Wendell Fertig (December 16, 1900 – March 24, 1975)Brooks 2003, p. 37. was an American civil engineer, in the American-administered Commonwealth of the Philippines, who organized and commanded an American-Filipino guerrilla force on the Japanese-occupied, southern Philippine island of Mindanao during World War II. Fertig's widely scattered guerrilla force numbered approximately 32,000. He faced about 50,000 Japanese soldiers, mostly garrison troops in towns and cities.Smith 2005, p 597, 647, 694.
Fertig held a U.S. Army Reserve commission and was called into military service before the war in the Pacific began. Ordered from Corregidor before its surrender to the Japanese, he was sent to Mindanao to assume command of engineer activities there. Almost as soon as he arrived, the U.S. Army forces on Mindanao surrendered, but Fertig refused to do so. Fertig used his knowledge of the Filipino people to organize them into a guerrilla army and civilian government. He also used his engineering knowledge to solve problems in supply and construction.
Fertig led the guerrillas against the Japanese and their collaborators, mostly in hit-and-run raids and vital coast watching activities. After making contact with U.S. forces in the Pacific, the guerrillas began to receive supplies, but never enough to stage large-scale attacks. More than once, the Japanese made efforts to suppress and destroy elements of Fertig's guerrilla army, committing large numbers of troops for this purpose. At those times, Fertig had his forces retreat and disperse before the Japanese advance and respond with pinprick attacks on small, isolated Japanese units. This continued until American forces returned to the Philippines in late 1944 and 1945.
After the war, Fertig returned to his civilian engineering career, but retained his reserve commission. He spent four years as commander of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) detachment at the Colorado School of Mines, his alma mater, and served in a U.S.-based psychological warfare unit during the Korean War.Bernay 2002, p. 14. Leaving active duty in the mid-1950s, he ran a Colorado mining company until his death. During his post-war years he was regarded as a hero by the people of Mindanao, and was a respected figure among the U.S. Special Forces.Bernay 2002, p. 14. One authority lists him among the top ten guerrilla leaders in history.Brooks 2003, p. 37. However, several of Fertig's subordinates and contemporaries were critical of his leadership and the literature extolling his wartime activities.
Pre-war Wendell Welby Fertig was born in La Junta, Colorado, where he lived until he completed high school. He then attended the University of Colorado Boulder before transferring to the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado to study engineering. After graduation from college with a mining degree in 1924, he married his wife Mary. In 1936, he and his family moved to the Philippines where he had a successful career as a civil engineer until the war broke out.Bernay 2002, p. 14. Fertig was described as "tall, sandy-haired with an athletic build" and "being calm, genial, deliberate and possessing a remarkable memory and a great facility for remembering names." His experience as an engineer,
... and methods of attacking problems would serve him in the challenges he would face as the leader of the Mindanao guerrillas... It was due primarily to his personal leadership qualities that the Mindanao resistance movement was unified under one leader and became the most successful of all the guerrilla units in the Philippines.
Early in 1941, Fertig was on leave in Manila from his job on Samar. Due to his military classes in college, he received a reserve commission in the United States Army Corps of Engineers on August 3, 1928. As a result, he was called to duty on June 1, 1941, as a captain (reserve) in the Army Engineers as the United States prepared for war in the Pacific theater. At that time, U.S. analysts believed that the Philippines might be one of the first areas Japan would attack. Fertig's first assignments were as Assistant Engineer, Bataan Field Area, then as Engineer, North Luzon Area. By November 1941, he was Chief of the Construction Section, General Headquarters, and spent most of his time overseeing preparation and improvement of airfields throughout the Philippines.
In 1941, the U.S. began evacuating the wives and children of military families. Fertig's wife Mary and their two children Patricia and Jeanne left the Philippines in summer 1941.Holmes 2009, p. 66. This action was taken to relieve the concerns of officers and enlisted men, called to duty, about the welfare of their families. American civilian families (men, women and children) were not evacuated, so as not to lessen the morale of the citizens of the Philippines. The native people of the Philippines, who could not leave, suffered under the Japanese occupation. It is estimated that at least one out of every 20 Filipinos died at the hands of the Japanese during the occupation.Ramsey 1990, pp. 329–330.
World War II Early war experiences On December 20, 1941, Japanese troops invaded the Philippines. Among Fertig's duties during the retreat to Bataan and Corregidor was the destruction of supplies left behind by retreating American forces. His attention to detail was such that he even drove his new Dodge car off a pier and into Manila Bay.
Promoted twice by April 1942, Fertig—by then a lieutenant colonel—was sent from Bataan (on Luzon) to Mindanao by General Edward P. King (Luzon Force Commander) to assist General William F. Sharp (Mindanao Force Commander) in the construction of airfields. In They Fought Alone, the author states that Lieutenant Colonel Fertig was ordered off Corregidor to join General Douglas MacArthur's headquarters in Australia. However, since he was not known to members of MacArthur's headquarters in Australia, it is probably correct that he was ordered to Mindanao to assist American forces there. Fertig arrived on Mindanao on April 30, 1942, and was assigned to supervise the demolition of main roads and bridges to prevent their use by the Japanese.
Avoiding capture After the U.S. forces in and around the island of Luzon surrendered in May 1942, Fertig decided not to give himself up to the Japanese. When another fleeing officer accompanying him asked what they were going to do, Fertig replied, "Any damn thing but surrender." During his movement from Corregidor to Mindanao, Fertig survived or avoided a number of airplane crashes. As a result, he felt that he was destined for something special. Later, after organizing the guerrilla forces on Mindanao, he wrote in this diary,
I am called on to lead a resistance movement against an implacable enemy under conditions that make victory barely possible even under the best circumstances. But I feel that I am indeed a Man of Destiny, that my course is charted and that only success lies at the end of the trail. I do not envision failure; it is obvious that the odds are against us and we will not consistently win, but if we are to win only part of the time and gain a little each time, in the end we will be successful.
Upon learning of the surrender of the American forces under General Wainwright, Fertig spent weeks crossing the mountains and jungles in an attempt to contact General Sharp. Upon learning that Sharp had surrendered his forces to the Japanese on May 10, 1942, Fertig then spent more weeks considering his options, realizing that to gain authority, he had to wait until guerrillas contacted him. Fertig monitored the military and political situation in Mindanao, by means of the "jungle telegraph." Fertig also grew a red goatee, believing that it would make him look older and wiser among a people who believed that age brought wisdom.
Many of the emerging guerrilla forces at that time were bandit groups pretending to fight the Japanese, but using the collapse of the American-supported government to set themselves up as rulers of local areas. These groups competed with each other for territory and authority. On September 12, 1942, the leader of one strong group approached Fertig, hoping to use him as a front (i.e. representing American military forces) to assume authority over the entire island. Fertig consented, but then used his knowledge of the Filipino people and the current situation in Mindanao to take over the command of that group and then others. Believing that he needed a higher rank, so he would be taken seriously by potential recruits to his struggle, including the leaders of other existing guerrilla bands, Fertig promoted himself to brigadier general. This self-promotion to "brigadier general" did not endear him to General MacArthur or his staff, but MacArthur did send logistical support to Fertig throughout 1943 and 1944.
Organizing the resistance Japanese bombings, destruction by retreating American troops, deprivations by bandit guerrilla bands, and hoarding by civilians had reduced available war supplies, as well as those items necessary to run an effective government. Fertig used his engineering skills and the skills of other escaped Americans and resisting Filipinos to create many supplies from scratch. For example, tuba was brewed from coconut palms to provide alcohol to fuel gasoline vehicles, batteries were recharged by soaking them in tuba, soda bottles and fence wire were used to create a telegraph to enhance communications, curtain rods were cut into pieces and shaped to provide ammunition for .30 caliber rifles, steel was shaved from automobile springs and curled to make recoiling springs for rifles, money was printed in both English and the local language using wooden blocks, and fishermen towed Japanese mines ashore to secure the explosive amatol so it could be used to make gunpowder. Soap was made from coconut oil and wood ashes. Then the soap was traded for sugar which was then used to make alcohol for fuel.
Often, seemingly impossible problems were overcome simply through perseverance. For example, Gerardo Almendres, a Filipino high school student had sent away for an International Correspondence Schools course on radios shortly before the war started. Fertig assigned him the task of building a radio even though Almendres had never handled one. Almendres was assisted by a Filipino traveling salesman who had sold radios and by another Filipino.Mills 2009, p. 83. Radio parts (vacuum tubes and other electrical parts) were scrounged from old radio receivers and sound equipment from an old movie projector and other electrical devices.Mills 2009, p. 83. Their makeshift radio eventually worked and they began to receive transmissions from other radios, including those of Roy Bell on Negros, who traveled to Fertig's camp and devised a new aerial.Mills, S.A., 2009, Stranded in the Philippines, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, However, they had no way of knowing if their own transmissions were successful until, on January 31, 1943, the U.S. Navy radio monitoring station in San Francisco answered their call sign. Robert C. Ball, William F. Konko, and Stewart Willever Jr., became Fertig's "signal corps".Wolfert, I., 1945, American Guerrilla in the Philippines, New York: Simon and Schuster