Part 1 (1/2)

The Fighting Agents.

by W.E.B. Griffin.

For Lieutenant Aaron Bank, Infantry, AUS, detailed OSS (later, Colonel, Special Forces) and Lieutenant William E. Colby, Infantry, AUS, detailed OSS (later, Amba.s.sador and Director, CIA) As Jedburgh Team Leaders operating in German-occupied France and Norway, they set the standards for valor, wisdom, patriotism, and personal integrity that thousands who followed in their steps in the OSS and CIA tried to emulate.

Prologue.

Since General Douglas MacArthur's departure for Australia from the Fortress of Corregidor in Manila Bay was in compliance with a direct order from President and Commander -in-Chief Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it was the General's belief that the move was nothing more than a transfer of his headquarters. He believed, in other words, that the battered, outnumbered, starving U.S. and Philippine troops in the Philippine Islands would remain under his command.

He believed specifically that Lieutenant General Jonathan M. Wainwright, a tall, skinny cavalryman who had been his deputy, would, as regulations and custom prescribed, remain under his orders.

General MacArthur's last order to Wainwright-on the small wooden wharf at Corregidor just before MacArthur, his wife, his son, and a small staff boarded the boats that would take them away-was verbal: He told Wainwright to ”hold on.” Wainwright understood this to mean that he was forbidden to surrender.

Since he had been promised reinforcement and resupply of his beleaguered forces by Roosevelt himself, MacArthur believed that as long as the Fortress of Corregidor held out, Roosevelt would be forced to make good on his promise of reinforcement. The island of Luzon, including the capital city of Manila, had fallen to the j.a.panese. But there were upward of twenty thousand reasonably healthy, reasonably well-supplied troops under Major General William Sharp on the island of Mindanao. That force, MacArthur believed, could serve as the nucleus for the recapture of Luzon, once reinforcements came.

MacArthur accepted the possibility that Corregidor might fall. But if that should happen, he believed that Wainwright should move his three-starred, red general's flag and the other colors to Mindanao, a.s.sume command of General Sharp's troops, and continue the fight.

Before MacArthur reached Brisbane, however, traveling first by PT boat and then by B-17 aircraft, General Wainwright began to receive orders directly from Was.h.i.+ngton, from General George Catlett Marshall, the Chief of Staff.

General MacArthur and General Marshall were not friends. For instance, some time before the war when Marshall was a colonel at Fort Benning, MacArthur, then Chief of Staff of the Army, had officially described Marshall as unfit for command of a unit larger than a regiment. Several such incidents did not bring the two closer.

It was made clear to General Wainwright by the War Department that he was no longer subject to General Mac-Arthur's orders, and that the conduct of resistance in the Philippines was entirely his own responsibility.

Without MacArthur's knowledge or consent, the decision had already been made by President Roosevelt, acting with the advice of General Marshall and Brigadier General Dwight D. Eisenhower (who had once served as Mac-Arthur's deputy in the Philippines), that not only was reinforcement of the Philippines impossible-given the relative capabilities of the United States and Imperial j.a.panese navies-but that the first priority in the war was the conflict against the Germans in North Africa and Europe.

On May 1, 1942, there were thirteen thousand American and Philippine troops (on a three-eighths ration) in the granite tunnels of Corregidor Island. These included a large number of wounded and all the nurses evacuated from Luzon in order to spare them rape at the hands of the j.a.panese. That day, j.a.panese artillery fired sixteen thousand rounds at Corregidor, one heavy sh.e.l.l landing every five seconds. And that many sh.e.l.ls were fired the next day. And the next day. And the next.

On the night of May 5, 1942, when it became evident to General Wainwright that the j.a.panese were about to make an a.s.sault on the fortress, he radioed General Sharp and other commanders elsewhere in the Philippines, releasing them from his command.

Although most of the heavy coast artillery cannon on the island had already been destroyed by j.a.panese artillery, there were enough smaller cannon and automatic weapons still available to Wainwright's forces so that j.a.panese losses in the a.s.sault were severe. But the j.a.panese were both determined and courageous, and a foothold was gained.

The fall of Corregidor was no longer in doubt.

There was nothing to be gained by further resistance. In fact, further resistance would have meant that the j.a.panese would have trained cannon at the mouth of Malinta Tunnel. These would have swept the tunnel clean of nurses and wounded and the rest of the garrison as effectively as a hose was.h.i.+ng down a drainage pipe.

Wainwright sent his aide, carrying a white flag, and a staff officer to treat with the enemy.

Soon after that, General Wainwright met with his counterpart, Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma, on the porch of a small, bullet-pocked frame house on Luzon. The shaven-headed Homma, although he spoke fluent English, addressed Wainwright through an interpreter.

Homma was not interested in the surrender of Corregidor. He demanded the absolute, unconditional surrender of all American troops in the Philippine Islands. If General Wainwright were not prepared to offer absolute surrender of all U.S. forces, he would resume tactical operations. By this, he clearly meant wiping out the Corregidor garrison.

Accompanied by a j.a.panese lieutenant named Kano, who had been educated in New Jersey, General Wainwright was taken in a captured Cadillac to the studios of radio station KZRH in Manila. There he broadcast a message to all commanders of all U.S. military and naval forces in the Philippines. As senior U.S. officer in the Philippines, he ordered all American forces to immediately suspend hostile action and to make all preparations to surrender to the Imperial j.a.panese Army.

Not all Americans chose to obey General Wainwright's final order.

I.

1.

HEADQUARTERS, MINDANAO-VISAYAN FORCE UNITED STATES FORCES IN THE PHILIPPINES 28 DECEMBER 1942.

Brigadier General Wendell W. Fertig, Commanding, Mindanao-Visayan Force, wore two items not commonly seen on general officers of the U.S. Army: a goatee with mustache and a cone-shaped, woven-reed hat perched at a c.o.c.ky angle on his head. From this dangled what looked like a native bracelet.

General Fertig, a trim, red-haired man of forty-one, was not a professional soldier. He had not gone to West Point; rather, he had entered the military service of the United States just over a year before, directly commissioned as Captain, Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army Reserve. The U.S. Army in the Philippines had been delighted to have the services of an experienced civil engineer, in particular one who was familiar with the Philippines. When he had entered the Army, Fertig had sent his wife and family to safety in Colorado.

From the time of the j.a.panese invasion until the surrender ordered by General Wainwright on May 5, 1942, Fertig had been primarily involved in the demolition-usually by explosive-of roads, bridges and tunnels, supply and petrol dumps, and other facilities to deny their use to the enemy. Many of the facilities he destroyed he had built before the war.

On May 5, 1942-by then twice promoted-Lt. Colonel Fertig willfully and with full knowledge of the consequences elected to disobey the lawful order of his military superior, Lt. General Jonathan Wainwright, to immediately cease hostile action against the Imperial j.a.panese Army and to make all preparations to surrender.

He went instead into the mountains of Mindanao, with every intention of waging what hostile action he could against the j.a.panese. With him at the beginning were Captain Charles Hedges, another newly commissioned reserve officer of the Army, Chief Petty Officer Ellwood Orfett, USN, and Private Robert Ball, USA.

Things did not go well at first for the little group. To avoid j.a.panese capture, they had to live in the jungle, eating what they could find there. Or else they ate the native food Moro tribesmen furnished them every now and again-at the risk of their lives.

Once, they watched from the jungle as a long line of American prisoners-their officers bareheaded and with their arms tied behind them-were moved to a prison camp.

Although they encountered some yet-to-surrender Philippine troops, there was no rush to Fertig's colors. Most of the Filipinos, in and out of uniform, sadly suggested to them that the war was over and that the only logical course for the ragtag quartet to follow was to surrender.

But Fertig, if personally modest, had a somewhat grand notion of the role he could play in the war. He kept a diary, which has survived, and in it, in a rice paddy near Moray, he wrote: ”I am called on to lead a resistance movement against an implacable enemy under conditions that make victory barely possible. . . . But I feel . . . my course is charted and that only success lies at the end of the trail. . . . If we are to win only part of the time and gain a little each time, in the end we will be successful.”

Lt. Colonel Fertig gave a good deal of thought to the reluctance of the Filipinos and other Americans who had not surrendered to join him. He finally concluded that this was because they quite naturally thought he was simply one more middle-level bra.s.s hat, one more American civilian temporarily commissioned into the Army.

They would, on the other hand, follow a real soldier, he realized. He improved on this: If there were a general officer general officer who announced himself as the official representative of the United States and Philippine governments, that individual would command the respect of everybody. who announced himself as the official representative of the United States and Philippine governments, that individual would command the respect of everybody.

On October 1, 1942, on the back of a Delinquent Tax Notice, Fertig wrote a proclamation in pencil and nailed it to a tree: A Moro silversmith hammered out two five-pointed stars-the rank insignia of a brigadier general-from silver dollars, and Fertig pinned them to his collar points.

It was likely, Fertig knew, that his proclamation would be blown by the wind from the tree before anyone saw it. Or if it stayed on the tree (the distribution list, for instance, was a bluff; the delinquent tax form was the only sheet of paper he had), that whoever read it would either laugh or conclude there was a crazy American running loose.

But two days later, as the quartet was walking along the beach beside a Mindanao jungle, ready to rush in and hide if j.a.panese soldiers appeared, a wiry little Moro wearing vestiges of a uniform and carrying a Model 1917 Enfield U.S. Army rifle stepped into view. And then others appeared, until there were almost two hundred of them.

The wiry little Moro saluted crisply and in the best English he could manage informed General Fertig that he and his men were at the General's orders, and with respect, could he suggest they go into the jungle, for there were j.a.panese just a short distance down the beach.

Soon other Filipinos appeared, as well as other Americans who had decided to take their chances in the mountains and the jungles rather than enter j.a.panese captivity. No one seemed to question the stars on Fertig's collar points; they all seemed happy to be able to place themselves under the orders of someone who knew what he was doing.

A reasonably safe headquarters was established. Though it was not defensible, it was in a location that would be invisible from the air and difficult to locate on the ground. And even if located, it would be very difficult to surround. If j.a.panese appeared, Fertig and his forces would be able to vanish into the mountains before the j.a.panese got close.

Remaining free was the first priority.

The second priority, as Fertig saw it, was to make his presence known to others who had not surrendered and who could join his forces; to the j.a.panese, who would be obliged to tie down forces on a ratio of at least seven to one in order to look for and contain him; and to the U.S. Army.

There were risks involved in making the U.S. Army aware of what he was doing. For one thing, he simply might be ordered to surrender. He thus decided that if such an order came, he would not acknowledge it. For another, the U.S. Army was likely to frown both on his self-promotion to brigadier general and on the authority he had vested in himself to take command of Mindanao and proclaim martial law.

Fertig decided that these risks had to be taken. There was simply no way he could arm a guerrilla force as large as he envisioned by stealing arms from the j.a.panese. And the only possible source of arms was the U.S. Army, which could either make airdrops or possibly send a submarine. And then on top of that, just about as important as arms was medicine, especially quinine. And the only possible source of medicine was the Army.