U.S. returns 3 church bells taken as war booty from Philippines in 1901

Three church bells seized by American troops as war trophies more than a century ago have been returned to the Philippines.

Locals from Balangiga, a seaside town in Eastern Samar province in the central Philippines, used the church bells to signal an attack against American soldiers at dawn on Sept. 28, 1901.

American occupation troops took the bells from a Catholic church following an attack by machete-wielding Filipino villagers in one of the U.S. Army’s worst single-battle losses of that era.

The bells are revered by Filipinos as symbols of national pride.

Two of the bells had been on display at the Warren Air Force base in Cheyenne, Wyoming and another at a U.S. military facility in South Korea.

After the handover ceremony held in Manila, the three bells will be flown by a Philippine Air Force plane to Eastern Samar for their return to Balangiga church officials on Saturday.