Immediately following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, thousands of Filipinos petition for the repeal of their exemption from military service—in place since the Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934 labeled all Filipinos in the U.S. as resident aliens. On 2 January 1942, the Selective Service Act was revised and Filipinos were not only allowed to but were actively encouraged to volunteer for service. A Filipino battalion was authorized for service overseas, and an estimated 70,000 and 100,000 Filipinos enlisted.
The 1st Filipino Battalion was organized on 4 March 1942 and activated at Camp San Luis Obispo in California. By the end of May, over 2,000 men had enlisted and the unit was ordered to Salinas, California where it was renamed the 1st Filipino Infantry Regiment in July. The regiment took up residence on the Salinas rodeo grounds, formerly used to house Japanese Americans who had recently been sent to remote concentration camps. Ironically, many of the men who served with the 1st and 2nd Filipino Infantry Regiments watched their Japanese wives and children board trains for these very concentration camps.
Inundated with volunteers, the 2nd Filipino Infantry Regiment was formed at Fort Ord, California on 22 November and in January of 1943 the regiment was reassigned to Camp Cook, near Santa Maria, while the 1st Regiment went to Camp Beale near Sacramento. As the men settled into training, over 1,000 soldiers were sworn in as naturalized citizens at Camp Beale following a flood of applications for U.S. citizenship. However, many men opted out of citizenship as they fought solely to liberate their country, the Philippines.
Through the spring of 1944, the two regiments trained at Hunter Liggett Military Reservation and Camp Roberts. When not training, they participated in community activities and parades throughout California—from San Diego to San Francisco. As they continued to prepare for deployment, however, their ranks were depleted for a variety of reasons ranging from a need for medical officers in other regiments; to the P-38 Law, which exempted soldiers over the age of 38 from serving; to enlistment restrictions based on a lack of skilled farm labor in California. Regardless of the reason, the two regiments never realized full combat strength and as such were combined, bringing the 1st Regiment up to 125% combat strength and disbanding the 2nd Regiment, which was later reconstituted as the 2nd Filipino Infantry Battalion (Separate).
In February of 1945, the 1st Regiment landed in Tacloban, Leyte and fought Japanese troops in Samar. Fighting valiantly, the regiment recorded an impressive number of kills and was assigned to operations in northern Leyte where it engaged in heavy combat for nearly two months. The 2nd Filipino Infantry Battalion, however, was sent to Manila as a support team and never saw actual combat. By August of that year, all operations for the 1st and 2nd in the Philippines had come to an end. In March of 1946, men who chose toremain in the Philippines or were not eligible to return to the U.S. were transferred to the 2nd Infantry Battalion stationed in Quezon City; when this unit was disbanded later that month, they were assigned to the Filipino Section of the 86th Infantry Division. Troops of the 1st Regiment returned home aboard the U.S.S. General Calan and arrived in San Francisco on 8 April; the following day, they were discharged at nearby Camp Stoneman in Pittsburgh, California.
The park collection came from Sergeant Major Lazaro Fabian, who had served in the Medical Detachment of the 1st Filipino Infantry Regiment. Fabian continued to live in San Francisco after his discharge and co-founded the 2nd Filipino Infantry Regiment Veterans Color Guard.
View an album of the 1st and 2nd Filipino Regiments.