Battle of Bataan


The Battle of Bataan 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, was the largest in American and Filipino military histories and was the largest United States surrender since the American Civil War's Battle of Harpers Ferry. 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". In addition to the regular U.S. Army troops, the defenders could rely on the Philippine Army, which had been organized and trained by General MacArthur.
However, in April 1941 the Navy estimated that it would require at least two years for the Pacific Fleet to fight its way across the Pacific. Army planners in early 1941 believed supplies would be exhausted within six months and the garrison would fall. MacArthur assumed command of the Allied army in July 1941 and rejected WPO-3 as defeatist, preferring a more aggressive course of action. 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. With approval from Washington, War Plan Rainbow 5 was implemented such that the entire archipelago would be defended, with the necessary supplies dispersed behind the beachheads for defending forces to use while defending against the landings. With the return to War Plan Orange 3, the necessary supplies to support the defenders for the anticipated six-month-long defensive position were not available in the necessary quantities for the defenders who would withdraw to Bataan.

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.
On 20 December the submarine spotted a large convoy of troop ships with escorts. This was General Homma's landing force which included 85 troop transports, two battleships, six cruisers, and two dozen destroyers. The convoy was engaged by three submarines: USS Stingray,, and, who fired multiple torpedoes into the convoy, most of which failed to explode because of the Mark XIV torpedo's defective detonators. In all, just two troop ships were sunk before Japanese destroyers chased the submarines away.

Fighting retreat

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:
File:DinalupihanBataajf2720 03.JPG|thumb|right|WWII First Line of Defense Memorial
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. Facing Homma's troops were four Filipino divisions: the 21st, the 71st, the 11th, and the 91st, as well as a battalion of Philippine Scouts backed by a few tanks. Along Route 3—a cobblestone road that led directly to Manila—the Japanese soon made contact with the Filipino 71st Division. At this point the action of the American artillery stalled the Japanese attack. However, Japanese planes and tanks entering the action routed the Filipino infantry, leaving the artillery uncovered. A second Japanese division landed at Lamon Bay, south of Manila, on 23 December and advanced north.
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. MacArthur weighed two choices: either make a firm stand on the line of the Agno and give Wainwright his best unit, the Philippine Division, for a counterattack; or withdraw all the way to Bataan in planned stages. He decided on the latter, thus abandoning his own plan for defense and reverting to the old Orange plan. Having made his decision to withdraw to Bataan, MacArthur notified all force commanders on the night of 23 December that "WPO-3 is in effect."
Meanwhile, Manuel L. Quezon, the President of the Philippine Commonwealth, together with his family and government staff were evacuated to Corregidor, along with MacArthur's United States Army Forces in the Far East headquarters, on the night of 24 December, while all USAFFE military personnel were removed from the major urban areas. On 26 December Manila was officially declared an open city, and MacArthur's proclamation was published in the newspapers and broadcast over the radio. The Japanese were not notified officially of the proclamation but learned of it through radio broadcasts. The next day and thereafter they bombed the port area, from which supplies were being shipped to Bataan and Corregidor.
As MacArthur concentrated the South Luzon Force on the Bataan Peninsula and prepared defensive positions, the North Luzon Force delayed the Japanese advance from the north. However, the main force of the Japanese 14th Army's 60,000 men was concentrating on capturing Manila. Only two reinforced Japanese regiments, the 9th Infantry and the 2nd Formosa Infantry, were advancing on Bataan.