Corregidor, Fourth of July 2013

We took a Fourth of July trip to Corregidor Island. Corregidor is a fairly small island set in the middle of the entry to Manila Bay, about 26 miles from Manila and about 3 miles off the coast of the Bataan Peninsula. It was the scene of terrible fighting and a grim siege at the beginning of World War II. It seemed like an appropriate place to commemorate the Fourth of July.

We rode a walk-on ferry from Manila out to the island, it took about 1 hour and 15 minutes. It was, at least to begin with, a lovely day, although (of course) very hot. Once we arrived on Corregidor, we rode an open air bus/trolley around the island with a tour guide. The tour guide was quite knowledgeable about Philippine history and Corregidor in particular.

Our first stop was the Filipino Heroes Memorial. There was a museum there of mostly WW II artifacts and art commemorating the war, world-wide and in particular, of course, in the Philippines. Outside, there were bas-relief panels commemorating Filipino uprisings against colonial powers from Spain, through the USA to the Japanese.

The Filipino Guerrilla Fighter

Memorial to the US-Filipino Conflict that started in 1899

We then went to Japanese Garden built to commemorate the Japanese dead on the island. The remains were cremated by the Americans in 1945 and the ashes were repatriated to Japan in the 1980's. Our tour guide told us that Japanese tourists to Corregidor get a separate tour, not only so the tour guide is speaking Japanese, but also so they don't hear anything that offends them. Like about atrocities, death marches, comfort women, starting an aggressive war and so on. She said one group of tourists arrived on a day when their Japanese-speaking guide was not available, and so they got the same tour as Filipinos, Americans and the rest of world, and the head of the tour guide company apologized-a lot. I was going to wax all philosophical about this, but then I thought about drone strikes and non-existent weapons of mass destruction and I decided to shut up.

A Shinto shrine

The Goddess of Peace

No Japanese garden is complete without water

After the Japanese garden, we went to one of the tunnels, Malinta Tunnel. There was a light and sound show inside. The tunnel was amazing, deep into the side of a hill and as wide a two lane road, with side tunnels where people lived and worked during the siege. The show included some explosions that frightened Mexica and that let me know that those tunnels, although safe, would have been a terrible place to be during a Japanese air attack. The noise, the dust, the claustrophobic feeling would have worn a person's nerves away to nothing in no time. These must have been awful places and as the island's food and water disappeared, the soldiers and others must have been miserable. Corregidor has no source of fresh water, all their water comes from Bataan, so when Bataan fell to the Japanese, the fort was doomed.

Mexica's mom and dad along with Canada and a guard in the uniform of the Filipino Scouts

One of the side tunnels, part of the light and sound show

Another side tunnel.

One of the many side tunnels that were not improved.

After the tunnel, we had lunch, a buffet in the hotel and resort on the island. Right now, there are no permanent residents on the island. Employees and their families can stay for no more than 3 days at a time. There used to be a few villages and in the pre-war period there were bars and clubs on the island, along with an Olympic sized pool, baseball field, movie theater and 9 hole golf course, which is why Corregidor was considered a plum assignment by the US Army--until late 1941, anyway. The last movie shown in the theater was Gone with the Wind.

Then we went on to the upper part of the island. Here we found the ruins of the old barracks. They were amazing old concrete buildings, bombed to bits by the Japanese in 1941-2 and by the Americans retaking the island in 1945. They aren't much to look at now.

Dad and Canada in front of the old barracks

Then we saw gun emplacements. According to the guide, the US spent about $150 million building gun emplacements on Corregidor up through 1920 and then spent another $50 million upgrading with anti-aircraft guns in the 30's. These gun emplacements look a lot like Fort Casey and the other forts of that era on Whidbey Island and the other islands in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound. None of the big guns ever fired a shot against a naval vessel. By the time war came to Corregidor, the Japanese fleet stood off and the attack came via the air.

A Japanese anti-aircraft gun

A mortar that launched 750# shells, now a resting place for Canada

A 12-inch gun, the biggest on the island

One thing about these gun emplacements, again like the ones on Whidbey, because they fired by line-of-sight, they were placed in some amazing settings with some beautiful views. Here are a couple of vistas from Battery Hearn, the location of the big-12 inch gun above and Battery Grubb, where there had been a 10-inch disappearing gun.

This little island was a "floating battleship" with 14 inch guns

A storm coming in

This statue is by the dock from which General MacArthur departed the Philippines in 1942, promising (when he was safely in Australia) that he would return. The Philippine attitude towards MacArthur verges on worship, at least in the version we got from our tour guide. She did say, however, that there were rumors he insisted on starting the invasion of the Philippines in Leyte because he had a girlfriend there. I have no idea if that is true, but I pass it along.

I wonder if the sculptor thought about the upraised arm salute?

You've seen the American tunnels. Here is the entrance to one of the tunnels dug by the Japanese. They defended the island with their usual single-mindedness, and the last Japanese soldiers on Corregidor did not surrender until January 1946.

A Japanese tunnel

The flora and fauna of the island was so destroyed that trees had to be reseeded from the air and animals brought in from elsewhere in the Philippines. Now the island has no permanent inhabitants and the jungle is returning.

With the beach connected to the island's one hotel

This island was also fortified

On the highest point of the island was a lighthouse that has operated, more or less continuously, since the Spanish built a light here in the 16th Century.

In the background, you can see the modern radar tower.

Fourth of July 2013

Words have power, and sometimes they take on a power of their own beyond the intent of the author. Even an author as farsighted as Thomas Jefferson can see the meaning of their words grow beyond anything they could have conceived. And Jefferson could conceive a lot.

When Jefferson wrote "all men are created equal" in 1776  he didn't mean that ALL men were created EQUAL. He owned men and women and certainly did not see them as his equal. He meant that men like him, men like Washington and Lee (Harry Lee, that is), the large landowners of Virginia, were equal to the British aristocracy. He may have conceded equality to John Adams (he certainly liked and respected Adams at that time) and Benjamin Franklin and their ilk, but he would have recoiled at seeing working men who owned no property as his equal.

Time, however, had a way of taking Jefferson literally. Gradually the literal meaning of his words came to be their actual meaning. In fact, his words now mean more than even their literal meaning, since now most would agree that all people are created equal, to prevent any confusion about gender.

This change in meaning did not come easy. Another of Jefferson's sayings was that "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." It's interesting how many misquote that and only mention the blood of tyrants. It's important to remember the patriots. Slavery in America ended only with the shedding of an ocean of blood, some from patriots and much from tyrants. Oceans more have been and likely will continue to be shed to bring true racial equality to this country. More blood and suffering marked the Women's Suffrage movement and the struggle to make women equal. Still more blood has been shed in an effort to make those who labor equal to those who provide capital, and we have take many steps backwards in that battle in the last 30 years, since a tyrant started the destruction of the labor movement in 1981.

As we mark this Fourth of July, it is worth noting the Supreme Court's decision regarding the Defense of Marriage Act. A lot of blood has been shed for bringing equality to gay men and women, and Jefferson, I'm sure, never imagined it. It is as important that we water the tree of liberty with our sweat as well as with our blood, and the effort to make Jefferson's words true never ends.

Tomorrow, Mexica and I are going to Corregidor Island to mark the Fourth of July. We hope it isn't raining. Pictures and blog about Corregidor to follow.