The Southwest Pacific Drive
Copyright © Henry J. Sage 2006

Allied Forces move toward the Philippines

Of all the quotations attributed to famous military leaders, General Douglas MacArthur's “I shall return” ranks with the best known. General MacArthur had been the American military commander of forces in the Philippines since 1935 and had grown to love the Islands and the people. When ordered by President Roosevelt in March 1942 to remove himself in order to take over command of operation in the Southwest Pacific area, MacArthur vowed to come back to liberate the Philippines from Japanese control.

Immediately after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they had turned on the Philippines, and despite heroic resistance by the Americans and the Philippine army, the Islands finally fell in April 1942. MacArthur was evacuated secretly by a patrol torpedo boat and made his famous promise upon his arrival in Australia. Meanwhile the Americans, who had established a final line of defense at Bataan, were forced to surrender to superior Japanese forces. Many prisoners suffered and died during the infampus Bataan death march, and many more spent three gruesome years in Japanese prison camps.

MacArthur's plans to move back toward the Philippines were hampered by the fact that the American and British staffs in Washington and London were struggling to allocate scarce resources while honoring their joint commitment to conquer Germany first. The attack on Guadalcanal had been necessitated by the threat of the Japanese airfield under construction, and the Pacific commanders insisted in keeping the pressure on Japan, a decision which was finally agreed upon by Allied leaders during the Casablance Conference of January 1943, the same conference at which President Roosevelt adn Prime Min ister Churchill agree on the policy of “unconditional surrender.”

While the Navy and Marines under Admiral Halsey and the Army units under his command moved through the Solomons, the Gilberts and beyond, General MacArthur's Army units and Australian forces were preparing to advance toward the Philippines along the northern coast of New Guinea. MacArthur had pointed out the advantage of that second route in that it would provide for land-based air cover along the way. The double-pronged advance—the Southwest Pacific route and the Central Pacific drive had the merit of keeping Japanese forces divided and of providing opportunities for surprise.

The advance through New Guinea began in April 1944. MacArthur followed the same general strategy adopted by Halsey in the Central Pacific—leapfrogging over lesser points of resistance to cut them off, leaving them for Australian forces to neutralize.  After several initial landings MacArthur’s troops established a large base at Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea. From there they moved westward up the coast, gradually getting closer to their objective of the Philippines.  (See Map) 

As the Japanese moved to reinforce western New Guinea with aircraft from the Marianas, they discovered that the Americans were preparing to attack the Marianas, leaving the Japanese forces stretched very thin. By late July 1944 Allied forces were at the western tip of New Guinea and began planning for the assault on the Philippines, just as the Marines and Army were capturing Saipan, Tinian and Guam in the Marianas.

MacArthur returns to the Philippines

As American forces began to moved near the Philippines in late 1944, Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet conducted a lengthy battle against Japanese carrier and shore-based aircraft. But the Japanese Navy, which had suffered continuous losses since the battles of Coral Sea and Midway, was not the same navy and naval air force that had attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.  Japanese losses during this phase of fighting were over 500 aircraft lost, considerable sunk shipping and damaged base facilities.  Japanese reporting on the battle, however, was wildly exaggerated, leaving Japanese commanders in the Philippines to think that American naval and air power had been severely damaged. In fact, the opposite was true.

When the force assembled for the invasion of Leyte, the initial objective on the Philippines, gathered at Hollandia in October, 1944, it was one of the most powerful naval and military assemblies in history.  The Allied force consisted of over 700 ships and 160,000 troops, including battleships, cruisers, escort carriers and destroyers, as well as the amphibious assault vessels. 

On October 20, 1944 the assault force approached the Philippines through Leyte Gulf.  The VII Amphibious force began its landings at 10:00 o'clock, and at one that afternoon General MacArthur left the USS Nashville and went ashore from a landing craft, wading through the surf with his staff in their freshly pressed khaki uniforms.  Although fighting raged nearby, General MacArthur ignored it and announced over the radio: "People of the Philippines, I have returned!  By the grace of Almighty God, our forces stand again on Philippine soil."  Two days later General MacArthur and Philippine President Osmeña announced that civilian government had been restored to the Philippines. 

Meanwhile, as the American forces in the Philippines expanded from their initial beachhead a Japanese fleet was heading for Leyte under Admiral Kurita. For three days, October 23-26, 1944, what remained of the Imperial Japanese fleet engaged the American fleet under Admiral Halsey in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.  During the action the Japanese lost 4 aircraft carriers, 3 battleships, 10 cruisers, 11 destroyers and one submarine, and virtually every Japanese ship engaged in the battle was damaged. The Japanese also lost 500 aircraft and 10,000 sailors and airmen. As the Allies consolidated their position in the Philippines the Japanese Navy retreated northward in the direction of Japan in preparation for the assaults on Okinawa in the Ryuku Islands, which would be the last step before the Allies were in a position to invade Japan itself.

Fighting continued in the Philippines throughout 1945.  In early January General MacArthur's forces on Leyte approached the main Philippine Island of Luzon.  In a series of landings American troops went ashore and closed in on Manila Bay and the capital city.  In late February as the Americans were closing in, the Japanese commander ordered a fierce suicidal defense which resulted in the destruction of many buildings in the city of Manila.  By the time the American army had driven all the Japanese out, over 16,000 Japanese soldiers had been killed.  Although the Americans now controlled the Philippine Islands, various strong points remained in Japanese hands until the end of the war in August 1945.

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