CROSSROADS OF HISTORY AND IN THE CROSSHAIRS OF THE ENEMY
Jun 13, 2015 10:55:34 GMT 8
Karl Welteke and beirutvet like this
Post by EXO on Jun 13, 2015 10:55:34 GMT 8
I posted this article last night, and it has since gone missing from the forum. It is a text of the speech which Lou Jerika gave at the MacArthur Memorial , Norfolk, VA, USA, April 26, 2014. This posting is copyright, but has been posted with the Author's permission. - EXO
Good afternoon and my sincere thanks to Angus Lorenzen and Sascha Jensen and the Bay Area Civilian Ex-Prisoners of War for inviting my talk. My thanks also to the MacArthur Memorial for sponsoring these events. In 1995 I moved to Norfolk for a year of research in the archives here and thus know many of the staff, so I would also like to commend former director Colonel Bill Davis for his efforts over the years, and new director Chris Kolakowski for his stewardship of the MacArthur legacy.
There is one more person who has generated the events here over the years. He has responded to countless authors, historians, researchers, editors, and armchair historians, indeed everyone from diplomats to ordinary folk recently arrived to the topic. I am speaking of Archivist Jim Zobel, possibly the foremost living authority on General Douglas MacArthur and the war in the Pacific theater, the Philippines specifically, and the unique guerrilla movement that sets the Philippines apart from other countries in Southeast Asia during WWII. Thank you, Jim, for all you do on our behalf.
It would be impossible to review the entire WWII Philippine guerrilla movement in only 45 minutes, so I will instead attempt to weave an interesting but incomplete story as seen through the eyes of two men who were closely involved in the efforts to organize and supply that guerrilla movement, with personal vignettes I am familiar with as a close relative of both men, one my father and the other my uncle.
Thomas Walker Jurika and Charles “Chick” Parsons were related by marriage when Tennessee native Chick married Tom’s sister Katrushka Jurika in Zamboanga in 1928. Chick was 26, Katsy (her nickname) was 16, and Tom at 14 was best man at the wedding which took place while her parents were on a trip to California from their home in Zamboanga. When WWII broke out Chick and Katsy were living in Manila with the first three of their four children. Chick was now a partner in Luzon Stevedoring, also a lieutenant in the US navy reserve, and serving as the acting honorary consul of Panama on the side.
Down south Tom was working for Cebu Stevedoring in Cebu City as the right-hand-man of owner Captain Clarence John Martin who went everywhere by the nickname “Cap”. Tom was responsible for managing the fleet of tugboats and lighters that operated from Cebu to mines throughout the central Visayas Islands and Mindanao, hauling copper, manganese, and chromium ore from area mines to various ports or ships waiting offshore. Born in Zamboanga in 1914, Tom knew the country well from top to bottom as a result of travels in his youth and later his career in the mining industry.
When the Japs took over Manila the first week of January, 1942, the Parsons family was not interned due to Chick’s broadcasting his credentials as Panamanian consul. Although only an honorary position, the Japs were sufficiently impressed to leave him alone, but only for a while. Tom in Cebu at the time was aiding the defense effort, but he and his best friend Jim Cushing weren’t quite ready to join the US army as they had planned for a year to escape the country and sail to Australia when war came. For them it was not a question of IF war came, but WHEN. Tom and Jim were also disillusioned with many of the older American army officers in the Philippines. They refused to sign up without the proviso that a certain Colonel Cook would not be their commanding officer. To them, Cook was one of those whose lack of promotion elsewhere eventually led to their being sent to a comfortable post in the Philippines and put out to pasture in an environment where afternoons were for entertainment.
Tom and Cap Martin worked together to supply the military’s needs in Cebu while waiting for the Japs to show up, which they finally did after conquering Bataan. Tom offloaded supplies from the few coastal freighters from Australia that got to Cebu through the tightening Japanese cordon around the country. The most important things went up north on flights by the “Bamboo Air Force” from Cebu, back and forth to Bataan and Corregidor before they fell. When Bataan fell on April 10th, the Japs could finally divert their attention to Cebu and invaded it immediately after months of sporadic and errant bombing.
By this time Tom was a newly-minted lieutenant in the US army, with no military training other than a Boy Scout’s salute. He also received a signed authorization from commanding general Chynoweth in Cebu that, in case of surrender, Tom was free to attach himself to any unit or organize resistance to continue the fight. As it turned out, MacArthur had personally authorized this loophole and later signed a similar authorization for Tom to operate at will in the race to liberate Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila. The Jurika family was a familiar name to MacArthur due to several relationships, one being that Tom’s eldest sister Susan Jurika Cecil, born in Jolo in 1909, was social director of the Manila Hotel and had designed and furnished the MacArthurs’ penthouse apartment in the hotel. Indeed, the MacArthurs were godparents to the Cecils youngest child Deirdre.
In the meantime Chick Parsons had been taken from his home, interrogated under duress at Fort Santiago, then interned at Santo Tomas until his questionable-but-eventually-accepted credentials as a Panamanian diplomat earned the family their exit in early June, 1942, on a trip by plane and exchange ships that ended with their arrival in New York in December. Chick had employed an amazing ruse upon the Japs to escape Manila and they never forgot, especially when he came right back by submarine from Australia in March, 1943, to organize guerrilla resistance and set up re-supply efforts. As a family member, Katsy and Tom’s mother Blanche Walker Jurika had been granted permission to leave Manila on the same diplomatic exchange, but she had decided to stay in her adopted homeland, especially after she heard the false news that her son Tommy had been captured in Cebu in April.
In fact Tom and his friend Jim Cushing, also now an army lieutenant, had been given orders by the army to burn anything in Cebu that would be of value to the invading Japs on April 10th. Then Tom fought a delaying action at the Battle of Busay in the hills behind Cebu City before fleeing into the mountains to Sudlon Forest to rendezvous with his Cebu Stevedoring boss Cap Martin and Cap’s wife Charlotte. From the army’s last command post in the forest at White Horse Inn, Tom led the older Martins through the mountains to safety on the north coast of Cebu where they obtained a bamboo-outrigger banca and sailed and paddled their way across to Leyte. Tom left the Martins esconced at a remote mine at Villaba north of Ormoc while he went across the island to US army headquarters at Tacloban to see if the commanding officer, Colonel Cornell, was ready to help in the effort to set up a guerrilla resistance.
Cornell was instead ready to surrender and over several days refused Tom’s plea to turn over a bodega of guns and ammunition in support of a guerrilla operation. The munitions and supplies ended up in Japanese hands when Cornell surrendered under orders from General Wainwright after the fall of Corregidor. Now, as the Japs were marching up from their landing ships at the Tacloban pier, Tom was arguing with Cornell for the last time as they looked out the open double-wide tropical doors of Cornell’s office in the local high school while the Japs approached in columns up the street. Tom declared for the last time that he was not going to surrender, to which Cornell pulled out his .45 semi-automatic, pointed it at Tom and told him he was going to surrender along with everyone else. Tom replied that Cornell might as well go ahead and shoot because that’s exactly what the Japs would do when they learned his identity as the one who had destroyed vital supplies and materiel in Cebu in spite of repeated warnings from air-dropped Japanese leaflets that anyone caught doing so would be summarily executed. At that moment Cornell looked out the door at the Japs marching through the school house gate and Tom seized his chance to escape by diving out a large open window onto the lawn two meters below, then sprinting to a barbed wire fence, jumping over it and disappearing into a field of tall sugar cane. The last sound he heard as he went through the back window was the metallic sound on cement steps as the Japs came up the front steps in hobnailed boots. Running through the canefield, Tom came upon a small trail and then a Filipino riding a bicycle on the trail. Out of breath, Tom asked the man if he could “borrow” his bicycle. In deference to the Americano, the man handed it over. As Tom pedaled away, the man thought to ask Tom where he was going with his bike. The answer came back, “Australia”. It took Tom almost two years to get there.
When Chick Parsons got to New York on a Swedish passenger liner, the exchange ship Gripsholm, he set up Katsy and the kids in Asheville, North Carolina, while being debriefed by the navy and army over the treasure trove of reports and information he and Katsy had smuggled out of Manila in their luggage. When MacArthur in Australia learned of Chick’s arrival, he sent an urgent message for Parsons to get to Brisbane immediately. The two were not unknown to each other, having crossed paths many times socially over the years in Manila. Arriving in Australia, Chick was now tasked with setting up the resupply effort to the guerrillas in the Philippines by submarine, a program Chick christened “Spyron”.
In contrast to the liner Gripsholm, in late May, 1942, Tom and the Martins had bought a large twin-masted bamboo-outrigger ocean-going banca on Leyte and set out for Gaas Inlet on Dinagat Island off northeast Mindanao to wait for Jim Cushing. If separated, the plan had been to reunite at an old mining site in the inlet, then set off together for Australia with the best boat they had. But Cushing never arrived due to getting involved with the guerrilla movement on Cebu, eventually becoming its famous leader. By now it was late June and with typhoon season it was high time to leave, even without word from Cushing; plus the Japs were tightening their grip on the country now to even the remote areas.
Sailing south down the east coast of Mindanao as far as Caraga, with two Filipinos and three American airmen as crew to help sail and bail, taking on supplies when possible along the coast, they finally turned due east out over the Mindanao Deep in order to avoid Japanese ships in the coastal lanes. Days later and hundreds of miles out, they turned south for Australia with only a pocket compass to guide them. But it was too late into the year and soon the skies took on the eerie look of an approaching typhoon. The wind turned into a tempest within hours and eventually it became clear that the only chance they had to survive was to run with the wind, with a small jury-rigged sail after both mainsails had blown out. Hanging on for dear life, they rode the wind and waves, covering the distance back to Mindanao in only 24 hours over the course that had earlier taken three days to traverse. The boat was beginning to come apart by the time they spotted land and came ashore on Mindanao at point only a mile from where they had set out days earlier.
For the next eight months Tom and the Martins were chased by Japanese patrols who learned of their presence from natives either under duress from the Japs or those willing to collaborate. Constantly moving from hideout to hideout, relying on friendly natives for shelter and food, they worked their way back up the east coast of Mindanao to a safe haven in the forested mountains above Tandag. That was where they were when they heard the rumor of an American general who had reportedly come back from Australia to organize the resistance. Leaving the Martins in a safe hideout, Tom walked completely across the top of Mindanao in April, 1943, using survival skills learned from a childhood and life in the countryside. Eventually the rumor led him directly to Lieutenant Colonel Wendell Fertig’s headquarters in Jimenez, Misamis Occidental. Tom discovered that Fertig, on his own, had promoted himself to brigadier general in order to assert his command and influence over any other competitors, of which there were many.
The biggest surprise for Tom was finding Chick Parsons at Fertig’s hacienda, recently arrived after a secret trip by submarine from Australia with guns, ammunition, radios and supplies to set up the resistance. It was a welcome reunion for Tom and Chick, and the first news Tom had that his mother Blanche had not left Manila with the Parsons family the previous year. Now Tom was designated as Chick’s right-hand man to set up a system in-country to receive and distribute the tons of supplies that would be coming in on more submarines from Australia as they became available for MacArthur’s purposes. Promoted to captain,Tom soon left on a mission back to Surigao province in eastern Mindanao with new boots, uniform, and the new carbine with folding stock that became his favorite rifle. He found the Martins elated at his return with all the news and took them up to a better hideout on Leyte to wait until they could be evacuated by submarine. Tom for a while then became chief of staff to Philippine army Colonel Ruperto Kangleon to help solidify control over the Leyte guerrillas, a fractious bunch.
Submarines had penetrated Japanese defenses to resupply Corregidor several times in 1942 before the island fell, in turn taking off important personnel, equipment and even the treasury of the Philippine government. They could certainly do the same anywhere in the 7,000 islands of the Philippines if suitable radio communications could be set up. It was just a question of obtaining use of the subs from the navy for these purposes. The navy was naturally more interested in sinking ships than using their limited number of fleet subs for cargo transport purposes in late 1942 and early 1943, but soon realized that coastwatcher radio stations set up by the guerrillas could alert submarines about potential targets steaming in and out of the Philippines. Thus began a successful but sometimes contentious partnership between the US army and US navy in resupplying the resistance in the Philippines. Between February, 1943, and late January, 1945, a total 41 missions by 19 different submarines delivered 1,325 tons of supplies, 331 guerrillas, radio operators and weathermen into the Philippines while evacuating 472 military personnel and civilians. It remains an amazing feat to this day.
When Chick completed his first mission in July, 1943, and reported back to MacArthur in Brisbane, the situation among various guerrilla factions throughout the islands became clearer, if not more frustrating. MacArthur and staff divided the Philippines into 10 military districts, each with a separate and independent command reporting to Australia. The large island of heavily populated Luzon was divided into five districts, Panay was designated district 6, Negros and Siquijor were district 7, Cebu and Bohol were district 8, Samar and Leyte were district 9, and all of Mindanao and Sulu were district 10 under Wendell Fertig, now reduced back a notch from brigadier general to colonel.
In this shifting mix it was Chick Parsons’ task to interview all the guerrilla groups, sorting out the serious and genuine leaders from the pretenders, the inept, and the corrupt. With his innate charm and much cajoling, Parsons was able to alternately appoint or sideline the various competing factions. His trump card was the obvious control he had over who got “The Aid” coming in by submarine, aid that everyone had been waiting for since Pearl Harbor and Clark Field.
The situation on Luzon was precarious. The first broadcast to Australia that there was any organized resistance after the surrender came from army Lieutenant Colonel Guillermo Nakar in northern Luzon, and it alerted MacArthur’s headquarters that there were indeed men who had not surrendered and were looking to be supported in any way possible. The problem on Luzon was that the best available intelligence later reported a total of 29 separate guerrilla organizations on the island, none of whom got along. As well, many of these so-called guerrillas were nothing more than bandits living off the land and exacting tribute from the Philippine populace to protect them from the Japs. Others were political opportunists looking to establish their rule and continue in power when peace returned, if it ever did.
The situation was confusing at best, especially as the Japs and their Kempeitai spy force had opened the doors of many jails in the country after the surrender in order to utilize grateful inmates as informers and collaborators. And bandits controlled some areas like Samar which the Japs left alone to an extent, compared to other areas, because there was no need to patrol an area not even genuine American and Filipino guerrillas cared to contest. And just as soon, informers in 1942 led the Japs to Nakar’s Luzon hideout and he and his group were publicly tortured and executed, ending one big source of trouble for the Japs and one great source of information for MacArthur in Australia.
On the other islands the situation was not much better, with some exceptions. On Panay, Major Macario Peralta reported by radio to Australia that he had over 8,000 men ready to fight, and that with only 1,000 rifles and 100,000 bullets he could drive the Japs off the island. On Mindoro, too close to Luzon and Manila, the situation was totally unknown. On Negros there was competition between Captain Abcede in the north of the island and Captain Ausejo in the south, Abcede supported by Peralta on nearby Panay and Ausejo by Fertig on nearby Mindanao. Cebu was still sorting out their situation with Jim Cushing and Harry Fenton, Americans who had split the military and administrative duties until Fenton was executed by his own men and Cushing took sole control. On Leyte there were competing factions, but Kangleon eventually won recognition from Australia as island commander. Bohol had another competition between factions, and the situation on Mindanao would take more time to bring all the self-appointed leaders together in a cohesive force.
Another important objective was to convince the various guerrilla groups that it was not a good idea to attack the Japs when their efforts could not be supported in force, attacks that only invited reprisals upon the civilian population. Better to lie low, get organized and collect and supply the intelligence on the enemy that MacArthur needed in order to eventually retake the islands. This took some persuasion inasmuch as most everyone was in the mood to attack the invaders where and when possible. Jim Cushing’s guerrilla force on Cebu got so proficient in ambushing Japanese convoys and patrols that by war’s end one observer estimated the unit had killed over 10,000 Japs, possibly more than all the other districts put together if it can be believed.
Chick Parsons went in and out of the Philippines on four separate submarine missions during the war, often being inserted by one submarine and extracted by another, capping his incredible exploits by coming in on a Catalina flying boat to Leyte just before the October 20th, 1944, reinvasion in order to warn the populace on and near the invasion beaches to head to the hills for safety from bombardment, while simultaneously doing the reconnaissance of the landing beaches for obstacles and Japanese-planted obstructions, and then getting the guerrillas under Kangleon ready to snuff out any Japs retreating from American forces.
In 1943 Tom Jurika was busy setting up coastwatcher stations and many a rendezvous with incoming submarines, devising an efficient and easily-recognized signal system from guerrillas on shore that submarine skippers appreciated. After Tom had brought Cap and Charlotte Martin out of hiding and put them aboard the submarine Narwhal in November, 1943, at Butuan, Mindanao, he took on the mission of leading a guerrilla team from Mindanao all the way to the tip of northern Samar and strategic San Bernardino Straits. Here he would install a coastwatcher named Gerald Chapman to monitor any Japanese merchant shipping or naval movements in this important passage through the Philippines between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. It was Chapman who eventually reported the Japanese navy moving through the straits on their way to annihilation in what became known as “the Marianas Turkey Shoot”.
Travelling by banca on the water and hiking overland when possible with his 10-man group, Tom passed through a succession of bandit guerrilla areas until he reached a remote spot 2,000 feet above Balicuatro Point that overlooked the straits. Here he installed the new radio brought in by submarine and set up Chapman with bodyguards and sentries to protect the operation. Testing the radio to establish contact with Australia and also Fertig in Mindanao, the first message that came back contained the news that Tom’s mother Blanche had just been rounded up in Manila with other members of an underground group of civilians who had been raising funds and supplies for the guerrillas outside Manila. The whole group had been betrayed by a Filipino traitor, a double-agent named Franco Vera Reyes, and they were now all imprisoned in Fort Santiago, often being tortured while awaiting trial.
Tom had never confided to anyone that until that moment he had planned to send the rest of his group back to Mindanao while he struck out alone and headed to Manila to find his mother and get her out of the city to safety. She had been permitted to stay outside Santo Tomas due to a medical dispensation by the Japs as a result of a mastectomy just before the war, one of those allied civilians in Manila that the Japs had allowed to try to survive on their own outside the confines of internment as long as their whereabouts and movements were known and authorized. Working as a volunteer at Emmanuel Hospital and Welfareville, her location was known to Tom via the guerrilla “bamboo telegraph”.
Tom had already walked across Mindanao and felt that he could travel by night and hide out by day all the way to Manila, an audacious plan that now had to be abandoned with the news that his mother was unreachable in the dungeons of Fort Santiago. So the group headed back the way they had come from Mindanao, again crossing through unfriendly bandit guerrilla territory until they reached the town of Llorente on the southeast coast of Samar. Here they crossed paths again with a bandit guerrilla group lead by a mestizo Filipino named Durrillo, a cashiered former soldier who had been a problem in the pre-war Philippine army. Durrillo had now cowed the population around Llorente into submission, extracting tribute and food harvests to keep the armed followers under his command satisfied with their lot.
On the trip north through Durrillo’s fiefdom Tom and his group had been warned about being in Durrillo’s jurisdiction without permission and not welcome to return. But all the new armament carried by Tom’s group which had recently come in by submarine was in stark contrast to the motley collection of arms possessed by Durillo and his gang of bandit guerrillas, and this was not lost upon Durrillo. When Tom and his five guerrillas arrived at Llorente on their way back to Mindanao, they were received in a display of camaraderie by Durrillo and invited to a feast in their honor in the local school house serving as Durrillo’s headquarters. It needs to be mentioned that Philippine public schools, as opposed to private schools, for the most part did not function during WWII and their vacant buildings were used by the Japs, guerrillas, and all sorts of people for various purposes.
Dinner was at a long table in the largest classroom, with each member of Tom’s group seated between a member of Durrillo’s gang. As co-equals, somewhat, Tom and Durrillo were seated side-by-side. Halfway through the meal, at a pre-arranged signal, the remainder of Durrillo’s men burst into the room and surrounded the table, guns pointed at Tom and his men, relieving them of their sidearms and the new carbines and Thompson submachine guns leaning against the wall. For the next ten minutes Tom and his men listened to Durrillo espouse his authority and displeasure with Tom’s group coming back through the area without permission. Now Durrillo would decide whether to execute them or let them go on without their arms. Either way it was a death sentence. Durrillo laughed and said that this might even be the equivalent of The Last Supper for Tom and his men, so why not enjoy the meal. There was no doubt by now in Tom’s mind that Durrillo was mentally unhinged, but Tom stayed calm, even playing along with the Last Supper joke much to Durrillo’s surprise. But what Durrillo didn’t know was that, tucked inside Tom’s waistband, in a custom-sewn pocket, was a small 7-shot .22 Marlin revolver that had been given to him by Dad Cleland in Cebu as Tom and Jim Cushing were blowing up the huge oil storage tanks near Cleland’s office at the Aboitiz Shipyards in Opon on Mactan Island across from Cebu City in April, 1942.
Tom had lost weight in the guerrillas and his shirt bloused out over his belt and totally hid the presence of the revolver which he then pulled out at the right moment, placing the barrel to Durrillo’s head. In moments the bandits were disarmed and Tom and his group got their weapons back. After destroying all of Durrillo’s guns, the bandit group was tied up and chained to the school flagpole in a great loss of face while the townfolk were summoned by the school bell to come hear the news. Tom informed the people who arrived that Durrillo and his men were no longer their master and that they could mete out whatever justice they deemed necessary, maybe even let them go, but the townsfolk had to decide the matter because Tom and his men were on their way and didn’t have time to stick around. Tom came away with Durrillo’s prized possession, a pearl-handled .38 semi-automatic pistol in a 1911 .45 housing. It was just too pretty to destroy, and as it turned out when he got the chance to fire it, the .38 was the most accurate pistol he had ever fired, much more accurate than a .45. So much so that when Tom went down the hatch of the submarine Narwhal a month later on his way to Australia, he took the pistol with him. Protocol usually called for anyone being extracted from the Philippines to give up their arms and ammo in order to arm another guerrilla who did not have a gun. But not in this case.
In contrast it should be mentioned that Chick Parsons never, or rarely, carried a gun with him on his missions, preferring instead to go unarmed in the disguise of a Filipino, at least a mestizo, what with his short stature, black hair, dark eyes and very tanned skin. Usually wearing a pair of old shorts, faded shirt, straw hat, and worn out rubber sneakers, Chick many times was mistaken for a Filipino, at least a mestizo, especially when imbedded in a group of natives. It was the perfect disguise, and he could pull it off time and again. Even a passing Japanese patrol on a jungle trail once filed right past Chick and some Filipino compatriots standing aside without giving them a second glance. But it was a very close call.
After Llorente, Tom’s group recovered the small sailing banca that they had hidden in a Samar coconut grove on their passage north and then headed south off the Leyte shoreline back to Mindanao. After a day of sailing and paddling they decided to put ashore on a stretch of deserted beach between two rocky headlands for a rest, especially as there was a Filipino fisherman on the beach who could possibly be a source of information. When queried if there were any Japs in the area, in his native dialect the man simply said “Yes, sir”. Where? Over there, sir. Where over there? Right around that headland there, sir. If you had continued another 100 yards on your path without stopping here on this beach, you would have run right into them. Maybe they are still there if you want to meet them?
Tom and his men raced to their banca and, as there was no wind, started paddling furiously out to sea. Getting out far enough to see back around the headland, there they were, a whole company of Japs bathing in the surf and on the beach, having a picnic. The Japs raced for their rifles and started firing at the banca. A few bullets splashed close to them, but by now they were safely away. Glad that the Japs had no boat of their own, after that they didn’t come ashore again until they reached familiar territory on northern Mindanao. Another day in the life of a guerrilla.
When Tom got back to Fertig’s headquarters, he was more than ever in the mood to take it to the enemy, especially now that they had his mother. But Australia had other plans and orders came by radio for Tom to go out on the next submarine. Tom protested strongly in his reply to Australia, saying he could do more good right where he was instead of in Australia. After several exchanges, back came the ultimatum, signed “MacArthur”, that Tom would be on that submarine, no more debate.
And so it was that Tom went down the hatch of the Narwhal with other evacuees in March, 1944, and arrived in Brisbane where he was immediately put into a hospital for a multitude of medical tests and a new diet. Incidentally, as he was enjoying his new surroundings and a promotion to captain, Tom was invited to be a fourth hand at bridge games on two occasions by Jean Faircloth MacArthur, a family friend who was always very solicitous and concerned about those evacuated from the Philippines.
As Tom learned, he was wanted in Australia because no one knew better what the guerrillas needed and how it had to be packed watertight and carried most efficiently by submarine into the Philippines. As well, the price tag placed on Tom’s head by the Japs was now second only to the bounty for Chick. Australia was concerned that someone would eventually inform on Tom’s whereabouts in order to get the reward and it was no longer worth the risk. For the rest of 1944 Tom operated from MacArthur’s headquarters wherever it happened to be located on the leapfrog advance up through New Guinea to Morotai and the landings at Leyte Gulf, loading submarines at spots like Hollandia and Mios Woendi.
When American forces landed at Leyte, both Tom and Chick arrived from different directions. Chick, now a lieutenant commander, came out of the bush on Leyte after this last mission and was picked up by a passing destroyer and taken to MacArthur’s headquarters. Tom, now an army major, arrived on a flight from Morotai after loading the last sub missions delivering supplies, these to guerrilla leaders Volckmann and Anderson in northern Luzon.
After the landings at San Jose, Mindoro, in mid-December, and the January 9th landings at Lingayen Gulf, Tom was flown up to the Lingayen landing beaches and called to MacArthur’s newly installed headquarters at Guimba the first night. Here he received orders from MacArthur to head for Manila on his own with an army truck, a driver, mechanic and machine gunner. He could attach himself to any unit he wanted to in case of emergency, but Tom was on his own to operate at will and figure out the best way to get to Manila either with, ahead of, or behind the flying column. He was to be part of the 15-member team in charge of administration at Santo Tomas once they got there, however they got there.
Early the next morning in the dark Tom left Guimba and headed down the highway with a column of tanks and jeeps. Up ahead the sound of fighting could be heard and traffic slowed to a crawl. As Tom was familiar with the routes through central Luzon, he had the driver turn off the road and drive through dry, flat rice paddies to the railroad that paralleled the highway to Manila. The first glow of dawn found them bumping unmolested over the railroad ties, headed south. But then up ahead, to everyone’s amazement an army jeep came into view, headed for them on the same railroad tracks. It was hard to believe anyone had gotten ahead of them, but at least they knew that the Japs possessed nothing like a jeep. They slowed down and waited for the jeep to approach them. With guns at the ready they waited, then looked through the jeep’s windshield to see an army driver at the wheel. Sitting in the right-hand seat next to the driver was Douglas MacArthur, out doing some reconnaissance of his own without a small force to protect him, not even photographers, at those times when he possibly deemed it superfluous. After an exchange of pleasantries, in obvious deference Tom had his driver move the truck off the tracks to allow the smaller jeep to pass. With only a salute, they were on their way south again.
The race to Santo Tomas was uneventful for the next 24 hours until they went through an area near Bilibid Prison in Manila where they were fired upon for the first time, fortunately no one being hit. They went through the blown gates of Santo Tomas at 6 AM on February 4th, eight hours after the first tanks had arrived. After setting up distribution of the food and supplies on his truck to the liberated internees, Tom went looking for his mother and then, still looking for her, he joined the group of infantry escorting the Japs from the Education Building through the streets of Manila to a point where they had agreed to part. In return, this set free the internee hostages the Japs had been holding at gunpoint in the Education Building. The Japs by contrast were not so lucky. Unforeseen to anyone involved in the negotiations, the Japs retreated right into a Filipino guerrilla force on the streets and were annihilated.
Right after the Leyte landings Chick Parsons had also gotten involved in directing an assault on Japanese garrisons in the towns of Malitbog and Maasin in southwest Leyte from the sea with two large landing craft outfitted with batteries of rocket launchers and guns for such close-in work in shallow water. The operations were a success, but Chick was exhausted and in the throes of a malaria attack which sent him back to the USA in November, 1944, to recuperate. In early 1945 Chick made it to Manila where he was warmly greeted by old friends at Santo Tomas but then discovered the tortured bodies of other friends who had been killed by the murderous Japs in their homes near the pre-war Parsons residence on Calle Roberts off Dewey Boulevard.
Tom’s search for word on his mother was proving fruitless in Manila so he joined the rescue of internees at Los Banos, coming across Laguna de Bay on one of the amphibious tractors that carried the prisoners to safety. At Los Banos he found his interned brother-in-law Bob Cecil, but still no word of Blanche. Bob Cecil had been an insurance executive for West Coast Life in Manila before the war and had stayed behind in 1941 while presciently sending his wife Sue and their three children back to the USA on the last President Lines ship to leave Manila in 1941. In 1942, Bob Cecil had been rounded up with the other allied nationals and taken to Santo Tomas where he was appointed the youngest member of the Executive Committee, in charge of sanitation, until he was transferred to Los Banos.
Tom was in charge of search teams looking for abductees and missing people, in the process finding the grave of the four members of the Santo Tomas Executive Committee who had earlier been taken from the internment camp by the Japs and never seen again. It wasn’t until many months later, after the surrender, that Tom was able to find the gravesites in North Cemetery in Manila where Blanche and thousands of other patriots had been beheaded or shot and then dumped into mass graves that the Japs took great pains to cover up and disguise. Blanche’s identified remains were interred with the other members of her resistance group in a monument erected in North Cemetery where she still lies today.
The guerrilla movement was indispensable in the retaking of the Philippines, supplying intelligence on Japanese positions and movements, blowing up bridges and other escape routes, and cutting down those Japs they found in numbers they could handle. There was no other guerrilla movement in all of Japanese-conquered Southeast Asia that can compare with their record, certainly not with their genuine affection for the Americanos who came back to liberate the country and set it on the road to independence.
But the guerrilla movement also suffered from much factionalism, jealousy, and with many using the movement as a way to settle old political scores. After the war it seemed as if every Filipino claimed to have been a guerrilla, and determining who had been and who had not been became a festering problem in awarding medals and back pay. Many people who had either been actual guerrillas, or who claimed to have been, made it their objective to pad the lists of bona fide guerrillas with their own family members and friends in order to gain patronage and favor and votes, not to mention generous back pay and reparations from an America whose military only wanted to go home. In a reverse process many genuine Filipino guerrillas who had given their all were removed from the lists of the deserving. And the question of who had been a collaborator with the Japs devolved into a murky mess, with unproven allegations and accusations while many others got off scot free after being traitors to their countrymen. The effects and ramifications have lasted to today.
Tom and Chick left their respective services in 1946 but remained in the Philippines to make their future. Both were amply recognized by Philippine and American forces, and indeed the ballroom in the US Embassy in Manila is today named the Charles “Chick” Parsons Memorial Ballroom in his memory.
And on that final note, I end my tale. Thank you very much.
A Guerrilla Odyssey - Tom Jurika & Chick Parsons
“At the Crossroads of History and in the Crosshairs of the Enemy.”
Good afternoon and my sincere thanks to Angus Lorenzen and Sascha Jensen and the Bay Area Civilian Ex-Prisoners of War for inviting my talk. My thanks also to the MacArthur Memorial for sponsoring these events. In 1995 I moved to Norfolk for a year of research in the archives here and thus know many of the staff, so I would also like to commend former director Colonel Bill Davis for his efforts over the years, and new director Chris Kolakowski for his stewardship of the MacArthur legacy.
There is one more person who has generated the events here over the years. He has responded to countless authors, historians, researchers, editors, and armchair historians, indeed everyone from diplomats to ordinary folk recently arrived to the topic. I am speaking of Archivist Jim Zobel, possibly the foremost living authority on General Douglas MacArthur and the war in the Pacific theater, the Philippines specifically, and the unique guerrilla movement that sets the Philippines apart from other countries in Southeast Asia during WWII. Thank you, Jim, for all you do on our behalf.
It would be impossible to review the entire WWII Philippine guerrilla movement in only 45 minutes, so I will instead attempt to weave an interesting but incomplete story as seen through the eyes of two men who were closely involved in the efforts to organize and supply that guerrilla movement, with personal vignettes I am familiar with as a close relative of both men, one my father and the other my uncle.
Thomas Walker Jurika and Charles “Chick” Parsons were related by marriage when Tennessee native Chick married Tom’s sister Katrushka Jurika in Zamboanga in 1928. Chick was 26, Katsy (her nickname) was 16, and Tom at 14 was best man at the wedding which took place while her parents were on a trip to California from their home in Zamboanga. When WWII broke out Chick and Katsy were living in Manila with the first three of their four children. Chick was now a partner in Luzon Stevedoring, also a lieutenant in the US navy reserve, and serving as the acting honorary consul of Panama on the side.
Down south Tom was working for Cebu Stevedoring in Cebu City as the right-hand-man of owner Captain Clarence John Martin who went everywhere by the nickname “Cap”. Tom was responsible for managing the fleet of tugboats and lighters that operated from Cebu to mines throughout the central Visayas Islands and Mindanao, hauling copper, manganese, and chromium ore from area mines to various ports or ships waiting offshore. Born in Zamboanga in 1914, Tom knew the country well from top to bottom as a result of travels in his youth and later his career in the mining industry.
When the Japs took over Manila the first week of January, 1942, the Parsons family was not interned due to Chick’s broadcasting his credentials as Panamanian consul. Although only an honorary position, the Japs were sufficiently impressed to leave him alone, but only for a while. Tom in Cebu at the time was aiding the defense effort, but he and his best friend Jim Cushing weren’t quite ready to join the US army as they had planned for a year to escape the country and sail to Australia when war came. For them it was not a question of IF war came, but WHEN. Tom and Jim were also disillusioned with many of the older American army officers in the Philippines. They refused to sign up without the proviso that a certain Colonel Cook would not be their commanding officer. To them, Cook was one of those whose lack of promotion elsewhere eventually led to their being sent to a comfortable post in the Philippines and put out to pasture in an environment where afternoons were for entertainment.
Tom and Cap Martin worked together to supply the military’s needs in Cebu while waiting for the Japs to show up, which they finally did after conquering Bataan. Tom offloaded supplies from the few coastal freighters from Australia that got to Cebu through the tightening Japanese cordon around the country. The most important things went up north on flights by the “Bamboo Air Force” from Cebu, back and forth to Bataan and Corregidor before they fell. When Bataan fell on April 10th, the Japs could finally divert their attention to Cebu and invaded it immediately after months of sporadic and errant bombing.
By this time Tom was a newly-minted lieutenant in the US army, with no military training other than a Boy Scout’s salute. He also received a signed authorization from commanding general Chynoweth in Cebu that, in case of surrender, Tom was free to attach himself to any unit or organize resistance to continue the fight. As it turned out, MacArthur had personally authorized this loophole and later signed a similar authorization for Tom to operate at will in the race to liberate Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila. The Jurika family was a familiar name to MacArthur due to several relationships, one being that Tom’s eldest sister Susan Jurika Cecil, born in Jolo in 1909, was social director of the Manila Hotel and had designed and furnished the MacArthurs’ penthouse apartment in the hotel. Indeed, the MacArthurs were godparents to the Cecils youngest child Deirdre.
In the meantime Chick Parsons had been taken from his home, interrogated under duress at Fort Santiago, then interned at Santo Tomas until his questionable-but-eventually-accepted credentials as a Panamanian diplomat earned the family their exit in early June, 1942, on a trip by plane and exchange ships that ended with their arrival in New York in December. Chick had employed an amazing ruse upon the Japs to escape Manila and they never forgot, especially when he came right back by submarine from Australia in March, 1943, to organize guerrilla resistance and set up re-supply efforts. As a family member, Katsy and Tom’s mother Blanche Walker Jurika had been granted permission to leave Manila on the same diplomatic exchange, but she had decided to stay in her adopted homeland, especially after she heard the false news that her son Tommy had been captured in Cebu in April.
In fact Tom and his friend Jim Cushing, also now an army lieutenant, had been given orders by the army to burn anything in Cebu that would be of value to the invading Japs on April 10th. Then Tom fought a delaying action at the Battle of Busay in the hills behind Cebu City before fleeing into the mountains to Sudlon Forest to rendezvous with his Cebu Stevedoring boss Cap Martin and Cap’s wife Charlotte. From the army’s last command post in the forest at White Horse Inn, Tom led the older Martins through the mountains to safety on the north coast of Cebu where they obtained a bamboo-outrigger banca and sailed and paddled their way across to Leyte. Tom left the Martins esconced at a remote mine at Villaba north of Ormoc while he went across the island to US army headquarters at Tacloban to see if the commanding officer, Colonel Cornell, was ready to help in the effort to set up a guerrilla resistance.
Cornell was instead ready to surrender and over several days refused Tom’s plea to turn over a bodega of guns and ammunition in support of a guerrilla operation. The munitions and supplies ended up in Japanese hands when Cornell surrendered under orders from General Wainwright after the fall of Corregidor. Now, as the Japs were marching up from their landing ships at the Tacloban pier, Tom was arguing with Cornell for the last time as they looked out the open double-wide tropical doors of Cornell’s office in the local high school while the Japs approached in columns up the street. Tom declared for the last time that he was not going to surrender, to which Cornell pulled out his .45 semi-automatic, pointed it at Tom and told him he was going to surrender along with everyone else. Tom replied that Cornell might as well go ahead and shoot because that’s exactly what the Japs would do when they learned his identity as the one who had destroyed vital supplies and materiel in Cebu in spite of repeated warnings from air-dropped Japanese leaflets that anyone caught doing so would be summarily executed. At that moment Cornell looked out the door at the Japs marching through the school house gate and Tom seized his chance to escape by diving out a large open window onto the lawn two meters below, then sprinting to a barbed wire fence, jumping over it and disappearing into a field of tall sugar cane. The last sound he heard as he went through the back window was the metallic sound on cement steps as the Japs came up the front steps in hobnailed boots. Running through the canefield, Tom came upon a small trail and then a Filipino riding a bicycle on the trail. Out of breath, Tom asked the man if he could “borrow” his bicycle. In deference to the Americano, the man handed it over. As Tom pedaled away, the man thought to ask Tom where he was going with his bike. The answer came back, “Australia”. It took Tom almost two years to get there.
When Chick Parsons got to New York on a Swedish passenger liner, the exchange ship Gripsholm, he set up Katsy and the kids in Asheville, North Carolina, while being debriefed by the navy and army over the treasure trove of reports and information he and Katsy had smuggled out of Manila in their luggage. When MacArthur in Australia learned of Chick’s arrival, he sent an urgent message for Parsons to get to Brisbane immediately. The two were not unknown to each other, having crossed paths many times socially over the years in Manila. Arriving in Australia, Chick was now tasked with setting up the resupply effort to the guerrillas in the Philippines by submarine, a program Chick christened “Spyron”.
In contrast to the liner Gripsholm, in late May, 1942, Tom and the Martins had bought a large twin-masted bamboo-outrigger ocean-going banca on Leyte and set out for Gaas Inlet on Dinagat Island off northeast Mindanao to wait for Jim Cushing. If separated, the plan had been to reunite at an old mining site in the inlet, then set off together for Australia with the best boat they had. But Cushing never arrived due to getting involved with the guerrilla movement on Cebu, eventually becoming its famous leader. By now it was late June and with typhoon season it was high time to leave, even without word from Cushing; plus the Japs were tightening their grip on the country now to even the remote areas.
Sailing south down the east coast of Mindanao as far as Caraga, with two Filipinos and three American airmen as crew to help sail and bail, taking on supplies when possible along the coast, they finally turned due east out over the Mindanao Deep in order to avoid Japanese ships in the coastal lanes. Days later and hundreds of miles out, they turned south for Australia with only a pocket compass to guide them. But it was too late into the year and soon the skies took on the eerie look of an approaching typhoon. The wind turned into a tempest within hours and eventually it became clear that the only chance they had to survive was to run with the wind, with a small jury-rigged sail after both mainsails had blown out. Hanging on for dear life, they rode the wind and waves, covering the distance back to Mindanao in only 24 hours over the course that had earlier taken three days to traverse. The boat was beginning to come apart by the time they spotted land and came ashore on Mindanao at point only a mile from where they had set out days earlier.
For the next eight months Tom and the Martins were chased by Japanese patrols who learned of their presence from natives either under duress from the Japs or those willing to collaborate. Constantly moving from hideout to hideout, relying on friendly natives for shelter and food, they worked their way back up the east coast of Mindanao to a safe haven in the forested mountains above Tandag. That was where they were when they heard the rumor of an American general who had reportedly come back from Australia to organize the resistance. Leaving the Martins in a safe hideout, Tom walked completely across the top of Mindanao in April, 1943, using survival skills learned from a childhood and life in the countryside. Eventually the rumor led him directly to Lieutenant Colonel Wendell Fertig’s headquarters in Jimenez, Misamis Occidental. Tom discovered that Fertig, on his own, had promoted himself to brigadier general in order to assert his command and influence over any other competitors, of which there were many.
The biggest surprise for Tom was finding Chick Parsons at Fertig’s hacienda, recently arrived after a secret trip by submarine from Australia with guns, ammunition, radios and supplies to set up the resistance. It was a welcome reunion for Tom and Chick, and the first news Tom had that his mother Blanche had not left Manila with the Parsons family the previous year. Now Tom was designated as Chick’s right-hand man to set up a system in-country to receive and distribute the tons of supplies that would be coming in on more submarines from Australia as they became available for MacArthur’s purposes. Promoted to captain,Tom soon left on a mission back to Surigao province in eastern Mindanao with new boots, uniform, and the new carbine with folding stock that became his favorite rifle. He found the Martins elated at his return with all the news and took them up to a better hideout on Leyte to wait until they could be evacuated by submarine. Tom for a while then became chief of staff to Philippine army Colonel Ruperto Kangleon to help solidify control over the Leyte guerrillas, a fractious bunch.
Submarines had penetrated Japanese defenses to resupply Corregidor several times in 1942 before the island fell, in turn taking off important personnel, equipment and even the treasury of the Philippine government. They could certainly do the same anywhere in the 7,000 islands of the Philippines if suitable radio communications could be set up. It was just a question of obtaining use of the subs from the navy for these purposes. The navy was naturally more interested in sinking ships than using their limited number of fleet subs for cargo transport purposes in late 1942 and early 1943, but soon realized that coastwatcher radio stations set up by the guerrillas could alert submarines about potential targets steaming in and out of the Philippines. Thus began a successful but sometimes contentious partnership between the US army and US navy in resupplying the resistance in the Philippines. Between February, 1943, and late January, 1945, a total 41 missions by 19 different submarines delivered 1,325 tons of supplies, 331 guerrillas, radio operators and weathermen into the Philippines while evacuating 472 military personnel and civilians. It remains an amazing feat to this day.
When Chick completed his first mission in July, 1943, and reported back to MacArthur in Brisbane, the situation among various guerrilla factions throughout the islands became clearer, if not more frustrating. MacArthur and staff divided the Philippines into 10 military districts, each with a separate and independent command reporting to Australia. The large island of heavily populated Luzon was divided into five districts, Panay was designated district 6, Negros and Siquijor were district 7, Cebu and Bohol were district 8, Samar and Leyte were district 9, and all of Mindanao and Sulu were district 10 under Wendell Fertig, now reduced back a notch from brigadier general to colonel.
In this shifting mix it was Chick Parsons’ task to interview all the guerrilla groups, sorting out the serious and genuine leaders from the pretenders, the inept, and the corrupt. With his innate charm and much cajoling, Parsons was able to alternately appoint or sideline the various competing factions. His trump card was the obvious control he had over who got “The Aid” coming in by submarine, aid that everyone had been waiting for since Pearl Harbor and Clark Field.
The situation on Luzon was precarious. The first broadcast to Australia that there was any organized resistance after the surrender came from army Lieutenant Colonel Guillermo Nakar in northern Luzon, and it alerted MacArthur’s headquarters that there were indeed men who had not surrendered and were looking to be supported in any way possible. The problem on Luzon was that the best available intelligence later reported a total of 29 separate guerrilla organizations on the island, none of whom got along. As well, many of these so-called guerrillas were nothing more than bandits living off the land and exacting tribute from the Philippine populace to protect them from the Japs. Others were political opportunists looking to establish their rule and continue in power when peace returned, if it ever did.
The situation was confusing at best, especially as the Japs and their Kempeitai spy force had opened the doors of many jails in the country after the surrender in order to utilize grateful inmates as informers and collaborators. And bandits controlled some areas like Samar which the Japs left alone to an extent, compared to other areas, because there was no need to patrol an area not even genuine American and Filipino guerrillas cared to contest. And just as soon, informers in 1942 led the Japs to Nakar’s Luzon hideout and he and his group were publicly tortured and executed, ending one big source of trouble for the Japs and one great source of information for MacArthur in Australia.
On the other islands the situation was not much better, with some exceptions. On Panay, Major Macario Peralta reported by radio to Australia that he had over 8,000 men ready to fight, and that with only 1,000 rifles and 100,000 bullets he could drive the Japs off the island. On Mindoro, too close to Luzon and Manila, the situation was totally unknown. On Negros there was competition between Captain Abcede in the north of the island and Captain Ausejo in the south, Abcede supported by Peralta on nearby Panay and Ausejo by Fertig on nearby Mindanao. Cebu was still sorting out their situation with Jim Cushing and Harry Fenton, Americans who had split the military and administrative duties until Fenton was executed by his own men and Cushing took sole control. On Leyte there were competing factions, but Kangleon eventually won recognition from Australia as island commander. Bohol had another competition between factions, and the situation on Mindanao would take more time to bring all the self-appointed leaders together in a cohesive force.
Another important objective was to convince the various guerrilla groups that it was not a good idea to attack the Japs when their efforts could not be supported in force, attacks that only invited reprisals upon the civilian population. Better to lie low, get organized and collect and supply the intelligence on the enemy that MacArthur needed in order to eventually retake the islands. This took some persuasion inasmuch as most everyone was in the mood to attack the invaders where and when possible. Jim Cushing’s guerrilla force on Cebu got so proficient in ambushing Japanese convoys and patrols that by war’s end one observer estimated the unit had killed over 10,000 Japs, possibly more than all the other districts put together if it can be believed.
Chick Parsons went in and out of the Philippines on four separate submarine missions during the war, often being inserted by one submarine and extracted by another, capping his incredible exploits by coming in on a Catalina flying boat to Leyte just before the October 20th, 1944, reinvasion in order to warn the populace on and near the invasion beaches to head to the hills for safety from bombardment, while simultaneously doing the reconnaissance of the landing beaches for obstacles and Japanese-planted obstructions, and then getting the guerrillas under Kangleon ready to snuff out any Japs retreating from American forces.
In 1943 Tom Jurika was busy setting up coastwatcher stations and many a rendezvous with incoming submarines, devising an efficient and easily-recognized signal system from guerrillas on shore that submarine skippers appreciated. After Tom had brought Cap and Charlotte Martin out of hiding and put them aboard the submarine Narwhal in November, 1943, at Butuan, Mindanao, he took on the mission of leading a guerrilla team from Mindanao all the way to the tip of northern Samar and strategic San Bernardino Straits. Here he would install a coastwatcher named Gerald Chapman to monitor any Japanese merchant shipping or naval movements in this important passage through the Philippines between the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea. It was Chapman who eventually reported the Japanese navy moving through the straits on their way to annihilation in what became known as “the Marianas Turkey Shoot”.
Travelling by banca on the water and hiking overland when possible with his 10-man group, Tom passed through a succession of bandit guerrilla areas until he reached a remote spot 2,000 feet above Balicuatro Point that overlooked the straits. Here he installed the new radio brought in by submarine and set up Chapman with bodyguards and sentries to protect the operation. Testing the radio to establish contact with Australia and also Fertig in Mindanao, the first message that came back contained the news that Tom’s mother Blanche had just been rounded up in Manila with other members of an underground group of civilians who had been raising funds and supplies for the guerrillas outside Manila. The whole group had been betrayed by a Filipino traitor, a double-agent named Franco Vera Reyes, and they were now all imprisoned in Fort Santiago, often being tortured while awaiting trial.
Tom had never confided to anyone that until that moment he had planned to send the rest of his group back to Mindanao while he struck out alone and headed to Manila to find his mother and get her out of the city to safety. She had been permitted to stay outside Santo Tomas due to a medical dispensation by the Japs as a result of a mastectomy just before the war, one of those allied civilians in Manila that the Japs had allowed to try to survive on their own outside the confines of internment as long as their whereabouts and movements were known and authorized. Working as a volunteer at Emmanuel Hospital and Welfareville, her location was known to Tom via the guerrilla “bamboo telegraph”.
Tom had already walked across Mindanao and felt that he could travel by night and hide out by day all the way to Manila, an audacious plan that now had to be abandoned with the news that his mother was unreachable in the dungeons of Fort Santiago. So the group headed back the way they had come from Mindanao, again crossing through unfriendly bandit guerrilla territory until they reached the town of Llorente on the southeast coast of Samar. Here they crossed paths again with a bandit guerrilla group lead by a mestizo Filipino named Durrillo, a cashiered former soldier who had been a problem in the pre-war Philippine army. Durrillo had now cowed the population around Llorente into submission, extracting tribute and food harvests to keep the armed followers under his command satisfied with their lot.
On the trip north through Durrillo’s fiefdom Tom and his group had been warned about being in Durrillo’s jurisdiction without permission and not welcome to return. But all the new armament carried by Tom’s group which had recently come in by submarine was in stark contrast to the motley collection of arms possessed by Durillo and his gang of bandit guerrillas, and this was not lost upon Durrillo. When Tom and his five guerrillas arrived at Llorente on their way back to Mindanao, they were received in a display of camaraderie by Durrillo and invited to a feast in their honor in the local school house serving as Durrillo’s headquarters. It needs to be mentioned that Philippine public schools, as opposed to private schools, for the most part did not function during WWII and their vacant buildings were used by the Japs, guerrillas, and all sorts of people for various purposes.
Dinner was at a long table in the largest classroom, with each member of Tom’s group seated between a member of Durrillo’s gang. As co-equals, somewhat, Tom and Durrillo were seated side-by-side. Halfway through the meal, at a pre-arranged signal, the remainder of Durrillo’s men burst into the room and surrounded the table, guns pointed at Tom and his men, relieving them of their sidearms and the new carbines and Thompson submachine guns leaning against the wall. For the next ten minutes Tom and his men listened to Durrillo espouse his authority and displeasure with Tom’s group coming back through the area without permission. Now Durrillo would decide whether to execute them or let them go on without their arms. Either way it was a death sentence. Durrillo laughed and said that this might even be the equivalent of The Last Supper for Tom and his men, so why not enjoy the meal. There was no doubt by now in Tom’s mind that Durrillo was mentally unhinged, but Tom stayed calm, even playing along with the Last Supper joke much to Durrillo’s surprise. But what Durrillo didn’t know was that, tucked inside Tom’s waistband, in a custom-sewn pocket, was a small 7-shot .22 Marlin revolver that had been given to him by Dad Cleland in Cebu as Tom and Jim Cushing were blowing up the huge oil storage tanks near Cleland’s office at the Aboitiz Shipyards in Opon on Mactan Island across from Cebu City in April, 1942.
Tom had lost weight in the guerrillas and his shirt bloused out over his belt and totally hid the presence of the revolver which he then pulled out at the right moment, placing the barrel to Durrillo’s head. In moments the bandits were disarmed and Tom and his group got their weapons back. After destroying all of Durrillo’s guns, the bandit group was tied up and chained to the school flagpole in a great loss of face while the townfolk were summoned by the school bell to come hear the news. Tom informed the people who arrived that Durrillo and his men were no longer their master and that they could mete out whatever justice they deemed necessary, maybe even let them go, but the townsfolk had to decide the matter because Tom and his men were on their way and didn’t have time to stick around. Tom came away with Durrillo’s prized possession, a pearl-handled .38 semi-automatic pistol in a 1911 .45 housing. It was just too pretty to destroy, and as it turned out when he got the chance to fire it, the .38 was the most accurate pistol he had ever fired, much more accurate than a .45. So much so that when Tom went down the hatch of the submarine Narwhal a month later on his way to Australia, he took the pistol with him. Protocol usually called for anyone being extracted from the Philippines to give up their arms and ammo in order to arm another guerrilla who did not have a gun. But not in this case.
In contrast it should be mentioned that Chick Parsons never, or rarely, carried a gun with him on his missions, preferring instead to go unarmed in the disguise of a Filipino, at least a mestizo, what with his short stature, black hair, dark eyes and very tanned skin. Usually wearing a pair of old shorts, faded shirt, straw hat, and worn out rubber sneakers, Chick many times was mistaken for a Filipino, at least a mestizo, especially when imbedded in a group of natives. It was the perfect disguise, and he could pull it off time and again. Even a passing Japanese patrol on a jungle trail once filed right past Chick and some Filipino compatriots standing aside without giving them a second glance. But it was a very close call.
After Llorente, Tom’s group recovered the small sailing banca that they had hidden in a Samar coconut grove on their passage north and then headed south off the Leyte shoreline back to Mindanao. After a day of sailing and paddling they decided to put ashore on a stretch of deserted beach between two rocky headlands for a rest, especially as there was a Filipino fisherman on the beach who could possibly be a source of information. When queried if there were any Japs in the area, in his native dialect the man simply said “Yes, sir”. Where? Over there, sir. Where over there? Right around that headland there, sir. If you had continued another 100 yards on your path without stopping here on this beach, you would have run right into them. Maybe they are still there if you want to meet them?
Tom and his men raced to their banca and, as there was no wind, started paddling furiously out to sea. Getting out far enough to see back around the headland, there they were, a whole company of Japs bathing in the surf and on the beach, having a picnic. The Japs raced for their rifles and started firing at the banca. A few bullets splashed close to them, but by now they were safely away. Glad that the Japs had no boat of their own, after that they didn’t come ashore again until they reached familiar territory on northern Mindanao. Another day in the life of a guerrilla.
When Tom got back to Fertig’s headquarters, he was more than ever in the mood to take it to the enemy, especially now that they had his mother. But Australia had other plans and orders came by radio for Tom to go out on the next submarine. Tom protested strongly in his reply to Australia, saying he could do more good right where he was instead of in Australia. After several exchanges, back came the ultimatum, signed “MacArthur”, that Tom would be on that submarine, no more debate.
And so it was that Tom went down the hatch of the Narwhal with other evacuees in March, 1944, and arrived in Brisbane where he was immediately put into a hospital for a multitude of medical tests and a new diet. Incidentally, as he was enjoying his new surroundings and a promotion to captain, Tom was invited to be a fourth hand at bridge games on two occasions by Jean Faircloth MacArthur, a family friend who was always very solicitous and concerned about those evacuated from the Philippines.
As Tom learned, he was wanted in Australia because no one knew better what the guerrillas needed and how it had to be packed watertight and carried most efficiently by submarine into the Philippines. As well, the price tag placed on Tom’s head by the Japs was now second only to the bounty for Chick. Australia was concerned that someone would eventually inform on Tom’s whereabouts in order to get the reward and it was no longer worth the risk. For the rest of 1944 Tom operated from MacArthur’s headquarters wherever it happened to be located on the leapfrog advance up through New Guinea to Morotai and the landings at Leyte Gulf, loading submarines at spots like Hollandia and Mios Woendi.
When American forces landed at Leyte, both Tom and Chick arrived from different directions. Chick, now a lieutenant commander, came out of the bush on Leyte after this last mission and was picked up by a passing destroyer and taken to MacArthur’s headquarters. Tom, now an army major, arrived on a flight from Morotai after loading the last sub missions delivering supplies, these to guerrilla leaders Volckmann and Anderson in northern Luzon.
After the landings at San Jose, Mindoro, in mid-December, and the January 9th landings at Lingayen Gulf, Tom was flown up to the Lingayen landing beaches and called to MacArthur’s newly installed headquarters at Guimba the first night. Here he received orders from MacArthur to head for Manila on his own with an army truck, a driver, mechanic and machine gunner. He could attach himself to any unit he wanted to in case of emergency, but Tom was on his own to operate at will and figure out the best way to get to Manila either with, ahead of, or behind the flying column. He was to be part of the 15-member team in charge of administration at Santo Tomas once they got there, however they got there.
Early the next morning in the dark Tom left Guimba and headed down the highway with a column of tanks and jeeps. Up ahead the sound of fighting could be heard and traffic slowed to a crawl. As Tom was familiar with the routes through central Luzon, he had the driver turn off the road and drive through dry, flat rice paddies to the railroad that paralleled the highway to Manila. The first glow of dawn found them bumping unmolested over the railroad ties, headed south. But then up ahead, to everyone’s amazement an army jeep came into view, headed for them on the same railroad tracks. It was hard to believe anyone had gotten ahead of them, but at least they knew that the Japs possessed nothing like a jeep. They slowed down and waited for the jeep to approach them. With guns at the ready they waited, then looked through the jeep’s windshield to see an army driver at the wheel. Sitting in the right-hand seat next to the driver was Douglas MacArthur, out doing some reconnaissance of his own without a small force to protect him, not even photographers, at those times when he possibly deemed it superfluous. After an exchange of pleasantries, in obvious deference Tom had his driver move the truck off the tracks to allow the smaller jeep to pass. With only a salute, they were on their way south again.
The race to Santo Tomas was uneventful for the next 24 hours until they went through an area near Bilibid Prison in Manila where they were fired upon for the first time, fortunately no one being hit. They went through the blown gates of Santo Tomas at 6 AM on February 4th, eight hours after the first tanks had arrived. After setting up distribution of the food and supplies on his truck to the liberated internees, Tom went looking for his mother and then, still looking for her, he joined the group of infantry escorting the Japs from the Education Building through the streets of Manila to a point where they had agreed to part. In return, this set free the internee hostages the Japs had been holding at gunpoint in the Education Building. The Japs by contrast were not so lucky. Unforeseen to anyone involved in the negotiations, the Japs retreated right into a Filipino guerrilla force on the streets and were annihilated.
Right after the Leyte landings Chick Parsons had also gotten involved in directing an assault on Japanese garrisons in the towns of Malitbog and Maasin in southwest Leyte from the sea with two large landing craft outfitted with batteries of rocket launchers and guns for such close-in work in shallow water. The operations were a success, but Chick was exhausted and in the throes of a malaria attack which sent him back to the USA in November, 1944, to recuperate. In early 1945 Chick made it to Manila where he was warmly greeted by old friends at Santo Tomas but then discovered the tortured bodies of other friends who had been killed by the murderous Japs in their homes near the pre-war Parsons residence on Calle Roberts off Dewey Boulevard.
Tom’s search for word on his mother was proving fruitless in Manila so he joined the rescue of internees at Los Banos, coming across Laguna de Bay on one of the amphibious tractors that carried the prisoners to safety. At Los Banos he found his interned brother-in-law Bob Cecil, but still no word of Blanche. Bob Cecil had been an insurance executive for West Coast Life in Manila before the war and had stayed behind in 1941 while presciently sending his wife Sue and their three children back to the USA on the last President Lines ship to leave Manila in 1941. In 1942, Bob Cecil had been rounded up with the other allied nationals and taken to Santo Tomas where he was appointed the youngest member of the Executive Committee, in charge of sanitation, until he was transferred to Los Banos.
Tom was in charge of search teams looking for abductees and missing people, in the process finding the grave of the four members of the Santo Tomas Executive Committee who had earlier been taken from the internment camp by the Japs and never seen again. It wasn’t until many months later, after the surrender, that Tom was able to find the gravesites in North Cemetery in Manila where Blanche and thousands of other patriots had been beheaded or shot and then dumped into mass graves that the Japs took great pains to cover up and disguise. Blanche’s identified remains were interred with the other members of her resistance group in a monument erected in North Cemetery where she still lies today.
The guerrilla movement was indispensable in the retaking of the Philippines, supplying intelligence on Japanese positions and movements, blowing up bridges and other escape routes, and cutting down those Japs they found in numbers they could handle. There was no other guerrilla movement in all of Japanese-conquered Southeast Asia that can compare with their record, certainly not with their genuine affection for the Americanos who came back to liberate the country and set it on the road to independence.
But the guerrilla movement also suffered from much factionalism, jealousy, and with many using the movement as a way to settle old political scores. After the war it seemed as if every Filipino claimed to have been a guerrilla, and determining who had been and who had not been became a festering problem in awarding medals and back pay. Many people who had either been actual guerrillas, or who claimed to have been, made it their objective to pad the lists of bona fide guerrillas with their own family members and friends in order to gain patronage and favor and votes, not to mention generous back pay and reparations from an America whose military only wanted to go home. In a reverse process many genuine Filipino guerrillas who had given their all were removed from the lists of the deserving. And the question of who had been a collaborator with the Japs devolved into a murky mess, with unproven allegations and accusations while many others got off scot free after being traitors to their countrymen. The effects and ramifications have lasted to today.
Tom and Chick left their respective services in 1946 but remained in the Philippines to make their future. Both were amply recognized by Philippine and American forces, and indeed the ballroom in the US Embassy in Manila is today named the Charles “Chick” Parsons Memorial Ballroom in his memory.
And on that final note, I end my tale. Thank you very much.
Louis Lee Jurika