The Blood and Mud in the Philippines: Anti-Guerrilla Warfare on Panay Island
Chapter 2–Fierce Fighting
(The start of Captain Toshimi Kumai’s experiences in Panay)
Seige of the Santa Barbara Garrison
The Pototan withdrawal heightened the troops’ fears of the guerrillas and caused the deterioration of the unit’s morale. The next assignment of the Kawano unit of the 3rd Company, to which I belonged, was to replace the occupying forces at the Santa Barbara garrison. We did that in late October without any guerrilla attack. The garrison was at a former elementary school in Santa Barbara, 20 kilometers north of lloilo City. The Concrete school building was along the main road. There was an athletic field on the east, rice fields to the south, a coconut grove 60 meters to the north and northwest, and a plateau on the west where a golf curse and a leprosarium were located. It was the last remaining Japanese garrison of the Seno unit outside of lloilo City and, inevitably, a primary target for the guerrillas.
Before dawn, one day early in November, two heavy machine guns set at the garrison’s main gate suddenly started to fire. We heard voices of the enemy on the road between the shooting and we jumped to our position in our underwear. The attack lasted for days. In the tropical climate, corpses deteriorated after half a day. Therefore, we cremated the bodies at the school grounds at night
under enemy fire. The enemy was thus aware of the casualties we sustained. We sent daily reports of the results to the battalion headquarters and they reluctantly decided to send reinforcements to the garrison. A detachment led by the unit commander himself left Iloilo for the relief of Santa Barbara. This was made up of 250 soldiers from the headquarters–the 1st Company and a platoon led by Second Lieutenant Toyota of the 3rd Company.
However, guerrillas ambushed the relief force between Pavia and Santa Barbara, killing nine mud-covered soldiers, including the veteran Sergeant Gunji. Despite serious damage, the relief force managed to reach the Garrison. On seeing the unit commander in mud-covered boots, the armed guard at the main gate hurriedly saluted him. Major Fukutome shouted. ‘How dare you! It is dangerous for me when you salute like that. It tells the enemy that I am the commander!’ Anxious and broken down with fear and fatigue, he collapsed into the chair at the company commander’s office. He was in no condition to either listen to our report or be appreciative of our service. Seeing the commander of the Panay garrison in such shape made me feel desperate aboul the future.
Soon after, NCOs (kashikan) and soldiers (heishi) of the 1st Company hastily staggered into the garrison shouting. ‘Creosote, creosote!” Mud was all over them. Evidence of the fierceness of their encounter. The company had attacked the guerrillas on the plateau west of the main road and pushed on until they reached the leprosarium. At the hospital, the combat-weary and thirsty soldiers quickly drank from water containers. The Filipino patients tried to stop them. calling out, ‘Leper, leper!’ However, the soldiers only realized the significance of their warning after they had drank water from those containers. That was why they wanted creosote to wash out what they had just taken in.
Later on. Major Fukutome told them, ‘Since there is not enough manpower, I will not he able to come so often to reinforce your defense. You yourselves should take courage and perform your duty. He then distributed Shinto medallion charms to each of the officers. We were disheartened on receiving the amulets, aware that this was headquarters’ response to the guerrilla attacks.
The worst experience of the reinforcement operations fell on Second Lieutenant Toyota and his detachment of more than 30 men. Guerrillas ambushed them near Barrio Buyo in Santa Barbara along the Aganan River. Outnumbered, Private First Class Namba was killed and 12 others were injured as they battled for a day and a half. Since they were running out of bullets, they hurriedly cut an arm off Namba’s corpse and buried his body as they managed to withdraw. Some days afterward, under the watch of the Jaro garrison, the guerrillas dug out the corpse of Private First Class Namba and suspended it on a leg of a bridge over the Jaro River. We felt outraged at this insult to the dead since it demonstrated how strongly the guerrillas hated the Japanese Army. It made us feel the cruelty of the war, yet we also got ready to retaliate on the guerrillas we would come across.
From experience, we knew that it was disadvantageous and dangerous for us to remain confined in the hot galvanized iron sheet-roofed building. As a result, scout patrols of a squad, and eventually a platoon, were dispatched into the surrounding coconut groves and the main streets of Barbara. A shot on the chest killed my–subordinate, Sergeant
Okazaki, the bravest member if the company along with Private First Class Komamura. Most houses were burned down and the local residents had run away.
The attacks by the guerrillas became less frequent; but when they did so from time to time, they attacked fiercely. The unit commander’s nervous breakdown kept getting worse and he would yell at everybody. Major Fukutome made himself an object of laughter since he had soldiers guard his accommodations. Eventually, fed up with the situation, Captain Watanabe requested the Visayas garrison headquarters at Cebu that a psychiatrist should examine the commander. As a result, the unit commander left Japan for tnree months after his assignment to the 37th IIB. Thereafter, he became an officer attached to the Rikugun Yonen Gakko (Military Youth Academy). In the absence of the commander, Captain Watanabe served as the battalion’s Deputy Commander.
The Start of the Japanese Army’s Mopping-up Operations
By November of 1942, the organization of the Japanese Army in Panay in lloilo City was made up of the garrison headquarters and the 1st’ and 4th companies of the 37th IIB. For Iloilo province, based at the Santa Barbara garrison, the rnain force was the 3rd Company; for Antique province. there were three companies of the Senô unit in San Jose. The areas under the control of the Japanese Army were Iloilo City, a portion ot Santa Barbara, and the areas around San Jose and Capiz.
The Japanese Army headquarters in Manila decided to carry out mopping-up operations (kantei sakusen) in Panay with additional troops. Tie supplementary forces consisted of a platoon equipped with four M3 light tanks captured from the US Army in Bataan and a field artillery platoon from the 16th Division with two attached artillery pieces. Our unit was in charge of !he area west of the road from Iloilo City to Pototan through Zarraga. Two companies from the 63rd Line of Communications garrison unit (Heitan)’ were sent to support !he operation and were responsible for the area eust of that same road. The 38th IlB’s Kinoshita unit, mobilized in Saigon in French Indochina, was in charge of most
of Capiz since January 1943 while the Senô unit was in command of Antique. In addition to these forces were several planes from one company of Ihe Army Air Force as well as the Karatsu —. a salvaged gunboat captured from the US Navy–and a few landing craft from port headquarters.
The Visayas Garrison Unit commander, Major General Yasushi Inoue, moved his combat headquarters from Cebu City to Iloilo City and directly managed the operations. Deputy Battalion Commander Captain Kengo Watanabe, also the Operations and Intelligence chief took over the command of our battalion.
Captain Watanabe was not one of the graduates of the Imperial Military Academy for whom positions of high rank were within easy reach. He had emerged from the recruiting course designed by the Army through compulsory military training for ordinary high school students. By the time that he was 34 or 35 years old, he had become a captain. He gained further importance through recognition by the Army General Staff in Tokyo. Having taken part in the Manchurian incident, the China Incident and the siege of Bataan peninsula, he was the most experienced officer in the Panay battalion. The strategy he adopted was forceful and reckless much like his personality and physical strength. He was the battalion’s Deputy Commander prior to the arrival of Lieutenant Colonel Ryoichi Tozuka.
In the first phase ol the mopping-up operations that started on November 20, 1942, the Japanese Army captured the town of San Miguel northwest of lloilo City, the towns of Cabatuan, Janiuay, Maasin (including Daja, three kilometers west of Maasin and the water supply source for Iloilo City), and finally, the town of Alimodian. However, the guerrillas set fire to these towns before abandoning them.
The battles between guerrilla forces and Japanese garrisons also went on across the eastern plain of Iloilo province–in rice fields. jungles, plains, and hills. Japanese soldiers did not have enough sleep or rest, taking only a few days’ rest in Iloilo City. By early December, they proceeded to the western part of Iloilo province to capture the towns of Leon, Tigbauan, and Guimbal. There were not as many guerrillas here as expected. Japanese soldiers also burned down these towns before leaving. After the mopping-up on the Iloilo plains, the soldiers once more took some rest in the city. (To be continued)
