The USS Flier: Death and Survival on a World War II Submarine

13. Guerrillas

97 13 Guerrillas At daybreak the next morning, 19 August, Alvin Jacobson was the only one up when a young Filipino man approached him, using sign language to indicate that he was friendly. Another Filipino then emerged from the jungle, and John Crowley appeared and asked them whether they were American or Japanese. One of the young men smiled and replied “Americanos.” He then said “Japanese ” and made a cutting motion across his throat. When the rest of the survivors had gathered, the Filipinos explained , using their best English, that they were from a guerrilla group known as the Bugsuk Bolo Battalion. They had watched the men arrive on the island but had initially assumed they were Japanese . In fact, they had expected to find them dead, since the water cistern had been poisoned. Before leaving, the property owner had apparently laced the cistern with arsenic in order to kill any Japanese who drank from it. Although Arthur Howell had been sick during the night, his crewmates assumed that he had simply drunk too much water. The others experienced no ill effects. The Filipinos offered to lead the Americans to their camp and supply them with food and water. As the group headed inland, they came to a sugarcane grove. The Filipinos motioned for them to sit down and then brought each man a piece of sugarcane about three feet long. Both Jacobson and Crowley would later state that this sugarcane was the best thing they had ever tasted. Typical 98 The USS Flier of shipwreck survivors, they had a strong craving for sweets.1 After about half an hour of gnawing on the sugarcane, however, they were too tired to chew anymore. The men continued walking for about a mile, at which point they came to a building that looked like an abandoned schoolhouse . About twenty Filipinos were gathered there; four of them were armed with guns, and the rest carried spears, blowguns, and bolos (large machete-like knives). They were introduced to the Bolo Battalion leader, Pedro Sarmiento. More importantly, they were given a hot meal of rice and dried fish—their first real sustenance since escaping from the Flier. Sarmiento was a former schoolteacher and plantation overseer who spoke excellent English. His group had come from Palawan in search of submarine survivors, but not survivors of the Flier. That was when Crowley and his crew learned that the USS Robalo had been lost the previous month. It appeared that some survivors from the Robalo had made it to Comiran Island, where they had been taken prisoner by the Japanese.2 Following the surrender of U.S. forces in the Philippines on 6 May 1942, various guerrilla groups began to form in the islands. These groups included both men with military backgrounds and civilians. Once news of the guerrilla movement reached General Douglas MacArthur in Australia, he sent a reconnaissance party to the Philippines under Captain Jesus A. Villamor. The thirtynine -year-old Villamor was already a hero to the Filipinos, based on his performance as an ace pilot in the U.S. Air Corps defending Corregidor. Despite flying an outdated P-36 aircraft nicknamed the “Peashooter,” Villamor had made a strong showing against the superior Japanese Zeros, and MacArthur had decorated him in the first award ceremony of the war. On 17 December 1941 Villamor had been evacuated from the Philippines on the submarine USS Gudgeon. On 21 January 1943 the Gudgeon returned Villamor and a reconnaissance party to the Philippines, at southern Negros. The 99 Guerrillas party made contact with guerrilla groups on the islands of Mindanao and Panay and helped develop an intelligence network. Villamor wielded enormous power, since he had the authority to determine which guerrilla groups would be recognized and thus receive American support. Under this scheme, the Philippine Islands were divided into ten military districts, with each district under a unified command. Eventually the guerrillas would constitute a “ghost army” in excess of 180,000 men, with more than 150 radio and weather stations.3 These activities were conducted under the auspices of the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB), founded in July 1942. A truly multinational organization, the AIB was nominally under an Australian controller, Colonel C. G. Roberts. As the director of intelligence for the Australian army, Roberts’s selection to head the AIB was partly based on “diplomacy.” Roberts reported to Charles A. Willoughby , who served as General MacArthur...