THE TRULY FORGOTTEN WAR

By DAVID F. WINKLER

Dr. Winkler is a historian at the Naval Historical Foundation.

For the past two years and continuing into the next, the Department of Defense has supported a series of events commemorating and honoring those who fought a half century ago to save South Korea from Communist aggression. Such recognition is well deserved by those aging veterans who served so valiantly in a conflict that previously was called "the Forgotten War."

There was another war, though--50 years earlier, in another part of East Asia--that always was more deserving of the "Forgotten" appellation. This month, in fact, marks the hundredth anniversary of President Theodore Roosevelt's 4 July proclamation that formally concluded one of the least studied and more maligned conflicts in American history. Over time it has been called "the Philippine Insurrection" and the "Philippine (or Filipino)-American War." However, contemporary writers, and many current historians, simply refer to it as "The Philippine War."

Clearly one of America's most controversial overseas endeavors, the struggle for control of the 7,000-island archipelago started almost immediately after Rear Adm. George Dewey's triumph at the Battle of Manila Bay on 1 May 1898 and the subsequent defeat of Spanish ground forces by American Soldiers, aided by Filipinos who had been active in a growing independence movement. For a number of reasons, including the possibility that the islands might again fall under the control of European powers, President William A. McKinley did not want to grant independence. Consequently, Filipino "insurrectos," led by Emilio Aguinaldo, took up arms against the small American occupying force.

Challenging the oft-expressed view that the U.S. forces succeeded only through brutal subjugation of the Filipinos, historian Brian McAllister Linn correctly points out: (1) that the scope and intensity of the war varied greatly from island to island; and (2) that complex, and exceedingly diverse, ethnic, cultural, political, and religious factors all played an important role in the conduct of operations.
Linn also makes a persuasive case that the unusually close Army-Navy cooperation in both plans and operations made possible what he calls "the most successful counterinsurgency campaign in U.S. history." Because waterborne transportation was the major mode of travel in the archipelago, the Navy effectively used gunboats to patrol the numerous inter-island passages, coastal waterways, and rivers of the Philippines. The gunboat crews carried out blockade duties, conducted reconnaissance, collected intelligence, ferried troops and supplies, and supported forces ashore. "Without the Navy," Linn asserts, "the Army could not have conducted military operations in the Visayas or southern Philippines." The blockade significantly reduced the flow of armaments and supplies to the insurrectos, effectively isolating pockets of the resistance.

The gunboat commanders, many of them recent graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy, worked closely with their Army counterparts. In February 1901, for example, the gunboat Vicksburg carried Col. Frederick Funston, four other Army officers, and 80 Filipinos serving with the Americans on one of the most daring combat missions in American history. After going ashore on northern Luzon, the Filipino soldiers posed as reinforcements for Aguinaldo, with the five Americans in tow as prisoners. Aguinaldo's guards fell for the deception, and the resistance leader was seized and brought to Manila. He subsequently took a loyalty oath to America and urged his countrymen to do likewise. By mid-1902, Filipino resistance had become sporadic.

Footnote: Despite Roosevelt's declaration that the war was over, later American and subsequent Philippine governments would continue to face a long series of other insurrections in different areas of the archipelago. The Muslim separatist group Abu Sayyef presents the latest challenge to the Manila government. Because of the group's links to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, the United States has supported the Philippine government's counter-insurgency effort. Because the U.S. role in the Philippines is likely to continue for some time to come, the history of the difficult struggle faced by an earlier generation of Americans fighting on those same islands 100 years ago might yield some valuable lessons that could be used in the War on International Terrorism. *

Source: Brian McAllister Linn, The Philippine War, 1899-1902, (University of Kansas Press, 2000).