some PI War-related photos of interest

[berto]

Here is a (blurry!) photo taken circa 1979 of the

Kiangan Shrine

aka the Yamashita Shrine, where Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita surrendered at the end of World War II.



(Those are some of my relatives in the foreground. The toddler is our oldest son, Michael, 14-year active duty Marine Corps, a staff sergeant, and now into his third combat tour of duty--this time Afghanistan, before that twice in Iraq.)

[berto]

Here is a photo of the Dalton Monument



taken at Balete Pass, aka Dalton Pass, where American General James Dalton II was killed by a sniper's bullet in 1945.

And here is a photo of the Japanese war monument at Balete Pass

[berto]

I have tons more personal photos of Tuguegarao (where I lived for 5+ years) and many other places around the Cagayan Valley and Northern Luzon, but these are the few related to the War.

Hope you find these of interest.

[ilovestrategy]

Nice pics Berto! Man, I haven't been there in 20 years! I heard Manila is totally different now. Would you happen to be Filipino by any chance? If so, kumusta!

[berto]

Me Filipino? Only by what I eat.

No, my wife is Filipina. And from Tuguegarao, as you might guess. Tuguegarao, too, has changed radically from when I first went there in 1978.

Were you there in the service?

[ilovestrategy]

I was there in the 80s while in the Marine Corps as the unit interpreter. (they spoke English better than me). I went on a couple of patrols looking for NPA but I never saw anyone and I never heard of anyone seeing anything. Peace time back then.

I'm white but the wife is a Filipina from Palawan. Her grandma that is 81 and lives here in the States told me of her being a young girl and seeing the Nips shoot all the men in her village. I cannot even comprehend that.

[berto]

ORIGINAL: ilovestrategy

I was there in the 80s while in the Marine Corps as the unit interpreter. (they spoke English better than me). I went on a couple of patrols looking for NPA but I never saw anyone and I never heard of anyone seeing anything. Peace time back then.

As a Peace Corps Volunteer in the late 1970s, and while on a trek to the boondocks (from the Tagalog word "bundok", or "mountain"), I "picnicked" (butchered and roasted and feasted on carabao) with some NPA, unbeknownst to me at the time. Fortunately, they weren't into kidnapping back then. [X(] I was a bit foolish to go on that trek. (It was official business, in connection with my advisory role with the Municipal Development Staff of San Pablo, Isabela.)

I could tell other stories about the NPA in them thar woods...

I'm white but the wife is a Filipina from Palawan. Her grandma that is 81 and lives here in the States told me of her being a young girl and seeing the Nips shoot all the men in her village. I cannot even comprehend that.

I believe my mother-in-law saw a beheading or two. At the same time, she would also admit that some of the Japanese occupation troops were really nice, decent human beings. At least the ones assigned to her village anyway. The Nip soldiers would even join in saying the rosary -- as a sort of talisman against personal harm, perhaps?