The Philippines is the
north-eastern part of the Malayan Archipelago. It is made up of around
7,000 islands and on the outbreak of the Second
World War had a population of around 19,000,000 people. Manila,
is the capital and chief port and other important cities include Cebu,
Davao and Zamboanga. The territory was ceded to the United
States in 1898 under the terms of the Treaty
of Paris.
During the first half of
the 20th century the Philippines became of great strategic importance
to the defence of the United States. President
Franklin
D. Roosevelt
became increasingly concerned about the possibility of the Japanese
Army invading the islands and in 1935
sent General Douglas MacArthur to organize
the defence of the Philippines.
He retired from the army in 1937 but stayed on the island where he
became the country's military adviser.
When
negotiations with the Japanese government broke down in June 1941,
Roosevelt recalled MacArthur to active duty as a major general and
was granted $10 million to mobilize the Philippine Army. It was also
decided to send MacArthur 100 B-17 Flying Fortress
to help defend the Philippines.
Most
of MacArthur's troops were deployed to protect the two main islands
of Luzon and Mindanao and by October 1941, MacArthur informed General
George Marshall that
he now had 135,000 troops, 227 assorted fighters, bombers and reconnaissance
aircraft and this provided a "tremendously strong offensive and
defensive force" and claimed that the Philippines was now the
"key or base point of the US defence line."
The
Japanese Air Force attacked the
US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on the
7th December 1941. The following day they carried out air strikes
on the Philippines and destroyed half of MacArthur's air force. MacArthur
was much criticized for this as he had been told to move his airforce
after the raid on Hawaii the previous day.
The Japanese
Army also invaded the Philippines and they soon held the three
air bases in northern Luzon. On 22nd December the 14th Army landed
at Lingayen Gulf and quickly gained control of Manila from the inexperienced
Filipino troops. Although only 57,000 Japanese soldiers were landed
on Luzon it had little difficulty capturing the island.
General
Douglas MacArthur
now ordered a general retreat to the Bataan peninsula. A series of
Japanese assaults forced the US defensive lines back and on 22nd February,
1942, MacArthur was ordered to leave Bataan and go to Australia.
General Jonathan Wainright remained
behind with 11,000 soldiers and managed to hold out until the beginning
of May.
Within a few months of
leaving MacArthur argued that the US
Army should make an attempt to recapture the Philippines.
However, Admiral Chester Nimitz, US Pacific
Commander and Admiral Ernest
King, the Chief of Naval Operations, argued that
this should wait until the US forces were guaranteed of victory.
It was not until 1944 that
MacArthur was given permission to begin the campaign to recapture
the Philippines. The first objective was the capture of Leyte,
an island situated between Luzon and Mindanao. After a two day naval
bombardment General Walter Krueger and
the 6th Army landed on 22nd October, 1944.
The Japanese
Navy now made a strenuous effort to save the Philippines.
Admiral Soemu Toyoda, Commander in Chief
of the Combined Fleet, deployed every surviving Japanese warship in
two groups under Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita
and Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa. The strategy
was to use Ozawa's smaller fleet to draw the US
Navy away from Leyte.
On 24th October 1944 Admiral
William Halsey
fell into a Japanese trap when he headed north with 64 ships to attack
Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa leaving the San
Bernardino Strait unprotected.
Vice Admiral Takeo
Kurita and his fleet now moved in to attack the Allied invasion
force. However Vice-Admiral Thomas
Kinkaid and the 7th Fleet was still in the area
providing cover for the 175,000 members of the US
Army landing on Leyte.
The battle
of Leyte Gulf was the largest naval engagement in history. It was
a decisive victory for the Allies with the Japanese
Navy lost four carriers, three battleships and ten cruisers. It
was now clear that the US Navy had control
of the Pacific and that further Allied landings in the region were
likely to be successful.
After the
successful amphibious landings General
Douglas MacArthur
and General Walter Krueger pushed the
Japanese 35th Army out of the central
valley onto the mountainous inland backbone of Leyte.
After bitter fighting the US forces captured the important port of
Ormoc on 10th December. By the time the island was completely secured
the US Army had lost
3,500 men. It is estimated that over 55,000 Japanese soldiers were
killed during the campaign.
On 9th
January 1945 Allied troops landed on Luzon, the largest of the islands
in the Philippines. The Japanese Army,
under General Tomoyuki Yamashita, fought
a vigorous rearguard action but within a month General
Douglas MacArthur
and his troops had crossed the Central Plain and were approaching
Manila. Yamashita and his main army now withdrew to the mountains
but left enough
troops in Manila to make the capture of the city as difficult as possible.
An estimated 16,000 Japanese soldiers were killed before it was taken
on 4th March 1945.
General Robert
Eichelberger and the US 8th Army landed on Mindanao on 10th March
and began advancing through the southern Philippines. This included
the capture of Panay, Cebu, Negros and Bohol.
Yamashita and his remaining
men continued to fight from isolated mountain positions on Luzon.
After hearing that Emperor Hirohito
had announced that Japan had surrendered Yamashita
and his 50,000 troops stopped fighting on 2nd September 1945.
(1)
James
F. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly (1947)
A large Congressional party, headed by Vice President Garner, had
gone to Manila to witness the inauguration of Manuel Quezon as the
first President of the Philippine Commonwealth. There, Americans in
all walks of life had expressed to us their concern over the increasing
indications of Japan's aggressive intentions. Therefore, when we stopped
in Japan I made a special effort to inquire into Japanese naval appropriations
and naval construction. A study of the Japanese budget for 1936 readily
revealed that at least half of the total was devoted to the army and
navy. Members of our Embassy staff were convinced that the published
budget disclosed only part of the naval appropriations. The published
figures were alarming enough in themselves and when we returned to
this country I urged the President to seek means for acquiring still
more accurate estimates of Japan's naval strength.
(2)
Winston Churchill, The Second World
War (1950)
In the Philippines, where
General MacArthur commanded, a warning indicating a grave turn in
diplomatic relations had been received on November 20. Admiral Hart,
commanding the modest United States Asiatic Fleet, had already been
in consultation with the adjacent British and Dutch naval authorities,
and,
in accordance with his war plan, had begun to disperse his forces
to the southward, where he intended to assemble a striking force in
Dutch waters in conjunction with his prospective allies.
He had at his disposal
only one heavy and two light cruisers, besides a dozen old destroyers
and various auxiliary vessels. His strength lay almost entirely in
his submarines, of which he had twenty-eight. At 3 a.m. on December
8 Admiral Hart intercepted a message giving the staggering news of
the attack on Pearl
Harbour. He at once warned all concerned that hostilities had begun,
without waiting for confirmation from Washington. At dawn the Japanese
dive-bombers struck, and throughout the ensuing days the air attacks
continued on an ever-increasing scale.
On the 10th the naval base
at Cavite was completely destroyed by fire, and on the same day the
Japanese made their first landing in the north of Luzon. Disasters
mounted swiftly. Most of the American air forces were destroyed in
battle or on the ground, and by December 20 the remnants had been
withdrawn to Port Darwin, in Australia. Admiral Hart's ships had begun
their southward dispersal some days before, and only the submarines
remained to dispute the sea with the enemy. On December 21
the main Japanese invasion force landed in Lingayen Gulf, threatening
Manila itself, and thereafter the march of events was not unlike that
which was already in progress in Malaya; but the defence was more
prolonged.
(4)
General Douglas MacArthur
wrote about the invasion of the Philippines
in December 1941 in his autobiography, Reminiscences
(1964).
At 3.40 on Sunday morning,
December 8, 1941,
Manila time, a long-distance telephone call from Washington told me
of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but no details were given.
It was our strongest military position in the Pacific. Its garrison
was a mighty one, with America's best aircraft on strongly defended
fields, adequate warning systems, anti-aircraft batteries, backed
up by our Pacific Fleet. My first impression was that the Japanese
might well have suffered a serious setback.
We had only one radar station
operative and had to rely for air warning largely on eye and ear.
At 9:30 a.m. our reconnaissance planes reported a force of enemy bombers
over Lingayen Gulf heading toward Manila. Major General Lewis H. Brereton,
who had complete tactical control of the Far East Air Force, immediately
ordered pursuit planes up to intercept them. But the enemy bombers
veered off without contact.
When this report reached
me, I was still under the impression that the Japanese had suffered
a setback at Pearl Harbor, and their failure to close in on me supported
that belief. I therefore contemplated an air reconnaissance to the
north, using bombers with fighter protection, to ascertain a true
estimate of the situation and to exploit any possible weaknesses that
might develop on the enemy's front. But subsequent events quickly
and decisively changed my mind. I learned, to my astonishment, that
the Japanese had succeeded in their Hawaiian attack, and at 11:45
a report came in of an over- powering enemy formation closing in on
Clark Field. Our fighters went up to meet them, but our bombers were
slow in taking off and our losses were heavy. Our force was simply
too small to smash the odds against them.
(5)
William
Leahy,
I Was There (1950)
MacArthur was convinced that an occupation of the Philippines was
essential before any major attack in force should be made on Japanese-held
territory north of Luzon. The retaking of the Philippines seemed to
be a matter of great interest to him. He said that he had sufficient
ground and air forces for the operation and that his only additional
needs were landing-craft and naval support.
Nimitz developed the Navy's
plan of by-passing the Philippines and attacking Formosa. He did not
see that Luzon, including Manila Bay, had advantages that were not
possessed by other areas in the Philippines that could be taken for
a base at less cost in lives and material. As the discussions progressed,
however, the Navy Commander in the Pacific admitted that developments
might indicate a necessity for occupation of the Manila area. Nimitz
said that he had sufficient forces to carry out either operation.
It was highly pleasing and unusual to find two commanders who were
not demanding reinforcements.
Roosevelt was at his best
as he tactfully steered the discussion from one point to another and
narrowed down the area of disagreement between MacArthur and Nimitz.
The discussion remained on a friendly basis the entire time, and in
the end only a relatively minor difference remained - that of an operation
to retake the Philippine capital, Manila. This was solved later, when
the idea of beginning our Philippine invasion at Leyte was suggested,
studied and adopted.
(6)
The
Manchester Guardian (20th October, 1944)
American landings on Suluan, a small but important island in a commanding.
position on the eastern fringe of the Central Philippines, were reported
yesterday by the Japanese. This news, which so far is unconfirmed
by Allied sources, follows heavy "softening" raids on Formosa,
the supply base between the Philippines and the Japanese mainland.
It may indicate the first
step towards the fulfillment, of General MacArthur's promise that
he would return, eventually to these islands, which were overrun by
the Japanese in 1942. The Japanese report, which was contained in
a message from Manila, said that "enemy forces started landing
operations on Tuesday morning."
Another Japanese broadcast,
also unconfirmed, said that an Allied '"fleet sailed the same
day into the Gulf of Leyte and bombed and shelled the coast. It added
that the Allied forces were
being opposed.
The Japanese News Agency
last night reported that American forces have "attempted a landing
" on the island of Leyte. The agency said that a new large task
force, comprising the Fifth United States Fleet under. Admiral Spruance
and another fleet '"under the command o General MacArthur,"
on Tuesday penetrated, into the Leyte Gulf between Luzon and Mindanao
islands.
(7)
The
Manchester Guardian (21st October, 1944)
General MacArthur's invasion forces have established three firm beachheads
on the east coast of the island of Leyte, in the Central Philippines,
and last night were reported to be pushing inland against stiffening
Japanese resistance. According to a broadcast from the Leyte area,
picked up in San Francisco. Tacloban airfield, on the north-eastern
tip of Leyte Island, has been captured.
Earlier President Roosevelt
announced in Washington that the operations are going according to
plan, with extremely light losses.
The Japanese were taken
by surprise because, as General MacArthur explained in his announcement
of the landing, they were expecting attacks on the large island of
Mindanao, south of Leyte. "The strategic results of the capturing
of the Philippines will be decisive." MacArthur said. "
To the south 500,000 men will be cut off without hope of support and
the culmination will be their destruction at the leisure of the Allies."
Thus General MacArthur
has fulfilled the promise to return that the made two and a half years
ago when his forces left the Philippines. An American broadcaster
said that the Commander-in-Chief waded ashore with one of the landing
parties and quoted him as saying, "I will stay for the duration
now."
The President of the Philippine
Commonwealth, Sergio Osmena, with members of his Cabinet, went with
the American forces and already has established the seat of government
on Philippine soil.
(8)
General Douglas MacArthur
wrote a report for Harry
S. Truman where he advocated that Tomoyuki
Yamahita should be tried as
a war criminal.
It is not easy for me
to pass penal judgment upon a defeated adversary in a major military
campaign. I have reviewed the proceedings in vain search for some
mitigating circumstances on his behalf. I can find none. Rarely has
so cruel and wanton a record been spread to public gaze. Revolting
as this may be in itself, it pales before the sinister and far reaching
implication thereby attached to the profession of arms. The soldier,
be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and
unarmed. It is the very essence and reason for his being.
When he violates this sacred
trust, he not only profanes his entire cult but threatens the very
fabric of international society. The traditions of fighting men are
long and honorable. They are based upon the noblest of human traits-sacrifice.
This officer, of proven field merit, entrusted with high command involving
authority adequate to responsibility, has failed this irrevocable
standard; has failed his duty to his troops, to his country, to his
enemy, to mankind; has failed utterly his soldier faith. The transgressions
resulting therefrom as revealed by the trial are a blot upon the military
profession, a stain upon civilization and constitute a memory of shame
and dishonor that can never be forgotten. Peculiarly callous and purposeless
was the sack of the ancient city of Manila, with its Christian population
and its countless historic shrines and monuments of culture and civilization,
which with campaign conditions reversed had previously been spared.
It is appropriate here
to recall that the accused was fully forewarned as to the personal
consequences of such atrocities. On October 24-four days following
the landing of our forces on Leyte - it was publicly proclaimed that
I would "hold the Japanese Military authorities in the Philippines
immediately liable for any harm which may result from failure to accord
prisoners of war, civilian internees or civilian non combatants the
proper treatment and the protection to which they of right are entitled."
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