Awaiting Macarthur's Return

World War II Guerrilla Resistance Against the Japanese in the Philippines

By James A. Villanueva, and Reviewed by Ivan A. Zasimczuk

Article published on: September 9, 2025 in the Winter 2025 edition of Army History

Read Time: < 7 mins

University Press of Kansas, 2022 Pp. xiv, 234. $34.95

On 8 May 1942, Lt. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright surrendered all American forces across the Philippines to the Japanese, leaving the defense of the Philippines, its people, and resistance against the Japanese occupiers largely to the Filipino people and a few American mavericks. The guerrillas that formed and operated during those perilous and chaotic years maintained a connection between the Filipino people and their exiled government through the allied forces, giving all four participants in the fight a sense of hope that they could resist the Japanese. In six tidy chapters, James A. Villanueva tells the story of these disparate and resilient guerrillas in Awaiting MacArthur’s Return: World War II Guerrilla Resistance Against the Japanese in the Philippines. Villanueva’s singular focus is on the experience and actions of the men—and a few women—who, in the absence of American forces, formed insurgent organizations, continued the struggle against the Japanese, and eventually fought alongside U.S. troops to liberate the Philippines.

Villanueva introduces this history with a helpful historiographic review of the Filipino guerrilla movement and notes the dearth of coverage in American scholarship (3). To fill in this gap, Villanueva seeks to provide “a fuller picture of the nature of the war in the . . . Pacific” by using greater sources and records, and an examination of the friction not only between the groups but between the groups and General Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters (5). Villanueva outlines the reasons for Filipino guerrilla success and then compares this movement to Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslav Communist partisans in the Balkans. Finally, he makes a conceptual claim that the experience of the Filipino insurgents resembled more the counterinsurgency theories employed during colonial wars, designed to retain colonial possessions, rather than the ways developed to fight Marxist insurgents in the Cold War (5).

The first two chapters cover the early formation and individual circumstances of each group as well as early guerrilla-supported operations launched by MacArthur’s headquarters. Perhaps the most interesting chapter is on the internecine struggle and rivalry that developed between the groups as each vied for power and legitimacy. Open warfare was often the result. There is another fascinating chapter about guerrilla organization, administration, and logistics. Readers learn that “paper and office supplies were also essential for guerrilla operations” (116). On either side of this chapter are two on guerrilla operations.

One of the central facts of the narrative is that it is impossible and impractical to regard the resistance movement as a monolithic whole. Villanueva recounts the birth of each major guerrilla group across the largest islands: Luzon, Mindanao, Negros, Panay, Cebu, Leyte, and Samar. He explains that the exclusive nature and experience of each group was driven by several defining factors, such as their unique leaders and geographic isolation. However, essential to each was the struggle for legitimacy, which derived from the mutual support of the local population, and official recognition by MacArthur’s headquarters. Here, the guerrillas often encountered a conflict of interests. MacArthur’s staff generally preferred that the groups conduct intelligence-gathering activities; alternately, the local populations preferred direct action against the Japanese. The guerrillas had to balance this friction because they needed material support from both to survive and operate.

Villanueva excels at delivering penetrating facts and analysis as well as developing the nuances and complexities of this movement. No issue reflects these aspects better than the fratricidal rivalry between the groups. Anti-Japanese sentiment usually united the guerrillas, but not all of them wanted to restore the prewar Filipino government. The Huks, for example, wanted to usher in a Communist regime, which put them squarely at odds with most of the guerrillas and the allies who sustained the exiled president (60). On Panay, Col. Macario Peralta quarreled with Governor Tomás Confesor over the issues of who would print money and pay civil officials. Both knew that control of these civil functions conferred power and legitimacy. These and other arguments culminated with Confesor accusing Peralta of sedition (65–66). On Cebu, Lt. Col. Ricardo Estrella, the executive officer of one group, captured and executed a wayward leader from the same group while their commander, Lt. Col. James M. Cushing, was away in conference on another island. Upon returning, a displeased Cushing had Estrella tried and executed. The greatest fratricide was on Luzon where, in early 1944, the Hunters Reserve Officers’ Training Corps executed members of the Marking Regiment who were threatening Hunters’ supporters. The “Markings” retaliated by attacking a Hunters’ headquarters with 300 fighters and were in turn routed by an even larger Hunters force. In May, these two groups and the Japanese had a three-way firefight (73–74). Meanwhile, the unsupported Communist Huks were in open combat with other groups to steal resources—even faking parlay—and were ambushing rival forces on multiple occasions (76). Despite it all, these groups were able to cooperate very well with each other once the American landings began.

The real core of the work is the chapters on the military operations of the guerrilla groups. A general pattern emerges from the numerous engagements that sees some initial success against the Japanese followed up by brutal and punitive reprisals against the guerrillas and the Filipino people by the Japanese. A disappointed MacArthur feared this exact outcome when he ordered the groups not to take direct action against the Japanese (80). However, recruiting new members, retaining legitimacy, and remaining popular among the people required violent action against the occupiers (81). Japanese brutality served to drive new members into the guerrillas, rather than suppressing them, and made the people even more willing to support them. The net effect was that by the time the Americans returned, the guerrillas had grown strong and resilient.

The most important contributions of the guerrillas undoubtedly were made just before and during the campaigns to the retake the islands. Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger, commander of the U.S. Sixth Army, said that the guerrillas who fought with his command “proved to be an important source of information” (125). The guerrillas were involved in selecting targets for bombardment, rescuing downed pilots, and conducting invaluable security patrols (125–26). On Mindanao, one guerrilla regiment of 350 executed a flawless amphibious operation, assisted by the U.S. Army and Navy, and destroyed a Japanese garrison (143). Chinese Nationalist and Communist guerrillas fought with the American 25th Infantry Division and 1st Cavalry Division, respectively (129). The raid on Cabanatuan freed 513 prisoners of war and was executed flawlessly with precise and timely intelligence provided by the guerrillas, who added their own mass and combat power to the effort (135). Other groups assisted with the liberation of military and civilian prisoners at Santo Tomas in Manila and at Los Baños (135–36). One stalwart unit fighting with U.S. units, the Anderson Battalion, was responsible for killing about 3,000 Japanese troops and capturing another 1,000 (137). The evidence is clear that “the guerrillas made the Allied liberation of the islands easier” (16).

This valuable contribution is well written and sustained by very good sources. Readers will appreciate the simultaneous complexity of the material and the facility with which it is delivered. At only 157 pages, it might have benefited from a little more content to embed the struggle in the Philippines more firmly within the wider Pacific War. Academics and enthusiasts alike would find great value in this work, as would modern-day practitioners of war, especially those in the special warfare communities and high-level staff officers who might work with these groups in future conflicts.