A main selection of the Military Book Club and a selection of the
History Book Club.
With his parting words "I shall return," General Douglas MacArthur
sealed the fate of the last American forces on Bataan. Yet one young
Army Captain, named Russell Volckmann, refused to surrender. He
disappeared into the jungles of north Luzon where he raised a Filipino
army of over 22,000 men. For the next three years he led a guerrilla war
against the Japanese, killing over 50,000 enemy soldiers. At the same
time he established radio contact with MacArthur's HQ in Australia and
directed Allied forces to key enemy positions.
When General Yamashita finally surrendered, he made his initial
overtures not to MacArthur, but to Volckmann. This book establishes how
Volckmann's leadership was critical to the outcome of the war in the
Philippines. His ability to synthesize the realities and potential of
guerrilla warfare led to a campaign that rendered Yamashita's forces
incapable of repelling the Allied invasion. Had it not been for
Volckmann, the Americans would have gone in "blind" during their
counter-invasion, reducing their efforts to a trial-and-error campaign
that would undoubtedly have cost more lives, materiel, and potentially
stalled the pace of the entire Pacific War.
Second, this book establishes Volckmann as the progenitor of modern
counterinsurgency doctrine and the true "Father" of Army Special
Forces--a title that history has erroneously awarded to Colonel Aaron
Bank of the ETO. In 1950, Volckmann wrote two Army field manuals:
Operations Against Guerrilla Forces and Organization and Conduct of
Guerrilla Warfare, though today few realize he was their author.
Together, they became the Army's first handbooks outlining the precepts
for both special warfare and counter-guerrilla operations.
Taking his argument directly to the Army Chief of Staff, Volckmann
outlined the concept for Army Special Forces. At a time when U.S.
military doctrine was conventional in outlook, he marketed the ideas of
guerrilla warfare as a critical force multiplier for any future
conflict, ultimately securing the establishment of the Army's first
special operations unit--the 10th Special Forces Group.
Volckmann himself remains a shadowy figure in modern military history,
his name absent from every major biography on MacArthur, and in much of
the Special Forces literature. Yet as modest, even secretive, as
Volckmann was during his career, it is difficult to imagine a man whose
heroic initiative had more impact on World War II. This long-overdue
book not only chronicles the dramatic military exploits of Russell
Volckmann, but analyzes how his leadership paved the way for modern
special-warfare doctrine.
