A bird’s eye view of Corregidor

Americans who visit Manila for any length of time are likely to find themselves taking a 40-minute ferry ride to The Rock — the tadpole-shaped island of Corregidor, which was the historical “last threshold” before invading forces could enter the city of Manila.

It’s a de rigueur slice of history, even for younger audiences more used to Carlos Celdran tours and hip Rizal T-shirts by Team Manila.

Now, thanks to a well-made documentary presented by the Philippine Veterans Bank last Dec. 7 at the Chick Parsons Ballroom at the US Embassy, there’s an insider’s view of the events leading to Corregidor’s fall in 1942, and its liberation in ‘45.

Corregidor: The Road Back, written and directed by Peter Parsons of Spyron-AV Manila, is a 53-minute look back at The Rock, focusing not on the usual Malinta Tunnel holdouts, but on the rescue operations led by the 503rd Parachute Infantry, with moving tributes from survivors, both Filipino and American.

Visiting Corregidor can be a solemn affair, especially entering the Tunnel and feeling that eerie sense of claustrophobia mixed with calm. Wandering around the island, you’re struck by the contrast of natural beauty — a condition that preceded its fortification by the Spanish, then the Americans — interspersed with reminders of battles fought, gun positions held, lives sacrificed. (Along with the American soldiers’ memorial site, there’s a Japanese gravesite that receives many visitors per year.)

All this gets a historical perspective in the documentary, which retells the events that led to the island’s surrender by Lt. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright on May 6, 1942. During the heaviest Japanese bombing, we’re told the island was hit with 16,000 shells a day — averaging one every five seconds. On Corregidor today, you’re met with this history at every turn: the ruins of the barracks building, which held 1,000 soldiers; the guns of Battery Way, still facing out to the South China Sea.

Historians invite us to imagine how difficult it was to lug all the concrete and steel needed to turn Corregidor into a fortress over the decades. At the time they started, 40 years before WWII, it was considered “bombproof”; but by the time the Japanese arrived, small shells had been replaced by bombs weighing 2,000 pounds and more. “The amount of steel and concrete on the island is incredible,” recalls Corregidor tour guide Steve Kwiecinski. “People ask how they got all this stuff in place, dragging sacks of concrete up into the hills. Even today, they still find existing structures in the forests.”

What emerged was a veritable fortress retreat, a place held by American and Filipino troops with a golf course, swimming pools, tennis courts and parade grounds (which became the landing site for liberating paratroopers in 1945).

But that slice of Eden changed when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941; by May the next year, when Japanese forces stormed toward Manila Bay, that paradise became a living hell.

Many US soldiers were eager to sign up to retake the island. The increase in pay — to $50 a month — was reason enough for some to join the Parachute Infantry. “I watched practice jumpers,” recalls John Teffenhart in a recent interview. “They said it was a piece of cake. ‘Hell, I like cake,’ I said, so I joined.”

Others were in it for revenge: “We were really joyful,” says another 503rd trooper when the mission came together. “Man, that was on. We were going to take back our fortress… It was our Gibraltar.”

So early on Feb. 16, about 2,000 parachute troopers tried to do the seemingly impossible: land as near to the Topside parade grounds and golf course as possible. “No one in his right mind” would attempt such a jump. Except possibly the 503rd. Sharp winds of 21 knots per hour didn’t help: those who landed near the island’s cliff edge were nearly blown out into the sea. Those whose chutes got in trees were luckier: “It kept me from falling further over the cliff,” recalls one jumper.

The Road Back features great archival footage of the landing taken by a US Army photographer — a bird’s eye view of the rescue mission. But what comes through most in the veteran interviews is a passion that has never dimmed: they’re still fighting that battle. Their memories are fresh, lively, crystal clear. The mission is all.

“You said your prayers on the way down, but you also did everything else: check your ammo, your supplies. You got all those things out of the way so you didn’t have to think about it,” recalls one jumper.

“Almost as soon as we went out the door, we hit the ground running,” recalls another.

The Japanese were ready with machine guns.

“We had heard Filipino estimates of about 300 Japanese on Corregidor,” says another veteran. “But once the Filipinos were kicked off the island, more Japanese moved in overnight. The force was increased to about 6,000.”

Two weeks of fighting ensued, including the Battle of Manila. Of 6,000 estimated Japanese soldiers, 42 were captured alive; the rest were dead or missing. The morning after the jump, the US suffered about 1,000 casualties, with about 200 dead.

Unlike a lot of documentaries that go for political correctness, The Road Back doesn’t sugarcoat war memories. “Damn right I hated the Japanese,” recalls one veteran. “I hated them with a passion.”

“It wasn’t like other places in the Philippines where there were Filipino citizens,” says one veteran. “On Corregidor, it was just them or us. So if it moved, it was the enemy.”

Kamikaze operations ensued. Japanese suicide boats — packed with hundreds of pounds of dynamite — were recovered on the shore. The third day they blew up Malinta Tunnel. At Monkey Point, the Japanese blew up their own caves in a desperate attempt to take out US soldiers.

Some Japanese visitors who visit Corregidor feel the island tour doesn’t tell the story straight — it doesn’t blame Japan enough. One visitor, Naoko Jin of Bridge For Peace, says in the film: “I felt they were trying to be careful, not to make Japanese people (who visit) angry. They weren’t telling the whole story. They told us about the death march but used the word in Japanese for ‘picnic.’ It was not a picnic! It was a death march.”

Twice within three years, Corregidor had become the center of the Pacific War firestorm. Thanks to the production skills of Spryon-AV Manila, including creative director Lucky Guillermo and executive producer Paul F. Whitman, Corregidor comes alive again.

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For inquiries on where to view Corregidor: The Road Back, contact Veteran’s Bank Corporate Communications Dept. at 846-5933 loc. 2920 or e-mail corpcomm@veteransbank.com.ph.