page_title: Philippine resistance against Japan
section_title: Resistance in Visayas
hierarchical_section_title: Philippine resistance against Japan / Resistance in Visayas
caption_attribution_description: English: Captain Nieves Fernandez and her husband
context_page_description: During the Japanese occupation of the islands in World War II, there was an extensive Philippine resistance movement, which opposed the Japanese and their collaborators with active underground and guerrilla activity that increased over the years. Fighting the guerrillas – apart from the Japanese regular forces – were a Japanese-formed Bureau of Constabulary, the Kenpeitai, and the Makapili. Postwar studies estimate that around 260,000 persons were organized under guerrilla groups and that members of anti-Japanese underground organizations were more numerous. Such was their effectiveness that by the end of World War II, Japan controlled only twelve of the forty-eight provinces.
  Select units of the resistance would go on to be reorganized and equipped as units of the Philippine Army and Constabulary. The United States Government officially granted payments and benefits to various ethnicites who have fought with the Allies by the war's end. However, only the Filipinos were excluded from such benefits, and since then these veterans have made efforts in finally being acknowledged by the United States.
context_section_description: Various guerrilla groups also sprang out throughout the central islands of Visayas. Like those in Luzon, many of these Filipino guerrillas were trained by the Americans to fight in case the Japanese set their sight towards the Visayas. These soldiers continued to fight even as the Americans surrendered the islands to the Japanese.
  One significant achievement for the resistance in Visayas was the capture of the "Koga Papers" by Cebuano guerrillas led by Lt. Col. James M. Cushing in March 1944. Named after Admiral Mineichi Koga, these papers contained vital battle plans and defensive strategies of the Japanese Navy codenamed the "Z Plan", information on the overall strength of the Japanese fleet and naval air units, and most importantly that the Japanese had already deduced MacArthur's initial plans to invade the Philippines through Mindanao. These papers came into the possession of the Filipino guerrillas when the seaplane of Admiral Koga, which was en route to Davao, crashed into the coast San Fernando, Cebu, killing Koga and many others. After Koga's body and many surviving Japanese were washed ashore, the guerrillas found them and captured 12 high-ranking officers including Chief of Staff of the Combined Fleet Vice Admiral Shigeru Fukodome. The papers were inside a briefcase which was fished out of the sea by Cebuano fishermen before being handed over to the guerrillas. The Japanese ruthlessly hunted down the documents and their captured officers; burning villages and detaining civilians in their search. The guerrillas were ultimately forced to release their captives in order to stop the aggression, but unknown to the Japanese Cushing managed to request for a submarine to take the documents to Allied headquarters in Australia. The discovery of the papers allowed MacArthur to move his invasion from Mindanao to Leyte and also aided the Allies in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
  Waray guerrillas under a former schoolteacher named Captain Nieves Fernandez fought the Japanese in Tacloban. Nieves extensively trained her men in combat skills and making of improvised weaponry, as well as leading her men in the front. With only 110 men, Nieves managed to take out over 200 Japanese soldiers during the occupation. The Imperial Japanese Army posted a 10,000 pesos reward on her head in the hopes of capturing her but to no avail. The main commander of the resistance movement in the Island of Leyte was Ruperto Kangleon, a former Filipino soldier turned resistance fighter and leader. After the fall of the country, he successfully escaped capture by the Japanese and established a united guerrilla front in Leyte. He and his men, the Black Army, were successful in pushing the Japanese from the mainland province and further into the coastlands of Southern Leyte. Kangleon's guerrillas provided intelligence for the American guerrilla leaders such as Wendell Fertig, and assisted in the subsequent Leyte Landing and the Battle of Leyte soon after. The guerrillas in Leyte were also instrumental not only in the opposition against Japanese rule, but also in the safety and aid of the civilians living in the island. The book The Hidden Battle of Leyte: The Picture Diary of a Girl taken by the Japanese Military by Remedios Felias, a former comfort woman, revealed how the Filipino guerrillas saved the lives of many young girls raped or at risk of rape by the Japanese. In her vivid account of the Battle of Burauen, she recounts how the guerrillas managed to wipe out entire Japanese platoons in the various villages in the municipality, eventually saving the lives of many.
  Besides their guerrilla activities, these groups also participated in many pivotal battles during the liberation of the islands. In Cebu, guerrillas and irregulars under Lieutenant James M. Cushing and Basilio J. Valdes aided in the Battle for Cebu City. They also captured Maj. Gen. Takeo Manjom and his 2,000 soldiers and munitions. Panay guerrillas under Col. Macario Peralta helped in the seizing of the Tiring Landing Field and Mandurriao district airfield during the Battle of the V
caption: Captain Nieves Fernandez, a Filipina school teacher who led the resistance in Tacloban, Leyte, Philippines with her husband in a photograph from 1944[54]
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