Capture of Baguio | |||||||||
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Part of World War II and the Allied Liberation of the Philippines | |||||||||
General Yamashita (center, on the near side of the table) at the surrender ceremony at Camp John Hay on 3 September 1945 | |||||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Walter Krueger Innis P. Swift [2] Percy W. Clarkson [3] Robert S. Beightler [4] Russell W. Volckmann [5] [6] | Tomoyuki Yamashita [2] Fukutaro Nishiyama [7] Noakata Utsunomiya [2] Bunzo Sato [7] | ||||||||
Units involved | |||||||||
United States Army Forces in the Philippines – Northern Luzon [2] Contents |
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Casualties and losses | |||||||||
Over 2,000 killed [2] |
The Battle of Baguio (Filipino: Labanan sa Baguio; Ilocano: Gubat ti Baguio) occurred between 21 February and 26 April 1945 and was part of the greater Luzon campaign during the Allied liberation of the Philippines at the end of World War II. [2] During the battle, American and Philippine forces recaptured the city of Baguio on the island of Luzon from a Japanese occupation force. One of the last tank engagements of the Philippine campaign took place during the battle. Baguio later became the scene of the final surrender of Japanese forces in the Philippines in September 1945. [11]
Prior to World War II, Baguio was the summer capital of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, as well as the home of the Philippine Military Academy. [12] In 1939, the city had a population of 24,000 people, most of whom were Filipinos, along with other nationalities, including about 500 Japanese. [13] Following the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1941, the Japanese used Camp John Hay, an American installation in Baguio, as a military base. [13] In October 1944, American soldiers landed on Leyte, beginning the liberation of the Philippines. [14]
General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the commander of the Japanese Fourteenth Area Army, transferred his headquarters to Baguio in December 1944, planning to fight a delaying action against the Americans to give time for Japan to defend itself. [5] In early January 1945, American forces landed at Lingayen Gulf. [7] Thereafter, the American Sixth Army conducted two campaigns, one against the Japanese forces east of Manila, and the second against Yamashita's forces in northern Luzon. [6]
Between late February and early April 1945, the Allied forces, primarily consisting of the United States Army's 33rd Infantry Division, with assistance from regiments of the Philippine guerrilla force United States Army Forces in the Philippines – Northern Luzon, advanced towards Baguio. [2] By late March, the city was within range of American artillery. [7] Between March 4 and 10, United States Fifth Air Force planes dropped 933 tons of bombs and 1,185 gallons of napalm on Baguio, reducing much of the city to rubble. [15] President José P. Laurel of the collaborationist Second Philippine Republic, having moved to Baguio from Manila in December 1944, departed Baguio on 22 March, reaching Taiwan on 30 March; [16] the remainder of the Second Republic government in the Philippines, along with Japanese civilians, were ordered to evacuate Baguio on 30 March. [2] Yamashita and his staff relocated to Bambang. [7] [17] A major offensive to capture Baguio did not occur until mid-April, when United States Army's 37th Infantry Division, minus the 145th Infantry Regiment, was released from garrisoning Manila to launch a two-division assault into Baguio from the west and south. [2]
During the Allied drive towards Baguio from the west, a six-day battle was fought at Irisan Gorge and the nearby Irisan River. [2] [18] This battle involved one of the last tank-versus-tank engagements of the Philippines campaign, between M4 Shermans of the U.S. Army's Company B, 775th Tank Battalion, and Type 97s of the IJA's 5th Tank Company, 10th Tank Regiment. [19]
In mid-April, 7,000 civilians, including foreign nationals, made their way from Baguio to American lines. [20] Among them were five cabinet members of the Second Republic; Brigadier General Manuel Roxas was "freed", [20] the other four were captured as collaborators. [21] On 22 April, Major General Noakata Utsunomiya, who had been left in command of the defense of Baguio by Yamashita, ordered a withdrawal from Baguio. On 24 April, the first Allied forces – a patrol of the 129th Infantry Regiment – entered Baguio. [2]
Yamashita, along with 50,500 men of the Shobu Group, held out against the American advance in northern Luzon until 15 August 1945. [7] [17] [22] On 3 September 1945, one day after the official Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay, Yamashita formally surrendered Japanese forces in the Philippines at Camp John Hay's American Residence in the presence of lieutenant-generals Arthur Percival and Jonathan Wainwright. [11]
The Philippine Scouts (Filipino: Maghahanap ng Pilipinas/Hukbong Maghahanap ng Pilipinas) was a military organization of the United States Army from 1901 until after the end of World War II. These troops were generally Filipinos and Filipino-Americans assigned to the United States Army Philippine Department, under the command of American commissioned officers (though a handful of Filipino Americans received commissions from the United States Military Academy). Philippine Scout units were given the suffix "(PS)", to distinguish them from other U.S. Army units.
United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) was a military formation of the United States Army active from 1941 to 1946. The new command's headquarters was created on 26 July 1941, at No. 1, Calle Victoria, Manila, Luzon, the Philippines, with General Douglas MacArthur as commander. The Chief of Staff was Brigadier General Richard K. Sutherland and the Deputy Chief of Staff was Lieutenant Colonel Richard J. Marshall. The core of this command was drawn from the Office of the Military Advisor to the Commonwealth Government of the Philippines.
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Tomoyuki Yamashita was a Japanese convicted war criminal and general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Yamashita led Japanese forces during the invasion of Malaya and Battle of Singapore, his conquest of Malaya and Singapore in 70 days earned him the sobriquet "The Tiger of Malaya" and led to the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill calling the ignominious fall of Singapore to Japan the "worst disaster" and "largest capitulation" in British military history. Yamashita was assigned to defend the Philippines from the advancing Allies later in the war. Although he was unable to prevent the superior Allied forces from advancing, despite dwindling supplies and Allied guerrilla action, he was able to hold on to part of Luzon until after the formal Surrender of Japan in August 1945.
The Philippines campaign, also known as the Battle of the Philippines or the Fall of the Philippines, was the invasion of the American territory of the Philippines by the Empire of Japan and the defense of the islands by United States and the Philippine Armies during World War II.
The Battle of Bataan was fought by the United States and the Philippine Commonwealth against 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 Battle of Luzon was a land battle of the Pacific Theater of Operations of World War II by the Allied forces of the U.S., its colony the Philippines, and allies against forces of the Empire of Japan. The battle resulted in a U.S. and Filipino victory. The Allies had taken control of all strategically and economically important locations of Luzon by March 1945, although pockets of Japanese resistance held out in the mountains until the unconditional surrender of Japan. While not the highest in U.S. casualties, it is the highest net casualty battle U.S. forces fought in World War II, with 192,000 to 217,000 Japanese combatants dead, 8,000 American combatants killed, and over 150,000 Filipinos, overwhelmingly civilians who were murdered by Japanese forces, mainly during the Manila massacre of February 1945.
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Baguio and Camp John Hay fell on 26 April, under the concerted attack of the 33d and the 37th Divisions.
After garrison duty in Manila, 5–26 March, the Division shifted to the hills of Northwest Luzon, where heavy fighting culminated in the capture of Baguio, 26 April.