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Disaster in the Philippines
A few hours after the attack at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese struck the Philippines,bombing airfields, cities, fortifications, and other important military installations. At this time the Philippines were a protectorate of the United States, and in the early stages of the attack most of the obsolete US aircraft were destroyed on the ground. In the event that they would have gotten into the air, being 15 years obsolete the advanced Japanese fighters would have made mincemeat out of them.
Artillery emplacement in Corregidor
The Japanese landed troops on December 10th, 1941, and began a rapid push to the south of Luzon and other major islands. Defenders of the islands were greatly outnumbered; General MacArthur had only about 30,000 troops compared to about 200,000 Japanese. Manila fell on January 2nd, 1942, and MacArthur withdrew to Bataan where he resisted the Japanese for three more months. Nearly out of food and low on ammunition, as well as being exhausted, the US troops fall back to the island fortress of Corregidor, two miles from the shore of Manila Bay.
Boeing P-26, a fighter that composed the majority of American aircraft strength in the Phillipines
Japanese bombers railed them unmercifully with explosive, and the bombardment from the main island artillery as well as naval bombardment was endless. General MacArthur, under orders by Roosevelt, escaped from the doomed theatre to Australia by PT boat. Corregidor fell at last on May 6, 1942, and after the surrender the American prisoners were forced to march to their prison camps and subjected to brutal treatment by their Japanese captors. This was known, from then on, and immortally so, as the Batann Death March.
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