The Pittsburgh Press (February 20, 1945)
Manila wall battered by U.S. artillery
Final assault opens on Jap pocket
MANILA, Philippines (UP) – American big guns were pulverizing Manila’s 400-year-old wall today for a final assault on a one-square-mile pocket of stubborn Jap defenders south of the Pasig River.
With the heavy artillery blasting a path through the thick wall around the original Spanish city, the end of the 17-day-old battle of Manila was in sight.
Units of the 37th Infantry Division were firmly entrenched around the dwindling Jap pocket and 11th Airborne troops rapidly were cleaning up Fort McKinley on the southeast outskirts of the city.
Mop up on Corregidor
The final phase of the Manila campaign came as paratroops and infantry slowly dug out fanatical Jap holdouts from the caves and tunnels of newly-invaded Corregidor, Other U.S. forces also were cleaning up enemy remnants on Bataan Peninsula.
Lt. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, Jap commander in the Philippines, announced blandly that his defense of Luzon was “progressing without a hitch” and that the fighting so far was “a mere preliminary operation.”
Yamashita’s statement claimed the American invaders already had suffered 60,000 casualties in the Philippines.
Japs fight bitterly
Despite the impact of the heavy artillery fire, the Japs were fighting back bitterly from their last positions inside Manila. The pocket, now shrunk to one-fourteenth of the Charter City area, comprised Northern Ermita, the walled city of Intramuros and the port district.
Heaviest fighting was reported from the bay front, where the 37th Infantrymen pushed three blocks west from the Philippines General Hospital and began attacking enemy positions on the university grounds.
Blast pillboxes
Jap pillboxes at the university were being destroyed systematically by artillery and mortars. But the Americans were meeting considerable fire from Jap guns around the high commissioner’s home, which was already in ruins.
The assault on the 16th century wall was concentrated on the east side of Intramuros. Front reports said the big guns were tearing a hole in the masonry and no signs of life appeared within the walled city.
Most of the buildings were believed to have been destroyed or badly damaged by the barrage. Observers described the Japs inside Intramuros as in desperate flight.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur again went to the front lines and visited the sector where infantrymen were pushing northward against the Jap pocket.
A front dispatch quoted a 37th Infantry Division colonel as saying that the Japs had used a screen of Filipinos around them when they attempted to push a large gun onto Wallace Field just south of Intramuros.
A survey of the recaptured section of Manila in the meantime revealed that the entire business and commercial area was destroyed by Jap demolitions, fires and street fighting. The section comprised approximately one-fifth of Manila proper – an area comparable in size to Manhattan.
PT boats blast Japs
Gen. MacArthur’s communiqué disclosed that U.S. troops seized the towns of Hagonoy and Tagig on the northwest shore of Laguna de Bay, approximately four miles southeast of Fort McKinley.
U.S. planes and PT boats continued steady attacks on Jap shipping throughout the Philippines and in the China Sea. PT boats sank four barges in Manila Bay and destroyed a small cruiser off Cebu. Heavy bombers again raided Formosa, dropping 175 tons of explosives on Takao, where an aluminum plant and railyards were damaged. Three small freighters were damaged off shore. A 3,000-ton freighter was bombed off the China coast.