Friday, February 9
The Japanese Intensify Their Orgy of Murder
GIs silhouetted agains the flaming city - US National Archives
The seventh day of fighting dawned with the city still in flames. Despite the announcement by General MacArthur days prior, Manila was still far from secure, and indeed the worst was yet to come as the end of the first week came. The 1st Cavalry Division, having accomplished its objectives in securing the reservoirs to the northeast of the city, were now relocating to rejoin the fight for the city, securing the Wack Wack Country and Golf Club before moving on toward the Pasig, bypassing a major Japanese strongpoint in the National Psychopathic Hospital, where the enemy had constructed a warren of tunnels and had proven difficult to dislodge.
A 1st Cavalry Sherman advances into the city from the East - US National Archives
Following this, the cavalrymen were able to cross the Pasig in the areas of Santa Ana and Makati, establishing bridgeheads and advancing westward along the northern edge of the Genko Line. Their efforts against the line itself were frustrated by the fact that they were near Fort McKinley, the pre-war US Army base that now served as the stronghold of the Japanese in the southern districts, and thus little progress was made, but regardless another foothold had been gained across the Pasig. With the cavalry positioned as they were relative to the 11th Airborne, Admiral Iwabuchi now was faced with imminent envelopment in the city.
A 37mm anti-tank gun is used for direct fire down a street - US National Archives
North of the river, the last significant Japanese position, the Far Eastern University, had finally fallen, and the 37th Infantry continued to expand its hold on the south side of the Pasig from the Malacañang Gardens. The 148th Infantry Regiment advanced southward, toward the Japanese strongpoint at the Paco Rail Station, breaking through the MNDF troops protecting the southern portion of the district.
The station itself was defended by about 800 MNDF troops, and the structure had been heavily fortified and the fighting for the building was fierce in the streets around the building, as the Americans tried to claw their way to the building. In one notable incident, Privates John Reese and Cleto Rodriguez position themselves a mere 60 yards from the station and engage the defenders with their small arms, expending 1,600 rounds of ammunition and killing 82 Japanese soldiers, as well as knocking out a 20mm AA gun and a machine gun nest. Both are killed when they run out of ammunition and attempt to retreat, and both are posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
GIs move along the tracks toward the Paco Rail Station, passing a dead Japanese soldier - US National Archives
While the 148th fought for the station, to the north the 129th Infantry Regiment was moving toward the power station on Provisor Island. Some are able to move directly toward the island, while other elements are caught fighting for the Manila Gas Works just to the south, with Private First Class Joseph Ciccheti receiving the Medal of Honor for his organizing and running a small stretcher team to extract wounded GIs from the murderous Japanese fire, loosing his life in the process.
The first move against Provisor Island had taken place in the morning, as a small recon team is first put ashore in assault boats, sending 17 men in two assault boats. They quickly seized control of the boiler plant before the Japanese could react, but were pushed out by a brutal counterattack at 1100, finding themselves stranded on the island behind the coal piles. Both boats were sunk in a hail of gunfire, with the surviving 9 men, all wounded, finding themselves trapped under heavy fire. Two men tried to swim back across the estero, but both were killed in the attempt. A third man proved successful, and he proceeded to direct mortar fire against the Japanese, preventing them from overrunning the American position by the coal dump.
At 1700, with all the Americans on the island wounded, Captain George West swam across the estero towing an assault boat, attempting to load the worst of the wounded and bring it back across. The Japanese directed heavy fire against it, and it sank as it neared the opposite shore, with three more men being killed. The remaining GIs would still be holding out as darkness fell.
An aerial view of the Pasig, with Provisor Island visible, just above the larger Convalencia Island in the center of the river - US National Archives
The Angels likewise continued their battle for Nichols Field, pushing onto the runways while other elements continued their push to flank around to the north, now also intending to meet the 1st Cavalry troops pushing from Makati and Santa Ana. The fighting remained fierce.
Admiral Iwabuchi was growing concerned about the situation, with the Americans now coming close to surrounding the city. The moment of decision was rapidly approaching: should he remain in the city and fight the final battle of annihilation he had been planning, or take his last chance to comply with Yamashita’s orders and withdraw from the city? He relocated his headquarters from Fort Santiago in Intramuros, where his men were still brutally murdering the trapped civilians in the dungeons, and set up his new headquarters at Fort McKinley. From here, he sent one of his staff officers to travel the ten miles to Shimbu Group headquarters at Montalban, to inform the Imperial Army troops there of the deteriorating situation in Manila. He also made his final decision regarding the civilians: whether the Manila Naval Defense Force withdrew or not, they were to escalate their attacks on the civilians, the military objectives cast aside in favor of one of the worst incidents of mass murder since the fall of Nanking in 1937.
Civilians push a wounded man in a crude cart - US National Archives
The civilian population was now being increasingly exposed to another horror of war, as artillery bombardment became more frequent. The Japanese had already been indiscriminately bombarding the areas under American control, but today that terror spread as the Americans began to reply in kind, with an ever strengthening barrage over Japanese positions in the city. The Americans were becoming aware that the fight for Manila would be a vicious urban struggle until the last Japanese solider had been killed, and earlier efforts to preserve the city intact were falling by the wayside as the tactical need to eliminate reinforced Japanese positions took precedence. But however bad the accidental casualties of the American bombardment were, they were nothing compared to the utter barbarity that was unfolding at the hands of the occupiers.
In the city center, one of the first of the large scale incidents of cruelty began today, as the Japanese forced the residents of the upper class neighborhood of Ermita (immediately south of the government district) to assemble at Plaza Ferguson (now Plaza Guerrero) in front of the Ermita Church. At about 1700 the men were marched down Dewey Boulvard to the Manila Hotel, and the women were taken from the group and herded into the Bayview Hotel, across Dewey Boulevard from the High Commissioner’s residence, where a horrible fate awaited them.
Crowded into the dark building, these women and girls were forced up to the third floor, where they were locked into bare rooms. The Japanese then began selecting from among them, as if they were merely goods on a store shelf, and dragging those chosen to the upper floors where they were subjected to brutal rape. Many are mutilated or even killed during these acts of barbarity.
The ruined seminary at St. Paul’s College - US National Archives
Just to the south in Malate, the Japanese also ordered all the civilians to “evacuate”, this time to St. Paul’s College, with MNDF troops moving door to door and checking backyard bomb shelters. After first assembling in the yard to observe the Japanese practice with their bayonets and sabers, the terrified civilians were herded into a small, sweltering classroom, where several lost consciousness. Later, they were moved to the dining hall, with hundreds crowded within, until 1730.
At that time, the Japanese piled candy and beverages in the center of the room before filing out, leaving the half starved civilians to scramble over the pile. As the mass of people converged, the chandelier above fell onto them, a bomb inside detonating when it hit the floor and sending shards of crystal shrapnel cutting into those not immediately killed in the blast. It was quickly followed by the other chandeliers lining the dining hall, blasting the roof off the building and collapsing outer walls. The room itself was a mangled mass of wounded survivors, corpses and severed limbs, and the Japanese began throwing hand grenades into the room before storming into the room with bayonets, as machine guns in the street mowed down those who tried to flee through the blasted walls. Even the infants were skewered on the bayonets of the Japanese, who then fanned out to hunt down those who escaped the building through the neighborhood. In many cases, parents were forced to watch as their children were murdered, before they too were killed. The survivors reported the maniacal laughter of their attackers, continuing as they spread gasoline to turn the college into a pyre for the 600 they had killed.
Smoke rises from the blazing city center - US National Archives
Other massacres took place today as well, including at the Ermita residence of future President of the Philippines Elpidio Quirino. Forced to flee their home as the shelling intensified, they moved to their home of his mother-in-law, but ran across a Japanese patrol in the process, and his wife and two older daughters were shot. Shortly afterward his son Armando was shot trying to pull them from the street, and his infant daughter Fe was taken from her mother’s lifeless arms, thrown into the air, and skewered on a bayonet. Quirino himself was wounded, along with his son Tomas. One daughter also survived.
Also in Ermita, the Japanese forced their way into the St. Vincent de Paul Church on Calle San Marcelino and took the priests and a number of civilians down the street to the Estero de Balete, where they were machine gunned and left to fall into the water, the wounded drowning. In Paco, about 250 civilians were bound together and shot by the Japanese as the Americans approached.
US Flags - Represent US and Filipino positions, division emblems added as needed.
IJN Flags - Represent known Major Japanese positions
Black “X” - Represent major war crimes committed today
Medal of Honor - Approximate location of CMH action