Battle of Manila (1945)

Battle of Manila

Part of: World War II , Pacific War

Intramuros , Manila, May 1945

date	February 3, 1945 to March 3, 1945
place	Manila , Philippines
output	Allied victory

Parties to the conflict
United States Philippines	Japan
Commander
Oscar W. Griswold	Sanji Iwabuchi ⚔
Troop strength
38,000	approx. 33,000
losses
1,729 dead and 3,652 wounded	33,000
about 100,000 civilians

Overview - Pacific War

The Battle of Manila took place in February and March 1945 between Japanese and US and Filipino troops around the Filipino capital Manila . Manila was captured by the Imperial Japanese Army on January 2, 1942 during the Battle of the Philippines . In the course of the liberation of the Philippines island of Luzon in January 1945, American troops of the 6th US Army under Lieutenant General Walter Krueger landed amphibiously on January 9, 1945 in the Gulf of Lingayén on Luzon . While the 270,000-strong Japanese 14th Regional Army, under the command of General Yamashita Tomoyuki, withdrew to Baguio and the north of the island, some 14,000 marines , commanded by Vice Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi , remained in Manila. They were supplemented by 6,000 army soldiers and about 4,000 dispersed soldiers who had lost their units during the battle. On February 2, the 1st U.S. Cavalry Division reached the city. About 8,000 American paratroopers from the 11th Airborne Division had landed in Nasugbu and were marching quickly towards Manila. Their advance stalled on February 4th as about 12,000 Japanese 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 were very high, and the Japanese soldiers attacked the positions of the 11th Airborne Division twice with artillery support. The part of the Japanese 2nd Armored Division defending the city supported the attack. However, it was easy for the 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. However, after heavy machine gun fire, they retreated. Six anti-tank guns (PaK) were flown in on February 6 , and shortly afterwards the GIs destroyed three tanks with them. Another Japanese attack was broken by massive counterfire during the night.

The 1st US Cavalry Division had crossed the last intact bridge over the Pasig on February 3 , as Admiral Iwabuchi 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 were in the city on February 5, which has since been bombed by B-29 Superfortress bombers and P-51 Mustang . Several Japanese positions were destroyed by heavy artillery fire. On February 7th, the GIs began to slowly move towards the center. The opposition was still strong and General Griswold ordered on February 11 the urban warfare . On February 12, all communication options for the defenders were interrupted. So quarter by quarter was conquered and the Japanese soldiers pushed further and further towards the center. Hand grenades and rifle fire caused most of the casualties. Downtown Manila was badly destroyed. On February 19, there were probably only around 2,000 men fighting the GIs. On March 2, Vice Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi committed in his command post suicide , probably by himself with a hand grenade blew up.

On March 4, Griswold declared the city liberated. In addition to 32,000 Japanese and around 1,700 Americans, an estimated 100,000 inhabitants of the city were also killed during the fighting, mostly through massacres by Japanese troops (→  Massacre of Manila ). The walled inner city of Intramuro was almost completely destroyed. A memorial to the battle and the civilian victims of the massacre was erected in 1995.

literature

• Teodoro A. Agoncillo: History of the Filipino People. 8th edition. Self-published, 1990, ISBN 971-8711-06-6 .
• Katherine V. Dillon (Ed.), Donald M. Goldstein (Ed.), Gordon W. Prange (Ed.), And 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 .
• Bernard Millot: The Pacific War. BUR, Montreuil 1967.
• Robert R. Smith: The War in the Pacific: Triumph in the Philippines. (United States Army in World War II.) Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, Washington DC 1993.
• John Toland: The Rising Sun. Modern Library, New York 1992.