Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2021. xi, 370 pp. (Maps.) US$40.00, cloth. ISBN 9781682475690.
The guerrilla resistance movement in the Philippines has been the subject of numerous studies. However, most of these focus on one particular group, region, or leader. War and Resistance in the Philippines differs in that it attempts to provide, in one volume, a concise account of the entire movement, on a national scale. As such it is an important contribution to the published works on World War II in the Philippines, and on guerrilla resistance movements as a whole.
The author, James Kelly Morningstar, is a retired US Army officer who currently teaches military history at Georgetown. He has clearly devoted much time and effort in trying to understand this complex field.
The book begins with a background of how the Philippines became involved in World War II, with an extremely brief overview of developments during previous historical eras. This is followed by eight chapters depicting the major epochs of the war in the Philippines and the development of the guerrilla resistance movement. He points out the near spontaneity of anti-Japanese resistance, unification problems, Japanese countermeasures, and external assistance. Various guerrilla successes are highlighted, amidst the threat of Japanese spies and communications difficulties. The book ends with a very brief chapter on guerrilla activities during liberation campaigns (1944–1945), and a carefully written conclusion.
The author does succeed in presenting the multi-faceted experience of war and resistance from a national perspective, bringing out American, Japanese, and Filipino narratives. It is to the author’s credit that so much information is contained in this book, yet without becoming overwhelming.
A chronological narrative is used throughout, which allows the reader to follow what was occuring in different areas of the Philippines at the same time. However, using a strictly chronological frame has its pitfalls, since not all areas experienced the Japanese invasion simultaneously. Some islands were spared a Japanese military presence for months, while others became centres of fighting early on. The development of resistance movements faced similar problems and birth pains, but at different time periods.
Chapter subsections are divided by dates and geographical locations. The author’s use of days as counters proves confusing, as the text sometimes does not provide the specific date for events in the text. It might have been easier to simply provide the day-month-year. The author is at his best when citing from archival primary material. His use of Wendell Fertig’s diary, and Donald Blackburn’s oral history, are important new contributions, as are quotations from guerrilla reports and comments by staff officers.
Perhaps the weakest part of the book is the introduction. The author tries to sum up the Philippine colonial experience and the road to war in a scant nine pages, and in so doing pays more attention to the Japanese decision for war rather than Philippines’ defensive preparations. A cursory reading of Philippine history will show that Filipino resistance to foreign invaders had always been there, from the time the first Spaniards set foot in the Philippines, through the Spanish colonial years, and even against American control, which came in 1899. Much of this resistance was localized and took the form of guerrilla warfare. Thus, the anti-Japanese guerrilla movement can be seen as a continuum, and not something that emerged only during World War II. Also, the period just prior to the war—the Philippine Commonwealth period—saw a nationwide defense scheme put into effect, under the guidance of Gen. Douglas MacArthur. This was of limited use in the actual defense of the Philippines, but it did provide the structure for the organized guerrilla forces.
No work of this magnitude can encompass all the different guerrilla organizations, leaders, successes, and failures. The author himself acknowledges this in his Preface, wherein he states that the book will “provide a basis for a fuller discussion of resistance during war as experienced in the Philippines during World War II.”
The author succeeds in telling the story from an overall point of view. Some important guerrilla units, such as the Hunters ROTC guerrillas, are hardly discussed and the reader is left wishing for more, especially since many of the major organizations have already been covered in detailed studies.
The book could have benefitted from proofreading by someone with knowledge of Philippine names and places, since there are numerous misspellings. Several Japanese names are misspelled as well, and the author confuses given names with family names, particularly in the bibliography and notes.
There are some factual errors in the text. For example, Prime Minister Tojo is alleged to have visited the Philippines in March 1942, a misquote from the original source. Prime Minister Tojo first visited the Philippines in May 1943. It was Gen. Fort who was at the head of the prisoners of war column in Mindanao, not Gen. Short. Gen. Yamashita never did declare Manila an Open City in 1945: Yamashita was approached several times by President Laurel to spare Manila, but Yamashita argued that he did not possess the authority to do so. There are several other examples, but these are relatively minor.
This is an important book, and the author’s conclusions are sound. His appraisals of some of the guerrilla leaders and their claims are logical, and obviously the result of much research. The difficulty of unifying guerrilla groups is very well presented, as is the revelation that some guerrilla intelligence networks had promising potential but were unexploited.
Ricardo T. Jose
University of the Philippines, Diliman