Col. Ryoichi Tozuka signs the surrender instrument as Col. Raymond G. Stanton looks on. Cabatuan Airfield Barrio Tiring, Cabatuan, Iloilo Panay Island, Philippines, September 2, 1945 - o -

With Patricio Confesor, 1974 4.3 Searching for Governor Confesor On the way back from Bocari, we learned that there were guerrillas in a village between San Miguel and Alimodian. We surrounded the area during the night and started interrogating each resident early the next morning. Everyone said that there were no guerrillas in the neighborhood. Because of this, we were more at ease but also continued searching. Suddenly, we heard an enemy light machine-gun shooting wildly nearby and hurriedly reacted. A soldier of the 3rd Company reported to me that Corporal Shiraboshi was killed. I was enraged when I saw his awful corpse. His body was so riddled with bullet holes that it looked like a honeycomb. A soldier reported that Shiraboshi had knocked on a door of a house but it did not open. As he tried to force it open, the guerrilla waiting inside shot him. As he fell, the guerrilla ran away through a window and disappeared. Shiraboshi was a nice and handsome young man who was the machine gun detachment leader when I was in the 3rd Company. Since I knew him well, I felt bitterly sorry for him. The soldiers who gathered around Shiraboshi were enraged at the sight of his body and started to yell, ‘We were deceived, there are guerrillas among the villagers who are in league with them. We must avenge Shiraboshi’s death.’ Once again, they started to inspect each house, taking into custody any one regarded as suspicious. We interrogated them closely but all of them kept saying they knew nothing about any guerrillas. The outraged Captain Watanabe shouted, ‘Behead those whom you suspect are guerrillas!’. Thus, young men regarded as guerrillas were beheaded one after another. Their heads and corpses were scattered all around. In another instance, ‘we had been told that the Matsuno platoon of the 1st Company was surrounding a village. Feeling tense from the last encounter with cornered guerrillas, we checked each of the houses as we tightened the net around them. However, the soldiers of the Matsuno platoon did not appear to be operating as a single net. Upon realizing their disorganization, the rest of us lost our composure. Captain Watanabe was furious and yelled, ‘Matsuno, why are you not besieging the village!’ Taken aback, Second Lieutenant Matsuno shouted back, ‘I have gotten no such order!’ This made Captain Watanabe even more irate, and Second Lieutenant Matsuno was severely humiliated in front of the soldiers. ‘Matsuno can be of no use anymore in this punitive action. You should remain at the garrison!’ Since then, Second Lieutenant Matsuno never joined any other punitive expedition, a fact that was to be in his favor. Those men Captain Watanabe considered ‘useful’ were unfortunate as they were sent to the guerrilla fronts and one by one lost their lives. The first unfortunate ones were members of the 4th Company or the Yoshioka unit. We learned that the Takahashi Company of the Taga unit held captive a daughter of Patricio Confesor – brother of Governor Confesor – and several nurses at the border between Antique and Iloilo provinces. Captain Watanabe judged that Confesor had fled to Antique, which had originally been the area of operation of the Taga unit. Nevertheless, Captain Watanabe wished to capture Confesor himself, and so dispatched the Yoshioka Company to perform this assignment. The Yoshioka Company was running out of food during their expedition. Parts of the area they went through were unexplored mountainous regions – more than a thousand meters above sea level – as well as low swamps that bred mountain leeches. Local guides were afraid, but the company pushed through mountain after mountain, slurping gruel and munching corn. At the end of July, they managed to reach the Taga unit at the Sibalom garrison of Antique province, about 40 kilometers away from Bocari. Personnel of the Taga unit first thought they were a group of beggars as they were all so ragged, exhausted, and with no proper footwear. When offered a meal, they greedily devoured it beyond all sense of shame. After a few days rest, the Yoshioka Company was ordered to join the Taga unit that was tasked to carry out the punitive expedition into northern Antique up to the area of Pandan. Pandan was the base where US submarines landed supplies for the guerrillas. Many men of the Yoshioka Company had upset stomachs from the large and sudden amounts of food they had consumed. All the same, they obeyed the order and ran around the mountains and valleys searching for guerrillas in the rainy season which produced not much result. They ended the expedition of northern Antique on September 8 and came back by boat to Iloilo City.