War's End

From a personal account of the late Raul M. Gonzalez:

“The day came when American soldiers landed in Iloilo.  They were welcomed everywhere while the Japanese soldiers fled to the mountains of Antique and Capiz and the shores of Aklan.  Pocket groups of stragglers dug in and made a valiant but futile effort to thwart the advance of the Americans.  The Japanese Imperial Army faded into the night and lingered only as a memory of a senseless war.   

“Our family went back to our residential house in Barangay Quintin Salas in Jaro and found it in ruins.  The guerillas used the house as its headquarters and Japanese soldiers targeted it, as they abandoned Iloilo City.  After the Japanese fled, the guerillas stripped the house of whatever useable furnishings they can lay their hands on and left the house in shambles.  In the days that followed, Sergio and I went back to the farm to see what remains of our property.  Everything looked normal and even the pile of harvested palay called tumpi looked untouched, slightly leaning to one side probably because of the wind.

“We went about our business and went home for lunch.  Unknown to us, there was a Japanese soldier hiding inside the tumpi waiting for a chance to get away.  Realizing that there was no way he can slip away undetected, he decided to end his misery, took out a match and burned the pile of palay with him in it.  The people soon realized what happened and they stood guard around the tumpi. 

“It was a pitiful sight, knowing that a man was burning inside.  The smell of burning flesh lingered in the air for hours.  The straggler likely thought that it was the best that he could do.  If he got caught, who can say how the bitter guerillas will treat an enemy?  In the town of Barotac Nuevo, the angry populace butchered all the Japanese soldiers they could find except for the cook who was able to flee.  To the Japanese, there is honor and nobility in taking one’s life in the face of defeat.

“Life was coming back to the Iloilo City.  Residents returned from their mountain lairs.  It was time to pick up the pieces of their lives.  American servicemen mingled with the natives freely and a brisk barter trade flourished for lack of credible currency.  Filipinos snatched up American goods including cigarettes, K-rations, coffee, corned beef, balls of cheese and, yes, chocolates.  These were the memories of liberation days. 

“Warmed by the euphoria of peace, children were like unbridled ponies, running all over the place.  This was how it was when our youngest brother Mario, at 7 years of age, was hit by a military jeep driven by an American soldier.  We rushed him to a hospital where doctors announced that his arm must be opened up.  He died of an overdose of anesthesia.  His death was so unnecessary, so meaningless, at a time when war had finally ended.”

Brutality of War

This is a personal account of the late Raul M. Gonzalez on the brutality of members of the Japanese Imperial Army during their occupation of Panay island in 1942-1944.

“I remember an old sea captain who was captured during a lightning raid of Japanese Imperial Army forces on our village.  An evacuee, he was hopeful that the soldiers would spare him because of his age.  But they somehow got wind of his son who was an ROTC cadet at the Colegio de San Agustin in Iloilo City and who was one of the guerillas who broke the Japanese blockade in the Corregidor Strait as they brought rice supplies to Bataan aboard the SS Regulus.  The ship was later sunk by the Japanese but they blamed the aging seaman for the involvement of his son and turned to him for revenge.

“At 12 years of age, I witnessed with my own eyes the indescribable abuses and atrocities of the Imperial Army which lingered in my memory.  I saw how the invaders, young and vicious, would tie a prisoner to a post and beat him with whatever was at hand until he died.  The methods of torture used by them were so barbaric that it defied description.  Suspected guerillas were kidnapped never to be seen gain.  Women were raped and food supplies were sequestered with force.  It was the height of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.  I developed a hatred for violence and abhorred the thought of bloody confrontation.  But if the situation presented itself, I would fight back with all the survival instincts I had learned during those dangerous years.

“In the course of the war, heavy fighting broke out in Barangay Buntatala, the last barrio of Jaro across the river from the town of Leganes and a village away from the place where the family evacuated.  The guerillas controlled the bridge effectively stopping the Imperial Army from marching north towards the towns of Leganes and Zarraga.  Although possessing much superior firepower, the invaders were stymied by the guerillas, and fighting raged on for days. 

“The deafening roars of bazookas and the staccato sound of machine guns and rifle fire filled the air with terror, and forced the people to flee to safer grounds.  The enemy was everywhere while their reinforcements were already tramping the rice fields towards the battle site, killing every one they encountered with their bayonets and samurais.  The soldiers were on a murderous rampage, angered by the resistance of an inferior force.

“The whole family fled into the rice fields, merging with the terrain with only the tall stalks of rice as cover.  It was raining hard when suddenly I spotted a group of soldiers coming our way.  There was no time to hide, and communicating with hand signals, we burrowed into the mud and prayed to God to save us.  We held our breath for a long time as the soldiers, afraid to lose their footing in the paddies, passed our group who were just a few meters away buried in the mud like mudfish.  

"Breathless seconds passed before we lifted our heads from the mud and gulped for air.  By this time the soldiers were already hurrying away unaware of our presence due to the noise from the rain and the wind.  Our faces were full of mud but we were triumphant for evading the enemy yet another time.  We were thankful to God for saving us for the umpteenth time.  We crawled along the rice paddies and slipped away to safety.”