Battle for Luzon

Battle for Luzon

Part of: World War II , Pacific War

Fighting for Baguio City, May – June 1945

date	January 9 to August 15 or September 2, 1945 (armistice or surrender)
place	Luzon Island , Philippines
output	American victory
consequences	Japanese units surrender in the Philippines

Parties to the conflict
United States Philippines	Japan
Commander
Douglas MacArthur Commander in Chief Jesse B. Oldendorf Tactical Command Sergio Osmeña Commander in Chief of the Filipino units	Yamashita Tomoyuki Commander in Chief Mutō Akira Island Defense
Troop strength
350,000 soldiers of the 6th US Army , 8,000 soldiers of the 8th US Army , 100,000 sailors 9 battleships 15 aircraft carriers 8 cruisers 51 destroyers 130 transport ships	around 260,000 soldiers of the 14th Regional Army
losses
9,739 soldiers killed 29,417 wounded 1 aircraft carrier 4 destroyers 12 transporters approx. 310 aircraft	205,535 dead, 549 aircraft, mostly from kamikaze attacks, 9,050 prisoners of war during the fighting about 59,000 after the battle.

Overview - Pacific War

The Battle for Luzon (also known as Operation Luzon and Operation Musketeer: Mike I ) was a military operation fought between the American Army and the Imperial Japanese Forces during the 1945 Pacific War . The setting was the largest island in the Philippines, Luzon , which had been conquered by the Japanese in 1942 during the Battle of the Philippines . The fighting began on January 9, 1945 with the US landing in the Gulf of Lingayen and lasted more than six months. The Luzon jungle provided the Japanese defenders with plenty of hiding places and defenses during the operation. Although the advance of the US troops was quick at first, it stalled at the end of January as the Japanese resolutely and tenaciously defended several important cities. These places were encircled and conquered by some American forces, while the advance of the US Army continued through the rest of the troops. On February 2nd, the Philippine capital Manila was reached by units of the 1st US Cavalry Division. After the loss of the most important cities in the south and the center of the island, the remaining Japanese troops withdrew to the north under the command of General Yamashita , where they were able to hold out until August by means of delaying and guerrilla tactics. The fighting on the island ended on August 15, 1945 with an armistice. On September 2, the unconditional surrender of all Japanese troops on Luzon was signed.

background

The United States bought the Philippines from Spain in 1898 as a result of the Spanish-American War and subsequently, contrary to the expectations of the Philippine independence movement and the general public, converted it into a de facto colony. An independence movement in the Philippines was crushed in the Philippine-American War and American supremacy was no longer challenged until the outbreak of the Pacific War. After the attack on Pearl Harbor , Japanese troops under General Homma Masaharu landed in the Philippines on December 8, 1941 , pushing the approximately 180,000 American and Filipino soldiers under General Douglas MacArthur further and further back. While MacArthur withdrew to the island of Corregidor with the last fighting troops, the American soldiers remaining on Luzon surrendered on April 9 on the Bataan peninsula . The approximately 70,000 survivors of the Philippine and American armed forces were brought to the camp at Camp O'Donnell by the Japanese troops. About 2,000 US soldiers and 16,000 Filipinos died on the way. The march came to be known as the Bataan Death March . General MacArthur had already been taken to Australia on March 12th aboard a speedboat from Corregidor.

As early as September 1942, however, after Japan's sensitive defeat in the Battle of Midway on June 6th, MacArthur pointed out to the United General Staff that in his opinion it was necessary to liberate the Philippines from the Japanese. The US staff discussed the possibility of conquering the Philippines at this point in time, but initially rejected it for strategic reasons: US troops were already operating in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea , which is why there were insufficient troops and ships to recapture the Philippines would be available. In addition, a landing on Taiwan was considered, which had belonged to Japan since 1895 and was extremely important for the economy.

Strategic importance of the island

It was crucial for the Japanese to keep the Philippines under their control, since from there the American troops could cut off the Japanese units in the southern Pacific from the rest of the armed forces in China , Burma and Indochina . The Philippines could be used by the Americans as an advanced base of operations and as a base for air strikes in the event of a later recapture of Borneo or Singapore . The archipelago was also an important source of supplies for the Japanese war industry, especially rubber and linen . Strategically, the Philippines held a key position for Japan on the sea routes from Borneo and Sumatra , on which the oil , which is essential for the war effort , was transported to Japan.

Beginning of the reconquest of the Philippines

In July 1944, after several Japanese fleets were destroyed, including the Mariana Islands , the US staff held the time after being put under heavy pressure from President Franklin D. Roosevelt , MacArthur himself, and the American press come to conduct an amphibious landing in the Philippines . In September MacArthur was finally given permission to lead a land force that was to land on Leyte Island in October 1944 . At the same time, the navy should try to destroy the Japanese fleet in a great sea battle at Leyte and Samar and to eliminate it as a factor that determined the war.

The invasion of Leyte was the largest amphibious operation ever carried out by American and Allied forces in the Pacific War. General MacArthur was named commander in chief of the naval, air and land forces for the operation. Allied naval and air support consisted mainly of the US 7th Fleet under Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid . This fleet was supposed to transport the landing forces, to set them down on the beaches and to support them. The Royal Australian Navy contributed five warships, three landing craft and five supply boats to the seventh fleet as the second largest share of the fleet. Leyte was finally secured in December 1944.

After the successful invasion, plans were drawn up to attack the island of Luzon and thus continue to weaken the Japanese economically and militarily.

→ Main article : Battle of Leyte

→ Main article : Sea and air battles in the Gulf of Leyte

American attack planning

The American General Staff had already drawn up an operational plan for an attack on Luzon in 1943. This envisaged first attacking the Japanese units in the south of the island and in the capital Manila and cutting them off from the rest of the garrison in the north of the island. With this plan, however, it remained open what would happen after the conquest of Manila and whether one should first turn to the Japanese occupation in the north or first liberate the most important cities of southern Luzon. On July 25, 1943, however, Roosevelt personally asked the staff to include an advance northwards in the plans after the encirclement of Manila. MacArthur also agreed to this plan. The commanders of the two US armies designated to carry out the operation against Luzon, in particular General Walter Krueger , who would be in tactical command during the operation and serve as MacArthur's chief of staff , have been informed of this decision. The aim of the operation was set in a staff report at the end of June 1944: “The aim of the attack against the Philippines island of Luzon is to encircle the enemy in the south of it and to destroy the enemy formations in the north in double pincers. Only then will the 6th Army have to destroy the remaining enemy positions ”. The island's defenders were estimated to be no more than 150,000 men, as the operations staff assumed that several thousand soldiers had been transferred to Burma.

In addition, under pressure from General MacArthur, a landing on the island of Mindoro was decided to support the Lingayen landings from there air bases. This landing took place on December 13, 1944. Within the next three days, the Japanese forces were wiped out on Mindoro. The island was completely taken on December 16th.

Map of Luzon with the most important places and Japanese bases

The final orders to Krueger's staff were issued on July 25, 1944. Several parachute and tank battalions of the 8th US Army were assigned to the 6th US Army for this operation . You should attack Japanese positions on ridges or flat terrain. The infantry divisions of the 6th Army, however, should land amphibiously in the Gulf of Lingayen , on the west coast of Luzon, and after the successful breakthrough begin the advance towards Manila. The 8th Army, however, had to land south of the Gulf in the province of Zambales according to this plan . She was supposed to break through the Japanese lines north of the Bataan peninsula and cut them off from the rest of the island, and then march towards Manila, where they swiveled southeast of the capital and included the city together with the 6th Army. The inner wings of both armies, formed by the I. and XI. US Corps were tasked with securing Central Luzon during the advance . Priority was given to the encirclement and conquest of the cities of San Miguel , Tarlac City and Baguio City , as well as the entire provinces of Tarlac , Bulacan , Zambales, Pangasinan , Pampanga and Nueva Ecija . MacArthur was personally appointed Commander in Chief of the operation by Roosevelt . General Krueger, on the other hand, had tactical command during the fighting.

General MacArthur had made capturing the capital of the Philippines a priority . The advance on Manila should not be delayed, as the Japanese would probably flee to the mountains after taking the city and leave northern Luzon to the Americans almost without a fight, according to the assumption. It was planned that the last Japanese defenses in the Cagayan Valley , Cordillera and the mountains of northern Luzon (the Sierra Madre ) were not to be dug until August 1945 .

Japanese location

Fortification work in 1944 and 1945

Shortly after the start of the fighting for Leyte, the Japanese high command, under pressure from the Koiso cabinet , ordered the expansion of the defense positions in the western Pacific region and especially on Luzon. Since October 30, 1944, several fortified lines of defense have been built on the island, mostly by Korean and Chinese slave labor , Allied prisoners of war and Japanese soldiers. The first of these lines ran in the San Fernando - Pozzorubio - Mapandan area , the second in the Umingan - Guimba area , the third in the Bambang - San José area , while a fourth ran along the mountains of the Sierra Madre. About 60,000-100,000 workers and troops took part in the work. Before the start of the American landings on Luzon, the various defensive structures, mainly bunkers, anti-tank trenches, trenches, single holes, tunnel systems, tank traps and machine-gun nests, were only 20 to 60 percent complete. In addition, there were some old island fortresses that had been conquered by the Japanese in 1942: Fort Drum (El Fraile Island) and Corregidor Island , which MacArthur used as the last defense, should be mentioned in particular . Fort Drum, also known as the Concrete Battleship , is a heavily fortified fortress island that lies in Manila Bay . The island is located south of Corregidor and was turned into a strong fortress by pioneers in the US Army in 1914. So it had the shape of a ship and consisted almost entirely of concrete. The ammunition depots and the quarters of the approximately 200-strong Japanese garrison were surrounded by a reinforced concrete jacket up to eleven meters thick.

Troop strength

Since 1942, the Japanese had stationed the 14th regional army in the northern Philippines , code name Shōbu ( 尚武 , "warrior worship"), which in 1944 was about 450,000 men strong. At the beginning of the war it had almost 200,000 men, in 1943 these units were increased with 250,000 more soldiers. These were only partially trained soldiers. Most of them were veterans, mostly transferred from Burma and Indochina to Luzon and united with practically untrained, freshly drafted Japanese recruits. The latter lacked experience because of their hasty mobilization. Since the arms production of the Japanese industry sank from May 1944 due to the numerous attacks by B-29 Superfortress bombers and the American submarines had sunk a large part of the Japanese transport ships in the meantime, there were supply and supply problems, in particular in a shortage of machine guns and other heavy infantry weapons. Most of the soldiers were therefore only equipped with relatively simple " Arisaka Type 99 " rifles. There was also a lack of communications equipment, vehicles, large-caliber ammunition and other goods that could not be produced in the Philippines. Because of the shortage of radio equipment, the connection between the individual associations was particularly susceptible to interference.

At the beginning of 1944, 275,685 men were stationed on Luzon. On September 26, 1944, General Yamashita Tomoyuki took command of the army. At that time this comprised six infantry divisions, the 10th , 19th , 23rd , 45th , 103rd and 105th divisions. In addition, the 2nd armored and a paratrooper division (Dai-1 Teishin Shūdan) were present. The nine divisions on Luzon defended an island with an area of ​​108,172 km². As a result, the formations were widely dispersed and, in the event of an attack, were unable to be quickly drawn together to provide a continuous front to face the enemy. Only the troops guarding the defensive lines could be quickly united, but even if the front had been successfully formed, only about 100-200 soldiers and 2-3 guns per kilometer would have been available.

Defense strategy

Position of the three major Japanese associations on Luzon, January 11, 1945

Yamashita's original defense plan was based on inland defense. Since the supply of his troops was critical in the event of a battle, he decided to mainly defend those regions where the Japanese troops could have found enough food. In his situation report No. 12 to the Japanese Ministry of War dated December 1, 1944, he wrote: “The tactic which I consider appropriate is to keep the main force of the troops under my command in the areas north of Manila [...] to concentrate, as I can guarantee a longer endurance of my associations. Meanwhile, the navy should try to use Tokkōtai attacks to destroy the enemy fleets with a sea and air attack. The areas west of Manila are [...] not to be defended. ”According to this plan, a defense of the capital itself should be avoided.

Yamashita's staff organized the disposition of the units as early as December 1944: the troops on Luzon were divided into three groups: Shōbu ( 尚武 ), Shimbu ( 振武 ) and Kembu ( 建武 ).

The Shōbu group was supposed to defend northern Luzon. The 10th, 19th, 23rd and 103rd divisions were subordinate to it, as well as the 58th independent mixed brigade, parts of the second armored division and a large part of the ammunition. Potential air support was provided by part of the 4th Air Fleet, which had been stationed on Luzon since 1942. The commander of this force was Yamashita himself; his command post, the headquarters of the group, the entire operations staff and the radio center were in Baguio. The units did not become involved in the fighting until mid-February. General Yamashita had 109 tanks, but only 45 of these were modern types. In the official Japanese representation, the number of 140 tanks was later mentioned. However, there is no reliable information about the size of the Japanese armed forces of the Shōbu group . In various Japanese documents, it ranges from 150,000 soldiers, 1,800 guns, 109 tanks and 360 aircraft to a maximum of 180,000 soldiers, 2,354 guns, 140 tanks and 530 aircraft. According to archive material, the lower numbers are more likely. These troops comprised approximately 68 percent of the personnel and artillery, as well as 80 percent of the tanks and 40 percent of the aircraft of all Japanese armed forces on the island. Yamashita ordered these troops to defend every yard of the ground. In order to be prepared for possible breakthroughs by the enemy in the front, he gathered an operational reserve northwest of the main force under Lieutenant General Omura.

According to this plan, the Kembu group defended the Bataan Peninsula, the Clark Air Base and Corregidor Island. It consisted of the 39th Infantry Regiment and about 15,000 sailors and marines not organized in one unit. General Rikichi Tsukada was in command . General Tsukada had 39 tanks and a total of around 33,000 men, 300 guns and 160 aircraft.

The Shimbu group defended the area from the capital Manila to the Bicol Peninsula in southern Luzon . Here, too, there is no reliable information about the size of the Japanese troops. They are estimated at 50,000–70,000 soldiers, 800–980 guns, 67–100 tanks and 40–90 aircraft. The group's commander, Lieutenant General Yokoyama Shizuo , ordered about 30,000 of these soldiers to dig in northwestern Manila, awaiting the American advance from there. The remaining troops available to him were to serve as reserves.

Main landings in Luzon

Landing of the 6th Army in the Gulf of Lingayen (January 9th)

The US troops took Leyte Island in November 1944. General MacArthur has now been ordered to launch a large-scale operation against the island of Luzon. The aim of the operation was to first destroy the Japanese communication and defense positions on Luzon and then to transport the invasion units to the coast of the island with an amphibious landing fleet. On January 8, 1945, the plan was for the amphibious units of the 6th US Army to land on Luzon.

The units of the 6th Army were loaded onto several transport ships in the port of Ormoc on January 1, 1945 . This transport fleet was accompanied outside the Gulf of Leyte by the 7th fleet under Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf . The invasion fleet numbered 273 ships: 170 transporters, 9 battleships (BB), 15 escort carriers (CVE), 8 light cruisers (CL), 51 destroyers (DD) and 20 minesweepers (AP). It transported around 270,000 soldiers.

The Louisville is hit in a kamikaze attack in the Gulf of Lingayen

The Pennsylvania and parts of the invasion fleet on its way to Luzon

The American fleet was sighted on the afternoon of January 2 by the Japanese escort boat No. 35 about 50 kilometers off the coast of Cebu , which immediately sent a radio message to the Japanese high command on the island of Mindanao . The high command forwarded the message to the Army Air Force Command on Luzon. The Army Air Force Command sent a Mitsubishi F1M 2 Pete seaplane for reconnaissance. However, the aircraft was attacked and shot down by two Grumman F6F Hellcats over Cebu , killing all of the crew. The high command on Luzon decided, at the request of Admiral Ugaki Matome , to organize a strong Shimpu Tokkotai attack against the US fleet. On January 3, 120 Japanese planes were ready to take off from the runways of Clark Field . It was mostly Mitsubishi A6M Zero , Mitsubishi J2M Raiden , Mitsubishi G4M Betty and Nakajima Ki-43 Oscar . All were u. a. armed with 250 kg bombs. However, on the morning of January 3, only two Japanese planes attacked the invading fleet. One of them fell in a kamikaze attack on a tanker , on which its engine broke through the deck and exploded in the engine room, killing twelve sailors in addition to the pilot.

On January 4, a kamikaze attacked the escort carrier USS Ommaney Bay . The aircraft, a twin-engine Kawasaki Ki-45 Nick , broke two decks before exploding. One of the aircraft's bombs detonated in an aircraft fuel depot, causing a large explosion. As a result of this and the subsequent fire, the carrier was so badly damaged that it was evacuated and then sunk by the destroyer USS Burns .

Over the next six days, another 114 Japanese aircraft attacked the fleet and sank three transport ships and a mine sweeper, the USS Palmer (DDM-161), in addition to the destroyer USS Long . Other units were hit, but could still be towed to the important naval bases Ulithi , Leyte or Pearl Harbor . Among the damaged units were two battleships, four cruisers, five destroyers and two transports. In these kamikaze attacks, 325 sailors were killed and around 800 others were injured. Of the embarked landing forces, 240 died while 293 were injured.

Plan for Landing in the Gulf of Lingayen (Nov. 20, 1944)

On January 5, part of the US fleet had arrived in the Gulf of Lingayen , on the west coast of Luzon. Two ship formations approached the coast within 500 meters and fired about 5,000 grenades at the old US defense positions that had been occupied and expanded by the Japanese. The bombardment lasted six hours and destroyed more than 30 enemy bunkers and positions. About 350 naval aviators simultaneously bombed the beaches and the smaller inland airfields. 42 Japanese aircraft were destroyed or shot down on the ground. Another twelve Japanese aircraft were hit by anti-aircraft guns over the US fleet. The American losses, on the other hand, were five aircraft. Meanwhile, Task Force 76 , consisting of three escort carriers, two cruisers and eleven destroyers, commanded by Rear Admiral Allen E. Smith , bombed the Japanese islands of Chichi and Hahajima to prevent the Japanese squadrons stationed there from engaging in air combat intervened over Luzon. A third naval formation under the command of Rear Admiral James L. MacRea , consisting of six carriers, three cruisers and 23 destroyers, bombed the Kuril Islands . The Japanese light cruiser Kitakami of the Kuma class was hit and damaged in the engine room by SB2C Helldiver bombers off Chichijima .

On January 6th, American planes attacked the island again. Task Force 38's 350 aircraft , maneuvering around 250 kilometers off the coast of Taiwan , bombed Luzon and destroyed 59 enemy aircraft on the ground, losing two bombers and 17 fighters. During the following night, 78 Northrop P-61 night fighters operating out of China attacked Luzon airfields and dropped several napalm bombs . However, they were attacked by a Kawasaki Ki-45 squadron and lost seven machines. The Japanese losses in this aerial battle are unknown.

On January 7th, the transport fleet, accompanied by several cruisers and destroyers, was in position in the Gulf of Lingayen. At 6 o'clock in the morning, the beach began again with heavy shelling, which was continued from 12 o'clock by the aircraft of the escort carriers, Task Force 38 and the ground air force in China, a total of around 900 machines. The F6F Hellcats , F4U Corsairs and SB2C Helldivers attacked defensive positions on the beaches while medium-weight B-25 Mitchell bombers bombed the airfields. Around 100 Japanese planes intervened and shot down 19 American bombers and four fighters with high losses. Two of the Japanese machines attacked the USS Louisville with kamikaze attacks, but were hit a few meters above the ship by the air defense. The entire fleet fired around 16,000 projectiles against the beach that day. Most of the rest of the Japanese fortifications were destroyed. Only ten bunkers and a few rolls of barbed wire remained intact on the coast of the Gulf.

American landing craft prepare to land troops

On January 8, the transporter fleet was attacked by 23 kamikaze pilots. One of the planes narrowly missed the USS Boise , the light cruiser on which MacArthur himself was with his staff. The escort carriers USS Kitkun Bay and USS Salamaua were hit by two aircraft on the aft deck and in the engine room and had to be towed to Ormoc. The Australian cruiser HMAS Australia was hit by a kamikaze plane for the fifth time, presumably by a Nakajima B6N Jill , and also had to be towed (by the USS Apache ). Two transport ships were also hit, killing 47 soldiers. On the night of January 8th to 9th, the transport ships approached the coast and 120 landing craft manned by 25 soldiers each landed on the beach at 11:01 p.m. In this first wave of attacks, around 200 Japanese fighting in isolation were killed, ten bunkers and some defensive positions were blown up and the beach and the surrounding area were cleared of mines and barbed wire.

By the late morning of January 9, about 68,000 GIs from the U.S. 25th Infantry Division and 2,000 Marines were ashore. From then on, General Walter Krueger took over tactical command. Hundreds of jeeps and trucks were disembarked and loaded with radios, anti-tank traps and heavy weapons because of fear of a Japanese counterattack. In the evening, a total of around 170,000 soldiers and several thousand vehicles were brought ashore.

Landing of the XI. Corps in Zambales Province (January 29)

At dawn on January 29, 1945, the American 38th Infantry Division and a regiment of the 24th Infantry Division under the command of the XI landed in the province of Zambales north of the Bataan peninsula . Corps. The aim of this command was to cut off Manila and Bataan from the north of the island. At the Zig Zag Pass , a few kilometers west of the beach, the column, which had only a few vehicles, was attacked by an 8,000-strong Japanese unit under the command of General Mutō Akira , commander of the 19th Division . The Japanese had about 200 heavy machine guns and artillery positioned between the rocks and opened fire when the first US soldiers entered the gorge. Several snipers fired at the American officers in particular. In the evening the 28,000 soldiers of the corps were still in the pass and could not leave it without danger. The 152nd Infantry Battalion under Colonel A. Jenna tried several times to take a Japanese position on Horseshoe Hill, suffering heavy losses and having to be relieved by the 3rd Battalion. In the afternoon, the Horseshoe Hill fell into the hands of the Americans, who then tried unsuccessfully to encircle the Japanese positions. In the evening, air support was requested, but it did not materialize.

During the night there were two banzai attacks, which met fierce resistance from the Americans and were canceled. About 350 of the 900 attacking Japanese were killed. The next day the GIs were taken under fire again, this time also head-on. On that day, the US troops tried, partly with the help of flamethrowers or explosives, to conquer the positions of the Japanese and to roll up from Horseshoe Hill, which did not fully succeed. After the attacks failed, Colonel General Harry Jones, who commanded the troops, ordered the occupation of several Japanese positions on the right flank of the pass on February 4th. But it was only in the afternoon that these positions could be taken. Jenna's 3rd Battalion was then ordered to storm the range of hills on the left flank in order to relieve pressure on US forces. At the same time, the 1st Battalion was to advance against the hills on the right, but these two units were only able to conquer the hills in the evening. On the night of February 5, the Japanese withdrew almost completely, but still kept the pass under fire. Americans lost 211 dead and 308 injured. The number of Japanese fallen is unknown, but it is estimated at around 500.

Landing of the 11th Airborne Division near Nasugbu (January 31)

On January 31, troops from the US 11th Airborne Division landed near Nasugbu in Batangas Province . About 8,000 soldiers were amphibiously brought ashore by twelve transport ships, two destroyers and seven mine layers. These troops were to form the southern pincer arm with the enclosure of Manila. The Japanese defenders of the city of Nasugbu, around 10,000 men, were caught off guard by the attack. The beach defense was unmanned and all troops were still in the barracks. Several hundred Filipino guerrillas also attacked the city. Part of the population joined the guerrilla fighters. The Japanese had already been pushed out of the city by the American and Filipino units on February 3 and retreated towards the western range of hills, but were crushed there by 2,300 American paratroopers from the 11th Division, who jumped there on February 2 . 9,000 Japanese were killed in the fighting. About 1,000 Japanese survivors fled into the jungle, where they were unable to unite to form an organized force. The paratroopers then continued their advance towards Manila and reached this goal on February 5th.

Landing on Corregidor (February 16)

Map of the island of Corregidor with the old American defenses

After the troops of the XI. US Corps had sealed off the Bataan peninsula and began to take action against the troops trapped there, the command officers of the IX. Corps under the direction of General Krueger to conquer the island of Corregidor , which was already heavily fortified by the Americans before the Pacific War and occupied by the Japanese soldiers in 1942. The island fortress had been repeatedly shot at by US warships since January. The Japanese had dug their way into the old US defenses, especially in the Malinta tunnel. This was equipped with mortars and protected by camouflage nets and cement walls from the violent preparatory air raids by the American air force. In addition to the 500 meter long tunnel, several fortified positions as well as bunkers and tank traps were built. The commandant of the island's 6,800-strong garrison was the sea captain Itagaki Akira. The defense was officially led from the mainland by General Rikichi Tsukada . However, since the radio link to the island no longer existed in early February due to air strikes and Philippine sabotage, Itagaki took over command.

On February 16, 980 soldiers of the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment jumped from a total of 143 Douglas DC-3 transport aircraft over Corregidor. These eight companies landed on and near the topside hill that had been declared a landing target . A supporting amphibious landing was carried out by a battalion from the 24th Infantry Division. The Japanese, who were defending the topside hill and expecting no air landing, were quickly pushed back towards the Malinta tunnel. Soon the paratroopers, initially fighting in isolation, were horrified by soldiers from the 24th Division. The GIs now had to take every fortification with hand grenades, explosives, Molotov cocktails or rifle and machine-gun fire. Heavy Allied fire from tanks and field cannons destroyed the entrance to the Malinta Tunnel on February 17th. The 840 Japanese defenders who were now trapped in the tunnel committed suicide or seppuku for the most part by blowing themselves up with hand grenades, killing each other with stones or rifle butts, or killing with guntos . The Japanese on the island, who did not die, launched a banzai attack on the night of February 18. A total of 600 Japanese ran from their positions and attacked in the cover of darkness the positions of Companies D and F of the 503rd Regiment. They were repulsed by violent fire; about 500 Japanese and 27 Americans were killed in this attack.

On February 21, the GIs reached the entrance to the Malinta Tunnel. They blew up the entrance, which had been destroyed by fire, poured gasoline into the tunnel rooms and set it on fire. Some of the Japanese who persisted were killed. The tunnel was secured on the same day. The remaining positions of the defenders were taken after a February 24 purge. The total American casualties were 207 dead and 684 wounded. The Japanese soldiers were all killed but 19 prisoners of war.

Advance towards Central Luzon

The landed US units began their advance towards Manila on January 10, 1945. The I and XIV Corps of the US 6th Army began to march from the beaches on the Gulf of Lingayen towards the capital in order to conquer it. This force consisted of about 160,000 men. They were supported by 12,000 trucks and a further 7,000 vehicles that accompanied the army, including 10 tank brigades with a total of around 700 tanks. Several thousand guerrilla fighters joined them, as well as around 10 divisions of the Philippine army , some of which consisted of former soldiers and guerrilla fighters, or were quickly put together from local volunteers. Some of the units in this force were intended to cross the island as quickly as possible, thereby disrupting the Japanese’s communications. About 30 bulldozers bulldozed a path into the jungle. The 1st US Corps , supported by four tank battalions, secured the right flank of the 79-kilometer column of trucks and troops. This column was supposed to turn its march to the northwest to form the northern part of the planned basin around Manila in southern Luzon. On January 14th, the 1st Corps, especially its tank battalions, had the first fuel supply bottlenecks, which brought the advance of these units to a standstill. Only after fuel supplies by the 25th and 40th US Infantry Divisions was operational readiness restored on the evening of January 15th.

The Japanese divisions number 10 , 19 , 23 and 105 , which were defending Central Luzon , had withdrawn almost completely in the direction of Cordillera Central on Yamashita's orders . The exception was about 79,000 men who defended the most important provinces and were concentrated with the main troops in the two largest cities of San Miguel and Tarlac. There were only a few skirmishes during the US advance. In the village of Biglat and the smaller towns of Binalonan and Umingan , all of which were viewed as secondary targets by the American operations staff on Luzon, however, the troops of the 25th US Infantry Division , which were to encircle them and then occupy them, got into heavy fighting with Japanese units . The places changed hands several times before the Japanese troops finally had to withdraw. About 3,900 Japanese were killed in fighting lasting several days; the survivors withdrew to San Miguel. The American casualties during the entire advance amounted to 238 dead, 2991 wounded and 31 tanks.

Cauldron of San Miguel (January 17th)

On January 17, 1945, troops from the 3rd, 32nd, 36th and 37th Filipino Divisions arrived in San Miguel , Bulacan . The province was controlled by about 60,000 Japanese soldiers under the command of General Kimura Kiyohide . They had heavy artillery and field batteries , but communication between these units was difficult. Several telephone lines had been cut by the guerrillas and radio contact was only partially possible. The American 42nd Infantry Division swiveled northeast on January 18 to form the northern arm of the pincer maneuver around San Miguel. Thus the northern wing of the Japanese defense was also encircled. However, the 42nd Division encountered bitter resistance from the Japanese units. It was not until the breakthrough of Kimura's outer defense line northeast of the city on January 24th that San Miguel was completely enclosed. The 32nd Philippine Division succeeded in penetrating the city through the gap in the outer defensive ring. Almost at the same time, the advance of the 36th Division took place from the southeast, which also filled a gap in the defense and advanced into San Miguel. The supply and communication lines of the Japanese troops were finally cut off. The advance into the city center was preceded by heavy air strikes by B-24 Liberator bombers , which destroyed large parts of the city and killed several thousand civilians in it.

After the final breakthrough of the defensive ring, the Japanese limited themselves to a gradual retreat towards the city center over the next few weeks. There they mainly defended the city's government buildings, some with barricades and some with armored units. However, there was no urban warfare. The Japanese soldiers were pushed further and further towards the town hall by the 42nd Division in the north and the Philippine units in the southeast, particularly through the use of explosives and machine guns. Various massacres of civilians were committed during this involuntary withdrawal. About 16,000 local people were killed by the frustrated Japanese. On May 1st, the city was considered secure . However, it was not finally liberated until July 2nd and the last Japanese associations wiped out. The losses were relatively heavy: 3,726 Filipinos and 361 Americans fell in battle. A total of 39,000 Japanese were killed in the cauldron in the San Miguel district. While the city was still being taken, work was carried out to free the American units that were not involved in the fight for a further advance towards Manila. Due to only slight Japanese resistance in the rest of the Bulacan province, these troops made surprisingly fast progress, although the American operations staff had originally scheduled 14 days to secure and cross Bulacan.

Japanese withdrawal from Bulacan

In the course of the Battle of San Miguel, the remaining parts of the Japanese 10th and 105th Divisions and the 58th Independent Mixed Brigade , around 12,400 men, of which around 2,000 were wounded, withdrew towards Cordillera Central to help them approach To evade Americans. Four convoys of trucks, accompanied by infantry, set off on February 25 to reach the mountains. Thus began a slow and disorderly withdrawal of the Japanese units. However, all columns were severely decimated by American air strikes. Of the 12,400 marching soldiers, around 2,300 died in these attacks. The dispersed survivors gathered in the mountains and reorganized into an independent unit, which, however, was not under General Yamashita's command and defended itself with guerrilla tactics. They had few vehicles, no radios, and no tanks or artillery. The food situation for these troops was also critical. There was no radio contact with the main troops.

MacArthur and the entire American operations staff on Luzon, including General Krueger, decided to bypass this enemy force in central Luzon and move quickly towards the most strategic targets, including the cities of Tarlac, Manila and Baguio. Most of the Japanese soldiers in this group surrendered in early July when there were no more supplies. Several hundred men, however, continued to fight until Yamashita's surrender in September.

Advance on Tarlac

A soldier of the 33rd Infantry Division using a flamethrower on Luzon, February 1945

The US units secured the Bulacan province, from which the Japanese had withdrawn, at the end of January. Only San Miguel was contested. General Krueger was therefore able to operate relatively freely and initially turned the I. Corps to the northwest in the direction of the province of Tarlac. Parts of this corps were ordered to advance on the city of Tarlac , which was considered an important target. First, the city itself had to be surrounded and captured before the rest of the province could be secured. During this clean-up operation, the liberated units were supposed to advance towards Manila in order to encircle the capital and cut off the defenders in the south from north Luzon. The advance of the 1st Corps turned out to be more difficult than expected. Although it broke through the last intact Japanese positions in the area of ​​the Pampanga River , built a bridgehead over the river on January 18 and was able to advance towards Tarlac City, it was slowed down considerably when transferring larger troop contingents and the march through the swampy area. The vehicles got partially stuck in the mud and only the infantry could move quickly. In the period that followed, American operations were severely hampered. In the headquarters of the operations staff in Luzon it was already recorded on January 20th: "It is impossible to move the tanks quickly because of the mud and the poor condition of the roads." The operations staff therefore decided on January 20th to bring the tank units to a standstill. Only the infantry troops were to advance. The aircraft of the US Air Force were also less and less able to intervene due to bad weather.

Tarlac Cauldron (January 21)

On January 21, a 2,400-strong vanguard of the 6th US Army reached the city of Tarlac. This association had a forced march behind them. On January 21, these troops occupied part of the main road that led into the city and were relieved on January 22 by further parts of the 40th Infantry Division, subordinated to the 1st Corps, who were then turned to the northwest around the northwestern pincer of the planned boiler to form the entire province of Tarlac. At the same time, however, infantry troops attacked the Japanese positions head-on from the west and south in order to narrow the forming basin. There was no tank support because the tracked vehicles could not advance in the mud of the pampangas. The first troops, who were supposed to secure the city and turn onto the main road, were shot at immediately from the rice fields and coconut groves. The GIs therefore holed up in sandbag-fortified foxholes and waited for the armored units to arrive. The first M4 Sherman tanks arrived on the evening of January 25th. On January 26, the remaining troops of the 33rd Infantry Division arrived with further tank support and were turned south. This completely encircled most of the Tarlac province.

The Japanese defending Tarlac were about 8,900 strong. They were parts of the 10th and 103rd Divisions of the 14th Regional Army. Most of them were battle-tested but poorly equipped soldiers who had fought in the Battle of the Philippines as early as 1942 . They were armed with about 600 machine guns and several mortar batteries. Two artillery batteries were positioned in the hills beyond the town of Tarlac under the direction of an engineer corps. Two tank brigades of the 2nd Panzer Division were positioned on the left wing of the province's main defense line, which ran east of the city limits . The line was secured by the 103rd Division. The positions consisted of bunkers as well as hundreds of trenches and foxholes.

The first American advance troops began the attack on January 23. The city of Tarlac was quickly secured as the Japanese put up weak resistance. But the advance in the open field turned out to be more difficult. The Japanese line of defense had to come under heavy fire. Massive use of flamethrowers meant that several bunkers could be conquered, but this did not bring a breakthrough, as the Japanese defended every meter of ground. As some of the prisoners later reported, the Japanese tried to contact the rest of the Japanese 10th Division. However, these radio messages went unanswered. On January 29, further air and tank support was requested from the US troops, as the enemy positions were difficult to storm. On the evening of February 1, about 140 bombers bombed the specified targets, while several missile-armed F4U Corsairs provided close air support and attacked enemy positions. Although the air and artillery bombardment lasted for the month, only a few enemy positions were completely destroyed. Most of them were captured by frontal attacks or the use of hand grenades. The American soldiers therefore made very slow progress and by the evening of February 19 had only captured two barangays . General Krueger was ordered to advance with most of the 1st Corps towards Manila and to leave the capture of the province of Tarlac to the 2nd Infantry Division of the Philippine Army. About 9,000 GIs of the 1st Corps stayed with the Filipinos to finally secure the city. The fighting did not subside. Although several Japanese committed suicide because of the desperate situation to them, the losses of the Allies continued to increase.

The Battle of Tarlac Province did not officially end until July 28, 1945, but fighting in some barangays lasted until the general armistice on August 15, and Japanese units continued to fight using guerrilla tactics. The US losses were 1,179 dead and 5,195 wounded, the Filipino about 3,000 dead and 5,703 wounded. An estimated 8,700 Japanese defense lawyers had died, with only 87 surrendering. Some 5,000 Filipino civilians were also killed during the six-month battle, mostly due to air strikes by American planes. There were no acts of revenge by the Japanese occupiers, unlike in San Miguel. A total of 29 percent of the city of Tarlac was destroyed by the Japanese.

Final withdrawal of the Japanese from Tarlac Province

Almost all of the troops defending the city of Tarlac were killed during the four months of fighting. As in Bulacan, the soldiers who occupied the rest of the province and were not included in the cauldron, around 9,000 men, withdrew towards Manila on the express orders of General Mutō Akira , commander of the 19th division. They reached the capital without fighting with the US troops. From there they were also ordered to the Philippine Cordilleras, where they joined dispersed soldiers of the 23rd Division .

Battle of Clark Field (January 23)

The former US base at Clark Field was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and converted into an important runway for fighter planes and bombers . Around 190 Japanese planes were stationed here at the turn of 1944/45, but several squadrons had worn out in Kamikaze attacks against the US fleet from the beginning of 1945, so that by the end of January only about 40 operational planes were available. These were shot down or devastated by two USAAF air strikes on January 20. The US losses from these attacks were 16 machines.

A Japanese soldier fighting in isolation surrenders on June 16 in the north of the Bataan peninsula

Japanese defense

The leadership of the Kembu group stationed around 4,000 soldiers around the airport, mostly mechanics or radar technicians of the Army Air Force who were poorly trained in infantry , while a further 6,000 men were ordered into the area around the area. They were parts of the 10th Division who were ordered from the province of Tarlac to Clark Field in early January. They were better trained but had no practical combat experience. Most of these defenders were armed only with Arisaka Type 99 rifles and other light weapons, but there were also several anti-aircraft battalions armed with anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns. There were also about 2,000 marines in the ranks of the Japanese, who, however, could only muster light weapons. The Japanese troops had also recovered machine guns from the wrecked aircraft on the square and used them for defense. In the hills and cliffs of the Zambales Mountains further northwest, about thirty anti-aircraft guns were housed in numerous caves that were once hiding places for Filipino and American guerrillas, which could fire on the tarmac. They should primarily be used as anti-tank weapons.

A total of three lines of defense were established: the first, mentioned in the American reports as the Outpost Line of Resistence (OPLR), started north of the village of Bamban , followed first the river of the same name to the south and then the Abucayan River to the east. It was defended by the Eguchi Defense Group under Lieutenant Colonel Eguchi Seizuke, which consisted of around 3800 men. These troops consisted of five untrained infantry battalions, a trained infantry regiment and a battery of 26 heavy flak units, which also defended the tarmac. The second line was relatively the most manned and is called the Main Line of Resistance (MLR) in the US protocols . It was defended by a smaller part of the Eguchi Defense Group and the complete Takayama Defense Group under Lieutenant Colonel Takayama Koshin, which was about 2,800 men strong and comprised of the 2nd Light Infantry Battalion, two untrained infantry battalions and one of the total of two anti-tank battalions, the 75 mm - PaK was armed, passed. This line of defense began south of Bamban and ended at Fort Stotsenburg , which housed the accommodation buildings, administration buildings and depots for airfield personnel. The third line of defense was on the tarmac and consisted of a wall of felled coconut trees defended by several Type 99 light machine guns and three batteries of 75mm cannons. The units that defended this wall were called Defense Group Yanagimoto , named after the sea captain of the same name, Yanagimoto, and consisted of 2,000 marines.

Skirmishes

The 37th US Infantry Division , subordinate to the XIV. Corps, supported by the 129th Infantry Regiment, reached Clark Field on January 23 after a successful advance in the Carmen-Anao area and attacked immediately, but was about two kilometers from the concrete tarmac Defensive fire by the defenders of the OPLR stopped. The 40th Infantry Division, which reached Clark Field on January 24th, was supposed to attack along the railway line to Manila and, after the successful breakthrough of the OPLR line, swing against the MLR defense line on both sides from the west and south. To the north of it, the 37th Division had to encircle and conquer the Japanese-controlled hills Lafe Hill and Hill 500 before turning northwest of the airfield. Finally, the 160th Infantry Regiment, which was under the 40th Infantry Division, was to roll up the Japanese positions from the south and take Hill 636 .

By January 26, the OPLR had fallen and around half of its defenders had been killed during the advance of the 40th Infantry Division. During this time, Eguchi was in radio contact with the Japanese headquarters in Manila several times to receive new orders. The US decoding units intercepted several conversations in which Eguchi was refused to withdraw. Due to this refusal of a tactical retreat, Hill 636 was also soon captured. The 40th Division was withdrawn to the northeast shortly thereafter, while infantry troops of the 37th Division advanced in the southeast and surrounded the Japanese on Lafe Hill and Hill 500 . However, the Japanese defensive fire remained strong and by the evening US troops had lost around 120 deaths. When the 2nd Panzer Division, which had previously been held up by adverse road conditions, finally intervened in the fighting on January 28, it encountered strong Japanese resistance that had not yet been completely broken by the infantry. The attack by the 17th Panzer Regiment broke through the Japanese defense lines of the Defense Force North at the MLR on the morning of January 28 at 5:45 a.m. The tank units advanced further to the northwest, from which some fighting developed, especially in the north of the airfield, which lasted until January 28 and ended with the destruction of the Japanese units in this zone. During the night there was a banzai attack by around 600 Japanese, led by Captain Yanagimoto personally. However, this was repulsed by a unit of forty M4 Sherman tanks. On January 29th, the Japanese were driven out of numerous caves and the last buildings of Fort Stotsenburg with the help of flamethrower tanks and suffered heavy losses. The MLR finally fell on January 29th. Three more counterattacks at night failed, so that the next morning the tarmac was completely in American hands and secured.

Lieutenant Colonel Eguchi was killed during the fighting, probably from a shell impact. The losses amounted to 233 dead, 2,387 wounded and 14 tanks on the American side. The Japanese probably lost all soldiers who were stationed at Clark Field in the fighting. There were about 12,000 men. Only 13 soldiers were captured, 11 of whom died in captivity.

Battle for Cabanatuan (January 28)

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US soldiers march towards the Cabanatuan prison camp

Filipino guerrillas near the Cabanatuan prison camp

On 28 January, a troop of F company put of 133 US soldiers of the United States Army Rangers and about 250 Filipino guerrillas march to the prison camp Cabanatuan (Cabanatuan Prison Camp) , in which about 700 to 1,000 civilians and US Prisoners of war interned by the Japanese were to be liberated. They took off from the city of Guimba and bypassed the still contested Clark Field airfield. The front had not yet reached the camp, so the Rangers had to bypass the Japanese lines and operate behind them. The American soldiers advancing on foot were armed with a few bazookas and Browning Automatic Rifles for every other man in addition to normal rifles . The guerrilla fighters were armed only with rifles, mostly Arisaka Type 99 , which they had stolen from the Japanese, and were led by a self-appointed commander named Captain Juan Pajota. The forces reached the prison camp without incident or skirmish.

Around 20 barracks for the guards had been built around the huts of the internees. The guards were around 200 soldiers from various companies belonging to the 19th Division, as well as around 50 local guards. Most of them were armed only with pistols and rifles. Around the camp and along the course of the Cabu River, however, there were also about 1000 dispersed soldiers of the 105th Division, who had been gathered there and re-assembled into a unit and were to be ordered into the mountains. These soldiers mostly had no heavy weapons at their disposal.

On the night of January 30th, a Northrop P-61 attacked the camp's Japanese guards' barracks in a diversionary attempt to drive the Japanese out of the barracks. The US soldiers attacked shortly afterwards and fired from camouflaged positions with machine guns and bazookas at the Japanese soldiers standing close together. These suffered very heavy losses, also due to the attacks of the P-61. After just a few minutes, the guards were forced to withdraw and take shelter behind the huts. One division of the Rangers then penetrated the camp and freed hundreds of the prisoners, while a second division pushed the confused Japanese out of their cover with hand grenades and Molotov cocktails and threw them back. The Filipino guerrillas in turn opened fire and inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese soldiers. These then fled in disorder to the nearby hills.

About 500 inmates of the camp were freed. The Rangers had 2 dead and 19 wounded, the Filipinos 15 dead and 29 wounded, while the Japanese lost 469 men.

Battle of Manila (February 2nd)

Downtown Manila during the fighting

→ Main article : Battle of Manila (1945)

The 14th Japanese Regional Army had largely withdrawn from Manila to Baguio in February. Around 14,000 marines commanded by Vice Admiral Iwabuchi Sanji and around 10,000 army soldiers remained in the capital, Manila. These defenders were particularly well armed with machine guns and were reinforced by about 20 tanks from the 2nd Division. On February 2, the 1st U.S. Cavalry Division reached the city. The 8,000 American paratroopers of the 11th US Airborne Division, who had now landed in Nasugbu , marched quickly towards Manila. On February 4, their advance came to a halt as around 12,000 Japanese soldiers defended the south of the city. Heavy fire from machine guns and artillery held the US troops about two kilometers from Manila, on the Tagaytay Hills. The losses during the fighting for these hills were comparatively high. The Japanese soldiers in turn attacked the positions of the 11th Airborne Division twice with artillery support, supported by the Japanese armored division, which was defending the city. However, it was easy for the buried Americans to break both banzai attacks with heavy defensive fire. About 800 Japanese soldiers were killed. Several Japanese tanks attacked and because the airborne troops had no anti-tank weapons, they could not be thrown back. After heavy fire from machine guns, they retreated. On February 6, six anti-tank guns were flown in and shortly afterwards the GIs destroyed three tanks with them. Another Japanese attack was broken by massive counterfire during the night. On February 9, the airborne troops were replaced by parts of the 1st Cavalry Division.

The US 1st Cavalry Division had crossed the last intact bridge over the Pasig on February 3 , as General Yamashita had ordered his men to destroy all bridges. Here, too, the Japanese fired from several machine-gun nests, some tanks had positioned themselves between the palm trees on the edge of the road and opened fire. About 38,000 GIs of the XIV Corps under General Oscar Griswold entered the city on February 5, and the city has since been repeatedly attacked by B-29 Superfortress bombers and P-51 Mustangs . Several Japanese positions were destroyed by heavy artillery fire. On February 7th, the GIs began to slowly advance towards the center. When the Japanese resistance did not weaken even after several days and the American advance came to a standstill, General Griswold ordered on February 11th to go straight to the house-to-house fight and no longer just try to bomb the Japanese out of their houses. As early as February 12, all communication options of the defenders could be interrupted. In this way, quarter by quarter was conquered and the Japanese soldiers were pushed further and further towards the center. Hand grenades and rifle fire caused the most casualties among them. Large parts of downtown Manila were completely destroyed in these battles. On February 19, the number of defense lawyers was probably only around 2,000 men. On March 2, Vice Admiral Iwabuchi committed suicide at his command post, probably by blowing himself up with a hand grenade.

On March 4th, Manila was officially declared a Safe Zone . The losses suffered by the Americans in the conquest of the city were comparatively heavy, with 1,729 dead and 3,652 wounded. About 23,000 Japanese had fallen, only 631 surrendered. Around 100,000 Filipino residents of the city were killed in the fighting, mostly by Japanese troops during the so-called Manila Massacre , in which the occupiers took revenge on civilians for impending defeat. 72 percent of the inner city district of Intramuros was in ruins.

Conquest of the island fortresses in Manila Bay (April 1st)

The four forts in Manila Bay, the islands of Corregidor, Fort Drum , Caballo and Fort Hughes, had all been occupied by the Japanese. Corregidor was taken by air landing in February, as was Fort Hughes. Caballo fell in late February.

On April 1, after the city of Manila was secured, Fort Drum Island was heavily bombed. The Japanese garrison was 70 men. General Krueger decided to entrust the conquest of this island fortress to the 151st Infantry Regiment of the 38th Division. The operations command staff intended to take the surface of the island first. Then gasoline was to be pumped into the vents of the underground bunkers and then set on fire to make it explode. The 113th Engineer Battalion was landed on April 13 by an LST on the surface of the concrete fort and was able to secure it quickly. Then 3000 liters of gasoline and 600 tons of TNT were filled into the ventilation shafts and shortly afterwards the gasoline was exploded by the TNT. Fort Drum burned out and glowed for three days. The huge explosion also wounded some American sailors. On April 18, a US patrol entered the remains of Fort Drums and discovered 69 Japanese bodies. With the conquest of Fort Drum, the last Japanese resistance in Manila Bay came to an end.

The fortress island of Fort Drum

U.S. casualties in all operations in the bay were 207 dead, all of which fell during the attack on Corregidor, and 688 wounded. In the capture of Fort Drum, only one soldier was injured by enemy fire.

End of the operation

Battle of Baguio (April 26th)

On April 26, troops of the 2nd, 11th, 12th, 13th, 15th and 16th Filipino divisions had reached the city of Baguio . Shortly afterwards, units from the 33rd and 37th US divisions also arrived. With them came several M4 Sherman tanks and M3 half-tracks . A total of about 36,000 men were mobilized on the Allied side.

The city was defended by 22,000 Japanese soldiers from the 8th Division . All streets were paved with sandbags, barricades, anti-tank traps and fire positions. Strong associations had gathered in the center and almost all houses were occupied with soldiers. Cement walls and heaps of rubble blocked the main road. Snipers were posted on the roofs and machine gun nests guarded the intersections. Parts of the 2nd Panzer Division, which had 48 Type 97 Chi Ha tanks , were also stationed in the city . Defense commanders were General Yamashita for army units and Rear Admiral Okochi Shizuo for about 2,000 men in the Navy. Immediately before the attack, there was confusion on the Japanese side, as the first American air raids had destroyed the connection between the individual units and with Japanese troops outside the city. Radio contact was not possible and the phone lines were cut by Filipino saboteurs and guerrillas. The soldiers who were occupying the area around Baguio and preparing to retreat north could not be reached either by telephone or by courier. Lieutenant Tagami, who commanded these units, soon realized the danger that threatened his troops. He therefore ordered his soldiers to disperse before they were surrounded by American troops. Several hundred soldiers then fled into the jungle, others surrendered. Only about 2000 men started the previously planned march north. Tagami shot himself in his command post.

Yamashita's troops were encircled on April 28th. Parts of the 37th US Division swerved to the northeast, while the Philippine troops enclosed the city in the southwest. Yamashita himself, part of his staff and about 2,000 soldiers managed to escape from Baguio on April 27 before the siege ring was closed. They reached the mountains on May 2nd. Yamashita transferred the defense of Baguio to General Suesada Ouchi and, before he broke out himself , ordered him to later smuggle as many troops as possible out of the pocket towards the north. In order no. 245, he asks Ouchi: “... to evacuate our men from the city of Baguio as quickly as possible. If it doesn't break out, they have to hold Baguio as long as possible. ”However, Baguio's defenders were demoralized and poorly nourished by months of fighting and constant air raids. In previous battles around 3,500 men had died and the casualties were only poorly replenished. In addition, since March there has only been half a food ration and no wages.

Ouchi had several unusable guns and vehicles blown up and mined in the following two days before the bulk of his troops were finally trapped in Baguio. He saw no possibility of evacuating units due to the desolate condition of the troops and the Allied superiority. The GIs and Filipino soldiers were immediately shot at as they advanced on the city. Support from tanks was then requested. The tracked vehicles opened fire on the visible Japanese positions in front of the city. On May 11, the American troops were initially able to take some barangays, with which they had already broken into the defense line of Ouchi. They were able to use these successes to advance towards the city center. On May 23rd, heavy fighting broke out between the 37th Division and the Japanese 8th Division on the outskirts of the city center and the inner defensive ring set up by Ouchi. They were supported by some tanks from the Japanese 2nd Panzer Division, which had only started since May 16 was involved in the fighting and could therefore be considered relatively fresh. General Krueger then ordered house-to-house fighting to drive the Japanese defenders out of the center. However, the Japanese defended themselves bitterly under heavy American air strikes. The US losses from booby traps , hand grenade fights and machine gun fire were relatively high, although the Japanese no longer fought as fiercely as in previous battles on Luzon. Banzai attacks did not materialize. Nevertheless, it was not until August 1st that most of the city was secured.

American troops lost 1,273 soldiers during the retaking of Baguio, while the Filipino casualties totaled around 2,600 deaths. The number of wounded was also high. Around 19,000 men in the Japanese garrison were killed and 671 voluntarily made prisoners of war.

Reorganization of the Japanese defense

On May 4th, in view of the looming defeat in southern and western Luzon and the encirclement of Baguio, General Yamashita met several commanders of the Japanese troops and their staffs for a crisis meeting. This staff determined the at least partially developed line of defense in the mountains of northern Luzon to be the new line of defense and the last organized units defending central and western Luzon were instructed to retreat there as quickly as possible. First the last combat-ready parts of the four divisions in central Luzon were ordered there to organize a makeshift defense. On May 10, in the mountains of the Sierra Madre , in addition to the soldiers who had been ordered there, several thousand scattered men from various units and fifty tanks of the 2nd Panzer Division still working had gathered. These troops were all reorganized under the name of the 41st Army . By mid July 11th regiments, 16 incomplete brigades, 78 gathered in the mountains tanks and two airborne companies , all in all about 78,000 men.

General Yamashita Tomoyuki and his staff on their way to the surrender ceremony on September 2, 1945

Since his troops were outnumbered and battered, General Yamashita tried to stabilize this new line of defense by all means before the American forces had taken Baguio and could encircle and storm the defenses on the mountains of the Sierra Madre. In his order No. 190 of May 26th, he again urged all units that were still able to fight to retreat towards the mountains, avoiding combat and taking as much food and medicine as possible. Wounded persons fit for work were released from the field hospitals and asked to build anti-tank trenches and fire positions. Yamashita ordered “cowards and alarmists who leave the positions without any orders should be shot. Seppuku in the field is hereby prohibited ”. To Lieutenant General Muto he confessed: "I need every available man".

American security operations in central and southern Luzon

During the fighting for the cities of Tarlac, San Miguel and Manila, American troops went over to clearing and securing the provinces they had captured. As early as May 4, the occupied regions were only to be liberated from the remaining Japanese troops by part of the 25th Infantry Division, but it soon became apparent that the 24th Division was also necessary for this. Many dispersed Japanese units that had no radio contact with the main troops or had received no withdrawal orders from Yamashita, fiercely defended themselves in the forests of central Luzon. These were mostly relatively small troops of soldiers. Several Japanese troops attempted to reach their units in the Sierra Madre Mountains, but most of these eruptions were prevented. The US units took action against the isolated enemy troops in sectors: the provinces of Tarlac, Bulacan and Batangas were finally liberated from the Japanese on May 29. According to the American report, 103 GIs were killed and 217 wounded in these purges. The Japanese dead were estimated at around 7,000.

Attack on Japanese fortifications in the Sierra Madre

After securing the economically important regions in Central Luzon, the Americans went over to attack the Japanese line of defense of the Shōbu group in the Sierra Madre. The Japanese troops had meanwhile succeeded in at least partially expanding the defense line in the mountains, and in April Yamashita tried to move as many supplies as possible from Baguio to the Sierra Madre and to collect troops there. He decided to send the units defending the cities of Aparri , Tabuk and Kabugao to the Sierra. Radio messages intercepted by the US decoding units indicated a further concentration of troops in Tuguegarao and Ilagan , where Yamashita set up the main depots for the supply of his troops. These two places were particularly well fortified, and this is where the last tanks of the 2nd Panzer Division were ordered. However, despite the attempts to concentrate supplies in the Sierra, the Japanese troops lacked food and ammunition, and the vehicles and tanks lacked spare parts and fuel. In addition, American scouts observed a large number of damaged enemy trucks on the streets. The US planes nevertheless reported hundreds of defensive positions and batteries in the mountains. Yamashita was, along with his staff and Lieutenant General Muto, in Tuguegarao.

On the afternoon of June 18, the troops of the 1st US Corps , supported by two tank battalions and four infantry divisions of the XI. Corps, a battalion of the 11th Airborne Division and four infantry divisions of the Philippine Army advanced towards the mountains. Although the Japanese pioneers had blown up or mined almost all the bridges over the Cagayan , the American units were able to build a bridgehead over the river at several points within June 30th and so on in the direction of Tuguegarao, which Krueger regarded as the main objective of the advance . As with the march through the pampangas in January, the advance through the swampy area of ​​the Cagayan was slowed this time too. The trucks and tanks in particular got stuck in the mud and again only the infantry could move forward quickly. The advance across the Cagayan was therefore only resumed on July 6th. American planes constantly flew air strikes against Japanese positions during the advance, but it was not until July 20 that US forces were able to reach and breach the first Japanese defense lines of the Sierra Madre. In a report by the US staff on Luzon it says: "In any case, the Shōbu group held up our units for as long as General Yamashita had foreseen." The I. Corps then advanced in the direction of Tuguegarao July take the city against little enemy resistance. On July 30th, Ilagan also fell to the Americans. The encirclement and conquest of the place came to a halt this time due to a major attack by the Japanese tank brigades in the city on the evening of July 29th. However, after the Japanese tracked vehicles were completely wiped out by heavy air and artillery fire, the city center was quickly taken with almost no resistance. US troops lost about 500 men in the fighting prior to conquering these important Japanese bases and about 800 while securing these locations. The Philippine divisions lost around 3,000 men during the advance.

About 22,000 soldiers of the Shōbu group died . The remaining Japanese troops, around 58,000 men, withdrew south of Baggao , into the Asin Valley , where the last line of defense ran. The US troops called this place the Last Stand Area . Yamashita and his staff went there on July 12th. However, the supply of the Japanese collapsed completely with the conquest of Tuguegarao and Ilagan, because due to the American air raids and the lack of functioning trucks, there were insufficient vehicles available to transport the supplies to the Asin Valley. Only around 20 percent of the food could be transported to the Last Stand Area . But US troops halted their advance in early August to prepare for the final attack against the Japanese on Luzon, the advance into the Asin Valley. The advance was planned to begin on August 18th.

On August 3, the situation of the Japanese troops in the Last Stand Area was desperate: there was hardly any drinking water or food left , and each soldier had no more than 30 rounds of ammunition. Vehicles and cannons were largely unusable due to American air strikes and a lack of spare parts, fuel and ammunition. In addition, beriberi and malaria spread among the Japanese troops . About 6,000 Japanese died of starvation in the Last Stand Area , another 3,000 died of beriberi, but according to US estimates 40,000 soldiers were still able to fight on August 15.

surrender

General Yamashita Tomoyuki and his staff negotiate with US officers of the 24th Infantry Division on September 2, 1945, shortly before the surrender

On August 14, a few days after the atomic bombs exploded on Hiroshima and Nagasaki , General Yamashita appeared at the American headquarters in Baguio, announced by a white flag, to negotiate with Jonathan M. Wainwright , Arthur Percival and General MacArthur. While the negotiations were still ongoing, an American officer appeared at noon on August 15th with a note for General Krueger and MacArthur, both of whom were present. This said that the Tennō Hirohito had ordered all Japanese armed forces on a radio broadcast in Japan to obey and surrender the "Imperial Decree to End the Great East Asian War". Yamashita found out about the speech a little later. On the same day a ceasefire was announced, whereupon the American units stopped their fight against the positions of the Japanese on the Sierra Madre. However, due to the lack of working telecommunication equipment, several Japanese troops did not learn of the agreement and continued to fight. On September 2, 1945, General Yamashita signed the unconditional surrender of all Japanese forces that were still on Luzon. MacArthur, Wainwright, Krueger and also Percival were present. Percival, who surrendered to Yamashita at the end of the Battle of Singapore on February 15, 1942 , refused to shake hands with Yamashita following the ceremony, believing that Yamashita had driven thousands of Allied prisoners of war to their death. Yamashita then burst into tears.

consequences

The American forces had succeeded in achieving the primary objective of Operation Mike I , the capture of the island of Luzon. In a staff report to General MacArthur, General Krueger had stated on April 1, 1945: “The units in the areas in the west, north and east of Manila [...] up to the river Cagayan, as well as in the capital itself, have [ ...] to no longer fight against an operational enemy force. These areas, marked as priority targets, are finally secured […]. In contrast, the units in the north, especially in the Sierra Madre mountain range, are facing an 80,000-strong enemy […] force that will be wiped out in February [1946]. ”This report makes it clear that the Joint Chiefs of Staff already considered the central parts of Luzon to be secure at the beginning of April, but estimated the duration for the reconquest of the entire island to be significantly longer. Since the Japanese troops in the north were not seen as a real threat, two complete US infantry divisions were detached from Luzon to Okinawa in May.

The Japanese army suffered great losses during this operation. In the absence of precise Japanese information, one has to rely on the information in the American report, which reported the destruction of 186 Japanese tanks, 2304 guns, 67 aircraft and thousands of vehicles after the fighting for the island was over in August 1945. According to the report, 205,535 Japanese soldiers were killed in the fighting for Luzon. In view of the fact that, according to Japanese data, the troops still under Yamashita's command in mid-July consisted of little more than 50,000 soldiers, 30 tanks and 560 guns, the US report seems credible. On the Allied side, a total of 9,739 Americans and 9,506 Filipino soldiers, as well as around 200,000 Filipino civilians, died during the six-month battle, mainly as a result of Japanese massacres.

In Japan itself, the enormous losses in the Battle of Luzon led to a military crisis even before the end of the war. The American attack on Luzon wiped out a third of the entire Japanese armed forces in the western Pacific. The high losses in this and other battles, such as the conquest of Okinawa and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, led the Japanese government, already under pressure from Emperor Hirohito, to surrender to the Allies. Therefore, General Yamashita's surrender took place on September 2nd, the same day as that of the entire Japanese Empire. The US troops on Luzon, which had already stopped fighting on August 15 as a result of the armistice, are now preparing to intern and disarm the remaining Japanese troops, whose strength is estimated at up to 50,000 men. The last of the Japanese soldiers on Luzon surrendered in December 1945, not having learned of Yamashita's surrender. A total of about 59,000 Japanese were taken prisoners of war after the Battle of Luzon. General Yamashita and General Mutō surrendered in the Sierra Madre with about 50,500 men of the Shōbu group . General Rikichi Tsukada , commander of the Kembu group , surrendered along with his 5,000 soldiers, while Lieutenant General Yokoyama Shizuo surrendered with the 6,000 survivors of the Shimbu group , which had 70,000 men at the beginning of the battle for Luzon. The complete disarming of these troops took place on 2 September 1945 to 1 January 1946. A total of 55,000 rifles, thousands of guns, officer katana and anti-tank rifles seized, and 1,239 guns, 38 tanks and two aircraft from the American troops.

The Japanese prisoners were all interned on Luzon as Prisoners Of War in Filipino prison camps, including in Cabantuan Prison Camp . 20,000 prisoners of war, including Generals Mutō and Tsukada, were officially demobilized in February 1946 and shipped back to Japan between February and July 1947. Another 30,000 were shipped back to Japan between 1948 and 1950. General Yamashita, however, along with another 167 Japanese officers and soldiers, including General Masaharu Homma , who had conquered the Philippines in 1942 , was indicted during the war crimes trials in Manila , among other things because of the war crimes that his troops had committed on Luzon found guilty. He, Homma and 25 other convicted Japanese were subsequently sentenced to death . Even during the trial, the process was described as unfair, as the defense lawyers had not been given enough time to prepare the defense and various agencies, including MacArthur, put pressure on the judges, an example of the upcoming Tokyo trials with quick judgments and harsh sentences to statute. In these, Yamashita's chief of staff Mutō Akira was later also indicted for the massacre on Luzon and sentenced to death.

literature

• Teodoro A. Agoncillo: History of the Filipino People. 8th edition. Self-published, 1990, ISBN 971-8711-06-6 .
• Francis Allen: The Concrete Battleship: Fort Drum in Manila Bay. Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1998, ISBN 0-929521-06-4 .
• James H. Belote, William M. Belote: Corregidor: The Saga of a Fortress. Harper & Row, New York 1967, OCLC 913521 .
• Mark Berhow and Terrance McGovern: American Defenses of Corregidor and Manila Bay 1898-1945. Osprey Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1-84176-427-2 .
• Richard Connaughton: MacArthur and Defeat in the Philippines. Overlook Duckworth, New York 2001, ISBN 1-58567-394-3 .
• Katherine V. Dillon (Ed.), Donald M. Goldstein (Ed.), Gordon W. Prange (Ed.), Ugaki Matome: Fading Victory - The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki, 1941-1945. Translated from the Japanese by Masataka Chihaya. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 2008, ISBN 978-1-59114-324-6 .
• Paul S. Dull: A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 2002, ISBN 1-59114-219-9 .
• Masayo Umezawa Duus, Peter Duus: Unlikely Liberators. The Men of the 100th and 442nd. University of Hawaii Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8248-3140-0 .
• Richard Fuller: Japanese Generals 1926–1945. 1st edition. Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, PA 2011, ISBN 978-0-7643-3754-3 .
• Saburo Hayashi, Alvin D. Coox: Kōgun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War. Marine Corps. Association, 1959, OCLC 1133179
• Saburō Ienaga: The Pacific War - World War II and the Japanese, 1931-1945. Pantheon Books, New York 1978, ISBN 0-394-73496-3 .
• Aubrey Saint Kenworthy: The Tiger of Malaya: The story of General Tomoyuki Yamashita and “Death March” General Masaharu Homma. Exposition Press, NEW York 1953, OCLC 3162528 .
• W. Victor Madej: Japanese Armed Forces Order of Battle, 1937-1945. 2 volumes, Game Marketing Co., Allentown, Pennsylvania 1981.
• Daniel Marston: The Pacific War Companion: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima. Osprey Publishing, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84603-212-7 .
• Terrance C. McGovern, Mark A. Berhow: American Defenses of Corregidor and Manila Bay 1898-1945. Osprey Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1-84176-427-2 .
• Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. BUR, Montreuil 1967.
• Samuel Eliot Morison : The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas 1944-1945. Castle Books, 2001, ISBN 0-7858-1314-4 .
• Bernard Norling: The Intrepid Guerrillas Of North Luzon. University Press of Kentucky, ISBN 978-0-8131-9134-8 .
• Michael Norman, Elizabeth M. Norman: Tears in the Darkness. The Story of the Bataan Death March and its Aftermath. Picador, 2010, ISBN 978-0-312-42970-6 .
• Gordon L. Rottman : The Cabanatuan Prison Raid - The Philippines 1945. Osprey Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-1-84603-399-5 .
• Stanley Sandler: World War II in the Pacific: An Encyclopedia. Garland Publishers, New York 2001, ISBN 0-8153-1883-9 . (Military History of the United States.)
• Duane P. Schultz: Hero of Bataan: The story of General Johnathan M. Wainwright. St Martin's Press, 1981, ISBN 0-312-37011-3 .
• Robert R. Smith: The War in the Pacific: The Approach to the Philippines. United States Army Command of Military History, Washington DC 1953. (United States Army in World War II.)
• Robert R. Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. United States Army Command of Military History, Washington DC 1963.
• John Toland: The Rising Sun. Modern Library, New York 1992. (United States Army in World War II.)
• Ben Waldron and Emily M. Burneson: Corregidor: From Paradise to Hell! Trafford Publishing, 2004, ISBN 1-4120-2109-X .
• HP Willmott, Ned Willmott: The Second World War in the Far East. HarperCollins, 2004, ISBN 0-06-114206-9 . (Smithsonian History of Warfare.)
• James B. Wood: Japanese military strategy in the Pacific War: was defeat inevitable? Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7425-5340-8 .

Web links

Commons : Battle for Luzon  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines - United States Army in World War II. 1963, p. 30.
2. ^ ^{A b c d} Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 694.
3. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 820.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} Record of Movement of the 6th Army on Luzon.
5. ↑ Michael and Elizabeth M. Norman: Tears in the Darkness. The Story of the Bataan Death March and its Aftermath. 2009.
6. ↑ American Military History, Chapter 23 - World War II: The War Against Japan , pp. 513 f.
7. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} The Campaigns of MacArthur in the Pacific , accessed October 30, 2011.
8. ^ ^{A b} Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, pp. 801-802.
9. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o} Account of the Luzon Operations
10. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o} The Campaigns of MacArthur in the Pacific, Chapter IX .
11. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 799.
12. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 801.
13. ^ Francis Allen: The Concrete Battleship: Fort Drum in Manila Bay. 1998, p. 197.
14. ↑ James B. Wood: Japanese military strategy in the Pacific War: was defeat inevitable? 2007, p. 113.
15. ↑ John Toland: The Rising Sun. 1992, pp. 628-630.
16. ^ ^{A b c d} Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, pp. 94-95.
17. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 800.
18. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 804.
19. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 802.
20. ↑ ^{a b c} Ugaki Matome: Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki, 1941-1945. 2008, pp. 532-533.
21. ^ Richard Fuller: Japanese Generals 1926–1945. 2011, p. 250.
22. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, pp. 813-815.
23. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 86.
24. ↑ Saburō Ienaga: The Pacific War - World War II and the Japanese, 1931-1945. 1978, p. 249.
25. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 310.
26. ^ ^{A b c} Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 323.
27. ^ ^{A b} Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, pp. 817-818.
28. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 810.
29. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, pp. 223-224.
30. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, pp. 335-336.
31. ^ Stanley Sandler: World War II in the Pacific: An Encyclopedia. 2000, p. 905.
32. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, pp. 802-803.
33. ↑ Ugaki Matome: Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki, 1941-1945. 2008, p. 535.
34. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines - United States Army in World War II. 1961.
35. ^ The Campaigns of MacArthur in the Pacific.
36. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 168.
37. ↑ Aubrey Saint Kenworthy: The Tiger of Malaya: The story of General Tomoyuki Yamashita and “Death March” General Masaharu Homma. 1951.
38. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 813.
39. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 212.
40. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 233.
41. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 814.
42. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 166.
43. ^ ^{A b} Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 815.
44. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, pp. 813-814.
45. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, pp. 815-816.
46. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 167.
47. ^ ^{A b c d} John Toland: The Rising Sun. 1992, p. 630.
48. ^ ^{A b c} Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, pp. 174-175.
49. ^ Samuel Eliot Morison: The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas 1944–1945. 2001, p. 185 and 194.
50. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, pp. 172-176.
51. ^ Samuel Eliot Morison: The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas 1944–1945. 2001, p. 194.
52. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 171.
53. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 179.
54. ^ Gordon Rottman: The Cabanatuan Prison Raid - The Philippines 1945. 2009, p. 22.
55. ^ Bernard Norling: The Intrepid Guerrillas Of North Luzon. 2005, p. 80.
56. ^ Bernard Norling: The Intrepid Guerrillas Of North Luzon. 2005, p. 81.
57. ^ Gordon Rottman: The Cabanatuan Prison Raid - The Philippines 1945. 2009, p. 41.
58. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 247.
59. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 301.
60. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 816.
61. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 302.
62. ^ Francis Allen: The Concrete Battleship: Fort Drum in Manila Bay. 1998, p. 108.
63. ^ ^{A b c d} Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, pp. 355-356.
64. ↑ W. Victor Madej: Japanese Armed Forces Order of Battle, 1937-1945. 1981.
65. ^ Saburo Hayashi and Alvin D. Coox: Kōgun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War. 1959.
66. ↑ Ugaki Matome: Fading Victory: The Diary of Admiral Matome Ugaki, 1941-1945. 2008, p. 537.
67. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 818.
68. ^ Robert R. Smith: The Approach to the Philippines: The War in the Pacific. 1953.
69. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 819.
70. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 820.
71. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 547.
72. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 819.
73. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 820.
74. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 819.
75. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 819.
76. ^ ^{A b} Samuel E. Morison: The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas 1944–1945. 2001, p. 210.
77. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 820.
78. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 573.
79. ^ Samuel E. Morison: The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas 1944–1945. 2001, p. 211.
80. ^ Robert Ross Smith: Triumph in the Philippines. 1963, p. 575.
81. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 830.
82. ^ Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. 1967, p. 818.
83. ^ Richard Fuller: Japanese Generals 1926–1945. 2011, p. 140.

This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on December 9, 2011 in this version .