A front seat view of the war: From their father's eyes. For many Filipinos, the stories of the Second World War are oft-told and oft-repeated tales of Japanese brutality and Filipino and American gallantry in the face of unspeakable odds.  Many people have heard of the Bataan Death March, Gen. MacArthur’s famous “I shall return” promise, the Japanese-sponsored Philippine Republic and the fierce guerilla resistance. After the Fall of Bataan in the early summer of 1942, we all know that the guerillas are the Filipino and American soldiers who refused to surrender to the Japanese and, instead, went to the hills to regroup.  Guerillas are also the civilians – school teachers, doctors, priests, lawyers, market vendors, politicians, with their own careers at the time of the war that fought alongside military people to wage a resistance against the Japanese. FIRST GUERILLA It may interest people to know that one of the first known guerilla leaders was Governor Roque B. Ablan of Ilocos Norte, who resisted the Japanese as early as December 10, 1941 upon their arrival in Ilocos. He was the only Philippine governor who never surrendered to the Imperial Army. His fighting spirit served as an inspiration for other guerillas and for the USAFIP NL to stay in their ranks and help continue the fight to the end. The valor of Gov. Ablan is one of the more dramatic highlights of the guerilla war in northern Philippines.  Another little-known sidelight is the role of 21 freedom submarines in sustaining the rag-tag resistance for three years.  How these 21 boats managed to do it and escape the watchful eyes of the Japanese is a war classic in itself. SPECIAL MISSION SUBMARINES The 21 submarines were the boats granted by the US Navy to Gen. MacArthur to bring in much-needed arms and ordnance including medicines, and food to the Resistance. The boats who made the run to the islands were the: Bowfin, Cero Narwhal, Angler, Crevalle, Harder, Redfin, Nautilus, Seawolf, Gar, Blackfin, Gunnel, Hake, Ray, Gudgeon, Grayling, Argonaut, Tambor, Trout, Harder, and the Stingray. These submarines, operating out of the mini-department, “SPYRON” within the Gen MacArthurs’s GHQ, became known as “Special Mission Submarines.” As fate would have it, Charles “Chick” Parsons, who was a US Navy Reserve Officer, conceived of the submarine operations, is a good friend of Gov. Roque Ablan. Parsons once engaged in a mining quarry in Ilocos Norte, which led to his enduring friendship with the guerilla governor.  Aside from mining, Parsons also ran a stevedoring firm at the time of the war. It was Parsons himself who saw the benefits and feasibility of using supply submarines to aid the guerillas, given his familiarity with the islands.  The submarines were also bringing in specially US Army-trained Filipino commandos as well as weathermen and advisors. One Ilocano, Lt. Jose V. Valera, known as “Capt Joe” to the locals, was shipped back by the USS Stingray SS-186 together with a bunch of 14 Filipino commandos which he led, were to be inserted in northern Luzon. Two other Filipino commando teams, headed by Lt. Bartolome C. Cabanbang to the Visayas, and a certain Lt. Enrique L. Torres, Jr. to Mindanao, were also dispatched on separate boats. The Allied Intelligence Bureau ensured that Fil-Am military personnel and commandos shipped to a certain area were from that region and spoke the dialect fluently. On their return trips to Australia, the submarines would also take out from the various islands refugees who had been hiding from the Japanese Forces. Thus, besides serving to advance military objectives, the submarines also had a humanitarian role. There is scarcely an island in the entire Philippine Archipelago that was not scouted by these brave boats. Luzon was graced with several landings on the east coast, as well as important rendezvous on the west coast, in Zambales as well as in Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur. On these latter trips, the boats would unload tons of supplies, radios and codes, commandos, as well as spies. Thus, even before Gen. MacArthur’s famous landing on Leyte on October 20, 1944, he was very much in control of events in the Philippines, thousand of miles away from his base in Australia. Yet the exploits of the 21 boats are, sad to say, still submerged in the annals of history.  It is fitting that the people who manned and operated these submarines receive the proper honors and recognition they rightfully deserve. But to say that the war was won solely by MacArthur would be to take away credit from the guerillas, the coastwatchers, and the bolomen, who fought a valiant war against the formidable Japanese military forces while awaiting MacArthur’s return.  The Japanese invaders were repelled first by the guerillas and then by the liberating American soldiers who finished the war. BOLOMEN Yet the war could not have been won without the help of the Bolomen.  Now, who are the Bolomen? These are the ordinary Juan and Juana de la Cruz, who resisted the Japanese occupation forces, not with guns, but with their active – and heroic – assistance to the guerillas.  That is why they are called “Bolomen,” because they were armed with nothing but bolos and pointed bamboo lances– a key implement in their work as farmers or laborers.  They were meek villagers by day and cunning recon patrol by night.  Their dual roles made them the masterful camouflage to the guerillas in the boondocks as well as the vital intelligence network of the resistance movement.  Only the Bolomen can follow the movements and actions of the Japanese as they, alone, deal with them on a day-to-day basis. The Bolomen served as the vital link between the submarines who land surreptitiously in dimly lit rendezvous points and the guerillas who are hiding in the hills. Without the courageous assistance of the Bolomen as coastwatchers and cargadores, the submarines could not have delivered their supplies, ammunition and ordnance to the intended parties.   Yet, for all his courage and selflessness, the Bolomen remains a ghost – doomed to haunt the annals of military history in search for recognition. His exploits, at best anecdotal and scattered among assorted accounts, may lift him up to the light of scrutiny, only to fail to impress the appropriate U.S. and Philippine Veteran’s agencies. And when the last of them passes on, so too, will perish the last of the true freedom fighters.