Isang 13-taong gulang na Marinduqueňa ang nagsuot lalaki at sumama sa mga guerilla para makipaghamok laban sa mga Hapon. Siya sa Virginia Weems, nakapatay ng limang Hapones ayon sa tala. Noong Agosto 12, 1945, ginawaran siya ng honorable discharge ni Maj. Gen. William Gill, pinuno ng 32nd Infantry Division.
Sa kabilang dako naman, isang Waray-Waray mula sa Leyte ang namuno sa isang grupo ng mga guerilla na nakapatay ng 200 Hapones. Nagbigay ng pabuya ang mga Hapones ng 10,000 piso para sa kanyang ulo. Subalit natapos ang giyera, siya ay nanatiling buhay na may marka lamang ng naging sugat sa kanyang kanang braso.
Ang kanyang nabalong ina ay isa sa mga binihag ng mga Hapon at ikinulong sa UST
Interment Camp nang pumutok ang digmaan.
Nagdamit-lalaki ang 13-taong gulang na babae at sumama sa guerilla medical unit
sa ilalim ng US 32nd Infantry Division. Kasama siya sa labanan sa Northern
Luzon at nakapatay pa ng limang Hapones.
Siya si Virginia Weems.
Binigyan siya ni Maj. Gen. William H. Gill, pinuno ng 32nd division
ng honorable discharge noong August 12, 1945.
Nang araw na iyon ay nakasuot pa rin siya ng khaki uniform dahil
hindi siya nakakuha ng kanyang damit sa isang kumbento sa Cagayan Valley kung
saan nag-aaral siya noon para maging isang concert pianist.
Naibalita ang tungkol sa kanyang karanasan sa London Stars and Stripes, August 13, 1945.
(Ang pinagbasihan ng artikulong ito tungkol kay Weems ay unang nabasa ng blogger sa UlongBeach Website. Ito ang nakasaad:
From London Stars & Stripes August 13, 1945:
Army 'Discharges' Girl
Who Fought as a Boy Guerilla
MANILA; Aug. 12 Maj.
Gen. William H. Gill, commanding the 32nd Infantry Division, gave an honorable
discharge yesterday to 13-year-old Virginia Weems, who posed as a boy and
served three years with Filipino guerrillas.
Virginia, whose father
was an American, and mother a Filipino, was born on Marinduque Island, near
Mindoro.
Her widowed mother was
interned at Santo Tomas by the Japanese when the war broke out. Virginia donned
boy's clothes and joined a guerrilla medical unit attached to the 32nd
division.
Virginia served
through fighting in Northern Luzon and was credited with killing five Japs.
She still wears a
khaki uniform because she has been unable to get a dress at the convent in
Cayagayen Valley, where she is studying to be a concert pianist.
Dumako naman tayo tungkol sa Waray mula sa Leyte na si Nieves Fernandez:
* NIEVES FERNANDEZ
One of the several
guerilla leaders during World War II, Captain Nieves Fernandez -- who also
happened to be a schoolteacher in her native Tacloban, Leyte -- commanded a group
of Filipino guerillas against occupying Japanese forces during the war.
Using mostly crude
weapons such as homemade shotguns ("paltiks") and whatever else they
could pilfer from the enemy, Nieves and her group made life hell for the
Japanese, killing 200 of them during the resistance. It got so bad for the
Japanese that they had to put a 10,000 peso bounty on her head.
However, the hardy
Fernandez later survived the war with nothing more than a scar from a bullet
wound in her right forearm. The photo shows her demonstrating to an American
soldier how she would kill Japanese sentries with only a bolo.
[Source: FilipiKnow]