The 1st Cavalry Division planned that the 5th Cavalry,
the unit with the most direct approach to the Nichols Field area, would be
the first to make contact with the 11th Airborne Division. But delays in
getting the rest of the regiment across the Pasig on 11 February, combined
with the necessity for patrolling eastward along the south bank of the river
to seek out Japanese machine gun and artillery positions near the crossing
site, prevented the 5th Cavalry from making general advances on that day. On
the right the 8th Cavalry, maintaining contact with the 37th Division, drove
up almost to the Estero de Paco along the division boundary against
scattered opposition. The left remained in essentially the same position it
had held the previous night, just south of the Philippine Racing Club, In
the area of South Cemetery, across the tracks of the Manila Suburban
Electric Line (trolley cars) from the club, a 511th Infantry patrol made
contact with an 8th Cavalry outpost late in the day.
The next day, 12 February, the 5th Cavalry swept rapidly
across Nielson Field against scattered rifle fire and about 0900 came up to
Culi-Culi and Route 57, an eastern extension of the same street that, known
as Libertad Avenue further to the west, the 511th Infantry had reached on 11
February. Turning west along this road, the 5th Cavalry made contact with
the 511th Infantry on Libertad Avenue proper about 1040. A few minutes later
the cavalry's leading elements were on the shore of Manila Bay and sped
north another 1,000 yards to Villaruel Street.
The 8th Cavalry had also continued westward during the
morning but in the afternoon was relieved by the 12th Cavalry. The latter,
in turn, had been relieved along the line of communications by the 112th
Cavalry RCT, which Krueger had attached to the 1st Cavalry Division on 9
February. General Mudge, the division commander, found in this relief a
welcome opportunity to reconstitute his normal brigade structure and so sent
the 12th Cavalry south to rejoin the 5th Cavalry under the control of the
1st Brigade headquarters. The 8th Cavalry then moved north to go back under
2d Brigade command.
Wasting little time, the 12th Cavalry, during the
afternoon of 12 February, halted its right to contain Japanese who had
already stalled the 8th Cavalry and advanced its left rapidly southwestward
past Nielson Field and on to Villaruel Street, where it made contact with
the 5th Cavalry troops already along that thoroughfare. About 1430, the 2d
Squadron, 12th Cavalry, reached the bay shore.
The 1st Cavalry Brigade's advance to the shores of Manila
Bay on 12 February, together with the establishment of contact between that
unit and the 11th Airborne Division, completed the encirclement of the
Japanese forces in Manila. Admiral Iwabuchi and the now isolated troops of
his Manila Naval Defense Force could
choose only between surrender and a fight to the death. And by evening on 12
February any private in the 1st Cavalry Division, the 11th Airborne
Division, or the 37th Infantry Division could have told all who cared to ask
that Iwabuchi had already selected the second course.
