MOUNT SAMAT REMEMBERING AMERICAN SACRIFICE

Visitors to the Philippines enjoy a day’s outing, boating across Manila Bay to see the old guns of Corregidor. Off the regular path lies an even more important monument atop a mountain in the southern region of the Bataan Peninsula – the National Shrine of Mount Samat – Dambana ng Katingnan (Shrine of Valor).

Bataan, the sight of the worst defeat suffered by American forces in history. 78,000 men – the vast majority Filipinos new to soldiering – surrendered after a campaign of just over four months. As bad as the long battle against the enemy, the harsh jungle environment, malnutrition and disease was, another type of battle would fall upon the men afterwards, the battle to survive.

A two-part post with the first dealing mostly with the Shrine, the campaign and US Army units remembered here at Mount Samat. The second post will cover the Philippine Army divisions honored here. It is important to remember as hard as it was for American units to suffer on Bataan, Corregidor and throughout the islands, the Filipinos were forced to take the suffering to another level, both with the Commonwealth Army and the civilian population, as a whole.

THE SHRINE

Atop Mount Samat, a huge 95-meter-high cross – the arms stretching out 30 meters from each side, some 74 meters above the base. The cross here stands the second tallest in the world. A viewing gallery sits where the arms meet. An elevator or stairs lead up through the cross’ shaft. Around the base, reliefs of historic moments taken from Philippine history – Nabiag Na Bato (Broken Rocks).

Below the cross, fourteen zigzag flights of stairs down over bloodstone steps taken from Corregidor Island. At the bottom, a large Colonnade where the story of Bataan reveals.

Around the Colonnade, nineteen high relief sculptures visually describe the struggles on Bataan at the beginning of World War 2 in the Pacific. The sculptures here and on the base of the cross both come from the same sculptor, Napoleon Abueva. Interspersed between the story sculptures, bronze insignia of the units involved in the USAFFE (US Armed Forces Far East) defense of the peninsula.

Inside the Colonnade, an altar, stained glass windows and marble tablets on the walls telling the story of the campaign. A museum underneath further helps to explain the history along with a new augmented reality system.

THE PHYSICAL SETTING

Mount Samat stands at 544.7 meters – 1747 feet – high above the eastern plains of Bataan Peninsula. A parasitic volcanic cone – with a 550-meter-wide crater – of the much more massive Mont Mariveles, a little over nine kilometers to the southeast. Mount Samat was the scene of the Japanese breakthrough in early April 1942. That led to the largest surrender of American-based forces in history. By contrast, Mount Mariveles features a crater of over a mile and summit ridges up to 1,398 meters – 4,587 feet. The Talisay River drains the caldera. It runs to the north before a sweeping turn to the east. It empties into the bay beyond the town of Balanga. The crater lake of Mount Pinatubo, further to the north in the same Zambales mountain range is only about half the size of the Mariveles crater.

Mount Samat, like much of the peninsula, covered with dense tropical vegetation. There were no roads on the mountain at the time of the war. Soldiers on both sides had to deal with the jungle at the same time as the enemy.

Bataan is a peninsula sticking out from the western entrance to Manila Bay. Twenty-five miles long – north-to-south – and twenty miles wide – east-to-west, the peninsula created by two huge volcanoes, Mount Natib in the north and Mount Bataan-Mariveles to the south.

Streams scour down the volcano slopes of Mount Samat through the jungles down deep ravines. There were only two roads on the peninsula then – not many more even today. A series of trails created earlier to help forces get about through the harsh setting. Those tracks seriously overgrown by the time of the campaign.

USAFFE – UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FAR EAST

From the beginning of American involvement in the Philippines, troop strength always remained a problem. Not enough men to face the Spanish following Dewey’s naval victory. Then not enough men to fight Filipine insurrectos in the Fil-Am war that followed.

Once, President McKinley decided to hold onto the islands following the “splendid, little war” with Spain, the Army and Navy constantly left with the problem of how to defend them. Distance and a parsimonious Congress both conspired against them. The question of how to defend the islands laid out excellently in Brian Linn’s Guardians of Empire: The US Army and the Pacific, 1904-1940.

War Plan Orange

Following the decision by President McKinley to keep the Philippines after defeating Spain in 1898, the Army and Navy faced a conundrum.  How to defend the islands.  First up was imperial Germany, but not long afterwards, the main potential enemy developed to the north as Japan routed the Russian bear out of Manchuria.

War plans with potential enemies were labelled by different colors – black for Germany, red for the United Kingdom, etc.  For a possible war with the Japanese empire, War Plan Orange developed.  Fortifications at the mouth of Manila and Subic Bays would keep enemy ships at bay until the main American fleet could steam across the Pacific for a naval Gotterdammerung.  A big problem was there was never enough troops on hand in the Philippines – before and after World War 1, the Army was simply not large enough.  The other problem there was no getting around, also, was the distance from the US mainland and the islands – over 7,000 miles.

The problems of defense worsened in the years after the Great War.  Japan increased the region she commanded by taking over the islands Germany controlled before the war – Marianas, Marshalls, Palau, Yap and Chuuk.  A potential rescue American fleet now faced steaming through many miles of enemy-controlled islands instead of, as before, open ocean.  Beyond the simple scope of geography, there was the new weapon, the airplane.

WPO-3 and the Rainbow

War Plan Orange 3 was the latest version of the plan before World War 2.  The plan called for American-Filipino defending forces to withdraw to the Bataan Peninsula on the instigation of hostilities.  There, they would hold off invaders with the island fortresses until such time the American fleet could intervene.  Time needed to hold the fort estimated at six months.

As the 1920’s pushed into the 1930’s, belief in the plan faded more and more.  To compound the distance and newly controlled Japanese territories the fleet needed to push through, new problems arose in Europe.  WPO-3 evolved into a series of plans known as Rainbow.  With Rainbow, it was determined to meet threats from Europe before dealing with Asia.  A Eurocentric view doomed an already bleak situation.

ENTER MACARTHUR

Douglas MacArthur served time in the islands after graduating from West Point in 1903.  His first duty assignment spent with the 3^rd Engineers in Iloilo.  Working mostly in the Visayan islands, he came home in October 1904 suffering from malaria and tinea cruris acquired, ironically, while conducting surveys on Bataan.

After 12 years working in various capacities in the Corps of Engineers, MacArthur, now a major, helped organize the 42^nd Division.  The unit, known as the Rainbow Division, combined National Guard units during the summer of 1917 from several different states across the US for use in France.   Promoted now to colonel – though in the National, not the Regular Army, MacArthur served as divisional chief of staff, changing his service branch from the engineers to infantry.

Great War

After accompanying troops on raids in early March 1918, MacArthur earned a Distinguished Service Cross.  Promoted to brigadier general in late June, he led the 84^th Brigade through the Second Marne campaign in July and August gaining more awards.  By the time the Meuse-Argonne Offensive involved the 42^nd Division – 14 October – MacArthur had gathered six Silver Stars and two Wound Chevrons – precursor to the Purple Heart – for separate gassing episodes – he often did not carry a gas mask.

On 16 October, the two regiments of his brigade captured a difficult German position at Châtillon.  MacArthur claimed to have led his men forward suffering a slight wound in the process.  Like his situation at Bataan in the next war, as brigade commander, he stayed at his headquarters three miles back of the front lines – which is where he should have been – during the action.  He received a lot of acclaim for the brigade’s capture of the hill winning a second DSC.  He briefly commanded the division for twelve days at the very end of the war – 10 to 22 November.  Unlike most other officers at the end of the war, instead rank reduction to major, he kept his rank of brigadier general in 1919.  His service in general earned him the Distinguished Service Medal – DSM.

Interwar

A stint as the youngest Superintendent at West Point from 1919 until 1922, then back to the Philippines where the garrison was reduced following the Naval Treaty of Washington the same year.  He commanded the 23^rd Infantry Brigade of the Philippine Division becoming acquainted with Manuel Quezon.  At the end of his tour, he gained a second star, the youngest – 44 years old – major general in the Army.  He returned to the islands in October 1928, this time serving as commander of the Philippine Department.

Shortly after his return to the US, he became the Chief of Staff of the Army.  He spent most of his time fighting off measures to further reduce the Army during the Great Depression.  However, his time known best for bringing in troops to clear out the “Bonus Army” demonstrators gathered in Washington, D.C., a measure not reflecting well upon him with the general public.  Despite clashes with the new president, FDR, over the Army’s budget, MacArthur stayed on as Chief until October 1935 gaining a second DSM.

Field Marshal

The government in the Philippines evolved into the Commonwealth in 1935.  The new president, Manuel Quezon asked his old friend to come over to create a new Philippine Army with the rank of field marshal – he still drew a US salary as Military Advisor to the Commonwealth making him the best paid soldier in the world.  The rank of field marshal, according to Dwight Eisenhower – he was serving as an assistant to MacArthur – was one MacArthur came up with and not Quezon.

Organization of the new army went very slowly due to lack of funds, equipment and weapons.  The army, a conscript army trained basically by men from the Philippine Division.  It was not until early in 1937 before the initial trainees showed up at the few training camps erected.  Requests for new weapons and equipment were ignored in Washington.  A new Philippine Air Corps was not organized until 1939.  The squadrons, like the other forces within the Commonwealth forces, relied on American cast-off weaponry.  Until 1937, the clauses of the Washington Naval Treaty also added to the challenges faced.  MacArthur retired from the US Army at the end of 1937.  He continued to work with Quezon as a civilian advisor.

THE CAMPAIGN IN BRIEF

PRELUDE

On 26 July 1941, with war clouds gathering in the western Pacific, FDR federalized the Philippine Army recalling MacArthur to active duty at the same time giving him command of US Army Forces in the Far East – USAFFE.  He was promoted to lieutenant general and full general on 20 December.  Only 22,00 troops sat assigned to the islands at the end of July – 12,000 being Philippine Scouts.  The Philippine Division led by Major General Jonathan Wainwright.  8,500 reinforcements came out before the war began along with badly needed equipment such as tanks and B-17 bombers.

Half of the air power of the USAFFE lay destroyed on the ground nine hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The bulk of the planes destroyed while refueling.  The air commander, Major General Lewis Brereton had tried to get MacArthur’s permission to attack Japanese airfields in Formosa, an integral part of Rainbow Five.  MacArthur declined to give permission until shortly before the attack on Clark Field.  Here, political considerations came into play.  President Quezon was hoping to declare the Philippines as a neutral power.  MacArthur probably did not want to cause anger by launching the first blow in the Far East, paying the price by losing much of his air power just as the war began.

CHANGE OF PLANS

MacArthur changed the plans for the islands’ defense from Fortress Bataan to meeting the enemy on the beaches.  For this, he tasked the new Filipino Army.  100,000 strong by now, most of the new recruits had neither training, equipment nor weapons with which to fight.  Most divisions had little or no artillery.  What artillery they did have, they had few means with which to move the guns.

Despite false reports of Japanese invaders crushed on the beaches of Lingayen Gulf 10 December, reports MacArthur himself reported in his biography, when the Japanese did land 22 December, they quickly brushed aside Filipino divisions.  Moving quickly south into central Luzon, now MacArthur changed plans.  Going back to the original idea of retreating to Bataan, he ordered his divisions to make their way to the peninsula, declaring Manila an open city.  MacArthur, taking President Quezon with him, withdrew to a new headquarters on Corregidor.  Change of plans at the last second, ensured that badly needed supplies would never arrive in time to support those who fought on Bataan.

Bataan Begins

The Japanese used two divisions – 16^th and 48^th, along with the 65^th Brigade, for use as a garrison force – for the invasion of the Philippines under the command of Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma.  Air support initially came from air forces operating out of Formosa and the aircraft carrier Ryūjō.  Altogether, there were over 500 aircraft supporting the invasion.

To match, USAFFE had a little over 31,000 troops including two battalions of light tanks – 192^nd and 194^th Tank Battalions.  In the air, before the raid at Clark, there were 91 P-40 fighters and 34 B-17 bombers though that total was halved after 8 December.  The 4^th Marine Regiment had also come in from China during the summer, but they were put either at Subic Bay or on Corregidor.

It took the Japanese several days to realize the American moves.  The road was held open by the 11^th and 21^st Philippine Army divisions, the 26^th Cavalry Regiment- PS and the tank group which suffered 50% losses.

Sergeant Jose Calugas

In the main crossroads in the town of Layac, on the main highway from Manila, stands a monument to actions taken a bit later on the initial defense line undertaken by the Fil-Am defenders – the Abucay line.  Here, 16 January 1942, Mess Sergeant Jose Calugas of the 88^th Field Artillery Regiment, part of the Philippine Scouts, earned a Medal of Honor.  Noticing one of the unit’s 75 mm guns silenced due to the death of the crew, he ran across 1000 yards of gun swept ground to organize a makeshift crew to get the gun back into action.  On the monument, Sergeant Calugas mans a 30 mm machine gun.

Abucay Line

This line ran across the peninsula from Mabatang – just north of Abucay – in the east along Manila Bay to Mauban in the west.  Several miles unmanned because of the jungles and steep terrain of Mount Natib and Signganan.  The Japanese launched a series of reconnaissance attacks on the line in the week following 7 January in a reduced state.  With the Japanese confident of victory, the 48^th Division was withdrawn for operations against the Dutch East Indies along with air units.  The 65^th Brigade pushed forward to take the slack on the front lines, though they suffered from lack of training much like their Filipino adversaries.

Attacks were successful in pushing back the USAFFE forces to a secondary line running from Orion in the east to Bagac in the west.  Jungles and rugged terrain played a significant role in the west, though in the east, the defenders lay out in the open.  The mountains and jungles of Marivelles lay behind the USAFFE defenders.

Battles of the Points and the Pockets

After adjusting to the loss of so many troops out of theater, the Japanese resumed the attack 23 January by launching amphibious landings behind USAFFE lines to the south.  Through navigation errors at night took the attackers to spots where they could not support each other.  The Japanese managed to carve out beachheads before containment by ad hoc USAFFE troops including US Army Air Corps and naval personnel as well as Philippine Constabulary.  Other attempts at reinforcing their troops 26 January and 2 February ended up in different points along the shore.  The Japanese beachheads slowly destroyed and by 13 February, the invaders annihilated.

The battle of the pockets went forward about the same time as large Japanese units were able to infiltrate the Fil-Am lines in the central regions of the peninsula.  The penetrations isolated and reduced over the next weeks though in this case, some of the Japanese were successful in retreating to their lines.

Readjustment

General Homma ordered a reorganization of his forces 8 February though that awaited the conclusion of the battles of Point and Pockets which ended with three Japanese battalions destroyed by 22 February.  The Japanese forces had been reduced to a single brigade by this time.  Both sides suffered from jungle diseases and problems keeping their men supplied.  The situation was more dire on the USAFFE side, however, with the failure to bring in sufficient supplies before the beginning of the siege.

Japan decided to bring in more forces in March along with more planes and artillery to bring a resolution to the campaign.  They brought in enough troops to bolster their forces to 50,000 with 80% drawn away from newly occupied or still active theaters.  From China came the 4^th Division (11,000); diverted en route to Indo-China was the 62^nd Infantry Brigade; other troops came from Hong Kong and the Japanese home islands.  Replacements of 7,000 came in to bring both the 65^th Brigade and 16^th Divisions up to strength.  Two groups of heavy bombers – 30 each – came in from Malaya while the Navy brought in another 27 planes – 18 being bombers.  The strength now reached nearly 100 planes on hand.

nowhere to go

USAFFE defenses split into two corps.  On the west half of the peninsula, I Corps fielded 32,000 troops with II Corps, in the more accessible plains on the eastern side defended with 28,000 with Mount Samat as a high ground strongpoint.  Lack of food caused major problems on both sides, but with the new reinforcements, the USAFFE side suffered more.  Early in March, the two Bataan hospitals were admitting 500 men per day though by the end of month, the figure doubled.  Food, medicine and supplies of all sorts were lacking by March on the Fil-Am side. 

By the end of March, the ration of a Bataan soldier dropped to barely 1,000 calories – mostly rice – whereas the daily caloric exertion for a soldier estimated at 3,500.  Men lost 30- 40 pounds with many no longer strong enough to perform tasks such as lifting shells into gun barrels.  Uniforms became worn and ragged.  Shoes wore out.  As time went on, morale finally began to sink as the recognition set in that no rescue attempt would come from the US.

On 12 March, MacArthur, his wife, son, Chinese amah, and other members of his staff along were taken off Corregidor by PT boats during the night ordered out by FDR to take his command to Australia.  President Quezon, in the throes of tuberculosis, had already left in February on a submarine.  The new commander, Wainwright – formerly commanding I Corps – estimated that combat efficiency was around 25% on the day he took command.

The End

As March ended, Japanese artillery barrages and air attacks built up.  They launched a full-scale attack on Mount Samat 3 April.  Their opponents, the Philippine 41^st and 21^st Divisions folded.  The Japanese had planned on a month-long campaign, but by the next day, a breakthrough accelerated the USAFFE collapse.  Mount Samat overrun.

The Philippine Division tried plugging holes, but the three infantry regiments were caught up in the Japanese wave. The hole at Mount Samat simply too big to close. On 10 April, USAFFE commander on Bataan – Wainwright kept the fight going on from Corregidor – Major General Edward King surrendered the Fil-Am troops on the peninsula, more than 70,000 men – 16,000 American and 54,000 Filipino – going into captivity.  The Bataan Death March lie ahead of the starved and diseased men.

THE PHILIPPINE DIVISION

Divisions of USAFFE are remembered around the wall outside of the Colonnade on Mount Samat.  By far the largest contingent, those divisions made up of Filipino conscripts within the Commonwealth Army.  US forces consisted mainly of the Philippine Division – three infantry regiments, the 26^th Cavalry, two field artillery regiments and other units.

Philippine Division and the Philippine scouts

The core of the Philippine Division were the three infantry regiments – 31^st (the only fully-American unit), the 45^th and the 57^th.  During the USAFFE withdrawal to Bataan, the division had helped to cover the retreat. Regarded the strongest unit on Bataan, after the Abucay line fell, the division spent most of its time as a reserve unit to plug holes as they might appear.  At the end, the holes were too much for the men of the proud division unable to counterattack without artillery, air cover and enfeebled by disease and malnutrition.

Three Medals of Honor were earned by men of the division, two Americans – Lieutenants Willibald Bianchi of the 45^th and Alexander Nininger, Jr. of the 57^th – and one Filipino, Sergeant Jose Calugas of the 88^th Field Artillery (Two new Field Artillery regiments added to the division in April 1941 – the 86^th and 88^th).

one-man army of bataan

Members of the 57^th also earned 21 Distinguished Service Crosses during the campaign.  Captain Arthur Wermuth was one.  He earned a commission in 1936 while still a junior at Loyola University.   Serving as a young lieutenant with the Civilian Conservation Corps in Michigan, he learned survival skills that came in handy at Bataan.  Promoted to captain 19 December 1941, he joined the 57^th Regiment-PS. 

In early January 1942, he organized a group of 185 Filipinos to act as “suicide snipers”. They acted as a counter-sniper force to eliminate Japanese snipers who infiltrated the USAFFE lines.  The force accounted for over 500 enemy kills in the next three weeks losing 45 of their own.  Wermuth personally credited with over 116 kills gaining the nickname the “one-man army of Bataan”. Shot twice and seriously injured in a fall in early April, Wermuth woke up in a hospital just as it was overrun.

His injuries saved him from the Death March, but near the end of May, he went first to Bilibid Prison in Manila and then on to Cabantuan.  A severe beating for demanding prison guards take it easier on his men, he ended up back in the hospital.  He survived the sinking of two “hell ships” before ending up at Mukden. His weight of 105 pounds dropped down from 190 before the war.  He credited his successes in Bataan to his Scouts, “Ninety percent of what I did was due to them.  They’re the best soldiers in the world.  I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

the other infantry regiments

The 31^st Regiment had 31 members earn DSCs.  One was recommended for the Medal of Honor, but the entire chain of command died in captivity before the recommendation could be made.  About half of the 1,600 men of the regiment who surrendered at Bataan died as prisoners. For the 45^th, beyond Bianchi’s Medal of Honor, another six men earned DSCs.  The 31^st Regiment has the only memorial here at Mount Samat.

the cavalry

The 26^th Cavalry-PS earned five DSCs in their long fights. One of those men was first lieutenant Edwin Ramsey.  Ramsey attended the university of Oklahoma before joining the Army in 1941.  As a young lieutenant, he led a group of 27 horsemen in an attack on an advance Japanese guard trying to push through the village of Moron on the west side of Bataan 16 January 1942.  They scattered the Japanese in the last cavalry charge in US military history.   Under fire from snipers left behind in the village, Captain John Wheeler rolled the rest of his troop forward.  Together they held the village for the rest of the day slipping out late in the afternoon.  Wheeler was wounded in the action.  He would also earn a DSC for his actions.  He died aboard the “hell ship” Brazil Maru 26 January 1945.  His body dropped unceremoniously into the sea.

guerrillas

Ramsey found himself cut off from his unit in the last days of Bataan.  He took to the jungles successfully fleeing to central Luzon where he joined Major Claude Thorp in his guerrilla organization.  Thorp, also serving in the 26^th Cavalry-PS, had been sent through the lines at the end of January 1942 to organize Filipino guerrillas behind the Japanese lines.  A graduate of Oregon Agricultural College in 1924, Thorp had already organized several groups of guerillas working first out of the Zambales Mountains near Mount Pinatubo.  He was betrayed in October 1942 and executed several months later by the Japanese.  Thorp was promoted while in the field and given a posthumous DSC.

Ramsey would go on to increase the size and scope of activities of the guerrillas on Luzon earning a DSC.  Surviving until MacArthur finally returned, he returned to the US in May 1945 where it took a year before he regained some semblance of health.

 Overall, about half of the Scouts would die in action or in captivity.

The division briefly lived again from 1944 into 1947 as the 12^th Infantry Division.  With a newly independent Philippines, the need for a special Scout division disappeared.

OTHER AMERICAN UNITS REMEMBERED AROUND THE COLONNADE ON MOUNT SAMAT

27^TH BOMBARDMENT GROUP USAAC

Activated in early 1940, the 27^th Bombardment Group (Light) trained at Barksdale Army Airfield on Douglas B-18 Bolo light bombers.  Ordered to the Philippines in late October, they arrived a month later without aircraft.  Their new planes were to be 52 A-24 Dauntless dive bombers but the planes were on another convoy which ended up in Australia. 

It turned out the planes had been crated improperly for the ocean journey.  Many of the planes were missing key components.  Eventually, eleven of the planes reached Java where some of the 27^th Bomb Group had been evacuated to on submarines.  All of the planes were eventually lost in action, most falling 26 July 1942 in an attack on Japanese shipping off Buna, New Guinea.

Airmen as infantrymen

Most of the men in the Group fought as the 2^nd Battalion Provisional Infantry Regiment remembered here on Mount Samat. The only Air Corps unit to fight as infantry.  They played a significant role in the fighting during the Battle of the Points when in January 1942. Here, the Japanese tried several amphibious operations on the western side of the Bataan Peninsula.

They had no anti-tank weapons and little in the way of artillery.  Most of their weapons were similar to those used in the Commonwealth Army units, hand-me-downs from World War 1.

Late in the campaign, the Provisional Infantry Regiment stood along the final lines as units around them fell apart.  Their fate mirrored the fate of others on Bataan.  About half of the 880 airmen surrendering on 9 April would survive.

NEW MEXICO NATIONAL GUARD – 200^TH AND 515^TH COAST ARTILLERY

In 1966, New Mexico got a new State Capitol building – the Round House.  The former State Capitol across the street, got a new name, the Bataan Memorial Building.  In August 1941, 1,800 New Mexican National Guardsmen were sent to the Philippines.  Only 900 returned.  In the memory of those left behind in the jungles of Bataan, the prison camps of Asia or somewhere in the ocean where they may have died on one of the infamous “hell ships”, an eternal flame burns. 

There is a plaque set in the memorial that sat in front of the former regimental headquarters of the 200^th Coast Artillery (Anti-aircraft) at Fort Bliss.  The plaque moved here to the State Capitol to serve as a shrine for loved ones to come and pray for a safe return.  A place of memory for both the dead and the living of the New Mexican National Guard unit.  About a quarter mile south of the New Mexico capitol building on Old Pecos Road is the New Mexico Military Museum.  Here the story of the 200^th Coast Artillery Regiment and its sibling the 515^th are told in detail.

New Mexico in the Philippines

With war drawing close, the unit had been chosen to augment the air defenses in the Philippines.  The ability to speak Spanish by a majority of the unit, a major contributing factor.  War came very soon after the men set up at Fort Stotsenburg in the central plains of Luzon.  The 200^th was attached to the North Luzon Force to try keeping the Japanese air attacks from overwhelming those Fil-Am defenders on the ground.

As war began, some 30 officers and 500 men were drawn off from the 200^th to form a new regiment augmented later by another 750 men and officers from the Commonwealth Army.  This regiment manned anti-aircraft weapons stored in and around Manila.  With Manila’s fall, the regiment moved to join 200^th on Bataan, defending the Cabcen airfield and other points until Bataan, in turn, fell.

PROVISIONAL TANK GROUP – 192^ND AND 194^TH TANK BATTALIONS

Two armored battalions were sent to reinforce USAFFE in the fall of 1941 also have a plaque here on Mount Samat.  The battalions were, like the New Mexicans of the 200^th Coast Artillery, federalized National Guard units.  The 194^th Tank Battalion came from California while the 192^nd was drawn from four Midwestern states.  Along with the men, 54 new M3 Stuart light tanks and 23 half-tracks equipped each battalion.  It was late September when the Californians reached the islands while the Midwesterners only arrived in November, too little, too late.

The two battalions combined to form the Provisional Tank Group commanded by Colonel James Weaver.  Sent north to help the North Luzon Force.  An advance group from the 192^nd became the first American tanks to engage with Japanese tankers just south of the Lingayen Gulf near Bauang.  There was only one platoon of five tanks employed due to refueling problems.  The lead American tank was destroyed and the other four also hit.  They were later destroyed by Japanese aircraft.

The surviving tanks did help in their presence with the withdrawal and subsequent fighting on Bataan.  Their abilities on Bataan hampered by the dense jungles and poor road conditions.

The National Guard units sent 593 men and officers over to the Philippines in 1941.  Of those, 328 would not return.

NOTE ON SOURCES

Louis Morton The Fall of the Philippines official Army history of the campaign 1953 which can be found online

Online at The Fall of the Philippines-Contents (army.mil)

The Philippine Scout website

Donald Young  The Battle of Bataan:  A History of the 90 Day Siege and Eventual Surrender of 75,000 Filipino and United States Troops to the Japanese in World War II 1992