JANUARY 26, 1945: GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR CELEBRATES BIRTHDAY ALONG THE BAMBAN FRONT

Investigating History:
JANUARY 26, 1945: GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR CELEBRATES BIRTHDAY ALONG THE BAMBAN FRONT

Bamban, this small town on the south of Tarlac province, the gateway to the Melting Pot of Luzon, has its share in the history of our Nation. And since it is the 80th anniversary of the Liberation, we would like to highlight a forgotten history when General MacArthur led the American forces at Bamban and even celebrated his birthday in the battlefield. Last January 23, 2025, the Bamban Local Government, with the Bamban Historical Society and Bamban WWII Museum, led the commemoration of the 80th Anniversary of Liberation. It was the Bamban Historical Society that had commemorations of our town’s Liberation Day in 2005 and 2006. Since we do not have much funding to carry on the costly commemoration events, I decided to put up my own Bamban WWII Museum in order to carry on the tasks of preserving and promoting WWII History through museum displays and exhibits.

BAMBAN 1945
January 26, 1945 was just another busy day, a continuation of the Liberation Day for the clearing operations around the town, especially to the west, where the fighting was shifted to Bamban Hills with the mountain fortifications including the formidable tunnel defense systems with rifle, machine gun and mortar pits as well as light artillery. The whole 40th Division US Army with its 3 regiments; the 160th and the 108th Regiment, and later the 185th Regiment, were committed in combat and clearing operations against the Japanese Takayama Detachment located west of the town, with the aid of tanks, tank destroyers, the cannon company of M-7 tank howitzers and air support from P-38 Lighting and P-51 Mustangs. The 105mm and 155mm howitzers of the 40th Division Artillery located in positions near the barrio Anupul were providing the artillery fire on the tunnel positions of the Takayama in the Bantiti, Panaisan, Sapang and Macapul areas; sealing many of the tunnel entrances. It was a tough day for both the American liberators and the Japanese defenders of Bamban Hills. While the local guerrillas including the Aeta warriors from Squadron 30 and Squadron 155 provided combat support in the operations including as guides to the Japanese positions from late January until the end of the war in September 1945.

GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR
On that day also, something big was in the front. The General, who, in March 1942, was the commander of all Filipino-American forces in the Philippines, slipped away from Corregidor by order from Washington in order to take command of the Allied forces for an ultimate come back. The man who is famous for the words, “I shall return!”. Just barely 15 days after the massive American landing in Lingayen, the man, General Douglas MacArthur, Commander in Chief, Southwest Pacific Theater, was in the Bamban front with the 40th Division directing the general assault on the mountain fortifications of the Japanese Kembu Group. The General, during the Battle of Bataan, was referred to as “Dugout Doug”, is now the roaring lion in the battlefields of Bamban, with an imposing figure as one of the greatest generals of WWII, with his signature corncob pipe and the cap of the “Field Marshall” of the Philippine Army; the special rank that was created and bestowed to him by Philippine Commonwealth president Manuel Quezon to organize and command the defense of the Philippines starting in 1936.

THE GENERAL’S BIRTHDAY
Riding in two military Jeep, the MacArthurs, in fact were no strangers in Bamban. His father, then Major-General Arthur MacArthur, was also in Bamban, at around 11 a.m. and entered the town from the south along the Mabalacat wagon road after the successful assault of the Bamban Line with his Second Division, 8th Corps on November 11, 1899. Forty-six years pass-forward, the son, Douglas, entered Bamban from the north (his headquarters was located at the administration building in Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, Tarlac), in conjunction with the 40th Division operations in the town. The Jeep he was riding was marked with the emblem of the 5-star general in the front hood and a perfect target for Japanese snipers holed near the roads and hiding from among the cogon grass. In fact, the General disregard safety in the battlefields of the Bamban and later at Clark Field, that his staff officers complained.

On this day in January 1945, General Douglas MacArthur was outside of the town center, inspecting troops and the artillery assaulting Japanese Takayama positions in the hills west of Bamban. Some of the battlefield locations where he made a visit and inspections were at the Bamban Naval Headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1st Air Fleet (Rolling Hills, San Nicolas, Bamban), along the main road and the dirt road to the west of the town. In the morning, while the General was riding his Jeep, Major Jim Williams of Division Air Office of the 40th Division, while piloting a L-4 Grasshopper reconnaissance light plane, veered down so low as to the level of the vehicles to warn them of the many enemy shooters around and shouted, “Hey you damned fool, you’ll get your ass shot off!”. He just shouted at the highest-ranking American army general in the Pacific Theater of Operation, although he did not know that but was just caring enough to warn them on the danger of the Japanese snipers that might kill the General.

MACARTHUR AT BAMBAN FRONT
This is an official US Army photo of General Douglas MacArthur taken in Bamban available at the US National Archives NARA. Although the date is not cited in the official descriptions, the only reason that comes to this conclusion is that this author checked on the dates of the General’s visit to the field (Dorris Clayton James: The Years of Macarthur 1941-1945) in Bamban and Clark as well as in Capas, and his stay in his headquarters in Hacienda Luisita for the month of January and February 1945.

The following is the official description of the photo:

“MacARTHUR ON ROAD TO MANILA
Five-star General Douglas MacArthur halts his jeep along the road outside Bamban, Luzon Island, PI, to speak to Major General Rapp Brush, commanding the 40th Infantry Division. Sitting in the back of the jeep is Colonel Lloyd Lehrbas, the general’s aide.”

Major General Brush’ headquarters of the 40th Division was located in a big stone house in Bamban, near a rice field but close to the town center. From the headquarters, Brush would go to the Bamban front to inspect the progress of the assault on Japanese positions in Bamban Hills, particularly the Bantiti area, Panaisan, Lafe, and near Calumpang which were the front lines at the time. The 40th Division campaign in the Bamban lasted from January 23, 1945 to the end of February, engaging the main Japanese resistance along the rough terrain of the Bamban Hills characterized with brutal fights and suicidal tendency of the Japanese defenders. On the same date, General MacArthur also went the town of Mabalacat with some of his staff, including the East and West airfields. His tour of the front in Bamban and the inspection of Japanese aircraft wrecks at the Mabalacat airfields were captured on combat video taken by the US Army Signal Corps with the 40th Division US Army.

Based on the book The Years of MacArthur, the 5-star general was at the Bamban front on January 26, 1945. With his headquarters established at nearby Hacienda Luisita, Tarlac City, he also visited Capas and Mabalacat on the same day, since the northern portion of Mabalacat, including parts of the Mabalacat East and West Airfield (portion) were cleared by the 1st Battalion, 160th Infantry, 40th Division U.S. Army, with the Bamban occupied by the 2nd and 3rd Battalion from the town center to the nearest hill-mass of Bantiti. At the time, the front line was already established at the Goshen-Tapuak-Bilu areas and at the northwest on the location of Panaisan and Macapul in Bamban. These areas were defended by the remnants of the Hoshino Butai (137th Airfield Battalion, reinforced), after they retreated from the present Grotto and Rotary Hills.

THE MACARTHURS: FATHER AND THE SON IN BAMBAN
Douglas’ father, Major General Arthur MacArthur, went to Bamban during the height of the Philippine-American War, on November 11, 1899 while commanding the 2nd Division, 8th Army Corps that fought the Filipino forces of the Paruao Line commanded by Generals Luciano San Miguel, Servillano Aquino, and Maximino Hizon (elements). Fifty-six years later, on January 26, 1945, Arthur the son, as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces and having the 5-star general in command, was at the front line of Bamban, with the 40th Division drive against the Takayama Shitai, Kembu Group. Both were recipient of the Medal of Honor, the former fighting the Philippine Army)during the Philippine-American War, while the latter, with his celebrated words “I SHALL RETURN”, was the renowned American Caesar that Filipinos held with deep and high respect, and where the promise of Liberation was in his hands. The Father and the Son fought in Bamban, but on different purpose, where they were part of our history. General Douglas MacArthur, at the time, was having his headquarters at the Administration Building of the Hacienda Luisita sugar central complex.

HONORING ALL THOSE WHO SERVED
Please join me in remembering the Battle of Bamban Hills and to honor all those who served, and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for the Liberation in WWII especially the 40th Division US Army. General Douglas MacArthur’s visit to the Bamban Front on January 26, 1945 where he celebrated his birthday along the front line is but a footnote in history. For us at the Bamban Historical Society and Bamban Museum, it is a significant event that should be remembered and given importance as descendants of WWII veterans.

Rhonie Dela Cruz
Bamban Historical Society
Bamban WWII Museum
Bamban Center for Pacific War Studies

CITATION:
(1) Dorris Clayton James, The Years of Macarthur 1941-1945 (Houghton Mifflin; new edition, May 1, 1975).
(2) Don Moore, Low and Slow – Liberation of the Philippines (Upland California, San Antonio Heights Publishing Company, 1999).
(3) Robert Ross Smith, United States Army in WWII – The War in the Pacific, “Triumph in the Philippines”.
(4) History of the 40th Division in the Philippines.
(5) Okada, Yasuji (Colonel, Chief of Staff of the Japanese Kembu Group). Japanese Monograph No. 9. “Outline of the Kembu Group Operation – Clark Sector, Record of the Philippine Operations Record of the Philippine Operation Vol. III Part 3.
(6) MacArthur, Arthur (Major-General). Report of Operations of the Second Division, Eight Army Corps
(7) Photograph: MACARTHUR ON ROAD TO MANILA 1945, US National Archives, Maryland. Bamban Historical Society Collection, Bamban Museum, Bamban, Tarlac.
( MacArthur’s Birthday, “MacArthur in Jeep at Birthday Battle”, The Sunday Times, Perth Western Australia, January 28, 1945.
(9) MacArthur as Field Marshall of the Philippines, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_Marshals_(Philippines) , accessed January 26, 2020.
(10) History of Jeeps in WWII, https://www.jeep.com/history/1940s.html, accessed January 26, 2020.
(11) Robert Munyon (40th Division US Army), personal interview (Davis, California, March 24, 2007).
(12) Map Supplement to the After-Action Report M-1 Operation, XIV Corps.

PHOTOS:
(a) General Rapp Brush (CG, 40th Division US Army), meeting General Douglas MacArthur at the Bamban Front on January 26, 1945.
Source: US Army Signal Corps, US National Archives NARA
(b) General MacArthur, inspecting the concrete cross erected by American POWs at the O’Donnell cemetery (American sector), January 26, 1945.
Source: US Army Signal Corps, US National Archives NARA
(c) Inspecting Japanese aircraft wrecks, near Bamban, but most probably at the Mabalacat West Airfield captured by the 1st Battalion, 160th Infantry, 40th Division; January 26, 1945.
Source: US Army Signal Corps, US National Archives NARA
(d) Another inspection of the former Japanese airfields, at the Mabalacat West, on January 26, 1945.
Source: US Army Signal Corps, US National Archives NARA.
(e) Major-General Arthur MacArthur, Jr., commanding the 2nd Division, 8th U.S. Army Corps during the Philippine-American War 1899. He was in Bamban on November 11, 1899 after fighting the Filipino forces at the Bamban Trenches (parts of lower Bantiti and the present Mansion Ridge near the Bamban WWII Museum) and traversed the same old municipal road on the way to the town center and passing in front of the present Bamban Museum.