Tau Lam-Ang was the son of a well-to-do Philippine family that lived on an estate in Mariveles, Bataan across Manila Bay and the capital of  Manila in the early 20th century. Tau went to Christian Catholic schools and eventually, the Philippine School of Commerce (PSC), all of which he studied hard and became one of their top students.  He learned several languages to include Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, English and of course the dozen or so dialects of the Philippines, predominantly Tagalog. He was also taught the Philippines Martial Arts of Arnis, Kali and Eskrima by his uncle since the age of five.

 

By age 18, Tau was not only the Asia Pacific champion in Escrima and Kali Martial Arts championships, but was considered a master.

 

After winning his last championship in 1939, Tau made the decision to follow in his father's footsteps and become a businessman rather than a fighter. By age 20, after completing his two-year business degree in the PSC junior college, Tau was poised to take on his father's business, Lam-Ang Shipping Company. Unfortunately, Imperial Japanese forces decided to invade the Philippines in December of 1941.

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Tau's family lived in Mariveles during the invasion, leaving them cut off by the Japanese invaders and unable to to escape.  The brand new US Naval base in Mariveles became the Lam-Ang's new temporary sanctuary.  Tau's mother provided medical support and nursing for the wounded on the base while Tau's father worked with the US military to show them all the ins-and-outs of trade shipping, tides, shoals and navigation in and around Bataan, providing enormous tactical help to General Douglas MacArthur and his staff.  Sadly, on 9 April 1942, Bataan fell.  Tau's father was able to get Tau and his uncle out of Mariveles before the fall with the Philippines Resistance Army to Corrigedor, an island just south of Mariveles and Bataan, where General Douglas MacArthur and the US Army had been holed up previously.  Tau was transported with MacArthur and his staff at the secret request of Tau's father when MacArthur was ordered to evacuate from the Philippines.  Both Tau and MacArthur were devastated over the decision and the orders. Tau swore he would come back to save his family, for which MacArthur replied to him, "I'll be back too, son. We all will. I swear this isn't over.". Tau's uncle stayed behind and died holding Corrigedor, but not before taking out over 24 Japanese troops using his Philippines Martial Arts skills as his last act of defiance.   Tau watched through binoculars as he was transported away, seeing his uncle die in what some would be considered a 'warrior's death'.

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Back in the United States, Tau never left Washington DC.  Every day he went to the State Department to attempt to be sent back to save his family.  He was told the ONLY way he'd ever have a chance of getting back to the Philippines was to join the US military. Finally, after heavy consideration, Tau enlisted in the US Army.

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After basic training, Tau was sent to a special 'translator' unit since he was so well versed in a variety of languages.  This kept him more chair-bound far than he liked and complained daily about it, irking his superiors quite effectively. The Major in charge of the unit kept calling Tau "Phlipo", a derogatory term the Major seemed 'proud' to call Tau. One day a Captain John Brown (AKA Captain Invader) breezed into the translation office demanding a quick translation of several vital communiques he'd intercepted for his special unit, the Allied Fighters.  One such communique was in a mix of Tagalog, Korean, Mandarin and Spanish...a mix that Tau quickly realized was a style his father used to use to teach Tau languages when he was a boy.  Tau immediately translated the communiques, siting hos father most likely sent them, and then demanded that Captain Brown take him (Tau) along to wherever they were going.  Captain Brown sloughed off Tau's request, only for Tau to grab Brown by the arm and attempt to wheel the Captain around to make him listen.

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Big mistake...at least as far as Captain Invader was initially concerned.

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Over the next three minutes, Captain Invader and Tau 'fought' in the translation office, using martial arts, military hand-to-hand, escrima and acrobatics.  The two were evenly matched until Captain Invader did a 'head butt' to Tau's head, dropping a stunned Tau to the floor. Captain Invader said, 'you got spunk, kid, I'll give you that', which only encouraged Tau to attack Captain Invader at the door.  After several more minutes of fighting, both bloodied and beaten, the Captain held up his hand and said, 'If I let you go with me, you swear to fight the Japanese and the Axis Forces with the same moxie you just fought me with...maybe even a bit more?", to which Tau simply said, "Why are WE standing here, Captain? Let's go end a war together!".  Captain Invader told Tau's superior (the Major of the Translation unit) that Tau was now transferred to the Allied Fighters.  The Major told Captain Invader that he'd do no such thing, and that he didn't take orders from a mere 'Captain'.  Captain Invader gave Tau a wink and turned away, allowing Tau to punch the Major in the face, knocking him 5 feet back through the Major's office door window and onto the Major's desk, out cold. Captain Invader said, 'Oops. Uh-oh. Seems like Tau here hit a 'superior' officer.  Looks like I'll have to (laughing) take him into custody for the remained of the war.  You're all witnesses now (he spoke as he looked about the translations office, trying to keep a straight face), so if anybody's get any funny comments to say about this, you better speak now."  The room instead applauded loudly and cheered Tau and the Captain. Tau received several handshakes and then he and Captain Invader left the office, now as friends and fighting compatriots.

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Tau, who donned his uncle's old marital arts studio red, white and blue uniform (with a few special features added, complete with a steel Baston), went on to perform his first mission with the Allied Fighters in the Philippines.  The mission was to extract over 200 US soldiers and Philippine civilians from a temporary shelter that the Japanese made for enslaved work crews, told of courtesy of secreted communiques that were obviously sent by Tau's father.

 

When the squad of four Allied Fighters (Captain Invader, Katana Kuni, Tau (now called the "Philippines Fighter" by the newspapers), and Dauntless) arrived to liberate those in the shelter (after taking out over 50 Japanese guards and troops beforehand), they found the Japanese captives beaten, savaged and on the verge of death.  They were all victims of the infamous 'Bataan Death March'. Among those in the shelter was Tau's father. Tau's father was able to awaken long enough to see his son and tell him his mother died in the death march and that he too was dying.  He told Tau he was proud of him and his uncle for fighting against the Japanese and that one day, God willing, he'll be able to start the family business again when the war was won.

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Tau's father died in his arms as Tau raced to get him and the others to a transport to safety.

 

Tau buried his father in the United States shortly thereafter (Tau's wife eventually brought Tau's father's body back to the Philippines and had him re-buried, this time, back on the grounds of the Lam-Ang family estate in Bataan).

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Over the next year, Tau fought with everything he had alongside the Allied Fighter in Europe and the Pacific Theater. His martial arts skills were so unique in Europe that nothing the Axis powers had could counter him...except for one nemesis: the Samurai Sentinel.  The Samurai Sentinel, a hero of Imperial Japan, encountered Tau several times, each time fighting to a draw or wounding Tau so much that Tau and/or the Allied Fighters had to retreat.  Tau took it as a personal quest to defeat the Samurai Sentinel in personal combat.  Regardless, Tau was a true warrior amidst the Allied Fighters and a die-hard compatriot.  His Catholic  religious upbringing provided comfort to the troops of similar faith and quickly became a 'true friend of the troops' as per newsreels and printed stories in the papers.  He was loved and revered by all who met him.  Captain Invader even swore that he was one of the few people he'd ever known that he truly respected.

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In late 1943, after helping General MacArthur's "Operation Cartwheel" island-hopping campaign, Tau helped save a woman he knew from college, Suanne Bauta; a woman who had successfully hid over three dozen young women from the savage troops of Imperial Japan (the troops were noted for raping any and all women found on the islands and then killing them outright).  Tau, who'd had a crush on her in college, immediately fell in love with her, and as he found out later, she'd already been in love with him from back in college.  Weeks later, in a formal Catholic wedding in the Untied States, Tau and Suanne were married.  Suanne Lam-Ang stayed in the United States in California and soon thereafter gave birth to their son, Pau Lam-Ang.  Along that same time, Tau found several injured ex-Escrima and Kali martial artist masters from his uncle's old martial arts school and brought them to the United States for convalescence, for which Suanne graciously included them in their family's lives thereafter, caring for them as if they were her own family.

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Meanwhile, in the Pacific theater, the day finally came when the Liberation of the Philippines occured. In, October 1944, a multi-national Allied force invaded Leyte Gulf.  One of the largest and greatest (if not THE greatest) naval battles in history occurred as the Battle of Leyte.  During the ground fighting, with General Douglas MacArthur 'returning' (as he said he would), Tau joined US Marines in liberating town after town in and about Manila.  In one such battle, the Samurai Sentinel arrived and fought Tau once again.  During the fight, the rest of the Allied Fighters had been cut off by a Japanese offesnive, leaving Tau and the Samurai Sentinel to fight alone.  Both fought valiantly and honorably.  Both had each severely wounded one another during their fighting.  Sadly, a Japanese mortar seperated the two in their fight, blowing the Samurai Sentinel into a rock, knocking him out cold.  When Tau got up, ears ringing over the explosion, he was peppered by three Japanese soldiers' machine gun fire, killing Tau within seconds.  Hours later, the Allied Fighters broke through the Japanese offensive and found Tau, dead on the beach.

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Tau was taken to the now liberated Manila where one of the grandest funeral ceremonies in Philippine history was performed. Tau was immediately made a legend overnight.  The Allied Fighter took the loss of Tau hard, but doubled their desire to end the war all the more.

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Tau's wife and son carried on in the United States until the end of the war.  In 1946, Manual Roxas, the man who would later become the first president of an independent Philippines, requested Suanne, Pau and their new extended martial arts family back to the Philippines to be help not only honor the legend of Tau, but to also help in building the new independent nation of the Philippines.  They all agreed and returned to Manila, where they were give back the Lam-Ang estate in Bataan and the rights to rebuild the Lam-Ang Shipping Company, should they choose to.  Rather than rebuild the family shipping business (which none of them knew how to run), they instead rebuilt Tau's uncle's martial arts center, this time, in Bataan.  The Lam-Ang Martial Arts Studios of the Philippines became an overnight success and within 20 years had over 100 additional centers built all across the Philippine Islands. By 1970, the Lam-Angs and the martial arts masters were each independent millionaires.

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Pau became a master of Kali and Escrima, much like his father, Tau, however, by1965, he realized he needed to become a businessman to run the martial arts studio chain or lead the studios to financial ruin, and as such went to college in the United States and earned his Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard (at which point he got in contact with Captain (then Major) Invader out of Boston, where Pau was regaled of his father, Tau's, heroic fights and actions during the war.  Pau later wrote a book about his father, which went onto the New York Times Best Seller list at #1 for 10 weeks in 1970.

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Pau married and had children of his own, as did his children.  Each generation became martial arts masters in their own rights in Kali, Escrima and additionally, Arnis. Eventually, Tau's great grandson, Bo Lam-Ang, would go on to become the 21st century's new Philippines Fighter.

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