The United States of America
By 1945 the early victories of the Japanese were nothing but a memory. The United States was advancing victoriously on all fronts, from the jungles of the Philippines to the frozen forests of western Germany. The industrial might of the country was staggering, able to produce an astounding amount of war materiel which was by this point not only providing the American solder with some of the best equipment in the world, but doing the same to the rest of the Allied block. The vaunted Imperial Japanese Navy had been all but destroyed in the Battle of Leyte Gulf that preceded the Philippine Campaign, and by early 1945 it was a question of when, not if, the Americans would reach Japan itself.
The loss of the Philippines in early 1942 had been the worst defeat in the history of the United States, and as a US dependency it was considered an obligation to liberate the people of the Philippines from Japanese occupation. Regardless of how thoroughly the Japanese intended to defend Manila, the Americans had the resources to crush them. The Philippines would be liberated, no matter the cost.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Despite winning an unprecedented fourth term as President of the United States in 1944, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was, by 1945, in a state of rapidly declining health. Many had been shocked by how frail the Commander in Chief had looked upon his return from the famous Yalta Conference, and indeed he would not survive to see the end of the war. The President had been convinced, however, by MacArthur in 1944 that the liberation of the Philippines was both strategically and morally mandated, and fully supported the operations in the archipelago.
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur - Southwest Pacific Area
Douglas MacArthur had been in command of the disastrous defense of the Philippines in 1941/42, having eventually fled the fortified island of Corregidor when the main lines on the Bataan Peninsula were about to fall. Since his flight, he had commanded the US Army forces active in the South Pacific, notably through the New Guinea Campaign. He had promised to the Philippines that he would return, however, and had lobbied heavily and successfully against Admiral Chester Nimitz for the President’s approval for an invasion of the archipelago, as opposed to the Navy-sponsored invasion of Formosa.
MacArthur had a long relationship with the Philippines, with his father having led the US forces that captured the city from Spain in the 1898 war. Arthur MacArthur was a decorated hero of the American Civil War who had received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions at Missionary Ridge in Tennessee, and his son was shepherded by his mother using his father’s name through West Point and his early military career. Douglas himself returned to the Philippines immediately after his graduation from West Point in 1903, but would soon leave again, going on to serve in Mexico and France during the Great War.
By 1925 MacArthur was the youngest Major General in the US Army, and again posted to the Philippines, where he endeared himself to the Filipino troops as as well as politician Manuel Quezon. In 1930 MacArthur had taken up the post of Chief of Staff of the US Army, a post he retained until 1935, when he accepted a post as Field Marshal of the Philippines. Moving to Manila, he took up residence in an opulent penthouse at the Manila Hotel, and set about building the Philippine Army.
When the Japanese attacked on 8 December 1941 MacArthur was indecisive, and his lack of conclusive orders played a role in the immediate destruction of the US Far East Air Forces, depriving him of air cover. Withdrawing his forces onto the Bataan Peninsula and his own headquarters onto the fortified island of Corregidor. It was here that he gained the unflattering nickname of “Dugout Doug” from the men in the jungles of Bataan, and he had eventually fled the island by PT boat as the situation deteriorated, ordered by the President to take up a posting in Australia. He finally made good on his promise to return in January, 1945, stepping ashore on the shore of Lingayen Gulf on Luzon and starting the drive on Manila.
Lt. General Walter Krueger - US 6th Army
A veteran of both the Spanish-American War and World War I, Walter Krueger had come to the United States as a boy from his native Prussia. During his service he had also a part of the force sent to put down the Philippine Insurrection in 1899 under General Arthur MacArthur. A well rounded general, he had served as Chief of Staff for the Tank Corps in 1918, and later attempted to join the US Army Air Force as well as a serving as a teacher at the US Naval War College. His organizational skills were also notable, setting templates for the US Army in the interwar years.
Krueger was appointed in 1943 by Douglas MacArthur to form the new US 6th Army, which would form the core of MacArthur’s forces in the South Pacific Area. Fighting from Rabaul through New Guinea and then across Leyte in 1944, the 6th Army landed at Lingayen Gulf in early 1945 and promptly started to advance southward toward Manila. Under considerable pressure from MacArthur, Krueger was cautious with his forces, drew the ire of the Theater Commander. Placing his headquarters forward of Krueger, MacArthur ordered Krueger’s bitter rival General Robert Eichelberger to make an advance on the city from the south with his 8th Army, prompting Krueger to deploy a mechanized “Flying Column” to reach the city as quickly as possible.
Major General Oscar Griswold - XIV Corps
Major General Oscar Griswold had taken command of the 6th Army’s XIV Corps in 1943, replacing Alexander Patch, who had led the force on Guadalcanal. Another veteran of the First World War, Griswold had served in the Meuse-Argonne in 1918, and in the interwar period had served as a staff officer and a division commander. By 1945 he had commanded his corps on New Georgia as well as Bougainville, and it was they who spearheaded the landing at Lingayen Gulf in 1945. The advance southward was cautious, but when the battle for Manila began Griswold would be the third link on the chain of command.
Major General Verne Mudge - 1st Cavalry Division
Verne Mudge had taken command of the US 1st Cavalry Division during the Admiralty Islands Campaign of 1944, and had later led them across Leyte. An aggressive cavalry commander, Mudge’s cavalry was ordered to form the flying column dispatched ahead of the 6th Army to enter the city of Manila, with Brigadier General William Chase placed in command of the force. Mudge, often leading from the front, would follow behind with the rest of the division’s armor and dismounted infantry.
Major General Robert Beightler - 37th Infantry Division
Robert S. Beightler was an Ohioan from a family that had fought in every major US conflict since the Revolution. Serving as an NCO in the Ohio National Guard during the Punitive Expedition into Mexico, he had been commissioned just in time to go to France with the American Expeditionary Forces in 1917. Returning to active duty in the early 1930s, Beightler would (unusually for a National Guard officer) serve on the Army General Staff before returning to Ohio to serve with and eventually command the 37th Infantry Division. He would lead the division in New Guinea and across Bougainville, and by the time they were redeployed to Luzon in early 1945 Beightler commanded a force of seasoned veterans of jungle warfare.
Lt. General Robert Eichelberger - 8th Army
In the south, Lt. General Robert Eichelberger commanded the 8th US Army. A former subordinate of Krueger, Eichelberger harbored a resentment against the former for reliving him of command of I Corps after the battle of Biak, where the 6th Army commander believed he had been too cautious. Despite this, he had been promoted and placed in command of the newly formed 8th Army by MacArthur, taking command as they deployed on Leyte in 1944. With a focus on small unit actions and initiative by junior officers, Eichelberger commanded a flexible force, despite the bad blood that existed between him and the 6th Army commander.
Major General Joseph Swing - 11th Airborne Division
Joseph “Jumping Joe” Swing was another veteran of the Great War, Joseph Swing was a Colonel in the 82nd Infantry Division’s artillery when the United States entered the Second World War. He would remain in this post when the division became an airborne formation, until in 1943 he received a promotion to Major General and took command of the newly formed 11th Airborne Division. The Division had been deployed for the first time on Leyte in November of 1944, fighting as infantry in the campaign. Credited with saving the concept of the Airborne forces with his leadership earlier during the training of the 11th, Swing was now to serve with the 8th Army, advancing toward Manila from the south.
Units
The Commonwealth of the Philippines
Under the terms of the Tydings–McDuffie Act the government of the United States had formalized a plan for the Philippines to transition to become fully independent in 1945. This had led to the gradual dismantling of the American Philippine Islands territorial administration and its replacement with a new government mirroring a sovereign nation. By the time of the Second World War the country had adopted its own constitution, elected its own President and raised its own Army. This had been progressing smoothly until the Japanese Invasion in December of 1941, which had abruptly ceased the operations of the Commonwealth as an effective government, as its leadership fled with the Americans overseas and the remnants of its forces retreated into the jungles to form an insurgency that was among the most effective in the war. Filipino forces joined the Americans in liberating their country, and the government had returned as soon as was possible to Leyte, and finally to Luzon, with President Osmeña and his cabinet moving with MacArthur, eagerly awaiting the moment they could return to Manila.
President Sergio Osmeña
The first President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, Manuel Quezon, had been forced to flee the country with his friend General MacArthur in 1941 as it fell to the Japanese. Leading a Government in Exile from that point, Quezon died of Tuberculosis in 1944, mere months before the liberation of his country began.
He was succeeded by his Vice President, Sergio Osmeña a protégé of Quezon who had serving as his Vice President since 1935, joining him to be inaugurated for a second term on the besieged island of Corregidor in Manila Bay. Osmeña had come ashore at Leyte, with the government moving to Tacloban on the island, with a short radio address being broadcast to the Filipino people. Following this, President Osmeña was left in the Tacloban Commonwealth Building after a short ceremony, without transportation or even a solid idea where he would be spending the night. After the invasion of Luzon, a message from Osmeña was printed and dropped from aircraft in Manila, as the President prepared to join MacArthur in a triumphal reentry into the capital.
