The Japanese Empire
大日本帝國 - Dai Nippon Teikoku
Three years had passed since the great victories of the Empire of the Rising Sun in Asia and the Pacific. Despite the enormous gains made after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese had been checked at Midway in 1942, and from that point on had been pushed back across the Pacific regions by an ever more powerful Allied force. Perhaps most acute were the ever worsening shortages of strategic resources, as US naval forces closed more and more routes of supply to the Home Islands of what limited resources were available, leaving the Japanese war industry a stark contrast to the massive capacity of its American counterpart in the latter half of the war.
By early 1945 the Imperial Japanese Navy had been all but destroyed, leaving the remaining forces of the Empire scattered across the Asia-Pacific region to fight defensive battles as the Allies closed in. The island-hopping campaign by the Untied States was by now rapidly closing in on the Home Islands themselves, and the situation was becoming increasingly dire. In their desperation, the Japanese were only fighting harder, resorting even to suicidal kamikaze attacks in an attempt to stem the unstoppable American advance.
Emperor Hirohito - 天皇 裕仁 - Tenno Hirohito
Despite all the setbacks incurred by his armies, as 1945 began Emperor Hirohito remained resolute in his conviction that Japan continue the fight rather than seek an armistice. When the Americans had invaded Leyte in 1944 it had been the decision of the Imperial General Headquarters that this would be the site of the decisive defense of the archipelago, forcing General Yamashita, who favored a defense of the more important Luzon, to redeploy his forces onto a less defensible island where they were ultimately defeated.
The Emperor was enthralled by the idea of complete sacrifice, and had already begun overseeing the preparations for a suicidal defense of the Home Islands. He began to lose interest in the struggle for the Philippines, however, as the war came closer to home, and by the time of the Invasion of Luzon the area had become of less importance as the Americans approached the Japanese islands themselves.
Prime Minister Kuniaki Koiso - 小磯國昭
A General in the Imperial Japanese Army, Emperor Hirohito had named Kuniaki Koiso as Prime Minister in the summer of 1944, following the dismissal of Hideki Tojo from the post. After the fall of Saipan the long serving Tojo had lost the confidence of the Emperor, and Koiso was recalled to Japan from his post as Governor General of Korea to form a government. A convinced ultranationalist, Koiso had been involved with an attempted coup in 1931, and his plan for the persecution of the war boiled down to decisively defeating the Americans when they attempted to invade the Philippines in 1944, allowing Japan to open negotiations from a position of strength. When this failed, he was left with little alternative but to continue to fight the now hopeless war.
General Tomoyuki Yamashita - 山下 奉文 - 14th Area Army
When he took command of the Philippines in 1944, General Tomoyuki Yamashita had his work cut out for him. The Japanese general was famous for his leadership in the campaigns against the British in Malaya in late 1941 and early 1942, earning the nickname of the “Tiger of Malaya”, but the disorganized state of the Japanese troops in the archipelago would prove a test for his leadership ability.
A veteran of the brief war against the Germans in 1914,after returning to Japan in 1922 he had steadily rose through the ranks until his push for reform had rankled the influential General Hideki Tojo and even the Emperor himself, resulting in Yamashita being reassigned to backwater postings in Manchukuo for a time. His moment of glory would come in late 1941, when he was assigned to command the 25th Army, tasked with the invasion of British Malaya and the capture of Singapore, the so-called “Gibraltar of the East”. This he accomplished, earning the nickname “Tiger of Malaya”, but despite this his rivalry with now Prime Minister Tojo ensured he was quickly sent back to Manchuria, where he remained until Tojo fell from grace in 1944.
The new Koiso government promptly ordered Yamashita to take command of the 14th Area Army in the Philippines, by now under direct threat of an imminent American invasion. Arriving on October 10, 1944 to take command of the Philippines, he had his work cut out for him, with only three of his fifteen staff officers having any experience in the Philippines. In addition, he only knew and trusted one of them, Lieutenant General Akira Muto, who served as his Chief of Staff. The troops he commanded were exhausted, not the least reason being that the non-cooperation of the local Filipinos forced the Japanese to use their own soldiers for even menial tasks such as loading and unloading ships. He also faced the same issues that plagued the entire Empire by this late stage of the war: critical shortages of almost every type of supply. Petrol, ammunition, and even food were difficult to acquire.
The situation in regard to the Japanese command’s familiarity with the islands is best summed up nine days after Yamashita arrived in the Philippines, when the Americans landed at Leyte. General Muto, upon being informed of the landings, uttered a single question: “Where is Leyte?”
As the Leyte Campaign proved disastrous for the Japanese, Yamashita prepared for the invasion of Luzon, which came on January 6th of 1945. Yamashita’s strategy for the defense of the heart of the archipelago consisted of dividing the 260,000 men under his command into three groups: the largest, designated Shobu, was under Yamashita’s direct command and was tasked with the defense of the northern sector of the island, where Yamashita intended to fight the main battle for the Philippines. Kembu Group was detailed to defend Bataan, where the Americans had made their last stand in 1942, while Shimbu Group was tasked with the defense of the capitol and the south of the island.
Faced with the rapid US advance on the city from both north and south in late January, Yamashita ordered his forces to abandon Manila, leaving the capitol to the advancing Americans so as to preserve his strength for the protracted fight he planned in the mountains. Despite this, the Imperial Navy commander of the city garrison, Rear Admiral Iwabuchi, refused to comply and began fortifying the city, even as Yamashita’s Army troops withdrew in whatever transportation could be made available.
Read Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi - 岩淵 三次 - Manila Naval Defense Force
The man more responsible than any other for the horror that unfolded in Manila in early 1945 is also one of the more mysterious figures of the event. Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi, born in 1895, was an officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy, having graduated the Naval Officer’s Academy in 1915. Trained as a gunnery officer, he served in that capacity with various ships and shore batteries before being promoted to Captain in 1937, taking command of the seaplane tender IJN Kamoi.
Shortly after the commencement of hostilities with the United States Iwabuchi took command of the battleship IJN Kirishima, participating in a limited capacity during the Battle of Midway before redeploying to Truk to support Japanese operations on Guadalcanal. During the ensuing naval combat around Guadalcanal, the Kirishmima would be sunk on November 15, 1942 by the USS Washington, being the only Japanese battleship to be sunk by another battleship during the Second World War. Despite the loss of his ship, Captain Iwabuchi survived, and many speculate that the disgrace of his loss and survival led to his attitudes in Manila two years later. In response to the loss of his ship Iwabuchi was promoted to Rear Admiral and assigned to a shore command, effectively shunted behind a desk to finish off his career in ignominy.
Despite the dead-end nature of his new posting, as the war situation for Japan deteriorated Iwabuchi’s experience could not be discarded, and he was named commander of the 31st Naval Special Base Force, tasked with the defense of Imperial Navy assets in Manila. A small force of Special Naval Landing Forces (SNLF, commonly referred to as Japanese Marines), and a motley collection of sailors from damaged or sunken vessels in Manila Harbor comprised Iwabuchi’s new command.
As the Americans closed in on the capitol in January of 1945 Iwabuchi was ordered by his nominal superior General Yamashita to prepare to evacuate the city, but the Admiral refused to obey the orders of an Army officer, instead informing his superiors at the Naval Command in Tokyo that he intended to stand and fight to the death in the city with the men under his command. This force of about 16,000 were formed into the Manila Naval Defense Force (MNDF), and set about fortifying the city for a final, suicidal stand under Iwabuchi, who saw a fight to the death the only path to redemption for his failures in commanding a warship. His other, darker intention was to exact a terrible revenge upon the citizens of the city for their support of the Americans, and to deny the Americans the prize they had surrendered to Japan three years prior.
The Second Philippine Republic
When the Commonwealth Government fled from Corregidor in 1942 President Manuel Quezon had appointed Jose Santos, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, as acting President. When he refused to cooperate with the Japanese after his capture, he was executed, and the Japanese declared the Commonwealth dissolved.
Replacing it was an Executive Commission under the nominal control of Manila Mayor Jorge Vargas, and this was reorganized in 1943 as the Second Philippine Republic, a puppet state under the control of the KALIBAPI Party (Association for Service to the New Philippines). An essentially impotent puppet state, its actions were limited to the actions of the Makapili, a collaborationist militia that terrorized the population of cities and settlements as they hunted anti-Japanese guerillas.
President Jose Laurel
Jose Laurel was a former Supreme Court Justice, and a longstanding critic of the United States, and had been elected as President of the Republic when it was formed by the Japanese in 1943. Laurel presided over a nation that in many ways existed only on paper, forced to comply with the whims of the Japanese occupation forces and shackled to a collapsing economy wracked by shortages and tethered to worthless currency. Laurel attempted to appeal to nationalism to shore up support for his regime, but with the abuses committed by the Japanese against the population even many hardcore nationalists found the American administration preferable, and as the Americans closed in on Manila Laurel’s limited power there was lost as the government evacuated to Baguio.The local Makipili were left to continue their operations in the city as long as possible as the Japanese Manila Naval Defense Force set about fortifying the city, as the battle loomed.
