We Were There at the Battle for Bataan

"MAGANDANG PASKO!" —Retreat never!

Fourteen-year-old Eddie Beldin and his younger sister, Diana, learned to live and fight by this Filipino Tagalog code when Japanese troops without warning swarmed in over the Philippines. Forced by the loss of Bataan, in that disastrous winter of 1942, to take refuge high in the Zambales Mountains, Eddie and Diana joined their father in guerrilla existence at Camp Liberation. There, with other American and Filipino recruits, Eddie and his father learned to stalk silently, freeze at the slightest sign of danger, fade into invisibility. Finally, they were ready. From then on, men of the Usaffe (United States Armed Forces of the Far East) struck back at the invaders.

Their luck was not to hold, however. At last the Japanese surrounded in them in a surprise attack. And of all the captured, only Eddie and Diana escaped.

Somehow, the guerrillas kept their slender foothold against overwhelming odds, as they prepared for General MacArthur's return to the islands. And at last, in October, 1944, he came! Now, on that last push towards Manila, Eddie fought proudly beside the American troops. And well he might, for Diana and he—and all of the Usaffe—had helped fight and win the Battle of the Philippines.