Learning history missed in school

Memorial beside the ruins

Mural of the nonviolent revolution of 1986

Sunday we took a day trip, in alternating drizzle, downpour and sun, to Corregidor, the island guarding Manila Bay, scene of important battles in World War II. It was an emotional experience, especially after the memorial for Uncle Toddy. While he was half a continent away it was in a similar environment and easy to see why his plane was never found in the tropical forest. This island, once bombed bare, is dense with new growth rapidly overtaking the ruins.

The island is now managed by a foundation and offers a fine interpretive program—which we welcomed. Somehow they never got to World War II in my history classes. After an hour’s boat ride across Manila Bay, you board busses for a guided tour of the ruins, multiple memorial sites, and a museum—including lunch at a pleasant resort. The mix of history and holiday is a bit disconcerting. The tour guide was knowledgeable but full of corny jokes, young Asians scrambled over the big guns taking pictures, and the island is being developed as a beach and trekking site. And, we were told, there are Japanese and English-language tours that tell different stories.

The names are familiar, especially Bataan, across the water to the north. Corregidor was a garrison during the 400 years of Spanish occupation, and a luxurious military base of some 11,000 people during the US years. In the early 1900s they constructed an incredible 20-mile underground network of tunnels. MUSEUM PEOPLE ALERT: Part of the tour is a trip in the dark through the main tunnel, with side dioramas and AV-programs telling the story of the war and five-month battle. For a time, the Philippine president and his family took refuge there, along with about 6,000 US and Philippine soldiers and nurses, and, later, the Japanese.

We were hit hard by what we learned about the scale and the viciousness of the war in the Pacific. Corregidor surrendered and was later retaken. Even more disturbing, it seems that the whole conflict there was more symbolic than tactical. The base was designed to defend against attack by sea—and Manila had already been overtaken by troops on land.

The memorials—US, Philippine, Japanese, all the War in the Pacific, and Gen MacArthur—were moving and educational. The Philippine one featured fourteen ceramic murals depicting Philippine resistance from 1571 through the people’s revolution of 1986. And it goes on and on.