Jobers Reynes Bersales
Once again tomorrow, the Talisay Landing will be reenacted, albeit with a wide latitude on the matter of using modern weapons and vehicles against those used on March 26, 1945, or 74 years ago, when the liberation of Cebu began in earnest shortly after 8 o’clock that day.
Because the heritage protection and preservation movement came so late in this country, we have lost virtually all evidences—both war materiel and defensive installations—used during those brutal years known as World War II.
Thus, the appearance of helicopters, modern uniforms, helmets and even armalite rifles which were not present 74 years ago but which are intended to drive home the importance of the moment. That is, even if virtually nothing much really happened on the beaches of Talisay because the Imperial Japanese Forces had decided to make a stand not there on the coast but way up on Babag Ridge.
Philippine Navy men and students in the roles of American liberators and Japanese soldiers reenact the 1945 landing of US troops in the shores of Talisay 70 years ago in this photo taken on March 26, 2015. (CDN File/Junjie Mendoza)
Plans are afoot, however, to recover one important story that hastened the March 26, 1945 event before all is lost as more and more war veterans and their children pass away. I am referring to the so-called Koga Incident that the famed guerrilla adjutant and chronicler, the late Col. Manuel Segura, published a book about way back in the 1980s.
Entitled “U3/Unsurrendered 3: The Koga Papers and the Cebu Guerrillas,” the upcoming documentary is produced by Spyron AV Manila under the leadership of Miguel “Lucky” Guillermo and I think will be directed by Bani Logroño, the young director of “U2/Unsurrendered 2: The Hunters ROTC Guerrillas.”
I was able to see ‘Unsurrendered 2’ and buy a copy of the accompanying coffee table book of the same title when it was shown at Ayala Center Cebu on June 12 two years ago.
Two months later, I met Lucky Guillermo and members of the Spyron AV Manila in Angeles City during the International Conference on the 75th Anniversary of World War II. (During this conference, I presented a paper on the events that transpired in Cebu during the first six months of the Japanese Occupation, which included the start of guerrilla resistance that would eventually grow into the Cebu Area Command.)
It was there that I was able to watch U1/Unsurrendered 1: 100 Voices: Stories of Philippine Guerrillas and Bolomen.”
Kawanishi H8 Flying Boat
Now comes the third sequel, which is expected to start production this month and will hopefully air sometime in October.
To the uninformed, the Koga Incident has to do with the crash of two Kawanishi H8 Flying Boats, somewhere in Sangat, San Fernando, on, of all dates April 3, 1944.
Admiral Meinichi Koga
On one of these planes was the highest naval official of the Imperial Japanese Forces, Admiral Meinichi Koga, who was carrying with him documents collectively called “The Z Plan,” papers detailing the defense plans of the IJF vis-à-vis the approaching liberation of the Philippines.
April 3 is of course also a day rich in the memory of Cebu because on that day in 1898, the Katipunan in Cebu finally rose up in arms against Spanish forces in what has come to be known as Tres de Abril.
Exactly forty-six years later, a storm blew Admiral Koga’s planes off the skies, resulting in a saga of epic proportions, as it were, that involved the Japanese survivors of the crash (Koga himself was killed, his body never found), the Z Plan documents, the fishermen of Valladolid, Carcar, the Imperial Japanese authorities in Cebu and the Cebu Area Command headed by the sadly unremembered and uncelebrated Col. James Cushing. All these make for a neat background to an important piece of history that altered Gen. MacArthur’s original plan of landing in Davao in December 1944, advancing it to October 20 in Leyte.
Cover Page of the Z Plan
I have written about this incident in a previous piece here and will not belabor you dear reader. So much has also been written about it of late. But for the first time, a video documentary that will recount both sides of the event, with interviews of surviving guerrillas and the children of those fishermen who hid the Z Plan, plus a full-course backgrounder on the Cebu guerrillas, is a very welcome addition to the dearth of information about those tumultuous and tragic years when Cebu was at its darkest years.
Thank you, Lucky and Spyron AV Manila for taking the cudgels for us Cebuanos.