Japan's Colonial Moment in Southeast Asia 1942-1945 by Nakano Satoshi

Japan's Colonial Moment in Southeast Asia 1942-1945 by Nakano Satoshi

Author:Nakano Satoshi [Satoshi, Nakano]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, General
ISBN: 9781351011471
Google: qz9sDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-10-03T04:46:53+00:00


Tactics promoting “wait and see”

At 7:30 in the morning on 24 April 1942, the “Hitomi Detachment” departed Manila for Baguio, the major urban center of northern Luzon [Watari Shūdan Hōdōbu 1996, ed. Vol. 1: 138]. On 9 April, Major General Edward P. King, the Commanding General of the Philippine-American forces in the Bataan Peninsula, had surrendered and on 7 May, after the fall of Corregidor, Lt. General Jonathan M. Wainwright had signed a document of surrender and issued a command to all USAFFE forces to lay down their arms. Although Colonel John P. Horan responded by surrendering his command of the northern Luzon district, there were those US-Philippine officers and troops in the insular regions who refused to surrender, marking the beginning of the USAFFE guerrilla movement. The Allied Forces Southwest Pacific Theater Command led by Douglas MacArthur, who had pledged a counterattack on the Philippines from Australia, was able to restore communications with these guerrillas by the end of 1943 and designated them as Allied forces “regulars.” Together with the weakening of Japan’s air and sea superiority, top secret supply lines were opened via submarines, and in a parallel development Hukbalahap launched an armed anti-Japanese resistance movement in central Luzon. It was in this way that the largest scale guerrilla movement in Southeast Asia unfolded on Philippine soil, which Hitomi was ordered to counter by means of “enemy straggler” capitulation operations in northern Luzon, a “hotbed” of guerrilla activity.

Upon their deployment to Baguio, the reports tell us, the Hitomi Detachment embarked on their usual “goodwill mission” activities. For example, on 29 April 1942, the detachment boarded their vehicles for a one-hour drive to the Benguet Consolidado mining operation, where they held one of their Festivals before an audience of 400 locals, featuring “oral presentations” by three Philippine presenters, five motion pictures (cartoons, a newsreel, “Elementary School in Japan,” “Japanese Industry” and “a Philippine drama”), printed leaflets, a photography exhibit and medical services (treating twenty-two patients) [ibid.: 148–50]. Come May, the detachment moved its base of operations from Baguio to the Ilocos region on the northwest coast of Luzon, where a “Japan-Philippine Goodwill Festival” was held in the southernmost town of Agoo, La Union, attended by about 800 locals. This entertainment-filled venue featured “oral presentations” by four presenters, interspersed with solo vocal and children’s and adult couples’ dance performances with piano and guitar accompaniment and a marching routine [ibid.: 159–60].

But as the detachment moved farther and farther north along the Ilocos coast, the festive atmosphere began to change in an area, which the Japanese forces had not yet fully pacified, and whose towns and villages were being “taxed” in kind by the USAFFE guerrillas in the form of foodstuffs. The detachment’s reports reveal a situation described as “anarchy and lawlessness,” touching upon one incident in particular indicating that things were going to get even worse. Accompanying the Hitomi Detachment was a contingent of US officers led by Colonel Nicoll F. Galbraith (a former USAFFE staff officer), who had been ordered



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