Battle of Manila by Department of Defense.
Documentary on invasion of the Philippines, covering the landings through the final liberation of the City of Manila.
Documentary on invasion of the Philippines, covering the landings through the final liberation of the City of Manila.
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00:00The United States Army presents the Big Picture, an official report produced for the Armed
00:21Forces and the American people.
00:34When you're in the Army, you get a chance to do a lot of traveling, see a lot of sights,
00:39and meet all kinds of interesting people.
00:41For me, some of the most interesting have been right here in our own country.
00:47My name's Sergeant Stuart Queen, host for the Big Picture.
00:50A good percentage of ideas for the Big Picture is taken right out of our history books.
00:56Other stories feature current Army activities of interest to the nation.
01:01But once in a while, something unusual comes along, tying in the present with the past,
01:07and we come up with a warm, human interest story.
01:11In my work, I get around the country quite a bit.
01:14It's part of my job.
01:16And whenever I'm in this particular vicinity, along this stretch of road, I stop by a quaint
01:21little restaurant called Charlie's Harbor Inn.
01:24Because it was here at Charlie's, this story happened some months ago.
01:29It was right here I discovered for myself that truth can be stranger than fiction.
01:39It was the kind of incident you read about in a novel or see in a grade B movie.
01:44But if anyone told you it was a true story, well, nobody'd believe it in a thousand years,
01:50and I wouldn't blame them.
01:55But this story really did happen, I know, because I was there when it did, and I saw
02:00it all.
02:07Anything wrong, officer?
02:08Is this your car?
02:10Yeah, why?
02:12That's why.
02:14So help me, officer, I didn't even know it was there.
02:17Let me see your license.
02:20Look officer, I've only been here about ten minutes.
02:23Yeah, I know.
02:25I was just making an important phone call.
02:36Don't I know you from somewhere?
02:38Now look here, officer, I'm an honest, law-abiding citizen.
02:41I've never been in trouble with the police or anybody else.
02:44Why I never even...
02:45Hey, okay, forget it.
02:47You ever been in the service?
02:49Yeah, but what's that got to do with it?
02:51Never mind that.
02:52Just answer the question.
02:54When did you serve?
02:55World War II, in the army.
02:57Where?
02:58What part of the world?
02:59The Pacific.
03:00Say, what is this, an inquisition?
03:01All I did was...
03:02Take it easy, buddy.
03:03Take it easy.
03:05Where in the Pacific?
03:07Started in Australia, then New Guinea, Britain, the Admiralty's, and let's see, the Philippines.
03:16The Philippines?
03:17Where in the Philippines?
03:20Mostly Leyte and Luzon.
03:21Aha, Luzon.
03:22And we hit Lingayen Gulf, then right down to Manila.
03:25You were in the Battle of Manila?
03:28From the kickoff till the final whistle.
03:31Santo Tomas.
03:32Mean anything to you?
03:34I rode the back of the first tank in.
03:36I thought I recognized you.
03:38Me?
03:39From where?
03:40From Santo Tomas.
03:41You see, I was one of the civilian prisoners there on Manila that you and your outfit liberated.
03:46No kidding.
03:47Yeah.
03:48Well, if this don't beat...
03:50Well, if this ain't the...
03:52Look, you got a minute?
03:55Sure.
03:56Let me buy you a cup of coffee?
03:57Yeah, sure.
03:58Look, whoever thought that...
03:59Nobody would ever believe it.
04:00I know that.
04:01Here was a veteran of World War II, and here was a man he helped liberate, both meeting
04:11for the first time since that historic Battle of Manila in 1945.
04:15Peg, will you get us a couple of cups of coffee?
04:20Two cups of coffee?
04:21As I said before, a true story, stranger than fiction, taking place right before my eyes.
04:29Man, you've added a few pounds here and there.
04:32Food's better over here, and the wife's a good cook.
04:36Say, don't I remember your wife at Santo Tomas kind of frail?
04:41That's right.
04:42After you arrived, we had to take her out on a stretcher.
04:45How is she now?
04:46Couldn't be better.
04:47Matter of fact, we got four kids.
04:50Four?
04:51Yeah.
04:52That's great.
04:53My wife and I often talk about those days.
04:57We never did get much of a chance to thank you and your outfit for liberating us.
05:03I'll never forget the first day you arrived at Santo Tomas.
05:08How'd your outfit get there so soon?
05:10Well, it was all part of the stepped-up liberation of the Philippines.
05:15As I recall...
05:16You really want to hear about it?
05:20Yeah, I sure would.
05:22Well, as I recall, the G.I.s had taken Leyte and landed on Mindoro, the island directly
05:28south of Luzon.
05:30So my outfit and a lot of others were ready for the main event.
05:35We hit the beach at Lingayen Gulf, about a hundred miles north of Manila.
05:39We thought we'd be moving right into the teeth of Jap resistance, but we were wrong.
05:44That was to come later.
05:52We pushed on down the valley toward Manila, cleaning out little pockets of resistance
05:58where we found them.
06:03Out ahead of us, Air Force and Navy planes were softening up the way.
06:22We moved cautiously forward, wondering what had happened to the enemy.
06:47And for a while there, it looked like we were tourists,
06:51having ourselves a real ball.
06:56Along the way, one of the G.I.s picked up an innocent-looking piece of paper, which
07:01turned out to be a Japanese field order.
07:04It stated,
07:05All Filipinos found on the field of battle were subject to immediate execution.
07:10This applied to all Filipinos in Manila.
07:14Filipino guerrillas brought in reports that American and allied prisoners were starving
07:19and being mistreated in the city.
07:21So we stepped up the pace in the outskirts of Manila and finally established contact
07:26with the enemy.
07:27But we soon lost it, and we realized that the Japs were withdrawing to the heart of
07:32the city.
07:35At Grace Park, where the monument stands, snipers took potshots at us and slowed down
07:40our advance somewhat.
07:42And the only satisfaction I recall here was that my outfit was the first to enter Manila
07:47properly.
08:00A fierce battle suddenly developed in, of all places, Rizal Stadium, Manila's baseball
08:06park.
08:07The enemy had dug himself in under the stands, and we slugged it out with him with no
08:12cover.
08:17Rizal Stadium, a baseball park.
08:28No game today.
08:36Then we raced into the University of Santo Tomas and liberated, along with you, hundreds
08:41of American and allied internees.
08:45It had been three years since this pathetic group of prisoners had seen a free American
08:50or a square meal.
08:52Everyone in Santo Tomas was fortunate that there had been U.S. Army and Navy nurses who
08:57had been captured on Corregidor to care for you during those dark years.
09:01After we arrived, wires were sent home by the internees, and many replies came back
09:06in a few hours, affecting some noticeably.
09:15But for everyone, the liberation was a big celebration party.
09:20Kids who'd had no toys for three years now had giant-sized ones.
09:26And all of us were discussing how wonderful it was that the nightmare was over, at last.
09:32But the nightmare wasn't all over.
09:45The enemy started shelling us at Santo Tomas.
09:48We saw internees who'd survived the three years as prisoners killed by the incoming
09:53fire.
09:54I'll never forget how the shelling of this non-military target continued for several
10:00days while we evacuated the seriously ill and injured.
10:08Finally, the shelling of Santo Tomas let up.
10:11The Japs needed their artillery fire more urgently elsewhere.
10:14Then the internees were evacuated to the States, most of them by plane.
10:19But I guess you'd remember more about that evacuation than I would.
10:23I'll never forget it.
10:25Even a few more days rescuing us, I don't think my wife could have held out.
10:30But she made it okay, thanks to you and your buddies.
10:34That's the way the ball bounces.
10:36You never know when you can help the next guy.
10:38Yeah.
10:39I remember when I left Luzon, the battle in Manila seemed to be getting worse.
10:43Yeah, it sure was.
10:45What with the excitement of going back to the States after being a prisoner for three
10:49years, I never did get the dope straight on how the final stages of the battle
10:55went.
10:56It's all kind of fuzzy in my mind.
10:59All I know is we won, but it was quite a scrap, wasn't it?
11:04It was rough.
11:05Yeah.
11:07I know.
11:09How'd you make out after I left?
11:12Well, we got ourselves a good taste of street fighting.
11:15Being jungle G.I.s up till then, we found we had a lot to learn about fighting in
11:20city streets and big office buildings.
11:22But we learned fast.
11:25Combat is one thing for sure, a good teacher.
11:28How'd you come out?
11:30Oh, me personally, okay, but not so for some of the others.
11:34The deeper we got into Manila, the more fanatical the Jap resistance became.
11:39They couldn't escape, and they wouldn't surrender.
11:42So they fought till they died, most of them anyway.
11:46Our casualties were heavy.
11:50And the more we moved into the heart of the city, the more the enemy took
11:54advantage of the huge government buildings for defensive positions.
11:57Some of the buildings had to be ripped apart stone by stone before we could
12:01continue our advance.
12:03The enemy defensive plan soon became apparent.
12:06He was fighting delaying actions to allow his troops to cross the Pasig River,
12:10which cuts Manila east and west right through the middle.
12:13We pressed forward as fast as we could through fantastic tangles of broken
12:18buildings.
12:54Pasig River, a bridge was destroyed, leaving one less for us when we reached
12:58the river.
12:59Our troops found out the hard way just about all there is to know about
13:03street-to-street, building-to-building combat.
13:06And the more we learned, the faster we moved, denying the enemy the advantage
13:11of a leisurely withdrawal.
13:13Those Japs who couldn't pull back dug in and fought till they died.
13:18Many Filipinos braved front-line fire, handing out cigars or candy to show
13:23their gratitude to us.
13:40The enemy had orders from the Imperial High Command, hold Manila or burn it.
13:46The torch was put to those parts of Manila the Japs could no longer hold.
13:53Barrels and drums of gasoline and motor oil were detonated by the Japs inside
14:01buildings from one end of Manila to the other.
14:04And through all of the inferno, the G.I.s kept up the initiative,
14:08carrying the attack forward toward the Pasig River.
14:23Any of the firefighting equipment which had survived the street fighting was used,
14:28but it was hardly worth the effort.
14:39The fire gained momentum, burning city blocks at a time, consuming everything
14:44in its path that would burn.
14:46And it seemed to reach its peak of destruction.
14:49The Battle of Manila had reached a decisive phase.
14:52We were north of the Pasig River, and the Japs were south and moving into
14:56the famed old walled city called Intramuros.
14:59We kept the enemy pinned down with our fire while we brought up troops
15:03to prepare for a boat crossing of the Pasig.
15:07We kept the enemy pinned down with our fire while we brought up troops
15:10to prepare for a boat crossing of the Pasig.
15:13.
15:34Several times we saw General MacArthur supervising the direction of battle.
15:39At one moment he gazed out across Manila Harbor at an island of rock called Corregidor.
15:45No doubt he recalled how the Japanese had attacked the Philippines in December 1941.
15:51.
16:10And then in May 1942, the enemy swarmed over Corregidor.
16:15No doubt, too, the General had many times pondered the fate of his troops
16:20who were outnumbered, out of ammunition, food, and medical supplies,
16:23and thus compelled to surrender.
16:26The tide of hope had reached its lowest ebb for Americans
16:29when General Jonathan Wainwright sat at the surrender table.
16:33And the American flag was lowered on Corregidor.
16:38.
16:51There was one thing General MacArthur wanted more information about,
16:55the condition of the prisoners taken on Corregidor and elsewhere in the Philippines.
17:00The word had gotten around about the Death March,
17:03a forced march of the American prisoners by the Japanese which caused many to die.
17:08These were the troops the General had in mind when he returned to the Philippines.
17:14The General had all of those depressing memories of 1942 to consider
17:18while he directed the battle in Manila three years later during February 1945.
17:24An isolated pocket of Jap resistance developed in Manila's city prison called Bilibid.
17:31The Filipinos brought in word that American prisoners, many captured on Corregidor,
17:35were being held in Bilibid.
17:37We stepped up the attack and raced toward the city prison.
17:51Inside Bilibid, we wiped out the Japs
17:54and found the GI prisoners starved, abused, old beyond their years,
17:59but possessing an undaunted spirit.
18:03They lined up for chow with a three-year appetite.
18:10These were young fighting men on Corregidor.
18:13Now they were no longer young, but they were alive.
18:19While the battle raged on, preparations were made for an aerial invasion of Corregidor.
18:24For Manila could not be secure without Corregidor in our hands.
18:29A parachute jump would be coordinated with an amphibious landing on the island fortress.
18:36Air Force and Navy pounded the rock while the troop carriers flew in the parachutists.
18:47And when the drop zone on Corregidor was lined up,
18:51there was nothing left to do but jump.
18:59♪♪
19:04♪♪
19:11♪♪
19:16Supplies were dropped right where they were needed.
19:20♪♪
19:29While the parachutists seized their objectives on top of the island,
19:33an amphibious task force hit the beaches.
19:37♪♪
19:47Another airdrop of supplies.
19:49For at first, everything was delivered by parachute.
19:53♪♪
20:02Although Corregidor was lightly defended,
20:05every Jap there fought a fanatical battle.
20:08While the island fighting continued, the battle in Manila was going into the final phases.
20:14All of the enemy forces alive had withdrawn into the walled city south of the Pasig River.
20:19Now the Japs literally had their backs to the wall.
20:23They couldn't escape and wouldn't surrender.
20:26So we got set for the final round.
20:29The plan roughly was to concentrate our artillery, mortar, and small arms fire on the enemy while we crossed the Pasig.
20:38Wire communications were strung to assure the closest coordination of overhead fire.
20:44♪♪
20:48Finally, when everything was all set, the order was given to commence firing.
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22:02We lined up assault boats and amphibious tracked vehicles and then made the first river crossing attempt.
22:08We had no way of knowing how successful our concentration of fire had been on the enemy in the walled city.
22:14But we found that they apparently were effective since the only incoming fire on us was small arms.
22:20♪♪
22:27Soon we were pouring across the river, getting established on the south side and moving toward the closest wall of the walled city.
22:35♪♪
22:42All of us knew by now that the toughest barrier of Manila was directly ahead.
22:49A 14-foot thick wall of intramurals.
22:52While we approached our objective, our artillery and tracked vehicles gave us direct fire support.
22:58♪♪
23:07Between the river and the walled city was an open park area.
23:11As we moved over it, we realized that this was the first open spot we had crossed since the Battle of Manila had begun.
23:18♪♪
23:28The closer we got to the walled city, the more we saw the effectiveness of our artillery and mortar fire in softening up the enemy positions.
23:37Filipinos willingly pointed out prepared defensive positions of the enemy.
23:41♪♪
23:57Finally, we reached the outside wall.
24:01♪♪
24:15It took a great deal of probing to find the proper place to make the assault.
24:20For breaching this fortress was no easy matter regardless of how much artillery we had poured into it.
24:26But we finally cracked it.
24:29♪♪
24:52Once inside Intramuros, the city within the walls, the battle was suddenly over.
24:59Only the rubble and chaos of combat remained.
25:03And among the debris we found human wreckage.
25:07♪♪
25:28Many of the Filipinos who had lived in Intramuros were dead.
25:33Those who somehow miraculously survived started a great mass exodus across the river to go anywhere.
25:40Anywhere away from the horrors of the walled city.
25:44♪♪
26:06Although the fighting in Manila was over, there still was one more military action to be taken.
26:13A general had said he would return.
26:16He had.
26:18Now, with a flag raising ceremony on Corregidor, the Battle of Manila was officially over.
26:25♪♪
26:33And that's how the Battle of Manila went.
26:35It was a rough one.
26:37Gruesome at times.
26:39And I thank my lucky stars I got out of it okay.
26:42Some of my best friends didn't.
26:44Maybe you'll understand how indebted I feel towards them.
26:47Yeah, I guess so.
26:49Look, you gotta come out to the house and see the wife.
26:53I can't tell you how happy she'll be to meet you again.
26:57Why don't you come out some night for dinner? Soon.
27:00Whatever you say.
27:01Good.
27:03Looks like we've got some unfinished business here.
27:07Yeah, it sure does.
27:12Well, there's one way to finish it.
27:15But good.
27:23That's just the way it happened.
27:25And a good finish it was for a true story.
27:29In an important sense, the incident has meaning for all of us.
27:33For it brings into sharp focus the great sacrifices and courage which typify our armed forces.
27:40It is this type of unsung action that gives depth and meaning and purpose to military history.
27:47And to a country's heritage.
27:49Oh yes, one more thing I'm sure about.
27:52It'll be a long time before I can forget Charlie's Battle.
27:56It'll be a long time before I can forget Charlie's place.
27:59It will always remind me of a certain careless motorist and a good-natured forgiving cop.
28:16The Big Picture is an official report for the armed forces and the American people.
28:23Produced by the Army Pictorial Center.
28:30Presented by the Department of the Army in cooperation with this station.