Behind Japanese Lines (19 page)

Historically, wars have been waged by men, but long before the advent of Women's Liberation it was a rare conflict in which women did not figure significantly in some capacity. So it was in our theater. I have already noted Al Hendrickson's girlfriend, Lee, who travelled about with him frequently. Soon I had one too, Herminia (Minang) Dizon, a schoolteacher before the war and one of the most remarkable individuals I have ever had anything to do with. If I was allowed only
one word to describe her, it would be “fierce.” Long before I knew Minang, she had developed a liking for American men. She had taken up with Maj. Claude Thorp before the fall of Bataan, she had accompanied him on his escape with Lapham and other Americans and Filipinos, and she had been captured with Thorp. The Japanese had beheaded Thorp, but they were content to compel Minang to tour central Luzon in the company of Japanese guards and deliver speeches in which she praised her conquerors and denounced guerrillas. While a few Japanese knew an occasional Filipino dialect, most of them knew none, whereas Minang had an excellent command of English and knew several Philippine dialects as well. Soon her guards were asking her why her audiences seemed to laugh at unexpected times during her speeches, which were given in Pampangano. It never seemed to occur to them that she would dare to sabotage them verbally. On the contrary, some of her captors were quite taken with her. One high ranking Japanese officer even offered to take her with him when his countrymen conquered Australia. Others showed her a map, given to them by a Filipino collaborator, that had led them to the hideaway of Thorp and herself. To her horror, she recognized it as having been drawn by her uncle, a man whom she had trusted implicitly.

One day Minang got a chance to escape and did so, but her life was precarious in the extreme because she was pursued not only by the Japanese but by the communist guerrillas (Huks), who hated her, and by her uncle who wanted her killed because she was, at least for a time, the only person who knew that he was the collaborator who had been responsible for the capture and execution of Thorp.

Minang was a tough and resourceful woman. She was not especially pretty, though she did have flashing eyes, but she was intelligent, well organized, and articulate. She was also ambitious and told me that she would never marry a Filipino, only an American or a mestizo. Oddly, I cannot recall the first time I saw this extraordinary female. It must have been at least six months after Al had enlisted her as one of his first guerrillas at Pura, in Tarlac, in January 1943. Whenever it was, I soon became smitten with her and she with me.

Perhaps because we now had regular girlfriends, Al and I shaved regularly. This was not the least of our sacrifices during the war. Most Filipino men have scanty beards, and often pull out their few whiskers with bamboo tweezers rather than shave. Initially I thought this an odd practice, but after gaining some experience with Filipino barbers I came to understand it better. Nobody knows why, but virtually every Filipino, male or female, aspires to be a barber. This
would be of little consquence in itself were they not unanimously convinced that a few dabs of cold water constitute an excellent preparation for scraping a victim's face with a dull straight razor. One's skin does toughen when repeatedly subjected to this regimen, save only on the upper lip. When one of these self-taught barbers worked over this area, tears would roll down my cheeks no matter how tightly I shut my eyes. Minang was an accomplished woman in many ways, but as a barber she was only run-of-the-mill.

There would be no point in devoting so much attention to Minang in this narrative had she been only my ladylove. In fact, she soon became a vital figure in our organization. Though she was just a little slip of a girl who weighed no more than ninety pounds and could stand under my outstretched arm, no lion ever had a stouter heart. When we approached a strange town or village, she and Lee would go on ahead, meet the local authorities, tell them what we expected of them, reassure them that we would treat them well if they were cooperative, and make arrangements with them to conceal us from our enemies. Though she knew there was a price on her head, she would go boldly into town markets in daylight to purchase food, medicine, clothing, and often bolts of cloth from which she would personally make garments for us.

A casual reader might wonder how it was possible for us to go into unfamiliar villages at all, Minang's courage or no, when the Japanese controlled the Philippine government. We could do so simply because the great majority of ordinary Filipinos sympathized with us, and most of the rest were sufficiently afraid of us to make no trouble.

Despite her several masculine qualities, one side of Minang's complex makeup was totally feminine. She nursed me when I was sick, anticipated my every need, and devoted herself to me unreservedly. She was also scheming and quickwitted in feminine ways, as I eventually discovered. Months after it had happened, Little Joe, Al's bodyguard, told me one day that Chinang de Leon had tried to come to see me but had been intercepted by Minang. The latter had a .38 on her hip and, apparently, determination in her voice, for my erstwhile fiancée had turned her buggy around and gone home. Little Joe was still disgusted by the whole episode because, as he put it, “She had a whole
calesa
load of candies and other gifts.” On my part, as I grew increasingly enamored of Minang I gradually forgot Chinang, the girl I had once planned to marry. Doubtless it was for the best. Chinang was a fine and brave girl but not at all suited for the rough, precarious existence of a guerrilla in the field. Minang was “man enough” for anything.

Another of Minang's maneuvers I discovered rather late in the day, too. Al and I had noticed that whenever we moved into a new village there never seemed to be any young girls around. Minang told us that the village leaders moved them out in case trouble should develop. Later Gregorio Agaton, who eventually replaced José Balekow as my Filipino bodyguard, told me the truth of it. When Minang preceded us into a village, she would tell the elders that it was my order that all young girls should leave the barrio before we arrived. Thus did she eliminate potential competition. Though I was furious with her when I learned what she had done, I must admit, forty years later, that her instinct was sound. When I was young, I had a roving eye.

Our operations in central Luzon were complicated immensely by the presence of a rival and bitterly hostile guerrilla organization, the Hukbalahaps. Generations before the war Spanish entrepreneurs had gained control of much of the good farmland in the Philippines and turned it into great estates for the commercial production of various commodities, notably sugar. Gradually, and particularly in the twentieth century, many Filipinos had also become large landowners. Actual work on the estates was done by sharecroppers and hired laborers. Like similar people at other times and places, they scratched out a bare living for themselves, and slowly fell hopelessly into debt to their increasingly wealthy landlords.
¹
Because of this long-standing condition there was much peasant unrest in the Philippines on the eve of the war. It was most intense in central Luzon, particularly in Pampanga province.

Several protest movements had developed in response to this situation, only two of which concern us here. One was the Communist Party. Its Philippine branch was organized in 1930, and outlawed by the Commonwealth government in 1931. Throughout the 1930s the communists tried to exploit peasant grievances, to polarize Philippine politics by gaining control of movements that were anti-American or anti-Commonwealth, and to pose as doughty fighters against whatever they chose to call “fascism.” By the time the war began, the party was dominated by the Lavas, a wealthy family of intellectual Marxists from Manila, whose most famous member,
Vincente Lava, was a chemist with a doctorate from Columbia University and an international reputation.
²

The other movement that championed peasants against landlords was Christian socialist, founded by Pedro Abad Santos but led by a young peasant named Luis Taruc. At heart Taruc was a religious man who never entirely abandoned his Christian principles during his several political metamorphoses, and who eventually returned to them entirely long after World War II. In 1942 he was convinced that since the majority of Filipinos were Christians they would never turn communist; therefore there was no danger in forming a common front with communists to try to bring about a redistribution of lands and to resist the Japanese conquerors. To further these objectives various “progressives” and “peasant leaders” held a series of meetings early in 1942. From them came a merger of Taruc's socialists with the communists under a new name, Hukbo ng Bayan Labon sa Hapon (People's Army to Fight the Japanese), or Hukbalahap for short. The twenty-nine-year-old Taruc was made its leader. Though it took Taruc some time to realize it, what happened to him was what often happens to people who attempt to form a common front with communists. The latter, who have clear, fixed objectives permanently in mind, who have had much experience in intrigue and plotting, and who are unhampered by scruples, quickly reduce their gullible allies to mere tools, use them as long as it is expedient, and then cast them aside. In this case, all the two factions had in common, ultimately, was hostility to the Japanese.
³

In the first half of 1942 efforts were made to coordinate the activities of the Huks with resistance being planned by USAFFE officers. These culminated in a meeting on July 7, 1942, between several members of Thorpe's staff and Taruc and some of his associates. Each side had something of value to offer. The Huks were already well organized and had a considerable following in the villages and barrios of Pampanga province. They had carried out a number of small raids against the Japanese that had gained them credit in the eyes of local Filipinos. And they knew the countryside well. Thorpe and his associates could provide training and professional military skills that the Huks lacked at that time. The Huks offered to amalgamate and make the Americans colonels in the Huk army. What they hoped to get in return, seemingly, was official U.S. Army recognition and eventually pay from the American government for their work as guerrillas. A tentative agreement was reached to collaborate on everything relating to plans and the disposition of military supplies, but nothing came of it. The reason seems to have been that
neither party was willing to subordinate itself to the other. Thorpe thought guerrillas would be effective only if they were a strictly military organization with their eyes on a single objective: military victory. This would mean that the Huks would have to abandon their political goals. Understandably, they declined.
⁴

“Progressive” writers have clothed the Huks in regal splendor: they were warm-hearted agricultural reformers, heroic freedom fighters, and crusaders against American imperialists who worked hand-in-glove with fascist oppressors. Everywhere the Huks were friends of the peasants and beloved by them in turn. They were also the best organized and most effective of all the guerrilla bands. Alas! Their yeoman services and sacrifices went unappreciated and unrewarded at the end of the war because a sinister coalition of Filipino collaborators, jealous USAFFE officers, and American big business interests put them down, returned to power the old masters of the peasants, and fixed elections, all in order to continue their prewar exploitation of the Filipino people.
⁵

There is no question that the Huks were shrewd and ruthless, and that they tried to maintain a tight organization. They made the forgery of ID cards a local industry. They also had a clever system for raising troops. A recruiter would work an area where he knew the local population and they knew him. Thus, he could get loyal recruits and keep out Japanese spies. Once a man was recruited, he was required to give a sworn statement that he was anti-Japanese. At any hint of subsequent insubordination his superiors could allow this statement to “fall into the hands” of the enemy. Thus, one who enlisted in the Huks generally
stayed
enlisted.
⁶

My personal experiences with the Huks were always unpleasant, and my impressions of them were entirely unfavorable. Those I knew “were much better assassins than soldiers.”
⁷
Tightly disciplined and led by fanatics, they murdered some landlords and drove others off to the comparative safety of Manila. They were not above plundering and torturing ordinary Filipinos to get the food and supplies they needed; and they were implacable and treacherous enemies of all other guerrillas. Like their communist partisan counterparts in Europe, they were in the process of developing a new kind of conflict: war and revolution at the same time, the erosion of the power and authority of a foreign invader while simultaneously wearing down and discrediting traditional groups and institutions in their own country. Whether in a dozen European countries or in the Philippines, this translated into a policy of quarrelling with, sometimes fighting with, and always attempting to subvert non-communist guerrillas,
while keeping one's attention fixed on the main objective: to turn their country communist at the end of the war, by
any
means.
⁸

Admittedly, there was much difference between many of the rank and file Huks and their leaders. The vast majority of Filipino peasants knew nothing about Marxism and simply wanted redress of longstanding grievances and some liberalization of the old landlord system. In the Huk army most ordinary guerrillas, at least early in the war, wanted mostly either to escape the Japanese or to fight the Japanese, or else they thought life inside the organization was better than that outside. Not so their leaders. Most of these men were cold, urban intellectual types who cared nothing for peasant discontents save as vehicles for advancing faster along the Highway of History that must end in the earthly kingdom of Universal Marxism.
⁹