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Between July and December 1943, Japanese forces in Panay, the Philippines, perpetrated large-scale and widespread atrocities that deliberately targeted the civilian populace of the island. Houses were burned, crops destroyed, livestock slaughtered, and thousands of civilians of all ages and genders were killed. These atrocities were employed strategically as part of an anti-guerrilla campaign designed to compel civilians to give up their support for a guerrilla resistance movement which had flourished in Panay since the surrender of USAFFE troops in May 1942. The conduct of Japanese troops during this campaign was a drastic departure from earlier anti-guerrilla efforts which had avoided attacks against the civilian population in favour of pacification policies. In this article, I draw on Japanese, Philippine and US sources to reconstruct the history of anti-guerrilla warfare and civilian-targeted violence in Panay, a case that has received limited scholarly attention, to build a more complete picture of the context in which Japanese strategy shifted so dramatically in 1943. I explore the circumstances in which Japanese commanders decided to employ violence against civilians and offer some insights into the factors that shaped the radicalisation of military strategy useful for understanding atrocities perpetrated by Japanese forces in other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Filipino-American defense of the Bataan peninsula in 1942 finally collapsed under Japanese might as the United States suffered the most devastating defeat in its history. This article describes the Japanese defenses, weapons, and tactics used when the Americans liberated Bataan in February 1945. Utilizing the key terrain feature of the peninsula, ZigZag Pass, through which wound the only road connecting Subic Bay with Manila and Clark Field, the undermanned Japanese fought with aggressiveness, tenacity, determination, and bravery for eighteen days before withdrawing to central Bataan to engage in guerrilla warfare until the war's end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1970s, during and right after the end of the Vietnam War, more works by Filipino writers, especially historians, were translated into Japanese than works by any other Southeast Asians. In Southeast Asia, it was in the Philippines that the Japanese and the American forces had fought their fiercest battles during the Second World War. The Japanese translators who translated prominent Filipino nationalist historians such as Gregorio Zaide, Teodoro Agoncillo and Renato Constantino, had personally experienced war, defeat, and postwar life under the US-led Allied occupation of Japan. This article compares the original texts of some of these key Filipino works and their Japanese translations, and examines the 'noises' produced in the process of translation. This noise includes strategies such as the deletion and addition of information, opinions, and deliberate misreadings. This article suggests that these strategies reveal the translators' views on the past as well as their contemporary experience of postwar Japan against the background of the ongoing Vietnam War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During their occupation of the Philippines from 1942 to 1945, the Japanese invaders aimed at making the archipelago become part of the so-called Greater East Asia Co- Prosperity Sphere (GEACPS, Daitōa kyōeiken)—a self-sustaining economic bloc that should act as a bulwark against Western imperialism. The underlying philosophy of the GEACPS was pan-Asianism (Han Ajia-shugi)—an ideology that propagated the liberation and unity of all Asian peoples. In the Philippines, the Japanese administrators faced various problems with the implementation of this ideology. The strong impact of four centuries under Western colonial rule had created a mindset among many Filipinos that they themselves were Westerners and not Asians. Therefore, one of the main purposes of the new Japanese rulers was to change the attitude of the Philippine population and win the Filipinos over to the concept of the GEACPS. One means to this end was the dissolution of all political parties in the Philippines and replacing them with the Kapisanan sa Paglilingkod sa Bagong Pilipinas (KALIBAPI: lit., 'Association for Service to the New Philippines'). The Japanese wanted to turn this association into a mass organization with the ultimate goal to create a mass movement towards the establishment of the 'New Philippines' among the population. In this article, I will discuss how the Japanese administrators used the KALIBAPI to adopt their pan-Asianism to Philippine circumstances, but also how the organization exemplifies the ultimate failure of Japanese pan-Asianism in the Philippines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part of a larger, in-depth biographical study of the Filipino writer and diplomat Leon Maria Guerrero (1915-1982), this article deals with Guerrero's wartime activities. Having studied under American Jesuits at the Ateneo de Manila in the 1930s, Guerrero became critical of the Americans during the Japanese occupation. As an officer in the Military Intelligence Service in Bataan, he was disillusioned with America and was forcibly employed by the Japanese. This article explores the reasons behind Guerrero's transformation during the Japanese occupation. After the war, a People's Court was established to try charges of collaboration. Guerrero was never indicted in the court and, as one discerning observer, Tomas Santiago, noted, he was able to escape trial despite having served as propagandist for the Japanese Hodobu or Department of Information. Was Guerrero a traitor? And if so, whom did he betray? This article addresses these questions in the context of how Guerrero responded during his work as a radio commentator to the challenges posed by the Japanese occupation -- akin to walking a tightrope. The article analyses selected and preserved radio commentaries in addition to taking note of oral and historical accounts. It concludes with a consideration of the wider ramifications of the politics of collaboration in the context of American policy towards the Philippines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the nature of film exhibition amongst the Chinese community in Manila during the Japanese Occupation of that city. Based on advertisements and film listings published in the Chinese-language press of the day (as well as on pre-war records concerning commercial Chinese entertainment in the Philippines), it explores the continuities in film exhibition practice undertaken by various theatre operators within the Binondo area of Manila both before, during, and after the war. The paper suggests not only that such practices represented a quite different trajectory from that experienced in other parts of Occupied Manila, but also that a more thorough exploration of the Manila Chinese during wartime—one which goes beyond questions of mere collaboration and/or resistance—will encourage us to question some of the assumptions that underpin recent scholarship about this community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the treason trials held in the Philippines between 1947 and 1953 for collaborators with the Japanese during the occupation of 1941-1945 during World War II. A comparison of these trials with the Allied war crime trials such as those held in Nuremberg, Germany and Tokyo, Japan is presented. Topics considered include the wartime Philippine Executive Commission supporting occupying forces, the position of the Philippines as a territorial possession of the U.S., the conflict of laws between the Philippines and the U.S., and the U.S. military intelligence gathered in the post-war period identifying Filipino collaborators and their crimes.

The article offers the author's insights on the activism, feminism and spirituality in her mother's life. The author narrates that her mother was born in 1939 in Cagayan Valley, Philippines and that the presence of the Japanese in the Philippines affected the role of her mother in the community as she was not free to advocate for women's rights. She adds that she learned from her mother that infusing spirituality in activism and feminism makes work more meaningful and transformative.

The article discusses the military operations of the Station CAST which served as the signal intelligence unit of the U.S. Navy in the Philippines during the World War II. It says that the Station CAST was transferred from Cavite to the AFIRM tunnel in Corregidor Island due to the growing attacks of the Japanese forces. It mentions the mission equipment of CAST including the Boehme Recorder 3, the Boehme Tape Pullers 6, and the high-speed camera. It tells that the primary drift of the tunnel, which was about 12 feet wide and 220 feet long, was driven through the hill at the top of Monkey Point. It tackles the fall of AFIRM on May 6, 1952 as well as the surrender of Corregidor.

This article analyses why some countries in South East Asia have set aside a national day to remember the Japanese Occupation in the cause of nation-building and why other countries have tended to choose not to remember the Japanese Occupation because for them it does not further nation-building. Singapore, the Philippines and Burma have all remembered their experience of struggle and sacrifice during the Second World War to further national unity. However, most South East Asian countries have chosen at a national level not to commemorate this undoubtedly major watershed in the region's history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines during World War II, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and before the Philippines were invaded and occupied by Japan. Three previously unpublished letters from MacArthur to the authors, all written in 1962 in response to queries, are also presented. The main topic discussed is why MacArthur and the U.S. forces were not prepared for the Japanese attack, and why the U.S. air forces did not launch an attack on Japan.

During the opening stages of the Pacific War, between December 1941 and spring 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army appeared unstoppable. US forces in the Philippines, despite their efforts, could not hold out against the enemy advance, and by April the last vestiges of their resistance at Bataan and Corregidor became untenable. The intelligence obtained during the initial encounters provided the US defense establishment with undeniable reasons to conclude that Japanese ground forces possessed a high level of tactical skill, and assessments of the Imperial Japanese Army tended to exaggerate the latter's capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents biographical background information about Margaret Utinsky, an American nurse in the Philippines during World War II. Utinsky organized an underground group that supplied prison camps. She never received the recognition that other nurses did because she operated outside the normal established nursing circles. Details about the war, the fighting in the Philippines, and the Japanese involvement in the war are also presented.

At least six movies about the wartime Japanese occupation were produced by the Philippine film industry since 2000. This article focuses on three: Yamashita: The Tiger's Treasure (2001), Aishite Imasu 1941: Mahal Kita (I Love You, 2004), and Blue Moon (2005). All were released as entries to a major local film festival and received numerous awards. This article looks at how the complexities of invasion and its historical significance are represented in these films, and it explores the possibility of contextual cyclical changes. It analyzes how representations of the Japanese soldier/invader and the Filipino subject/defender/guerilla have changed, and how they compare with images in films produced and shown during the war and the postwar periods. This article addresses how these representations are treated as historical reminders in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During World War II the Japanese Imperial Army concentrated several thousand Allied civilians at the Santo Thmás Internment Camp in Manila, the Philippines. Internee and Japanese administrators subsequently collaborated extensively to run the camp. Since its liberation in 1945, however, the camp's English-language historians have tended to tell the camp experience as a resistance story. This article explores both the history of the camp and its historiography through archival and published sources. It argues that the tendency to recast collaboration into resistance stems from an understanding of collaboration as inherently illegitimate. By conceiving of collaboration as a behavioral category within which lies a spectrum of moral and political legitimacy, the historian can work against this inclination to misunderstand the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented describing the problems of food supply in Leyte, Philippines during the occupation by Japan during World War II. It offers an analysis of the relationship between the Japanese occupiers, Philippine guerrilla groups, native residents, and the United States Air Forces Far East (USAFFE). The self-subsistence and food production campaigns of the Nagano and Omori military detachments are discussed, as well as an explanation by the author for the failure of the campaigns.

Japan's occupation of Southeast Asia placed enormous stocks of the region's industrial crops under Japanese con trot English language Japanese newspaper reports from the Philippines suggest that the invaders grossly under-utilized this vast storehouse of agricultural wealth. Washington's pre-war oil embargo severely crippled military and civilian transport services throughout the war, and Japan's conversion of cane sugar into fuel alcohol and butane for aviation fuel failed to generate successful outcomes. Also, as the Pacific War eliminated cotton imports from the United States, India, and Egypt, placing numerous Japanese textile factories in jeopardy, Tokyo attempted to replace Philippine cane sugar plantings that previously served US markets with raising raw cotton for Japanese textile interests. In the Philippines, however, multifarious bottlenecks crippled all of Tokyo's wartime farm projects. Though the Japanese occupation was short-lived, it demonstrated Tokyo's intention to adjust the Philippine economy into a dependent relationship with Japanese industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the experiences of three dietitians during World War II in the Philippines--their pre-war status and their changing environments as the Japanese invaded the Philippines in overwhelming numbers. Early training and professional experience;Role of dietitians with the army; Before the war and before capture; The fall of Corregidor and capture; More.

Discusses the records of the Japanese army on the occupation of the Philippines between 1941 and 1945. Why these records are scarce and inaccessible in some cases; Listing of the types of documents contained in the records; Contents of the military history collection of the Military Archives; Details on the history and significance of these records.

Examines the organization of several guerrilla outfits by the Chinese in the Philippines against the Japanese during the occupation. The resistance forces on the leftist side led by the leaders coming from the pre-war Philippine Chinese United Workers' Union; Several separated forces on the rightist side; Origination of the pre-war Guomindang organizations in the Philippines.