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By Root 1042 0

impact: oppressive and brutal in some places—the most strategically important naturally including the capital, Manila—while scarcely felt in remote areas. In 1943 the Japanese granted the Philippines, along with most of their other occupied territories, notional self-government under a local puppet regime. Yet such was the mindless cruelty of Tokyo’s soldiers that this gesture inspired little gratitude among Filipinos. Imperial General HQ reported in March 1944: “Even after their independence, there remains among all classes a strong undercurrent of pro-American sentiment…Guerrilla activities are gradually increasing.” The Japanese fully controlled only twelve of the country’s eighteen provinces. Elsewhere, guerrilla bands roamed widely, American-armed and sometimes American-led. Several U.S. officers, such as the legendary Col. Russell Volckmann, had survived in the hills of Luzon since the spring of 1942, and now directed forces thousands strong. The more idealistically inclined guerrillas inflicted four hundred casualties on Japanese occupation forces in 1944, a modest enough achievement. Others merely pursued lives of banditry.

The Japanese South Asia Army moved its headquarters to Manila in April, when uncertainty persisted in Tokyo about whether the Americans would land in the Philippines at all. Its commander, Field Marshal Count Hisaichi Terauchi, had no such doubts. “If I was MacArthur248, I would come here,” he growled at a staff conference in the summer of 1944. “He must know how weak are our defences.” Terauchi, once a candidate to replace Tojo as prime minister, was not held in high esteem either by the Americans or by most of his peers. His staff, however, respected the fact that, although a rich man, he succumbed to few personal indulgences. “He could have filled his headquarters249 with geishas if he wanted,” said one officer admiringly, “but he never did. He was a really clean-living soldier.” Terauchi was exasperated by the need to refer every detail of his deployments to Tokyo. The general staff only gave final endorsement to his defensive plan for Leyte two days before the Americans landed there.

Until the autumn of 1944, Terauchi’s principal subordinate was the Philippines’ occupation commander, Lt.-Gen. Shigenori Kuroda, a mild-mannered little man devoted to women and golf. Kuroda said cheerfully: “Why bother about defence plans? The Philippines are obviously indefensible.” Such remarks caused Tokyo to conclude that he was a trifle ill-suited to confront an American amphibious assault. Two weeks before MacArthur’s invasion, Kuroda was supplanted by Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, who assumed command of 14th Army under Terauchi. The newcomer summoned his staff and addressed them at his headquarters in Manila: “The battle we are going to fight will be decisive for Japan’s fate. Each of us bears a heavy responsibility for our part in it. We cannot win this war unless we work closely and harmoniously together. We must do our utmost, setting aside futile recriminations about the past. I intend to fight a ground battle, regardless of what the navy and air force do. I must ask for your absolute loyalty, for only thus can we achieve victory.”

In truth, there was no more chance of the rival services working harmoniously together in the Philippines than anywhere else in the Japanese empire. One day in September, a naval officer convinced himself that he saw American ships off-loading troops on Mindanao. A standing order of South Asia Army decreed that all signals on an issue of such gravity must be dispatched jointly by responsible naval and military officers. Ignoring this, the navy sent a flash message to Tokyo announcing an American invasion. Every Japanese formation in the field and at sea was alerted. Hours of alarm and confusion followed. Soldiers in Manila remained disbelieving, and of course their scepticism was justified. The army regarded the false alarm as further evidence of the navy’s proclivity for fantasy, displayed daily in its wildly exaggerated claims of U.S. ships sunk and planes destroyed.

Yamashita