Seventy-three years ago

A.Paulita Roa

(FR. James Edward Haggerty S.J., was the Rector of Ateneo de Cagayan when World War II broke out on Dec. 8, 1941. He joined and later became a key figure in the vast guerrilla movement in Mindanao. He wrote a book “Guerrilla Padre” that detailed his war experiences and it has contributed richly to local contemporary history. Below is an account taken from Fr. Haggerty’s book about the surprise attack of Japanese  strongholds in Cagayan  by American planes that started on Sept. 8, 1944 – 73 years ago.)

In the evening they (Japanese soldiers) fled the town (Cagayan) and hid in the surrounding coconut groves. They took Esteban (Bishop Hayes’ former cook) with them, and as they went through the fireswept town, scores of sacadas (Filipinos captured by the Japanese for forced labor), weak from disease, cut off from their rations, were lying dead or dying in the streets. The big convento was smouldering, and the cathedral (St. Agustine Cathedral) was a pyre of flame with explosion after explosion from its sacristy rocking the city. The Japs had stored their ammunition in the cathedral, convento, and the bishop’s house.

They had said: “Americans do not bomb churches.”

One rocket had struck Ateneo just at my bedroom. The campus was littered with Japs killed in their foxholes. That night Esteban escaped.

Various reports had came out after the first bombing. About eight hundred Japanese were counted as killed or wounded. During intervals of the bombing civilians looted the Japanese storehouses, and carried the enemy’s supplies out of town.One man brought out nine carabaos that he had recovered from the Japs and loaded with sacks of Jap shoes, Jap cigarettes and rice. At night, however the Japanese had returned and looted the civilians’ vacated houses, and had even stolen all vegetables and fruits from the gardens.

Into one private bomb shelter during the bombing had crept a Christian Japanese soldier who fervently prayed aloud during the terror. A young man of the family which had built the bomb shelter told me that when bombs were bursting near, his father, who had been educated in the United States, kept yelling:

“Give them another one, Joe!”

The Jap had kept praying like a pious robot whose machinery was running amuck.

My old lawyer friend, Atty. Vicente Pelaez, and Esteban the cook had been in the cheering squad that occupied a trench in the back of Ateneo. When a breathing spell came, the rooters noticed the Japanese commander of Northern Mindanao crouching nearby behind a tree.

Pelaez whispered:

“Keep happy in your hearts, but look sad and sympathetic in your faces.”

I can well understand how they forgot their fear in their joy. We had stood bareheaded on a high hill waving deliriously and shouting nonsense as planes above us turned to begin fresh runs over their targets.It never occurred to us that those aviators might not know we were friendly, as I pointed a big Graflex (a camera) at them and the flaming airfields.

POSTCRIPTS: In 1941, Ateneo de Cagayan had almost a thousand students and five concrete buildings. It also had the only gymnasium outside of Manila. But the campus became the headquarters of the Japanese Imperial army. Many Filipinos were taken prisoners there — most of whom were tortured and then killed by their captors. The campus was heavily bombed by American planes.

The St. Agustine Cathedral was converted by the Japanese to an amno dump and a stable. But all the statues and other religious objects were left untouched. When the cathedral was bombed by the Americans, the famous 1897 statue of St. Agustine that was placed on the main altar was reduced to ashes. But the other statue of St. Agustine that was brought to Cagayan via Mexico in 1800, survived. It was transferred above the main door of the church in 1897 to make way for the new statue. During the bombing, the statue fell from its niche and suffered minor damages.This could be the St. Agustine statue that we see today in the Cathedral.

The wooden cross that was erected in front of the cathedral in 1888 and the Birhen sa Cota — all survived the bombing. Now, the old wooden cross is encased with cement while the wooden statue of the Birhen sa Cota was transferred from the Museo de Oro where it stayed for many years, back to the St. Agustine Cathedral.

Cagayan was finally liberated from the Japanese on January, 1945 by the guerrilla forces lead by Capt. Fidencio Laplap. But Fr. Haggerty was not there to witness the historic event. He contracted malaria and became very weak. Col. Wendell Fertig, head of the guerrillas in Mindanao wired Gen. MacArthur who was then in Leyte to help the sick padre. Fr. Haggerty was then sent to the United States to recuperate. In 1948, he went back to Cagayan where he was given a very warm welcome by the Kagay-anons and his former students of Ateneo de Cagayan.