LAST TEN DAYS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 4, 14 September 1942, Page 2

LAST TEN DAYS

I .ONE OF EPICS OF WAR DEFENCE OF 13 ATA AN The story of the last days of Balaan Peninsula is gradually being pieced, together. For the full story of one of tiie greatest defensive epics of tiie war we will have tp wait for the war's end. Here, from the pen of J.?ii< Lardner, eorrespondenL for the North American newspaper Alliance, is the ta'c as far as it is known at present:— On the day wiusn the gallant but starving and shattered American Army in the Philippines capitulated to the Japanese after l!s matchless "death watch'' of live months, an Ameriean ec'.onoi was sent to the enemy lines with a ling of truce. Japanese officers greeted him by tiring pistols at his feet and ordering him lo "hop away" and bring back his chief. It was through this pattern of doliberate humiliation that MajorGenera! Edward T,. King, commanding on Balaan, came forward to surrender. His officers were then marched off to Manila under warning that anyone who fell out of line on the long, blistering march Avould summarily be shot. Some of these officers were weakened by disease and. lack of food and barely able to imfte their feet support them, but the Japs kept their promise-

Climax of Campaign It was the climax of the Philippine campaign, though Corregidor itself did not fall till four weeks later. Only now, for the first time, from scattered survivors and eyewitnesses, can an account of the last days of Bataan and, Corregidor be pieced together, with missing details ot the whole matchless action j that began on Doeembe- 8 and held

up Japanese aggression by ovei'powcring lorce until the beginning oi' May. During those last days the Amei ic;;n Commander in (Jhic* in the Philippines, Lieutenant General Jona than I\l. Wainwright, known all'cctionately to his friends and, soldiers as "Skinny" was unbeaten in spirit but physically wasted away—more gaunt than ever, haggard and stooped, walking with a cane and dragging his right leg. Shortly before Ccrregid.or's last fight on the beaches and her fall he wrote in his journal: "If the capitulation of Corregidor fiiTally becomes necessary. I Avill surrender with my troops un-

less I: am ordered to leave them by the President of the United States. I would consider it the height of dishonour to do otherwise." Japanese Tactics For months before attrition and want of equipment forced the surrender of Wainwright and his garrison; for months before the Orion line was broken and the enemy

poured; into the toe and heel of the I great stocking ■ of Bataan—observers!

had seen a campaign marked by dogged courage and desperate skill of American and Philippine soldiers and by the grotesque* tactics of the Japanese army; an army which would lunge forward in strength and then stop dead with nothing ■ ahead

of it; an army which took long dptours when time was of the essence: an army that attacked. by night and fell back as much as 20 miles ,bv clay to avoid artillery fire: an armv which lavished its men's lives wantonly by sending human suicide squads forth to jump on land mines 01* barbed wire entanglements; an army which played on the superstitions of the Philippine soldiers and civilians by detaching snipers to cry eerily in the night in imitation of "spirits"; an army which threw

away the book of war and followed, for better or worse, a book of its own. Helped by Fifth Column

Along our thin line on Bataan, where Colonel John M. Doyle's Forty-fifth Philippine Scouts held the left flank and Colonel George S. Clailke's Fifty-seventh Scouts held the right, American forces; had a chance nightly to see the weird manoeuvres of the Japanese, some surprisingly inept or stupid or extravagant, some new and shrewd— all aided immeasurably from start to finish by trained fifth column wo rivers. There was never a night when the American position was not outlined from behind by flares and Verey pistols shooting red balls like raman candles. Sometimes on a nearby hilltop would be seen three fires built in sequence and pointing to the American lines for the benefit

of the Japanese. Civilians were captured and killed guiding Japanese units to positions of advantage. Pro-Japanese Units These works of espionage and sabotage, according to good authority, were performed by members of two native pro-Japanese or anti-

American, anti-Quezon "bunds" called; the Ganaps and Sakdalistas, representing not the sentiment of the Philippine people hut the wishes of gualetiters liike the notorious Juan Ricarte. They were none the less skilfully organised and trained. In one of three attempts to flank the American line during the months of January and February thousands of Japanese landed in coastal caves prepared to accommodate them. One observer tells of finding a cave masked by a concrete wall which must have been built for the purpose years before the Avar began. The Japanese flankers, wearing ; only loincloths, but armed to the teeth, were floated ashore by lifebelts, some of which came from the U.S. Army Transport Merritt, sent to Japan as a relief sbip at the time of the great earthquake of 1925. Ammunition was stored, on rafts and the whole amphibious armada took' guidance from fifth column flares ashore. To' a man, the invaders were repelled and driven over the cliffs into the sea again.