Post by EXO on Jul 12, 2010 14:00:37 GMT 8
Corregidor - The End of The Line by Eric Morris contains a few stories which, well, I am uncomfortable with. So I have taken to rereading it with a critical eye.
I had a book on the Philippine Army but I don't think it survived the flood here, so I ask this of those who do have references intact.
Morris mentions that prisoners from Bilabid in Manila were transferred to Corregidor "on the outbreak of war." So the story goes,
(Quotation is from his Chapter X Sub-chapter2, of Sat, April 11, 1942.)
Seems implausible to me - such a wholesale turncoat recruiting could occur only after the Japanese had taken Manila, and in that instance, surely it would be no great propaganda plum at all! After all, the Philippines would have fallen first! As reality unfortunately showed, there was no lack of smarmy collaborators ready to be obsequious to the Japanese, to become their friends, to print their propaganda whether it be true or false, and to protect their commercial interests if they possibly could. Under such circumstances, the recruiting of a bunch of Bilabids doesn't seem to amount to a "hill of beans."
Certainly not enough to put an extra strain on the rations on Corregidor.
If this was an example of the way that "the authorities" were thinking in December, no wonder defeat was a certain eventuality. I prefer to believe that it is just another example of some dubious hearsay creeping into Corregidor's past via the inability to verify the report. But as my wife never ceases to remind me, the singular time I ever was right was in marrying her...
Does anyone have a view on this report by Morris?
I had a book on the Philippine Army but I don't think it survived the flood here, so I ask this of those who do have references intact.
Morris mentions that prisoners from Bilabid in Manila were transferred to Corregidor "on the outbreak of war." So the story goes,
"The prisoners were remnants of the Philippine Scout detachments who had mutinied some few years back and had been tried, sentenced and confined in Bilabid. Featful lest such men be recruited into an anti-American Army, and not wishing to present the Japanese with such a ripe propaganda plum, the authorities had then removed them to a stockade on Corregidor on the outbreak of war."
(Quotation is from his Chapter X Sub-chapter2, of Sat, April 11, 1942.)
Seems implausible to me - such a wholesale turncoat recruiting could occur only after the Japanese had taken Manila, and in that instance, surely it would be no great propaganda plum at all! After all, the Philippines would have fallen first! As reality unfortunately showed, there was no lack of smarmy collaborators ready to be obsequious to the Japanese, to become their friends, to print their propaganda whether it be true or false, and to protect their commercial interests if they possibly could. Under such circumstances, the recruiting of a bunch of Bilabids doesn't seem to amount to a "hill of beans."
Certainly not enough to put an extra strain on the rations on Corregidor.
If this was an example of the way that "the authorities" were thinking in December, no wonder defeat was a certain eventuality. I prefer to believe that it is just another example of some dubious hearsay creeping into Corregidor's past via the inability to verify the report. But as my wife never ceases to remind me, the singular time I ever was right was in marrying her...
Does anyone have a view on this report by Morris?