"Rise Gentlemen! He Served on Samar!"

Marine Major Littleton W. T. Waller faced a far less implacable enemy than the hordes of Chinese soldiers he had confronted in Peking in 1900 when he was asked to quell Filipino insurrectionists on Samar a year later—but the result was a fiasco.

On 20 June 1900, a large percentage of the U.S. Marine Corps' personnel were neck deep in China's Boxer Rebellion. Among the officers to earn distinction in the operation was Major Littleton W. T. Waller. The fame and respect Waller and his men garnered during their heroic attempts to hreak the Boxer's 55-day siege of Peking were short-lived. Their conduct a year later on the small island of Samar in the Philippines brought great discredit on themselves and consequently great uneasiness within the Corps.

U.S. military forces had been involved in counterinsurgency operations in the Philippines for several years, but after a successful campaign on the island of Luzon, only Samar and Batangas remained hostile.¹ On 24 October 1901, Waller arrived on Samar with a battalion of 315 Marines with orders to assist ongoing U.S. Army actions against the insurrectionists.² The Army previously had failed to quell the unrest on Samar and had suffered the loss of dozens of soldiers earlier that same year. Consequently, Waller arrived with one thought on his mind: "The men must be informed of the courage, skill, size, and strength of the enemy. We must do our part of the work, and with the sure knowledge that we are not to expect quarter."³

Waller was greatly encouraged on his arrival in the Philippines. His orders were very simple. Under Brigadier General Jacob H. Smith, commander of the Army's 6th Separate Brigade, Waller and his Marines had one job. In Smith's words, "I want no prisoners." This would have been enough to enflame even the most cautious military leader, but Smith did not leave anything to question. "I wish you [Waller] to kill and burn," he continued. "The more you kill and burn, the better it will please me. . . . The interior of Samar must be made a howling wilderness."⁴ Major Waller quickly set about executing his orders, and within a few months, regular patrols were making rounds in southern Samar. The interior of the island, however, remained largely unexplored by U.S. forces, and the insurrectionists were free to operate there. Waller himself led the first expedition into Samar's interior, which began on 28 December 1901. Sadly, Waller's actions during the expedition greatly diminished the name he had earned as a battalion commander in China.

In an effort to scout a possible telegraph route from Lanang, a city on the east coast of Samar, to Basey, a city on the west coast, Waller took 60 Marines, 2 native scouts, and roughly 30 native bearers into the island's inner regions.⁵ His orders were to explore the possibility of such a route, not to run the telegraph wire. By 3 January 1902, the rugged terrain and dense undergrowth had taken their toll on the Marines. Many were exhausted or wounded, and most were unable to continue the march. At that time, Waller decided he would split his expedition party and leave behind anyone unable to continue-a decision that ultimately proved to be neither sound nor timely. Only 14 of the original 60 Marines were able to move on with Waller. The small band reached Basey three days later, on 6 January. For the next 12 days abandoned Marines slowly filtered back into Lanang. The native bearers, many of them likely supporters of the insurrectionists, mutinied. The proposed telegraph line was never run between the two outposts, and, according to Waller, "As a military movement [the expedition] was of no other value than to show that the mountains are not impenetrable to us."⁶

In total, ten Marines died and one, on his return to Lenang, was declared legally insane. In what appears to have been a desperate act of retribution, Waller ordered the immediate hanging of 11 of the bearers for conspiring against the Marines. Ironically, the number of bearers killed matched the number of Marines who were lost. That fact was not overlooked when Waller was brought to court-martial for hanging the men as war criminals without first giving them a proper and fair trial.The charge Waller faced was murder, though he ultimately was acquitted.

Despite this acquittal, Waller clearly was guilty of other actions. First, the notion that a Marine officer would leave wounded and dying men in the field for the sake of proving a point is horrifying. Waller failed in his responsibility as an officer to look out for the welfare of his men. second, from organization to implementation, the entire expedition was badly planned, clearly demonstrating a profound lack of tactical proficiency. Allan Millett, one of the world's foremost Marine Corps historians, described the Samar telegraph expedition as "a monument to human endurance and poor planning."⁷

On the charge of failure to care for his Marines, Waller undoubtedly was guilty. Waller's men operated in the island's interior region without logistical support for six days before Waller decided to split the unit. His mission was to explore the possibility of an expedition to run the telegraph line. Such an operation would have involved construction crews, and therefore major logistical support. If an unsupported group nearly made the trek from Lenang to Basey, it is safe to assume a heavily supported construction column could have made the trip with relative ease. In addition, no timeline was formally established for Waller's expedition, so a few days rest would have been an acceptable delay. The fact that Waller's men ran dangerously low on supplies after only five days in the field means the expedition carried insufficient food and equipment. Had Waller's Marines been resupplied after two or three days, they might have had the strength to continue the journey to Basey.

Waller was a man of mixed reviews. In China he proved he had "tremendous powers of endurance and was personally brave, aggressive, and charismatic."⁸ These characteristics are admirable in a leader, and especially in a leader of Marines. Unfortunately, on Samar, Waller proved he also lacked many qualities the Marine Corps believes are essential for good leaders. His leadership failures were reflected for decades in a toast given to the men who survived the expedition. Any time one of those hearty few who endured Waller's death march entered a Marine Corps mess hall, he was greeted with the words, "Rise gentlemen! he served on Samar!"