The Intrepid Guerrillas of North Luzon Hardcover – May 20, 1999

While Bernard Norling’s 1999 book, The Intrepid Guerrillas of North Luzon, is arguably the most readable and most detailed of the modern books written about the guerrilla war in North Luzon, it isn't perfect. It contains some egregious errors about which the serious student of military history should be aware, particularly with regard to Captain (later Colonel) Thomas Parker Calvert and Lieutenant (later Colonel) Arthur Philip Murphy, both of whom were stationed with the 43rd Infantry (Philippine Scouts) at Camp John Hay at Baguio at the time the war began there on 8 December 1941.

At the bottom of page 27 (of the hardcover edition) Norling states: “The first small elements of Troop C, under Lt. Thomas S. Jones, arrived in Baguio about noon on December 23. The city had been abandoned by the troops stationed at Camp John Hay, and the two roads from the lowlands left undefended.” This statement, while perhaps not blatantly incorrect, is certainly misleading. Colonel Arthur P. Murphy’s diary entries for December 10 through December 19 place him and members of Company A, 43rd Infantry (Philippine Scouts) on duty defending the Naguilian Road, the northernmost of the two roads leading from the coast up to Baguio. His December 20 diary entry places Art Murphy on a reconnaissance mission to the north, involving an oil fire at San Fernando. On December 21 he was back at his post defending the Naguilian Road, and on December 22 he and his demolition teams were ordered by Captain Leo Giitter to blow up the road and bridge crossings and withdraw back up to Baguio. In the meantime, Captain Parker Calvert and members of his Company B, 43rd Infantry (Philippine Scouts) were performing similar functions on the Kennon Road, the southernmost of the two roads leading from the coast up to Baguio. Murphy's diary entry for December 23 says simply: “lst Evac. & Return. Nite w. cavalry on N. Rd.” My interpretation: The first contingent of Colonel John P. Horan's Camp John Hay soldiers (led by Colonel Bonnett) were ordered to evacuate east into the Cordillera mountains on the morning of December 23 but then a few hours later were ordered to return and defend Baguio. Art Murphy then spent the night of December 23 on the Naguilian Road with members of Ralph Praeger's Troop C, 26th Cavalry.

Thus, Norling's claim on page 36 that "Following Praeger's example, Colonel Horan hastily placed Capt. L.H. Giitter, C.O. of Company A, 43rd Infantry, in what seemed an ideal defensive position along the Naguilian Road...," is also misleading. First of all, Captain Leo Giitter was Colonel Horan's adjutant at Camp John Hay before the war began, not a company commander, and was only hastily given command of Company A when Captain Parker Calvert, who had commanded both Companies A and B, was ordered to take Company B down to defend Kennon Road and Lieutenant Art Murphy of Company A did not have sufficient rank to command a company. At any rate, Colonel Horan had had Companies A and B of the 43rd Infantry in place defending the two roads well before Praeger arrived on the scene and was not "following Praeger's example."

The last of Colonel John P. Horan’s troops, including Art Murphy and Parker Calvert, did not finally leave Baguio and head east on foot into the Cordillera Central until the late afternoon of December 24, Christmas Eve, and at that time Ralph Praeger and his Troop C, 26th Cavalry, were also part of the group and remained so for four or five days. Then Praeger asked for and received permission from Colonel Horan to leave the group (with his 26th Cavalry men) and head north into Apayo province, where Praeger and his men did indeed perform some remarkable feats.

In the final paragraph on page 39, Norling states: “Colonel Horan initially divided his forces to reduce Japanese chances to destroy or capture all of them. Half of them, led by Col. Donald Bonnet [sic], were to go from Baguio to Twin Rivers, the Lusod sawmill, Santa Fe, and Carranglan. The other half, led by Horan, would take a more northerly route through Bokod, Boboc [sic], and Pampanga [sic] to Aritao.” There are several problems here. Norling has confused the two groups. Colonel Donald Bonnett commanded the group which took the more northerly route, while Colonel John P. Horan commanded the group (including Captain Parker Calvert and Lieutenant Art Murphy) which took the more southerly route. The description of the more southerly route should not include Carranglan, which was not part of the original plan and only became a destination after Horan’s group realized the enemy had beaten them over Balete Pass and their only remaining option was to try and flank the Japanese on the east. The description of the more northerly route is also garbled. It should read: “through Bobok, Bokod, and Bambang to Aritao.” Admittedly, Norling’s source for these assertions was Colonel Horan’s “1960 Diary,” a document about which Norling himself expressed considerable skepticism.

In the last paragraph on page 105, Norling states: “In June 1942 there trickled into Benguet an assortment of footloose Filipinos and Americans, the most notable of whom were Russell Volckmann, Donald Blackburn, and Lieutenant Colonels Martin Moses and Arthur Noble.” Again, this sentence is untrue, and misleading as well. While Moses and Noble were indeed in Benguet by June 1942, Volckmann and Blackburn did not make it from Bataan back to North Luzon until the end of the first week of September 1942, having spent the better part of the intervening months after the fall of Bataan recuperating at the Fassoth camp in the Zambales mountains. Volckmann himself states on page 81 of We Remained: “It was exactly five months since we had set out for North Luzon. The way had been long, the delays heartbreaking, and the going at times pretty rough.” And on the very next page we find: “The news of our arrival in North Luzon had preceded us by a couple of days. On 9 September 1942 a native brought us a message from Colonels Noble and Moses asking that we meet them at Barrio Benning [sic]. We reached the meeting place in about half a day and found the colonels waiting for us. It was great seeing them again after all these months. Captain Parker Calvert and Lieutenant Arthur P. Murphy were also there. Don and I had known both Parker and Murphy well before the outbreak of the war, when they were stationed at Camp John Hay near Baguio.”

These few instances of misinformation I was able to spot right away -- there may well be others -- and while they may at first seem innocuous and unimportant, they have found their way into subsequent published accounts and have thereby assumed the mantle of "fact," a sad state of affairs indeed.

Research for biography of family member involved in all this.

This is a very precious and very touching book about a group of American and Philippino soldiers, who fought against Japanese invasion of Philippines in 1941-42 and who even after Bataan and Corregidor surrendered continued the fight, as guerrillas. Many books covered this topic, but this is the first one to describe the fight and fate of Americano-Philippine guerillas from the most remote and hostile wilderness of the whole archipelago - jungle covered mountainous provinces of Apayao, Cagayan, Isabela, Kalinga, Abra, Bontoc, Ifugao and Ilocos Norte.

This is a true story, without any fiction included and as many true stories, this is a greatly tragic tale. Almost all leaders of those North Luzon guerrilla groups died before Mac Arthur's return and they were mostly forgotten, until this book, based on a handful of written records and the account given by the few survivors, was published in 1999.

Amongst the men who fought a desperate and bloody fight against the Japanese in the wild mountains of North Luzon from December 1941 to October 1943 the following played the leading role:

- Walter Cushing, an American civilian living in the Philippines; organised and led the first guerrillas in North Luzon in December 1941; killed in action in September 1942
- Major (later Colonel) Claude Thorp, US Army; organised and led the second guerrilla group in North Luzon; captured by the Japanese in October 1942 and murdered soon after
- Captain (later Major) Ralph B. Praeger, US Army; in the middle of 1942 became the leader of most efficient North Luzon guerrilla group; captured in August 1943, tortured and interrogated for many months, finally murdered in August 1944 (unable to walk and even sit he was carried to the killing ground on stretchers)
- Lt. Colonel Martin Moses and Lt. Colonel Arthur Noble, US Army; after Cushing's and Thorp's death they took over the command of all North Luzon guerrillas; goodfriends in the peacetime they both took to the hills in the same time, were captured together in June 1943 and later were murdered the same day, after being forced to dig their own graves...
- Roque B. Ablan, Phillipino civilian; commander of a large guerrilla group in 1941-42, he suffered a great defeat in battles with Japanese in December 1942 and January 1943; escaping with only a handful of soldiers, he vanished without a trace in the mountains at the end of January 1943; probably murdered by the common law local bandits or Hukbalahaps communist guerrillas
- Colonel Guillermo Nakar, Philippino Army; commander of a large guerrilla group; captured in September 1942, murdered in 1943
- Captain Manuel Enriquez, Philippino Army; commander of a large guerrilla group; surrendered in April 1943 after the Japanese captured his wife and children; spared for a time and officially amnistied he was ultimately arrested and murdered in the beginning of 1944,
- Captain Joseph R. Barker, US Army; one of Praeger's most trusted officers; captured in January 1943 and murdered soon after
- Captain James R. Needham, US Army; captured in September 1943 and murdered in July 1944
- Captain Caldonia Gaerlan, Philippino Army; killed in action on 16 October 1942; the Japanese beheaded the body and displayed his severed head in a glass jar for many weeks
- Lieutenant Arthur Furagganan, US Army; captured with Praeger; murdered in February 1945
- Lieutenant Francis A. Camp, US Army; captured in 1943 and murdered in January 1944
- Private (later Lieutenant) Ernest J. Ziaja, captured in April 1943 and immediately murdered
- Corporal (later Sergeant) Luis G. Heuser, US Army; captured with Praeger and murdered soon after
- Private (later Sergeant) Earl J. Brazelton, US Army; Praeger's radio operator; captured with Praeger and murdered soon after
- Sergeant Juan Miguel, Philippino Army; the senior NCO in Praeger's group, he was allowed to visit his home village in July 1942; he was betrayed, captured, tortured and murdered
- Sergeant Gomes (first name uncertain), a Philippino enlisted to US Army in 1913, veteran of World War I; Praeger's assistant and bodyguard; killed in action in August 1943, soon after celebrating his 30 years of service in US Army

Two more men suffered a particularly cruel and ironic fate:

- Lieutenant William E. Bowen, US Army; surrendered in April 1943 when the Japanese captured families of some of his Philippino soldiers and threatened to murder them; dien in October 1944 when the "Arisan Maru", one of the infamous "hell-ships", transports carrying American prisoners from Philippines to Japan was torpedoed by an American submarine and Japanese sailors locked the prisoners under the deck to make certain that they all die...
- Lieutenant Charles Arnao, US Army; captured in May 1943, died in January 1945 when the "Enoura Maru", another Japanese "hell-ship" was bombed by American aviation next to Taiwan

Although it is not exactly the topic of this book, it is worthy here to note, that Japanese never marked the "hell-ships" in any way (it would be enough to paint them white, mark them with red crosses and keep them illuminated at night to protect them from attack) and never informed the Red Cross about prisoners transfers - and therefore made it impossible for Americans to avoid attacks against those transports. As for the name "hell-ships", it comes from the nightmarish conditions in which American POWs were kept when on board. In fact, even on ships which made it safe to Japan, frequently dozens of POWs died from sickness, exposure, malnutrition and sometimes even suffocation, when Japanese sailors felt like closing all the hatches...

There was only a handful of survivors amongst North Luzon guerrilla's officers and NCOs. Amongst American survivors was Captain Thomas S. Jones, who although captured in September 1943 for some reason was not murdered. Captain William Ebert and Lieutenant Warren A. Minton were both captured and survived the ordeal of "hell-ships" just to be affected as slaves to work in coal mines in Japan - but they both lived. Mrs. Edda Needham, Captain's Needham wife, was captured with him but spared from the execution - this book stays very discreet on the matter of her life in captivity, but with the treatment Japanese reserved to the captured women it is clear that she lived a hell. She never married again and always refused to talk about her time in captivity.

The main Philippino survivors were:

- Captain Juan Pajota, who became a very succesful guerrilla leader in Central Luzon in 1944 and 1945 (and achieved great fame by participating in the Cabanatuan Camp raid on 30 January 1945),
- Marcelo Adduru, civilian governor of North Luzon, who managed the administrative and financial affairs of the northern provinces in the name of exiled government,
- Captain Romulo Manriquez, who withdrew to the south in 1943 and joined forces with Lapham's Raiders, a large American/Philippino guerrilla group
- Lieutenant Thomas Quiocho who in the autumn 1943 took the last surviving guerrillas south and there joined the forces with another great American guerrilla leader, Colonel Russell Volckmann.
- Lieutenant Feliciano Madamba, who surrendered and profited from an exceptional amnesty offered by the Japanese

This book tells the tragic but also frequently glorious tale of all those officers, NCOs, simple soldiers and civilians, with all its glory but also not sparing details about the ugliness of guerrilla war. The guerrillas had to fight nor only the Japanese but also the "Ganaps" (pro-Japanese Philippinos), common law bandits and the Hukbalahaps communist guerrillas, who wanted to install a marxist-leninist government in the Philippines (and therefore were at war with EVERYBODY: the Japanese, the Americans, Philippino government in exile, etc.).

It was necessary to punish the traitors and colaborators and even if ad hoc courts were created, many people were killed on the basis of rather weak evidence... Disease and hunger were constant companions and if so many guerrillas were captured, it was mostly because in 1943 most of them were too sick to fight...

North Luzon was in those times still a very wild place and in some parts of the mountains local Igorot tribes adhered only superficially to Christianism and occasionally still practiced ritual head-hunting... In other places, in the deepest jungle, lived the Negritos, black-skinned diminutive hunter-gatherers, somehow similar to Pygmies from Central Africa, last survivors of original inhabitants of Philippines... With their brutality and openly racist attitude the Japanese managed to very fast alienate both the Igorots and the Negritos - and therefore the guerrillas received precious assistance from those tribes. There is no doubt, that without this help the guerrillas would have been eradicated much earlier.

This book describes in great detail Japanese cruelty against civilian populations. It certainly reinforced the guerrillas with new recruits, but it also produced many informants, willing to betray the guerrillas to save lifes of loved ones, arrested during random swipes. Lack of food and medications was another mechanism which gave Japanese many hints, as people whose children were starving or grievously ill were ready to do anything to bring some food and/or medication home... This is a very realistic and very tragic tale and it is really not for people with weaker stomachs...

This book is also sometimes hard to read, as author, for some reason, decided against keeping a chronological order, so we can sometimes be confused by many comebacks to the past... But still, even with this weakness, it is a really precious thing for anybody interested in the history of Pacific War or history of guerrilas.

And this is also a noble thing to finally tell the tale of those brave people, both American and Philippinos, who found themselves very isolated and far behind the enemy lines and who nevertheless decided to continue to wage war rather than simply surrender. They didn't have much hope to win or even to survive, but this didn't stop them... and it is good that finally their story can be known and their names remembered.