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Lesson 22 Assignment

The document summarizes the story of the Koga Incident in 1944 where a Japanese sea plane carrying Admiral Koga and secret defense plans crashed near Cebu. Filipino fishermen recovered documents from the crash revealing that Leyte was lightly defended, prompting the US to change their invasion target from Mindanao to Leyte. The documents, known as the Koga Papers, contributed to an Allied victory by misleading the Japanese into thinking Leyte was undefended, though it was actually well-defended in a trap for the Japanese navy. Years later the site in Carcar City where the documents were found was declared an historic event and a marker was placed to commemorate the fishermen and guerrillas involved in the incident

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124 views

Lesson 22 Assignment

The document summarizes the story of the Koga Incident in 1944 where a Japanese sea plane carrying Admiral Koga and secret defense plans crashed near Cebu. Filipino fishermen recovered documents from the crash revealing that Leyte was lightly defended, prompting the US to change their invasion target from Mindanao to Leyte. The documents, known as the Koga Papers, contributed to an Allied victory by misleading the Japanese into thinking Leyte was undefended, though it was actually well-defended in a trap for the Japanese navy. Years later the site in Carcar City where the documents were found was declared an historic event and a marker was placed to commemorate the fishermen and guerrillas involved in the incident

Uploaded by

Maria Mendoza
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Maria Monica Ana A.

Mendoza
BSEd- ENG 1

In 1944, a Japanese sea plane crashed near Cebu. According to Japanese military officials who were
captured, and later released, they were accompanying Gen. Koga, Commander in Chief of the Japanese
Combined Fleet. Gen. Koga died in the crash. A little later, Filipino fisherman recovered some Japanese
documents. They delivered the documents to US Intelligence. The documents revealed that Leyte was
lightly defended. As a result, the Americans shifted their invasion target to Leyte instead of Cotabato Bay
in Mindanao.
On October 17, 1944 the invasion of Leyte went underway. Leyte was lightly defended as the Koga
papers have indicated. But it was during the invasion of Leyte when the Japanese navy launched their last
offensive strike against the US fleet, with the objective of obliterating it once and for all. They nearly
succeeded. After this near-tragic event, the Koga papers were considered by some military strategists as
spurious and could have been manufactured by the Japanese to mislead the American navy into thinking
that Leyte was a defenseless island. That Leyte was a trap. And the Americans nearly fell into it.
Source: Uckung, P. (2012). Retrieved from NHCP: https://nhcp.gov.ph/the-rizal-retraction-and-other-
cases/

MY COLUMNS on Dirk Jan Barreveld’s book, “Cushing’s Coup: The True Story of How Lt. Col. James
Cushing and His Filipino Guerrillas Captured Japan’s Plan Z and Changed the Course of the Pacific
War,” has generated a reaction from a reader whose handwritten letter to me was signed simply as
“Rotarian Felipe T. Concepcion.” The information he provided is interesting:
“I was very glad to have read your two articles depicting the retrieval in Perrelos, Carcar City
of the Koga Papers (code-named Operation Z), or the Japanese defense plan, that later reached
Gen. Douglas McArthur and contributed to the victory of the Allied forces in World War II. I
would like to add that having bought some properties in San Fernando, I also have been hearing
from some residents about this event. So I personally inquired from the National Historical
Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) regarding its status. Fortunately, the NHCP was very
much aware of it and has been researching for several years now about it.
“However, the NHCP received no formal request for the declaration of the finding of the Koga
papers as a historical event and for a marker to be placed on the site where these items were
found. This prompted me to submit a formal request on the matter.
“After several follow-ups, the NHCP official informed me that a resolution was passed on June
2, 2015, declaring it as a historical event and recognizing the fishermen who found the
documents, Pedro Gantuangco and Rufo Wamar, and the Cebuano guerrilla forces for their
heroism and patriotism, as well as honoring the brave men and women who gave up their lives
to attain the freedom that we are now enjoying.
“I was also informed that communications would be sent to the NHCP extension office in Cebu
City and the concerned local government unit (Carcar City) so they would coordinate in
implementing the said project. Furthermore, the NHCP commissioners are planning to come to
Cebu to grace the inauguration of the historical marker in Perrelos, Carcar City. We hope that
this would serve as an inspiration to our fellow countrymen, particularly the younger generation,
and intensify our love of country and make us prouder of our Filipino culture and heritage.”
Source: Wenceslao, B. (2015). Retrieved from SunStar Philippines:
https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/48930/Lifestyle/Wenceslao-Koga-Paers-marker-USCs-War-in-Cebu

To the uninformed, the Koga Incident has to do with the crash of two Kawanishi H8 Flying Boats,
somewhere in Sangat, San Fernando, on, of all dates April 3, 1944.

On one of these planes was the highest naval official of the Imperial Japanese Forces, Admiral
Meinichi Koga, who was carrying with him documents collectively called “The Z Plan,” papers detailing
the defense plans of the IJF vis-à-vis the approaching liberation of the Philippines.
April 3 is of course also a day rich in the memory of Cebu because on that day in 1898, the Katipunan in
Cebu finally rose up in arms against Spanish forces in what has come to be known as Tres de Abril.
Exactly forty-six years later, a storm blew Admiral Koga’s planes off the skies, resulting in a saga of epic
proportions, as it were, that involved the Japanese survivors of the crash (Koga himself was killed, his
body never found), the Z Plan documents, the fishermen of Valladolid, Carcar, the Imperial Japanese
authorities in Cebu and the Cebu Area Command headed by the sadly unremembered and uncelebrated
Col. James Cushing. All these make for a neat background to an important piece of history that altered
Gen. MacArthur’s original plan of landing in Davao in December 1944, advancing it to October 20 in
Leyte.

Berales, J. (2019). Retrieved from CDN: https://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/224185/past-forward-the-


koga-incident-on-film#ixzz6cPmPadYg

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