The Battle of Manila: February 3, 1945 — I Like to Hear Myself Talk History

Day 1: The Americans Enter Manila

***1st Cavalry Division troopers on the outskirts of Manila***
*US National Archives*

The American forces had been closing in on Manila for weeks, and now, as February began, were about to enter it. From the south the 11th Airborne was assaulting Tagaytay Ridge, the last major obstacle to their drive on the city from Nasugbu, while the 37th Infantry had reduced the Japanese at Clark Field sufficiently to resume the advance on the capitol. Finally, elements of the 1st Cavalry Division, ordered by MacArthur to dash to the city, were on the cusp of being the first American forces to enter the Pearl of the Orient since 1941.

At about 1730, the spearhead of the “flying column” of the US 1st Cavalry reached the Tullahan River, which formed the northern boundary of the Greater Manila Metropolitan Area. Here, they came under heavy fire from the small Imperial Japanese Army detachment tasked with holding the northern approaches to the city, and the bridge, although intact, was wired for demolition, and the fuses set. The Cavalry needed to act quickly, and dispatched Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade James Sutton, a demolition expert, to charge onto the span under the rain of fire, where he was able to disarm the large TNT charge and save the vital structure.

***American troops take cover along Rizal Avenue as they come under sniper fire, as curious civilians look on***
*US National Archives*

“We were entering Manila, and all weariness dropped off the shoulders of the men in anticipation of what we were going to have to do.”

— 1st Cavalry Division Report (Scott, p.138)

Crossing into the city, the IJA troops began to withdraw, and the troopers rolled past the Bonifacio Monument, observing Japanese infantry fleeing in the distance. They passed the airfield at Grace Park, its hangars ablaze, and continued at a rapid pace into the city, turning to travel south down Rizal Avenue, greeted by Filipino civilians who welcomed them with singing and cheers.

Despite this joyous reception, the danger was increasing, as Japanese snipers began targeting the cavalrymen as they advanced down the wide road, intending to turn eastward on Azcarraga Street and then south on Quezon Boulevard to cross the Pasig via the Quezon Bridge. As they turned onto Azcarraga Street, however, they came under heavy Japanese fire from the Far Eastern University, forcing the cavalrymen to retreat back up Rizal Avenue. Colonel Chase, commander of the column, ordered a turn through the dark backstreets to instead drive on the University of Santo Tomas, guided through them by Filipino guerillas Capt. Manuel Colayco and Lt. Carlos Paulino.

***Dead Japanese soldiers litter the streets near the Far East University and Bilibid Prison***
*US National Archives*

They cut north of Bilibid Prison to Calle España, avoiding the Japanese positions and minefields with the aid of their Filipino guides, and soon were rolling along the iron fence of the University of Santo Tomas, covered with bamboo mats as it had been for the last three years. The find the gates partially ajar, and a sweep with the searchlights mounted on their sherman tanks revealed no signs of life within the campus. Some of the men, including guerilla Manuel Colayco and reporters Carl Mydans and Frank Hewlett (of Life and United Press, respectively, Mydans and his wife had been held in Santo Tomas until being released in late 1943 through a prisoner exchange, and Hewlett’s wife remained in Japanese captivity inside the camp) cautiously entered the camp, but this triggered fire from Japanese guards, killing Colayco, although the reporters were unscathed.

In response to this, the sherman Battlin’ Basic was ordered to ram the gates, crushing them beneath its treads and pushing onto the campus, backed up by dismounted troopers as flares lit the sky. It is now 1900, and as they approach the main building they kick in the doors and call out for any Americans inside the dark building, the Japanese having cut the power a half hour prior. An elderly prisoner calls out, asking if the soldier is real, to which he answered in the affirmative. The response was a massive outburst of joy, followed by ”God Bless America”.

***The shantytown of the Santo Tomas Internment Camp***
*US National Archives*

Elsewhere on the campus, however, the situation was not as cheery. The Americans approached the Education Building, where the bulk of the Japanese guards, including the Commandant, Lt. Commander Toshio Hayashi of the Imperial Japanese Navy, had barricaded themselves. They had fortified the lower two floors of the building, whilst clustering internees on the third floor to act as human shields.

As the American tanks trundled toward the building, a Japanese guard, Nanakazu Abiko, infamous among the prisoners as the most sadistic of the camp guards, charged from the building with his sword drawn, but was quickly dispatched by a shot by an American rifle. While Abiko lay dying, a group of Japanese officers and two internees approached the Americans to negotiate the surrender of the camp, and as this took place internees crowded around the wounded Lt. Abiko, kicking and spitting on him, and a woman stubbed out a cigarette on his face as another cut off his ear. He was eventually taken to the medical office, where he died four hours later.

***Children speak with cavalrymen outside Santo Tomas***
*US National Archives*

Negotiations initially went nowhere. The Americans demanded the surrender of the Japanese guards, which was rejected, and, after ordering the hostages to take cover, the shermans opened fire on the Education Building. For the time being, the Japanese remained defiant with their hostages through the night.

Meanwhile, other elements of the 1st Cavalry had pressed on. The first of the three primary objectives given to them by General MacArthur, the liberation of Santo Tomas, was essentially accomplished, and their attempts to reach another, the Legislature Building, had been blocked by destroyed bridges over the Pasig and Japanese resistance. That left the capture of the Malacañang Palace, executive mansion of the Philippines, as the last of the main targets prescribed. This proved to be a simple task, as the Presidential Guards stationed there, while ostentatiously loyal to Laurel and his collaborationist government, welcomed the US cavalrymen with an exchange of salutes as liberators.

***Paratroopers of the 11th Airborne Division’s 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment board C47s to drop on Tagaytay Ridge***
*US National Archives*

As the 1st Cavalry entered the city, to the south elements of the 11th Airborne Division dropped on Tagaytay Ridge, jumping at 0815 against the last of the three main Japanese positions between the beachhead at Nasugbu and Manila. Pathfinders infiltrated the Japanese lines from the ground to mark the drop zones, and the paratroopers of the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment landed with little incident, attacking the Japanese positions from the rear as the main force pressed their assault. During the attack, 8th Army Commander General Robert Eichelberger, as well as the 11th Airborne’s commander, General Swing, were under sustained enemy fire as they led the attack.

With support from mortars, pack howitzers and aircraft, the paratroopers were able to slowly push the Japanese back, with the main forcing linking with the 511th by 1300. With some elements tasked with eliminating the remaining Japanese resistance, the rest of the division regrouped for the drive on Manila, as General Eichelberger moved his command post to the Manila Hotel Annex on the ridge. From their position they can see the city stretching out below them, and the smoke rising as an ever growing section of it is set ablaze.

***Generals Swing (left) and Eichelberger confer in a jeep at the Manila Hotel Annex on Tagaytay Ridge after it was taken by Swing’s paratroopers***
*US National Archives*

In the city itself, the first signs of what Iwabuchi and the Japanese had in store for the civilians were becoming apparent. Over the last few days, the Japanese secret police, the Kempeitei, had been sweeping the city and arresting individuals and entire families, and by today at least 200 had been murdered by them in the Masonic Temple on Taft Avenue. Also today, trucks containing Japanese infantry had appeared on the streets north of the Pasig, with loads of aviation fuel and explosives, and began to torch parts of the city. Machine guns were set up across the area as well, and the Japanese opened fire on civilians as they attempted to save their homes and businesses.

In Tondo, the collaborationist Makapili swept the neighborhood with Japanese troops, rounding up suspected guerillas, and setting explosives to destroy the district to slow the American advance. Those taken are herded into Isabela Delos Reyes Elementary School, where they are forced to wait for evening in the kitchens of the school. Come nightfall, the male prisoners were taken across the street to the Dy Pac Lumber Yard.

***The wall of the Dy Pac Lumberyard***
*US National Archives*

The men were lined up, their hands tied behind their backs, along Estero de la Reina, and the Japanese began taking them one by one. They were forced to their knees and decapitated, the process repeated with each man in line. Others were bayoneted, and at least one had his skull crushed with a rifle butt. Eventually they had killed almost all of the men, save for a few who successfully feigned death, and left the yard, returning some time later with the women and children who had been held in the school. Even the infants are not spared the Japanese bayonets, with some even thrown into the air to be skewered on a Japanese blade. After the children the Japanese set upon their mothers and the other women. The massacre at Dy Pac Lumber Yard would claim at least 115 men, women and children. Only four survivors were identified.

***Guerillas wave the US flag as they assemble to join the liberation of Manila***
*US National Archives*

The fighting for Manila had barely begun, but would soon intensify, as would the Japanese atrocities against the civilians trapped under their control. The Americans now had a foothold at Santo Tomas and the Malacañang Palace, but the flying columns were few in number, and a very real danger was posed by the possibility of a Japanese counterattack before the rest of the American forces arrived from the north. Despite the accomplishment of two of the three primary objectives ordered by General MacArthur, it would be another month before the Japanese were eliminated from Manila, and precious little of the city would survive the devastation to be wrought upon it.

Saturday, 3 February

Day 1: The Americans Enter Manila

Sunday, 4 February

I Like to Hear Myself Talk History