At dusk, they camped and fed and watered their horses. Each troop was well supported by cooks, blacksmiths, even veterinarians. After dinner, when things were quiet and the men were ready to collapse, they read the mail from home and wrote letters. Until the invasion, and the naval blockade that followed, the mail service had been fairly dependable, even remarkable given the circumstances. By late December, though, it had slowed considerably.
The week before Christmas, Pete received a carton the size of a shoe box filled with letters and cards from his family, his church, and what appeared to be most of the fine folks in Clanton. Dozens of letters and cards, and he read them all. The ones from Liza and the kids were read until practically memorized. Writing to his family, Pete described the islands, a country far different from the rolling hills of north Mississippi. He described the drudgery of life in the army. Never did he portray his situation as dangerous. Not once did he use words that could even remotely convey the notion of fear. The Japanese would soon invade, or had already invaded, and they would be repelled by the U.S. Army and its Filipino comrades.
On December 24, MacArthur put in motion the prewar plan of withdrawing his forces to the Bataan Peninsula for a last stand. Victory was not really in the cards, and MacArthur knew it. The U.S. goal was to dig in at Bataan and occupy the Japanese as long as possible, thus delaying other invasions on other fronts in the Pacific.
“Delay” was the key word. A “delaying action” became the common term.
To protect his forces as they retreated to Bataan, MacArthur established five delaying positions in Central Luzon, where the bulk of the Japanese forces were maneuvering. The Twenty-Sixth Cavalry became crucial in stalling the enemy’s advance.
On January 15, 1942, Lieutenant Ed Ramsey and his platoon had finished a grueling recon assignment and were planning to rest themselves and their horses. However, C Troop received word that a major Japanese force was moving in its direction. A counterattack was planned, and Ramsey volunteered to assist in the assault.
He was ordered to take the village of Morong, a strategic point on the Batalan River in western Bataan. Morong was held by the Japanese but not heavily defended. Ramsey assembled his twenty-seven-man platoon and headed north on the main road to Morong. When they reached the Batalan River on the eastern edge of the village, they cautiously approached and realized it was deserted. The Catholic church was the only stone building in town, and it was surrounded by grass huts on stilts. Ramsey divided his men into three nine-man squads, with Lieutenant Banning leading one. As Pete and his squad approached the Catholic church, the entire platoon came under fire from a Japanese advance guard. Ramsey’s men returned fire, and in doing so caught sight of the lead elements of a huge Japanese force fording the river. If those troops reached Morong, the platoon would be overwhelmed.
Without hesitation, Ramsey decided to launch a horse cavalry charge against an infantry, an attack unseen in the U.S. Army in over fifty years. He ordered his platoon into formation, raised his pistol, and yelled, “Charge!” With his men screaming and firing away, the galloping horses slammed into the Japanese front guard and sent it reeling. The terrified enemy retreated to the other side of the river and tried to regroup. With only three men wounded, Ramsey’s platoon held off the Japanese until reinforcements relieved them.
It would become known as the last cavalry charge in American military history.
The Twenty-Sixth continued to harass and stall the enemy and delay its inevitable siege of Bataan. MacArthur moved the Philippine government and the bulk of his army to the peninsula, but for his command post he chose a bunker on the heavily armed island of Corregidor, protecting Manila Bay. His forces frantically established defensive positions throughout Bataan. Using barges, they ferried men and supplies from Manila in a frenzied effort to dig in. The plan was to warehouse enough food to feed forty-five thousand men for six months. Ultimately, eighty thousand troops and twenty-five thousand Philippine civilians retreated to Bataan. By mid-January, the withdrawal was complete and successful.
With the American forces confined to the peninsula, the Japanese moved swiftly to choke them with a complete air and naval blockade. Flush with confidence, the Japanese made a tactical error. They pulled back their elite divisions for action elsewhere in the Pacific, and replaced them with less capable troops. It was a mistake from which they would recover, but it ultimately added months to the siege, and the suffering.
In the first weeks of the Battle of Bataan, the Japanese incurred heavy losses as the Americans and Filipinos fought furiously to protect their last stronghold. The Allies incurred far fewer casualties, but their dead could not be replaced. The Japanese had an endless supply of men and armaments, and as the weeks wore on they bombarded their prey with heavy artillery and relentless air attacks.
Conditions on Bataan rapidly deteriorated. For weeks the Americans and Filipinos fought with little food in their stomachs. The average soldier consumed two thousand calories a day, about half the number needed for hard combat. Their hunger was acute and the supplies were dwindling. This was primarily due to another inexplicable mistake by MacArthur. In his rush to solidify his forces on Bataan, he had left most of their food behind. In one warehouse alone, millions of bushels of rice had been abandoned, enough to feed his army for years. Many of his officers had begged him to stockpile food on Bataan, but he had refused to listen. When informed that his men were hungry and complaining bitterly, he placed all units on half rations. In a letter to his men he promised reinforcements. He wrote that “thousands of troops and hundreds of planes are being dispatched. The exact time of arrival of reinforcements is unknown.” But help was on the way.
It was a lie. The Pacific Fleet had been severely crippled at Pearl Harbor and had nothing left to break the Japanese blockade. The Philippines was thoroughly isolated. Washington knew it, as did MacArthur.
As the men starved, they ate anything that moved. They hunted and slaughtered carabao, the Philippine version of the water buffalo. Its tough, leathery meat had to be soaked and boiled in salt water and pounded with mallets to become somewhat chewable. It was usually served over a mush of rotten and bug-infested rice. When the carabao were decimated, the horses and mules were killed, though the soldiers of the Twenty-Sixth Cavalry refused to eat their beloved animals.
The starving soldiers hunted wild pigs, jungle lizards, even crows and exotic birds and snakes, including cobras, which were plentiful. Whatever they killed they threw into a giant pot for a common stew. By February, there was not a single mango or banana left on Bataan and the men were eating grass and leaves. The Bataan Peninsula was surrounded by the South China Sea, known for its abundance of fish. Harvesting it, though, proved impossible. Japanese fighter pilots took great pleasure in attacking and sinking even the smallest fishing boats. It was suicide to venture onto the water.
Malnutrition was rampant. By early March, the physical fitness of the troops was so impaired they were unable to mount patrols, stage ambushes, or launch attacks. Weight loss was staggering, with each man losing thirty to fifty pounds.
On March 11, MacArthur, following orders from Washington, fled Corregidor with his family and top aides. He made it safely to Australia, where he set up his command. Although he performed no acts of combat valor, as required by law, and left his troops behind, MacArthur was awarded the Medal of Honor for his gallant defense of the Philippines.
The emaciated men he left on Bataan were in no condition to fight. They suffered from swelling joints, bleeding gums, numbness in feet and hands, low blood pressure, loss of body heat, shivers, shakes, and anemia so severe many could not walk. The malnutrition soon led to dysentery with diarrhea so debilitating the men often collapsed. Bataan was a malaria-infested province in peaceful times, and the war provided countless new targets for the mosquitoes. After being bitten, the men were hit with fever, sweats, and fits of chills. By the end of March, a thousand men a day were being infected with malaria. Most of the officers suffered from it. One general reported that only half of his command could fight. The other half were “so sick, hungry, and tired they could never hold a position or launch an attack.”