Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2014 3:11:19 GMT 8
Greetings all. I am Richard, resident of Reno, NV, immigrated from Manila. My interest in Corregidor (in fact, all the Harbor Forts) stems from a childhood spent exploring The Rock with my dad and two brothers every year, documenting all the batteries, locating and photographing them based on Dad's 1936 map and other books and accounts. My paternal grandfather was Provost Sergeant assigned to the 59th CA (hence my avatar) pre-war, and he rests in eternal peace at the American Memorial Cemetery in Makati City. Dad was born on Corregidor in 1928, and endured the Japanese Occupation in Manila, being hidden and passed from one Filipino family to the other (which has resulted in way too many "tito" and "tita" people for us!). Dad's interest began with his first explorations of Corregidor, Drum, and Carabao Islands in the 1950's (driving to Cabcaben or Mariveles, and renting a banca boat), and over the decades he became the acknowledged expert on the history of the Harbor Forts of Manila and Subic Bays (among other things, he was instrumental in reorganizing the Corregidor Museum via the American Chamber of Commerce of the Phils, as well as becoming a Director of FAME when it was established, and he had been contacted many hundreds of times to both deliver lectures on Corregidor and WWII as well as to provide a professional [i.e., not "tourist"] guide on the Islands, by various governments as well as Veterans and Veterans groups; I am told in the Corregidor Inn there is a photo of him with Presidents Bill Clinton and Ramos from when he guided Clinton on The ROck...he also flew back to Manila on Marine One with the Clintons, direct to the American Cemetery, because Clinton had an address there for -I believe- Memorial Day). In fact, the first ever media article on the scavenging (now called "scrapping") of the Islands appeared in Manila Bulletin in the late 1970s interviewed my father, and had pictures of him showing what was left of the gun tube of -I beleive- Battery Crofton on Fort Frank (Carabao Island), when there were still remains of the batteries. He was also featured in two articles in National Geographic Magazine, on of the scavenging and irreplaceable loss of these Forts and another on the history and significance of the Harbor Forts, in the early 1980's. Sadly, a certain Veteran, now deceased and who shall remain unnamed, wanted that spotlight for himself and instigated a plan to discredit my Dad, and not wanting so open a confrontation my Dad simply did not respond. Dad passed away five years ago, and left for me his collection of tens of thousands of slides and photos of the islands, copies of veteran's diaries, transcripts of interviews, copies of various US Army and Navy documents and all the research he had accumulated since the 1950's. I now carry the torch for him, and in my interest in continuing his research I stumbled upon this Board, and am happy to be a member.