RETURN TO THE PHILIPPINES

Destruction of the Walled City within old Manila, 1945

RETURN TO THE PHILIPPINES

By October 1944, thirty months had passed since General Douglas MacArthur evacuated the Philippines, vowing to one day return to the people he had become so attached to. The famed general had built up a wealth of forces for such a return, as Japanese resistance was expected to be formidable. With the Philippines a gateway to Japan—bases there safeguarded vital shipments of food and other resources to the home islands—a massive force of 432,000 Imperial Army troops defended the territory.

The campaign began on October 20 with the first waves of MacArthur’s troops splashing ashore on Leyte, an island planners intended to use as a base for a later assault on the main island of Luzon. Once his troops moved inland, MacArthur made good on his vow to return, wading ashore with newsmen and photographers in tow. By Christmas, the Japanese had suffered nearly 50,000 casualties and Leyte was in American hands.

In January, the first of 175,000 American soldiers began landing on occupied Luzon, where eight million Filipinos longed for their arrival after enduring more than two years of oppressive Japanese brutality. The Japanese had a quarter-million soldiers on the island, but with superior ground and air power, MacArthur’s forces steadily pushed the defenders back. Familiar territory lost in 1942 was liberated, including Bataan, Manila, and Corregidor, and by March, most of the remaining Japanese were starving and stricken with disease. The beleaguered men withdrew into the mountains, but the Americans, equally sapped from the campaign, gave no chase, content with simply penning their foes in until the end of the war, when some 50,000 holdouts finally surrendered.

General Douglas MacArthur wades ashore on Leyte, with newsmen and cameras in tow, October 1944

As Imperial Army forces retreated across Luzon, their commanding general ordered the capital of Manila abandoned, but a fanatical Imperial Navy officer in the city ordered the 16,000-man garrison to fight to the death instead. There were 800,000 Filipinos in Manila, and scores became caught in deadly crossfires, artillery barrages, and a murderous Japanese rampage. When it was over, an estimated 100,000 men, women, and children were dead, and much of the capital—once known as the “Pearl of the Orient”— was in ruins.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf

The Imperial Navy had lost most of its air power by late 1944, but still wielded a substantial array of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers. Once the campaign in the Philippines began, Imperial Navy officials plotted to cripple the US amphibious force supporting the invasion troops already ashore. With few serviceable planes left, the remaining Japanese aircraft carriers were used as bait, luring a powerful force of American aircraft carriers and battleships to more distant waters in the north while fighting raged on Leyte. Japanese battleships and cruisers then steamed into the Leyte Gulf and attacked a handful of small US “escort” aircraft carriers operating offshore. After destroying the Japanese carriers in the north, the American carriers returned to the Leyte Gulf and hammered the Japanese battleships and cruisers. The Japanese sank three escort aircraft carriers in the battle, but the losses barely dented the powerful American armadas. The Imperial Navy, conversely, was all but gutted after losing four of their premier carriers, three battleships, and twenty cruisers and destroyers.

The first kamikaze pilots took to the skies during the Philippines campaign. Late in the war, Japanese factories were still producing new aircraft, but few skilled pilots remained, and though replacements were young and inexperienced, they were devoted to their emperor and more than willing to sacrifice their lives. Carrying only enough fuel for a one-way flight, the kamikazes sought to crash their bomb-laden planes directly into US naval ships. Thousands of such flights were launched in the closing months of the war, and though most were shot down by fighter planes and antiaircraft fire, others managed to complete their missions, sinking or damaging dozens of ships and claiming the lives of thousands of American sailors.