This is a personal account by a member of General MacArthur's staff of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in World War II, the fall of Bataan and Corregidor, his own capture by the enemy and his imprisonment in a POW camp, and the conditions at the camp. The author also describes his escape and work with the guerrilla forces and his participation in the recapture of Corregidor in February 1945.

Because of their strategic location, the Philippines exercised a profound influence in the thinking of both Japanese and American strategists before and during World War II. A number of controversies surrounding the preparations for war, the initial defense of the islands, the Japanese occupation, the conduct of guerrilla operations, and the 1944-1945 American campaign to retake the islands still draw the interest of students and scholars. This work provides a finding aid for individuals seeking to deal with these issues. A bibliographic overview of available periodical and book literature in English, this book is multidimensional, encompassing all aspects—military, political, economic, and social—of the Pacific War as it relates to developments in the archipelago. The book is an essential source for those looking for insights into the war's impact on Philippine society and also into military operations in and around the islands. With a chronological summary of wartime events in the islands as well as the bibliography, the work constitutes a major contribution to the furtherance of historical inquiry on World War II in the Philippines.

War and Resistance in the Philippines, 1942-1944 repairs the fragmentary and incomplete history of events in the Philippine Islands between the surrender of Allied forces in May 1942 and MacArthur's return in October 1944. No book has comprehensively examined the Filipino resistance during this crucial period. Here, James Kelly Morningstar provides for the first time a comprehensive history of the protracted fighting by 260,000 guerrillas in 277 units across the archipelago. Beginning with the Japanese occupation, the collapse of the United States Forces, Far East (USAFFE), and the simultaneous rise of the complex, diverse Philippine guerrilla movements, Morningstar exposes the inadequacy of MacArthur's conventional plans while revealing his inchoate preparation for guerrilla resistance. Morningstar then recounts in detail the impromptu resistance led by refugee American and Filipino soldiers, local politicians, and social revolutionaries left to battle the Japanese--and each other--with emphasis on how Japanese, American, and Filipino actions influenced and proscribed each other. From a distance, MacArthur contacted select guerrillas and organized agents to deliver supplies and radios to them by submarine. In this way he empowered some to gain power as part of a united framework under his leadership. This not only kept alive the resistance that denied the Japanese exploitation of the Philippines while setting the conditions for MacArthur's return, it also ensured that no one guerrilla leader could challenge America's supremacy. MacArthur's selective support to guerrilla groups that encouraged continued Filipino dependence on the United States would prove fatal for the incipient Maoist social revolution on Luzon. Even so, the Filipinos' shared sacrifice in their act of resistance fueled a national consciousness that created a sense of deserved nationhood. War and Resistance in the Philippines, 1942-1944 concludes with a brief discussion of legacies of the guerrilla resistance. MacArthur's return reestablished the power of American and Filipino political elites. Guerrillas and other citizens who had experienced exceptional hardship now had to fight for recognition. However, the war had resulted in a more united Philippine national identity along with new political institutions to repair the divisions between the formerly exiled government, the collaborationists, and the members of resistance. These momentous years of struggle in the Philippines changed the tide of history and challenge our understanding of war and resistance.

Military obligations rested lightly upon the Filipino people for much of the period that America occupied the Philippines, but Filipinos could enlist in the United States Army and Navy, attend the service academies at West Point and Annapolis, or join military organizations restricted to duty in the islands such as the Philippine Scouts, Philippine Constabulary, Philippine National Guard, and the navy's insular force. In the 1930s, the Philippine government established its own armed forces. Throughout much of this time, the U.S. army also kept a substantial portion of its troop strength in the Philippines. This annotated bibliography of nearly 700 titles highlights the extent and variety of the Philippine-American military experience from the conquest of the islands by the United States in 1902 to the defeat of Philippine and American forces by the Japanese in 1942. The bibliography includes memoirs and biographies of Filipino and American officers and enlisted men (from MacArthur to Ferdinand Marcos), unit histories, army post and navy base histories, medals and insignia books, and the most extensive list of prisoner-of-war memoirs yet published. Annotations address controversies such as the widely disparate estimates of American deaths on the Bataan Death March and include previously unpublished information, such as casualty figures for American and Philippine forces in 1941-1942.

World War II began for the United States with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, followed by the invasion of the Philippine Islands the next day. Unlike the rapid capture of Hong Kong, Wake Island and Singapore, the war in the Philippines lasted for seven months before the unprepared American and Filipino forces--cut off from supplies and fighting with obsolete equipment and without air or naval support--were overwhelmed. Drawing on diaries and personal accounts, this book chronicles forgotten actions in the fall of the Philippines through the recollections of American servicemen. The author covers the 90 day perseverance of Bataan's tiny air force, the first PT boat raid of the war, the last U.S. horse cavalry charge in history, a lone U.S. submarine's attack on a Japanese invasion fleet, the deliberate bombing of Bataan's main field hospital by the Japanese, the difficult and uneasy surrender of Bataan, Corregidor's doomed resistance and the surrender of the Southern Islands of the archipelago.

Creating a guerrilla movement to fight the Japanese occupation of the Philippines (1942-1945) presented Colonel Wendell Fertig with some formidable challenges. Unlike the other islands in the archipelago, Mindanao had a large Moslem (Moro) population. Using Moro and American leadership he brought the Moro people into the movement. Fertig lacked good communication with MacArthur's headquarters in Australia. With ingenuity and talented technical personnel he solved this problem, and increased the logistical support for the guerrillas by submarine from Australia. As the force expanded, Fertig was fortunate to recruit leadership from 187 Americans--military and civilian--who had not surrendered to the Japanese. The resulting force, with its intelligence from coastal watch stations, added six guerrilla divisions to U.S. military strength for the 1945 liberation of Mindanao, a contribution unique in the history of unconventional warfare.