The Philippine Scouts in World War II
On December 7, 1941 Imperial Japanese forces attacked the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, bombed the U.S. Army’s Far East Air Force at Clark Field in the Philippines, attacked British Hong Kong, and landed troops on the shores of British Malaya, simultaneously. Over the next three months the Japanese Army marched through Southeast Asia, and by March 1942 the Japanese had completely overrun every country and island in the western Pacific—except the Philippines.
On the Bataan Peninsula of Luzon Island, the Philippine Scouts, a few U.S Army National Guard units, and ten divisions of poorly equipped, almost untrained Philippine Army soldiers held out against the Japanese. Survivors of the Battle of Bataan, to a man, describe the Philippine Scouts as the backbone of the American defense there. President Franklin Roosevelt awarded the U.S. Army’s first three Medals of Honor of World War II to Philippine Scouts: to Sergeant Jose Calugas for action at Culis, Bataan on January 6, 1942, to Lieutenant Alexander R. Nininger for action near Abucay, Bataan on January 12, and to Lieutenant Willibald C. Bianchi for action near Bagac, Bataan on February 3, 1942.
With the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor in shambles, and the Japanese Navy blockading the Philippines, there was no way to send adequate amounts of food, medicine, ammunition or reinforcements to Bataan. Early in the campaign, in January 1942, General MacArthur ordered that his forces be fed one-half daily rations because the USAFFE food-stocks on Bataan were insufficient for the planned six-month siege. Such a diet did not provide enough calories for men working and fighting in the tropical heat of the Philippines' Dry Season. Nonetheless, the Scouts and the other soldiers held out for more than four months without adequate food or medicine, while malaria, dysentery and malnutrition ravaged their ranks, and Japanese attacks drove them further down the Bataan Peninsula. In the midst of the Battle of Bataan, on 11 March 1942, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered General Douglas MacArthur spirited out of the Philippines by PT boat and airplane.
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