One thing that I definitely wanted to do in my time in the Philippines was to take a tour of Corregidor Island, which is a tadpole shaped island that guards the opening of Manila Bay. This tour was in doubt due to the way I was feeling recently and also due to the time constraints in the Philippines. I was fortunately able to squeeze it in and to feel good enough to make this tour. I think the non stop traveling plus the Asian heat had started to take a cumulative effect on me.
I walked down to the bay and secured a reservation on the boat for the next day. I was still feeling a little light headed, but who knows when I would return, so I made a reservation. The next day I boarded the boat, which was a very luxurious air conditioned liner filled with people going to the island. I immediately felt better in the air conditioned atmosphere of the boat, which gave me an incredible insight to why I was feeling so bad of late. Not only had I tired myself out with my travels lately, but I had also been traveling in very hot climates lately and staying in non-air conditioned rooms. The combination of the heat, lack of sleep, traveling, and alcohol had caused me to run out of gas, or more appropriately run into too much gas.
Corregidor Island is a very significant spot in the Pacific Theater. When Japan ran amok in the Pacific in the days following Pearl Harbor they were able to take many areas with the damaged US fleet unable to respond. They overran Thailand, French Indochina, and the Philippines within days. The US force on the mainland of the island of Luzon were trapped on the Bataan peninsula and had to endure the consequent death march to camps inside the Philippines. The only place that was able to hold out to the Japanese onslaught was Corregidor Island. A small contingent of US and Philippine forces were able to bravely hang on. The island actually became a Pacific Alamo.
The Japanese timetable for the surrender of Corregidor was one month, but the small force on the island held out for five months and disrupted the Japanese from further action and many think this heroic defense stopped the Japanese further Japanese aggression. The US and Filipino force surrendered on May 6, 1942 and bought the damaged US fleet time to rebuild. General MacArthur was on the island, but was ordered to flee the island leaving his troops by a direct order from FDR as the American Chiefs of Staff recognized MacArthur’s brilliance and did not want to see him lost to the Japanese. MacArthur argued that he did not want to leave, but with a direct order he had to. As he left, he vowed to return and supposedly said this as he was getting on a boat at a harbor on the island. There is a statue near this point commemorating this line of MacArthur holding out his arm with those famous words set in stone in front of the statue.
The island itself was absolutely beautiful. Great views of the surrounding landscape including some impressive mountains rising from the coast on the Bataan peninsula. After getting off the boat we were herded onto little buses that cruised us around the island stopping at key battery positions of American guns.
The island was equally important in 1945 when the Americans retook Manila. MacArthur believed that the Japanese on the island were expecting a seaborne landing, so he tricked them by dropping airborne troops on the island, which was no easy feat because the island is very small. This maneuver worked brilliantly and the Americans retook the island with very light casualties. MacArthur stood up to his pledge and returned.
This tour was one of the best historical tours I have ever taken. They showed films on the War both coming to the island and returning to Manila. Each bus had a tour conductor that was very knowledgeable about the battle and the war in general. The tour guide spoke about each stop we went arrived at and then allowed us to walk around the different spots and take pictures and check out the memorials. Both the films and the tour conductor did a good job of explaining the battles of Corregidor and also did a good job of placing the history of Corregidor in the context of what was happening in the Pacific theater.
After returning to Manila I headed back to my pension. My last four days in the Philippines I headed back to Angeles City to spend with my friend Richard and his wife Liza. I ended up not doing a whole lot here. I was exhausted from my travels and spent much of the time just resting in my hotel.
The day before leaving from the Philippines I headed back to Manila to be close to the airport for my departure the next day. On the way to the airport the next morning my taxi driver told me to look at the car next to us. We were stuck in traffic and there was a cab full of pretty Filipino women looking at me and laughing. I smiled and waived. I have never gotten so much attention from pretty women than here in the Philippines. They love American men here. Just about everywhere I went I was greeted by smiles and calls of “handsome” or gwapo (handsome in Philipines.) Probably 75 percent of these women were probably prostitutes, but I believe it is better to be called handsome by a prostitute than an asshole. The girls in the cab next to me took out their phones and were wanting my phone number. I had sold my cell phone to Richard the day before. Of course I could do nothing here since I was leaving the country, but I stuck my arm out the window of the cab and yelled to the girls “I shall return.”
