History of the Philippine Army

Before the establishment of the Commonwealth Government in 1935, no effort was made for self-defense by Philippine forces since the United States assumed responsibility for the defense of the islands.[3] An immediate concern of the commonwealth government was the defense of an emerging nation.[4] President-elect Manuel L. Quezon convinced his friend, General Douglas MacArthur (Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army), to organize a national army with Franklin D. Roosevelt's agreement in the summer of 1935.[4] MacArthur had unusually-broad authority to deal with the Secretary of War and the Chief of Staff as military adviser to the commonwealth government to organize a Philippine national army.[4]

MacArthur had broad authority to deal with the United States Secretary of War, his successor as the Army Chief of Staff, and the United States Army Philippine Department and its commander Major General Lucius R. Holbrook (who had been told that his most important peacetime mission was to assist MacArthur in forming a Philippine force capable of defending the islands).[4] MacArthur selected Majors Dwight D. Eisenhower and James B. Ord as his assistants; they and a committee at the Army War College prepared plans for the defense of the Philippine Commonwealth, with a target of independence in 1946.[4] The plan called for a small regular army with divisions of about 7,500 men, conscription of all men between twenty-one and fifty years of age and a ten-year training program to build a reserve army, a small air force and a fleet of torpedo boats capable of repelling an enemy.[5]

The National Assembly of the Philippines' first act was the passage of the National Defense Act on December 21, 1935, with initial plans for a 10,000-man regular force based on the incorporation of the Philippine Constabulary, a 400,000-man reserve force by 1946, and a West-Point-type military academy in Baguio on Luzon.[6] Quezon noted that there was inadequate funds and time to build an effective naval defense force; the act provided for no navy, but an Offshore Patrol within the army.[7] The offshore patrol would be based on British-designed fast torpedo boats, with an anticipated thirty-six boats under contract by 1946.[8] The Philippine Army Air Corps would, by that time, have about 100 bombers and additional tactical aircraft in support of the offshore patrol in coastal defense.[8] The Commonwealth would have ten military districts (comparable to corps areas in the United States), each able to provide an initial reserve division (growing to three) with full development of the reserve force.[6] In a 1936 speech MacArthur described the force's function as making an invasion so costly that no nation would make the attempt, emphasizing the islands' terrain as making penetration nearly impossible.[9]

Development was slow; 1936 was largely devoted to building camps and facilities, with the first conscripts called up on January 1, 1937.[10] A major problem was the formation of a military-officer corps, with constabulary officers trained in law enforcement and limited numbers of Philippine Scouts officers becoming senior officers in the new force.[10] By the end of 1939, the reserve force numbered 104,000 men and 4,800 officers.[10] The Philippine Army Air Corps had about forty planes and a hundred trained pilots by 1940.[11] The offshore patrol's development was more problematic, with only two British boats delivered before the war in Europe cut off further deliveries and a struggle to build boats under license locally produced only one boat by October 1941.[11] President Quezon and others recognized that the naval defense was inadequate protection against a first-rate naval power, but the Philippines had neither the money nor industrial base to provide adequate naval force and relied on the assumption that the United States Navy would not idly stand by if the Philippines were attacked.[11]

When the war with Japan began, the Philippine Army was six years from its founding in December 1935 and about five years from the 1946 date at which it was to be fully operational.[12] The naval force which was to protect it against a first-rate naval power was in ruins at Pearl Harbor;[12] the Japanese had pilots standing by fueled-and-loaded bombers in Formosa, prepared to strike the Philippines.[13]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Philippine Commonwealth Army.

• Armed Forces of the Philippines
• Military History of the Philippines
• Philippine Army
• Philippine Revolutionary Army
• Luna sharpshooters
• List of Equipment Uniforms of the Philippine Commonwealth Army

• Gill, G. Hermon (1957). Royal Australian Navy 1939–1942. Australia in the War of 1939–1945. Series 2 – Navy. Vol. 1. Canberra: Australian War Memorial. LCCN 58037940. Archived from the original on May 25, 2009. Retrieved November 12, 2014.
• Morton, Lewis (1993). The War in the Pacific: The Fall Of The Philippines. United States Army In World War II. Washington, D.C.: Center Of Military History, United States Army. LCCN 53063678. Retrieved November 4, 2014.

• Ricardo Trota Jose. Philippine Army (1935–1942). {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
• Pobre, Cesar P. (2000). History of the Armed Forces of the Filipino People. New Day Publishers. ISBN 9789711010416.
• Bell, Walter F. (December 30, 1999). The Philippines in World War II, 1941–1945: A Chronology and Select Annotated Bibliography of Books and Articles in English (First ed.). Greenwood. ISBN 9780313306143.
• Lee, Ernesto (May 27, 2010). World War II Philippines. Xlibris Corporation.
• Marquez, Adalia; Romulo, Carlos P. (March 15, 2014). Blood on the Rising Sun: The Japanese Occupation of the Philippines. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.