Approaching Corregidor by banca

Our next destination was supposed to be Corregidor, but we got side tracked in Mariveles on the way down. We were heading south to see about renting a banca, the traditional Filipino outrigger boat, which could take us out to the island.

There are two ways to get to Corregidor, the hydrofoil from Manila or a banca from Bataan. It’s the Philippines so we chose the ‘more fun’ way to travel.

As we drove through Mariveles I noticed the Death March markers were counting down to single digits.

7,6,5,4…

We turned off the main road at ‘three’ so I asked our driver to get back on it, I wanted to see what happened when we got to 0.

The Zero Kilometer marker is in a small roadside memorial park with commemorative tablets and a metal ‘soldier’s grave’ statue, embedded in a blood stone covered stand. Bataan-specific, it depicts a M1903 rifle with the World War I-style helmet worn by the defenders. Having made it to Kilometer 00, now I wish we’d have time to visit the final kilometer marker in far off Tarlac.

The site is reverent and more dignified than the other markers, yet passing cars can easily break the peace as its right next to the main road and a Jollibee restaurant.

Detour over; we had to drive a ways into the country to get to the banca rental, which was well outside of the town. This was my first experience with the colorful boats (of course they’re super colorful, it’s the Philippines!), which have been the traditional means of inter-island travel for centuries. These ones differed from their ancestors in that they rely on combustion engines and not the whims of the breeze for movement.

Because we came with a large group of relatives, we had to rent two boats and this cost more than $200. It seemed steep, but in retrospect wasn’t bad for the all day rental of two boats and crews.

There are pros and cons to taking traveling the old fashion way. Its fun traveling fast over the blue bay on your personal boat racing toward the looming tadpole shaped island of Corregidor. No other tourists to get in your way and you can come and go by your own schedule. You also get to see the bay up close and personal.

On the downside, you get to feel Manila Bay up close and personal. It’s beautiful and blue, but also some of the dirtiest, most trash-strewn waters I’ve been in. The beach where the bancas launched from were covered in garbage that’d washed up. It also didn’t help that we’d been to the Manila aquarium a few days prior and saw examples of how dirty the Pasig River, which empties into the bay, is.

Still, completely worth it as we pulled into the island’s marina and we were ushered ashore by staff and men dressed in 1930s Philippine Scout uniforms. That part was a nice touch and similar to the guards in Manila’s Intramuros, the Spanish walled city, which wear turn-of-the-century rayadillo uniforms.

Corregidor Island, or “The Rock,” is small but strategic. Sitting in the entrance to Manila Bay, possession of the island dictates usage of the bay. When the Japanese invaded, they were unable to make use of Asia’s finest deep water bay until the American forces surrendered the island. In this way, it was an important part of the American war plans.

During the Spanish-era, it had been home to a lighthouse and customs house. Lightly fortified, it was by-passed by Dewey’s squadron as he sailed into Manila Bay to annihilate the Spanish fleet during the Spanish –American War.

It became a U.S. military reservation in 1902 and Fort Mills was established in 1908. When speaking of the military presence on Corregidor, you’re actually speaking of Fort Mills. It was fortified with mortars and artillery pieces armed with armor-piercing shells that could destroy warships from a distance. Due to its focus on anti-ship defense, it also meant that it was not properly stocked with high-explosive shells for firing upon the Bataan peninsula in support of American troops during the Battle of Bataan.

Fortification enhancement and island improvements came to a halt in 1922 due to a provision in the Five-Power Treaty, in which the U.S. agreed to maintain the status quo, and not modernize or improve fortifications in the Pacific beyond Hawaii and Japan promised not to fortify its recent World War I gains either. This resulted in a robust, but archaic, fortress that was vulnerable to air attacks.

There is too much Corregidor to see in a day and we had to rent the necessary island tramvia bus and guide for travel. The only way all of it could be seen in a single trip would be by staying overnight at the island’s probably haunted hotel. Our itinerary included several batteries, Topside and Malinta Tunnel.

I love ruins and the batteries here are some of the best. Battle-damaged from two battles yet still intact, the guns have been re-installed and visitors are free to walk about them. The three we visited each carried a different kind of armament, so we saw the different kinds of fortifications without wasting our limited time on seeing redundant ones.

What’s neat about it is that if you’ve ever been to an early 20^th century coastal defense battery in America, these should look familiar to you. The U.S. Army built its batteries to the same design all around the world.  Though, these ones are combat veterans, unlike the ones safely tucked away in Washington State.

Our guide explained the battle histories of each stop and helped paint a picture of what happened, explaining why the buildings were blown out or pockmarked. Why a gun was knocked off its pedestal. Most of the damage was due to the Americans on their return. Taking back Corregidor in 1945, the U.S. had to knock out its former emplacements before it could land troops ashore to take Corregidor back.

Battery Hearn, one of the largest guns on the island, was the site of a famous photo of victorious Japanese troops shouting, “banzai”! It was something which our guide offered to take a picture of us doing as well. Not sure how I felt about that, but when in Corregidor…

Topside, which as the name denotes, is the uppermost part of Corregidor and was the location of base facilities including the movie theater and officer’s club. Enlisted men were quartered in the ‘mile long barracks,’ the still standing ruins of which we saw on the way up. All of these ruins share the landscape with memorials to the defenders. We had to move at a brisk clip here and couldn’t linger as long as I would have liked, especially in the small museum, but we had to rush to make it to Malinta Tunnel in time for the next “light and sound” show.

Though it was an extra charge, the Malinta Tunnel experience had to be part of our visit.

Malinta Tunnel took 10 years to build and was completed in 1932. It was the biggest improvement during the treaty years, as the tunnel was meant for storage and therefore not a military enhancement. Built deep within Malinta Hill, it could serve as a protected, if not pleasant, command center during an invasion.  Given the island’s light air defenses and lack of positions fortified from air attack it was a logical and technically legal necessity. “Malinta,” means “many leeches.”

During the Battle of Bataan, Malinta was home to MacArthur’s headquarters and a 1,000 bed hospital. Other than the hospital wing, it really was just a converted storage facility the rest of it was described as being damp and badly ventilated. More than 4,000 people lived and worked in tunnel during the battle.

Bataan fell on April 9, 1942, which numbered the days of Corregidor’s garrison. There was a limited water supply that without the Bataan lifeline meant eventual death for the inhabitants. This could have been a viable strategy had the battle of Bataan not gone on as long as it had. General Homma, the Japanese general who invaded the Philippines, had been given a 50 day timetable for occupation. The clock began ticking on Dec. 8, 1941. He finally defeated the force on Bataan 120 days later. High command lacked patience for starving out The Rock, so after a month of preparation Japanese forces landed on the bloodstoned shores of Corregidor.

The Battle for Corregidor was short and fierce, taking place over the night of May 5-6, 1942. It ended when Japanese tanks neared the mouth of Malinta Tunnel. Headquarters and hospital, continuing the fight at this point would have resulted in the deaths of everyone inside so for this reason Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, the commander after MacArthur had been ordered to Australia by President Roosevelt, surrendered the morning of May 6, 1942. This formally ended the American resistance to Japan’s invasion, which had begun five months earlier.

The tunnel was besieged again in 1945, but the new occupants had a different mentality than the old ones. Unwilling to surrender, the Japanese detonated the tunnel on themselves instead of letting the Americans take it back.

The “light and sound” Malinta Experience tour took us and a lot of other tourists through the unlit tunnel. The main tunnel has a number of laterals or side tunnels, each of which has a diorama depicting different scene from the island’s history, punctuated with dramatic lighting and recorded dialogue playing out the event. The dialogue is a bit cheesy at times, but overall it gets the story across and at the end there’s a flag and the national anthem is played.

I’d have liked to have had more time to just walk through Malinta and look at the untouched labyrinth of laterals that were damaged in the war, but that’s only possibly with special night tours for Corregidor Hotel guests.

Malinta tunnel lateral

Seeing all of this took most of the day, so before covering a few last smaller sites on our way out we stopped for a beachside picnic and to pick our own bloodstones from the sand.

We didn’t have enough time to see any more batteries so our last stop was the Japanese garden to take in the view of the bay. I’m pretty certain everyone else was really awed by the view while I was captivated by the three Japanese coastal defense guns that had been planted in the garden.

Day complete, we took the tramvia bus back to the marina where we passed a statue of Gen. MacArthur waving and the phrase, “I Shall Return.” Me too, Mac. Me too.

This article has been written about visiting the memorials and ruins in Bataan and Corregidor, but it feels appropriate that I end it not in either of those places but Tarlac at the Capas National Shrine.

A few years after this trip, I did return. (A few times actually.) This time Nanay and I planned a road trip up north (which you can read about here), and since we were heading past it, we included a stop in Tarlac.

The Capas National Shrine is built over the former Camp O’Donnell, last stop on the Bataan Death March. (Not to be confused with the active Camp O’Donnell a few miles away.)

The original Camp O’Donnell was a partially finished Philippine Army training camp that had been opened in fall 1941 amidst a vast swathe of farmland. Intended to house 10,000 Soldiers, as a prison camp it was home to more than 50,000 prisoners. Food and medicine were scarce and water came from a single well, which men could spend 20 hours a day standing in line waiting to fill their canteens from. Many had been sick already, and the crowded, unsanitary camp conditions exacerbated health issues. At least 1,500 Americans and 26,000 Filipinos died at Camp O’Donnell due to starvation, abuse, illness and in some cases, murder. Possession of any Japanese goods was considered grounds for summary execution by camp guards.

For Japan, one of this prison camp’s selling points was that it was in the middle of nowhere so American escapees would have to travel a great distance to get help. That part hasn’t changed much.

Our trip to Capas took some doing. We rode the Victory Liner up to Tarlac, then a local jeepney to a Capas stop and finally, I, Nanay and bunso (youngest child, my little sister) loaded onto a tricycle. A tricycle is a motorcycle with a sidecar built for one or two Filipino-sized passengers. Bunso rode sidesaddle with the driver and I took the sidecar with Nanay. My head and shoulders stuck out the back of our ride and I felt kind of like a dog with his head out the window of car. Before we were done, I thought my face had sunburned brown, but it was just a heavy layer of dust. It was worth it for the nice pictures I took of the surrounding farmland and villages as we rode toward Capas.

The shrine is still in the middle of miles of farmland with nothing nearby taller than the trees. Its defining feature is a 230-foot tall obelisk that, like Mr. Samat’s cross, can be seen from a distance as you approach.

Out here we saw more of the Death March markers leading us to the final one, 111, right outside the road onto the shrine grounds.

Though located far from tourist crowds or easy access, the Philippine government went all out making this a proper tribute to the dead. The sky-piercing obelisk is surrounded by a black marble memorial wall and sits at the end of long flag-lined esplanade. The area is engulfed by 31,000 trees planted in memory of the possibly 31,000 people who died here. (It’s impossible to find hard numbers as the Japanese did not maintain, or had destroyed, their records here.)

We had the park to ourselves and the quiet atmosphere was solemn. We milled around the obelisk and I took time to just read names. I came across the distinct last name of a friend, so I took a picture of it, as well as two men with the same last name as Nanay’s father. (We later confirmed they were his cousins.)

The day after my visit, I contacted my friend on Facebook about the name and asked if it was familiar to him. He initially said ‘no’ but then asked me to wait while he asked his aunt. He came back and asked if I took a picture of the name- it was his great uncle.

Off to the side of the main shrine is a smaller memorial hall, American memorial and the last known surviving rail car used to move prisoners to Camp O’Donnell. The American memorial is tiny, just a small white wall for its far fewer names and a replica of the original “sack of cement memorial cross.”

When Americans were originally buried in mass grave at O’Donnell, a Japanese sergeant gave them a big bag of cement to build a shrine for the dead. They fashioned a simple cross out of it. The original is now at the National Prisoner of War Museum in Andersonville, Georgia. Like O’Donnell, Andersonville was a hellish POW camp in the U.S. Civil War.

Upon his return in 1944, General MacArthur made his famous “I have returned” radio broadcast, during which he refers to Bataan as “soil consecrated in the blood of our two peoples.” I didn’t know that when I visited, but he was right. Many battlegrounds have become hallowed memorial places, and I can’t say precisely why Bataan of all places has held such as interest to me over all others, but the visit left an impression.

Going back to what I’d said at the beginning of the story, it’s an important historic event that feels forgotten so I hope that other can learn at least a little from my own experience, even if they do not ever come to Bataan themselves.

I can never thank Nanay enough for taking me home with her to Bataan.