Retreat with Stilwell

Title

Creator

Belden, Jack

Language

English

Year

1943

Subject

Bataan, Battle of, Philippines, 1942.

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

Jack Belden, thanks to his American courage, has lived fo tell us this story of a defeat that is not so easy to tell. One who reads his book can not help but recall the story of Bataan as recounted by Clark Lee and Frederick S. Marquardt and make obvious comparisons.

Fulltext

PHILIPPINE BOOKSHELF RETREAT WITH STILWELL. By Jack Belden. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1943. 368 pp. S3.00. JACK BELDEN, thanks to his American courage, has Jived ro rell us this story of a defeat that is not so easr to tell. One who reads his book can not help but recall the story of Bataan as recounted by Clark Lee and Frederick S. Marquardt and make obvious comparisons. Sai-s Belden: "Final!)' a Burma Freedom Arm)' was formed. Four thousand young men flocked into this army, ready to die· fighting the same enemy the Japanese "·ere fighting. At last, at the end of March, these barely irained soldiers, equipped with few Japanese machine guns and riftes, went into action on the lrra..,·addy Rh·er, fighting unskillfully but fanatically against the British Imperial Army." Oark Lee: "To the people who read about Bataan in the future, the v.·ords "Filipino and American troops' will have an anonymous quality. 'Troops' is an impersonal word. It suggests a 101 of anonymous men in uniform. The troops in Bataan were neither anonymous, nor impersonal, for Bataan was a very intimate and personal war. It was fought in such a small, confined area that thousands of people got to know each other very well. They shared each other's successes, the minor victories like shooting do..,·n a plane or knocking a sniper out of a tree. Together they shared the horrors of final defeat as they are now sharing the hell of life as helpless prisoners of brutal, vicious little men with big bayonets." Belden: "We no longer could forget the Burma War. All the jungle kisses of a Burmese maiden will not wipe it out. Nor will all the statements of the officials change the nature of the defeat, change the reasons for it, or obliterate the disgrace of it.': Frederick S. Marquardt said: 'Was Bataan worth while? ... From the military standpoint their achievements more than justified their losses. They held an army estimated at rwo hundred thousand men for more than three months, when the Japs needed their troops for the campaigns to the south and to the west. They tied up a large number of Japanese supply ships, when those ships could have been carrying tanks and troops and munitions to other vital Selected Current Literature Books 1. Daniel, Hawthorne. Islands of the Pacific. New York, G. P. Pumam's Sons, 1943. 228 pp. $2.50. 2. Greenbie, Sydney. Asia Unbound. New York, Appleton-Century, 1943. $3.00. 3. Laubach, Frank C. The Silent Billion Speak. New York, Friendship Press, Inc., cl943. 201 pp. $1.00. (For discussion on the Philippines, see Chap. II: "A Literacy Campaign from the Inside" and Chap. III: 'The 'Each One Teach One' Idea Spreads''.) 4. Political Handbook of the World, 1943. New York, Council on Foreign Relations, Inc., 1943. 202 pp. $2:50. (See pp. 150-151, "~mmonwealth of the Philippines.'') Periodical Literature I. Babcock, C. Stanton. Philippine Campaign. Th11 Co11olr1 Jour,,,J, March-April, 1943, v. 52, pp. 7-10; May-June, pp. 28-35. AUGUST 31; 1943 war fronts. Most important of all, 1he1• forced the Japs to use up a veq• substantial amount of their hoard of war materials, somerhing which the Japanese industrial machine was not able to rcpface as rapidly as the United Srates could turn ir out. Belden, however, is careful to point ouc rhat the Imperial soldiers foughr bravely to the last. There were soldiers from the length and breadth of the British Empire, dark skinned Indians, bagpipe-playing Scotch soldiers, Irish. Canadian and Australian. In this tough crowd General Stilwell shines as one of the roughest; one who can outshoot and oucwalk any one of his soldiers. General Stilwell's characterization plus a few ocher portraits make Belden's scory of Burma one of rhe most dramatic reporcings of the war.-A. B. M. I WAS ON CORREGlDOR. By Amea 1Vil/011ghby. New Yo,.k: Harper a11d Bro1hen, 1943. 249 pp. S2.50. MRS. WILLOUGHBY, wife of che Executive Assistant to the High Commissioner, was in Manila when the war broke out and chis book is an account of her experiences in che Philippines wirh native cooks and servants, other members of the small American official circle, and fin.illy with the Filipino and American soldiers in Corregidor as ic lay under Japanese siege. Although it has neicher the panoramic breadth of Clark Lee's "They Call ic Pacific". nor che mamre insight and undcrscanding of Frederick Marquardr's "Before Bataan and After", chis book supplies more useful details about what happened there. Because of the official position of her husband, Mrs. Willoughby is able to give us some more valuable and hitherto unknown data and stories about life in Corregidor in those terrible days. Her account, for example, of the salvaging of the gold, silver and paper mone)' stored in the vaults of the Fortress, is one of the few eye-witness accounts chat we have of the dramatic incident. Her character sketches of Americans, based on close association with the people she describes, are intimate, informal, genteel. Ir is unforrunate however, that she felr she had to portray the Filipinos, too. For, like so many other casual visitors and tourists, Mrs. Willoughby saw only rhe unfamiliar and the different, and, reporting withom understanding, she achieved nor characterization but caricarure.-A. B. M. 2. Crow, Carl. Japanning the Philippines. The Nation, July 31, 1943, v. 157, pp. 120-123. 3. Hazam, John G. Islam and the Muslims in the Far East. Far Eastern Survey, July 28, 1943, v. 12, no. 15, pp. 149-155. (See p. 152, "Moro Minority in Philippines".) 4. One year in Washington. The U11ited Nations RevieU', June 15, 1943, v. 3, pp. 257-258. 5. Osmefia, Sergio. The United Nations and the Philippines. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, July 1943, v. 228, pp. 25-29. 6. Robb, Walter. New England's Parr in the Philippines. Chrislian Science Monitor, Weekly Magazine Sect., July 24, 1943, pp. 13, 15. 7. Valdes, Basilio J. Philippine-American Relations; text of address at commencement exercises, Parsons College, Fairfield, Iowa, May 30, 1943. The United Nalions Re11ie1u, July 15, 1943, v. 3, pp. 302-304. 8. Wheeler, John, Rearguard in Luzon. The C1111olry ]ournol, March-April 1943, v. 52, pp. 5·6. 7

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