The Rock in books

On a sudden day trip to Corregidor early in May, who should turn up as our quick tour’s guide but an American named Steve Kwiecinski, whose father was stationed on the island during its famous siege and heroic stand.

In May 1942, entrusted to command Battery Way, Staff Sgt. Walter Kwiecinski used his engineering background to repair the gun battery after heavy Japanese bombing. It was the last anti-aircraft gun to fire at the enemy, before it was finally silenced by more shelling.

When our group went through the Pacific War Museum, Steve proudly pointed out his father in one of the black-and-white photos. The native of Minnesotta survived the Bataan Death March and three years as a prisoner of war. He eventually returned home, got married and raised a family.  

His stories of Corregidor filled up his son’s early memories. When Steve retired, he came to the Philippines with his wife Marcia. Last October, they decided to settle in the island known as The Rock, where he hopes to honor the memory of his father by helping recount the war stories to island visitors.

Call me “Amboy,” but I appreciated Steve’s commentary on the tour so much more than those by other guides in the past, not because theirs was Filipino English, but that their spiel was so obviously memorized and understandably conducted with hardly any feeling. Steve’s came from the heart, inclusive of spontaneous asides that couldn’t help but betray historical and emotional attachment. 

When I asked him after we emerged from the sound-and-light experience at Malinta Tunnel what he himself thought of the presentation, he honestly acknowledged that he found it quite tacky. He also pointed out that there were some glitches in the text or script.

I too had wondered about the scene showing G.I.’s enjoying card games and a last dance (with a WAC) when the narrator had intoned that they had already surrendered. Something confusing there; the chronology had obviously been inadvertently reshuffled.

Steve maintains a website: www.steveontherock.com, which offers a regular bulletin of sorts on Corregidor. His calling card gives his address as 1942 Middleside Way, Corregidor, Bataan. He may also be reached at steveontherock@gmail.com. I have yet to try that, but Googling him led me to a humorous piece he had written several years back, titled “If MacArthur Only Had Ears”:

“My wife Marcia and I are here from Michigan because my father also fought on this island. We are sitting at a picnic table outside the MacArthur Café.

“... Today Corregidor is a well-preserved battlefield with large gun emplacements and barracks still in evidence, as well as a memorial to the many thousands that died here. Now a tropical paradise 25 miles southwest of Metropolitan Manila, it is an entirely different universe from that huge metropolis.

“We are just yards away from a statue of Gen. Douglas MacArthur near the dock where he departed Corregidor. Looking impossibly larger than life, he seems to be waving for a ‘taksi,’ not to the soldiers he is abandoning to servitude under the Emperor of the Sun. He appears to be eyeing us as we down numerous San Miguels, the beer of choice in the Philippines. The alcohol helps us bear the ‘singing.’

“Videoke, the video successor to karaoke, is all the rage in these islands. After a hard day’s work, the young people can sit down, have a beer or soda, and... pretend that they are the next Sinatra or Streisand. Earlier, Marcia and I, after a hard day’s hike, had come down to the café for a beer. One young girl actually sounded pretty good. Of course we had no idea what she was singing, but at least she hit the right notes, and the songs she chose seemed to be Filipino love songs with soothing melodies...

“But tonight we are out of luck. The microphone is at an all- male table, and the next guy isn’t a whole lot better than the former. ‘BUTAY NG ALOONGAY NG TANOG ALLOY BUGATAY NG LOOTAY BANALY!’ he’s belting out. (I throw the word ‘ng’ in every so often because it’s the only word I know in Tagalog. Ng seems to be in every sentence, and is on the back of the P100 note seven times. I think it’s pronounced ‘ng’ and I think it means ‘of,’ though the natives aren’t saying.)...”

Well, that statue Steve cites may well be badly placed, and not just because of the “videoke terrorism” the General who came back must suffer nightly.

Paul F. Whitman, who maintains another website, “Corregidor Then and Now,” and who initiated the founding of the Corregidor Historic Society, hosts an argument on whether MacArthur had indeed departed from the Lorcha Dock on the south side of the island — as claimed by both D. Clayton James, MacArthur’s biographer (The Years of MacArthur, Vol 2), and the General’s own recollection in his book Reminiscences, published by McGraw Hill in 1964: 

“It was 7:15 on the evening of March 11 when I walked across the porch to my wife. ‘Jean,’ I said gently, ‘it is time to go.’ We drove in silence to the South Dock, where Bulkeley and PT-41 were waiting; the rest of the party was already aboard... I stepped aboard PT-41. ‘You may cast off, Buck,’ I said, ‘when you are ready.’” 

But the Admiral John D. Bulkeley whom MacArthur mentioned had a different story in a 1987 TV documentary, saying, “We came to the North Dock... and that is the north side of Corregidor.” He referred to the Motor Torpedo Boat they used.

This is corroborated in a book account by Bulkeley’s aide, Lt. Bruce M. Bachman, who had accompanied the admiral on a return visit to Corregidor in August 1977:

“Bulkeley had sighted and positively identified the pier from which he and his PT-41 boat had departed with his ‘precious cargo.’

“‘There it is! No question about it.’

“‘Are you sure, Admiral? The Philippine history books say it was that one over there,’ the P.I. marine officer escort cautiously replied.

“‘Well, the books are wrong. This is definitely the pier we left from. The north pier. Better have the books corrected,’ the admiral quipped with a twinkle in his eye...”

Hmmm. The issue still has to be settled.

That same evening when we ended our tour, another journalist had told Steve Kwiecinski that he found no worthy book as yet on Corregidor, and that it was time some institution sponsored the “definitive coffee-table book” that would have The Rock’s full story in words and pictures. 

That was when my own faulty memory got toggled a bit, and I remembered and interjected, “Wait, I received such a book over a year ago, and it seemed definitive.”

As coincidence would have it, I came home to a rather disturbing letter from the fellow who had sent me that recent title, and expected me to review it. Why, Collis H. Davis Jr., a Manila resident who did a documentary film titled Pinoy Jazz: The Story of Jazz in the Philippines (I believe with the help of author-musician Richie Quirino), took umbrage at the fact that I hadn’t written anything on the book at all. 

Okay, Collis, here it is. And if you still want the book back, I’ll mail it to you. You just have to understand that I’m a very busy and peripatetic chronicler myself, one who’s often burdened by failing memory.  

Oh, before I forget, I must say that Corregidor in Peace and War by Charles M. Hubbard and Collies H. Davis, Jr., published by University of Missouri Press in 2007, is indeed a worthy book on The Rock.

Readers, perish the thought that I perform this mini-review under duress or threat. I’ve completed my summer peregrinations and finally found time to rediscover the book among my towering piles. I’ve given it a quick run-through — of course with the thought of finding reason to mollify Mr. Davis.

Thankfully, it’s an easy find. The book is evidently well-researched and well-written, with photographs, maps and illustrations that fulfill the demands of a narrative still taking place. This biography of place does justice to the wealth of history that has happened in Corregidor.

While it does not resolve the issue of whether Douglas now stands in stone at the right spot, its scholarly yet simply (make that elegantly) told tale yields the richness of a continuum. An excerpt from the preface should give this space’s readers an idea of what the co-authors sought to accomplish. My quick read says they did it.   

“While time does change the look and feel of a physical place, the dynamics are not the same as with the human experience. We wanted to use pictures to focus attention on the actual ground and use the narrative to relate the actions of the people. The actions of people dramatically affect the physical environment where they live and work. However, the place remains constant. There is no doubt that the surface of Corregidor is a very different place today, but nevertheless, it remains a ‘Rock’ transformed by man.  

“Historians, journalists, and commentators are challenged to present a balanced narrative that does justice to all aspects of the subjects they seek to chronicle or amplify. The ethnic, political, and social influencers of very different cultures collide at various times in the history of Corregidor. We have presented the facts and hope that others, after further investigation, will develop new perspectives.”