Battle of Corregidor (1945)

Battle for the Recapture of Corregidor
Part of World War II, Pacific War
The USS Claxton (DD-571) provides fire support during the Corregidor landings
Date 16–26 February 1945 Location Corregidor, Philippines Result American victory
Belligerents
United States	Japan
Commanders and leaders
George M. Jones Edward M. Postlethwait	Rikichi Tsukada
Strength
7,000 US troops	6,700 Japanese troops
Casualties and losses
207 killed 684 wounded	6,600 killed 50 wounded 19 prisoners 20 Surrendered postwar

The Battle for the Recapture of Corregidor, 16–26 February 1945, pitted American forces against the defending Japanese garrison on the island fortress. The Japanese had captured the bastion from the United States Army Forces in the Far East during their 1942 invasion.

The retaking of the island, officially named Fort Mills, along with the bloody battle to liberate Manila and the earlier recapture of the Bataan Peninsula, by invading U.S. forces from the occupying Japanese, marked the redemption of the American and Filipino surrender on 6 May 1942 and the subsequent fall of the Philippines.

The surrender of Corregidor in 1942 and the ensuing fate of its 11,000 American and Filipino defenders led to a particular sense of moral purpose in General Douglas MacArthur, and as shown in the subsequent campaigns for the liberation of the Philippine archipelago, he showed no hesitation in committing the bulk of US and Philippine forces under his command. To the American soldier, Corregidor was more than a military objective; long before the campaign to recapture it, the Rock had become an important symbol in United States history as the last Pacific outpost of any size to fall to the enemy in the early stages of the Pacific War.

The Japanese opened their attack on Corregidor with an aerial bombardment on 29 December 1941, several days after MacArthur moved his headquarters there, but the heaviest attacks throughout the siege were from artillery based on nearby Cavite and later, on Bataan. When the last American and Filipino troops on the peninsula surrendered on 9 April 1942, the Japanese were able to mass artillery for an all-out attack of the Rock and its antiquated batteries.

The tunnel network that ran through the island's hills afforded protection to the defending garrison, but much of the defense activity had to be carried out in the open. By 4 May, many of the guns had been knocked out, the water supply was low, and casualties were mounting. Heavy shellfire preceded Japanese attempts to land the next night, the Japanese later admitted their amazement at the savage resistance, which accounted for the sinking of two thirds of their landing craft and losses amounting to 900 killed and 1,200 wounded, against US losses of 800 dead and 1,000 wounded.

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