Post by VeeVee on Jan 25, 2008 15:49:03 GMT -5
www.amazon.com/Death-March-Survivors-Donald-Knox/dp/0156027844/ref=pd_bbs_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201288684&sr=8-3
I didn't know a new edition copy of this book sells for so much now. I retrieved my old copy of this book from the 80's.
It's still very gripping. My only disappointment is that the author who compiled the accounts chose to include only American memoirs with a slight emphasis on the Air Corps. While it showed many varied and eye-opening accounts, I feel it didn't really paint a balanced picture without Filipino accounts. After all, in Bataan the Filipinos did most of the fighting and the dying and occupied most of the frontlines. The tank corps may have done more than their fair share during the retreat but once in Bataan, the cannon fodder were the Filipinos.
It's in this book that I first encountered the mention of "V for Vacate" as a snide remark about Filipinos holding the V for Victory sign. Of course this was understandably conjured by those American tankers who found their Philippine Army infantry had abandoned them time and again during the retreat to Bataan. They did acknowledge that the Philippine Army consisted of raw recruits. And what can you expect of raw recruits whose first time to fire a rifle was on the job on the line during an actual attack?
Never mind that the whole B Company of the trained American 31st Infantry broke and ran during the Layac Junction engagement as soon as the Japanese attacked. Nobody mentioned that.
So because of lack of coverage, to the random reader the Philippine Army will come off as not amounting to anything. Never mind that the Battle of the Pockets was for the most part an all-Filipino show. It was tougher than the Battle of the Points that the Scouts fought in because the pockets required holding all sides of two Japanese pockets while preventing the frontline from caving in while the Japanese tried to rescue their surrounded pockets. Filipino soldiers did not bug out from that fight. In fact they delivered the coup de grace. None of the interviewees in the book knew or talked about it because none of them were there. They were in the rear echelon eating a little bit more food than the troops holding the frontlines. Some of the tankers were involved but only to a limited degree because the tanks were not very effective in the jungle. It was a rifles and grenades and bayonets kind of fight.
But this book is not really about the fight in Bataan but rather the march and the POW years, guerrilla activity and surviving until liberation, all the way to homecoming. So I guess there's a reason why only Americans were included in the interviews. They were the ones who had to suffer for 3+ years with the poignant stories of their return home. The Filipino POWs were released much earlier.
However here is a more or less fair quote/assessment by PFC Wilbrun Snyder, Medic, 31st Infantry:
I'm not being critical of them because I love the Filipinos, but the Philippine Army was the most ill-prepared bunch of men you can imagine. They were still drilling with wooden rifles when the war started. If you understand the Filipino people you know that they are not a fighting people. They love everybody. Suddenly they were expected to transform their character, and when you couple this with their being ill-equipped and untrained, you can understand why they couldn't do anything to help us in the fighting. When the Japs hit the beaches they just broke and ran. Now, the Philippine Scouts were different. They were part of the American Army and were tremendous fighters. Men who saw it told me that a unit of Scout Cavalry once rode up alongside the blind side of a Jap tank column and threw hand grenades down the open turrets. I don't know whether this is true or not, but I wouldn't doubt it because later I saw these Philippine Scouts fight.
Of course those Filipinos with any natural martial inclinations at that time had one way or another joined the Scouts as a career. Those who did not but had the smarts to boot, joined the PMA where they were even further weeded out. These PMA officers gave a good account of themselves in the Battle of the Pockets and throughout the war as guerrilla leaders.
This book is a good oral piece of history. However it's not a book about just Bataan. It's about the march, imprisonment, escape and guerrilla activity. It is a good complement for other history books about WW2 Philippines. I just feel a great deal was left off by including just American accounts.
I didn't know a new edition copy of this book sells for so much now. I retrieved my old copy of this book from the 80's.
It's still very gripping. My only disappointment is that the author who compiled the accounts chose to include only American memoirs with a slight emphasis on the Air Corps. While it showed many varied and eye-opening accounts, I feel it didn't really paint a balanced picture without Filipino accounts. After all, in Bataan the Filipinos did most of the fighting and the dying and occupied most of the frontlines. The tank corps may have done more than their fair share during the retreat but once in Bataan, the cannon fodder were the Filipinos.
It's in this book that I first encountered the mention of "V for Vacate" as a snide remark about Filipinos holding the V for Victory sign. Of course this was understandably conjured by those American tankers who found their Philippine Army infantry had abandoned them time and again during the retreat to Bataan. They did acknowledge that the Philippine Army consisted of raw recruits. And what can you expect of raw recruits whose first time to fire a rifle was on the job on the line during an actual attack?
Never mind that the whole B Company of the trained American 31st Infantry broke and ran during the Layac Junction engagement as soon as the Japanese attacked. Nobody mentioned that.
So because of lack of coverage, to the random reader the Philippine Army will come off as not amounting to anything. Never mind that the Battle of the Pockets was for the most part an all-Filipino show. It was tougher than the Battle of the Points that the Scouts fought in because the pockets required holding all sides of two Japanese pockets while preventing the frontline from caving in while the Japanese tried to rescue their surrounded pockets. Filipino soldiers did not bug out from that fight. In fact they delivered the coup de grace. None of the interviewees in the book knew or talked about it because none of them were there. They were in the rear echelon eating a little bit more food than the troops holding the frontlines. Some of the tankers were involved but only to a limited degree because the tanks were not very effective in the jungle. It was a rifles and grenades and bayonets kind of fight.
But this book is not really about the fight in Bataan but rather the march and the POW years, guerrilla activity and surviving until liberation, all the way to homecoming. So I guess there's a reason why only Americans were included in the interviews. They were the ones who had to suffer for 3+ years with the poignant stories of their return home. The Filipino POWs were released much earlier.
However here is a more or less fair quote/assessment by PFC Wilbrun Snyder, Medic, 31st Infantry:
I'm not being critical of them because I love the Filipinos, but the Philippine Army was the most ill-prepared bunch of men you can imagine. They were still drilling with wooden rifles when the war started. If you understand the Filipino people you know that they are not a fighting people. They love everybody. Suddenly they were expected to transform their character, and when you couple this with their being ill-equipped and untrained, you can understand why they couldn't do anything to help us in the fighting. When the Japs hit the beaches they just broke and ran. Now, the Philippine Scouts were different. They were part of the American Army and were tremendous fighters. Men who saw it told me that a unit of Scout Cavalry once rode up alongside the blind side of a Jap tank column and threw hand grenades down the open turrets. I don't know whether this is true or not, but I wouldn't doubt it because later I saw these Philippine Scouts fight.
Of course those Filipinos with any natural martial inclinations at that time had one way or another joined the Scouts as a career. Those who did not but had the smarts to boot, joined the PMA where they were even further weeded out. These PMA officers gave a good account of themselves in the Battle of the Pockets and throughout the war as guerrilla leaders.
This book is a good oral piece of history. However it's not a book about just Bataan. It's about the march, imprisonment, escape and guerrilla activity. It is a good complement for other history books about WW2 Philippines. I just feel a great deal was left off by including just American accounts.