Myth and Fact

The Battle of Manila – Myth and Fact by Peter C. Parsons The Battle of Manila – Myth and Fact by Peter C. Parsons I have been one of the lucky few in American History who has both filed War Correspondent's reports from an active war zone, and who has owned a newspaper. It was only small , but owning it has earned me the right to hold a deep and abiding contempt for those of the revisionist liberal media hive who prefer to publish falsehoods than truths because they believe themselves the appointed filters of what constitutes history and what is mere fact filler. They have paved a road to hell along which good intentions trump outcomes, even when those intentions lead to catastrophe. To them, the evil of MacArthur is the counterpoint of Yamashita, an honorable man of good intent who should not be sanctioned by history irrespective of the consequences when he turned his back upon 100,000 Manileños. This is an edited text of paper I presented at a Battle of Manila conference at the Ortigas WWII Library on 7 February, 2008 and deals with the truths which my colleague Lucky Guillermo and I embedded in our film documentary, Manila 1945 - The Forgotten Atrocities. stories and novels—still my preference if I were not so addicted to history. Some would like to suggest I am still writing fiction. But the demands of history are very interesting. I do not feel that the restraints of truth are a terrible burden to labor under. But I have also discovered that truth is as elusive as water in your hand, it wiggles like an eel. My former partner in videos, Morgan Cavett remarked once, after we had two totally contradictory interviews, one with guerrilla Edwin Ramsey, and one with Luis Taruc. Each ended up calling the other a liar (Ramsey added "sonofabitch") ( and Taruc added a “disrespectful womanizer”)—Morgan, who was running the camera, said, “Well, that seems to be how history is constructed; our job is just to record what the participants say.” Trying to find out the truth about my This is the cover girl for our video. We felt that this image told pretty much the whole story of the innocents. father’s life and work here in the Philippines, for instance, was a wonderful training ground. I have stated from the outset, when I was So many things written about him, and even first invited to present a paper here, that I am by him, were untrue: his US Navy biography not an historian. I worked 35 years in gives his birth year as 1902. Wrong. No one California as a newspaper person and printer. I knew until the late 80’s, just before he died, have retired from that to a life of reading and that he was born in 1900. The only document writing. My first writing was fiction--short where he stated his correct birth date was his 2 marriage certificate; this was also the only document wherein my mom’s age was entered incorrectly (probably to make it seem like she was eighteen instead of her real age: 16). Filipinos learned to move fast – an art that saved many lives during the unpredictable events of the battle. He included in his resume that he had two The trail my father left behind was an years of college at the University of intellectual boot camp, and led me to the Tennessee. And two more years at the National Archives in both Manila and in the University of the Philippines. Wrong again. United States, as well as to many military repositories of war documents. And, of course, A search of records in Tennessee did not to many people whom we interviewed because reveal him as a student at any of their they either knew or had worked with campuses. Commander Chick Parsons, or had good stories to tell about him. While we did this, we And as for UP, I found a letter from the inadvertently picked up hundreds of hours of bursar at UP indicating a partial refund of my wonderful – and now-invaluable oral history – father’s tuition – at his request – as he was [1] as about 90% of these interviewees have died. dropping his classes there. I know there are several of you in here tonight 3 and I can only thank God that he has spared mean inside there. you! [2] There are two very basic books on the Now, more to the point of our Battle of Manila, Bibles sort of. One is documentary, Manila 1945, The Forgotten Alfonso Aluit’s By Sword and Fire published Atrocities. I will say that I stumbled across in 1994; the other is a US Army publication of these atrocious findings while searching for 1963 by Robert Ross Smith called Triumph in my father. I acquired nearly all the still the Philippines. There are a lot more, pictures as well as the military footage (both including one I refer to herein published to American and Japanese) at College Park, commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Maryland, as well as from local historians catastrophe. More on this one later. But there such as Ricardo (Rico) Jose and Edgar Krohn is little that can be added to what is written in and, Ernie de Pedro at Santo Tomas, and the the first two. The many memoirs and personal material to be found at the Lopez, Ayala and stories lend depth and color and horror, and it Intramuros locations. Videographer Lucky is recommended to any student or researcher Guillermo, my partner in this film, has a to read them all. There was also an early surprising collection of WWII footage. equivalent of Aluit’s book in Spanish called El Terror Amarillo en Filipinas, by Antonio I found that the state of the war crimes Perez de Olaguer which was published in papers in Manila was very poor with bundles Spain in 1947 while the wounds were still of papers being tied together with a twine that open. An abridged version of this--in English-- was cutting into the deteriorating bundles. The with a new title, a bit more politically photos seem to have disappeared long ago, and acceptable these days, Terror in Manila, the woman whom I asked about them got very February 1945. This was undertaken by the surly and uncooperative. This was probably an Memorare Manila 1945 Foundation in 2005. appropriate reaction to my natural charm. These three books form a deeply and broadly researched platform from which to dive into In Maryland I learned to use white cotton the subject. I did not know of any of these in gloves to handle any archival photographic the mid-90s. The memories of those times material. All pictures copied were imprinted were so dire that many memoirists, like with the National Archives permiso and logo – Lourdes Montinola and Elena Lizarraga only [“Reproduced at the National Archives”]; all dared face their pain after the passage of 50 textual material was similarly marked as OK. and more years. [I am batting 500 here; Elena You could stay there from 9:00 a.m. to about died shortly after our interview, but I am 9:00 p.m. And we did. We were carefully happy to say that Lourdes marches on inspected as we left. I wanted to live there, I strongly—though she is not here tonight because she is seeing a doctor.] These kids are going to survive. Many did not. 4 Part of what used to be called “The Pearl of the Orient.” When I came across the War Crimes nearly totally forgotten occurrence. And this Investigation report [3] compiled during became what I wanted to portray in our February, March, and April of 1945, I nearly documentary. But at that time my main effort swooned. There were dozens of people there was to discover material about the Philippine that I knew or had known both before and resistance movement, the guerrllas, and after the war. I never knew that my father’s wherever possible about my father in office manager in Hong Kong had lived on particular. Calle Estrada and that his father, Eustacio Barros, had been wantonly killed by a Finally, there was, on pages 33-35, the Japanese soldier when he left his burning blazing testimony of Nicanor Roxas, a house. I read about the massacre at the Perez secretary to President Laurel in the provisional Rubio home on Vito Cruz, complete with my government, telling what he had been told by own father’s testimony. And the simultaneous Pio Duran, the second supreme head of the massacre on the other side of the shared-wall MAKAPILI, that the Japanese had planned to at the home of Lianteng Sy (on Balagtas St.)— destroy Manila and the civilian population. He whose only surviving family member is a said that the Japanese had located heavy good friend of mine. On and on. artillery and aimed it at Manila from positions surrounding the city.[4] In the documentary I also discovered that the massacre and film by David B. Griffin it is said that rape of Manila was not owned by a Spanish Yamashita asked for instructions from Tokyo and mestizo elite. Here were the names and and the destruction of Manila and its pictures of Filipino after Filipino, plus Irish, population was his answer. I had not come Russians, Germans, Chinese, Spanish, across this brief documentary before doing my Americans, Jews (of whatever nationality) all own, and I am surprised and gratified that our being killed indiscriminately.

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