ACKNOWI.EDGEMENTS
Brigadier General Macario Peralta, Jr., himself originally proposed the writing of the history of the organization and operations of his military guerilla command, which was officially identified as the wartime Sb~th Military District, Philippine Army, also otherwise known as the "Free Panay Guerilla Forces". Throughout nearly three years, he courageously led that force in an epic guerilla warfare to victory in 1945. The official records in General Douglas MacArthur's General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area theater of war, dated 27 November 1944, disclosed the following unsolicited appraisals: The history of the guerillas on Panay is unique among the island commands in the early and complete establishment of the command and the continuation of its authority without question since. In both military and civil matters it is probably the most extensive and best example of a completely Filipino effort of all the Philippine guerilla organizations. (Bold, supplied.) The potential of the army remains good . . . The men are eager to serve their country, wanting only adequate training, leadership and guidance. It must be remembered that this organization has been built-up from the remnants of a partially trained division, and without outside assistance except for supplies. The achievement of this army then becomes remarkable. (Bold, supplied.) General Peralta's guerilla command had successfully managed the first and most spectacular radio contact from the enemy-occupied Philippines with both the US War Department and MacArthur's GHQ in Australia; weathered the most inhuman brutalities that the Japanese enemy had mounted against both the military and civilian population on Panay, the Romblons and Guimaras islands; and sent a great amount of valuable tactical and intelligence informations and periodic military reports via radio communications and/or the courier submarines . In fact, by about the time that the foregoing encomiums were written, General Peralta's forces had already commenced to mount offensive drives against the Japanese garrisons on Panay, relentlessly decimated their numbers and cornered their die-hard remnants in only the provincial capitals. Finally, on 18 March 1945, the US Army's 40th Infantry Division (minus one regimental combat team) arrived and virtually walked onto the beaches at Tigbauan, in southern Iloilo, without any opposition from the Japanese enemy who were, even then, being cut down by the hundreds as they tried to desperately and suicidally flee towards their pre-planned mountain sanctuaries throu[h the cordon that Peralta's forces had tightly drawn around their last garrisons for months. Two days later , the Americans entered iloilo City, after the Japanese remnants had completely fled, hotly pursued and decimated some more by Peralta's men. xiii