We Are Here To Save You - Japanese Propaganda in the Execution of General Fort

On November 19, 1942 — exactly eight days after Brigadier General Guy O. Fort was executed by Japanese forces at Camp Keithley — Seiji Koga sat down and wrote a calm, polite handwritten letter to Moro guerrilla leader Datu Busran Kalaw.

In it, Koga claimed he could not arrange a meeting with the still-living General Fort due to “strict rules and regulations concerning prisoners of war.”

What Koga didn’t say was that Fort had already been killed after refusing to order the very Moro fighters he had personally empowered to keep fighting to surrender.

Through the explosive declassified documents in file NND 883078 — including the full correspondence, battle reports, and casualty records — this episode uncovers the full story: the desperate Japanese propaganda campaign, Datu Busran Kalaw’s fearless defiance, the ferocious Fighting Bolo Battalion victories that made Lanao ungovernable, the Talagian atrocity, the Battle of Tamparan where 178 Japanese soldiers were killed in under two hours, and the chilling deception that continued even after Fort’s death.

A powerful, previously untold chapter of Moro resistance and one of the most damning pieces of evidence in the ongoing search for General Fort’s remains.