Part 1 (of 5)

I’m going to split my answer into two parts. The first will detail the operational details of the Battle of Manila, and the second will discuss American fighting practices, primarily examining how firepower was utilized to obtain a decision in engagements.

Although the ultimate decision to return to the Philippine Islands was a military one, from the outset of the campaign American efforts in the archipelago were partially motivated by feelings that the United States had a duty to the Filipino people as well as its own prestige. In 1943 and 1944, as the final approach to Japan was being determined, the question of whether it would be easier to bypass the island of Luzon in the Philippines, or even the entire archipelago itself, and seize Formosa was raised. This internal debate was entirely focused on operational planning- the primary goal of attacking into the area of the South China Sea revolved around future B-29 basing, cutting Japanese supply lines to Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, and southern China, and establishing Allied supply lines into southern China. Most of the proponents of bypassing the entire archipelago held staff positions at the upper reaches of the Army and Navy; most field commanders favored at least obtaining basing in the southern or central Philippines, regardless of whether the next step was Luzon or Formosa. Both General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief, Southwest Pacific Area, and Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas as well as Commander-in-Chief, US Pacific Fleet, respectively, fell into the category of the latter. Although they split on whether an assault on Luzon or Formosa should follow the establishment of bases in the southern or central Philippines, with MacArthur arguing for Luzon and Nimitz for Formosa, their subordinates favored striking northward into Luzon.1 The argument was one based around operational concerns, but political and moral opinions bled through as well. MacArthur, for instance, was rock-solid in his devotion to the Filipino people, arguing that not only did the nation have a moral obligation to liberate its former possession and protégé but that failure to do so would result in the further suffering of its population, which he described as remaining overwhelmingly loyal to the United States, as well as the deaths of thousands of prisoners held there in Japanese camps. In short, MacArthur pointed out, to bypass or make a secondary objective of Luzon would be to abandon the Filipino people at a point in time where the United States possessed the ability to act.2 General George Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, for his part rebutted MacArthur by arguing that bypassing the Philippines in favor of Formosa or even Kyushu in southern Japan would expedite the liberation of the archipelago by bringing about a more rapid conclusion of the war. President Roosevelt eventually assumed the role of ultimate arbiter in the discussion, and after consultation with MacArthur finally decided that the United States would return to Luzon- whether this was a result of MacArthur’s military or moral argument, it is not known. The fact that Roosevelt’s Chief of Staff, Admiral William Leahy, also supported going to Luzon and held opinions similar to those of MacArthur, may have had an impact as well.3 Although we don’t quite know how much the moral factor influenced Roosevelt’s decision to instruct the military to liberate Luzon, it should be pointed out that the Philippines lay within MacArthur’s zone of command. Thus, given MacArthur’s affection for and sense of duty to the Filipino people, it is clear that from the outset of the campaign the wellbeing of the islands’ civilian population would influence American military operations in the archipelago.

Orders to invade Luzon were handed down by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 3 October 1944. By this point the decision had already been made to occupy basing in the southern or central Philippines, with the result that the island of Leyte, in the central Philippines, was invaded on 20 October. Mindoro, just south of Luzon, followed on 15 December, and, with the requisite basing to support the campaign on Luzon established, Lieutenant General Walter Krueger’s Sixth US Army came ashore at Lingayen Gulf on 9 January 1945. Over the next three weeks Sixth Army advanced southeasterly across the Luzon plain toward Manila. Spurred on by MacArthur, Krueger, whose army now comprised three corps, instructed Major General Oscar Griswold’s XIV Corps to drive on the city while I Corps and XI Corps, to the left and right of XIV Corps respectively, held the flanks of the Sixth Army front. With two “flying columns” of the 1stCavalry Division in the van and the 37th Infantry Division, on the corps’ right, close behind, XIV Corps reached Manila on 3 February 1945.4

During the Japanese invasion in 1942, MacArthur had declared Manila an open city and left it undefended. Thus the city had been spared destruction. Under General Tomoyuki Yamashita, commander of the Japanese 14th Area Army, this was supposed to be the case again in 1945. Yamashita’s overall plan for the defense of Luzon was to withdraw into the mountains and hold out for as long as possible, thereby subjecting American troops to a protracted campaign of attrition in rough terrain. In this scenario Manila factored in only as a supply base, and Yamashita’s orders were to defend its approaches long enough to move as much bulk supply out of it and into the mountains as was possible. From the outset of the campaign, however, Yamashita had serious difficulty in exerting control over several of his subordinates within Manila due to a dysfunctional chain of command and the personalities of several of the commanders involved. The classic Army-Navy dysfunction reared its head as the commander of the Southwestern Area Fleet, Vice Admiral Denshichi Okochi, reinforced Manila with 4,000 naval troops on his own accord following the Allied seizure of Mindoro in December. This set off a cascade of events that ultimately resulted in Okochi’s subordinate, Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi of the 31st Naval Special Base Force, taking charge of approximately 16,000 men (both naval and army troops) in and around Manila. Iwabuchi answered to Army control by his attachment to Lieutenant General Shizuo Yokoyama’s Shimbu Group, but under the Japanese concept of unity of command this meant little in the long run- Iwabuchi had orders from Okochi to, among other things, destroy Japanese supplies and installations in and around Manila, and these took precedent over any orders that Yokoyama might issue. The list of tasks assigned to Iwabuchi was extensive and ambitious, and this resulted in a clash of staffs in a series of meetings over 8-13 January in which Iwabuchi’s headquarters more or less told Yokoyama that they planned to defend the city. This decision was based on the desire to fully carry out Okochi’s orders, dissatisfaction for the dispositions that Yokoyama had assigned the naval forces in the mountains, and the simple fact that Iwabuchi felt that the city was highly defensible. Yokoyama, unable to do much about this (which in other militaries would have constituted outright insubordination) due to the aforementioned nature of Japanese unity of command, reluctantly placed those army troops still in Manila under Iwabuchi’s command on the condition that once the destruction of the city’s installations had been accomplished he would withdraw. Therefore, as early as the second week of January the fate of Manila was more or less sealed barring a change in Okochi’s orders to Iwabuchi.5

American soldiers were indeed reckless in the Philippines in 1945. As you point out, bombing in Manila was pretty indiscriminate. It wasn’t just Manila either. Bombing destroyed the city of Bangued, in the province of Abra, for example, as Manuel Lahoz’s father, Guadencio, recounted in his memoir. The Americans firebombed most of the archipelago, and it destroyed many historic towns and cities in the islands, and many innocent people died. MacArthur claimed that this intense firebombing throughout the islands is what caused the Japanese to surrender, but Filipino forces disagreed. As I have said elsewhere when writing about Filipino women soldiers, the Filipino guerrilla forces, including the Hukbalahap, were actually the most successful resistance force in Asia during WWII. In fact, Filipino forces claimed that the Japanese had already given up hope of holding onto the Philippines’ major cities by as early as 1944. Basically, the Filipino resistance forces had almost already defeated the Japanese. The retreating Japanese were not the ones who had destroyed the Philippines’ cities; they had mostly left the cities to defend the countryside. No, the cities in the Philippines were destroyed by an unwarranted and unwanted “show of force” by MacArthur. He wanted to look like a hero sweeping in to save the Filipinos, and he sacrificed their lives and livelihoods to do so. The Lahoz family barely escaped Bangued alive, and many others were not so lucky. I think it’s important here to remember why the Philippines was colonized by the US, and why the Philippines was decolonized. In both cases, racism played a major role. Filipinos were seen as lesser. When a group of people is seen as lesser, they are not as likely to be treated with as much humanity.

This is kind of a short post but I want to keep it simple and point out that yes, this was a thing throughout the rest of the Philippines, not just Manila, and that many Filipinos resent the behavior of American forces.

The information I wrote about in this little post comes from a memoir by Manuel C. Lahoz called Of Tyrants and Martyrs: A Political Memoir. It’s actually about his experiences during the Martial Law years in the Philippines, but he also discusses a bit this topic of American aggression during WWII, which was during his early childhood.