The regiment was constituted February 1924 as 92nd CA (HD) Regt (PS) and organized 1 Jul 1924 at Fort Mills by redesignating 278th, 280th, 283rd, 287th, 288th, 275th, & 289th Cos, (PS) (organized 18 December 1924) as HHB and Btrys A-F. During the Philippines Campaign, 1941-1942, the regiment was equipped primarily with Cannon de 155mm GPF tractor drawn guns. It manned the following batteries, at Fort Mills, Corregidor unless otherwise noted:
1st Battalion (Batteries A & B), 2nd Battalion (Batteries C & D), manned fixed and mobile seacoast guns. 3rd Bn (Bilibid Guard Bn) provided guard for the post stockade and guard details for Bilibid convict work gangs on Corregidor and other fortified islands. Redesignated TD regiment 1935. Btrys G and H activated 28 April 1941 at Ft. Mills and regiment reorganized. The 1st Battalion composed of Batteries A-D; 2nd Battalion composed of Batteries E & F (Guard Bn) and 3rd Battalion to be composed of Batteries G & H. Organization of Battery H not complete when World War II started and personnel merged into other components of regiment. Regiment surrendered 6 May 1942 after the end of the Battle of Corregidor, disbanded 28 June 1950.
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By Col. John E. Olson, USA (Ret.)
"Stand aside, the Scouts are coming." These simple words contained in a poem written by an American officer in a Japanese POW camp shortly after the fall of Bataan reflect a sincere and respectful tribute to some of the finest soldiers ever to serve in the U.S. Army. In the desperate resistance Gen. Douglas MacArthur's beleaguered forces on Bataan and Corregidor put up against the Japanese invaders in early 1942, when units of the Philippine Scouts moved up to bolster hard pressed units or to attack the many landings made by the Japanese troops behind the main line of resistance, morale of other Filipino and American troops rose markedly.
Who were the Philippine Scouts? Little known outside the Philippines and largely forgotten by the U.S. Army of which they were a proud part, the Scouts were soldiers par excellence. How did the Philippine Scouts come into the U.S. Army and what contribution did they make to this country's military heritage?
The Scouts were the first and last of what some might call American colonial troops. But they were not colonials. The first Scout organizations were created in 1901 during the early days of the American occupation of the Philippine Islands by the induction of Filipinos into the service of the U. S. Armed Forces. Their mission was to help restore order and peace to a troubled area. In the ensuing two decades, the Philippine Scouts took part in subduing the fierce and warlike Moro tribes on the island of Mindanao and in the Jolo Archipelago and in establishing tranquility throughout the islands.
On Bataan, the 14th Engineers (PS) labored to prepare defensive positions. Once Bataan was reached, the 57th Infantry (PS) was charged with holding the line astride the one major road into the peninsula. At the Battle of Abucay from Jan. 11 until Jan. 15, 1942, the 57th Infantry (PS) withstood the onslaught of the best elements Gen. Masaharu Homma, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Expeditionary Forces, could hurl against it. After four days of bitter hand-to-hand combat, the Japanese ceased their attempts to penetrate the Scouts' line. They shifted their weight westward into the jungle-covered mountains. From there, they outflanked the Scouts and forced them to fall back.
But the Japanese had gained a Pyrrhic victory. So heavy had been their causalities, that they gave up the attempt to break the Filipino and American line on the eastern side of the peninsula. Instead, they launched a series of amphibious assaults against the rear of the western flank of General MacArthur's battered troops. Again, they found themselves opposed by Philippine Scouts. Not only was their nemesis the 57th Infantry (PS), but also two battalions of the 57th's sister regiment, the 45th Infantry (PS) and the 86th and 88th Field Artillery Battalions (PS). In a series of bloody actions waged in the jungle at the southwestern end of the peninsula, two enemy infantry battalions of about 1,200 men were annihilated. Again, the Scouts proved their superiority.
After two months of regrouping and reinforcing their troops with new units from the successful campaign in Malaya, the Japanese launched their final offensive. Unfortunately, the front was too broad for such a small number of Scouts. In addition, the enemy were too numerous and too strongly supported by artillery and close-support aircraft. Though Scout Artillery out shot the enemy and infantry units inflicted more casualties than they took, the odds were too great. Even so, when the order came to surrender on April 9, 1942, the Scouts' units were still fighting and were determined to carry on.
From Corregidor, the 91st and 92nd Coast Artillery Regiments (PS) fired up to the last minute in spite of heavy bombing and shelling. On the island of Mindanao, Companies E and F, 43rd Infantry (PS) fought the last battle of the Philippine Campaign. Companies A and B, 43rd Infantry (PS) who were cut off by the initial Japanese landings, withdrew into the mountain provinces of Luzon and became guerillas.
While the majority of the Scouts obeyed the order to surrender, their spirits were not subdued. Of those who survived the Death March and the starvation and sufferings at the Camp O'Donnell POW camp, many went out to form or join guerrilla bands to carry on the fight after their release. They harassed the enemy for three years and provided vital intelligence to General MacArthur's headquarters. During the bleak years of 1942-1944, they strove to establish contact with General MacArthur's headquarters in Australia and to contest the Japanese control of the Philippines. When the long awaited return of American forces to the Philippines took place in October 1944, they were met at the beaches by survivors of the Philippine Scouts. In the months of intense fighting to subdue the Japanese forces in the Philippines, these Scouts played a major role.
In the winter and spring of 1941-1942, perhaps the only bright spot countering the bleak news of axis victories was the dogged defense of the Bataan Peninsula by the hard pressed Filipino and American troops of the United States Army Forces Far East (USAFFE). The most celebrated troops of the campaign were the Philippine Scouts, collectively representing only 10% of the defending army. From the rearguard defense of the retreat into Bataan, to the Abucay Line and the Battle of the Points, the Scouts provided the ultimate backstop preventing USAFFE from the quick capitulation experienced in Malaya and Singapore, and the Dutch East Indies. To a great degree, it could also be said that the actions of the Philippine Scouts at Bataan, Corregidor and Mindanao preserved the honor, and the reputation, of the Regular Army of the United States. This article surveys the insignia worn by the soldiers of this remarkable force.
The Philippine Scouts were a component of the Regular Army which had its roots in the urge for empire which captivated the leading powers of Europe — and the United States — in the last quarter of the 19th Century. Formed in October 1901 towards the end of America's campaign to conquer the Philippines, the first companies of Scouts were raised in various provinces of the country to augment the regular and volunteer regiments which were the vanguard of "Manifest Destiny." With the formal close of the Philippine-American War, more and more responsibility for preserving American authority was shifted, first, to the Scouts, and later, in the wake of pacification, to the new Philippine Constabulary.
Despite the formal end to the "Insurrection," sporadic resistance continued in several provinces for over a decade. Scout companies campaigned in Southern Luzon in the early years, were mobilized on Samar in 1906-07 to quell a rebellion whose first volley was the destruction of the 38th Company of Scouts, and assaulted the fortress of Bud Bagsak on Jolo Island in 1913 under the command of Brigadier General John Pershing.
Unlike the Constabulary, formed as a police force reporting to civil authorities, the Philippine Scouts were always a military formation within the US Army. Recruited from Filipinos residing throughout the islands, the majority of its officers were Regular Army officers, originally, soldiers from the disbanded U.S. Volunteer regiments who were granted commissions in the Philippine Scouts. In some ways, the Scouts could be compared to the old Indian Army of the British Raj, building over 40 years of service to the United States, its own traditions, identity, and pride, well reflected in the mottoes adopted by its regiments in the 1920s: "Our Strength is in Loyalty," "Strong to Endure," and "Anywhere, Anytime."
By America's entry into World War I in 1917, 52 companies of Scouts had been formed, including two companies recruited from the Muslims of Mindanao and Sulu whose base of operations was Pettit Barracks, in the town of Zamboanga. Over the years, the separate and far-flung Scout companies concentrated in particular posts and formed into a dozen battalions. In 1917, these battalions were further consolidated to form four provisional regiments, designated the 1st through 4th Philippine Infantry (Provisional), and the 1st Philippine Field Artillery (Provisional). These regiments were in turn formally incorporated into the numerical structure of the Regular Army when, in 1920, they were consolidated (on paper) with several inactivated Regular Army regiments formed during World War I and redesignated the 43rd, 45th, 57th, 62nd Infantry and 24th and 25th Field Artillery (Philippine Scouts). Although the 43rd, 62nd Infantry and 25th Field Artillery (PS) were disbanded in 1922 because of the reduction of the army, several of the battalions were used to form the new 26th Cavalry (PS).
Except for the 26th Cavalry, the existing Scout units — augmented by an infantry brigade consisting of the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry (the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of which were stationed in Tientsin, China) and 31st Infantry — were organized into the Philippine Division, which included the newly raised Scout 14th Engineer and 12th Medical Regiments, the Philippine Division Quartermaster Train (re-designated the 12th Quartermaster Regiment in 1936), and the 12th Ordnance and 12th Signal Companies.
The last pre-war scout regiments to be raised were the 91st and 92nd Coast Artillery, formed at Fort Mills, Corregidor Island, in 1924. (In 1941, the 1st Battalion, 45th Infantry, with companies based at Camp John Hay, in Baguio, Luzon, and at Pettit Barracks, Zamboanga, were re-designated the 1st Battalion, 43rd Infantry.)
Most of the Scout units were surrendered in stages to the Japanese — at Bataan on April 9, 1942, Corregidor on May 6, 1942, and Mindanao on May 10-12, 1942. However, elements of Troop C, 26th Cavalry, and Companies C and E, 43rd Infantry, all isolated in Northern Luzon, became the core of guerrilla units which continued to resist until the Japanese were expelled in 1945.
The Philippine Division, now re-designated the 12th Infantry Division (PS), was reactivated in 1946, along with its component units, primarily to compensate for the demobilization of American army units. A 44th Infantry Regiment (PS) was also formed for occupation duty on Okinawa. Although many pre-war scouts rejoined these newly reformed units, most soldiers were "New Philippine Scouts," who had not shared the prewar experience. With the independence of the Philippines in July 1946, the continued existence of the Scouts as an American organization became harder to justify. Hence, the 12th Infantry Division was inactivated in 1947, gradually followed by all remaining units. By 1949, the book had closed on the Philippine Scouts.