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| Leyte Guerrillas operating |
Probably neither Torres nor the Kempei Tai
anticipated that resistance would emerge barely a month after the top military
officials surrendered – and this at close quarters. The first of these
uncoordinated attacks was inaugurated by a mere non-commissioned officer of the
USAFFE, Sgt. Eusebio Teraza, in a daring ambush of a Japanese wagon in Barrio
Malirong, Palo in June 17, 1942.[i]
Then in the last week of that same month,
the resistance in Capoocan erupted, with another non-commissioned officer of
the USAFFE, TSgt. Felix Pamanian, taking the initiative. An enemy truck was
destroyed in another daring ambush.
The day after that, on June 27, 1942, Lt. Alejandro Balderian, a USAFFE from Dagami who had combat experience in Luzon , started attacking Japanese patrols at Tibak bridge
in Palo.[ii]
Both Balderian and Pamanian would figure
prominently in the subsequent months as the guerilla movement grew in Leyte . But it was the needless execution of an American
serviceman and two other Filipinos that triggered the large scale uprising in
the coming months.
On July 2, 1942, Capt. James Bullock, SC,
USN Reserve, a Lt. Mendiola and a civilian accused of being a common thief were
taken from their cell in the Leyte High School building and brought to the Tacloban
cemetery where they were made to dig their common grave, struck down with the
shovels and shot in the head when they were down. Witnesses who saw the
incident spread the news to the civilian population and in a few days, hundreds
joined the protest with the guerrilleros
who, armed with rifles and bolos, paraded around Palo, just a block away from
the Japanese garrison, bearing American and Filipino flags. The first of its
kind, the march was led by USAFFE Sgt. Eusebio Teraza.[iii]
That massacre signaled the commencement of
guerilla warfare throughout the island. In July 4, that year, Major Isidro C.
Tizon and nine of his men ambushed three trucks of the enemy, destroying one
and scuttling the other two. This happened in Sityo Bagalongon, in Kananga
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| Fertility supplement |
[i] Emil Justimbaste, “Leyte Landing: A
historical brief of the events leading to A-Day on October 20, 1944 and related
stories,” published in 1994, p. 12
[ii] Pedro Abrenica, unpublished MS thesis, “Leyte Area Command: Its Organization and Role in the Resistance
Movement in the Philippines ”,
Adamson University
[iii] Ibid
[iv] Asisclo Fiel, Philippine Free
Press, 1947. Fiel was a member of the WLGWF. The article was reprinted in
Justimbaste’s “Leyte Landing.”
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