Over the course of World War II, guerrillas from across the Philippines opposed Imperial Japan’s occupation of the archipelago. Although the guerrillas never possessed the combat strength to overcome the Japanese occupation on their own, they disrupted operations, kept the spirit of resistance alive, provided important intelligence to the Allies, and assumed frontline duties fighting the Japanese. By examining the organization, motivations, capabilities, and operations of the guerrillas, James Villanueva argues that the guerrillas were effective because Japanese punitive measures, along with a strong sense of obligation and loyalty to the United States, pushed most of the population to support the guerrillas. Unlike their predecessors opposing the Americans in 1899, the guerrillas during World War II benefited from the leadership of US and Filipino military personnel and received significant aid and direction from General Douglas MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) Headquarters, conducting one of the most effective and sophisticated resistance campaigns in World War II. Awaiting MacArthur’s Return is the first comprehensive comparative analysis of the major World War II guerrilla groups across the Philippine Archipelago, providing a fuller picture of the nature of the war in the Southwest Pacific and revealing the extent to which the guerrilla movement affected operations for both Allied and Imperial Japanese forces. Analyzing the organizational effectiveness of the guerrillas resisting the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, this book alternates narrative chapters with thematic chapters examining the guerrillas’ organization, logistics, administration, intelligence-gathering, and the support they received from Allied forces and provided the Allies in turn. Villanueva offers the most in-depth analysis of the guerrillas’ military organization and effectiveness in the context of existing theories of insurgency and counterinsurgency while using an extensive body of memoirs, archival guerrilla and US Army and Navy records, and translations of Japanese documents and interviews with Japanese officers.

With the Leyte Campaign the War in the Pacific entered a decisive stage. The period of limited offensives, bypassing, and island hopping was virtually over. American troops in greater numbers than ever before assembled in the Pacific Theater, supported by naval and air forces of corresponding size, fought and overcame Japanese forces of greater magnitude than any previously met. Though the spotlight is on the front-line fighting, the reader will find in this volume a faithful description of all arms and services performing their missions. The account is not exclusively an infantry story. It covers as well the support of ground fighting on Leyte by large-scale naval operations and by land-based air power under the most adverse conditions. In addition, careful attention to logistical matters, such as the movement of supplies and the evacuation of the wounded, gives the reader a picture of the less spectacular activities of an army in battle.

"MacArthur's Spies reads like Casablanca set in the Pacific, filled with brave and daring characters caught up in the intrigue of war—and the best part is that it's all true!" —Tom Maier, author of Masters of Sex A thrilling story of espionage, daring and deception set in the exotic landscape of occupied Manila during World War II. On January 2, 1942, Japanese troops marched into Manila unopposed by U.S. forces. Manila was a strategic port, a romantic American outpost and a jewel of a city. Tokyo saw its conquest of the Philippines as the key in its plan to control all of Asia, including Australia. Thousands of soldiers surrendered and were sent on the notorious eighty-mile Bataan Death March. But thousands of other Filipinos and Americans refused to surrender and hid in the Luzon hills above Bataan and Manila. MacArthur's Spies is the story of three of them, and how they successfully foiled the Japanese for more than two years, sabotaging Japanese efforts and preparing the way for MacArthur’s return. From a jungle hideout, Colonel John Boone, an enlisted American soldier, led an insurgent force of Filipino fighters who infiltrated Manila as workers and servants to stage demolitions and attacks. “Chick” Parsons, an American businessman, polo player, and expatriate in Manila, was also a U.S. Navy intelligence officer. He escaped in the guise of a Panamanian diplomat, and returned as MacArthur’s spymaster, coordinating the guerrilla efforts with the planned Allied invasion. And, finally, there was Claire Phillips, an itinerant American torch singer with many names and almost as many husbands. Her nightclub in Manila served as a cover for supplying food to Americans in the hills and to thousands of prisoners of war. She and the men and women who worked with her gathered information from the collaborating Filipino businessmen; the homesick, English-speaking Japanese officers; and the spies who mingled in the crowd. Readers of Alan Furst and Ben Macintyre—and anyone who loves Casablanca—will relish this true tale of heroism when it counted the most.

War and Resistance in the Philippines, 1942-1944 repairs the fragmentary and incomplete history of events in the Philippine Islands between the surrender of Allied forces in May 1942 and MacArthur's return in October 1944. No book has comprehensively examined the Filipino resistance during this crucial period. Here, James Kelly Morningstar provides for the first time a comprehensive history of the protracted fighting by 260,000 guerrillas in 277 units across the archipelago. Beginning with the Japanese occupation, the collapse of the United States Forces, Far East (USAFFE), and the simultaneous rise of the complex, diverse Philippine guerrilla movements, Morningstar exposes the inadequacy of MacArthur's conventional plans while revealing his inchoate preparation for guerrilla resistance. Morningstar then recounts in detail the impromptu resistance led by refugee American and Filipino soldiers, local politicians, and social revolutionaries left to battle the Japanese--and each other--with emphasis on how Japanese, American, and Filipino actions influenced and proscribed each other. From a distance, MacArthur contacted select guerrillas and organized agents to deliver supplies and radios to them by submarine. In this way he empowered some to gain power as part of a united framework under his leadership. This not only kept alive the resistance that denied the Japanese exploitation of the Philippines while setting the conditions for MacArthur's return, it also ensured that no one guerrilla leader could challenge America's supremacy. MacArthur's selective support to guerrilla groups that encouraged continued Filipino dependence on the United States would prove fatal for the incipient Maoist social revolution on Luzon. Even so, the Filipinos' shared sacrifice in their act of resistance fueled a national consciousness that created a sense of deserved nationhood. War and Resistance in the Philippines, 1942-1944 concludes with a brief discussion of legacies of the guerrilla resistance. MacArthur's return reestablished the power of American and Filipino political elites. Guerrillas and other citizens who had experienced exceptional hardship now had to fight for recognition. However, the war had resulted in a more united Philippine national identity along with new political institutions to repair the divisions between the formerly exiled government, the collaborationists, and the members of resistance. These momentous years of struggle in the Philippines changed the tide of history and challenge our understanding of war and resistance.

General Arthur MacArthur’s extraordinary life spans the history of the United States from the Civil War through the Indian Wars to the Spanish-American War and the heyday of American imperialism in the Philippines. And in a sense, as the father of Douglas MacArthur, his influence extends well into our own century. The General’s General is the first biography of Arthur MacArthur, and it clearly establishes his importance in American history. Arthur MacArthur’s military career began as a scrawny seventeen-year-old lieutenant, his commission owed not to any evidence of his ability but to family connections. His squeaky voice, barely audible on the parade field, combined with an adolescent conception of proper military bearing to make the young officer an object of ridicule. But MacArthur overcame this bad start and went on to become a bona fide Civil War hero. The youngest regimental commander of the war, he led his troops with distinction in battle and became one of the very first officers to be awarded the congressional Medal of Honor. In the 1870s MacArthur served in forts in the West during the Indian Wars, married “Pinky†Hardy, and started a family. He next commanded a division in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. MacArthur went on to become the governor-general of the Philippines—the most imperial post in that blatantly imperialistic period of American history. His blunt opposition to aspects of Washington’s colonial policy in the Philippines led to a series of conflicts with Taft, McKinley, and other civilian authorities. After his return to the United States in 1907, these same leaders blocked MacArthur’s appointment as chief of staff of the army. Instead, an embittered MacArthur was forced to retire. The MacArthur family, including Douglas, never forgave the powerful men who had thwarted Arthur in his greatest ambition and denied him his place in history. After one of the most distinguished careers in the history of the U.S. Army, Arthur MacArthur died in relative obscurity while delivering a speech at the fiftieth reunion of his original Civil War regiment. A man whose whole life had been soldiering left instructions forbidding a military funeral and asking to be buried in civilian clothes rather than in the uniform he had worn so proudly from the age of seventeen. MacArthur died too soon to witness the military exploits of his famous son. But there can be no doubt that Arthur made a profound impression on Douglas, who regarded the general with awe and spent much of his own life following in his father’s footsteps. Arthur MacArthur had spent his life striving to be a soldier’s soldier; in the end it can be truly said that he was the general’s general.

A fighter pilot who flew 75 combat missions in World War I, George C. Kenney was a charismatic leader who established himself as an innovative advocate of air power. As General MacArthur's air commander in the Southwest Pacific during World War II, Kenney played a pivotal role in the conduct of the war, but until now his performance has remained largely unexplored. Thomas Griffith offers a critical assessment of Kenney's numerous contributions to MacArthur's war efforts. He depicts Kenney as a staunch proponent of airpower's ability to shape the outcome of military engagements and a commander who shared MacArthur's strategic vision. He tells how Kenney played a key role in campaigns from New Guinea to the Philippines; adapted aircraft, pilots, doctrine, and technology to the demands of aerial warfare in the southwest Pacific; and pursued daring strategies that likely would have failed in the European theater. Kenney is shown to have been an operational and organizational innovator who was willing to scrap doctrine when the situation called for ingenuity, such as shifting to low-level attacks for more effective bombing raids. Griffith tells how Kenney established air superiority in every engagement, provided close air support for troops by bombing enemy supply lines, attacked and destroyed Japanese supply ships, and carried out rapid deployment by airlifting troops and supplies. Griffith draws on Kenney's diary and correspondence, the personal papers of other officers, and previously untapped sources to present a comprehensive portrayal of both the officer and the man. He illuminates Kenney's relationship with MacArthur, General "Hap" Arnold, and other field commanders, and closely examines factors in air warfare often neglected in other accounts, such as intelligence, training, and logistical support. MacArthur's Airman is a rich and insightful study that shows how air, ground, and marine efforts were integrated to achieve major strategic objectives. It firmly establishes the importance of MacArthur's campaign in New Guinea and reveals Kenney's instrumental role in turning the tide against the Japanese.