosis of a brave citadel destroyed but not surrendered. To the broken men who crouched in its bowels, Corregidor was no longer a citadel but a prison. *
Indeed, although to the outside world Corregidor might still be an impregnable fortress, the ‘•Rock” of legend, no one better than its com
mander knew that Corregidor lacked not only the spirit but even the men and guns to repel a determined as
sault.
Fantastic as it sounded, the arma
ment of this vaunted stronghold on which so many millions of gold dol
lars had been lavished was now insuf
ficient in the face of unforeseen dan
ger. The huge naval batteries, facing the wrong way, were doomed to futil
ity. There were only a few heavy pieces that could turn completely around toward Bataan anti once a landing party had slipped below the minimum range of these guns it could expect to move with comparative safe
ty through an area unprotected except for possible enfilading fire until it reached the range of infantry small
arms.
To cover this blind-spot of the de
fense a handful qf 37 mm. guns, which had been used purely for sighting pur
poses, were hastily dismantled and
put up in makeshift emplacements at the breach of the cliffs. But neither these'nor the heavy and light machine
guns which were also massed at the crucial spot long survived the method
ical probing of the Japanese artillery and air corps.
There were not even troops enough to man the beaches. Of the 12,500 men on Corregidor only about 1,000 Marines could be depended upon to offer effective resistance (from their ranks, undoubtedly, came most of the G40 troops later killed in action on Corregidor). The rest Lad no infan
try combat training or experience.
There were headquarters personnel—
paymasters, quartermasters, doctors, nurses, engineers, electricians, clerks
—at worst, frightened civilians of pre-war Corregidor, who were more familiar with typewriters, adding machines, kitchen ranges, surgical scissors, or a pair of pliers, than with a pistol or a rifle.
At best they were artillery-men, who had developed all their lives to serving the huge* naval long-range guns and who had always looked upon their rifles as ceremonial parapherna
lia. Or they were air-corps person
nel—pilots, mechanics, observers — grounded because their P-40’s and B-17’s had never come, now clumsily playing the part of infantry; a heart
rending waste of talent and training that summarized the wretched futil
ity of this whole improvished army, this whole fumbling and makeshift campaign.
Only legenjd and four kilometers of open water still made Corregidor a fortress to be feared.
III.
Shortly after nightfall on May 5 the Sato unit and other units attached thereto were marshalled in the Japan
ese base of Limay on the eastern coast of Bataan. Together for the last time, these hardened veterans of the yellow plains around Changsha and the green jungles of Bataan, sang softly the high thin haunting melody
10 Phhjpptnf Review July
• of the Pniyei in Uif Daivn. Then un
der whispered commands they clafnb-.
tied quietly into seven landing Larges, grim ghosts of men in the tenuous moonlight who had called themselves
“human bullets,” “the living dead.”
• Steel bottoms scraped on the dirty sand; there was a faint gurgle of water; then the sudden explosion of motors. In three-line formation the seven barges slapped the dark and lonely waters of the bay, circling steadily toward the tip of the penin
sula and the somber silent jnass of Corregidor.
At about 10:45 p.m. the Japanese batteries along the width of Bataan unleashed a terrific concentrated bar
rage which drove the coast-defense detachments on Corregidor into cover.
The moon had hidden itself and it was only by the lurid light of the great orange bursts .,t' sh II th.al the Sato units groped and felt their way through the minefields of lhe North Channel.
To the men on the barges as they crept across the black bay toward the burning margin of the coast, it must have seenied that they were descend
ing through the cold loneliness of death into hell. Mell it now became.
As if angrily awakened by the bar
rage, Corregidor suddenly opened dazzling yellow eyes that found the Japanese assault party and followed it tenaciously while all the available guns on the inland pursued and pom
meled it. On the face of the earth there was at that moment no lonelier spot and it took inhuman courage to race forward through the upheaval and throw one’s self, stumbling and gasping in the bloody surf, upon the ghostly shore.
In those terrible minutes the barges had lost their original objective and it was now required of the grim sur
vivors to grope in the impenetrable darkness under heavy and constant fire, searching for the rocky beach that had now became a line of small cliffs, as narrow, black, and slippery,
as “the hack of a horse.”
Neverthe' ss al 11:15 pm a signal bomb was. fired announcing lhe suc
cessful conclusion of tin holding op
erations As instructor., the io units then proceeded with untiring audacity to locate the main defense line, feel
ing for its flanks, pointing then, out to the Bataan artillery with the bright white fingers of portable rockets
Guided by these flares the Japanese siege-guns and bombers went into action once again Once again the steel fists began to fly. pounding, pul
verizing. Accurate shots blinded Cor
regidor, smashing the vigilant search
lights; crippled it, bludgeoned .t, bat
tered it._with repeated blows, the bat
teries firing as rapidly as machine
guns—10 minutes here where a white flare rose, 10 minutes there wheit a battery had revealed itself—deliber
ately clearing and protecting lhe first bloody brach-head.
Under cover of this barrage more landing barges raced across the North Channel, this time singly, through the misty dawn and morning on May 6. carrying more men. field guns, even light tanks Sometime later Lieutenant-General Wainwright was to exclaim: “What? Tanks on Cor
regidor? . Impossible!” But the im
possible was done. z Meantime the Sato units had slipped and wrestled their wa\ forward until by 2:30 a.m they had seized a strategic height on the side of the water-supply tower Against this po
sition about 400 members of the Cor
regidor garrison were hurled al 3:00 a.m. •
The original landing party had by now’ been fighting incessantly for al
most four hours and its ammunition was running low Yet it clung stub
bornly to its gains One of the com-
■ ‘«?iv commanders. Lieutenant Yasu- hiko Enami. won the only individual citation ever granted for the Corregi
dor. assault, by leading his men in hand-to-hand engagements with a bul
let in his head and another in his neck.
-1941 Thf Fall Of Copffcidor 11 He died irf’action, a rifle in his hand,
The other Japanese section com
manders perished in the same manner but their men did not give way When their buliets gave out, they used hand-grenades; when the hand
grenades gave out, they hurled stones and rocks.
The situation, retrieved only by sheer gallantry, was so desperate for the attackers that one year later Lieutenant-General Masaharu Hom- ma, Highest Commander of the Japa
nese Expeditionary Forces, remi
nisced comfortably: “If the enemy had stood their ground 12 hours long
er, events might not have transpired as smqothly as they did.”
IV.
.... News of the Japanese landing plunged the main tunnel in Malinta hill into indescribable turmoil. There was momentary exultation when it was reported that of thf seven barges which had participated in that first suicidal dash across the Channel only three had be£n seen to return toward Bataan. But the persistent pounding of artillery, the unrelaxing grip of the battered landing party, the omin
ous solid roar of bombers overhead, quickly brought the uneasy realiza
tion that the assault was not yet over and that it would not be so easily repulsed.
An extreme of terror now swept the length of the tunnel. The brooding rabble of remnants from Bataan be
latedly remembered that they had left their arms and equipment on that lost .battlefield; the suave and well- groomed headquarters personnel sud
denly realized that they might have to fight; and in a panic they wild
ly demanded pistols, bullets, gas
masks, Jielmets, fumbling nervously with the strange and unfamiliar belts and barrels and greasy clips.
Through a piece of ill-fortune or sheer inefficiency, the headquarters of the Marine detachment, the only JLigMing force on Corregidor, had been moved into Malinta tunnel so
short a time before the Japanese at
tack that communival ions were .'.till miserably disorganized. The result was chaos as aides ami orderlies scurried aimlessly from l.ieuienanL- General Wainwright’s - headquarters to Marine headquarters Io Harbor Defense headquarters to lhe isolated batteries and lost detachments in the shifting battlefield
An hysterical lieutenant-colonel of the Marines, in the course of a pa
triotic allocution to h;s men. was en
raged by the "sight of a group of fi
nance officers staring vacantly at these martial preparations Bellow
ing with fury he rounded up all ’Lhe non-combatants beyond an arbitrary line, announcing that if American Marines were going ort to die, they would not die alone Not even the expostulations of Lieutenant-General Wainwright’s personal aides swerved the lieutenant-colonel from his pur
pose and he marched the officers out of the tunnel at the point of the ba
yonet, unarmed ami without instruc
tions, propitiatory victims to the spir
its of live Marines.
So in that mad night were others racing to this rdad-crossing or that kilometer-post, throwing themselves against shifting shadows, with no one to tell them where or when or who or how.
The situation became so confused that Lieutenant-General Wainwright himself, * accompanied only by his aides, was compelled to scout for in
formation, his showy Western-style holster slapping heavily against his lean shanks,’ his inseparable bamboo cane twitching in his hand. Perhaps he found no comfort either outside or inside the tunnel for in the early hours of May 6, when 1he Japanese assault was only a few hours old with the decision still uncertain, he thought it prudent to dictate a draft of his terms for complete capitulation.
“But,” he told the Japanese inter
preter w’ith some wistfulness, “we won’t be needing this if we can kick
PhilippineReview July them out by morning.0
Morning came without an improve
ment of the prospects.. The Japanese reenforced and replenished, were mov
ing forward down the tail of Corregi
dor toward Malinta and were develop
ing a pincers movement after new landings on the main body of the is
land. A rude barricade had been im provised out of packing cases at the mouth of the tunnel but the dis
traught inhabitants of the under
ground chambers were not disposed to fire the lone machine-gun tjiere or Io throw stones.
A rflelancholv conference was held among the members of the high com
mand. The decision was for surren
der, and the Voice of Freedom, lately grown so discreet and muted, was now reduced to the last indignity of calling
—calling—calling into the unanswer
ing void that Corregidor was ready to talk peace, that Corregidor no longer stood, and could no longer be held.
Hastily, haphazardly, the destruc
tion of important papers in Lateral No. 3 was attempted. Pale and nerv
ous clerks tore up maps, documents, innocuous lists, state cables, mimeo- grahped news-sheets, not infrenquent- ly overlooking the weighty for the trivial.
The common soldiers began to throw down their rifles and pistols, unused and never to be used, into gi
gantic and tragic scrap-heaps'of splin
tered butts, clogged barrels, smashed bolts, torn gas-masks, scattered bul
lets. The sound of this steady accu
mulation of debris resounded hoarsely and hollowly through the abruptly si
lenced tunnel like the death-rattle of some stricken giant.
Somebody raised the cry that there would be no surrender—that the order to destroy the armament had never been given by competent authority^
that it was a traitor’s lie—and for some minutes the low thunder of broken arms ceased. But the order was true enough and the rumbling
agony continued in the bo'./els of the fortress.
The quartermaster, finding himself with two months’ provisions for 10,000 men, threw open his stores, so jealously and scrupulously guarded in the past, to a garrison that), not hav
ing deserved the rewards of victory, might yet deny them to the enemy.
The greedy and the apprehensive now scrambled, shoved, and wrestled for the quartermaster’s meaningless sav
ings. Canned fruits, canned meat, sausages, tomatoes, cigarettes, were hastily consumed or stored under the grimy mattresses and scraps of blan
ket for the expected privations of the concentration camp. Thus it was that the garrison of Malinta enjoyed a grisly feast on the very day of its de
feat.
The battle was as good as over that sixth day of May; it had lasted barely from midnigh^ till noon when a wnite flag had been raised on Topside, This time with no hand lifted to keep Old Glory flying.
At about that time’ also a grim and tattered squad of Japanese appeared at the mouth of Malinta tunnel. These dread apparitions, clutching flame
throwers, abruptly stilled the chaotic babble in that underground headquar
ters. But it rose again to shrill hys
teria when the Japanese curtly an
nounced that either the tunnel was abandoned within ten minutes or they would clear it by force.
The command could not possibly be obeyed for there were thousands of men jammed within the tunnel. Per
haps it was not meant to the letter.
But neither could it be challenged or questioned and the mob turned shout
ing to inch its way to the opposite mouth of Malinta where the dazzling radiance of high noon and another de
tachment of the victors awaited it.
Perhaps that handful of lean bold men in their faded and blood-soaked khaki, who had ridden across the black wa
ters of death, could not understand that these milling thousands had no
1943 The Fall Of Corregtdor 13 will to fight and were delivering
themselves into their hands. Mistrust
ful, they uttered fierce guttural com
mands, whose meaning was conveyed by gestures.
And so, in that last hour, as the commands went, up and down the line, the mob, clutching its trivial posses
sions, by turns rushed forward, squat
ted, knelt, stood still, raised its hands or clasped them behind the neck, mumbled mysterious gibberish, sa- lamed, and sobbing for time and space and all lost glory went stumbling past the dim looted laterals, kicking and spitting on the empty helmets and scattered -tins, pushing aside the clutching hands of comrades-in-arms, to get to the last barricade, the gate that opened upon captivity, upon whose wooden railings a pet monkey now frolicked, giggling shrilly as he muzzled a golden peach in a jagged can, and looking down with pity and wonder on the vanquished.
V.
Out of the wild and shameful scenes in Malinta tunnel Lieutenant- General Wainwright, accompanied by his chief-of-staff, his aides, the Japa
nese interpreter, and some orderlies, had quickly slipped away under the protection of a flag of truce. The un
interrupted heavy shelling forced them back into shelter once but they finally made the piers where they boarded a speed-boat and crossed over to Cabcaben in Bataan. A suspicious Japanese fighter-plane dived upon the craft immediately but, apparently re
assured by the white flag, it contented itself with circling watchfully over the peace-makers.
At Cabcaben the party was met by a group of soldiers who, taken aback at the sight of a Japanese in the uni
form of an American technical ser
geant, insisted on questioning Lieu
tenant-General Wainwright’s inter
preter. Patriotism was at a fever
pitch and the unfortunate Nisei, who iiad been born and had lived all his life on American soil, was upbraided
and resoundingly reprimanded.
However, the party was allowed to proceed and, on the verandah of one of the few frame-houses that had es
caped the successive bombings and shellings of Cabcaben, the vanquished waited -despondently for the victors, pursued and preyed upon by reporters and photographers for the modern Roman triumph of headlines and newsreels.
In due time Lieutenant-General Homma arrived with his staff and with cases of beer and soft-drinks which were immediately put on ice.
The courtly Sophisticated Japanese greeted the American with grave kindliness. “You must be very tired and weary,” he said.
Indeed the Usaffe had come a long way to this time and place—a long and weary way from the brave flags and bright parade of Loyalty Day, the sudden burning doom of Clark’s Field, the crashing gray swells off Agoo, the desperate cavalry charges in the mountain defiles, the fantastic race of the first retreat past the ghost towns, the wild-eyed refu
gees, the overturned trucks, the burn
ing busses, the bewildered shuffling battalions—a long and weary way from the gallant recruits starving in their fox-holes in the jungle, the agony of Mauban, the trap at Aglalo- ma, the thundering collapse at Samat, the torture of Corregidor besieged.
The Usaffe had come a long and weary way to this sixth day of May and this sunlit verandah where Lieu
tenant-General Wainwright was now saying: “I have come to surrender my men unconditionally.”
But the Usaffe could not now surrender; it would never surrender;
because it had ceased to exist. On March 22 Lieutenant-General Wain
wright had been invested with the command of an entirely new unit, the United States Forces in the Philip
pines alone, the so-called Usfip, com
prising the forces in Bataan under Major-General King, the garrison of
14 Philippine Review July Corregidor under Major-General
Moore, and t);e forces in the Visayas and Mindanao under Major-General Sharp. Now, in one’last effort to re
trieve something from the disaster.
Lieutenant-General Wainwright de
nied his supreme authority over the IJgilP and, as Major-General King had surrendered only Bataan, he in turn offered to surrender only Corre
gidor. ■
But Lieutenant-General Homma had had enough of bargaining in Ba
taan and he now swept aside quibbles and distinctions. Striking his,fist on the table at which the peace-makers had gathered, he cut short the excited discussion and told Lieutenant- Geueral Wainwright curtly: “At the time of General King’s surrender in Bataan,, I did not see him. Neither have I any reason to see you if you are only the commander of a unit of the American forces. I wish to nego
tiate only with my equal, the Cornmander-in-Chief of the American Forces in the Philippines. Since you are not in supreme command, I see no fqrlher necessity for my presence here.”
The imperious gesture quickly wrung from the white-lipped Ame
rican an offer to assume command of the United States Forces in the Philippines on his own responsibility.
But it was too late.
“You have denied your authority and your momentary decision may be regretted by your men,” the Japanese Highest Commander said grimly. “I advise you to return to Corregidor and think this matter over. If you see fit to surrender, then surrender to the commanding-officer of the de
tachment on Corregidor. He in turn will bring you to me in Manila. I call this meeting over.” And with a good-dav Lieutenant-General Homma stalked out of the conference.
. On the rocky road that led out ot Malinta tunnel cowed thousands were squatting submissively in the blister
ing sun, staring with empty eyes at
the confident battle-planes that now swoopt-d daringly low to bomb and machine-gun . the obstinate crews of one or two remaining batteries. The' gray explosions that bloomed on the opposite - ridge seemed suddenly to lhem to be grotesque anachronisms devoid of meaning or emotion in . the brilliant and peaceful afternoon when they had made their private armistice.
No longer for them the fierce, arro
gant, and audacious passions of battle or its choking white waves of over
whelming fear. The guns that Mill roared sporadically against 1he neighboring fortified islands no longer spoke any message into their ears, save that, when they crashed and whistled without warning in the lost and anxious night that followed, the crouching captives on ihe open road threw themselves on the stones with sobbing fears of massacre.
Perhaps, on the deserted verandah in Cabcaben, these broken and spirit
less files came to the mind of Lieu
tenant-General Wainwright. At iong last he offered the unconditional sur
render of all the United States Forces in the Philippines. But Lieutenant- General Homma had already left and now it was not too little but too late.
The negotiations would have to be conducted-indirectly through the com
manding-officer on Corregidor and to his fallen stronghold Lieutenant-Gen-
•eral Wainwright now returned, riding silently through the swift dusk and the irretrievable night in one of the steel barges that, only a few hours before, had borne the lean bold men whose campfires were burning on the shores of their prize. The full amount in blood and steel had been paid for this victory and it could not be cheap
ened by either artifice or haggling.
At 8:00 a. m. on May 7, the total and unconditional surrender of the United States Forces in the Philip
pines was finally made. In the eve
ning of the next day, May 8, Lieutenant-General Wainwright is
sued, through Station KZRH in Ma
1943 The Fall Of Corregidor 15 nila, the corresponding orders to thr
units scattered throughout the Philip
pines. And at 9:30 p. m. on May 10, in a three-room school-house in a mountainous village of northern Min
danao, Major-General Sharp per
formed the same last melancholy of* fice for the forces in the Visayas and Mindanao.
The Dilemma Of The National Language
By TEODORO A. AGONCILLO
I
WAS thumbing the February issue of the Shin Seiki when, upon seeing its first page, I ran across Director-General Aquino’s article en
titled, “The Kalibapi: Its Ideals and Objectives.” MV first impulse was* to read the Tagalog version of the speech.
* And here I reproduce a part of it taken at random :
Hlnlngi sa aking liwanagin ko sa loob ni ton g sulatsay na maigsi ang kung ano ang Kalibapi . . .Ang pinakapangmulang folongig nitoay paggawa . .Hanap ng Kalibapiang pagbuo ng isang bansa . .isang bansang malusog kung sa katawan, maunlad kung sa paranyaman . . .isang katanbang ganiyan ang kalakaaanay di maaaring maging ganapgawa, di sarilatas. . . isang Pilipinas na di nakata- nikalaat ligtassatubong ng mgatimpigul . . (italicsmine.)
Surprise is a modest word to de
scribe my feeling. 1 had, in fact, the sense of helplessness and frustration of a man who, climbing a high pre
cipitous cliff, found himself on the brink of collapse upon discovering that an abyss, and not an inspiringly beautiful scenery, lies beyond. For though born a Tagalog and reared in a Tagalog home, I could not quite make out what the translator of the speech meant. Either I was an idiot
mumbling something I did not under
stand or that the translator was an incompetent foreigner who had pieced together incoherent and utterly sense
less words to mean nothing in par- ticular.
I.
Thereare today several groups of iiiananagalogs who- sincerely believe, that they are the legitimate heirs of Finpin, Bagongbanta and Balagtas.
In consequence of this they draw up rules that not only bewilder the neo
phyte in linguistics but also shock the scholars. I shall mention only the most prominent among them and con
tent myself with unweaving the threads of their theories.
The first group was headed by the late Carlos Ronquillo, quondam edi
torial writer of the Taliba and a Re
volutionary figure. This group be
lieves that (1) the diphthongs -in and -io in foreign words, when in
fused ' into our language, must re
main unchanged, as in pilosopia (Sp.
Jilosofia), biiiio (Sp. vicio) ; (2) the prefix pang- must not be changed in
to pain-; and (3) the language should adopt foreign words as necessity
[
* The Tagalog translation wassubmitted together with theoriginalin English by the office pl the KALIBAPI.—Editor.)
1 I have advisedlyrefrained from using the term "borrow” for thesimplereason that borrowing Implies returning. Infusion, in the words ofMurat H. Roberts, designates “theentrance into
« language ... of the actualwords ol another language.”,Cf. Murat H.Roberts, “The Problem of the HybridLanguage," inThe Journal of Enqliih and Get manic Philology, Vol. XXXVlli, No. 1,January,1439. pp. 23-41.
16 Philippine Review July arises.
The second group, headed by Lope K. Santos, former editor and senator, believes that (1) the prefix pang- must be changed into pain- and pan
Chen the initial letters of the root
words are, respectively, the bilabials b and p and the dentak d, I, t, s, and y, as in pam bansa (pang + bansa), pampalakas (pang 4- pa + lakas), pandaigdig (pang + daig- dig), panlahat (pang + lahat), pantuhog (pang + tuhog), pansalok (pang + salok), panyari (pang + yari); and (2) the invention of words
’—only to a slight degree—in the ab
sence of indigenous ones.
The third group, headed by Jose N. Sevilla, a grammarian-paleograph
er, and Guillermo E. Tolentino, a famous sculptor, proposes (1) that foreign words should be banished from our vocabulary and in their stead invented words be substituted, as gnlt.unog (velar-nasal), haptvnog (aspirate), salitikan (grammar), ta- hisip (philosophy), likdama (con
crete), likhagap (abstract), bansa p (person), siphanay (sentence), salt-, pawpaw (airplane), hatinig (tele
phone), tingwirin (radio), pvlati (sa pula.sa puti!—meaning, ‘rose’’), and the names of the days and months;
and (2) like Mr. Santos, the repudia
tion of the consonantal diphthongs, such as ts (ch), tr, kr, etc.,’ meaning that such foreign words and names as Franklin, Francisco, truck and the like should be written and pro
nounced, respectively, Parangkilin, Paransisko, tarak.
The long years that have elapsed . since 1908 when the niananagaloys convened in a body to solve the prob
lem of the Tagalog language testify to the keen struggle for power and popularity among the three groups
The creation of the Institute of Na
tional Language by virtue of Com*- monwealth Act No. 184, and the sub
sequent approval of Mr. Santos’
grammar as the official grammar of the national language, did not, as ex
pected, solve the eternal problem Mr.
Sevilla wrote a grammar that is not only revolutionary but is also in col
orful opposition to the official gram
mar. Other grammarians, and those who like to believe that they are so, frantically rushed to the press and also put out their own grammars which are opposed to the two already mentioned.
The private schools and univer
sities soon advertised in the papers that they had included the teaching of the national language in their cur
ricula. and that this and that author
ity on the language — popular poet, dramatist, writer, etc. — was on its faculty. The upshot was, of course, the mad scramble for positions. But the worst feature of it was that dif
ferent universities taught the same language along diametrically opposed lines. On top of this, the periodicals refused to recognize the official grammar and Mr. Sevilla’s. Even among the papers—dailies and week
lies—differences in orthography and analogy simply could not be avoided.
II.
Under such circumstances, a writer who sends his contribution to a periodical must adapt his grammar to that of the editor, or he suffers either rejection or complete revision of the manuscript. Professors of the national language in the universities have also experienced the same de
gree of humiliation.’ Thus for in
stance, the Mabnhay, whose editor was Amado V. Hernandez—perhaps the foremost journalist in Tagalog—
’ I (hallnot go intoa fulldiscussion of their theories, sinesI have, in ■measure, discussed them inmy essay“Sa Dahon ng Ating Wiltu."
3A curious situation prevailed when the manuscriptol a professor in Tagalog was sent to the Mabuhay orto the Taliba onlyto betotally revised by the editor, thereby makingafool of the professor, since, while disagreeing with ths editor, his manuscript was made to conform with the editor's linguistic ideas.