THE SURFACE OF THE MOON _________________ Nicholas & William Russiello Surface of the Moon is Chapter 10 of the Memoir "GI In the Pacific War"
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�But even before the capture of Manila, General MacArthur had been thinking of that other symbol of American gallantry, even though it recalled that ignominious defeat in the early days of the war--Corregidor. Whether Corregidor was of strategic importance to the Allies was unimportant; what was important was sentiment, drama, shock action, even, perhaps, revenge. He would not allow Corregidor to be disregarded and scorned; he must recapture it and the more dramatically the better. �Corregidor was much too symbolic to be treated with indifference.� �Even with the Americans attacking relentlessly toward Manila, there were good and sufficient reasons for the retaking of Corregidor. Its recapture would erase from the minds of the American people the dark memories of 1942: the tortured prisoners, the ignominy of Wainwright�s surrender. Those were the inspirational reasons for retaking Corregidor. In the minds of the Allied strategists, however, were also very practical factors. Without Corregidor, the Port of Manila could not be safely opened and used because there was too much risk from the guns the Japanese could employ against ships, especially unarmed freighters, steaming into the harbor.�
From
Corregidor, the Rock Force Assault
�When McArthur�s troops returned to Luzon in January, 1945, for many of them the recapture of Corregidor held a far deeper significance than the purely military considerations of opening Manila Bay to Allied shipping. Planning the operation had already occupied the staff of General Krueger�s Sixth Army for some time, and it had reached the conclusion that the cost of a conventional amphibious landing would be prohibitive, opting instead for an airborne assault to be reinforced by sea. In reaching this conclusion the planners had evaluated the risks on the basis that the Japanese garrison of The Rock numbered no more than 850 men; in fact, the correct figure was in excess of 5,000� The nub of the problem was that, while the Americans controlled the surface of the island, the Japanese controlled the network of tunnels and caves below. Again, since the Japanese believed that the worst disgrace that could befall them was to be taken alive by the enemy, they invariably fought to the death, as they had in every other action in the Pacific War. Nor was it apparent until the fighting had been in progress several days that the Japanese garrison outnumbered the Americans by a wide margin� On the eve of the landing, the island�s underground magazines and tunnels contained 35,000 artillery rounds, 80,000 mortar rounds, 93,000 grenades, two million rounds of small-arms ammunition and hundreds of tons of dynamite...Enough of this remained to turn Corregidor into a gigantic bomb...In fact, the troops, now weary and showing the strain of several days� continuous combat, had already formed an accurate picture of the situation, and it was not a comfortable feeling to know that, if the Japanese chose to blow themselves and the island skywards, taking much of Rock Force with them, they had the power to do so, at any time they chose.�
From
At All Costs! Stories of Impossible Victories,
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Map 80
The invasion fleet heads towards Corregidor'.
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Nicholas & William Russiello |
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