Capt. Calugas, U.S. Army Philippine Scout, held off the Japanese, as POW he set up a spy network for Philippine Guerrillas
Today’s #VeteranOfTheDay is Army Veteran Jose Cabalfin Calugas.
In 1930 at the age of 23, Jose joined the Philippine Scouts of the U.S. Army. After graduating from basic training in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, he was assigned to Company C, 24th Artillery at Fort Stotsenburg, Pampanga. The Philippine Scouts trained vigorously. They were excellent marksmen and each spring teams of their most outstanding experts were sent by each regiment to Camp Perry, New York, where they competed effectively against the best in the U.S. Army.
On the morning of December 8, 1941, the Scouts were awakened to learn that they were now in the war for which they had been trained. At the time the United States and the Philippine Commonwealth declared war on Japan, Jose was a mess sergeant with Battery B, 88th Field Artillery Regiment. His unit was mobilized for duty and sent to Bataan in December 1941.
On Jan 6, 1942, Jose was on KP duty in charge of a group of soldiers preparing the day’s meals. He noticed that one of his unit’s guns had been silenced, and its crew killed. Without orders, he ran and crawled more than a half-mile under severe fire to try to fix the jammed U.S. gun. Once there, he organized a squad of 16 volunteers to return Japanese artillery fire. They held that position for several hours, holding off the Japanese as U.S. troops dug in. That night after the battle subsided, Jose returned to the mess hall to finish his KP duty and feed the rest of the soldiers. For these actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Four months later, U.S. forces in the Philippines surrendered to the Japanese. Jose was captured and sent on the two-month Bataan Death March, where a slowed step meant a bayonet in the ribs. He spent another nine months in a prison camp. Then he worked in a Japanese-controlled rice mill where he set up a spy network for Philippine guerrillas. When U.S. troops returned to the Philippines, Jose fought with them.
Jose was the only Filipino to earn the Medal of Honor during World War II, presented to him in 1945 by Gen. George Marshall. When he received the Medal of Honor, he was offered American citizenship and the chance to become an officer. He retired with the rank of captain and carved out a successful business career in the Pacific Northwest.
Jose passed away in 1998 at the age of 90. We honor his service. VA.Gov
The Philippine Scouts U.S. Army
These were General Douglas MacArthur’s soldiers-the guys who fought America’s first battle of World War II. The Philippine Division. Probably the best trained and possibly the best prepared U.S. Army division at the outset of the war.
Some of them were farm boys from California and Kansas, and Italian-Americans from New Jersey, as depicted in the black and white movies made during and after World War II. However, many of them were professional Filipino soldiers serving in the U.S. Army, commanded by American officers. They were special men in special units, officially designated “Philippine Scouts,” a term applied both to the Filipino enlisted men and to their American officers. For a young Filipino man, acceptance into the Philippine Scouts was a distinct honor–as was service in the Scout units for American officers.
On December 7, 1941 the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor, but Pearl Harbor was only part of a much bigger Japanese operation that day. On December 7 the Japanese not only sank the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, they also bombed the U.S. Army’s B-17 bomber base at Clark Field in the Philippines, they attacked British Hong Kong, and they landed troops on the shores of British Malaya. The four attacks were coordinated to begin at the same moment, but because of weather problems the U.S. Navy’s battleships were already sinking to the bottom of Pearl Harbor by the time Japanese bombers destroyed the American fighters and bombers on the ground at Clark Field in the Philippines.
The Japanese invasion of the Philippines was the first action of World War II in which units of the United States Army faced the enemy on the ground. General MacArthur had his entire army withdraw to the Bataan Peninsula and to Corregidor Island, to hold off the enemy until the U.S. Navy could bring reinforcements and supplies. The Philippine Scouts, side-by-side with U.S. national guard soldiers and Philippine Army infantry units, defeated the Japanese Army in numerous actions in the interior and on the coastlines of Bataan. Survivors of the Battle of Bataan, to a man, describe the Philippine Scouts as the backbone of the American defense there. President Franklin Roosevelt awarded the U.S. Army’s first three Congressional Medals of Honor of World War II to Philippine Scouts: to Sergeant Jose Calugas for action at Culis, Bataan on January 6, 1942, to Lieutenant Alexander Nininger for action near Abucay, Bataan on January 12, and to Lieutenant Willibald Bianchi for action near Bagac, Bataan on February 3, 1942.
By March, 1942, the Japanese Army had marched through Southeast Asia and completely overrun every country and island in the western Pacific-except the Philippines. The Philippines, and General MacArthur’s army, were alone. On the Bataan peninsula of Luzon Island, the Philippine Scouts, a few U.S. Army National Guard units, and ten divisions of poorly equipped, almost untrained Philippine Army soldiers held out for four months against the Japanese.
With the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor in shambles, and the Japanese Navy blockading the Philippines, there was no way for America to get reinforcements, food or medicine to the troops on Bataan. Nonetheless, they held out while malaria, dysentery and malnutrition ravaged their ranks, and Japanese attacks drove them further down the Bataan peninsula.
On April 3, 1942 fresh Japanese troops began a crushing attack on the U.S. forces on Bataan. Although the men fought bravely, the Battle of Bataan ended on April 9, 1942, when General Edward King surrendered rather than see any more of his starving, diseased men slaughtered by the advancing Japanese Army. At that point 75,000 men became Prisoners of War: about 12,000 Americans and 63,000 Filipinos. What followed was one of the worst atrocities in modern wartime history-the Bataan Death March.
Back in the Philippines, a strong guerrilla movement developed to fight Japanese oppression. Philippine Scout officers and enlisted men who had escaped from the Japanese, and others who chose to ignore their parole terms, joined these clandestine groups to do what they could to hasten the return of U.S. forces. Contrary to the impression many of us get from our history textbooks, help was not on the way. General MacArthur had his forces, such as they were, engaged around the Solomon Islands and New Guinea to protect Australia from Japanese attack. It was not until 1944 that MacArthur in the south and Admiral Nimitz to the east commenced their two-pronged advance into the Pacific. But during the interim years, the Philippine guerrillas put together a close network to gather intelligence data on Japanese troop movements and shipping, and transmit it to MacArthur’s headquarters using radios smuggled in by submarine. It has been said that their information was so complete, that when MacArthur finally did make it back to the Philippines he knew what every Japanese lieutenant ate for breakfast and where he had his hair cut.
As MacArthur’s forces, supported by the guerrillas, rolled into the Philippine Islands, men began to come out of hiding. The Philippine Scouts, some who were members of the guerrilla forces, some who were not, stepped forward and rejoined the U.S. Army. Other Filipino guerrillas joined them and the Army set up new Philippine Scout units. The “New Scouts” actively participated in combat against the Japanese Army in north Luzon, and served as military police to restore order and help locate pockets of escaped Japanese in the south. As planning for the invasion of Japan progressed, the Philippine Scouts were included in the invasion forces and begin training for what was expected to be the bloodiest struggle of World War II.
Jose Calugas
Captain, U.S. Army
Medal of Honor Recipient
World War II
Captain Jose Cabalfin Calugas (29 December 1907 – 18 January 1998) was a U.S. Army soldier and member of the Philippine Scouts during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for actions during the Battle of Bataan.
Jose Calugas was born on 29 December 1907 at Barrio Tagsing, Leon, Iloilo, Philippines. At the age of 23 in 1930, Calugas joined the Philippine Scouts of the U.S. Army. He received his basic training at Fort Sill, OK, and, upon completion, he received additional training as an artilleryman. He was then assigned to the 24th Artillery Regiment of the Philippine Scouts at Fort Stotsenburg, Pampanga. While stationed at Fort Stotsenburg, he married and began to raise a family. His next unit was the 88th Field Artillery Regiment of the Philippine Scouts. He was a Sergeant with Battery B when the U.S. and the Philippine Commonwealth declared war on Japan in 1941. His unit was mobilized for duty and sent to Bataan in December 1941.
Medal of Honor Action at Bataan
On 6 January 1942, his unit was covering the withdrawal of a portion of the U.S. Army Forces Far East (USAFFE), with the 26th Cavalry Regiment of the Philippine Scouts and the 31st Infantry Regiment. Calugas was working as a mess sergeant in charge of a group of soldiers who were preparing the day’s meals, known as KP duty. He noticed that one of his unit’s guns had been silenced, and its crew killed. Without orders, he ran the 1,000 yards across the shell-swept area to the inactive gun position. Once there, he organized a squad of volunteers who returned Japanese artillery fire. The position remained under constant and heavy fire for the rest of the afternoon. While Calugas and his squad maintained a steady fire on the enemy positions, other soldiers had time to dig in and defend the line. As the day ended and combat subsided, he returned to KP. For his actions on that day, his superiors recommended Calugas for the U.S. military’s highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor. Before he could receive it, however, all American forces on Bataan surrendered to Japanese forces.
Surrender of Bataan and the Death March
Arguably, the Battle of Bataan represented the most intense phase of Imperial Japan’s invasion of the Philippines during World War II. During the final stage of the Battle of Bataan and after repeated assaults and artillery fire by Japanese forces, the communications and defenses of the allies on Bataan peninsula had been almost completely destroyed. On the last two days, the entire Allied defense collapsed, clogging all roads with refugees and fleeing troops. By 8 April, the senior U.S. commander on Bataan, Major General Edward “Ned” P. King, Jr., recognized the futility of further resistance, and explored proposals for capitulation. On 9 April 1942, approximately 76,000 Filipino and American troops surrendered to a Japanese army of 54,000 men under Lt. General Masaharu Homma. This was the single largest surrender of one of its military forces in American history.
After the surrender, Calugas and the other prisoners marched from Mariveles to Camp O’Donnell, a prison camp in the province of Tarlac. The Japanese, having expected the fighting to continue, anticipated about 25,000 prisoners of war and were inadequately prepared or unwilling to transport a group of prisoners three times that size. The majority of the prisoners of war were immediately relieved of their belongings and endured a 61-mile march in deep dust, over vehicle-broken macadam roads, and crammed into rail cars for the portion of the journey from San Fernando to Capas. Enroute, over 21,000 men and women died from disease, starvation, dehydration, heat prostration, untreated wounds, and wanton execution. The deaths of Filipinos to Americans was disproportionately high: approximately 5,000-10,000 Filipino and 600-650 American prisoners of war died on the Bataan Death March. Calugas remained a prisoner at Camp O’Donnell until January 1943, when he was released to work for the Japanese.
Post-POW Release
His release placed him as a laborer in a Japanese rice mill, and while assigned there he secretly joined a guerrilla unit, #227 Old Bronco. As an officer of the guerrilla unit, he participated in the attack on the Japanese garrison at Karangalan. His unit fought in the continued campaign against the Japanese, which eventually led to the liberation of the Philippines. After the liberation of the Philippines in 1945, he finally received the Medal of Honor for which he had been approved the beginning of the war.
Medal of Honor
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Battery B, 88th Field Artillery, Philippine Scouts.
Place and date: At Culis, Bataan Province, Philippine Islands, 16 January 1942.
Citation: The action for which the award was made took place near Culis, Bataan Province, Philippine Islands, on 16 January 1942. A battery gun position was bombed and shelled by the enemy until 1 gun was put out of commission and all the cannoneers were killed or wounded. Sgt. Calugas, a mess sergeant of another battery, voluntarily and without orders ran 1,000 yards across the shell-swept area to the gun position. There he organized a volunteer squad which placed the gun back in commission and fired effectively against the enemy, although the position remained under constant and heavy Japanese artillery fire.
The Medal of Honor was presented to Calugas by General of the Army General George Marshall.
Calugas subsequently accepted a direct commission in the U.S. Army, and was later assigned to the 44th Infantry Regiment, which was assigned with the occupation of Okinawa. After the unit was disbanded in 1947, he was assigned to the Ryuku Command, on the Ryukyu Islands in the South China Sea, where he remained until 1953.
Citizenship
Although he had been born in a U.S. territory, and had fought in the U.S. Army, Calugas technically was not a citizen. Following the Spanish American War in 1898, Philippine residents were classified as U.S. nationals. The 1934 Tydings-McDuffie Act, or Philippine Independence Act, reclassified Filipinos as aliens, and set a quota of 50 immigrants per year to the United States, with the exception of those who joined the U.S. Navy, but not the U.S. Army. While serving in Okinawa, Calugas completed the process of becoming a naturalized United States citizen.
Retirement and Post-Military Life
Calugas eventually retired from the Army with the rank of Captain and in 1957 he moved to Tacoma, WA, with his family. After retiring from the Army he earned a degree in Business Administration from the University of Puget Sound in 1961 and worked for the Boeing Corporation. In addition to furthering his education and starting a new career, he was involved in several veterans groups within the Seattle and Tacoma area.
Medals and Awards
Medal of Honor
Distinguished Unit Citation
Prisoner of War Medal
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with 2 Service Stars
World War II Victory Medal
Philippine Defense Medal
Philippine Liberation Medal
Honors
Within the family housing area of Fort Sam Houston, TX, a street known as Calugas Circle was dedicated in his honor, with his family present, in 1999. His Medal of Honor was given to the Fort’s museum for safekeeping and display by Calugas and his family before his death.
In 2006, a 36-unit apartment building, designed for low-income and disabled residents was dedicated as the “Sgt. Jose Calugas, Sr. Apartments” in High Point, Seattle, WA.
On Memorial Day in 2009, his memory was honored at the Living War Memorial Park on a memorial that had previously been established there.
Death and Burial
Captain Jose Calugas died in Tacoma on 18 January 1998 at age 90. He is buried at Mountain View Memorial Park in Tacoma, WA.