As World War 2 was coming to an end, the Japanese forces cornered at the Philippine
Archipelago resorted to the most primitive tactics to halt the American advance,
inflicting a lot of pain on the innocent people of Manila.
General Douglas MacArthur then fulfilled his promise to return to the Philippines,
and his forces engaged the relentless Japanese soldiers in their fight for
every inch of the formerly majestic city known as the Queen of the Pacific.
The brutal conflict would become one of the bitterest urban battles in the whole
war and would last much longer than it should because of one man’s pride,
affecting hundreds of thousands of lives and leveling the city to the ground.
The only thing left to reinstate peace in the country would be the
Filipinos’ sheer will and perseverance, and the urgent help from their allies…
Oppression And Hope
The Philippine capital had been occupied by the Japanese for three years and seven days
by the time the Americans returned to fulfill General
Douglas MacArthur’s promise to come back to the country.
On January 9, 1945, the Sixth US Army,
led by Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, waded ashore at Lingayen Gulf.
The strategy called for a two-front attack from the north and south,
and as the Americans advanced towards the capital,
they hoped for a peaceful surrender of the Imperial Japanese forces holding Manila.
However, the so-called Tiger of Malaya, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, did not declare it an open
city like MacArthur had done in 1941 and therefore condemned the city known as the
Pearl of the Orient and its inhabitants to a fate only rivaled by Warsaw and Stalingrad.
During this time, the one-million population of Manila had been enduring misery,
as the Japanese oppressors wrecked the local economy and forced parents
to abandon their children to orphanages or even sell them.
As starvation claimed hundreds of lives each passing day, the desperate locals
would rob graves in search of eyeglasses, dentures, or anything worth a day’s meal.
Still, the Japanese’s most cruel atrocities were yet to come.
The Filipinos silently defied Japanese Imperialism with their passive resistance
and their loyalty to the Americans and would thus suffer the consequences while awaiting freedom.
Soon, Japanese squads began hunting the locals and instilling terror among the population,
and these tactics would succeed in delaying the American advance.
Meanwhile, Major General Oscar Griswold pushed from the north with his XIV Corps, and Major
General Joseph Swing advanced from the south after landing with the 11th Airborne Division.
Then, on January 31, 1st Cavalry Division commander Major General Vernon D. Mudge
got direct orders from MacArthur to: (QUOTE) "Get to Manila! Free the internees at Santo
Tomas. Take Malacanang Palace and the Legislative Building."
Still, the American forces didn’t know that General Yamashita had never intended
to defend Manila -a large and flammable area with wooden buildings and a large population-
and had most of the Imperial Japanese Army troops withdraw into Baguio.
Instead, Yamashita planned to engage the Americans and Filipino guerrillas in a coordinated campaign
in northern Luzon while the Japanese home islands prepared for the upcoming Allied invasion.
He also ordered his men from the Shimbu Group to destroy all bridges and strategic installations
and promptly evacuate Manila before the Americans could reach it.
Still, Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi, commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s 31st Naval
Special Base Force, dismissed the orders and was determined to fight to the last breath,
inspiring 12,500 men under his command and 4,500 army sympathizers to go along with it: (QUOTE)
“We are very glad and grateful for the opportunity of being able to serve our country
in this epic battle. Now, with what strength remains, we will daringly engage the enemy.
Banzai to the Emperor! We are determined to fight to the last man.”
It Got Personal
Beyond the terrible rapport between the Japanese Navy and Army,
it was a matter of personal honor for Iwabuchi, as he felt he had to redeem himself
after the disgraceful failure he suffered in Guadalcanal three years earlier.
However, the orders to systematically murder the residents of the capital
did come directly from Tokyo, and the Japanese subsequently committed unspeakable atrocities
against innocent Filipinos before the Americans could secure the city.
The inhumane events of that month-long campaign would come down in history as the Manila Massacre.
Meanwhile, MacArthur had to take the city at all costs, even as he faced a dismembered
enemy with an army of at least 200,000 men and Iwabuchi’s rebels waiting for a last stand.
Manila was a key natural harbor in the region,
which would facilitate the support of combat operations. But perhaps more urgently,
there were 6,000 American and Allied captives at Santo Tomas campus, a university turned into
an Internment Camp, and those prisoners had to be freed as soon as possible.
On February 3, the 1st Cavalry Division reached the outskirts of Manila and seized
a crucial bridge to cross the Tullahan River. Then, after capturing Malacanang Palace,
a squadron of Brigadier General William C. Chase’s 8th Cavalry headed to the university.
The next day, one thousand prisoners at the Bilibid Prison were freed by
the 37th Infantry Division led by General Robert S. Beightler,
but those at Santo Tomas would have to wait a little longer.
The 1st Cavalry was then led to the front gate by guerrilla officer Captain Manuel Colayco,
who did not survive the encounter. However,
his heroism helped the 44th Tank Battalion enter the compound.
Meanwhile, the Japanese took the remaining internees as hostages,
and on February 5, the captors unwittingly traded their hostages’ lives for the
opportunity to regroup to the south of the city. However, the unassuming Japanese were
met by enemy fire at what was now the American-occupied Malacagnan Palace.
The next day, MacArthur was quick to affirm that: (QUOTE) “Manila had fallen.”
However, the battle had just begun.
Both forces at the north and south soon met stiffening resistance from the enemy,
as the Japanese tried every means at their disposal to halt the American advance.
Pushing south from Santo Tomas, Griswold’s 14th Corps was joined by the famous Hunters
ROTC guerrilla fighters. The Allied troops then faced blockages at the Pasig River,
where the Japanese impeded their advance by blowing up the Quezon Bridge.
After that, Griswold divided northern Manila into two sectors: the 37th Infantry Division
would advance southward, while the 1st Cavalry Division would be responsible
for an envelopment to the east. Thus followed the bitterest fight for Manila.
Gaining Ground
Despite the Allied effort not to damage the city, its destruction was inevitable,
and uncountable civilians perished in the crossfire. American artillery and air support,
though stringently restricted by the Field Marshal, had set several districts ablaze,
and Japanese flamethrowers and bazookas were suddenly met by outright tank fire and howitzers.
Frustrated, the defendants discharged their anger on the population,
even going against infants and their mothers, or priests and nurses.
Then, on February 17, the 148th Regiment of the 37th Infantry freed 7,000 civilians at
the Philippine General Hospital. That night, Shibu Group commander General Shizuo Yokoyama
ordered Iwabuchi to break out of the city, but they failed. The remainder of the
Rear Admiral’s forces, consisting of about 6,000 men, was now trapped in the capital.
During the following days, the Americans secured several buildings in what became
a house-to-house effort to control the city,
while the defendants retreated into Intramuros, a historical walled zone at Manila’s center.
By February 22, only Intramuros and the Legislative, Finance,
and Agricultural Buildings remained under the control of the oppressors.
At 7:30am the following morning, an artillery barrage opened fire
just as the 148th attacked through the breaches. Although the Japanese
released about 3,000 civilians, the fighting continued for three more days.
Finally, at dawn on the 26, Iwabuchi and his officers committed seppuku,
a ritual suicide that fulfilled their mission of sacrificing their lives for the Empire.
Consequences
The liberators recaptured the remaining enemy strongpoints not long after,
and by March 3, the city was finally saved.
Still, the cost was monumental. The worst urban combat in the Pacific War had taken a
huge toll on the inhabitants of Manila, and it is estimated that about 100,000 people
lost their lives in the brutal battle, with some accounts putting the amount as high as 240,000.
Furthermore, the architectural heritage was reduced to rubble, and the former Venice of
the East was leveled to the ground by artillery and bombing from both sides.
As for the combatants, about 17 percent of the original 35,000 US troops
and 3,000 Filipino guerrillas were either wounded or lost in the struggle,
whereas virtually all 16,000 men from the Japanese resistance did not make it.
The Philippine capital was returned to its legitimate government during the
final months of World War 2, ending the Japanese puppet state once and for all.
Yamashita was then tried in Manila and convicted for his war crimes.
Ultimately, the city of Manila wasn’t even a strategic asset but more of a liability.
The so-called Queen of the Pacific offered no more strategic advantages other than its port and still
suffered invaluable devastation, losing 70 percent of its utilities, 75 percent of its factories,
80 percent of its southern residential district, and 100 percent of its business district.
The Filipino people were caught in a war that wasn’t even theirs and left at the
mercy of a cornered Japanese Army and Navy. As author James M. Scott put it:
(QUOTE) “In short, there was no military purpose. None whatsoever.”
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