Battle of Bataan

The Battle of Bataan (; 7 January – 9 April 1942) was fought by the United States and the Philippine Commonwealth against the Empire of Japan during World War II. The battle represented the most intense phase of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines during World War II. In January 1942, forces of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy invaded Luzon along with several islands in the Philippine Archipelago after the bombing of the American naval base at Pearl Harbor.

The commander in chief of the U.S. and Filipino forces in the islands, General Douglas MacArthur, consolidated all of his Luzon-based units on the Bataan Peninsula to fight against the Japanese army. By this time, the Japanese controlled nearly all of Southeast Asia. The Bataan Peninsula and the island of Corregidor were the only remaining Allied strongholds in the region.

Despite their lack of supplies, American and Filipino forces managed to fight the Japanese for three months, engaging them initially in a fighting retreat southward. As the combined American and Filipino forces made a last stand, the delay cost the Japanese valuable time and prevented immediate victory across the Pacific. The American surrender at Bataan to the Japanese, with 76,000 soldiers surrendering in the Philippines altogether, Soon afterwards, U.S. and Filipino prisoners of war were forced into the roughly Bataan Death March.

Background

In 1936, Douglas MacArthur was appointed Field Marshal of the Philippine army, given the task of developing an effective defensive force before independence in 1946. Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army General George C. Marshall intended to make the Philippines reasonably defensible, "...we felt that we could block the Japanese advance and block their entry into war by their fear of what would happen if they couldn't take the Philippines..." MacArthur anticipated having until April 1942 to train and equip a combat ready force.

On 26 July 1941 MacArthur was recalled to active duty within the US army and given the rank of lieutenant general. In August, MacArthur called into service one regiment for each of his ten reserve divisions, and inducted them into the US armed forces. On 27 November, he received notice, "Japanese future action unpredictable but hostile action possible at any moment. If hostilities cannot, repeat cannot, be avoided the United States desires that Japan commit the first overt act." On 18 December, ten days after the start of hostilities, MacArthur inducted the remaining reservists. The Philippine Army consisted of 120,000 men, of which 76,750 were on Luzon. On 24 December, as Masaharu Homma's Japanese Fourteenth Area Army advanced and General Jonathan Wainwright's North Luzon Force retreated, MacArthur ordered his Far East Air Force headquarters south towards Bataan. This prompted Lewis H. Brereton to abandon Clark Field, Nichols Field, Fort William McKinley, and Nielson Field for the Pilar, Bataan, Cabcaben and Mariveles gravel strips. By the end of the year, Bataan contained 15,000 Americans, 65,000 Filipinos, and 26,000 refugees. Adequate munitions had been stored or shipped in by the end of the year, but food supplies amounted to only about a two-month supply, far short of the needed six months in the prewar plans.

In one last coordinated action by the Far East Air Force, U.S. planes damaged two Japanese transports and a destroyer, and sank one minesweeper. These air attacks and naval actions, however, did not significantly delay the Japanese assault.

War Plan Orange

When MacArthur returned to active duty, the latest revision plans for the defense of the Philippine Islands had been completed in April 1941 and was called WPO-3, based on the joint Army-Navy War Plan Orange of 1938, which involved hostilities between the United States and Japan. Under WPO-3, the Philippine garrison was to hold the entrance to Manila Bay and deny its use to Japanese naval forces, and ground forces were to prevent enemy landings. If the enemy prevailed, they were to withdraw to the Bataan Peninsula, which was recognized as the key to the control of Manila Bay. It was to be defended to the "last extremity". He recommended—among other things—a coastal defense strategy that would include the entire archipelago. His recommendations were followed in the plan that was eventually approved.

Battle

When the Japanese made their first landings on 10 and 12 December at the northern and southern extremities of Luzon, MacArthur made no disposition to contest them. He correctly surmised that these landings were designed to secure advance air bases and that the Japanese had no intention of driving on Manila from any of these beachheads. He did not regard the situation as serious enough to warrant a change in his plan to oppose the main attack, when it came, with an all-out defense at the beaches. The MacArthur Plan, then, remained in effect.

Fighting retreat

thumb|200px|Japanese troops occupy Manila, as it is declared an [[open city to avoid its destruction, 2 January 1942]]

MacArthur intended to move his men with their equipment and supplies in good order to their defensive positions. He charged the North Luzon Force, under Wainwright, with holding back the main Japanese assault and keeping the road to Bataan open for use by the South Luzon Force of Major General George Parker, which proceeded quickly and in remarkably good order, given the chaotic situation. To achieve this, Wainwright deployed his forces in a series of five defensive lines outlined in WPO-3:

D1: Aguilar to San Carlos to Urdaneta City
D2: Agno River
D3: Santa Ignacia to Gerona to Guimba to San Jose
D4: Tarlac to Cabanatuan
D5: Bamban to Sibul Springs

thumb|right|WWII First Line of Defense Memorial ([[Dinalupihan, Bataan, Philippines)]]

The main force of Homma's 14th Area Army came ashore at Lingayen Gulf on the morning of 22 December. The defenders failed to hold the beaches. By the end of the day, the Japanese had secured most of their objectives and were in position to emerge onto the central plain.

It became evident to Wainwright that he could no longer hold back the Japanese advance. Late on the afternoon of 23 December Wainwright telephoned MacArthur's headquarters in Manila and informed him that any further defense of the Lingayen beaches was "impracticable". He requested and was given permission to withdraw behind the Agno River.]]

thumb|right|300px|The Mauban Line positions 18–25 January 1942

On 9 January, Nara commenced his attack, concentrating on the 57th Infantry, reaching the main line of resistance on 11 January. By 12 January, Parker was forced to commit his reserve 21st Infantry in support of the 57th. Also on 12 January, Brigadier General Virgilio N. Cordero Jr.'s 52nd Infantry, "Bicol's Own", was moved forward to plug a gap that had developed in the 51st Division's right flank. By 14 January, Bluemel's 31st Division was moved from Wainwright's I Corps to Parker's II Corps, in an attempt to bolster the 41st Division. Richard J. Marshall, MacArthur's Deputy Chief of Staff based on Mt. Mariveles' Signal Hill, concerned by the gap between I and II Corps, ordered Brigadier General Maxon S. Lough's Philippine Division, consisting of the Scout 45th Infantry and the American 31st Infantry, to the front lines.

On 25 January, Homma ordered the 16th Division commander Susumu Morioka to send 200 men in support of the Quinauan Point beachhead. On 27 January, once again, the landing went off course and the men landed between the Anyasan and Silaiim rivers. They were contained by the 17th Pursuit Squadron and 2nd Constabulary. On 29 January, units of the 45th Infantry arrived in support. On 1 February, Mitsuo Kimura's 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, was ordered to Quinauan Point and seize Mount Mariveles. On 2 February, his 500 men on barges, supported by the Yaeyama, were attacked from the air by P-40's, PT 32, and land-based artillery. The survivors retreated to a landing on Silaiim Point. Edmund J. Lilly, and Harold Keith Johnson assumed command of the blocking forces, that included elements of the 12th and 57th Infantry, plus tanks from the 192 Tank Battalion. Several Japanese attempts to escape by sea from 7 February onwards failed. Finally, a desperation drive by 200 Japanese out of the point northwards also failed.

On 9 April, King first met with Nagano at the Lamao River bridge, who then led King's party to an experimental farm station house, awaiting the arrival of Colonel Motoo Nakayama, 14th Army senior operations officer. However, Nakayama could only accept the surrender of all forces in the Philippines, not in a limited area. King was then driven to the Balanga Elementary School for questioning and photographs. According to John Whitman, "No surrender document was prepared or signed, nor was an effort made to formulate the surrender."|

File:Japanese Tank Bataan.jpg|Japanese tanks and infantry advance through the Bataan jungle.

File:King discusses surrender.gif|Major General Edward King discusses terms of surrender with Japanese officers.

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Aftermath

thumb|right|200px|Japanese soldiers guard American and Filipino prisoners of war.

The continued resistance of the force on Bataan after Singapore and the Indies had fallen made heartening news among the Allied peoples. However, the extension of time gained by the defense was very largely a result of the transfer of the 48th Division from Homma's army at a critical time, and the exhaustion of the weakened force that remained. It cost a far stronger Japanese army as many days of actual combat to take Malaya and Singapore Island as it cost Homma to take Bataan and Corregidor.

The surrender of Bataan hastened the fall of Corregidor a month later. There is a suggestion that without the stand, the Japanese might have quickly overrun all of the U.S. bases in the Pacific and could have quickly invaded Australia. Willoughby, MacArthur's intelligence officer, asserted after the war that the epic operation in Bataan and Corregidor became a decisive factor in the ultimate winning of the war, that it disrupted the Japanese timetable "in a way that was to prove crucial" and that "because of Bataan the Japanese never managed to detach enough men, planes, ships, and material to nail down Guadalcanal." According to Gavin Long, rather than allowing the operations on Luzon to upset their general timetable, the Japanese took steps that resulted in prolonging the resistance of Luzon in order to speed up their conquest of the Indies. Between the time of their advance into the Solomons and the American counter-landing on Guadalcanal in August, three months after the fall of Corregidor, they had ample troops available to build up their strength in the South Seas.

The Japanese were greatly delayed in their overall timetable (not including the well-executed and rapid Dutch East Indies campaign) by the last stands at Bataan and Corregidor, which can be proven by how the Imperial General Headquarters was not satisfied with the slow pace of the Bataan and Corregidor battles because the original expectation for the Japanese forces was to defeat USAFFE forces and achieve complete victory in the Philippines by the middle of February. The withdrawal of the Asiatic Fleet in late December 1941 from the Philippines as well as the abandoning of the Philippines by the Pacific Fleet due to the Attack on Pearl Harbor gave the Japanese high expectations of a sudden collapse and surrender of MacArthur's forces within a month. Homma was relieved of command after the final Allied forces surrendered in the Philippines in June 1942 and he was humiliated and scapegoated for this major loss of face for the Japanese military. He served at a desk as a powerless reserve officer in Japan for the rest of the war.

Ultimately, more than 60,000 Filipino and 15,000 American prisoners of war were forced into the Bataan Death March. Previously called Bataan Day, the day is now known as Day of Valor or Araw ng Kagitingan, commemorating both the Fall of Bataan and the Fall of Corregidor. The Dambana ng Kagitingan (Shrine of Valor) is a war memorial erected on top of Mount Samat. The memorial grounds feature a colonnade that houses an altar, esplanade, and a museum. On the peak of the mountain is the memorial cross standing about high.

, commissioned on 20 September 1997, the United States Navy commemorates "those who served and sacrificed in the Philippines in the name of freedom in the Pacific". , commissioned on 17 November 1943, the United States Navy commemorated "those who served and sacrificed in the Philippines in the name of freedom in the Pacific" until her decommissioning on 9 April 1954.

The Bataan Death March Memorial Monument, erected in April 2001, is the only monument funded by the U.S. federal government dedicated to the victims of the Bataan Death March during World War II. The memorial was designed and sculpted by Las Cruces artist Kelley Hester and is located in Veterans Park along Roadrunner Parkway in New Mexico.

Bataan-Corregidor Memorial Bridge is a bascule bridge on State Street in Chicago, Illinois, where it crosses the Chicago River. It was built in 1949 and rededicated on 9 April 1998, commemorating the Day of Valor as well as the centennial of the declaration of Philippine independence from Spain in 1898.

File:Mariveles, Bataanjf4308 09.JPG|Mariveles, Bataan Memorial Shrine (Km. Zero, starting point of Death March, 9–17 April 1942)

File:US Navy 061203-N-2636M-125 Amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5) conducts flight operations underway in the Atlantic Ocean.jpg|

File:Battling Bastards of Bataan flag at the 23rd Bataan Memorial Death March.jpg|A U.S. Army member posts the flag of the "Battling Bastards of Bataan" at the opening ceremony of the Bataan Memorial Death March.

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In film, television and song

Among the many films and television programs that feature the story of Bataan are Bataan (1943) starring Robert Taylor; the John Ford classic They Were Expendable (1945), starring Robert Montgomery, John Wayne, and Donna Reed; Back to Bataan (1945) starring Wayne and Anthony Quinn; and two movies about the nurses of Bataan: So Proudly We Hail! (1943) and Cry 'Havoc (1943).

Dozens of documentaries have also featured stories from the Battle of Bataan including A Legacy of Heroes: The Story of Bataan and Corregidor (2003), Ghosts of Bataan (2005) and an episode of The History Channel series Shootout, entitled "Raid on the Bataan Death Camp" (2006). Though largely focusing on the Cabanatuan Raid in 1945, this last program also featured stories from the 1942 battle; notably the stand of the 57th Infantry Regiment (PS) at Mabatang.

The Battle of Bataan is referenced among important battles of American history in the song The House I Live In, sang by Frank Sinatra in the film of the same name and later taken up by Paul Robeson and various other singers: "The little bridge at Concord, where Freedom's fight began, / Our Gettysburg and Midway, and the story of Bataan".

Notes

References

External links

"Marines in the Defense of the Philippines" Photos and Text
World War II Medal of Honor Recipients A–F at the United States Army Center of Military History
World War II Medal of Honor Recipients M–S at the United States Army Center of Military History
Animated History of The Battle of Bataan and Corregidor
Battle for Bataan
Info on the Dambana ng Kagitingan Shrine (archived from the original on July 13, 2007).
Back to Bataan a survivor's story
History of Provisional Tank Group before, during and after the Battle of Bataan