The President’s Special Assistant to the President
Yalta, February 6, 1945
Mr. President: Why not let this wind up today when Stalin is thru – and say we will talk it over again tomorrow. It is 7.15
HARRY
The Pittsburgh Press (February 6, 1945)
JAPS IN MANILA CUT OFF
City’s fall proclaimed – ‘On to Tokyo!’ slogan of MacArthur now
Bataan Peninsula sealed – Americans prepare for assault on Corregidor
MANILA, Philippines (UP) – Three U.S. divisions today encircled fanatically resisting Jap remnants in Manila.
The action virtually completed the liberation of the Philippines and setting the stage for the next phase of the march on Tokyo.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur officially proclaimed the fall of Manila, capital of the Philippines and largest city yet liberated in the Pacific war, and said the motto of his command now was: “On to Tokyo!”
He said the “complete destruction” of the doomed enemy garrison of Manila was imminent and revealed that another 1,350 U.S. and Allied war prisoners and civilian internees had been freed yesterday with the capture of ancient Bilibid Prison.
Other U.S. forces avenging the bitter defeats of 1942 sealed off Bataan Peninsula and were believed preparing for an early assault on Fort Corregidor in Manila Bay.
Gen. MacArthur said in a statement accompanying his daily communiqué:
The fall of Manila marks the end of one great phase of the Pacific struggle and set the stage for another.
With Australia safe, the Philippines liberated, and the ultimate redemption of the East Indies and Malaya thereby made a certainty, our motto becomes, “On to Tokyo!”
Writing off the eventual loss of Manila, Jap propagandists said that the coming of the Americans to Manila was “exactly what our side waited for, and our bleeding tactics will now enter the positive stage.”
Drive from south
The 11th Airborne Division completed the stranglehold on the battered Jap garrison in Manila by smashing into the city from the south yesterday after an overnight dash of 35 miles.
The 37th Infantry Division, pouring into the capital from the north, and the 1st Cavalry Division, from the east, linked up in the heart of Manila and cleared all of the city north of the Pasig River with the exception of scattered groups of snipers.
The Japs blew up the Quezon and Ayala Bridges across the broad Pasig as they fell back into the southern half of Manila for a last stand. Two other bridges remained intact, however, and may have been captured by the Americans.
Explosions shake ground
Jap demolition squads continued their destructive work in southern Manila, working feverishly against their own imminent destruction. Numerous fires cast a heavy pall of smoke over the city and explosions shook the ground at frequent intervals.
With the 11th Airborne Division’s thrust into southern Manila however, the enemy garrison could be considered “hopelessly trapped,” Gen. MacArthur said.
The 37th Infantry Division captured Bilibid Prison in the northern half of Manila yesterday, releasing more than 800 war prisoners and about 550 additional civilian internees, including women and children.
5,500 prisoners rescued
That brought to more than 5,500 the number of Allied prisoners rescued in the past week, including those at the Santo Tomas University concentration camp in Manila and the Cabanatuan prison camp in Central Luzon.
Most were Americans, but the number also included a scattering of British, Australians, Dutch and other Allied nationals. Gen. MacArthur said the names of those rescued at Santo Tomas and Bilibid would be released as soon as they have been tabulated, probably a matter of several days.
“Every facility of the Armed Forces is being devoted to the care and attention of those who have been rescued,” Gen. MacArthur’s communiqué said.
Hospital move in
Food trucks were revealed to have reached Santo Tomas only a few hours after 1st Cavalry Division spearheads freed the camp. Huge mobile hospitals rolled into Manila today to care for medical cases.
Bataan Peninsula, where the Americans made a bloody stand in 1942 before retiring to Corregidor, was sealed off by a junction of the Eighth Army’s 11th corps and the Sixth Army’s 14th Corps at Dinalupihan, 37 miles northwest of Manila.
With U.S. forces in control of all roads leading into Bataan, the way was blocked for any prolonged Jap stand on the peninsula.
Corregidor bombed
Continuing to prepare the way for an attack on Corregidor, the largest force of Liberators yet struck the island in two raids Saturday. Corregidor must be captured before Manila Bay can be opened to American shipping.
To the north, the First Corps seized most of San Jose, 80 miles above Manila and only 37 miles from the east coast of Luzon, in a drive that cut the main road to the Balete Pass and Cagayan Valley.
More dead on Leyte
Fierce fighting continued in the Munoz sector, seven miles southwest of San Jose, where 25 enemy tanks, many trucks, pillboxes and artillery pieces have been destroyed. Units north of San Jose engaged the Japs in Pupao and advance five miles along the Villa Verde Trail into the Caraballo Mountains.
On Leyte in the central Philippines, U.S. troops counted an additional 733 enemy dead or prisoners.
U.S. patrol planes in the China Sea sank two small freighters off Amoy on the China coast, bombed and strafed parked aircraft at Swatow Airdrome, started fires at Takao, Formosa, and sank a fuel-laden vessel northwest of Formosa.
Bilibid prisoners saved from fire
MANILA, Philippines (UP) – A caravan of U.S. jeeps and trucks roared through the sniper-infested streets of Manila last night to rescue 1,003 prisoners and internees from Bilibid Prison when Jap fires raging on three sides, threatened to engulf the former federal penitentiary.
Every man in the 37th Infantry Division was turned out to evacuate the men, women and children of Bilibid.
Military authorities said the evacuation was completed just in time. Jap mortar fire had been dropping in the civilian and prisoner of war compounds all day. Shortly after the prison was cleared, Jap machine-gun fire started to rake the prison yard.
Those evacuated were 639 U.S. prisoners of war and 465 civilian internees. The civilian group included approximately 392 Americans, 71 British, one Mexican and one Chinese. There were 214 women, 169 men and 82 children, a dozen of whom had been born at the Baguio Prison Camp.
Santa didn’t forget Jap prison – Billy got a whole piece of candy
By Richard G. Harris, United Press staff writer
WITH THE 1ST CAVALRY DIVISION AT BILIBID PRISON, Philippines (Feb. 5, delayed) – The explosion of Jap demolitions, the rattle of machine-gun fire and the sharp bursts of mortar and artillery shells rattled the walls but Billy and Jamie didn’t seem to hear them.
Billy is 9 and Jamie is 5. They are the children of Dr. and Mrs. Bruce Mathers, of Princeton, New Jersey, and they were telling how Santa Claus didn’t forget them, even last Christmas behind the grim walls of Bilibid Prison.
Billy said he got a whole piece of candy and Jamie got three bananas.
“And I got a cardboard auto from mother and some beautiful pictures, too,” Jamie boasted.
Billy said that was well enough but tomorrow was his birthday and he was going to have a wonderful party.
“You know what I’m going to have for a birthday present?” Billy asked. “We’re going to open a can the Red Cross sent us and I don’t even know what’s in it yet.”
“Shucks,” said Jamie, “you had that before the Americans came. I bet you get more than that old can.”
Tomorrow is going to be a great day not only for Billy but for all the internees. A notice was posted on their bulletin board that tomorrow they will have cornmeal mush and coffee with both sugar and cream. And the children are going to have milk instead of rice water.
The youngsters tagged the American soldiers everywhere, asking their parents why they were so big and husky. Most of the young children had never seen any American soldiers who were not emaciated from life in Jap prisons.
The American combat troops, fighting their way forward on short rations, took one look at the children and handed out all the food they had.
The youngsters scrambled over the American equipment despite the still-falling mortar fragments.
Clarence Mount of Henderson, Tennessee, former regular army man in Manila, apologized for the curiosity of his three-year-old daughter, Patricia Jean.
“You see she was born in prison,” he said, “and she never knew anything else.”
Howard Hick of Easton, Pennsylvania, kitchen supervisor at the Santo Tomas Camp, revealed that the Japs had tried to force him to serve dog meat to the interned children just before Christmas.
Only his flat refusal and the threat that both he and Earl Carrol of Palo Alto, California, vice chairman of the Internee Administration Committee, would resign, caused the Japs to withdraw the order.
The Japs had called two men in one day and ordered them to kill all the dogs in camp, numbering about 100, and use the meat on the chow line.
“Dog meat is much like monkey meat,” said the Jap officer, “and people eat monkey meat.”
When the Americans objected that the dogs were diseased, the Jap said: “But there are many good dogs. The children need chow. You kill the dogs and feed the children.”
Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill meet
European policy statement likely
LONDON, England (UP) – The “Big Three” conference was underway today and observers here expected it to conclude with a broad statement of European policy, supplementing and perhaps expanding the Atlantic Charter.
High U.S. conferees favored a detailed announcement of the conclusions reached. But it was questionable whether the conference statement would reveal many of the decision by President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin.
Observers believed they would issue a statement charting the general course of their policy, but leaving many key questions unanswered publicly.
There were strong reasons to believe they would disclose little if anything of their plans for the future of Germany beyond a broad statement of intent. Russia’s intention toward Japan was believed almost certainly not to be revealed at this time.
That the conference was underway was confirmed for the first time by Sir Walter Citrine, general secretary of the British Trades Union Congress
He made the disclosure at the opening session of the World Trade Union Conference in explaining why Mr. Churchill could not address the meeting.
Mr. Churchill had promised to speak at the conference, but instead sent a message of greetings to the delegates.
Speculation continued over the whereabouts of the “Big Three” meeting, with most sources suggesting the Black Sea area or possibly Stalingrad. One theory was that some sessions at least were being held aboard a warship, perhaps American, with Mr. Roosevelt as host.*
Gen. Charles de Gaulle expressed French resentment that he hadn’t been invited to participate in the conference and laid down French conditions for post-war Europe in a radio address yesterday.
His conditions were: French military occupation of the whole length of the Rhine River; separation of the left bank of the Rhine and the Ruhr Basin from the “German state or states,” and independence of “the Polish, Czech, Austrian and Balkan peoples.”
Japs show concern
The Japanese betrayed increasing concern that Marshal Stalin would align Russia with the United States and Britain against Japan at the conference.
They obviously feared that Marshal Stalin, flushed by victories over the German Army. will give Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill a definite promise to throw at least part of the Red Army against the Japs after Germany has surrendered.
The influential Tokyo newspaper Asahi, as quoted by the German Transocean Agency, said the question of Soviet participation would “most certainly be raised,” since the Pacific war situation was “nearing the decisive stage.”
Perkins: Spielers still ‘at old stand’ in Hyde Park
Speakers have wide variety of themes
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
…
Simms: Fall of Manila gives America big problem
Filipinos must get food, clothing
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
WASHINGTON – Manila’s fall marks the beginning of probable the most difficult – because it is the most delicate – phase of our 46 years of association with the Philippine Islands.
Before leaving Washington to join Gen. Douglas MacArthur for the grand entree into his capital, President Sergio Osmena told me something of the conditions in the archipelago.
The plight of the Filipinos is pitiful. The invaders treated them harshly. The farmers were systematically robbed of almost everything they raised, leaving next to nothing which could be sold to the city dwellers.
This meant gnawing hunger if not actual starvation in the towns, also the diseases which malnutrition leads to.
Japs live off country
Unlike Americans, the Japs live off the country. They even steal clothing, selling at black market prices such civilian articles as the soldiers could not use themselves. They often destroy quite wantonly what they can’t take away.
As a result, the Filipinos generally are undernourished, plagued with all kinds of sickness, and pretty much in rags. They are in great need of almost everything – food, clothing, drugs.
U.S. faces problem
The United States now faces a tremendous psychological problem in the Philippines. The people have been treated so cruelly by the Japs for so long that the masses are looking to the Americans for immediate assistance every description. Adequate aid, of course, may be difficult, if not impossible, to provide – at least in the immediate future. Yet unless it is forthcoming the effect is bound to be bad.
European experience shows what to expect. As, one by one, Europe’s occupied countries were liberated, the inhabitants seemed to expect things to change for the better and at once. Overnight they hoped the things of which they had been deprived for so long would reappear. When they didn’t, there was disillusionment. The sick and the starving are seldom reasonable, especially when encountered en masse.
Cites Europe
Europe has shown that mere liberation is not enough. The hungry want food. The ragged want clothes. The ailing want medicine. The homeless want houses and the jobless and penniless want work and security. There is feverish impatience and when relief isn’t forthcoming there is national unrest.
The gist of all this is that while there is undoubtedly a limit to what we can do in the Philippines, it is imperative that we do everything we possibly can. The Filipinos are especially our wards. We are in honor bound to do our best by them – not only for their sake but for our own. For, half the population of the globe, all the yellow and brown races scattered throughout Asia, have their eyes on us. Our prestige is still at stake.
Reporter, wife are near, yet far apart for 3 years
Freed from Manila prison, correspondent goes four blocks to find Mrs. Weissblatt
By Frank Weissblatt, United Press staff writer
BILIBID PRISON, Manila – The arrival of the 37th Infantry Division broke down the walls which for three years had separated me from my wife, who was only four blocks away in the heart of Manila.
We were reunited last night. Although we had been interned so near to each other, our only communication during the three seemingly endless years had been an official card every three months, except for occasional messages delivered by the underground.
Our separation was occasioned, by my status as a war correspondent. The Japs considered me a war prisoner and confined me to Bilibid Prison instead of Santo Tomas where other civilians and their wives were confined. After the 37th Infantry brought about our rescue I went to Santo Tomas where I found my wife.
Keeps prisoner records
In the darkened university halls last night and today I told wives, friends and relatives of prisoners held by the Japs the news of their loved ones at Bilibid, Formosa, Japan and Manchuria which I had compiled while at Bilibid.
Bilibid was a focal point for prisoner movement and I talked to men passing through in the daytime and wrote my record secretly at night, hiding the papers.
We kept our hopes alive on the news of Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s island-to-island progress back to Luzon.
The most difficult time of all was during the last few weeks when we knew Gen. MacArthur was on Luzon but had only wild rumors on his progress down the plain.
Hear rifle butts
The food shortage was growing acute, but strength came back to us all when the sound of soldiers’ rifle butts against the wooden shutters on our barred windows gave us the first sign that Americans were in Manila.
One rifle butt knocked a small rectangle of wood from a window. A hand and an unwashed, unmistakably American face appeared in the opening.
The hand held a rifle and nervously fingered the trigger. Just in time its owner recognized us as fellow-Americans.
“How in hell do you get in there?” he shouted.
‘Glad to see you’
“How do you get out of here?” replied a prisoner, jokingly. “We’ve been trying to find that out for three years.”
Hardly a minute later, the soldiers were inside the wall and we were free. We told them the Japs, had pulled out Sunday afternoon.
There were tears of gratitude in our eyes, but the only words we could find to say were: “Glad to see you!”
Stanley and Livingstone –
‘Weissblatt, United Press,’ interned reporter says
Liberated newsman’s leg knit at 30-degree angle after being broken by Jap bullet
By H. D. Quigg, United Press staff writer
**BILIBID PRISON, Manila (Feb. 5, delayed) – Our names aren’t Stanley and Dr. Livingstone, but for a while it seemed as though they should have been.
It happened in Bilibid Prison, that ancient jail in which the Japs have confined 800 Allied war prisoners and 550 civilians for nearly three years.
I was just bedding down for the night on the concrete floor of the prison with an assault battalion of the 37th Infantry Division when someone said there were some American prisoners who just had been freed on the other side of the wall.
‘Weissblatt, United Press’
The night was pitch black. but I felt my way around the wall and along a corridor toward a hum of excited voices.
Suddenly I sensed rather than felt or saw someone beside me. I stuck out my hand, even as did Stanley in darkest Africa those many years ago.
“I’m Quigg, United Press”
The Dr. Livingstone of Bilibid Prison grasped my hand fervently.
“Weissblatt, United Press,” he replied.
And thus I met Franz Weissblatt, 46, who covered the Jap invasion and American retreat from Lingayen Gulf to Bataan for United Press readers three years ago.
He was captured January 7, 1942, the sole survivor of a unit of 15 men from the famed 26th Cavalry Division. The other Americans had been killed when the unit was ambushed by the Japs.
Mr. Weissblatt was sitting in a scout car when a Jap rifle bullet hit him in the leg, breaking the bone. He was knocked to the bottom of the car. Then a mortar burst directly over the car, leaving him unconscious.
Pulled to ground
When he regained consciousness at daybreak, he saw Jap troops crawling forward. He raised his head over the side of the car.
The Japs gave a whoop and pulled him onto the ground, impacting the leg fracture. They forced him to strip and crawl 50 yards to a Jap command post.
After 35 days of traveling around to various Jap headquarters, Mr. Weissblatt was taken to a Jap naval hospital in Manila, where his leg knit at a 30-degree angle without being reset.
He went to various camps on crutches and finally arrived at this former federal prison, where he has been more than 2½ years.
That was “Weissblatt, United Press.”
Mr. Weissblatt’s wife was found doing nurse’s duty at the Santo Tomas internment camp. She had been at Bataan and Corregidor and for over two years has handled the diet for internment camps, feeding several hundred small children and trying to keep them nourished out of a small variety of available foods.
‘Angels of Bataan, Corregidor’ freed
Army nurses found at Manila camp
By Frank Hewlett, United Press staff writer
SANTO TOMAS PRISON CAMP, Manila (Feb. 4, delayed) – The long ordeal of the “Angels of Bataan and Corregidor,” the U.S. Army nurses who cared for American and Filipino wounded in the black days of Jap invasion, is ended at last and all are accounted for.
U.S. troops who liberated this civilian internment camp found them. For all their reasons to celebrate, they would not pause in their newly-found work of mercy. Instead, they kept on the job, caring for the wounded in the fight to free Manila.
Penicillin new to them
By way of rejoicing, they reveled in again having clean bandages and an abundance of drugs, brought to them by cavalry units, to work with.
Imprisoned in these islands since early 1942, they knew nothing of penicillin. They thought soldiers were joking when they promised that a large American hospital unit would arrive within a few hours, and their work would be ended.
Two of those happily working tonight survived Jap bombings on Bataan. They were Rose Marie Hogan, of Chattanooga, Oklahoma, and Rita Palmer of Hampton, New Hampshire.
Tried to escape
Some of the nurses freed at Santo Tomas were taken there after unsuccessful attempts to escape.
About 100 Army nurses were caught in the Philippines when the war began, and every effort was made to evacuate them when it became clear that all was lost. Only two groups reached freedom, one by submarine, another by Navy flying boat.
A third group got as far as Mindanao Island before their flying boat was disabled. Many months later, they were brought to the Santo Tomas camp, where they joined other nurses in caring for the sick.