Request for Revision of Recognition Dates for Maculot Battalion, June 1948
The Fil-American Irregular Troops (FAIT) was a large guerrilla organization formed by the retired American officer Hugh Straughn. It had many units operating around Luzon, including Batangas. Among this was the Maculot Battalion which operated in the town of Cuenca, Batangas. The unit was among those that were officially recognized as elements of the Philippine Army in the service of the Armed Forces of the United States in the Western Pacific during World War II. In this document1, Lt. Col. Pedro Pasia of the Maculot Battalion wrote to the Commanding General of the Philippines-Ryukyus Command requesting for the revision of the outfit’s dates of recognition.
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MACULOT BATTALION
HEADQUARTERS
Cuenca, Batangas
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SUBJECT TO |
: Revision of Recognition Date, Maculot Battalion Request for : The Commanding PHILRYCOM, Apo 707 |
Efforts exerted to have the date of recognition of [the] Maculot Battalion set back with a view to entitle the Officers and Enlisted Men of the unit to their arrears in pay proved fruitless. Investigationa and reinvestigation had been made by representatives of the AFWESPAC and the PHILRYCOM, but for unknown reasons, the decision of PHILRYCOM as embodied in the last paragraph of a letter addressed to the undersigned with the signature of Captain R. E. CANTRELL, Assistant Adjutant General, dated 6 January 1948, is unfavorable. Allow me, therefore, to request permission to restate, by way of appeal, the following facts relative to its organization, and the activities and ordeals which it had gone through during the enemy occupation. For your convenience, copies of all documentary evidences already submitted to the G-3 Section PHILRYCOM are again submitted herewith. Original copies of said documents are in [the] possession of the undersigned and, if so required, they may all be presented for your perusal.
ORGANIZATION. Organization of this unit was started in May 1942, immediately after the fall of Bataan. Having been put on the spot by the Japanese Military Police stationed at Lipa, for being one of the fourteen people who took care of four American Officers who escaped from Bataan, namely Captains William Farrel and Gregory and Lieutenants Robert Kramer and Georgensen, the undersigned lost no time organizing the unit, having received guidance and encouragement from the American Officers. The unit had for its sphere of operation the municipalities of Cuenca, Alitagtag, northeast Bauan, San Jose, western Lipa and Mataasnakahoy, with Headquarters at Cuenca, all in the province of Batangas. By October 1942, it had a total strength of 3350. This was the total strength of the roster submitted to AFWESPAC for recognition but of this number, only 934 Officers and Enlisted Men were given recognition as of 31 January 1945 to 26 September 1945, constituting the 5th Bn. of the Folsom’s Fil-American Irregular Troops. This recognition of the Folsom’s Unit was later on revoked by PHILRYCOM as per directive of January 5, 1948, leaving only the 5th Bn. to survive with only 512 Officers and Enlisted Men and a new name known as Maculot Battalion, in accordance with a PHILRYCOM directive cited herein.
ACTIVITIES. From 25 October 1942, the date when the unit was duly organized, up to 27th September 1945, when our services terminated in accordance with an order to disband, our Outfit had been continually active. For a more detailed narrative of the activities done and accomplished by this Resistance Organization, see attached Chronological History of Activities.
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services of the unit, it is highly manifest that a great injustice has been done against said organization as a result of the biased partial and unjust conclusions and decisions of the officers of the G-3 Section, PHILRYCOM detailed to investigate the Unit as those Officers, instead of contacting prominent guerrilla leaders of Batangas province, interviewed only a few and immediately returned to Manila. The inhabintants in the area covered by this Unit from children of 15 years of age to the oldest including women and children who are now living can testify as to the activities done and accomplished by the Maculot Regiment during the Liberation Campaign. In fact, this Unit was among those Resistance Organizations to disband very late as the Japanese stragglers in the Maculot mountain sector numbering 392 surrendered only on 19 September 1945. It must be noted here that the 11th Airborne Division and the 755th Artillery left Cuenca simultaneously in April 1945, and this outfit was left to conduct the mopping operations to liquidate the enemy and to provide protection and security to the civilian populations. During the period from the departure of the American forces up to the surrender of the Japs (19 September 1945), it was 24 hours service for almost all my men posted at different strategic points around the Maculot mountain to prevent the enemy from committing atrocities against the people and closed them up to prevent their escape, to starve them to death or to force their surrender.
Records on file in the office of the G-3 Section, PHILRYCOM are, in the opinion of the personnel of the said section, insufficient to warrant setting back of the date of recognition. Admitting, for the sake of argument, but not conceding that it is true, the undersigned desires to state with frankness and sincerity that his conscience would not permit him to go around asking or begging other Resistance leaders to give him signed affidavits attesting to the existence and activities of this Unit from the period of organization in 1942 up to the termination of the Liberation Campaign in the Maculot sector. If the undersigned would go around to ask the prominent guerrilla leaders in the province of Batangas to give him sworn affidavits for the purposes heretofore stated, he could easily gather a big bunch of them for presentation to [the] G-3 section. But what could be the need for all those troubles when a man has already stated the truth, and that truth so far as the existence and activities of this Unit is concerned has already spoken.
A thorough and painstaking study of the records of how other guerrilla Units with less or equal activities as the Maculot Battalion, were recognized will point in bold relief the discriminatory procedure adopted by the G-3 Section, PHILRYCOM. Attention is invited to the following:
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against them. Trusting, however, in the sense of justice and fair play of the American people and the Government of the U. S. of America, it is believed that no efforts will be spared with, in order to give justice to the men of this unit and other deserving guerrilla organizations by revising the date of their recognition to entitle them to the arrears in pay due them.
ASN-0-48337