Customer Reviews

Behind Japanese Lines: An American Guerrilla in the Philippines

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Behind Japanese Lines: An American Guerrilla In The Phillippines is the story of Ray Hunt, an American soldier who escaped the Bataan Death March and organized a troop of American and Filipino guerrillas. Hunt tells his own vivid and harrowing tale of life as a guerrilla behind Japanese lines, the struggle to survive and harass the Japanese, even the lingering fear among his troops that, because they had not followed orders to surrender to the Japanese when their units in Phillippines surrendered to the Japanese, they would be court martialled for desertion if the Americans won the war. Hunt also argues against the lack of American thanks or compensation to the insurgent Filipinos after the war. Behind Japanese Lines is an exceptionally well written, eye-witness narrative that is a much appreciated and welcome contribution to the growing library of World War II literature regarding combat operations in the Pacific Theater.

The Philippines' role as a major battleground in World War II must not be forgotten. Thus, Ray Hunt and Bernard Norling provide an important service in "Behind Japanese Lines: An American Guerrilla in the Philippines." The story of American servicemen fighting as guerillas during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines is an amazing one. Hunt's personal experience is just one of many such riveting experiences.

"Behind Japanese Lines" provides the reader with a vivid portrayal of Mr. Hunt's three-year ordeal as a guerilla on the island of Luzon, an ordeal he did not expect to survive. It also contains detailed analysis of the history of the Philippines and its complex relationship with the United States. The only drawback is that Mr. Hunt's narrative is abruptly and inconveniently interrupted by such analysis, presumably by Mr. Norling.

Importantly, Mr. Hunt gives much regard to the Filipino people, who suffered so much during the war. With their help and sacrifice, he was able to stay alive and fight to help liberate the Philippines. Very few other people of any nation gave so much in fighting for freedom during the war.

Also, Mr. Hunt is honest in his account of guerilla life. It was anything but easy, as rival guerilla gangs fought each other almost as often as they fought the Japanese. Even American guerillas fell under the spell of a near-anarchy situation and over-stepped their bounds. But such were the circumstances, and guerillas did what they could to survive. In any event, Japan's conduct in the Philippines was far worse than that of the guerillas.

All in all, the book is a good read and contributes much in the way of the history of the Philippines in World War II. Another similar book worth reading is "Lieutenant Ramsey's War: From Horse Soldier to Guerrilla Commander," by Edwin P. Ramsey and Stephen J. Rivele.

I would like to say that this book is great for me since the two Guerrillas in the book named William and Joseph Henry are my Grandfather and Uncle. Their father was Irish and their mother was Filipina. My Great Grandfather was killed by the Japanese and they took revenge. They are still alive and had some stories to tell! I would recommend this to anyone since I know first hand that this was a really good history lesson. To all the others who have been in the war, I give my respect and love. God bless you all!

This book is one of those excellent works by the University Press of Kentucky. They publish a great number of WW II personal narratives concerning the more obscure activities and less known theatres. I recall one written by a bandsman, the only one such I ever saw.
This review is based on the 1988 Pocket Book newstand edition of the 1986 hardback original.
The book is well written, quite thorough, and extensively sourced and noted, in contrast to many such works in which all that is set down about the author is in the blurb on the cover. There is also a handy map of Central Luzon printed on the inside back cover, a really great idea so that one can easily find it. Why don't other publishers do that? There is also a very useful index which covers not just personal names, as do so many, but has also subject listings to various topics.
As contrasted to the original book published during WW II, with the title "American Guerilla in the Phillipines", this one does not whitewash the dirty and brutal aspects of the war and its aftermath. All in all, a very interesting and well written work which deserves a place on the shelves of Spec Ops, "grunt" history, and personal narrative collections.

Ray Hunt has turned out an informative book of his World War II years, first as an American soldier in the Philippines, secondly as a prisoner and escapee from the Japanese, and third as a guerilla fighting the Japanese until the American army finally re-captured the islands.

Personal accounts of guerilla war are likely to be replete with fabrications as the participants build themselves up, tear others down, and exaggerate their exploits. Hunt seems more honest than most. He doesn't sugar-coat his actions, nor portray himself as the second coming of Napoleon. The book alternates between describing his personal experiences and putting them in context with descriptions of the various guerilla movements in the Philippines, including the Communist Huks, local politics, an account of the American invasion, and his own role as a guerilla leader. He strives to be fair and balanced and comes closer to achieving that than does Fox News.

The best part of the book, in my opinion, were the several chapters in which he described his life on the run from the Japanese, the hardships and disease he suffered and overcame, and the assistance he received from Filipinos. My criticism of the book would be that Hunt never really describes in detail the military operations the guerrillas undertook. Thus, it is somewhat difficult to evaluate the contribution guerilla groups made to winning the war.

Hunt's story of his three years as a guerilla in the jungles, mountains, and rice paddies of Luzon is vivid and credible. This is probably one of the better books you can read about the Philippines under Japanese occupation.

Smallchief

There are some better books covering this subject, but this book is still a decent read and I recommend it for those interested in this theater of war. Hunt's story of survival from the Bataan death march and his eventual work with a guerilla detachment were very good and include many personal aspects. But if you are looking for a lot of "combat" recollections, those are not here. This is a more general and personal account of survial. In addition, at times, the author's main purpose in writing this book seems to be to respond to and challenge other US-led guerilla leaders who have either written their own accounts or were considered rivals to Hunt and his leaders. This detracted from the overall story in my opinion, but perhaps this is important contribution from a purely historical aspect.

This is a very interesting book about one man's experiences as a guerrilla fighter in the Philippines during World War II. Initially captured at the fall of Bataan and forced to endure part of the Death March, he escapes and spends the next three years hiding out from the Japanese and waging a guerrilla campaign on Luzon. There isn't much combat in the book, but it has lots of interesting stories about the Philippines, other guerrilla fighters, prominent Filipinos and a life filled with the constant worry of capture, torture and death at the hands of the enemy. Definitely a must read if you're into Filipino culture and history, but not so much if you're looking for lots of action.

What I wanted out of this book was not really what I got. I wanted a personal memoir filled with interesting anectdotes, recountings of battles the author fought in and guerilla operations, in short: adventure. Perhaps you will think that a little bloodthristy of me, but it is what I bought the book for.

However, I found these things to be few and far between. There are a trifling amount of these kinds of episodes, but mostly Ray Hunt and his ghost writer gloss over these points of interest (for me, anyway) to comment on generalities of guerilla life in the Philippines and "to set the record straight." Though this was the first book I have read on guerilla operations in the Philippines, it quickly became clear that there are several camps with opposing views about what really happened during the war among US/Filipino guerilla forces, and each tries to get its version of events to be taken as history. Mr Hunt makes an effort to give his side of the story throughout the book from mostly personal information, so in this respect I think he did a good job.

He also takes the opportunity to unapologetically wax patriotic. He is unflinching in his thoughts that the US and MacArthur are always doing right, a tone which sometimes was too strong for me to take seriously. At one point he claims that the best thing for the Philippines after the war would have been to make it "the 49th state,"(this was before Hawaii and Alaska were admitted) presumably because America was and is the best thing going anywhere.

In short, this book is not one of men in battle and the hardships they undergo. It is one man's first person view of a seemingly ongoing argument about this particular bit of history, as well as providing a wealth of general background on the subject. I suspect that there are other, better books to buy on all these categories, and would recommend this book only to those who are deeply interested and want to read everything they can find on it.

This mans actions took place just north of Manila and more interaction with the Japanese took place,
compared for example, with the people on Panay island. A good addition to the topic of occupation
by the Japanese of the P.I.

A textbook on the second world war will point out that the Japanese occupied the Philippines during that time, that their occupation was harsh, and that the Filipinos, together with some left-behind Americans, mounted a guerrilla campaign against the occupation. But what did the people involved in this struggle experience in their daily lifes? Only learning this adds color to the grand facts of history, and Hunt's story, written with the help of Norling, does a very good job in painting a colorful picture of guerrilla warfare in the Philippines in the 40s.

Hunt was in the US Airforce when the Japanese invaded, and was captured and sent on the Bantaan death march which killed so many men. With some luck he managed to pull off a daring escape, and hide out with the help of friendly Filipinos, who risked their lives to shelter him. It then took him a long while to regain his health, but after he had done so, he joined the fight against the cruel occupiers in Luzon, the Philippines' largest and Northernmost island. He struggled against the Japanese, communist guerrillas, wanna-be and bandit pseudo-guerrillas, collaborators, tropical diseases, his own overzealous fighters, and a lack of supplies. Hunt rose to be in charge of guerrilla operations in one province of Luzon. After the arrival of American troops in 1944, he stayed on to lead his men in the final phase of the liberation of the Philippines.

All of this he describes in vivid language, and he does not spare the reader descriptions of the cruelties he witnessed, and the moral dilemmata this difficult historical period brought upon the people of the Philippines. The book is written in a straightforward style, with some pretty dry humor.

I've had the pleasure to travel trough the Philippines in much more peaceful times, but I recognized the place in many of Hunt's descriptions. He talks about the animals in the countryside, such as the placid carabao (water buffalo) and the Filipino food, such as the balut (a half-hatched chicken still in an egg) - this all comes to life in this book. And it is heart-warming to read that the warm Filipino hospitality even persisted during the harsh historical period Hunt spent in this archipelago.