Philippines campaigns

Philippines campaigns (see Maps 85 and 86). The roots of the wartime struggle for control of the Philippines ran back nearly to the turn of the century, when US leaders began to worry about the growing power of Japan. By diplomatic means (the Taft–Katsura agreement of 1905, for example), arms control measures (the Washington conference system of 1922 and after), and military preparations (the strengthening of Philippine forces in the islands in the latter 1930s), Washington sought to shield the Philippines from Japan's southward expansion. After Tokyo's take-over of French Indo-China during the summer of 1941, the US government accelerated its efforts to make the Philippines defensible. Roosevelt issued an executive order integrating its armed forces, which had been autonomous since the creation of the Philippine commonwealth in 1935, into the US military, and the war department recalled General MacArthur, who had been serving as chief military adviser to the Philippine government, to active duty as army commander for the Far East, with headquarters in Manila.

During the six months before December 1941 MacArthur worked furiously to prepare for the onslaught which seemed increasingly probable. While the Japanese might well not attack the USA directly—or so one could still hope during this period—they appeared unlikely to overlook the Philippines. They evidently intended to push towards the oil and other resources of the Netherlands East Indies, and they could hardly allow the continued existence of a modest but not insignificant US force on the flank of their route in that direction. MacArthur, suspecting the worst, supervised increases in the size of the American contingent in the Philippines to more than 30,000 troops, and of Filipino active units to more than 110,000. American air power in the islands came to include 35 B17 bombers at Clark Field, 107 P40 fighters at Clark and other fields on Luzon, and more than 100 additional planes, providing the Philippines with the largest concentration of US air power in the Pacific. Naval forces in the islands included 3 cruisers, 13 destroyers, more than 40 smaller surface craft, and 29 submarines. In addition, at the beginning of December 1941 a large US convoy carrying 70 warplanes, 600 tons of bombs, 9,000 barrels of aviation fuel, 48 75 mm. (2.9 in.) guns, and several million rounds of ammunition left Hawaii for the Philippines.

The convoy never arrived. On 8 December ( 7 December east of the dateline) Japanese bombers and fighters based on Formosa attacked the airfields on Luzon. The attack came not entirely without warning: at 0300 (Manila time) a report arrived at MacArthur's headquarters of the Japanese blow against Pearl Harbor. Subsequent reports confirmed the news, and at 0700 MacArthur received a radiogram from Washington announcing that a condition of hostilities obtained between Japan and the USA and authorizing him to implement war plans against Japan. MacArthur's air commander, Maj-General Brereton, pressed for permission to launch air strikes against Japanese airfields on Formosa; but for reasons that remain unclear and contentious, gaining MacArthur's approval required more than three hours. The American planes were still on the ground when the Japanese bombers reached Luzon from Formosa shortly after noon.

The first wave of Japanese planes, including more than 50 bombers and three dozen fighters, destroyed two squadrons of American bombers and one of fighters at Clark. A second squadron of American fighters, returning from patrol, met a second Japanese attack group at Iba, 65 km. (40 mi.) north-west of Clark. Only two American planes survived the encounter.

At this point, MacArthur had lost half his air force. Things only got worse during the next several days as Japanese aircraft further ravaged the American air force in the islands and bombed naval installations and ships. By the evening of 13 December, American air power had been so reduced that MacArthur chose to withhold his remaining planes from combat lest he lose them too.

With no air cover, the commander of the American Asiatic fleet, Admiral Hart, decided to withdraw most of his ships from Luzon to the southern portion of the Philippine archipelago, where they would be beyond the reach of Japanese planes based on Formosa. Of the vessels that remained in the Manila area, the most important were 27 submarines, which were harder for Japanese planes to hit than surface ships and which could more easily run a Japanese blockade if matters came to that.

Soldiers of the Fourteenth Japanese Army began landing in the Philippines even while bombing of the American air and naval bases continued. The first landing took place on Batan Island in the Luzon Strait on 8 December. Two days later Japanese troops landed on the northern coast of Luzon itself. On 12 December a small force from Palau to the east of the Philippines invaded Legaspi in southern Luzon. On 20 December another contingent from Palau landed at Davao on Mindanao.

The primary purpose of these initial landings was to secure advanced air bases for covering the larger invasion that began in earnest on 22 December. Two Japanese divisions came ashore from the Lingayen Gulf and commenced marching south towards Manila; shortly after, a smaller Japanese force landed at Atimonan on Lamon Bay on Luzon's eastern coast and also began pushing towards the capital. It soon became apparent that the aim of Lt-General Homma, the commander of the Japanese invasion, was to trap the American and Philippine troops defending Manila in a pincers.

American forces in northern Luzon, under the command of Maj-General Wainwright, initially contested the Japanese advance south along the central Luzon plain, but MacArthur soon recognized that the defenders were overmatched. He proceeded to declare Manila an open city and to direct the evacuation of his headquarters and of the Philippine government to the island fortress of Corregidor in the mouth of Manila Bay. At the same time he ordered American and Philippine troops in the area to retreat to the Bataan peninsula west of Manila Bay.

Leaders in Washington viewed the course of fighting in the Philippines with no little embarrassment, since an American possession was being overrun largely as a result of the parsimoniousness of the US government in the years before the war. But despite a sincere desire on the part of the Roosevelt administration to come to an eleventh-hour defence of the Filipino people, the agreed Germany first strategy (see Rainbow Plans) dictated that the USA concentrate its resources elsewhere. Though MacArthur agitated for reinforcements and for swift counter-blows against Japan, Roosevelt refused to take the risks necessary to relieve the Philippine garrison. A small amount of supplies were slipped by submarine past the Japanese ships that now controlled the waters around Luzon, but the major effort required to break through to the Philippines appeared too dangerous. Roosevelt told MacArthur to negotiate the surrender of Filipino troops under his command if and when surrender seemed necessary; as for the US troops, they should hold out as long as there existed any possibility of resistance.

Roosevelt's decision not to attempt to rescue the American and Filipino units on Bataan and Corregidor effectively sealed their fate. The only question was how long they could fight. The answer was: until 9 April for the Bataan forces, and until 6 May for the troops on Corregidor. MacArthur, on Roosevelt's orders, left Corregidor by PT boat on 12 March, and after switching to a B17 in Mindanao continued to Australia.

Between the spring of 1942 and the autumn of 1944, various resistance groups in the Philippines kept up the fight against the Japanese occupiers. The guerrillas included US and Filipino officers and men who had eluded capture, communists and other radical elements, and various individuals outraged by Japan's heavy-handed treatment of the civilian population of the country. The guerrillas did not seriously threaten Japanese control of the islands, but they made the occupation more costly than it otherwise would have been, they sustained the morale of those who refused to reconcile themselves to the occupation, and they provided intelligence to Allied forces outside the country.

This intelligence proved extremely valuable when the reconquest of the archipelago began. In July 1944, as the Allies fought towards Japan, American officials met in Hawaii to determine how best to tighten the noose around Tokyo. Admiral King, the chief of naval operations, advocated bypassing the Philippines and moving directly against Formosa. MacArthur dissented vigorously, contending both that the Philippines were strategically vital and that the USA owed a moral obligation to the Filipino people to liberate their home as soon as humanly possible. MacArthur won the argument, and Roosevelt ordered implementation of plans for an invasion of the Philippines.

In September 1944, American carrier-based airplanes started to bomb Japanese airfields in central Luzon. The planes initially achieved a large measure of surprise, and in short order they crippled some 400 Japanese aircraft. Soon the Americans enjoyed effective control of the air over the Philippines, although Japanese reinforcements succeeded in contesting that control.

In mid-October MacArthur orchestrated the gathering of a huge invasion fleet east of the Visayan Islands for the invasion of Leyte Island. The force comprised more than 700 ships carrying hundreds of planes and some 160,000 men. At dawn on 20 October the group's battleships, cruisers, and destroyers announced the main assault with a four-hour barrage against Japanese positions on and behind the beach. At 1000 four divisions went ashore, where they met only light resistance. By evening they had secured a beachhead and captured an airstrip close by.

During the next few days, as the Americans landed more troops and equipment and expanded their foothold, the Japanese dispatched a large fleet of their own towards Leyte. Beginning on 24 October American and Japanese ships fought out the greatest duel in naval history. The battle of Leyte Gulf ended in a decisive Japanese defeat, virtually assuring American success in the effort to liberate the Philippines.

But success was not quick in coming. General Yamashita, the recently appointed commander of Japanese forces in the Philippines, dispatched some 50,000 fresh troops to Leyte and, with aircraft flown in from Japan and Formosa, mounted a series of aerial assaults on the American positions on the island. MacArthur responded with a landing at Ormoc on Leyte's west coast, outflanking the defenders and subsequently splitting the Japanese forces in two. As they had done elsewhere in the Pacific, the Japanese fought bitterly and to the last. During the next several weeks 80,000 Japanese troops were killed; fewer than 1,000 surrendered.

By the end of December, American forces had secured Leyte and were looking across the San Bernardino Strait to Luzon. MacArthur sent a task force to Mindoro, with the goal of capturing airfields for use in support of landings on Luzon and of the drive to Manila. The Mindoro landing met only modest resistance, and in a short time the Americans had two airfields operating.

MacArthur, in the hope that Yamashita was expecting an attack from the south, now circled to the north. In the second week of January 1945 he dispatched an invasion force to Lingayen Gulf on Luzon from Leyte. Yamashita was not entirely surprised: Japanese forces detected the invasion fleet moving up the Luzon coast and did significant damage to it. But they were outnumbered and outgunned, the Americans got ashore in good shape, and other, smaller, landings followed.

In the following few weeks, the main US force traced the route the Japanese had traversed three years before in their march against Manila. Like MacArthur in that earlier campaign, Yamashita chose not to make a stand against the superior invading force on the central Luzon plain. Instead he dispersed his units and withdrew towards the mountains.

But, unlike the Americans earlier, the Japanese contested the taking of Manila. The battle for the capital lasted nearly a month and was marked by the heaviest destruction of the war in the Philippines. As Japanese troops shortened their defensive perimeter, they blew up bridges, military facilities, and caches of supplies; in the process, and deliberately, they set fire to many of the city's wood- and-thatch civilian structures. The flames ravaged large areas, killing thousands and displacing tens of thousands more. Though MacArthur forbade air attacks against the city (which had been his home for much of his adult life) heavy artillery barrages by both sides levelled much of what the fires had left standing. By 3 March, when the last Japanese resistance had been suppressed, most of the city was in ruins. Approximately 1,000 American soldiers died in the battle, roughly 16,000 Japanese, and as many as 100,000 Filipinos, nearly all non-combatants.

While the fighting for Manila continued, American forces worked to root out Japanese troops on Bataan and Corregidor, which threatened the approaches to Manila Bay. Retaking Bataan involved heavy casualties, as US officers misjudged the strength of the Japanese defenders, but the job was accomplished by the end of February. Corregidor fell to the joint efforts of marines and paratroops at about the same time. Although the American attackers surprised the Japanese troops holding the fortress, the latter managed to detonate the large stockpiles of munitions they had placed in the island's tunnels. The concussion killed hundreds of Japanese and dozens of Americans, and hurled debris more than a kilometre into the harbour.

The final several months of the Pacific war saw American regulars and Filipino guerrillas steadily reducing the area controlled by the Japanese. Yamashita, knowing he could expect no help now that the Allies were closing in on the Japanese home islands, fought a capable delaying campaign. He retreated into the rugged terrain near Baguio and required the Americans to fight their way up narrow passes and through precipitous gorges. He gave ground, but not without inflicting sizeable losses and tying down troops that might have been used elsewhere. The war ended in August with Japanese troops still at large along the River Asin.

Recapturing the rest of the Philippine archipelago proceeded more swiftly. The Eighth US Army, led by Lt-General Eichelberger and benefiting from American air and naval supremacy in the area, conducted amphibious warfare operations against Japanese positions throughout the southern islands. Although some Japanese troops continued to hold out until August, by June 1945 the most important towns, roads, and airfields were once again in Allied hands.

H. W. Brands

Bibliography

Breuer, W. , Retaking the Philippines (New York, 1986).
Morton, L. , The Fall of the Philippines (Washington, DC, 1953).
Morison, S. E. , Leyte: June 1944–June 1945 (Boston, 1958).