Екінші дүниежүзілік соғысындағы филиппин партизандық қозғалысының көшбасшысы Уэнделл Фертиг

American guerrilla leader in the WW II Philippines

Wendell Fertig (December 16, 1900 – March 24, 1975) was an American civil engineer, in the American administered Commonwealth of the Philippines, who organized and commanded an American Filipino guerrilla force on the Japanese occupied, southern Philippine island of Mindanao during World War II. Fertig's widely scattered guerrilla force numbered approximately 32,000. He faced about 50,000 Japanese soldiers, mostly garrison troops in towns and cities. Fertig held a U. S. Army reserve commission and was called into military service before the war in the Pacific began. Ordered from Corregidor before its surrender to the Japanese, he was sent to Mindanao to assume command of engineer activities there. Almost as soon as he arrived, the U. S. Army forces on Mindanao surrendered, but Fertig refused to do so. Fertig used his knowledge of the Filipino people to organize them into a guerrilla army and civilian government. He also used his engineering knowledge to solve problems in supply and construction. Fertig led the guerrillas against the Japanese and their collaborators, mostly in hit and run raids and vital coast watching activities. After making contact with U. S. forces in the Pacific, the guerrillas began to receive supplies, but never enough to stage large scale attacks. More than once, the Japanese made efforts to suppress and destroy elements of Fertig's guerrilla army, committing large numbers of troops for this purpose. At those times, Fertig had his forces retreat and disperse before the Japanese advance and respond with pinprick attacks on small, isolated Japanese units. This continued until American forces returned to the Philippines in late 1944 and 1945. After the war, Fertig returned to his civilian engineering career, but retained his reserve commission. He spent four years as commander of the ROTC detachment at the Colorado School of Mines, his Alma mater, and served in a U. S. based psychological warfare unit during the Korean War. Leaving active duty in the mid 1950s, he ran a Colorado mining company until his death. During his post war years he was regarded as a hero by the people of Mindanao, and was a respected figure among the U. S. Special Forces. One authority lists him among the top ten guerrilla leaders in history. However, several of Fertig's subordinates and contemporaries were critical of his leadership and the literature extolling his wartime activities.

Wendell Fertig was born in La Junta, Colorado, where he lived until he completed high school. He then studied engineering at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. After graduation from college, he married his wife Mary. In 1936, he and his family moved to the Philippines where he had a successful career as a civil engineer until the war broke out. Fertig was described as "tall, sandy haired with an athletic build" and "being calm, genial, deliberate and possessing a remarkable memory and a great facility for remembering names." His experience as an engineer,

and methods of attacking problems would serve him in the challenges he would face as the leader of the Mindanao guerrillas It was due primarily to his personal leadership qualities that the Mindanao resistance movement was unified under one leader and became the most successful of all the guerrilla units in the Philippines. Early in 1941, Fertig was on leave in Manila from his job on Samar. Due to his military classes in college, he held a reserve commission in the United States Army Corps of Engineers. As a result, he was called to duty on June 1, 1941, as a captain (reserve) in the Army Engineers as the United States prepared for war in the Pacific theater. At that time, U. S. analysts believed that the Philippines might be one of the first areas Japan would attack. Fertig's first assignments were as Assistant Engineer, Bataan Field Area, then as Engineer, North Luzon Area. By November 1941, he was Chief of the Construction Section, General Headquarters, and spent most of his time overseeing preparation and improvement of airfields throughout the Philippines. In 1941, the U. S. began evacuating the wives and children of military families. Fertig's wife Mary and their two children Patricia and Jeanne left the Philippines in summer 1941. This action was taken to relieve the concerns of officers and enlisted men, called to duty, about the welfare of their families. American civilian families (men, women and children) were not evacuated, so as not to lessen the morale of the citizens of the Philippines. The native people of the Philippines, who could not leave, suffered under the Japanese occupation. It is estimated that at least one out of every 20 Filipinos died at the hands of the Japanese during the occupation.

On December 20, 1941, Japanese troops invaded the Philippines. Among Fertig's duties during the retreat to Bataan and Corregidor was the destruction of supplies left behind by retreating American forces. His attention to detail was such that he even drove his new Dodge car off a pier and into Manila Bay. Promoted twice by April 1942, Fertig—by then a lieutenant colonel—was sent from Bataan (on Luzon) to Mindanao by General Edward P. King (Luzon Force Commander) to assist General William F. Sharp (Mindanao Force Commander) in the construction of airfields. In They Fought Alone, the author states that Lt. Colonel Fertig was ordered off Corregidor to join General Douglas MacArthur's headquarters in Australia. However, since he was not known to members of MacArthur's headquarters in Australia, it is probably correct that he was ordered to Mindanao to assist American forces there. Fertig arrived on Mindanao on April 30, 1942, and was assigned to supervise the demolition of main roads and bridges to prevent their use by the Japanese.

After the U. S. forces in and around the island of Luzon surrendered in May 1942, Fertig decided not to give himself up to the Japanese. When another fleeing officer accompanying him asked what they were going to do, Fertig replied, "Any damn thing but surrender." During his movement from Corregidor to Mindanao, Fertig survived or avoided a number of airplane crashes. As a result, he felt that he was destined for something special. Later, after organizing the guerrilla forces on Mindanao, he wrote in this diary,

I am called on to lead a resistance movement against an implacable enemy under conditions that make victory barely possible even under the best circumstances. But I feel that I am indeed a Man of Destiny, that my course is charted and that only success lies at the end of the trail. I do not envision failure; it is obvious that the odds are against us and we will not consistently win, but if we are to win only part of the time and gain a little each time, in the end we will be successful. Upon learning of the surrender of the American forces under General Wainwright, Fertig spent weeks crossing the mountains and jungles in an attempt to contact General Sharp. Upon learning that Sharp had surrendered his forces to the Japanese on May 10, 1942, Fertig then spent more weeks considering his options, realizing that to gain authority, he had to wait until guerrillas contacted him. Fertig monitored the military and political situation in Mindanao, by means of the "jungle telegraph." Fertig also grew a red goatee, believing that it would make him look older and wiser among a people who believed that age brought wisdom.</ref>

Many of the emerging guerrilla forces at that time were bandit groups pretending to fight the Japanese, but using the collapse of the American supported government to set themselves up as rulers of local areas. These groups competed with each other for territory and authority. On September 12, 1942, the leader of one strong group approached Fertig, hoping to use him as a front (i. e. representing American military forces) to assume authority over the entire island. Fertig consented, but then used his knowledge of the Filipino people and the current situation in Mindanao to take over the command of that group and then others. Believing that he needed a higher rank, so he would be taken seriously by potential recruits to his struggle, including the leaders of other existing guerrilla bands, Fertig promoted himself to brigadier general. This self promotion to "brigadier general" did not endear him to General MacArthur or his staff, but MacArthur did send logistical support to Fertig throughout 1943 and 1944.

Japanese bombings, destruction by retreating American troops, deprivations by bandit guerrilla bands, and hoarding by civilians had reduced available war supplies, as well as those items necessary to run an effective government. Fertig used his engineering skills and the skills of other escaped Americans and resisting Filipinos to create many supplies from scratch. For example, tuba was brewed from coconut palms to provide alcohol to fuel gasoline vehicles, batteries were recharged by soaking them in tuba, soda bottles and fence wire were used to create a telegraph to enhance communications, curtain rods were cut into pieces and shaped to provide ammunition for .30 caliber rifles, steel was shaved from automobile springs and curled to make recoiling springs for rifles, money was printed in both English and the local language using wooden blocks, and fishermen towed Japanese mines ashore to secure the explosive amatol so it could be used to make gunpowder. Soap was made from coconut oil and wood ashes. Then the soap was traded for sugar which was then used to make alcohol for fuel. Often, seemingly impossible problems were overcome simply through perseverance. For example, Gerardo Almendres, a Filipino high school student had sent away for an International Correspondence Schools course on radios shortly before the war started. Fertig assigned him the task of building a radio even though Almendres had never handled one. Almendres was assisted by a Filipino traveling salesman who had sold radios and by another Filipino. Radio parts (vacuum tubes and other electrical parts) were scrounged from old radio receivers and sound equipment from an old movie projector and other electrical devices. Their makeshift radio eventually worked and they began to receive transmissions from other radios, including those of Roy Bell on Negros, who traveled to Fertig's camp and devised a new aerial. However, they had no way of knowing if their own transmissions were successful until, on January 31, 1943, the U. S. Navy radio monitoring station in San Francisco answered their call sign. Robert C. Ball, William F. Konko, and Stewart Willever, Jr., became Fertig's "signal corps". This was an important accomplishment as American military commands in the Pacific had no idea that there was any effective armed resistance on Mindanao or even in the Philippines. General Charles Willoughby, MacArthur's intelligence chief, had assured him that there was no possibility of such. The American command in the Pacific first heard of Fertig when the Japanese announced that a bombing mission had killed "Major General Fertig", but the Americans dismissed it as propaganda. It took weeks before American intelligence was able to confirm who Fertig was, and that he was alive and not operating as an agent of the Japanese. Part of this investigative process involved Mary Fertig, who was contacted for personal information on her husband's life. Mrs. Fertig was in receipt of a letter that her husband had sent on the last American plane leaving Mindanao. A phrase in the letter, "Pineapples for Breakfast", let Mrs. Fertig know that her husband was alive and well on Mindanao, as that is where they spent short vacations and, while there, he enjoyed having pineapples for breakfast. The latest American intelligence had placed Fertig on Corregidor at the time of the surrender, and so the U. S. Army assumed that he was either dead or a prisoner of the Japanese. In February 1943, with tenuous communication established, General MacArthur appointed Fertig as Commanding Officer of the 10th Military District on Mindanao. During the initial exchange of messages, MacArthur disallowed any promotion of American armed forces personnel in the Philippines to general rank. As a result, Fertig "reduced" himself in rank to colonel, but continued wearing the brigadier general stars fashioned for him by a Filipino metalsmith. Due to the difficulty in communicating with Fertig and his command via makeshift radio Almendres had built, a submarine loaded with military and medical supplies was sent to Mindanao, arriving on March 5, 1943. It also carried two Americans who had known Fertig in the Philippines. One was Charles Smith, who on December 4, 1942, had escaped with two other Americans and two Filipinos by sailing a small boat to Australia, perhaps, at that time, the longest open boat voyage since Captain Bligh's. Smith was now a captain in U. S. Army Intelligence. The other was Charles Parsons, formerly a businessman but now serving as a lieutenant commander in U. S. Navy Intelligence. In addition to his other pre war business interests in Manila, Parsons had represented Panama as its resident counsel. When the Japanese occupied Manila, Parsons was careful to speak only Spanish and convinced the Japanese he was a citizen of Panama. As a result, the Japanese sent Parsons and his family on a long journey "back to Panama", but when the Swedish ship carrying them docked in New York, and before he could report to U. S. intelligence, FBI agents came aboard the ship, asked Parsons who he was and hustled him and his family ashore. However, another source states that Parsons reported to U. S. intelligence in the Canal Zone after the ship docked in Panama. It was a matter of diplomatic honor that no one in the German, Italian or other legations, who knew Parsons' true citizenship status, exposed his masquerade to the Japanese. Their role, as Smith and Parsons explained to Fertig, was to verify that he was actually leading a resistance movement and, if so, whether it was worth the risk of men and supplies to support him. At the same time, Parsons and Smith brought Fertig some unpleasant orders from MacArthur's headquarters. The American Army was willing to provide radios and other equipment for Fertig's command, but these were only to be used for passing information on Japanese activities, from coastwatchers and other sources, to Australia. The guerrillas were ordered not to engage in offensive activities against the Japanese. Fertig admitted that gathering intelligence was an important mission that he would support. However, due to the numerous atrocities that the Japanese were committing against the Philippine population, the only way that Fertig could continue to recruit and maintain a guerrilla force was to attack the Japanese when and where the guerrillas had a chance of winning, so as to provide the Filipinos an outlet for revenge against the Japanese. Fertig stated that if he ordered his men to stop killing the Japanese, then his men would follow other leaders who would probably not be willing to cooperate with MacArthur's headquarters and its directives. In addition, General Charles A. Willoughby, MacArthur's Chief of Intelligence, was convinced that providing the guerrillas with arms and ammunition was a waste of resources. If a regular U. S. Army had been defeated by the Japanese in the Philippines, then no irregular force could do better. The guerrillas' only purpose was to provide intelligence and later, if equipped prior to the return of American forces to the Philippines, to fight as regular forces under the command of American officers. The almost total lack of supplies was a serious problem, but it was not the most pressing problem Fertig faced. At the time of the Japanese invasion, most Philippine army units were of low quality. They were not only poorly trained, enough time not having passed to do so, but they were under equipped and did not have the firepower to resist better armed Japanese troops, tanks and planes. Most of the soldiers were barefoot, and many of their World War I era weapons lacked replacement parts and did not operate properly. As a result, many Filipino units fled when attacked by the Japanese. This was symptomatic of Fertig's most pressing need—experienced leaders. He knew that leaders would emerge from the Filipinos, some guerrilla bands already had strong leaders, but he needed them now. His best resource for this leadership cadre was American servicemen who had either not surrendered or had escaped from prisoner of war camps. Many were already fighting as guerrilla leaders or were eager to do so, others joined him after he explained the need for their services, but many others were not willing and demanded they be sent to Australia where they could rejoin regular units. Fertig's reaction was not always one of understanding. He told many that they would be returned when a means was found, but that they would never be allowed to return. Others he removed from duty when it was apparent they did not have the leadership skills required. Eventually, they were also returned to Australia by submarine, many with negative reports on their behavior. Some regular Army personnel resented being commanded by a "civilian turned soldier", even if he had been in the Philippines more years than they had. Many of the younger Americans had disobeyed orders to surrender due to their individualism. Others had used cunning to evade the Japanese or escape from the POW camps. These traits sometimes led to clashes with the older men who had lived in the Philippines for years and were now in command positions due to their reserve commissions or promotion by Fertig. As a result, those who departed did not always report favorably on Fertig once they reached MacArthur's headquarters in Australia. Those who stayed and fought received immediate commissions, or were promoted if they already were officers, in the U. S. Army, although they might be sailors, Marines, or even civilians. MacArthur eventually approved all of Fertig's promotions, even though advised not to do so by Lt. Colonel Courtney Whitney, his staff officer for Filipino civilian affairs.

Fertig did not preside over the guerrillas on Mindanao without controversy. In 1942, Fertig was persuaded to take leadership of the incipient guerrilla movement by a Filipino policeman named Luis Morgan who realized that an American leader was necessary to get support from the American military. However, as time went on, Morgan became increasingly disenchanted with Fertig. He resigned his position as chief of staff on August 10, 1943, claiming the Fertig undermined him and other Filipinos by favoritism to Americans. Fertig sent him to Australia via submarine in September. In 1943, prisoner of war escapees Major (later General) Stephen Mellnik and Navy Lt. Commander M. H. McCoy described the reception they got on first meeting Fertig as strange, evasive, and almost hostile. They requested transportation by submarine to Australia which Fertig eventually arranged. McCoy concluded that Fertig wasn't used to dealing with equals. As mentioned previously, Fertig's self designated rank of brigadier general did not find favor with General MacArthur in Australia. Lt. Col Edward E. McClish, one of Fertig's division commanders, and McClish's chief of staff Major Clyde Childress had a rocky relationship with Fertig. Fertig's opinion was that McClish and Childress were "disloyal, incompetent," and had done little for the guerrilla movement on Mindanao. Specifically, he said McClish was a last second planner, too aggressive in wanting to battle the Japanese, and had chosen his subordinates unwisely. McClish and Childress were among several American officers serving under Fertig who requested transfers from the guerrillas to regular U. S. army commands which became possible after the U. S. invasion of the Philippines on October 20, 1944. Fertig relieved, at their request, Childress on December 29, 1944, and McClish on January 23, 1945. Robert Lapham, another guerrilla leader, described McClish and Childress's opinion of Fertig as "paranoid and consumed with personal ambition, not to speak of ungrateful and discourteous to them after they had made it possible for him to move his headquarters to a safe location." Childress carried the criticism of Fertig a step further. In 2003, after reviewing Fertig's papers at the MacArthur Memorial, Childress wrote of Fertig's "fictional autobiography" (Keat's They Fought Alone) and said he was appalled that Fertig "could produce such inaccurate, contemptuous, incomplete, and erroneous reports of the activities of an important military command."

A movie on Wendell Fertig has been in the planning stages for several years. As of March 2009, "Robert Towne had finished the screenplay and it was presented to Sony Productions for final approval. David Fincher, the director, is eager to start production." Several movie Web sites now list the movie, but most state it is "in development." Brad Pitt, with whom Fincher has worked before, is listed in the role of "Fertig." The New York Times site lists Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group as the studio, Sony Pictures as the domestic theatrical distributor, and Red Wagon Entertainment as the production company. As of 2021, the Fertig film has not materialized, but in Quentin Tarantino's novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood the backstory of Pitt's Cliff Booth character is revealed to be that of an American World War II commando who was captured and imprisoned by the Japanese in the Philippines, but escaped into the jungle and went on to wage guerrilla war against occupying Japanese forces alongside his "Filipino guerrilla brothers." Wendell Fertig and some fictionalized actions of the U. S. Forces in the Philippines are featured in W. E. B. Griffin's 7th book of The Corps series, Behind the Lines; and also in the 4th book of his Men at War series, The Fighting Agents. The books are based on the beginning phases of Fertig's operation and the top level political maneuvering surrounding it. Wendell Fertig and 2 "imposters" appeared on an episode of the game show To Tell the Truth on September 9, 1963.