A Bastard Resistance

A Bastard Resistance is the story of the men and women who carried out the greatest resistance movement of the Pacific War. The story also recounts (and perhaps solves) one of the most intriguing mysteries of WWII: why General Douglas MacArthur lost half his air force in the Philippines, destroyed on the ground hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

May 1942 – Allied forces on Bataan and Corregidor have been defeated.  In one of the darkest moments in American history, 76,000 U.S. and Filipino soldiers are forced to surrender. The Rising Sun flag now flies over the entire Philippine Archipelago. 

Yet, almost immediately, Jim Cushing, a “beachcomber” before the war, begins to build a formidable resistance movement.  For over three years, Cushing’s outgunned guerrillas fiercely resist a brutal army of occupation while desperately hoping for liberation.

Cushing’s chief lieutenants are Pat Morkan and Carmen Duran. Morkan, a wise-cracking New York lawyer and fighter pilot, witnesses the destruction of MacArthur’s air force, despite pleas from his subordinates to launch a strike against the Japanese following the attack on Pearl Harbor. When Morkan’s own plane is later shot down over the Island of Cebu, he comes upon a secret order that may explain why MacArthur failed to get his planes airborne. Morkan then joins the Cebu guerrillas as Cushing’s intelligence chief, confessor and consiglieri.

Duran, devout and driven, leaves a religious order to join the guerrillas.  She rises through the ranks to become an integral force in the resistance, forming a network of operatives who provide intelligence the guerrillas desperately need. She and Morkan strike up an intense relationship; among their challenges: being officers and lovers; debating sin and sex; trysts in a guerrilla camp. 

Cushing, Morkan and DeLeon rely on guile, guts, and humor to keep the resistance alive while battling the enemy, dealing with an unhinged co-commander, and pleading with a distant and indifferent MacArthur for aid.