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On a Mountainside, by Malcolm Decker

Following the surrender of Filipino and American forces on Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines early in the fifth month of the Japanese onslaught that plunged the United States into World War II, a small group of dedicated American fighting men refused to accept defeat. Some took refuge immediately in the jungles and mountains of Luzon, others did so after escaping from the infamous Death March, and a very few joined up after fleeing from various POW camps. Initially totaling around 400 men, only half would survive three years of Japanese occupation.

Some of these escapees attempted to ride out the conflict in hiding. However, a courageous few rallied together to organize guerrilla resistance to the cruel Japanese occupation. One of these heroic men was Doyle Decker. Doyle's son, Malcolm Decker, a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, is finally telling his father's story, and doing so in fine fashion.

On a Mountainside is a chronicle of courage and perseverance. It traces the escape of U.S. Army Private Doyle Decker and several others from the Bataan Death March, their finding refuge among the rural Filipino population, and, finally, their joining a fledgling American-led guerrilla initiative which organized armed resistance by forming the 155th Provisional Guerrilla Battalion, manned primarily by the tiny Negrito tribesmen. The Negritos were a primitive group of pygmies similar to Australian aborigines. Their presence in the Philippines predates the arrival of the ethnically Malay groups from which most Filipinos are descended. They also proved to be excellent at guerrilla warfare.

Doyle Decker, orphaned at nine, dropped out of school at twelve to earn his keep wandering from farm job to ranch job, often working for no more than room and board. Joining the U.S. Army during the Great Depression, he followed a route out of poverty taken by many before and since. This undereducated farm boy could not have foreseen that this enlistment would lead to three years of living like a hunted animal as he fought off disease, avoided Japanese patrols, and helped organize a Negrito guerrilla resistance army. It is a wonder he survived, but survive he did and was promoted to a leadership position in the guerrilla battalion. When General Douglas MacArthur finally led U.S. forces back to Luzon, Doyle and his fellow officers positioned the 155th Provisional Guerrilla Battalion in a successful blocking action that prevented many Japanese from escaping into the Zambales Mountains and inflicted heavy casualties on those who did.

In writing his book, Malcolm Decker leaned heavily on conversations with his father and Bob Mailheau, his father's close friend and comrade in the guerrilla resistance. He also conducted considerable historical research. Written in narrative form and using dialogue developed through these personal conversations, the author gives an intimacy to the story that might otherwise have been lacking. The book is certain to induce a patriotic glow in its readers. It is a moving tribute to sustained courage in the face of almost unimaginable adversity. The timing of its publication is particularly appropriate as our country, being tested yet again, has placed large numbers of its sons and daughters in harms way in foreign lands.

Review by: JMHoulahan:3/23/04
Decker, Malcolm. On a Mountainside: The 155th Provisional Guerrilla Battalion Against the Japanese on Luzon. Las Cruces, New Mexico, Barbed Wire Publishing, 2004. Pp. 256, incl. bibliography, 4 pp. notes, 6 maps plus photos, drawings. ISBN: 1-881325-74-1. SRP: $25.00
Order on BarbedWire.com.

Bataan Diary, by Chris Schaefer

Chris Schaefer's extremely readable Bataan Diary: An American Family in World War II, 1941-1945 is a well-documented story of resistance and survival during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines.

Built around the World War II diaries kept by Major Frank Riley Loyd and his wife, Evelyn, the book chronicles the difficult struggle of Frank Loyd, half-starved and seriously ill, sheltering in a series of jungle hideouts. Then, as MacArthur's return approaches, he joins the guerrilla war.

Another dimension is added by an occasional chapter detailing the stateside fears and frustrations of Evelyn, not knowing if her husband was still alive, while she immerses herself in supporting the war effort.

However, the book is more than the combined diaries of the Loyds. It also examines the larger war effort in the Pacific and the involvement of other Americans and Filipinos, many of them Philippine Scouts, in the anti-Japanese guerrilla movement on Luzon. It contains interesting information on commando infiltration teams, both Filipino and American, sent in by submarine to help shore up the resistance movement. It also examines in some detail prison camp conditions and the brutal counter intelligence activities of the dread Japanese Kempei-tai.

The book begins with the idyllic tropical existence of the Loyds during nearly a year and a half of pampered and languid duty in peacetime Manila. He was Provost Marshall at Fort McKinley and she taught fourth grade at the base school. American officers in this peacetime army worked half days and spent their evenings socializing with other military families. Training and equiping of the Philippine Army also proceeded at a leisurely pace, which would have important ramifications when war broke out.

As U.S.-Japanese relations deteriorated in the summer of 1941, this colonial idle ended as military families, including Evelyn and the two children, were sent back to the United States. In late July, the Japanese invaded French Indo China and the U.S., Britain and the Netherlands embargoed all trade with Japan, cutting off the flow of oil, rubber and other strategic material needed by the Japanese to sustain their conquest of China. War now appeared inevitable.

Shortly following the devastating Japanese surprise air assaults on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines in early December, a Japanese invasion force landed on Luzon and forced the Filipino and American troops to retreat to defensive positions on Bataan and Corregidor. Four months later, when Bataan surrendered, Major Loyd was among the small group of American and Filipino military men who escaped to nearby mountains and jungles. Most of these men, including Frank Loyd, spent many months surviving at a subsistence level thanks to the courageous generosity of the local Filipino population.

Eventually Frank and many others would join guerrilla groups, the nucleus of which was organized by American officers put in place by General MacArthur before the surrender. Most of these guerrilla leaders and about half of the approximately 400 Americans who joined them would not survive the war.

In recounting the failures and successes of these guerrilla units, Schaefer also examines the indigenous civilian intelligence network in Manila, which consisted predominantly of upper class Filipinos. Many of these civilian patriots also did not survive the war, as the Japanese successfully infiltrated the movement.

Another interesting feature of the book is a description of the infighting among the various guerrilla leaders, as they vied to assert command over each other and to expand their geographic sway. Although largely ego-driven, this also was the result of a need to claim scant resources in manpower and civilian support. Further complicating the resistance mix, were the Communist-led Hukbalahap, who, when not fighting the Japanese, often clashed violently with American-led guerrilla groups.

Despite the burdens of hunger, disease, scarce resources, infighting and the depredations of the Japanese, sufficient guerrilla forces were mobilized and trained to form a very useful auxiliary force when MacArthur returned to liberate the Philippines. An important component of these guerrilla groups was the Philippine Scouts, superbly-trained Filipino soldiers who comprised the majority of the regular U.S. Army's infantry and cavalry troops in the Philippines. (The Scouts should not be confused with the Philippine Army troops, who were mostly conscripts and not nearly as well trained.) Rallying to the cause in large numbers, the Scouts were crucial in the training of other Filipinos in guerrilla warfare. The Scouts themselves proved as adept at guerrilla warfare as they had been in their heroic defense of Bataan and Corregidor during the early months of the war.

An attractive feature of the book is its map collection, which helps the reader visualize where the action took place. Indeed, with its maps, bibliography, extensive endnotes, and lengthy index, this book is a useful reference tool for more serious students of World War II guerrilla warfare on Luzon. As such it is an excellent companion volume to Malcolm Decker's On a Mountainside, reviewed above.

Reviewed by J. Michael Houlahan
Schaefer, Chris. Bataan Diary. Riverview Publishing, Houston, Texas, 2004. Pp. 434, incl. 60 pp. endnotes, extensive bibliography and index, as well as 5 maps and 12 pp. of photos. ISBN: 0-9761084-0-2. SRP: $14.95, paperback available through either www.bataandiary.com or amazon.com.

Escape From Davao
The Forgotten Story of the Most Daring Prison Break of the Pacific War
By John D. Lukacs

On April 4, 1943, ten American prisoners of war and two Filipino convicts executed a daring escape from one of Japan’s most notorious prison camps. The prisoners were survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March and the Fall of Corregidor, and the prison from which they escaped was surrounded by an impenetrable swamp and reputedly escape-proof. Theirs was the only successful group escape from a Japanese POW camp during the Pacific war. Escape from Davao is the story of one of the most remarkable incidents in the Second World War and of what happened when the Americans returned home to tell the world what they had witnessed.

Davao Penal Colony, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, was a prison plantation where thousands of American POWs toiled alongside Filipino criminals and suffered from tropical diseases and malnutrition, as well as the cruelty of their captors. The American servicemen were rotting in a hellhole from which escape was considered impossible, but ten of them, realizing that inaction meant certain death, planned to escape. Their bold plan succeeded with the help of Filipino allies, both patriots and the guerrillas who fought the Japanese sent to recapture them. Their trek to freedom repeatedly put the Americans in jeopardy, yet they eventually succeeded in returning home to the United States to fulfill their self-appointed mission: to tell Americans about Japanese atrocities and to rally the country to the plight of their comrades still in captivity. But the government and the military had a different timetable for the liberation of the Philippines and ordered the men to remain silent. Their testimony, when it finally emerged, galvanized the nation behind the Pacific war effort and made the men celebrities.

Over the decades this remarkable story, called the “greatest story of the war in the Pacific” by the War Department in 1944, has faded away. Because of wartime censorship, the full story has never been told until now. John D. Lukacs spent years researching this heroic event, interviewing survivors, reading their letters, searching archival documents, and traveling to the decaying prison camp and its surroundings. His dramatic, gripping account of the escape brings this remarkable tale back to life, where a new generation can admire the resourcefulness and patriotism of the men who fought the Pacific war.

The Battle of Okinawa: The Blood and the Bomb, by George Feifer

The Battle of Okinawa was "the largest land-sea-air battle in history," yet remarkably little is know about this final major engagement of World War II. Based on interviews with Americans, Japanese, and Okinawans who endured the fighting, this masterpiece of military history explores every aspect of the three-month battle and its aftermath in vivid detail.

The U.S. invasion of Okinawa involved 1,457 ships and over half a million men. For six full days artillery fire poured down on the island while the Japanese holed up in underground bunkers and tunnels like moles, darting out for supplies only at night. In examining the battle from the perspective of both generals and infantrymen, George Feifer explains the substantial differences in the training and mindset between the soldiers, particularly the Japanese's fiercely nationalistic stance and willingness to die for their emperor that both impressed and baffled the Americans. Since most Japanese refused to surrender even after American victory was assured, less than 5 percent survived the battle. And worse bloodshed was certain to come, for the next step in the war was an invasion of Japan itself. Indeed, the Japanese government encouraged all 100 million Japanese to "die proudly" in defense of their homeland. It was both this kamikaze devotion and the heavy human losses at Okinawa that led directly to the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan rather than pay the high price of a large-scale invasion.

Feifer also lends a voice to the local civilians, certainly the least considered element in the battle, focusing on how the hospitable and peaceful Okinawans were caught in a crossfire they could neither comprehend nor control. During the fighting, over a quarter of a million Okinawans were herded into U.S. detention camps in order to get them out of the way of the fighting, yet an estimated 150,000 died from artillery attacks or because locals were often indistinguishable from Japanese soldiers. In a sense, the war continues for Okinawans since one-fifth of the best land on their island is still occupied by the U.S. military as well as a Japanese force. Feifer's excellent book should ensure that this horrific battle is never forgotten, for "if a symbol is needed to help preserve the memory of the Pacific War, Okinawa is the most enduring one." --Shawn Carkonen

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