April-December 1977, Vol. 3, No.s 2-4 - International Philippine ...

PRE-oCCUPATION CENSOR MARK OF TACLOBAN, LEYTE­
By Eugene A. Garrett
To the casual observer, the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines commenced on January 2 1
1942, when
troops of the hnperial Japanese Army occupied the Capital City of Manila. Indeed, the CentraJ Government
of the Philippines was then fumly in Japanese hands and unquestionably the Japanese controlled the Cate
of the entire archipelago after that date. However, it required up to several months for the Japanese to 00·
cupy and secure the majority of the islands other than the main island of Luzon and the Davaa area of
Mindanao. It was not until after the surrender of the FilAmerican troops on Bataan and Corregidor that the
Japanese found it expedient to divert the necessary forces to proceed with the invasion and occupation of
many of the outer islands.
To establish the exact date of the occupation of Leyte, I consulted with Mr. C. M. Nielsen of Salt Lake City.
a learned amatew historian of the Philippines. By happy coincidence, Mr. Nieben was at the time preparing
a study of the occupation of !..eyte for the LEYTE-SAMAR STIJDIES, a publication of the Divine Word
University in Tacloban,l.eyte and was therefore able to provide an instant reply:
"Leyte was not invaded by the Japanese. Col. Cornel, commanding
the 9th Military District comprising Leyte and Samar, surrendered
upon orders of Maj. Gen. W. F. Sharp, then in command of all unsw­
.rendered forces in the Philippines. The Japanese occupation force of
from 400 to 500 men landed at Pinunapoon, Leyte, on May 24th,
1942, and proceeded to Tacloban where the rurrender took place
on the 25th or 26th - authorities differ. The landing was not opposed,
and the occupation of Leyte was accomplished relatively peacefully."
FIG. 1
It is therefore apparent that Leyte was in a sort of limbo from the outbreak. of hostilities on December
8, 1941, until the surrender of May 25 or 26, 1942. Although completely cut off from Manila, the local
branches of both the central and provincial governments continued to function as best they could under
the circumstances. In order to preserve the highest possible degree of order throqghout the Islands, President
Quezon had authorized the emergency payment of six months advance salary to an civil servants,
~ great majority of whom continued to carry out their duties and functions until the inevitable ocupation
by the Japanese. In many areas, the postal serivce continued to function on a local basis, long after
such service had been suspended in Manila.
The foregoing preamble brings us now to the specific subject of this discourse, which started when Mr. R.
Hunter Ashmore, Jr., kindly let me bouow the cover illustrated in Figure 1 for the purpose of studying
• superb example of the very rare Tacloban, l.eyte, censor label., Type IIB2, which is affIXed to the revcne
side (not shown). For the specialist collector, it becomes second nature to peele inside any such commercial
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