In the morning of Saturday (not the mythic Sunday), Sept. 28, 1901, hundreds of native fighters mostly armed with bolos, some of them disguised as women church worshippers, staged a successful surprise attack on US troops who were mostly eating or lining up for breakfast in Balangiga town, at the southern coast of Samar Island.

Described as the "worst single defeat" of the US military in the Philippines, that event became known in history as the Balangiga Massacre.

Cross-purposes

The natives plotted to resist forced starvation on a famine season due to the destruction or confiscation of their food stocks, to free about 80 male residents who had been rounded up for forced labor and detained for days in crowded conditions with little food and water, and to fight for honor after having been publicly shamed by these two faulty military impositions.

The US troops belonged to Company C, 9th US Infantry Regiment, who were stationed in Balangiga to keep its small port closed and prevent any trading. Their mission was to deprive the Filipino revolutionary forces of supplies during the Philippine-American War, which had spread to the Visayas.

A glamour unit, Company C was assigned provost duty and guarded the captured Pres. Emilio Aguinaldo upon their return to the Philippines in June 1901, after fighting Boxer rebels and helping capture Peking in China. They also performed as honor guard during the historic July 4, 1901 inauguration of the American civil government in the Philippines and the installation as first civil governor of William Howard Taft, later president of the US.

Company C, commanded by Capt. Thomas W. Connell, a West Point graduate, arrived in Balangiga a few weeks later on Aug. 11.

The attackers

The attacking force, commanded by Valeriano Abanador, the local chief of police, was composed of around 500 men in seven different units. They represented virtually all families of Balangiga, whose outlying villages then included the present towns of Lawaan and Giporlos, and of Quinapundan, a town served by the priest in Balangiga.

Only two of the eight main plotters were identified as revolutionary officers under the command of Brig. Gen. Vicente Lukban, the politico-military governor of Samar appointed by Pres. Aguinaldo. They were Capt. Eugenio Daza, a former teacher who became Lukban's area officer for tax collection and food security in southeastern Samar, and Pedro Duran, Sr., a Balangigan sergeant under Daza.

Contrary to the century-old attribution that Daza masterminded the attack, the essentially all-Balangigan plot appeared to be the handiwork of Abanador, a Letran dropout who played chess opposite Company C's surgeon, Maj. Richard Sill Griswold, and a tournament caliber arnis (stick fighting) master.

The attack

Abanador’s deft move to neutralize the moving armed guard, Pvt. Adolph Gamlin, by grabbing his gun from behind and hitting him unconscious with its butt on the head, served as the cue for the communal laborers positioned in and around the town plaza to make the rush at the two other stationary armed guards and the unarmed men of Company C.

Abanador then picked up his rattan cane, waved it above his head, and yelled: “Atake, mga Balangigan-on! (Attack, men of Balangiga!)

A church bell was rung seconds later, to announce that the attack had begun. (This was probably the smallest of the three bells, the ringing of which is allowed for secular or civic uses.)

Fierce fighting ensued, resulting in one of the biggest number of American casualties in a single encounter.

Of the 74 men of Company C, 36 were killed during the attack (including all commissioned officers), eight of the wounded died later during the escape by bancas to Basey town, and four were missing and presumed dead.

Of the 26 survivors, only four were not wounded.

The natives suffered 28 deaths and 22 wounded.

“Howling wilderness”

Considered one of the worst defeats in US military history, the Filipino victory in Balangiga was followed by a shameful episode that the US government has not yet regretted nor apologized for.

US military authorities retaliated with a "kill and burn" policy to take back Samar, deliberately equating a victorious small town with an entire island, from October 1901 to March 1902.

Implemented by the Sixth Separate Brigade under Brig. Gen. Jacob H. Smith of the US Army, which included a battalion of US Marines under Maj. Littleton T. W. Waller, the campaign was blamed for the alleged disappearance of some 50,000 people in Samar. (NOTE: The 50,000 population loss is now known to be an error traceable to two American historians - Blount and Young. Studies after 2001 showed that the Samar population had an estimated population deficit of only about 15,000 between the parish census figures for 1896 and the US Census conducted in 1903.)

The general reportedly gave orders to kill anybody capable of bearing arms (specifically, 10 years old and above) during the combat operations to reduce Samar into a "howling wilderness."

Aside from the population loss, the Samar Campaign resulted in massive devastation of the rural economic base in terms of hundreds of burned houses, destroyed native boats, and slaughtered draft carabaos. US troops likewise burned confiscated rice and food stocks and market-ready abaca (hemp) fibers, the principal source of local cash income.

General Smith was eventually made the scapegoat for the shameful policy on Samar. He was forced to retire from the US Army following a court martial.

The Bells of Balangiga

The three church bells of Balangiga were taken days after the attack by members of the 11th US Infantry, another US Army unit that occupied the abandoned town. These “war trophies” were shipped out of the Leyte-Samar region from the headquarters of the 11th Infantry at the former Camp Bumpus, now the Leyte Park Resort in Tacloban City.

The camp was named after Lt. Edward A. Bumpus, Harvard graduate and second in command of Company C, who was also killed in Balangiga.

The smallest bell was turned over to the 9th US Infantry in Calbayog, Samar (Manila in distributed copies and newspaper account, which is wrong). This relic is on permanent display at the traveling museum of the 9th US Infantry, now stationed in Korea.

The two bigger bells were brought to the US by returning 11th Infantry soldiers to their home station at the former Fort D.A. Russell, now the F.E. Warren Air Force Base, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Both are now displayed at its Trophy Park.

The return of the bells to the Philippines remains the last issue of contention between the US and Philippine governments related to the Philippine-American War.

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