When was the guerrilla war

I, myself, fortunately never had to undergo that, and I was never close enough to observe them doing this. But I am confident that it did go on, because these people would report back to me. Gustavo Ingles: Oh, they started with punching us in the body.

For me And I pretend, of course, that I felt very bad about it, but so long as I can withstand it, I withstand it. Then, when they are through punching you, they started tying you, and if you ever [admit] you are committing any campaign or raid against a Japanese detachment, that's where you are subjected to further punishment, like water cure, electrocution, hanging by the thumbs with your toes barely touching the ground and then swinging you left and right until you are set.

Ingles: Yeah. Sometimes above. Sometimes at the back. I don't mind being hung, but when they swing you, particularly when your thumb is hanging, but your back In fact, up to now, [I still] have difficulty.

Although they were essentially on their own, those in the guerrilla movement did all they could to stay in touch with MacArthur's headquarters throughout the war.

Communication and supplies were severely limited, but what little came through proved vital. Interviewer: And when you were a guerrilla, were you in touch with MacArthur? Were you aware that he was planning to come back? Ingles: Well, it was like this. Long before, when we went up to the hills, we had to put up some sort of different radio system, and the first ones were complete failures.

And we had been sending them intelligence reports from Luzon by couriers. That's how we were able to maintain close contact with them. Ingles: That the Americans are coming back, as promised by MacArthur, and we had already been receiving messages before that. Take the case of, "I shall return" cigarettes, sent by submarine. We have a small pack of cigarettes, Chelsea, Camel Edwin Ramsey We were in a constant state of hoping.

We were receiving what information we had by submarine, mostly. And the intelligence units that were being sent in from MacArthur, with radios and so on, were coming up by submarine. And unfortunately, they had a very difficult time to get to me, because I was in the central Luzon, which was the reserve area for the Japanese Southwest Pacific Forces.

So, there was never less than , - , Japanese in my area, up to three-quarters of a million. So that, as soon as we got our radios, this was like a life line, we knew that then, it was only a matter of a relatively short time before they would come back in. And, this was a godsend as far as morale was concerned. They also sent in with us chocolate bars, and on the outside was the American and Filipino flags crossed, and it says, "I shall return - MacArthur.

Unfortunately, if they were caught with it, they would be killed. But, they didn't mind it. Interviewer: Did you have a sense that MacArthur was going to come back? Leon Beck: Oh, we always thought so. It was only a question of time. We knew that we would overwhelm the Japanese some day. I didn't think it was going to ever take that long, but I never lost hope. If I had, I'd probably surrendered, like all the rest of them did.

Beck: Hmm -- hopes, dreams, rumors and, I never lost hope, no. I always thought enough of America that some day our army would be back there to get us. Interviewer: What if they hadn't come back and they bypassed the Philippines?

What would you have done? Beck: Well, the thought never entered my mind that they would bypass it. MacArthur said, "I shall return" and I thought that was the truth. And when he landed on Leyte, the light came on that he's back in the Philippines and it's only a question of time until they get to us. After I was out of the service in , I was on a business trip to Tokyo. We spent almost an hour sitting in his headquarters, at the Dai Ichi Building in Tokyo, which was his headquarters, just going over all of the things that had gone on during the war.

And he told me at that time, that the activities of the guerrilla forces, mine and others, had saved tens of thousands of American lives, because the Japanese were never able to put up a single major defensive position, from Lingayen Gulf, all the way to Manila.

Well, we put up five, in the original attack [in ] Because if you will just stop and think psychologically, if you're being attacked from the front, by regular forces, and irregular forces are behind you, cutting your communications and shooting at you, from the rear, you're not of a mind to stay there and keep it up.

And they didn't Although statistics never tell the whole story, this one goes a long way in describing what life was like for POWs in the Philippines: two out of every three soldiers alive at the time of the surrender did not live to see the end of the war.

Although it's impossible to find exact figures, roughly half of the 24, Americans and nearly three-quarters of the 64, Filipino troops died during the Japanese occupation. Most of them died while POWs in one of the many wretched prison camps spread throughout the Philippines and in labor camps in Japan. Water became a very scarce commodity. And getting on a water line was quite a feat.

They would shut it off after a certain length of time. So, many men went without water. Water was brought in from a creek nearby for cooking purposes. But the water itself in the camp, you were desperate for. You couldn't get it. You had some people would crash the line and fill up cans for their friends and And so those who just followed the order and lined up for the water, sometimes just didn't get any water, period.

For days. Water was a scarce commodity in O'Donnell. Interviewer: Why didn't the Japanese treat you better? Gordon: Why didn't they treat us better? I wish I could answer for the Japanese. I think they were totally unprepared for what they had to handle Their outlook of a prisoner of war was that they held you in nothing but contempt. If you surrendered, you were dishonorable. So if you were dishonorable, why should we worry about you or take care of you? You don't deserve anything better than what we're giving you.

And so the Japanese philosophy, we were never prisoners of war initially. We were captives. A big, fine distinction they drew there. You were a captive of the Japanese army. They could do with you what they want. They didn't have to abide by any rules because there were no rules. There is a common misconception regarding the experiences of two different groups of American POWs. As described above, those captured with the bulk of the Luzon Force on Bataan -- already in terrible condition after the long siege -- were then subjected to the aptly named Death March, which ended at Camp O'Donnell.

In early June, most of them were then transferred to the camp at Cabanatuan, where they were joined by the men from Corregidor, which had surrendered on May 7. Although hardly in great shape themselves, the men from Corregidor had enjoyed better rations and avoided the Death March, putting them in a better position to withstand the rigors of the camps.

The relative survival rates of the two groups bear this out. Richard Gordon: I was left behind at O'Donnell when they moved them, the main body of prisoners from there, on the 6th of June , to another camp called Cabanatuan. And I was left behind on the burial detail. To bury those sick, those expected to die -- they knew wouldn't live.

And in about a month's time, our job was finished up. And then on the 5th of July of , I was taken to Cabanatuan as well. And that's when we would run into Corregidor prisoners for the very first time. This belief that's been sworn by some historians that Corregidor made the [Death] March [is] of course totally inaccurate.

That's where I first met with Corregidor people. And they were in pretty good shape. They were not diseased when they were captured, they hadn't suffered the March, they hadn't suffered the starvation that Bataan had. So they were pretty good, health- wise, good condition in that regard. And that's where we met them, as I say. Gordon: There are many, many stories could be told about the guards in both those camps, of being brutal and mistreating. If a prisoner escaped I can recall the second camp, Cabanatuan, uh, I thought it was a Filipino.

It was an American Indian. They beheaded the individual. They put his head on a pole and they walked up and down the main road in the camp so we could all see what happened to an escaped prisoner. If you escaped in Cabanatuan, they took out nine men from your squad and shot all nine of them.

And they did that. So as a result, we had people agreeing not to escape because it would mean the lives of other people. We had squads made up of ten people and I've got-- well, I remember people signing certificates they would not escape. Guerrillas, who had the advantage of surprise and knowledge of the territory, were nearly impossible to catch and efforts to capture them only distracted soldiers from fighting the Confederate army.

Their inability to stop the guerrillas who continued to destroy Union supplies and kill Union men encouraged a growing dislike among Northern soldiers for the Southern population from which the guerrillas came. Union commanders began to hold civilians responsible for the actions of guerrillas, often by burning homes and communities, arresting civilian non-combatants, and in some cases evacuating entire counties.

By , the guerrilla war throughout the South had become confused, bloody, and disorganized. The Union Army had ceased to tolerate guerrillas, and met their attacks unhesitatingly with retaliation. Civilians, exhausted by the violence in their communities and hopeful of preventing Federal retaliation against their homes, lost their support for the guerrilla movement and it soon began to die out.

Despite the significant role that guerrillas played during the war, academically they have received very little attention. Early Civil War historians characterized guerrillas as interesting yet irrelevant, and as a result the importance of guerrillas during the Civil War has been largely understated.

Today, however, historians are beginning to recognize the role that guerrillas played in shaping both the outcome of the war and wartime society. Guerrillas, whether they fought as bushwhackers, jayhawkers, or partisan rangers, influenced both the Confederate home front and Union military policy, and proved to be important, if slightly overlooked, figures in the American Civil War.

Ash, Stephen V. Grimsley, Mark. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Mackey, Robert R. Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press, Sutherland, Daniel E. Learn More: Logistics of the Civil War. Civil War Article. Guerrilla Warfare. Hometown heroes and villains. By Kara E.

Kozikowski Guerrilla's raid a Missouri town. Library of Congress Throughout the American Civil War, as vast armies in blue and gray clashed on conventional battlefields, a drastically different kind of conflict was raging as well: a bloody guerrilla war that erupted in the South in response to Federal invasion. Wikimedia Commons Several different kinds of guerrillas emerged during the Civil War. Quantrill and his men raid Lawrence, Kansas. Library of Congress Guerrillas and partisan rangers in the east, however, focused their attention on harassing the Yankee invaders, and soon emerged as a real and constant threat to the Union army.

Taylor The efforts of guerrillas to antagonize the Union army were undeniably successful. Sources: Ash, Stephen V. Related Articles. View All Related Resources. Explore Guerrilla Warfare Bushwhackers and Jayhawks. John Singleton Mosby.