Charles Bohannan and Guerrilla warfare in the Philippines (1939-1954)

[Dayuhan]

Dayuhan, I'd be keen for any resources on the main players in Filipino politics (all stripes) in the 1930s, if you could suggest them. I've not the memoirs of Taruc, but did any member of the Lava family write a memoir or autobiography?

Most of what's written on Philippine politics of the 30s is dominated by Quezon, Osmena, and the politicking over the terms of independence. Very little attention has been paid specifically to the Communist and agrarian movements of that period. There's probably some material in political journals but a lot of it is probably a bit suspect, as many of those who write on these subjects are ideologically affiliated and inclined toward revisionism in any number of directions. Period sources would be the best bet, but finding them will be a challenge. If I were in Manila I'd start at the University of the Philippines, and ask some of the historians there for suggestions. In the US... good question. Some of the bibliographies of the standard history books might have some useful references. I'd look at mine but I just moved houses and everything is boxed up!

I would guess that somewhere in DC there are archived documents of the colonial administration, and that buried therein would be some very interesting commentary on both the emergent communist movement and the peasant unrest in Central Luzon.

Good luck, I'd be interested in seeing the output...

[davidbfpo]

An old RFI thread opened for an update.

It appears that JSR, the original poster, aka Jason Ridler, did not publish a book, but an article in the printed journal Small Wars & Insurgencies in March 2015, entitled 'A lost work of El Lobo: Lieutenant-Colonel Charles T.R. Bohannan's unpublished study of guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency in the Philippines, 1899–1955'.

The Abstract states:

Charles Ted Rutledge Bohannan (1914–1982) became an integral agent of US counterinsurgency operations during the early Cold War, contributing to both the success of the COIN effort to defeat the communist Huk insurgents in the Philippines and the stalled COIN efforts in Vietnam. In the early 1960s, he wrote a short and compact analysis of the US and Filipino experience of guerrilla warfare, from the Philippine–American war until the defeat of the Huk Rebellion. It was never published. Reprinted here, Bohannan's analysis of lessons learned makes a substantial contribution to the history of American ideas of unconventional warfare by an expert who contributed these lessons to the successful defeat of an insurgency in South East Asia.

Yes behind a pay wall via:http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/1...8.2015.1008088