The 110th Division encompassed a wide area of western Mindanao encompassing the Misamis Oriental, Agusan, Surigao and Davao regions. It was populated with bands of guerrillas all acting on their own initiative and in many cases as bandits. McLish and Childress, with the help of a host of unsurrendered Filipino and American fighters brought order to these areas by supporting legitimate guerrillas and suppressing the bandits. By March 1943, most groups in the Misamis Oriental and Agusan regions were under the control of the 110th Division. The question became, “What do we do now?” It didn’t take long to come up with an idea.
In March 1943, Major Luis Morgan, Chief of Staff of the 10th Military District and the real muscle behind the establishment of Fertig’s guerrilla organization, arrived in the 110th Division area. At odds with Fertig, Morgan had been sent on a tour of Mindanao and the Visayan Islands trying to bring all guerrillas together in purpose. Morgan was a former constabulary officer from the Lanao region of Mindanao. After the American surrender, Moslem bandits began raiding the Christian coastal areas of Lanao. In a brutal campaign of bloodletting, Morgan put a stop to it. He liberated the north coast of Mindanao for Fertig, and was always up for a fight. Going into conference with McLish and Childress, who were just itching for some payback against the Japanese, they came up with a plan to attack the Japanese garrison at Butuan at the head of the Agusan River.
The attack on Butuan was a lesson in working with untrained guerrilla fighters, most of who were unarmed and ran at the first shot. Initially the town was taken, but the Japanese garrison took defensive positions in a concrete schoolhouse. Lacking any heavy weapons to assault the schoolhouse, the attack became a stand off and the guerrillas had to retreat before Japanese reinforcements could arrive. The guerrillas captured a number of ocean going boats and freed future Leyte guerrilla leader Ruperto Kangleon from the Butuan prison, and though they could not take the town, the Japanese garrison was removed a short time later.
March 1943 was when everything changed in the guerrilla war on Mindanao, for this is when the first submarine from Australia arrived on the south coast of Mindanao. Carrying Lt. Commander Charles “Chick” Parsons and Captain Charles M. Smith, a dozen radio sets with generators and a few tons of supplies, the arrival of the submarine USS Tambor on 5 March was the first sign to Filipinos and Americans on Mindanao that they had not been forgotten and “the Aid” was finally going to come. The “bamboo telegraph” was again active and it didn’t take long for word to reach the 110th Division. Childress set out for Fertig’s headquarters at Jimenez to find out what was going on and what supplies might be available for the 110th. Childress arrived only to be volunteered to accompany Parsons on his trip across Mindanao and up to the island of Leyte.