LUKBAN
With Chaffee applying pressure on the commanders to bring in Lukban, the commanders in turn pressed the village leaders to assist them by either bringing in the rebels or providing information on their whereabouts. The presidente( mayor) provided Captain Francis H. Schoeffel with guides and workers to assist the Americans. The guides proved to be effective, but the workers could only be depended upon to provide labor and could not be trusted to fight. Occasionally the mayor would pass on information, although the Americans doubted if any of the information was useful.
Likewise, they did not expect Samareños to fight against each other. Hence, they recruited foot soldiers from neighboring Cebu or Leyte, with an American to command them. This was the start of the Philippine Scouts, pre-cursor of the Philippine Constabulary. These men were trained by discharged American Soldiers who received commissions in the new organization. The native troops were given uniforms and weapons and soon they received high praises for their work throughout the islands. In November a company of Filipino scouts under Lt. Lang was assigned to Tarangnan 16 to work under Schoeffel.
The Plan
Schoeffel wanted to lead the patrol himself as this would probably be the company’ s last operation from Tarangnan. The week before, he was told that the company would soon move to a garrison further inland. He directed Lt. Wallace and the two senior NCOs to start preparing for the transfer of property, so that they were not available for this action. The other NCOs were too inexperienced for an important operation such as this one, leaving Schoeffel who was familiar with the terrain as he had worked over the area around Dapdap at least four times prior to this patrol. He was the logical choice.
The two parties were awakened at 2:00 in the morning on December 24 and fed a quick breakfast. Lang’ s boats departed Tarangnan in darkness, and by 5:30, they stepped ashore in Dapdap and built a large fire as ordered. This was the decoy. Schoeffel’ s three boats followed at a discreet distance. He was pleased to hear the enemy loudly announcing Lang’ s force while his entry appeared to escape detection.
Sometime around 7:00 in the morning, the three crafts quietly arrived at the swamp edge of Talinga, and the men slipped into the jungle away from view. The boats then retraced their route to Dapdap where the rowers reported to Lang. E Company moved inland and started their climb of a hill behind Talinga from where Schoeffel would be able to observe the area and the trail leading into Dapdap. He positioned
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