Trapped Japs inside Manila spurn surrender ultimatum
Yanks launch annihilation drive against enemy remnants in 3 government buildings
MANILA, Philippines (UP) – Trapped Jap bodies in Manila ignored a surrender ultimatum today.
U.S. troops immediately began an annihilation drive against the enemy remnants holding out in three government buildings.
The final assault on the last enemy pocket in the capital came as other U.S. forces pushed into the foothills of the Sierra Madres Mountains east of Manila in an attack on the 25-mile-long Kobayashi Line.
An estimated 1,000 fanatical Japs, believed commanded by Rear Adm. Iwabuchi, were lodged in the three buildings and faced certain doom.
Yanks guns open up
They had been given three choices in the ultimatum – suicide, a fight to death, or honorable surrender. Their only reply was sniper fire while the edict was being read over a loudspeaker.
When the deadline passed at daybreak, American guns opened fire and the troops prepared for an assault on the buildings to clean out the last resistance in Manila.
With the city virtually clear, other U.S. troops resumed their drive toward Luzon’s eastern coast with an offensive against the Kobayashi Line.
Near Los Banos
Units of the 1st Cavalry and 6th Infantry Divisions were attacking the Jap line from Taytay, two miles north of Laguna de Bay lakes to Norzagaray, 19 miles northeast of Manila.
At the same time, the 11th Airborne Division continued its rapid drive southward along the west coast of Laguna de Bay lakes and crossed the Juan River,15 miles below Muntinlupa. The thrust brought the airborne units within five miles of Los Banos, where another sensational liberation of Allied internees was carried out Friday.
A communiqué disclosed that the 33rd Infantry Division had joined the Luzon forces and was fighting in the hills north of Rosario, nine miles above San Fabian on the Lingayen Gulf.
Scattered Jap remnants continued to fight back on Corregidor as the Americans pushed down the tail of the salamander-shaped island.