010 ~ Great Tidings Once Brought

Fifty-seven Christmases ago, members of PEFTOK, the Philippine Expeditionary Forces to Korea, were weathering the Global Kawal’s first winter battlefield. The “wonderland” adventure was not as much of dodging shrapnel as of doing away with frostbite.

The PEFTOK contingent serving at the time was the 10th Battalion Combat Team (BCT) of the Philippine Army, initially under the command of Colonel Mariano C Azurin. He would be replaced by an equally competent officer (Colonel Dionisio S Ojeda) –but not for inefficiency in leading the UN Command (UNC) in Korea’s fourth largest contingent, and the sole complement heavily trained in combat operations versus communist guerillas.

The Filipino colonel’s issue was pounding on the commander of his attaching unit, a US Army regiment, for nothing else but ensuring the timely delivery of soldier provisions, especially the appropriate gear against the harsh elements. That winter, the peninsula’s coldest in 200 years, the 1,400-man component suffered the very irresponsible supply omission by the hierarchy. On top of the chilblain affliction, PEFTOK was shattered into companies that were subsequently deployed far apart from one another.

The 10th BCT was tided over by the shipment of clothing coming from the Philippines, donated by gracious countrymen and collected through drives by civic organizations and the government of president and Armed Forces of the Philippines commander in chief Elpidio R Quirino. (The multinational force’s official garment allocation for PEFTOK arrived somehow, after an excruciating amount of time.)

Actually, the crisis had arisen and was resolved before the turn of Yuletide, so that the men were already jollier good fellows during their merriment in Suwon, the battalion’s new sector of responsibility. They were back on the high morale level that could make them hold the line despite the ugly odds they were made to face.

It was a clever UNC decision.

That year-ender week toward 1951, the Filipino contingent had braced up enough for the enemy’s surprise attack on New Year’s Eve. The 10th BCT was reinforcing the defense lines when the communists attempted an encroachment on South Korea for the second time since the war began. Afterward, it embarked on its long and dangerous northward quest for a place on the front line, along the 38th Parallel.

To be emphatic about it, the cleverness in decision-making (which might or might not be influenced by the spirit of Christmas) had PEFTOK’s synergy outlasting the season. The well-gelled contingent survived the succeeding battles, mainly the Battle of Yultong, fought during the “Great Spring Offensive” launched by a new 250,000-strong wave of pro-North Korean fighters.

The 10th BCT was rotated when the summer was winding down. It brought home the glory of being revered by the UNC as “The Fighting Tenth” for its unquestionable, distinguished bravery. It was dearly remembered for securing extreme positions, charging at major enemy emplacements, and even for selflessly getting in hostile crosshairs to extract beleaguered battalions* of the friendly forces.


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*After performing its main task in the Battle of Yultong, the 10th BCT endeavored to rescue the British forces’ Gloucestershire Battalion pinned down by three army divisions of the pro-North Korean People’s Republic of China. Five Filipinos were killed in that specific mission, bringing to fifteen the total number of PEFTOK deaths within the 48-hour encounter.

- Global Kawal, The Working Historiography, ©2007
[By courtesy, AFP Peacekeeping Operations Center.]