REAPHIS

Full Name: Leuterio,Denmark David

Program & Section Code: BSA-559

DIRECTIONS: look for a particular source related to history and differentiate it whether it is a
primary or a secondary source and try to identify the context of the source if its historical or
relevant to any situations happening in the Philippines.

UNIT ACTIVITY #1: CONFIRMING THE SOURCE

MANILA RAZED TO THE GROUND DURING THE WAR

What kind of Source did you find? Highlight Primary Source or Secondary Source and then expound and
distinguish primary to secondary source as to why the source you provided qualify as such.

PRIMARY SOURCE
AUTHOR: Richard Michael Connaughton

Lively, cosmopolitan and beautiful, the city of Manila drew upon the cultures and histories of many nations. Flavored by
Asian, European and American influences, the Philippine capital was known as the “Pearl of the Orient.” It was a prime
posting for American diplomats, soldiers and sailors in the years between the world wars–except, perhaps, for a young U.S.
Army major named Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was assigned to the U.S. military mission there in 1935. He found the
casual rhythms of life in Manila infuriating, and the work ethic of Filipinos lacking. Eisenhower, unlike his boss General
Douglas MacArthur and most of his colleagues, was not happy in Manila.

The lovely pearl itself was soon to be tarnished. Between July 1941 and March 1942, the Japanese overran and occupied the
great cities of Southeast Asia, and Manila was not spared. In fact, the city eventually suffered worse than the rest of them.
By the time the Japanese had been overwhelmed by MacArthur’s liberating forces in 1945, the once-beautiful capital was a
smoldering wasteland filled with the sickly stench of death.

When the British Fourteenth Army advanced on Rangoon, Burma, in March 1945, the Japanese evacuated the city. Four
months later, they surrendered Singapore, Batavia, Hong Kong and Saigon to British forces. But Manila was different, and
the enemy defended the city against the advancing U.S. Sixth and Eighth armies. Between February 4 and March 3, 1945,
Manila was subjected to the fury of American bombers, artillery and armor and was leveled. All that remained in the end
were heaps of smoldering rubble and charred bodies. So many buildings had been razed that GIs and Filipino troops could
see from one edge of the city to the other. Army Sergeant Paul P. Rogers said: “This was not Manila. It was simply hell.”
The destruction of Manila was on the scale of Stalingrad, Warsaw and Berlin.

The battle for Manila was the only occasion on which American and Japanese forces fought each other in a city, and it was
the largest action of its kind yet waged by the American or Japanese armies. MacArthur had made his legendary vow to
return to the Philippines, and when he did, the liberation entailed wholesale destruction and the loss of thousands of lives.
Some 100,000 Manilan civilians fell. The military casualties were heavy–6,500 Americans and up to 20,000 Japanese.

Yet, strangely, this costly battle has been overlooked by most historians. Now, in The Battle for Manila, by Richard
Connaughton, John Pimlott and Duncan Anderson (Presidio Press, Novato, Calif., 1995, $24.95), the startling story of the
rape of Manila has been told by three Britons: a British Army veteran and two professors at the Royal Military Academy,
Sandhurst. Drawing on interviews with survivors and newly found archival material, they have pieced together a powerful
record of the “unwanted battle,” long a subject that both Americans and Japanese have preferred not to dwell on.
Thoroughly documented and crafted with insight and balance, The Battle for Manila is the first comprehensive study of this
horrific but neglected chapter in the history of the war in the Pacific.

Manila, the authors point out, was an understandable goal for the Americans, who were still smarting from their humiliations
of 1941-42. Its recapture would symbolize their determination to smash Japanese power in the Western Pacific while freeing
the Filipinos. Manila was seen by many American officials as the key to the Philippines–the military “center of gravity”
whose liberation would unhinge the enemy grip on the Philippines as a whole.

The city drew MacArthur like a magnet, but it also clouded his military judgment, the authors claim. His decision to
surround the Japanese, leaving no avenue of escape, ensured that the city would be defended to the death. Once the trap was
closed on February 12, 1945, Manila was doomed. In so doing, the authors assert, MacArthur disregarded an integral maxim
of the art of war pointed out by Sun Tzu, the great Chinese strategist: “Leave a way of escape to a surrounded enemy.”

Nevertheless, the authors conclude, the Americans achieved all of their strategic objectives, holding naval and air bases for
the projected invasion of the Japanese home islands. Although costly and conducted with excessive force by MacArthur, the
battle for Manila was a vital part of the Philippine campaign. In strategic terms, say the authors, this was “a major success.”

SECONDARY SOURCE
AUTHOR: James M. Scott

Douglas MacArthur, standing on the porch of his cottage on the Philippine Island of Corregidor, preparing for the
evacuation to Australia with his wife and son on the night of March 11, 1942. The Japanese entered Manila on January 2,
1942, and terror was rife throughout the city. American civilians and Filipinos feared the worst; Pacita Pestano-Jacinto
described in her diary what everyone was thinking: “Now danger will not come from the skies, new danger will be living
among us. With us.” The author uses countless journals and diaries, from Filipinos, Americans, US soldiers, and Japanese
soldiers when describing the events which took place in Manila in February of 1945. The number of journals and diaries that
our cited in Rampage are countless. It clearly illustrates a fresh and much- needed approach to a difficult subject. It is these
firsthand accounts which bring the events which took place, as described in Rampage, alive.

The situation deteriorated rapidly with the Japanese occupation of Manila. The Japanese attempted to convince the public
the Americans had lost the war. They launched a propaganda campaign which included theaters playing films showing Pearl
Harbor, Bataan, and Corregidor. The economy of the once great city began to collapse, businesses closed, and public schools
were reduced to a fraction of what they once were. It became very clear the Japanese made no effort to maintain the
infrastructure of Manila. Juan Labrador, a Spanish priest, wrote in his dairy, “City life has become polluted by a swarm of
parasites: doctors without patients, lawyers without clients, teachers without schools.” Eventually starvation sets in; people
do whatever is necessary to survive. Children were abandoned or even sold. All of this is told in graphic detail. The
University of Santo Tomas was established as an internment camp, where, for nearly three years over 4,000 foreign
nationals, including Americans, were held captive here. As on the streets of Manila, the situation deteriorated rapidly inside
the camp.

The reader is pulled in to the suffering being inflicted upon the population of Manila, constantly hoping that the US Army
will arrive and end all the suffering, that the city will be liberated, and that life will continue. However, as we know well,
this is not what happens.
On October 20, 1944, over two years after MacArthur fled Corregidor, the General returned to the Philippines. The Japanese
did not intend to surrender Manila. On September 25, 1944, General Tomoyuki Yamashita was given command of all
ground forces in the Philippines; however, as Scott explains, the Japanese command structure in the defense of Manila
involved several commanding officers from the Army and Navy. In addition to Yamashita, Admiral Okochi, General
Yokoyama, and Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi were all players in the defense of Manila. Admiral Okochi ordered Rear
Admiral Iwabuchi to destroy the port, harbor, and bridges. Yokoyama agreed with Okochi, and placed the army forces in
Manila under the command of Iwabuchi. Yamashita moved his headquarters to the mountain town of Baguio, 125 miles
north of Manila.

Iwabuchi had under his command 12,500 sailors and 4,500 soldiers, and against orders made the decision to defend Manila
house-to-house. Troops constructed barricades out of cars and trucks, built pillboxes, laid mines along roads, and barricaded
streets at intersections. They also filled windows with reinforced concrete, made gun slits in walls, and stashed ammunition
in strategic places. The Japanese press wrote “Here on these islands in the vast Pacific Ocean, a great tragedy is about to
occur. This is going to be a fight to the death.” Pacita Pestano-Jacinto wrote in her diary, “Defeat is the one thing that can
make them turn into beasts.” Elements of the US 5th Cavalry arrived at the Santo Tomas internment camp on the evening of
February 3, 1945. There is jubilation and celebration inside the camp with the arrival of the Americans. Starving people are
fed, although it proved too much for most and made them sick. Medical attention is applied to those in need. Outside the
camp, the slaughter and destruction of the Pearl of the Orient has begun. In full detail we get the descriptions of the assaults
at San Juan de Dios Hospital, the Santo Domingo Church, and the German Club. Japanese soldiers gang rape thousands of
women, bayonet babies, chop off heads, and set the city on fire. Intramuros, the historic walled city within Manila, would be
one of the last places the Japanese would hold out. Here, Sancho Enriquez hid his family in a shelter, where, after his wife
came back to find water discovered “the mutilated bodies of our four children almost beyond recognition.”

There are stories of heroism. One of the strongpoints which the Japanese defended was the Paco Railroad Station. Three
hundred Japanese marines had turned the old railroad station into a fortress. It was the job of the 148th Infantry to eradicate
the Japanese from their stronghold. After a day of probing, the US soldiers were unable to penetrate the resistance and the
tough fortifications. Privates Cleto Rodriquez and John Reese found a weak spot in the fortifications and exploited it. They
kept moving forward and in a period of over two hours killed more than 80 Japanese and made it possible for the position to
be taken by the US Army. Reese was killed and both men were later awarded the Medal of Honor.

Anyone south of the Pasig River was trapped by the constant crossfire of Japanese and American artillery. The author points
out the decision to use US artillery did not come easily. MacArthur wanted to save as much of the city as he possibly could.
At the same time, US commanders were more concerned about saving the lives of American soldiers. The US war
correspondent and author, John Dos Passos, wrote, “It was like a bowling alley over our heads, guns shooting first from one
side then from another.” More than one Filipino after the battle blamed the Americans for destroying their city with
artillery.

The last stronghold held by the Japanese was the Agriculture Building and it was there where Iwabuchi held up. He realized
surrender was not an option; with a knife he “slit open his belly.” On March 3 the Battle of Manila was over. The destruction
of Manila was complete and its consequences would last for generations. Yamashita was tried by a military tribunal and on
February 23, 1946, was hung.