Post by kamatay on Jul 3, 2007 13:03:59 GMT -5
The tad-tad(chop-chop) Pulahans of Samar / Leyte and the Moros of Mindanao.
`Like a mad tiger': fighting Islamic warriors in the Philippines 100 years ago: exactly a century ago, America began a war against one of its fiercest foes—the Moros of the southern Philippines - United States troops battle against Islamic Moros from 1902 to 1913
VFW Magazine, May, 2002 by Richard K. Kolb
`Like a mad tiger': fighting Islamic warriors in the Philippines 100 years ago: exactly a century ago, America began a war against one of its fiercest foes--the Moros of the southern Philippines. Bearing an uncanny historical resemblance to the war there now, the fight against these fanatic followers of Islam lasted from 1902 to 1913. In the end, some semblance of peace prevailed, but the Moros were never permanently subdued. (War On Terrorism)
When President Theodore Roosevelt declared the Philippines War officially over on July 4, 1902, the proclamation's second preamble contained a caveat. The war was done, it stated, "except in the country inhabited by the Moro tribes."
Despite the fact that more than one-fifth of the entire U.S. Army was bogged down in the Philippines for a decade, the Moro War is the least-known conflict in American military history. With the advent of WWI, it vanished from the national collective memory.
Few traces of it can be found in popular culture. Only one war film has been made about it. The Real Glory (1939) depicted the siege of a remote outpost on Mindanao. An idealistic surgeon (Gary Cooper) rallies natives to defend themselves against Moros. The movie also starred David Niven and Broderick Crawford.
Even more telling, though, was the Army's reluctance to tout its role. Sixteen Medals of Honor were awarded during the Moro War, and hundreds of Americans died serving. Still, some in the military establishment felt they should "remain forgotten."
Yet "the Moros were a truly romantic opponent, America's equivalent of the fierce Pathans of British India's Northwest Frontier," wrote Brian Linn in Guardians of Empire. "Indeed, to the Progressive Era Americans still coming to terms with the end of their own Wild West, Moroland resonated with the richness, mystery, and danger both of the lost continental frontier and the yet-unexplained Pacific `New West.'"
A jihad, or holy war, was waged against the U.S. Army by 34,000 warriors bent on slaving all babui (eaters of pig)--in other words, Christian Americans--in the southern Philippines in the early 20th century.
These warriors were members of a fanatic Islamic society, called Moros by the Spanish, that practiced slavery, polygamy, piracy and violent crime as a way of life. Capt. John Pershing wrote of the Moros: "The only principle for which they fought was the right to pillage and murder without molestation from the government."
This remote corner of Asia was aptly described as "a merry carnival of human sacrifice." But to the Moros, their land was the domain of Islam and it was their duty to sabil--"fight in the way of Allah"--against the American kapil (infidels).
`BULLET-EATING' CHARGES
Under the U.S. military administration, the home islands--Mindanao, Basilan Island and the Sulu Archipelago--of the Moros were consolidated into the Moro Province. The province encompassed 40,000 square miles of inhospitable jungle.
Ten Army posts were maintained on Mindanao and three in the Sulu Archipelago. Elements of more than a dozen infantry and six cavalry regiments saw field service in "Moroland" during the conflict. Troop strength in the region averaged just under 5,000 men.
Assuming an average two-year tour of duty, and allowing for extensions, some 20,000 U.S. troops served in Moro country during the 12 years of sporadic hostilities. (Troops were rotated then by unit and not as individuals.)
Supplementing the regulars were native auxiliaries of the Philippine Scouts and Philippine Constabulary (known as the "Bamboo Brigade") officered by Americans. Many U.S. officers considered the Scouts "the finest body of native troops in existence" who "as an auxiliary force to our regulars ... [were] unexcelled."
The U.S. Navy operated periodically in conjunction with the Army. In 1910, the Southern Philippines Patrol regularly sailed the Sulu Sea. The patrol consisted of four gunboats armed with two 3-pound guns and two Colt 1-inch automatics. Each craft had a crew of 35 U.S. sailors. Piracy diminished appreciably after the appearance of the "Mosquito Fleet."
Warfare in Moroland entailed bush-wacking, "bullet-eating" charges over fortified walls and sudden, suicidal attacks. Booby traps such as belatics (spears lashed to yielding saplings, tripped by vine triggers) and punji pits lined jungle trails.
MANHUNTING ON MINDANAO
The first open attack on U.S. forces occurred in the spring of 1902. While on patrol on the south side of Lake Lanao, which is 16 miles from the north coast of Mindanao, 18 men of the 15th Cavalry were ambushed by 200 Moros. A soldier was killed and the troop's horses stolen.
Seeking retribution for the Lake Lanao ambush, Col. Frank D. Baldwin (holder of two Medals of Honor) led 1,200 U.S. troops against the forts of the sultan of Bayan and the datu (chief) of Binadayan in early May 1902.
A medieval type of defense, these forts had walls 10 feet high and several feet thick, covered by dense, thorny growth and surrounded by trenches. Brass swivel cannons were mounted in openings in the walls. Pitched battles were required to capture the stockades, and resulted in 10 Americans killed and 40 wounded at the Battle of Bayan (see story on p. 24).
Several punitive expeditions followed. From the fall of 1902 to the spring of 1903, Capt. John J. Pershing, destined to become a famous World War I general, led campaigns against the Lanao Moros. Six major actions and many minor skirmishes were fought.
A three-day siege at Bacalod in April killed 120 Moros. At the decisive Battle of Taraca on May 4, 1903, 250 Moros were eliminated as opposed to two Americans killed and five wounded. All told, U.S. casualties in the "march around Lake Lanao" were two KIA, 16 WIA and 18 dead from cholera and poisoned water. Approximately 468 Moros died.
Fighting also spread farther south into the Sulu Archipelago. After the Hassan uprising (in which hundreds of Moro fighters perished) in October-November 1903, the Moros of Sulu sang: "The bravery of the Americans is very good: like a mad tiger."
In the spring of 1904, Gen. Leonard Wood sent an expedition of 1,000 U.S. troops against Datu Ali and the Sultan of Taraca. Some 130 forts were destroyed or captured along the Taraca River on Mindanao. At Siranaya, Cotabato Valley, 100 followers of Datu Ali were slain by the 22nd Infantry in fierce fighting.
Wood later described the marshland of the Cotabato Valley: "I don't think anywhere in the world have I ever seen mosquitoes as thick as they were at this place. The men were almost crazy."
A reconnaissance patrol in that same valley went out after Datu Ali in the Lake Litguasan District. Thirty-six men of F Co., 17th Inf., fell into an ambush on May 8 set by 160 Moros at Simpetan and lost 15 KIA, six WIA and two captured (they were released four days later).
For special duty, infantry regiments formed provisional companies of about 135 members each. Originally created to track down Datu Ali, "provo" units were later kept in ready for particularly dangerous missions. These were essentially the special operations units of their day.
Ali had pledged: "I will try to kill all the people who are friends of the Americans." Wood put a $500 reward on his head--dead or alive. That was a tidy sum for the time and place, and helped in the manhunt.
In October 1905, Capt. Frank McCoy, commanding a "provo" company of the 22nd Infantry, eliminated several hundred of Ali's men in the blood-stained Cotabato Valley at the Battle of the Malalag River. (Ali and his three sons were killed later.) McCoy once reflected on his situation, writing, "Over here we are living in the midst of feudalism and slavery, with pirates and bloody murder."
Meanwhile, hostilities flared anew in the Sulu Archipelago.
On Jolo, from May 1-24, 1905, the 14th Cavalry and companies from the 17th and 22nd Infantry backed by support troops, Scouts and constables, fought a series of three engagements. A particularly fierce fight occurred at Utig's fort on May 4. All told, the regulars lost 9 KIA and 21 WIA. Among the wounded was a nephew of the late President William McKinley.
BATTLE OF BUD DAJO
Wood's relentless pursuit of hostiles climaxed in the largest battle of the Moro War in March 1906. Bud Dajo, an extinct volcano on Jolo, harbored an estimated 1,000 Moros. Nearly 800 U.S. troops (only half of whom actually fought)and 50 constables tackled this natural fortification. Armed women and men, using their children as shields, launched counterattacks.
Wood recalled of Bud Dajo: Women "are garbed like the men and, in the melee, indistinguishable from them. They advance with their husbands in intrepid rushes, leaping down from the parapets into the midst of the attacking force, clutching a soldier in a death grapple and rolling with him down the slope."
McCoy wrote in awe: "It was most remarkable the fierce dying of the Moros. At every cotta [fort] efforts were made to get them to surrender or to send out their women but for an answer a rush of shrieking men and women would come cutting the air and dash amongst the soldiers like mad dogs."
When the fighting was over, between 600 and 1,000 Moros had perished. American casualties were relatively high: 15 killed and 52 wounded. The Constabulary contingent lost six dead and 21 wounded. Three Medals of Honor were earned at Bud Dajo.
At home, soldiers were attacked by the Anti-Imperialist League because of the lop-sided casualties. But as veteran Rowland Thomas wrote in "Not a Wanton Massacre" in the Boston Transcript. "To say that these men should have been captured instead of killed is easy; to capture a man who prefers death is almost an impossible feat."
`Like a mad tiger': fighting Islamic warriors in the Philippines 100 years ago: exactly a century ago, America began a war against one of its fiercest foes—the Moros of the southern Philippines - United States troops battle against Islamic Moros from 1902 to 1913
VFW Magazine, May, 2002 by Richard K. Kolb
`Like a mad tiger': fighting Islamic warriors in the Philippines 100 years ago: exactly a century ago, America began a war against one of its fiercest foes--the Moros of the southern Philippines. Bearing an uncanny historical resemblance to the war there now, the fight against these fanatic followers of Islam lasted from 1902 to 1913. In the end, some semblance of peace prevailed, but the Moros were never permanently subdued. (War On Terrorism)
When President Theodore Roosevelt declared the Philippines War officially over on July 4, 1902, the proclamation's second preamble contained a caveat. The war was done, it stated, "except in the country inhabited by the Moro tribes."
Despite the fact that more than one-fifth of the entire U.S. Army was bogged down in the Philippines for a decade, the Moro War is the least-known conflict in American military history. With the advent of WWI, it vanished from the national collective memory.
Few traces of it can be found in popular culture. Only one war film has been made about it. The Real Glory (1939) depicted the siege of a remote outpost on Mindanao. An idealistic surgeon (Gary Cooper) rallies natives to defend themselves against Moros. The movie also starred David Niven and Broderick Crawford.
Even more telling, though, was the Army's reluctance to tout its role. Sixteen Medals of Honor were awarded during the Moro War, and hundreds of Americans died serving. Still, some in the military establishment felt they should "remain forgotten."
Yet "the Moros were a truly romantic opponent, America's equivalent of the fierce Pathans of British India's Northwest Frontier," wrote Brian Linn in Guardians of Empire. "Indeed, to the Progressive Era Americans still coming to terms with the end of their own Wild West, Moroland resonated with the richness, mystery, and danger both of the lost continental frontier and the yet-unexplained Pacific `New West.'"
A jihad, or holy war, was waged against the U.S. Army by 34,000 warriors bent on slaving all babui (eaters of pig)--in other words, Christian Americans--in the southern Philippines in the early 20th century.
These warriors were members of a fanatic Islamic society, called Moros by the Spanish, that practiced slavery, polygamy, piracy and violent crime as a way of life. Capt. John Pershing wrote of the Moros: "The only principle for which they fought was the right to pillage and murder without molestation from the government."
This remote corner of Asia was aptly described as "a merry carnival of human sacrifice." But to the Moros, their land was the domain of Islam and it was their duty to sabil--"fight in the way of Allah"--against the American kapil (infidels).
`BULLET-EATING' CHARGES
Under the U.S. military administration, the home islands--Mindanao, Basilan Island and the Sulu Archipelago--of the Moros were consolidated into the Moro Province. The province encompassed 40,000 square miles of inhospitable jungle.
Ten Army posts were maintained on Mindanao and three in the Sulu Archipelago. Elements of more than a dozen infantry and six cavalry regiments saw field service in "Moroland" during the conflict. Troop strength in the region averaged just under 5,000 men.
Assuming an average two-year tour of duty, and allowing for extensions, some 20,000 U.S. troops served in Moro country during the 12 years of sporadic hostilities. (Troops were rotated then by unit and not as individuals.)
Supplementing the regulars were native auxiliaries of the Philippine Scouts and Philippine Constabulary (known as the "Bamboo Brigade") officered by Americans. Many U.S. officers considered the Scouts "the finest body of native troops in existence" who "as an auxiliary force to our regulars ... [were] unexcelled."
The U.S. Navy operated periodically in conjunction with the Army. In 1910, the Southern Philippines Patrol regularly sailed the Sulu Sea. The patrol consisted of four gunboats armed with two 3-pound guns and two Colt 1-inch automatics. Each craft had a crew of 35 U.S. sailors. Piracy diminished appreciably after the appearance of the "Mosquito Fleet."
Warfare in Moroland entailed bush-wacking, "bullet-eating" charges over fortified walls and sudden, suicidal attacks. Booby traps such as belatics (spears lashed to yielding saplings, tripped by vine triggers) and punji pits lined jungle trails.
MANHUNTING ON MINDANAO
The first open attack on U.S. forces occurred in the spring of 1902. While on patrol on the south side of Lake Lanao, which is 16 miles from the north coast of Mindanao, 18 men of the 15th Cavalry were ambushed by 200 Moros. A soldier was killed and the troop's horses stolen.
Seeking retribution for the Lake Lanao ambush, Col. Frank D. Baldwin (holder of two Medals of Honor) led 1,200 U.S. troops against the forts of the sultan of Bayan and the datu (chief) of Binadayan in early May 1902.
A medieval type of defense, these forts had walls 10 feet high and several feet thick, covered by dense, thorny growth and surrounded by trenches. Brass swivel cannons were mounted in openings in the walls. Pitched battles were required to capture the stockades, and resulted in 10 Americans killed and 40 wounded at the Battle of Bayan (see story on p. 24).
Several punitive expeditions followed. From the fall of 1902 to the spring of 1903, Capt. John J. Pershing, destined to become a famous World War I general, led campaigns against the Lanao Moros. Six major actions and many minor skirmishes were fought.
A three-day siege at Bacalod in April killed 120 Moros. At the decisive Battle of Taraca on May 4, 1903, 250 Moros were eliminated as opposed to two Americans killed and five wounded. All told, U.S. casualties in the "march around Lake Lanao" were two KIA, 16 WIA and 18 dead from cholera and poisoned water. Approximately 468 Moros died.
Fighting also spread farther south into the Sulu Archipelago. After the Hassan uprising (in which hundreds of Moro fighters perished) in October-November 1903, the Moros of Sulu sang: "The bravery of the Americans is very good: like a mad tiger."
In the spring of 1904, Gen. Leonard Wood sent an expedition of 1,000 U.S. troops against Datu Ali and the Sultan of Taraca. Some 130 forts were destroyed or captured along the Taraca River on Mindanao. At Siranaya, Cotabato Valley, 100 followers of Datu Ali were slain by the 22nd Infantry in fierce fighting.
Wood later described the marshland of the Cotabato Valley: "I don't think anywhere in the world have I ever seen mosquitoes as thick as they were at this place. The men were almost crazy."
A reconnaissance patrol in that same valley went out after Datu Ali in the Lake Litguasan District. Thirty-six men of F Co., 17th Inf., fell into an ambush on May 8 set by 160 Moros at Simpetan and lost 15 KIA, six WIA and two captured (they were released four days later).
For special duty, infantry regiments formed provisional companies of about 135 members each. Originally created to track down Datu Ali, "provo" units were later kept in ready for particularly dangerous missions. These were essentially the special operations units of their day.
Ali had pledged: "I will try to kill all the people who are friends of the Americans." Wood put a $500 reward on his head--dead or alive. That was a tidy sum for the time and place, and helped in the manhunt.
In October 1905, Capt. Frank McCoy, commanding a "provo" company of the 22nd Infantry, eliminated several hundred of Ali's men in the blood-stained Cotabato Valley at the Battle of the Malalag River. (Ali and his three sons were killed later.) McCoy once reflected on his situation, writing, "Over here we are living in the midst of feudalism and slavery, with pirates and bloody murder."
Meanwhile, hostilities flared anew in the Sulu Archipelago.
On Jolo, from May 1-24, 1905, the 14th Cavalry and companies from the 17th and 22nd Infantry backed by support troops, Scouts and constables, fought a series of three engagements. A particularly fierce fight occurred at Utig's fort on May 4. All told, the regulars lost 9 KIA and 21 WIA. Among the wounded was a nephew of the late President William McKinley.
BATTLE OF BUD DAJO
Wood's relentless pursuit of hostiles climaxed in the largest battle of the Moro War in March 1906. Bud Dajo, an extinct volcano on Jolo, harbored an estimated 1,000 Moros. Nearly 800 U.S. troops (only half of whom actually fought)and 50 constables tackled this natural fortification. Armed women and men, using their children as shields, launched counterattacks.
Wood recalled of Bud Dajo: Women "are garbed like the men and, in the melee, indistinguishable from them. They advance with their husbands in intrepid rushes, leaping down from the parapets into the midst of the attacking force, clutching a soldier in a death grapple and rolling with him down the slope."
McCoy wrote in awe: "It was most remarkable the fierce dying of the Moros. At every cotta [fort] efforts were made to get them to surrender or to send out their women but for an answer a rush of shrieking men and women would come cutting the air and dash amongst the soldiers like mad dogs."
When the fighting was over, between 600 and 1,000 Moros had perished. American casualties were relatively high: 15 killed and 52 wounded. The Constabulary contingent lost six dead and 21 wounded. Three Medals of Honor were earned at Bud Dajo.
At home, soldiers were attacked by the Anti-Imperialist League because of the lop-sided casualties. But as veteran Rowland Thomas wrote in "Not a Wanton Massacre" in the Boston Transcript. "To say that these men should have been captured instead of killed is easy; to capture a man who prefers death is almost an impossible feat."