Battle for Manila

What follows is an historical account of the death of the city we call home. Should be interesting to get my hands on Jose Maria Bonifacio Escoda's "Warsaw of Asia: The Rape of Manila."

UPDATE on 29 January 2008: Received 2 comments from Prof. Escoda dated October 2006, stating corrections to statements attributed to him by the Philippine Daily Inquirer in an article published in August 2005. Apologies to Prof. Escoda for not calling attention to the said corrections sooner. See "comments" at the end of this post for his full message.

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Battle for Manila reduced 'Pearl of the Orient' to rubble

First posted 02:07pm (Mla time) Aug 14, 2005
By Karl Wilson
Agence France-Presse

THE BATTLE for Manila lasted just 28 days. When it ended on March 3, 1945, over 100,000 civilians were dead and the city known as the Pearl of the Orient reduced to rubble. Six months after street-by-street fighting and US bombardment had leveled the once-proud city, the stench of rotting flesh still lingered in the capital, according to those who survived the ordeal.

"The destruction of Manila was one of the greatest tragedies of World War II. Of all the allied capitals only Warsaw suffered more," wrote American historian William Manchester. Benito Legarda, who was 18-years-old at the time, said the Japanese forces occupying the city since January 2, 1942 went out of their way to make life unlivable once they realized the US military was advancing to recapture the city.

"They dynamited bridges, destroyed utilities and murdered civilians... There was no excuse for what took place in Manila in those 28 days... none at all."

Tales of men, women and children being rounded up and shot, mutilated, raped, decapitated or bayoneted by Japanese troops paint the period as one of the darker episodes in the closing chapter of World War II.

By the end of 1944 the tide had turned for Japan and its conquest of Southeast Asia. On October 20, General Douglas MacArthur, the Allied commander in the Far East, invaded the eastern Philippines in the biggest land and sea assault of the Pacific war with nearly 200,000 men and 700 ships. MacArthur, who had vowed "I shall return" when he abandoned the Philippines for Australia more than two years earlier, waded ashore -- twice, the second time for the benefit of the newsreels -- to tell the people of the Philippines in a radio broadcast that he had kept his promise. At the same time the US navy with her allies took on what was left of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the biggest sea battle in history, the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

For MacArthur it was a race against time to Manila and Luzon where thousands of American soldiers had been interned since the surrender of US and Filipino troops in May 1942. University of the Philippines historian Ricardo Jose said the Americans surprised the Japanese when they attacked the city from the north on February 3, 1945.

"The Japanese destroyed all six bridges that crossed the Pasig river which divides the city north and south and began torching the Chinese quarter and the old business district of Escolta," he said. "Basically the city had to be taken building by building, street-by-street. It was hand-to-hand in some quarters, tank and artillery bombardment in others. "What made the fighting difficult for the Americans was the fact that many of the major buildings were connected by tunnels. So when the Americans thought they had cleared one building and moved on to the next the Japanese would pop up again and attack them from the rear."

After 28 days, on March 3, the last Japanese resistance collapsed. Figures as to the military casualties vary enormously with estimates as high as a total of 22,000 dead. Jose said some 1,000 Americans died, 4,000 were wounded with more than 8,000 Japanese dead. "Most of the garrison was wiped out in the fighting," he said.

"There was no white flag surrender. The fighting just stopped when the last pocket of resistance had been cleared. Thousands of Japanese civilians that were brought in to run the country were taken prisoner along with Japanese troops who had surrendered.

"As for Manila, it was in ruins." Much of the damage was caused by the US bombardment, Jose Maria Bonifacio Escoda says in his book "Warsaw of Asia: The Rape of Manila."

"Not all buildings were destroyed by the Japanese and not all the massacres were perpetrated by them. Much destruction and many deaths were caused by American bombings from the air and shelling by artillery." He says Filipinos were often mistaken for Japanese and were shot by American troops or strafed and bombed by their pilots Augusto Dariana of the National Historical Institute said much of the blame for what happened in Manila was placed on general Tomoyuki Yamashita, commander of the Japanese forces in the Philippines.

"Yamashita had pulled out of Manila in December 1944 well before the massacre began," he told Agence France-Presse. "He left strict orders that the city be spared and for all troops to leave Manila saying it could not be defended. "The real butcher of Manila was Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi of the Imperial Japanese Manila Naval Defence Force who disobeyed Yamashita's orders and decided to fight to the bitter end. He was killed in the battle."

Yamashita was executed in February 1946 following a trial in which he was accused of "violating the laws of war for failing to control his troops."

"There is a lot of conflicting views of what happened in the lead up to the Battle for Manila. It is true Yamashita had withdrawn to northern Luzon ahead of the American troops," Jose said.

"But it is clear from the records the Japanese had no intention of leaving Manila and had dug in for a long fight fortifying the city and its approaches. Most of these troops were under the command of Admiral Iwabuchi."

Killings took many forms
Legarda said the rape of Manila was committed by a desperate Japanese army staring defeat in the face. "The killings took many forms. Sometimes they shot civilians or bayoneted them to death. Some were beheaded. Sometimes families or groups were herded into buildings and blasted with hand grenades. Women were raped and sliced with bayonets from groin to throat and left to bleed to death in the hot sun. Children were seized by the legs and had their heads bashed against the wall. Babies were tossed into the air and caught on bayonets. Unborn fetuses were gouged out with bayonets from pregnant women." Although his immediate family were among the lucky survivors, Legarda said one of his uncles and a cousin were beheaded by the Japanese.

Like many who survived, Legarda has written extensively about his experiences growing up during the occupation of Manila and its subsequent destruction. In his book "Occupation 42" he includes eyewitness accounts to some of the atrocities that took place.

One was Hungarian ballet star Paul Szilard who described how from his hospital bed he heard a strange "squelching" sound coming up from the street. "To his horror he found it was the sound of bodies being run over by Japanese vehicles," Legarda said.

Edgar Krohn was just 16 when the battle for Manila began. "I guess we were luckier than most. Our family remained together but others were torn apart in the chaos that followed," he recalls. Born in Manila of German parents, Krohn said: "Despite the alliance between Germany and Japan we were granted few privileges. The Japanese didn't like anyone who was not Japanese.

"I remember seeing one man, his stomach sliced open by a piece of shrapnel, sitting down in the street trying to put his intestines back. "You tried to survive one day at a time. You dodged the bullets and hoped the building you were seeking refuge in was not bombed.

"Terrible atrocities took place all over the city. I will never forget one night in the building opposite there was a woman screaming. The terror in that scream has never left me. It was horrible. We were told the woman was being repeatedly gang raped by Japanese soldiers. Next morning her body was thrown out on to the street."

Krohn said a dispute between his father and a landlord probably saved his family.

"On February 10, 1945, some 200 to 300 Filipinos including some Germans and Spanish had gone to the German Club on San Luis Street in Manila's Ermita district. They had gone there because they thought it was safe. "Some sought shelter in an air raid shelter under the club while others waited inside."

Krohn's family stored their possessions at the club but that afternoon had gone to visit an old apartment that had been ransacked to see if anything was left.

"About noon a platoon of Japanese marines cordoned off the club premises and started killing everyone in sight. They murdered people inside the club, including Germans, and fired their weapons into the air raid shelter. Then they poured petrol into the shelter and set it alight. "Those who tried to escape were gunned down ... only 10 survived the massacre," he says.

Today in the old walled city of Intramuros, between Manila Cathedral and the San Agustin Church, a bronze sculpture mounted on a black granite slab by artist Peter de Guzman stands in memory of those who perished in the city. It is a stark monument full of painful imagery. At its center is a woman carrying a dead infant representing the Philippines, the child being a symbol of lost hope. A female figure next to her depicts a rape victim. The figure of a man shows despair and confusion. At the woman's feet are the bodies of young boys symbolizing the country's lost youth.

But for many young Filipinos today the events that took place in Manila 60 years ago have little significance or impact on their lives. Every day hundreds of young Filipinos queue up outside the Japanese embassy in Manila for visas to work in Japan. But for older residents, like Krohn, the nightmare has never left them.

"You can never forget what it was like," he says.
"You can't erase it from your memory."

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