Less than ten hours after the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines commenced. These events catalyzed the formation of the U.S. Army's First Filipino Battalion. Filipinos living in the United States of America volunteered for the military with a burning desire to return to their motherland and repel the enemy.
Author, Marie Silva Vallejo asks, “Why did they join when their entire life in California was debased with systemic and rampant anti-Filipino sentiment and legislation? What complicated patriotism had made thousands of Filipino men in America volunteer into the Army despite decades of horrible inequities inflicted upon them? Was it even worth it?”
The First Filipino Battalion was formed, and around 7,000 eagerly volunteered, eventually completing their training at Camp San Luis Obispo, Camp Roberts, Fort Hunter Liggett and Camp Beale before deploying to the Philippines.
So many Filipinos signed up to serve that the First Infantry Regiment, spawned the Second Filipino Regiment, and they all returned to the Philippines with the Allied liberation forces. The Filipino soldiers relayed vital information from General Douglas MacArthur to guerrilla units dispersed throughout the Philippines.
When Silva learned that her father was a member of this clandestine unit, she was compelled to find out more.
But the secrecy of the covert missions to the islands challenged the creation of their chronological history. Large gaps about their exploits in the Philippines were gleaned largely from guerrilla records to complete their story.
For ten years Marie Silva Vallejo sought the answer to what her late father did during World War II, leading her to uncover one of the Philippines’ biggest contributions to its own liberation–secret reconnaissance missions conducted by Filipino soldiers in the U.S. Army—chronicled in her new book, Dauntless.
Following Vallejo’s presentation at the San Luis Obispo Veterans Memorial Museum she met with correspondent Tom Wilmer, Come along and join Vallejo to discover the rest of the story.
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