Prelude: Fall of the Philippines
December 8, 1941 - May 8, 1942
Phillipine Scouts advance on Luzon with a Stuart light tank
On December 8th, 1941 (in the Philippines, as they are past the International Date Line) Japanese carrier planes attacked and destroyed the bulk of the US Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor. Concurrently, they launched attacks against other US Pacific possessions, including the Philippines. Suddenly, the United States was at war, the the Philippines were directly in the sights of the rapidly expanding Empire of Japan.
On the night of December 7th the people of Manila and the Philippines were in a celebratory mood. The Feast of the Immaculate Conception was the next day, and the majority Catholic Filipinos were busying themselves preparing for the upcoming festivities. Many officers of the US Far East Air Force (USFEAF) had attended a party for senior officers, and returned to their bases drunk in the early hours of the morning. When word of the Japanese attack came, efforts were hastily put in motion to defend the Philippines from the very real threat of attack by land based Japanese aircraft operating from Formosa, but these efforts proved fruitless. Most US aircraft were destroyed on the ground, as Japanese medium bombers attacked the USFEAF bases, followed rapidly by strafing fighters. Only one squadron of US P40 fighters were able to take off, and these were unable to make contact with any enemy aircraft before running out of fuel. In one stroke, the Japanese had achieved air superiority over the archipelago.
US Army
Initial Japanese landings took place on a small island north of Luzon on December 8th, followed by landings in northern Luzon. US opposition was limited, with the USFEAF only able to muster two B17 bombers to attack Japanese troopships, which met with limited success. Further Japanese landings followed, with more troops landing in southern Luzon on December 12, with additional Japanese forces landing on Mindanao on December 19th.
The situation continued to deteriorate for the US, with their air power all but annihilated, Admiral Thomas Hart ordered the withdrawal of the US Asiatic Fleet following the destruction of the naval base at Cavite on December 10th, leaving only a token force of submarines and torpedo boats to defend the Philippines.
The Cavite Naval Yard burns after Japanese air attacks
“Stock up with tins, old boy, before the blitz”
The government began a frantic attempt to evacuate civilians from Manila soon after the commencement of hostilities, although it was poorly organized it successfully evacuates almost 200,000 people from the capitol. Meanwhile, the Philippine Constabulary had begun arresting Japanese and German nationals and placing them in Bilibid Prison in northern Manila. The United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) boasted the Philippine Department of the regular US Army, as well as having operational control over the Philippine Commonwealth Army, although the Filipino forces have only been trained for an average of four months.
General Masaharu Homma disembarks a landing craft in Lingayen Gulf
On December 22m 1941 the main Japanese force, the 14th Area Army under the command of General Masaharu Homma, landed at Lingayen Gulf, with their objective being to drive on Manila as quickly as possible, linking up with addition IJA forces advancing from southern Luzon. A counterattack was mounted by US and Filipino cavalry and light tanks from General Wainwright’s Northern Luzon Force, but this was repelled with heavy casualties by the Japanese invaders.
Japanese soldiers pose with a captured US Stuart light tank
The failure of the couterattacks led to General MacArthur, commander in chief of the USAFFE, to activate War Plan Orange, a pre-war contingency for the withdrawal to the Bataan peninsula on the north side of Manila Bay, as well as the fortified islands of El Fraile and Corregidor. This required the establishment of five phase lines between the Japanese beachhead at Lingayen and Manila to facilitate this withdrawal. MacArthur was quite attached to Manila, having lived in a lavish penthouse at the classy Manila Hotel during his service as commander of the USAFFE, and also held the rank of Field Marshal in the Philippine Commonwealth Army, a post he secured through his longtime friendship with President Manuel Quezon. He had no desire to see the Pearl of the Orient laid waste by urban fighting and was forced to make plans to declare it an open city and abandon it entirely without resistance.
A 37mm anti-tank gun set up on a road
As the Japanese continued sporadic air raids on Manila, the US forces defending the city withdrew, leaving the city to the oncoming Japanese forces. Surreal scenes, such as a department store Santa Claus helping to clear the rubble of an air raid, become more common, as Japanese attacks continue and government services begin to decline. At the urging of MacArthur, President Quezon moved the government to Corregidor on the 23rd of December, leaving a small cartaker administration behind to await the Japanese.
On Christmas Eve the capitol was declared an open city on local radio, with the official proclamation issued by MacArthur two days later. Despite the declaration, the Japanese commenced a large scale saturation air raid on the city on December 27th, and on the 28th the US Army Corps of Engineers destroyed the fuel silos in the Pandacan district to deny their use to the Japanese. Food warehouses were opened by the retreating authorities, intended to help the populace survive the immediate future as well as deny these to the Japanese as well, but the all but unarmed Constabulary was unable to maintain order during distribution, and the looting of these warehouses soon spread throughout the city. The scene was set by the stench of the burning oil that now permeated the city, and the plumes of black smoke intermittently blotted out the sun.
Japanese troops enter Manila - Manila Nostalgia/LIFE photographer Carl Mydans
On New Year’s Eve Colonel Carlos Romulo, erstwhile editor of the Manila Herald, who had remained behind at a rear echelon headquarters in the city, prepared to leave for Corregidor. He ducked into the Manila Hotel, hoping to scavenge supplies from its kitchens, and later reported the surreal scene of American couples slow dancing in the lobby while a band played. The last gasp of American Manila had arrived.
The Japanese entered the capitol at dawn on January 2nd, 1942, with motorcycle and bicycle troops preceding tanks, moving down Taft Avenue as they advanced to the city center. As they reached Dewey Boulevard, they entered the US High Commissioner’s Residence and hauled down the US Stars and Stripes, replacing it with the Rising Sun of the Empire.
Japanese troops advance with a tank toward Bataan
As the Japanese entered the Pearl of the Orient, Wainwright’s forces were fighting hard to keep the road to Bataan open, in the face of increasing Japanese attacks. Despite the fierce enemy onslaught and the loss of more than half of their remaining Stuart tanks, they were successful in holding the road open, and were the last units to withdraw into the Bataan Peninsula on January 6th.
The Japanese would spend the next several days launching probing attacks and air raids on Bataan, as they prepared for their main offensive to destroy the last major bastion of organized resistance in the archipelago.
US Army
MacArthur’s forces were deployed into two defensive lines, with a reserve force near the tip of the peninsula. The American defenses came under sustained attack by Japanese forces on January 14th, and despite fighting fiercely, the Japanese were able to penetrate the first line. Counterattacks by the US forces proved unsuccessful, and the first line was abandoned before the end of the month. MacArthur continued to assure his men that a massive relief force was coming from the United States to save the “Battling Bastards of Bataan”, but the Washington had already decided that the situation was unsalvageable. No relief was coming, and MacArthur signaled the War Department that he intended to fight to the end on Bataan.
US troops in a position on Bataan
As the main Japanese force continued to push down the peninsula amphibious landings were also commenced at points along the peninsula, although these met with only marginal success. On February 8th, the Japanese broke off their attacks in order to regroup, and by the 22nd they had relinquished several miles of ground, in a victory for the defenders that provided a much needed morale boost.
On January 23rd orders came from Washington for MacArthur to be evacuated from Corregidor, as the political implications of allowing him to be killed or captured by the Japanese when he had become a hero in the eyes of public were considered to be unacceptable. After a month of limited but intensifying Japanese attacks, MacArthur left the Philippines aboard a PT boat on March 23rd, eventually making it to safety in Australia, leaving General Wainwright in command of the forces still trapped on Bataan and Corregidor.
The Japanese began to intensify their attacks on the 28th of March, with the main assault taking place on the April 3rd. Running out of supplies and exhausted, the defenders began to collapse as unit cohesion began to break down. Japanese forces were able to penetrate the line at Mount Samat, and soon resistance began to collapse in earnest. The last US forces were overrun while attempting to evacuate to Corregidor on the 10th of April, 1942, ending the Battle of Bataan. Wainwright now prepared for his last stand on Corregidor.
MacArthur on Corregidor before his flight in late March of 1942
US Army
The final stand of the US in the Philippines began almost a month later, when the Japanese began a massive air and artillery bombardment of the island fortress. Five days later, on the night of May 5th, Japanese troops landed on the island and were able to secure a beachhead despite high casualties from strong resistance by the remnants of the US and Filipino forces. Japanese forces were able to regroup after midnight and silenced Battery Denver before dawn on the 6th.
The small US Marine garrison was then committed to push the Japanese from Battery Denver, engaging in brutal hand to hand combat with bayonets and grenades. The viscous fighting continued past the dawn, but the Japanese were able to gain the initiative when tank forces were landed at about 0930 and engaged the defenders, forcing them back toward Malinta hill. The enemy was now quite literally at the gates, with the fighting now mere yards from the mouth of the Malinta Tunnel, the labyrinth that served as the last bastion of American control in the Philippines.
Japanese troops haul down the US flag on Corregidor
“There is a limit of human endurance, and that point has long been passed”
With continued resistance hopeless, and faced with the prospect of the tunnels that contained not just his headquarters but also hundreds of civilians and wounded, General Wainwright asked General Homma for terms of surrender. The demands were simple: the capitulation of all US forces in the Philippines. Wainwright acquiesced, transmitting an order to the active US and Filipino forces in Minandao to surrender, which was acknowledged, although many of the troops there did not comply and instead became guerrillas.
Japanese troops guard POWs during the infamous Bataan Death March
The Japanese had a reputation for brutality that was well known since their action in China, and after the Fall of the Philippines they made it clear that they intended to make no changes. Prisoners of war from Bataan were infamously forced to march from Bataan to the railhead at Capas some 60 miles away. During this brutal forced march thousands of POWs would die from exhaustion, malnutrition, as well as outright torture. Prisoners who asked for water or fell behind were shot or bayoneted, as were others who were simply randomly targeted by the Japanese for summary execution. Many who collapsed from exhaustion were simply run over by following trucks. Conditions did not improve when they boarded the trains, crammed into unventiliated boxcars so tightly that when POWs died or lost consciousness they could not fall down, and remained on their feet. All in all, almost 30,000 POWs died during the course of the Bataan Death March, an event that would go down in history as one of the most infamous of Japanese war crimes.
Japanese troops cheer the fall of Corregidor
The prisoners of Corregidor were spared the death march, and instead were paraded through the streets of Manila, eventually incarcerated inside Bilibid Prison. General Wainwright was shipped to a prison camp in Manchuria, where he would remain for the duration of the war. An attempt to award him the Congressional Medal of Honor was blocked by the influence of General MacArthur, who feared it would accentuate his abandonment of the garrison.
MacArthur himself, on the other hand, accepted the Medal of Honor for his command at Bataan, although this was mainly done to counter enemy propaganda that the Americans best general had fled in the face of the Japanese. The American public saw MacArthur as a hero, as did many civilians in the now occupied Philippines, with his promise of “I shall return” becoming a slogan for American efforts in the south Pacific in subsequent years. The opinion of his own men was less favorable, however, as the man who already had a reputation as “Dugout Doug” was still considered to have fled to safety while leaving his men to be annihilated by the Japanese advance.
The Fall of the Philippines was the greatest military defeat in the United States during the Second World War, and perhaps in its entire history. Almost 23,000 US servicemen and 100,000 Filipinos were killed or captured during the campaign, and the loss of the one of the largest and most prominent American overseas territories was a humiliating defeat that rounded out the terrible opening months of the war in the Pacific for the Americans. For the people of the Philippines, however, the horror was just beginning as the Japanese occupation of the islands began.