General Beightler, the 37th Division commander, ordered
the 148th Infantry to make the assault across the Pasig. The 129th Infantry
would follow the 148th and be followed in turn by the 1st Battalion, 145th
Infantry, division reserve. The remainder of the 145th was to protect the
division's line of communications north of Manila. Beightler turned the
northern section of the city over to a provisional organization designated
the Special Security Force, which contained the 637th Tank Destroyer
Battalion, the 37th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, and Company A of the 754th
Tank Battalion.21
Beightler directed the 148th Infantry to cross just east
of Malacaņan Palace and land on the south shore at Malacaņan Gardens, a
partially developed botanical park opposite the residency. Except at the
gardens and at the mouths of esteros (small,
canallike streams), sea walls--impassable to LVT's and unscalable from the
assault boats in which the crossing was to be made--edged both river banks.
The 37th Division had sufficient information to indicate that the gardens
lay east of the principal Japanese concentrations in southern Manila and
that most of the industrial Paco and Pandacan Districts in the eastern
section of the city, south of the Pasig, might be lightly defended. The
148th Infantry would first clear the Paco and Pandacan Districts and then
wheel southwest and west toward Intramuros and Manila Bay. The 129th
Infantry, once on the south bank, would immediately swing west along the
river to secure Provisor Island and the steam power plant.22
The 37th Division was to strike into a sector held by the Central
Force's 1st Naval Battalion, some
800 riflemen and machine gunners supported by various provisional heavy
weapons units. The battalion was concentrated in the western section of Paco
District south from Provisor Island--half a mile west of Malacaņan
Gardens--generally along the line of the Estero de Paco, which extended
south-southeast a little over a mile. One group from the battalion held a
strongpoint east of the Estero de Paco at Paco Railroad Station, almost a
mile south of the 148th Infantry's landing point and on the 37th-1st Cavalry
Division boundary, here marked by the tracks of the Manila Railroad.
In preparation for the assault the 672d Amphibian Tractor
Battalion, which had accompanied the 37th Division south from Lingayen Gulf,
assembled its LVT's behind the protection of an indentation in the north
bank near the palace. The 117th Engineers, who had scrounged all the
engineer assault boats they could from Manila back to San Fernando, gathered
its craft at the same point, ready to co-operate with the LVT's in shuttling
the 37th Division across the river.
Behind a 105-mm. artillery barrage the 3d Battalion,
148th Infantry, began crossing in assault boats at 1515 on 7 February. The
first wave encountered no opposition, but, as the second crossed, intense
machine gun, mortar, and artillery fire began to hit the river, the landing
site, and the Malacaņan Palace area. However, the 148th Infantry found only
a few Japanese at the Malacaņan Gardens and established its bridgehead with
little difficulty. By 2000 two battalions were across the Pasig, holding an
area stretching south from the river about 300 yards along Cristobal Street
to a bridge over the Estero de Concordia, northeast approximately 1,000
yards, and then back to the river along the west bank of an inlet. The
crossing had cost the regiment about 15 men killed and 100 wounded, almost
all as the result of machine gun and mortar fire. Many of the casualties had
actually occurred on the palace grounds, where the 148th Infantry had its
command post and where General Beightler had set up an advanced
headquarters.23
Between 8 and 10 February the 148th Infantry cleared
Pandacan District with little trouble, but in the eastern section of Paco
District had very great trouble reducing the Japanese strongpoint at Paco
Railroad Station and the nearby buildings of Concordia College and Paco
School. Support fires of the 136th and 140th Field Artillery Battalions
nearly demolished the station and the school, but as of evening on 9
February the Japanese, originally over 250 strong, were still holding out,
and the 148th Infantry made plans for a final assault on the 10th. Happily,
most of the surviving Japanese withdrew from the three buildings during the
night of 9-10 February, and the final attack was less bloody than had been
anticipated.24
By late afternoon on 10 February the 148th Infantry's
left had moved a half mile beyond Paco Railroad Station and had gained the
east bank of the Estero de Paco. The right flank elements had initially been
held up by Japanese fire from Provisor Island, while in the center troops
had had to fight their way through a lesser Japanese strongpoint at the
Manila Gas Works, about a quarter of a mile south of the Pasig River,25 but
by afternoon on the 10th the right and center were also up to the Estero de
Paco. The last troops of the 1st
Naval Battalion east of the estero had
either been killed or had withdrawn across the stream. As the 148th drew up
along the estero, the
volume of Japanese fire from the west increased sharply. Hard fighting
seemed certain before the regiment could cross the water obstacle, and the
regiment's operations south of the Pasig had already cost nearly 50 men
killed and 450 wounded.