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Japanese attack on Luzon
On January 2, 1942 the imperialist war for control of the Pacific intensified further when Japanese troops entered the Philippine capital Manila on the island of Luzon. The Philippine archipelago of 7,000 islands had become a possession of the United States after the military defeat of the former colonial overlords of Spain in 1898.
General MacArthur held back his troops in early December when Imperial Japan landed at the northern end of the biggest and most populous Filipino island. He decided that the small landings made by the Japanese were a diversionary tactic designed to divide American forces in two.
The Japanese made further military landings two days later on the southeastern portion of Luzon. But the main Japanese attack upon Luzon did not occur until December 22, 1941, when some 43,000 troops of the 14th Army landed just 200 kilometers north of Manila. Their mission was to mount a pincer movement upon the Philippine capital.
MacArthur was said to command a force in excess of 100,000 troops, but the majority of them were local reserve forces that melted back into the civilian population once the Japanese invaded. His effective fighting force consisted only of 31,000 reliable American and Philippine troops, and the Japanese invasion force, aided by an armored vanguard, were soon pushing on towards the Manila Bay.
On December 24, MacArthur enacted contingency plan Orange, whereby the Filipino President Manuel Quezon and government together with MacArthur’s troops, retreated to the Bataan Peninsula on the west side of the Manila Bay in order to hold out against the Japanese assault.
The island of Corregidor, where MacArthur established his battle HQ, was positioned at the mouth of the great inlet. Its entrance was controlled with artillery batteries, which also covered the southeastern end of the 50-kilometer-long peninsula of Bataan.
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