From 20 to 22 February, the 145th
Infantry Regiment repeated this exercise a block to the east at the City
Hall and General Post Office. At the City Hall, the regiment employed
the usual method of having artillery pound the exterior walls and then
assaulting into the structure that remained. As at the New Police
Station, the process of bombardment and assault had to be repeated several
times. Americans in the assault made generous use of “submachine guns,
bazookas, flame throwers, demolitions, and hand grenades.” At one
point when Japanese resistors in a first floor room refused to surrender,
the Americans blew holes in the ceiling, put flamethrowers through them, and
annihilated all of the defenders. Americans sometimes had to fight
their way into prepared positions in the darkened basements of these
buildings. By the evening of 22 February, the 145th
Infantry Regiment had fought its way through the worst of the strongpoints
to the walls of Intramuros.
[xxx]
Meanwhile,
the 148th Infantry Regiment was fighting its way through the
Philippine General Hospital and the University of the Philippines, operating
parallel to and just south of the 129th Infantry Regiment and its follow-on
145th Infantry Regiment (see
Map
- The Drive Toward Manila.) The
tactical battle here was similar to that elsewhere, but complicated by the
fact that there were still civilian patients in the hospital. When the
148th Infantry Regiment discovered this on the afternoon of 16
February, it tried to limit its artillery fires to Japanese positions in the
foundations of the hospital buildings. During the day of 17 February,
the 148th escorted 2,000 patients out of the hospital, and 5,000
more that night. [xxxi]
On the morning of 19 February,
the 5th Cavalry Regiment, having been assigned to the 37th
Infantry Division from the 1st Cavalry Division, relieved the
battle-worn 148th Infantry Regiment. The 5th
Cavalry Regiment continued attacks in this sector on the University of the
Philippines strongpoint. The Japanese here not only had established
the usual defenses of sandbagged machine gun nests, but also had cut firing
slits through the foundations just above the ground and put machine gun
nests on the flat roof. After assaults on Rizal Hall, the 75 Japanese
survivors of the original complement of 250 committed suicide on the night
of 23 February. The next morning, the 5th Cavalry Regiment
made the final assaults into University Hall, so concluding the strongpoint
fighting for the 148th Infantry Regiment and the follow-on 5th
Cavalry Regiment. For these units, as for the northerly 129th
and follow-on 145th Infantry Regiments, the hardest strongpoint
fighting was now over, and U.S. forces had secured Manila south of
Intramuros. [xxxii]
While the battle of the strongpoints
raged, 7 to 24 February, the 1st Cavalry Division was sweeping wide east,
south, and west, around the city to Manila Bay (see
Map - The Encirclement and
Map
- The Drive Toward Manila). When the 37th Infantry Division crossed the Pasig
at Malacanan Gardens, the 129th Infantry Regiment pivoted sharply
west, campaigning toward the east wall of Intramuros. The 148th
Infantry Regiment swung more broadly south, west, and north, bringing it up
against the south wall of Intramuros. The 1st Cavalry
Division swung on an axis parallel to these, but flung further out, around
the whole city. Thus, the 1st Cavalry Division implemented
a standard element of siege doctrine: isolate the defenders.
On 8 February, as the 37th
Infantry Division was crossing the Pasig at Malacanan Gardens, the 5th
and 8th Cavalry Regiments began a sweep around the east and south
sides of Manila (see
Map - The Encirclement).
The 8th Cavalry Regiment swung close and the 5th
Cavalry Regiment swung wide. The 8th Cavalry Regiment
crossed the Pasig at the Philippine Racing Club against little opposition;
the 5th Cavalry Regiment crossed at the suburb of Makati against
intermittent machine gun fire. On 10 February, the 5th
Cavalry Regiment secured the Makati electrical power substation, following
Krueger’s policy of sparing as much city infrastructure as possible.
By 12 February, both the 12th Cavalry Regiment, relieving the 8th
Cavalry Regiment, and the 5th Cavalry Regiment had reached the
waterfront, completing the encirclement of the city. They both had
contact with the 37th Infantry Division on their right. [xxxiii]
Once they reached the
waterfront, the 12th Cavalry Regiment and the 5th
Cavalry Regiment immediately turned northward, to move up the shore and join
their forces to those of the 37th Infantry Division as it closed
in on Intramuros (see
Map
- The Drive Toward Manila).
Moving abreast, the two regiments encountered a developed Japanese
strongpoint in the Harrison Park area, which contained Rizal Stadium, La
Salle University, and other structures. The 1st Cavalry
Division fought pitched battles there, as the 37th Infantry
Division had at the Paco Railroad Station and elsewhere. Japanese
defenders had constructed heavy bunkers all over the baseball diamond at
Rizal Stadium, which the 1st Cavalry finally overcame with the
use of flamethrowers, demolitions, and three tanks. [xxxiv]
On 16 February, the 1st
Cavalry Brigade (5th and 12th Regiments) passed from
the 1st Cavalry Division’s operational control to that of the 37th
Infantry Division for the assault on the central city. At this point,
the 5th Cavalry Regiment relieved the 148th Infantry
Regiment, and the 12th Cavalry Regiment continued advancing
northward and on 20-22 February cleared the High Commissioner’s Residence,
Burnham Green, and the Manila Hotel. There was a hard fight, floor by
floor, for the Manila Hotel, and MacArthur himself appeared on the scene,
since he had resided in a penthouse apartment of the Manila Hotel during his
former stay in the Philippines. [xxxv]
By 23 February, the 37th
Infantry Division had fought its way to the eastern wall of the Japanese
stronghold of Intramuros and was prepared to assault it.
Intermittent bombardment of the fortress began on 17 February.
There was then a focused bombardment from 0730 to 0830 on 23 February, the
day of the assault. This preparation employed an abundance of 105mm
and 155mm howitzers, 75mm tank guns, 4.2-inch mortars, a few 8-inch
howitzers, and other pieces; in other words, it was almost all of the 37th
Infantry Division’s artillery assets. The 8-inch howitzers proved most
effective against the thick walls of Intramuros. Thirty machine guns
were used for the artillery preparations, of which 26 were trained on
Japanese machine gun positions and four were reserved for targets of
opportunity before and during the assault. Overall, 7,487 high
explosive shells were dropped on Intramuros. [xxxvi]
At
0830, a red smoke signal was fired to mark the end of the artillery
preparation and the beginning of the assault. Ten minutes later, a
second bombardment began placing a smokescreen east to west across the
central section of Intramuros to obscure the north-lying assaults from
Japanese gunners in the south-lying Legislative, Finance and Agriculture
Buildings (see
Map
- Eliminating the Resistance).
The 129th Infantry Regiment assaulted southward across the Pasig
in engineer boats at 0830, the first troops disembarking at 0836.
Simultaneously the 145th Infantry Regiment assaulted the east
wall. Japanese fires within Intramuros evidently were less intense
than in earlier encounters because the heavy bombardment had destroyed or
disorganized them. Both the 129th Infantry and
the 145th Infantry Regiments therefore moved easily through the
breached walls and then through the streets of Intramuros. The 145th
Infantry Regiment’s progress was soon blocked, however, by the flow of 2,000
refugees, women and children, from Del Monico Church on General Luna Street
where the Japanese had been holding them. Many would be evacuated from
the west gate of Intramuros by a truck convoy of the 37th
Quartermaster Company. Male civilians had evidently been separated by
the Japanese, detained in the Intramuros’ old citadel, Ft. Santiago, and
executed there en masse. By nightfall of 23 February, the 129th
and 145th Infantry Regiments held nearly all of Intramuros and
would secure the rest the next day.
[xxxvii]
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