Defense of the Philippines`

 The Japanese attack of the Philippines began just hours after their planes had left Pearl Harbor in flames, around noon on December 8, 1941 (the date differs from the Pearl Harbor attack due to the international dateline). The Japanese planes had left their base in Formosa just as vague messages reached the command center in the Philippines of an apparent attack on Pearl Harbor. New Mexico’s 200^th Coast Artillery was at Clark Field, a small airfield near Fort Stotsenburg, when the attack began. “It was a Sunday. We were all lined up that morning to go to the chow hall to eat,” recalled Lorenzo Banegas, a member of the 200^th Coast Artillery and native of the small hamlet of San Isidro, just north of Las Cruces.

“From there we spotted this big cloud of planes and we thought they were our Navy planes that were coming to help with our mission. We didn’t know yet we were at war. When we saw the big cloud of planes we started waving at them thinking they were our planes. After they approached they started dropping little black things that I thought were leaflets from the pilots to let us know that they were there to help us. We started running toward where they were dropping the little black things and then we saw they were bombs exploding all over the place. This was the first day of war for us.”[1]

The Army Air Corps had lined the planes at Clark Field on the runways for refueling and were thus easy targets for Japanese bombs. It took a day for most of the American air fleet to be destroyed, and those who had trained in the Air Corps became support infantry overnight.[2] The first New Mexicans killed in the Philippines were Chaves County residents Douglas Sanders and Roy W. Schmid, who lost their lives in the Clark Field attack.[3] The 200^th Coast Artillery did land some hits, knocking several Japanese planes out of the sky. In later years, Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, the American commander of forces in the Philippines after Douglas MacArthur left, would personally tell New Mexicans that the 200^th was “the first to fire, and the last to lay down its arms,” on Bataan.[4] As Clark Field smoldered from the Japanese air assault, five hundred men from the 200^th were split off to create the 515^th Provisional Artillery regiment, and sent south to defend Manila.[5]

On December 23, with Japanese invading forces successfully landing on Luzon, Gen. Douglas MacArthur reluctantly decided to fully implement Plan Orange, declaring Manila an open city and beginning the withdrawal to Bataan, the southern province of Luzon.[6] From the Bataan coast and the island of Corregidor the American forces could defend the crucial Manila Bay, which was the only Philippine Bay secure and deep enough for warships. MacArthur tasked New Mexico’s 200^th with providing cover for the withdrawing American and Filipino forces, guarding the main bridges out of the city and into southern Luzon. It was in the defense of the bridges that the regiment earned one of three Presidential Unit Citations for its service in the Philippines, making it one of the most decorated units of the war.[7] 

By the end of December the rest of the 200^th joined 12,000 fellow American troops in defending the Bataan Peninsula and Manila, while other New Mexicans were on Corregidor or, like Lt. Albert Fall Chase, on larger islands such as Mindanao.[8] Battles and skirmishes, and almost incessant Japanese bombing raids, raged for four months, with American forces almost always in a defensive position. The mission was understood: to hold out and delay the Japanese as long as possible to allow America and Australia time to build, and possibly provide the Philippine force relief. In January, rations were cut in half. Medicine to fight malaria and other diseases soon was in short supply, and the aged, outdated weaponry used by the Americans, some of it pre-World War I era, was soon wearing out. Although they were equipped with the most modern guns, the actual ammunition was deteriorated and ineffective, much of it rusted or corroded.[9] By January, the troops were on quarter rations and slaughtering horses, caribou, and even monkeys for food.

 In March, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered General Douglas MacArthur to flee the Philippines by boat to Australia.[10] In the dead of the night on March 11, MacArthur, his family and staff left Corregidor on a small boat for the southernmost Philippine island of Mindanao and then Australia, leaving generals Jonathan Wainwright and Edward King in charge of what was clearly a losing fight.[11] MacArthur's famous promise “I shall return” did little to assure those on Bataan and Corregidor that help was actually on the way. It became obvious it was not. Like most New Mexicans on Bataan, Tony Reyna began to realize they were on their own. “When you hear help is coming, help is coming, and it never materializes, you feel let down.”[12] Among Bataan veterans, mixed feelings exist regarding MacArthur, with some aiming their sense of abandonment at the general rather than the United States. The men soon began to refer to themselves as the “Battling

Bastards of Bataan,” and chanted the lines of a poem written in January by an American war correspondent Frank Hewlitt: “We’re the Battling Bastards of Bataan/No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam/No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces/No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces/And nobody gives a damn, and nobody gives a damn.”[13] 

By late March 1942, most of the American and Philippine forces on Bataan, including the entire 200^th Coast Artillery, were centralized in the middle of the Bataan Peninsula, blocking the only viable road route to the south. The first week in April, with massive air and artillery support, and with allied forces soon descending into chaos, Japanese forces pushed through the allied defenses near Mt. Samat.[14] Sensing the inevitable and fearing the total slaughter of thousands of American and Filipino wounded in military hospitals, Bataan commander General Edward King was forced to surrender his troops on April 9, 1942, despite the orders of Gen. Wainwright, and the wishes of many who wished to continue to fight.[15] Because of its position on the line, the 200^th would be the last regiment to lay down its arms. The 200^th Coast Artillery was awarded a presidential citation soon after the fall of Bataan, for “its outstanding performance of duty in action” in the first weeks of the war.[16] Meanwhile, Gen. Wainwright and an estimated 5,000 American troops, including about a hundred New Mexicans, held out on Corregidor until May 6 before it too fell to Japanese forces. There were 1,818 members of the 200^th and the 515^th Coast Artillery from the New Mexico unit, but approximately 300 of those were from other states and joined the regiment after it was federalized in January 1941. About 400 New Mexicans from other Army and Navy units were among those surrendered in April and May 1942.

King later took the blame for the surrender, abdicating his men from responsibility.[17] Tony Reyna, like most Bataan veterans, is quick to correct the statement he and his fellow soldiers surrendered. “We didn’t surrender. We were ordered to lay down arms. We were willing to fight until the end.”[18] Instead, they were surrendered by their commanders. It is an important semantic distinction they frequently have made since their return, and one that, in addition to arguably being the most accurate, seems deeply rooted in the need to maintain their pride as soldiers. Dow G. Bond, a former New Mexico A&M College student, Battery H captain from Taos and member of the 515^th division of the 200^th Coast Artillery, said while the urge to keep fighting existed among many, surrender was really the only option. “We kept hoping that we would have some help. But it didn’t come. The food was gone, the ammunition was low. Malaria and other diseases were rampant. I hated to surrender. But it was the only humane thing we could have done.”[19]  

After the war, Gen. Jonathan Wainwright visited New Mexico on a tour of its batteries, making sure to credit the New Mexico 200^th Coast Artillery as the “first to fire” at Clark Field, and one of the last to lay down its arms. In recognition of service in battle, the 200th and the 515th received three Presidential Unit Citations, five Battle Stars, the Bronze Star, the Bataan Medal issued by the State of New Mexico, and a Philippine Presidential Unit Citation.

[1] Lorenzo Banegas. Interview with author. December 11, 2000.

[2] Morton, 85-85; also Cave, 76-77.

[3] Matson, 24.

[4] Las Cruces Sun-News. “College Tribute To Wainwright Also For Others.” December 12, 1945. 1, 3.

[5] Everett M. Rogers, Nancy R. Bartlit. Silent Voices of World War II: When Sons of the Land of Enchantment Met Sons of the Land of the Rising Son. (Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, 2005). 42-44.

[6] Louis Morton. The Fall of the Philippines. (Washington D.C.: Center of Military History, 1952, 151-153.

[7] Cave, 421. The significance of their bridge defense may help explain the naming of a bridge in Carlsbad the Bataan Bridge.

[8] Shockley, 74.

[9] Numerous accounts in Cave, Rogers, Hines, Griffin. Also interviews with Jack Aldrich, Charlie James, Tom Foy, Tony Reyna, and Lorenzo Banegas.

[10] Morton, 353.

[11] Cave, 131-132.

[12] Reyna, 2009.

[13] Cave, 130.

[14] Morton. The Fall of the Philippines. 442-453.

[15] The scene where American brass signed the papers of surrender was captured in photos. Today that scene is depicted in a life size brass memorial behind a school in Balanga, Bataan that was finished in 2005.

[16] Santa Fe New Mexican, Bataan Edition, Nov. 10, 1945.

[17] Cave, 56-57.

[18] Tony Reyna, interview with author, February 26, 2009.

[19] Santa Fe New Mexican, April 7, 1967. 1.

Submitted by Christopher Schurtz, grandson of Paul Shurtz, who died at Bataan