US Secretary of Defense James Mattis on Wednesday formally returned church bells to the Philippines that were taken as war trophies more than a century ago following gruesome clashes, seeking to close a contentious chapter in the two allies’ history.
The decision to return the “Bells of Balangiga” to the Philippines ends a decades-long quest by Manila, including by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, and is expected to bolster US-Philippine relations.
However, it has upset some US veterans and Wyoming’s delegation to the US Congress, which uniformly opposed returning bells that were a memorial to the 45 US soldiers who were killed during a surprise attack on Sept. 28, 1901, in the central town of Balangiga.
Photo: Reuters
Two of the three bells have been on display at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming. The third bell is at a US Army museum in South Korea.
Mattis, speaking at a ceremony at the base attended by the Philippine ambassador to the US, said that the Philippines has proven itself as a great ally in conflicts during the century since that clash.
He added that the sacrifices of US forces would not be forgotten.
“To those who fear we lose something by returning these bells, please hear me when I say: Bells mark time, but courage is timeless,” Mattis said. “It does not fade in history’s dimly lit corridors.”
In Manila, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs cheered the move.
“Today is a time of solemn remembrance as we pay tribute to all those who gave up their lives during the Filipino-American War,” the department said.
Wyoming’s congressional delegation, which did not attend the ceremony, issued a terse statement.
“We continue to oppose any efforts by the administration to move the bells to the Philippines without the support of Wyoming’s veterans community,” US senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso and Representative Liz Cheney said in a joint statement.
All three bells are to be restored and handed over to the Philippines as early as next month, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia Joe Felter said.
The 1901 attack in Balangiga was seen as perhaps the worst routing of US soldiers since the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, also known as Custer’s Last Stand.
One or more of the church bells were rung to signal the attack in Balangiga, historians say.
US forces took the bells after a brutal counterattack that killed anywhere from hundreds to thousands of people in the Philippines, historians say.
One US general was said to have directed his troops to “make the interior of Samar a howling wilderness.”
Some Wyoming veterans, like Cheryl Shannon at Veterans of Foreign Wars, said they were fine with the decision to return the bells.
“We’re tired of it always being an issue,” said Shannon, an Iraq war veteran.
However, Hank Miller, a veteran who wanted to keep the bells in Wyoming, said that broader support for his position had faded as it became clear Washington would return the bells.
“I was advised to ‘stop fighting a losing battle’ and ‘stop beating a dead horse’ as the bells were going back,” Miller said.
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