The 37th Infantry
Division completed its crossing of the Pasig on 8 February, and began
deploying south and west out of its bridgehead.
[xxii] The hardest fighting the 37th Infantry Division
would face in Manila was in this district south of the river, between the
crossing of the Pasig on 7 February and the assault on Intramuros on 23
February. Japanese defenders had established a series of strongpoints
in major buildings in this area and contested them fiercely. On 8
February, the 129th Infantry Regiment moved westward along the
Pasig shore and on 9 February crossed the Estero de Tonque by boat to
assault Provisor Island where Manila’s steam electrical generation plant was
located. The Japanese defenders placed sandbagged machine gun
emplacements in buildings and at entrances and were able to blanket the
whole island with machine gun positions to west, southwest, and south.
The 129th Infantry Regiment approached the island in engineer
assault boats, then conducted a cat and mouse struggle with Japanese for
control of the buildings, fighting with machine guns and rifles among the
structures and heavy machinery. The 129th was able to
secure the island on 10 February, but lost twenty-five troops killed in the
process. The vital electrical generation equipment, which Krueger in 6th
Army’s plans had hoped to capture intact, was hopelessly damaged by both
Japanese defenders and American fires. [xxiii]
While the 129th
Infantry Regiment swept west out of the Malacanan bridgehead, in a close
arc, the 148th Infantry Regiment swept in a broad arc, southeast,
then back westward. The two regiments moved in line through the
Pandacan district to the southeast with relatively little resistance, but
then found themselves in a pitched battle in the Paco district for control
of the Paco Railroad Station, Paco School, and Concordia College. On 9
February, both 129th Infantry Regiment and 148th
Infantry Regiment advanced only 300 yards. [xxiv]
Given the new intensity of the
fighting in the 37th Infantry Division’s sector, the division
requested and received a lifting of the restrictions previously
imposed on artillery fires. To that point, fires had been restricted
to observed enemy positions, but had failed to force an enemy withdrawal.
Thereafter, fires would be allowed “in front of . . . advancing lines
without regard to pinpointed targets.” In other words, fires could
blanket enemy positions U.S. troops were assaulting. “Literal
destruction of a building in advance of the area of friendly troops became
essential,” as the 37th Infantry Division Report After
Action put it.
[xxv]
The Japanese defensive positions
U.S. troops encountered in the Paco district were well developed, as they
would be for the rest of the battle. Japanese observers were present
in almost every building. At street intersections, machine gun
pillboxes were dug into buildings and sandbagged so as to cover the
intersection and its approaches. Artillery and anti-aircraft weapons
were placed in doorways or in upper story windows. Most streets and
borders of streets were mined, using artillery shells and depth charges
buried with their fuses protruding an inch or so above the surface.
The streets were a fireswept zone forcing Americans to move between streets
and within buildings. Americans entered and searched each building and
house, top to bottom, and neutralized whatever enemy they found. [xxvi]
Besides controlling the urban
terrain with fires, the Japanese in the Paco district and points west had
fortified particular sturdy public buildings as urban strongpoints. In
some cases, these buildings were mutually supporting. The first of the
urban strongpoints the 37th Infantry Division encountered was the
Paco Railroad Station. The Japanese had machine gun posts all around
the station, and foxholes with riflemen surrounded each machine gun post.
Inside at each corner were sandbag forts with 20mm guns. One large
concrete pillbox in the building housed a 37mm gun. About 300 Japanese
troops held Paco station. The Japanese placed observers in the Paco
church steeple, and the station could not be approached until the Paco
School and other neighboring positions had been cleared. [xxvii]
Americans inched forward to
within 50 yards of the Paco station building, set up a bazooka or BAR, and
pounded the building as riflemen rushed forward covered by fire. The
station was finally seized at 0845 on 10 February after 10 assaults.
Between the Provisor fighting and the Paco station fighting on 9 and 10
February, the 37th Infantry Division suffered 45 killed in action
[KIA] and 307 wounded in action [WIA]. [xxviii]
American
troops would have much more such fighting ahead. Once the 129th
Infantry Regiment and the 148th Infantry Regiment had secured
Provisor Island and the Paco Railroad Station respectively, both swept
westward toward Intramuros and the bay. The 129th Infantry
Regiment collided with the Japanese strongpoint at the New Police Station,
and the 148th Infantry Regiment collided with the strongpoint of
the Philippine General Hospital (see
Map
- The Drive Toward Manila). The 129th
Infantry Regiment began its assaults on the New Police Station on 12
February. The strongpoint consisted of the police station itself, the
shoe factory, the Manila Club, Santa Teresita College and San Pablo Church.
By nightfall, the 129th Infantry regiment had consolidated its
lines on Marques de Camillas Street fronting the strongpoint.
Maintaining lines--keeping units that advanced faster than others from
leaving hazardous gaps in the line--offered many challenges in the highly
compartmented urban environment.
The bitter fighting at the New Police
Station went on for eight days, until 20 February. On 17 February, the
relatively fresh 145th Infantry Regiment replaced the battle-worn
129th Infantry Regiment. The first tanks arrived on 14
February to assist the Americans. Tanks were not present earlier in
this part of the city because they could not cross the Pasig. Once
committed, they were used for direct-fire bombardment on the New Police
Station and in later operations.
The American method was to
bombard the resisting structure with tanks and 105-mm guns and howitzers,
then to conduct an assault. Sometimes the Japanese defenders
counterattacked, driving the Americans out, in which case the whole process
was repeated. The Japanese had trenches and foxholes outside the
buildings and numerous sandbagged machine gun positions inside. U.S.
artillery reduced the exterior walls to rubble, but infantry still had to go
into the buildings and clear them room by room and floor by floor. The
preferred American method was to fight from the roof down, but the troops
were unable to do this at the New Police Station, probably because no
structures were near enough to give roof access. Thus, they had to
work from the ground up. Japanese defenders cut holes in the floors
and dropped grenades through them. They also destroyed the stairways
to prevent access to upper stories. Nevertheless, the145th
Infantry Regiment managed to secure the New Police Station strongpoint by 20
February. [xxix] |