Evina Nonato

Social Studies

Period 8

"I shall return!" With these dramatic words, the great American General MacArthur left Philippines during WWII. At this time, the US was forced to fight two wars—one in Europe against Hitler and another in the Pacific against the Japanese. Many men died and gave up their lives in battle, and the horror of war would never be forgotten or washed away. Cohen Thomas Roland was 18 years old when war was declared. He remembered it well. The shock of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was still fresh on his mind. There were headlines on every newspaper about the "massacre" at the Hawaiian port. Mr. Roland was a very brash, impetuous young man back then. Having grown up in a tobacco farm, he was more than happy to go out and see the world under the excuse of defending his country. He volunteered to go to the Philippines never fully comprehending what could await him there.

The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed the Philippines. General Douglas MacArthur was the commanding general of the USAFFE (United States Armed Forces Far East). He had received a message at 3:00 AM of the tragedy at Pearl Harbor, and immediately alerted all units under his control. This included the Philippine armed forces. In 1936, General MacArthur had retired as chief of staff of the United States Army. The President of Philippines, Manuel Quezon appointed him to the position of field marshal of the Philippine army. With this new job on his shoulders, MacArthur planned to train 400,000 Filipino regular and reserve troops. The Regular US Army, stationed at the island would train them and give them support. So with his inexperienced troops he waited for the right time to strike.

By 6:30 AM, the Japanese air-attacks came as expected, but unexpectedly, they came from the south, not from the north. General MacArthur was never informed of any of these attacks because the air-raid warning system had failed. Nervous, some American planes from the Clark and Nichols Air Corps bases took to the air to try to intercept any Japanese aircraft. However, they found nothing. Reassured, almost all the pilots went to lunch. As soon as their guard was down, BOOM! The Japanese attacked and wiped out half of the modern aircraft at the base.

The man responsible for all this destruction was Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma who commanded the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. He led 43,000 veteran and experienced troops protected by air support and a large naval force. The Japanese were a force to be reckoned with, having 100,000 men in all. In comparison, the Philippine army both with Filipinos and Americans, all total up to 80,000 unsuspecting young men. Most of them were stationed at key locations on the island of Luzon. Mr. Cohen was stationed at Manila, the capital of Philippines. He claimed it was a soldier’s paradise! He was young and he didn’t really know what war was really like. He thought it was all glory and girls. Most of the other soldiers with him where also equally clueless. Their schedule basically consisted of training half the day and getting the rest of the day off. You can imagine how incompetent they seemed next to the already battle-hardened Japanese soldiers!

Fortunately, in the early 20^th century, Japan was thought by the US as a possible enemy and therefore, the US made plans to defend the Philippines if war ever broke out. This plan was called the War Orange Plan (WPO). It basically stated that if American forces in the Philippines were overpowered by the enemy, the army should withdraw to Bataan Peninsula and the island of Corregidor. Then, all they would have to do was fight until the navy came to help. The plan got altered and finally resulted into WPO3.

The fighting went badly for the American/Filipino troops until MacArthur could only do one thing. Put WPO3 into action. By December 24, the Japanese had landed its entire invasion force and moving in on Manila. Armies on Luzon retreated to Bataan Peninsula. The North Luzon force was given the task of setting up defense lines to delay the attacking forces driving south from the Lingayen Gulf. They were hoping that by doing this they would give all units time to reach Bataan.

Mr. Roland recalls that on Christmas eve, everyone—the civilians and the military men—evacuated the city. He marched off to Bataan and on December 26, MacArthur declared Manila as an open city and the Japanese took over.

Mr. Roland with his regiment, marched grimly on, fighting occasionally to reach Bataan. Bataan is part of the island of Luzon, across the bay from Manila. It was the perfect place to fight defensively for it is covered with mountainous jungles with only three usable roads. They crossed the Layac Bridge moving south to the peninsula. This bridge was very important because it crossed a deep rocky canyon, that led to the only road to Bataan. On January 5, when the last troops crossed over, the bridge was ordered to be destroyed. And with that, they were left on their own.

"We were alone back there, once we got to the peninsula," said Mr. Roland. The soldiers were hungry and some had diseases from mosquitoes. There wasn’t enough food for everyone because food brought from Luzon was only enough to feed the men for 30 days, instead of the 6 months that was planned. Despite the poor conditions and poor physical health, the armies on Bataan set up a defense line called the Abucay-Mauban line. General Parker and his men were to defend the east end village of Abucay, while Mr. Roland and his superior, General Wainwright and his men were to defend the west end at the village of Mauban. And in the center of it all, was the gigantic mountain, known as Mount Natib. They left Mount Natib defenseless, because they thought that it was impassable and that the Japanese would not attempt to climb it. As you can guess, they were wrong.

The Japanese began their attack on the Abucay-Mauban line on January 10 with an artillery barrage. Mr. Roland admitted that he was scared spitless. He was fighting at the front line and he knew that any second someone could hit him and he could die. He was no longer the naive young man he was. He was tired of war, yet at the same time knew it was necessary. The Japanese tanks and foot soldiers advanced as soon as the artillery barrage stopped. Mr. Roland could still hear the Japanese voices screaming, "BANZAI!." The defenders held the Japanese off bravely, but they hadn’t counted on Mount Natib. And surely enough, the enemy were slowly scaling the mountain and coming down. This surprise attack drove a wide hole through the line.

I believe that the American-Filipino defenders should have realized that nothing is impenetrable. They should have been better prepared that just in case the Japanese decided to climb the mountain, that there’d be someone there to prevent that from happening. Mr. Roland said that its exactly like Pearl Harbor. They shouldn’t have been taken by surprise and he believes that there would have been less casualties if we were better prepared.

After surprise attack by the Japanese, the American-Filipino armies were forced to retreat to the next line of defense called the Bagac-Orion line. They were able to fight bravely here and hold their position despite fighting for nearly four months without food. During this time, Mr. Roland contracted the disease of malaria. He said that the other fellows also got diseases like dysentery and diarrhea due to malnutrition. Surprisingly, the troops held on, until inevitably, the Japanese broke through.

On the sad day of April 9, 1942, the defenders surrendered. It was on this day that Mr. Roland got captured and became a prisoner of war. "It was a very sad and humiliating day for us," he admitted. He was happy at first that at last he could stop fighting. Unfortunately, he didn’t count on the cruelties of the Japanese.

On April 11, the misery known as the "death march" started. Mr. Roland thought it was the most terrible experience of his life that would scar him forever. Men where seen shot or slain everywhere. He said that those who couldn’t keep up where killed. There was almost no food and no water. Along the way of the march, there were artesian wells. Mr. Roland and the other prisoners of war were thirsty, but the Japanese wouldn’t even let them drink anything. From Cabcaben through Balanga, to Orani, and other cities, they passed through, barely stopping. It seemed to Mr. Roland that they passed about a million of little villages until they finally reached the camp.

The camp’s name was O’Donnel and to Mr. Roland and many others it was h-ll. The Filipinos and Americans were separated into different sections. The obscenities in the camp was beyond imagination. They had little food, and Mr. Roland said that they’d eat anything! Snakes, lizards, horses, you name it—basically anything they can get their hands on. There was little sanitation. They were treated harshly by their captors and to make things worse, they had a barrier of language against them. One man stole a turnip because he was so hungry. The Japanese locked him up in a cell and didn’t feed him. That one little turnip cost his life. Another man, was caught at the gate with some boiled eggs and rice cakes. The guard who caught him rearranged his facial features with the butt of his rifle. It put the man’s nose out of joint and to this day, he has to breath through his mouth.

for some information. There were guards that beat them each day. It was awful! Mr. Roland prayed everyday, because there was no one else to turn to but God.

He didn’t know why or how he survived. But Mr. Roland knew that if he was asked to do it again, he would do it. After he was held for 3 ½ years, as a prisoner of war, he was finally saved. He was transferred by boat from Camp O’Donnell to work in the coal mines in Japan. He saw from a distance the explosion at Nagasaki when the atom bomb was dropped. When that bomb ended the war, he was free. He wired his parents because they didn’t know anything that was happening to him. During the war, his parents received a note from the government that said he was missing in action and was assumed captured.

Mr. Roland was a brave man, because I know that if I were in his place I couldn’t have survived. Afterwards, he stayed in the army for 20 years. But the surrender in Philippines and the Death March in Bataan would never be forgotten. The men who fought bravely and endured the horror of the Death March were referred to as the Alamo of WWII.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Black, Wallace F, & Blashfield, Jean F. Bataan and Corregidor. NY: Macmillan Publishing Company. 1991.

This is a very good book, because it was simple and gave an overall view on what happened.

Kerr, E. Bartlett. Surrender and Survival: The Experience of American POWs in the Pacific 1941-1945. NY: William Morrow and Company, Inc. 1985.

This is an extremely good book that gave detailed accounts on what happened during the Death March.

Villarin, Mariano. We Remember Bataan and Corregidor. MD: Gateway Press, Inc. 1990./

This is an okay book, because it gave me personal experiences on the Bataan Death March and on different camps.