Captain Nieves Fernandez, the only known Filipino female guerilla leader and formerly a school teacher, shows US Army Pvt.
7 November 1944 Captain Nieves Fernandez, the only known Filipino female guerilla leader and formerly a school teacher, shows US Army Pvt. Andrew Lupiba (also originally from the Philippines) how she used her long knife to silently kill Japanese soldiers during the Japanese occupation of Leyte Island. Image taken by Stanley Troutman, Mabuhay Las PiΓ±as, Leyte Island, Philippines. (Nieves lived until she was 91 and Andrew Lupiba died in 1985 aged 77) Waray guerrillas under Captain Nieves Fernandez, fought the Japanese in Tacloban. Being infamously known as a crackshot, Nieves extensively trained her men in combat skills and the making of improvised weaponry. She led her men in the front and managed to take out over 200 Japanese soldiers in the war with only 110 men. The Imperial Japanese Army posted a 10,000 Pesos reward on her head in the hopes of capturing her but to no avail. The main commander of the resistance movement in Leyte however, was Ruperto Kangleon, a former Filipino s...