Iwabuchi's mainland area of responsibility extended
inland from a point on Manila Bay about two and a half miles north of the
city northeast to Novaliches, east to the Marikina River, south to Laguna de
Bay's western shores, and then west across the Hagonoy Isthmus to the base
of Cavite Peninsula.11 The
whole area covered an area of approximately 250 square miles. To defend this
zone Iwabuchi had under his command nearly 17,000 troops--about 12,500 Navy
personnel and 4,500 Army troops. The remaining 3,500 naval troops included
in Iwabuchi's total of 16,000-odd naval personnel the admiral had either
left on islands in Manila Bay or had sent into the mountains east of Manila
to join the main body of the Shimbu
Group. Iwabuchi assigned some
14,000 of the troops he controlled in and around Manila to three combat
organizations for defensive operations. A fourth command contained forces
nominally afloat but actually based either on the city's waterfront or on
the bay islands; a fifth command was composed of engineers, supply troops,
medical units, and so forth. Iwabuchi gave this fifth group the blanket
title "attached units."12
Iwabuchi retained approximately 10,000 troops within the
Manila city limits, 8,000 of them members of the three combat commands. The
northernmost combat command, labeled Northern
Force, was commanded by
Colonel Noguchi, whom Iwabuchi made responsible for the defense of the
entire city north of the Pasig, Intramuros south of the river, and the
suburbs north, northeast, and east of Manila to the boundaries of the Manila
Naval Defense Force. In
addition to the 2d and 3d
Provisional Infantry Battalions and
supporting Army troops of his ownNoguchi Detachment,Noguchi had under
his command the 1st
Independent Naval Battalion. His
force totaled about 4,500 men in all.
Posting small Army detachments along the northern
approaches to Manila, Noguchi stationed the 1st
Independent Naval Battalion in
the San Juan del Monte suburb, east of the city. One of his Army battalions
held the Pasig River bridges; the other, with miscellaneous service units
attached, set up defenses in Intramuros. General Yokoyama transferred
various Army shipping units, previously forming part of the 3d
Maritime Transport Command, to
Noguchi's control; the colonel left these troops in the port areas north and
south of the Pasig's mouth.
The Central
Force, commanded directly by
Admiral Iwabuchi and comprising about 5,000 naval troops, held the remainder
of Manila. Central Force's 1st and 2d
Naval Battalions were in
defensive positions throughout the southern part of the city. Headquarters
Sector Unit13 and
the 5th Naval Battalion (the
latter withdrew from Cavite on 2 February after completing demolitions
there) concentrated in the government building, park, and private club area
of Ermita District, east and south of Intramuros. Here Iwabuchi had his
headquarters, protected by aHeadquarters Battalion of
750 men. The Central Force was
also responsible for holding Nielson Field and Makati, a suburb just
southeast of the city, but had few troops stationed at those places.
The Southern
Force, over 5,000 men under
Capt. Takusue Furuse, IJN, defended Nichols Field, Fort McKinley to the
northeast of the airfield, and the Hagonoy Isthmus. Furuse stationed the3d and 4th
Naval Battalions at Nichols
Field and Fort McKinley and made the Army's Abe
Battalion responsible for
holding the Hagonoy Isthmus. Captain Abe's mission was to defend along Route
1 and Route 59, the latter lying along the western shore of Laguna de Bay.
With minor detachments to the south and a company at Parañaque, the bulk of
the Abe Battalion was
dug in at and near Mabato Point, on the Laguna de Bay shore across the
isthmus from Parañaque. So disposed, the unit was hardly in position to
execute all of its missions.
Generally, the defenses on the south were stronger than
those on the north, for two reasons. When General Kobayashi's Manila
Defense Force withdrew from
the northern area it had left behind only the Noguchi
Detachment to fill the void
created by the evacuation. True, Kobayashi, his command now redesignated the Kobayashi
Force, retained control of
the 3d Surface Raiding Base
Force--another group of boat squadrons and base battalions like those
stationed in the 11th Airborne Division's area--but the 3,000-odd men of
this unit were disposed about five miles northwest of Manila and had been
cut off by the 37th Division.
Second, Japanese naval headquarters on Luzon had believed
that the principal Allied invasions would come from the south and had
therefore long devoted its energies to preparing defenses on that side of
Manila. It was, indeed, not until the last week in January that Iwabuchi
seems to have learned of XIV Corps' progress, or at least until he attached
any significance to that corps' drive down the Central Plains. By then, of
course, it was too late for him to redeploy his forces.
For the rest, Iwabuchi's plan for the defense of Manila
was rather vague, promising only a suicidal fight to the death in place. By
such a static defense he hoped to inflict heavy casualties upon Sixth Army
and deny to the Allies for some time the facilities of Manila and Manila
Bay. To help realize the latter objective, he planned extensive demolitions
that ostensibly called for the destruction of purely military installations
and whatever supplies were left in the city. "Military installations" or
"military facilities" are loose terms at best, and for Iwabuchi they
included the port area, bridges, transportation facilities, the water supply
system, and electric power installations.
While the admiral apparently did not plan wholesale,
wanton demolitions, even the destruction of the purely military
installations would have its effect upon the civil population. Once started
by a body of half-trained troops hastily organized into provisional units
and whose only future is death in combat, demolitions are impossible to
control. Leaving aside this problem, it is obvious that a fire resulting
from demolitions set off in a supply dump will not necessarily obey "orders"
to confine itself to the dump. Intent is one thing--the results of the
performance another.