Saturday, 3 March

The End

The ruins of the San Luis Terrace
US National Archives

The last of the 75 Japanese troops inside the Finance Building were eliminated in the predawn hours of March 3rd, finally reducing the last Japanese strongpoint in the city. A small Japanese position on Wallace Field was all that remained, and with the Americans no longer distracted by the government buildings, it was swiftly destroyed this morning. By the afternoon, all notable pockets had been eliminated, and General Griswold reported to Sixth Army headquarters that Manila was secure.

The battle that was not supposed to happen, then was supposed to be over within a week, had dragged on for an entire month. The Pearl of the Orient had been laid waste, over 1,000 American soldiers had been killed along with more than 16,000 Japanese soldiers. Dwarfing both sides was the amount of civilian casualties, with more than 100,000 left dead and untold numbers more wounded and maimed, with not one having escaped the psychological trauma. Their homes and businesses were almost universally destroyed, and it seemed no family made it through the horrific ordeal unscathed.

The Battle of Manilla had been the most brutal urban fight of the Pacific War, one of the greatest atrocities committed by any military during the Second World War, and had left Manila behind only Warsaw and Stalingrad in terms of physical destruction.

A crude “battlefield cross” marks the spot where an American soldier fell in Manila - US National Archives