FORGOTTEN FILIPINO HEROES: Capt. Jose Cabalfin Calugas
by Antonio C. Antonio
November 8, 2014
When Filipinos talk about heroes, we seem to automatically
refer to the following illustrious names: Dr. Jose Protacio Realonda
Mercado-Rizal; Andres de Castro Bonifacio; Apolinario Maranan Mabini; Gen.
Emilio Famy Aguinaldo, etc. Our history
books, more often than not, often refer to these names as Philippine heroes…
leaving the impression that they are the only ones. However, there really is a long line of heroes
that accompany this patriotic group.
They are often referred to as the forgotten Filipino heroes. Here is one of them.
“Jose Cabalfin Calugas (December 29, 1907 – January 18,
1998) was a member of the Philippine Scouts during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for actions
during the Battle of Bataan.
At the age of 23, Calugas joined the Philippine Scouts of
the United States Army and completed training as an artilleryman and served
with different artillery batteries of the Philippine Scouts until his unit was
mobilized to fight in World War II.
After noticing one of his unit’s gun batteries had been destroyed and
its crew killed, he gathered several members of his unit together, dug in and
attempted to defend the line. He was
captured along with other members of his unit and forced to march to a distant
enemy prison camp, where he was held as a prisoner of war. When he was released in 1943, he was secretly
assigned to a guerrilla unit in the Philippines where he fought for the
liberation of the Philippines from the Japanese.
After World War II, Calugas received a direct commission and
became a United States Citizen. Retiring
from the Army, he settles in Tacoma, Washington.
Calugas was born in Barrio Tagsing, Leon, Iloilo,
Philippines on December 29, 1907. His
mother died when he was ten, and he later left high school in order to work and
support his family. In 1930, he enlisted
in the United States Army and had received his basic training in Fort Sill,
Oklahoma. Upon completion, he received
additional training as an artilleryman, and then assigned to the 24th
Artillery Regiment of the Philippine Scouts at Fort Stotsenburg, Pampanga. While stationed at Fort Stotsenburg, he
married and began to raise a family. His
next unit was the 88th Field Artillery Regiment of the Philippine
Scouts. He was a Sergeant with Battery B
when the United States and the Philippine Commonwealth, declared war with Japan
in 1941. His unit was mobilized for duty
and sent to Bataan in December 1941.
On January 6, 1942, his unit was covering the withdrawal of
a portion of the U.S. Army Forces Far East (USAFFE), with the 26th
Cavalry Regiment of the Philippine Scouts and the 31th Infantry Regiment. Calugas was working as a mess sergeant in
charge of a group of soldiers who were preparing the day’s meals, known as KP
duty. He noticed that one of his unit’s
guns had been silenced, and its crew killed.
Without orders, he ran the 1,000 yards across the shell-swept area to
the inactive gun position. Once there, he
organized a squad of volunteers who returned Japanese artillery fire. The position remained under constant and
heavy fire for the rest of the afternoon.
While Calugas and his squad maintained a steady fire on the enemy
positions, other soldiers had time to dig in and defend the line. As the day ended and combat subsided, he
returned to KP. For his actions on that
day, his superiors recommended Calugas for the United States military’s highest
decoration for valor, the Medal of Honor.
Before he could receive it, however, all American forces on Bataan
surrendered to the Japanese forces.
Arguably, the Battle of Bataan represented the most intense
phase of Imperial Japan’s invasion of the Philippines during World War II. During the final stage of the Battle of
Bataan and after repeated assaults and artillery fire by Japanese forces, the
communications and defences of the allies on Bataan peninsula had been almost
completely destroyed. On the last two
days, the entire Allied defense collapsed, clogging all roads with refugees and
fleeing troops. By April 8, the senior
U.S. commander on Bataan, Major General Edward “Ned” P. King, Jr., recognized
the futility of further resistance and explores proposals for capitulation. On April 9, 1942, approximately 76,000
Filipino and American troops surrendered to a Japanese army of 54,000 men under
Lt. Gen. Masaharu Homma. This was the
single largest surrender of one of its military forces in American history.
After the surrender, Calugas and the other prisoners marched
from Mariveles to Camp O’Donnel, a prison camp in the province of Tarlac. The Japanese, having expected the fighting to
continue, anticipated about 25,000 prisoners of war and were inadequately
prepared or unwilling to transport a group of prisoners three times the
size. The majority of the prisoners of
war were immediately relieved of their belongings and endured a98-kilometer
march in deep dust, over vehicle-broken macadam roads, and crammed into rail
cars for the portion of the journey from San Fernando to Capas. En route, over 21,000 men and women dies from
disease, starvation, dehydration, heat prostration, untreated wounds, and
wanton execution. The death of Filipinos
and Americans was disproportionately high: approximately 5,000 – 10,000 Filipino
and 600 – 650 American prisoners of war died on the Bataan Death March. Calugas remained a prisoner at Camp O’Donnel
until January 1943, when he was released to work for the Japanese.
His release placed him as a labourer in a Japanese rice
mill, and while assigned there he secretly joined a Guerilla unit, #227 Old
Bronco. As an officer of the guerrilla
unit, he participated in the attack on the Japanese garrison at
Karangalan. His unit fought in the
continued campaign against the Japanese, which eventually led to the liberation
of the Philippines.
After the liberation of the Philippines in 1945, he finally
received the Medal of Honor for which he had been approved in the beginning of
the war. The medal was presented to him
by General of the Army Gen. George Marshall.
Calugas subsequently accepted a direct commission in the United States
Army and was later assigned to the 44th Infantry Regiment, which was
assigned with the occupation of Okinawa.
After the unit was disbanded in 1947, he was assigned to the Ryuku
Command, on the Ryuku Islands in the South China Sea, where he remained until
1953. He was later assigned to Fort
Lewis, Washington.
Although he had been born in a U.S. territory, and had
fought in the United States’ Army, Calugas technically was not a citizen. Following the Spanish-American War in 1898,
Philippine residents were classified as U.S. nationals. The 1934 Tydings-McDuffie Act, or Philippine
Independence Act, reclassified Filipinos as aliens, and set a quota of 50
immigrants per year to the United States, with the exception of those who
joined the U.S. Navy, but not the U.S. Army.
While serving in Okinawa, Calugas completed the process of becoming a
naturalized United States citizen.
Calugas eventually retired from the army with the rank of
Captain and in 1957 he moved into Tacoma, Washington with his family. After retiring from the army he earned a
degree in Business Administration from the University of Puget Sound in 1961
and worked for the Boeing Corporation.
In addition to furthering his education and starting a new career, he
was involved in several veterans groups within the Seattle and Tacoma
area. He died in Tacoma on January 18,
1998 at the age of 90 and is buried at Mountain View Memorial Park in Tacoma,
Washington. He was survived by his three
children, including retired Sergeant First Class Jose Calugas, Jr., eleven
grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
His wife of 52 years died in 1991.
Calugas earned multiple military decorations before he died,
including: (1) Medal of Honor; (2) Presidential Unit Citations with two oak
leaf clusters; (3) Prisoner of War Medal; (4) Good Conduct Medal; (5) Army of
Occupation Medal; (6) National Defense Service Medal; (7) American Defense
Service Medal; (8) Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two campaign stars; (9)
World War II Victory Medal; (10) Philippine Defense Medal; (11) Philippine
Liberation Medal with two service stars; (12) Philippine Independence Medal;
and, (13) United Nations Korea Medal.” (Wikipedia)
Reading literature about our heroes should rekindle our
nationalist spirit aside from learning from the life and time of these
forgotten Filipino heroes.
Just my little thoughts…
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