The Man Who Returned
As the supreme commander of the American and Philippine forces in the Pacific in early 1942 when the Japanese advanced on the Philippines, he held out till the very last, until the Japanese were virtually on the doorstep of his headquarters on the strategic island of Corregidor. He left his command with great reluctance, and only when Roosevelt himself ordered him to evacuate to Australia in order to gather fresh troops. And even then, he still toyed with the notion to resign from the US Army and go up into the hills to fight alongside the guerillas.
But duty was stronger. Evacuate to Australia he did, and there he vowed, “I shall return.”
He did return, in 1944. My mother, a teenager then, was part of the crowd that welcomed the liberating Allied forces when they finally entered Manila. The city had been burnt to the ground by the fleeing Japanese, but after two and a half years of bombs, disease, corruption and starvation, their troops were back.
For the war effort Hollywood made plenty of movies recreating these ferocious battles—Bataan (1943), Back to Bataan (1945), They Were Expendable (1945). But forego them and rent instead So Proudly We Hail! (1943), a surprisingly raw, visceral story of army nurses on Corregidor starring Claudette Colbert, George Reeves, Paulette Goddard, and Veronica Lake. Especially watch this for Veronica Lake. Her final act of sacrifice was so shocking when I first saw this movie as a kid I never forgot it.
[For more verklemptness go to “Paris Was Liberated 65 Years Ago Today”.]
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