WWII Experience in the Philippines

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

WWII in the PhilippinesFilipino's helped fight on the U.S. side as well as on the Philippine side during WWII against the Japanese who occupied the Philippines during the war. The Philippine army, guerrilla units, and the US military fought against the Japanese in the Philippines, and prisoners of war were held captive in the Japanese POW camps. Soldiers that fought and were captured during the Battle of Bataan in 1942 had to walk the infamous Bataan Death March a 60 mile long march to the prisoner camp.

Quotes from War Survivors 

Ben Reyes - medic in the Philippine army

On wartime experiences in the Philippines:

"The Japanese would recruit men to build the roads for them, and sometimes the one that they recruit, they didn't come back. They just killed them to protect what they did."

On dealing with soldiers trying to get out of fighting:

"I knew they were doing it because they were scared to go to the battlefield, but without my certificate they couldn't go to the emergency station. I'd have to just send them back out. There was nothing else I could do. It was my job."

(Quotes taken from Shelly Cone's "Veterans Fight for Full Equity” article)

Aida Betita - wife of a farmer in Arroyo Grande, arrived in the U.S. after WWII from the Philippines

On wartime experiences in the Philippines:

"Affected us in the hard way. We cannot go to school. We cannot go to church. We cannot have a social gathering. All we do is scared and run to the hills."

"You cannot plan what is the next day because the Japanese are penetrating or they're flying or your life is not - you only live day by day that time, you know."

"When the war broke out, we left our town. We walked, I think, I don't know how many hours, 8 hours. We went through the forest so that the Japanese can't see us with our belongings. So we went there in the hills and we hid there."

"There was one day that the Japanese were flying and I think they notice that there was a big house. It's a big house and this Japanese, this Japanese airplane thought that it was an army camp, but they were flying everyday where we lived."

"I think about a week or two they came and bumped that house. They dropped the bomb that house. The Japanese missed the house, but since it wasn't really a good house, it shake and you know, kind of felt like that you know."

"The Japanese in our town was killed in our garrison. That was June, that was our town fiesta, I don't know what year and everyone was preparing to have a town fiesta."

"After that's why big cars and all the officers and Japanese came to our town and they were trying to investigate who killed."

"So after a couple of months, the Japanese went, give us a notice again, these neighboring villages or barrios as what you call it has to go, they call it penetration. Those people that lived in the barrio...has to go to town where we lived like a concentration camp you know, so that the Japanese will go to that village if there's an army or not."

"You can imagine our town is packed with people and somebody, someone died of a maybe insanitation; sometimes they have no food and sometimes they sleep on the ground because they don't belong...so for how many weeks they did that until the Japanese is satisfied that there's no army in those villages."

"They didn't found anybody, so after two weeks, three weeks, they sent them home. Go back, so that was all. I was also scared because I thought they were going to kill us."

Feelings towards the Japanese after the War:

interviewer: "Did those experiences...did they kind of alter your perception of Japanese Americans once when you came over here?

Aida: "No u-hum...In fact my first girl friend here is a Japanese wife to a Filipino. But it didn't come to my mind that I have, I can revenge or hate her." "I heard some Filipino during my time that don't like to go to the Japanese store because they, they didn't like them because what happened to the Philippines. But for me, it didn't bother me."

(Quotes taken from a transcript of an interview with her on March 11, 2010)

Milagros Domingo - wife of a partner of the PI market in Pismo, arrived in the US after WWII from the Philippines.

On wartime experiences in the Philippines:

"We worked in the fields, to support ourselves in order to help the guerrillas. After we have the rice already clean, we relay it. Every city there are so-called Bolo Battalion, they have no guns, only bolos fight against the Japanese."

"So where they have that in every sector or every barrios where they're trying to relayed. Rice will be relayed until the mountain where the guerrillas lived."

"It's not only us, but so many of the town people were helping the guerrillas at that time. And, it was - we were so happy to help them, but it was a hard, hard labor."

"When we got the rice, we dried it, then we pound it, to separate the rice from the palay and then give it to - relay it to the Bolo Battalion. And it relays until it gets to the guerrillas. And we - most of our town people really helped."

"And then, by the time the Americans came, we went back to the town. And schools open, but there were no books, there were only one book for every four to eight students. It was hard."

(Quotes taken from a transcript of an interview with her on March 7, 2010)

Learn More: WWII, Camp San Luis Obispo, Veteran's Rights

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