The Pittsburgh Press (February 25, 1945)
Manila Japs wiped out in walled city
Annihilation complete, MacArthur says
LUZON, Philippines (UP) – U.S. troops have completed annihilation of the trapped Jap garrison in South Manila and more than 12,000 enemy bodies have been counted so far, Gen. Douglas MacArthur announced today.
Gen. MacArthur announced, 22 days after his troops first entered Manila, that Maj. Gen. Robert S. Beightler’s 37th Infantry Division and Maj. Gen. Verne D. Mudge’s 1st Cavalry Division had overwhelmed the final enemy positions in the Intramuros, the ancient walled section of the city.
3,000 civilians freed
They released 3,000 civilians whom “the incorrigible enemy” had caught and penned in Intramuros and who had suffered “unbelievable indignities and dangers,” Gen. MacArthur said.
His communiqué added:
This operation and the tremendous and disproportionate losses in men and material sustained during the progress of our advance through Luzon, following the catastrophic defeat in Leyte, dooms Gen. Yamashita’s Philippine campaign and presages the early clearance of the entire archipelago.
Heavy toll on Corregidor
U.S. troops are also levying a mounting toll of the trapped and desperate Jap garrison of Corregidor.
Known enemy dead there total 2,309, Gen. MacArthur’s communiqué said. It is believed several thousand others have been destroyed in Corregidor’s labyrinth of rocky corridors by the blasting and closing of some 132 tunnels.
East and north of Manila, U.S. infantry have scored gains of up to 10 miles against Jap troops drawing into the mountains.