Behind Japanese Lines
Read Behind Japanese Lines Online
Authors: Ray C. Hunt,Bernard Norling
BEHIND
JAPANESE
LINES
JAPANESE
LINES
An American Guerrilla
in the Philippines
Ray C. Hunt & Bernard Norling
Copyright © 1986 by The University Press of Kentucky
Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,
serving Bellarmine College, Berea College, Centre
College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University,
The Filson Club Historical Society, Georgetown College,
Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University,
Morehead State University, Murray State University,
Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University,
University of Kentucky, University of Louisville,
and Western Kentucky University.
Editorial and Sales Offices:
The University Press of Kentucky
663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008
04 03 02 01 00Â Â Â Â Â 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hunt, Ray C., 1919-
Behind Japanese lines.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-8131-1604-X (cloth : alk. paper).âISBN 0-8131-0986-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
 1. Hunt, Ray C., 1919-      .2. World War, 1939-1945âUnderground movementsâPhilippinesâLuzon. 3. World War, 1939-1945âPersonal narratives, American. 4. GuerrillasâPhilippinesâLuzonâBiography. 5. GuerrillasâUnited StatesâBiography. I. Norling, Bernard, 1924-II. Title.
D802.P52L895Â Â Â Â 1986Â Â Â Â 940.54â²81â²73Â Â Â Â 86-7765
This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.
Manufactured in the United States of America
4 In and Out of the Fassoth Camps
7 Hukbalahaps and Constabulary
When Bataan and Corregidor fell to the Japanese in the spring of 1942, all the U.S. and Philippine troops in the Philippine Islands were supposed to surrender to their conquerors. Many of them refused. Sometimes contrary to the orders of their commanding officers, sometimes with the connivance of those officers, sometimes entirely on their own, hundreds of them slipped into the mountains and jungles of various of the Philippine Islands. On Luzon their numbers were augmented by men who, in one way or another, managed to escape during the infamous Death March that followed the fall of Bataan.
Many of these men died soon of hunger or diseases, or they were captured by the enemy, or were murdered by bandit gangs. Of those who lived, some organized bands of guerrillas or attached themselves to such bodies.
These guerrillas were a forlorn lot. Most of them had no authorization from anyone to recruit troops of any sort for any purpose. They had no clear objectives. Common sense indicated that they should try to defend themselves, to collect information about the enemy, and to harass the Japanese if they could, but essentially they were on their own. Their enemies were legion: the Japanese; Japanese spies; several Filipino organizations friendly to the Japanese; the Hukbalahaps, who were impartially hostile to both Japanese and Americans; and those remorseless enemies of partisan forces anywhereâhunger, privation, disease, danger, and discouragement.
The guerrillas never knew how the war was going to turn out. Much of the time they knew little even about how it was going
overall. They never knew when they might be ambushed and killed by the enemy, or betrayed by subordinates or civilians, or detected by spies, or awakened at night with bayonets at their throats. Many a guerrilla was killed after some such development. Others, taken alive, often experienced a worse fate: a slow death at the hands of their brutal conquerors.
If a guerrilla managed to survive the war, what then? If the Japanese won, he would surely be killed, most likely in some lingering, painful way. If the Americans won, would he be welcomed back into their ranks as a hero? treated as a traitor? court martialled for desertion? tried in a military or civil court for murder or other crimes committed in the course of his guerrilla activities? Perhaps he would be tried for crimes committed not by himself but by various of his subordinates who might or might not have acted under his orders? perhaps turned over to a postwar Philippine government to be honored or punished as might seem fit to whichever of several Filipino factions happened to come to power? Both the present life and the postwar prospects of guerrillas were distinctly precarious. To espouse life as an irregular in such circumstances required unusual qualities of character and personality.
This book is primarily an account of the activities and experiences of one such guerrilla, Ray Hunt; secondarily, that of several others. Originally from St. Louis, Ray Hunt joined the peacetime army, went to the Philippines just before the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific, survived the Bataan campaign, escaped half-dead from his captors during the Bataan Death March, was nursed back to health by friendly Filipinos, organized a troop of guerrillas, survived an amazing array of hardships and narrow escapes from death, made a noteworthy contribution to the eventual Filamerican reconquest of the Philippines, and was personally decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross by Gen. Douglas MacArthur near the end of the war. He stayed in the U.S. Air Force after World War II, became a fighter pilot, served again during the Korean War, and retired in 1959. He now lives in Orlando, Florida.
The book is based primarily on his own account of his wartime experiences written in the early 1960s but never published, on a longer and somewhat embellished version of the same material penned a few years later, on many conversations I have had with now long-retired Colonel Hunt, and by extensive correspondence with him.
Wherever possible, I have checked his memory and interpretation of events with recollections of his wartime associates and with
published literature in the field. Every reasonable effort has been made to assure factual accuracy, though it is unlikely that this has been achieved in every instance, since people's memories notoriously play tricks on them with the passage of time. Moreover, the guerrillas of Luzon were contentious. Those of them who have written memoirs often differ sharply in their descriptions of events; even more in their estimates of each other. Several species of critics and partisans of various “causes” have muddied the waters further. And, of course, many of those who took part in Philippine guerrilla activities in World War II have long since died.
This book is a collaborative work in the full sense. While some of the material dealing with such subjects as prewar American unpreparedness, guerrilla warfare in past history, European partisans in World War II, Filipino collaborationists, and the rise of the Hukbalahap movement in the Philippines has been introduced mostly by myself, this has been done to place Colonel Hunt's experiences and problems in historical perspective and to make the narrative more interesting and meaningful to readers. Likewise, some of the books listed in the bibliography have been read by both of us, some only by myself. Whichever the case, they have been used primarily to make comparisons between the experiences, responses, and thoughts of Colonel Hunt and those of others in comparable circumstances. The finished product has been read and reread several times by both Ray Hunt and me and is justly chargeable to both of us.
Though I “wrote”
Behind Japanese Lines
in the ordinary meaning of that word, the book has been done in the first person throughout. Thus, everywhere save in this foreword, the words “I,” “me”, and “mine” refer to Ray Hunt. The only exception to this rule concerns the citation of “personal communication to the author” in the notes. Sometimes other ex-guerrillas or associates of Colonel Hunt talked to or corresponded with me, without reference to him. Sometimes they communicated with him, but not with me. Sometimes he passed along to me what they said or wrote to him. Sometimes they communicated with both of us. Thus footnotes of this sort are initialled to indicate who received the information.
Readers may be puzzled, even exasperated, by many seemingly inconsistent references to the military rank of various individuals. This condition arises from an insoluble problem. Soldiers in the American regular army had a permanent prewar rank but also a temporary, and normally higher, rank during the war. Most officers and men were promoted several times during the war. Finally, those
who became guerrillas often promoted themselves or were promoted by others without reference to regular military procedure. Sometimes these informal promotions were later recognized by higher authorities during the war, or afterward; sometimes not. Thus, it was quite possible for an individual to have as many as three different ranks simultaneously: regular army, wartime army, and guerrilla. Hence, reference to anyone's rank, below that of General MacArthur himself, is only approximate.
I would especially like to thank Albert S. Hendrickson, Robert B. Lapham, Walter Chatham, and Vernon L. Fassoth, all fellow guerrillas or close wartime associates of Ray Hunt, who provided me with much firsthand information, graciously answered many questions, and saved me from falling into a variety of errors. I also profited from conversations or correspondence with James P Boyd, Leon O. Beck, Robert Mailheau, William H. Brooks, and Frank Gyovai, all ex-guerrillas who did not know Ray Hunt but who provided me with useful background information about guerrilla life.
I am indebted to those in the University of Notre Dame Interlibrary Loan Office who secured many books for me, to Dr. Jack Detzler of St. Mary's College, who read the manuscript and suggested numerous improvements, and to Mrs. Catherine Box, who helped me greatly by typing the manuscript.
My particular thanks are due to Morton J. Netzorg of Detroit, who generously allowed me to use his extensive private library of Philippiniana, whose annotated bibliography of his own collection proved an invaluable aid to research, whose own knowledge of Philippine affairs straightened me out on various occasions, and who, with Mrs. Petra Netzorg, showed me many personal kindnesses.
B
ERNARD
N
ORLING
All my tribulations in World War II derived, ultimately, from my resolve not to be a combat infantryman. In the mid-1930s, in the depths of the depression, when I was earning $15 for working a seventy-hour week in a grocery store in my native St. Louis, I gradually became aware that war clouds were gathering in Europe and sensed that a major war there might eventually involve the United States. If war came, I wanted to be in the air corps rather than in the infantry. Though only the aged recall it now, in the 1930s memories of World War I were still fresh among people in early middle age, and that conflict was still avidly discussed. Aviation had a lot of glamour in the 1930s, but slogging in muddy trenches under shellfire, vividly remembered from the Western Front and recounted endlessly, had absolutely none. I yearned to be a military pilot, but I lacked the required two years of college; so I lowered my sights and aspired to become an aircraft mechanic instead.
