- Robert Lapham
Robert Lapham (b. 1917 in
Davenport ,Iowa , d. 18 December 2003 inSun City ,Arizona ) was a reserve Lieutenant in theUS Army inWorld War II .He served in the
Philippines attached to the 45th Infantry (Philippine Scouts ), evaded capture in the spring of 1942, and organized aguerrilla regiment in the Central Plains of the northern island ofLuzon . He was promoted to Major by war's end, age 28, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by GeneralDouglas MacArthur . Lapham was the third person, after PresidentFranklin Delano Roosevelt and MacArthur, to receive the Philippine Legion of Honor.A graduate of the
University of Iowa , Lapham worked for theChicago branch of theBurroughs Corporation when, as a 2nd lieutenant of infantry in theUS Officers Reserve Corps , he was assigned to active duty in thePhilippines and sailed fromSan Francisco on June 5, 1941.After MacArthur was evacuated to
Australia , Gen.Jonathan Wainwright was given command of the Philippine defense force. As talk of surrender began, Lapham sneaked through the lines. In his 1996 book, "Lapham’s Raiders : Guerrillas in the Philippines, 1942-45," he explained why he headed to the jungles to fight: "Somehow, I didn’t like the idea of surrendering. I felt I had better chances on the outside than in a Japanese prison camp."He initially was assigned to Lt. Col.
Claude Thorp 's infiltration party, where he was placed in charge of recruiting guerrillas inWestern Tarlac andPangasinan provinces. When Thorp was captured, Lapham kept his own guerrilla organization intact and independent, later joined byRay Hunt ,Al Hendrickson ,Henry A. Mucci and others. When MajorRussell Volckmann claimed command over him, Lapham told MacArthur's headquarters that he reported to MajorBernard Anderson 's Kalayaan Command.The estimated 10,000 Filipinos under Lapham's command became known as the Luzon Guerrilla Armed Forces (LGAF), more informally Lapham’s Raiders. They launched a
guerilla campaign ofterrorism andsabotage against the occupying Japanese soldiers, yomping large amounts of equipment by hand over rugged terrain. The Japanese army put a $1 million bounty on his head.Lapham returned to Burroughs (now
Unisys ) after the war. In 1975, he retired as vice president for industrial relations, inDetroit .
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