Who won the Battle of Corregidor?
Japan won. After weeks of shelling from Bataan, Japanese troops of the 61st Infantry landed on the night of 5 May 1942, and on 6 May Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright surrendered the island. On Homma's terms he then ordered all US and Filipino forces in the Philippines to surrender. American forces retook Corregidor in February and March 1945.2
Corregidor, a small island at the mouth of Manila Bay, was the fortress whose fall in 1942 completed Japan's conquest of the Philippines. After weeks of shelling, Japanese infantry and tanks landed on the night of 5 May 1942, and on 6 May Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright surrendered. Three years later American paratroopers and infantry took the island back. It belongs to the losing opening months of the Pacific War that began with the attack on Pearl Harbor.3
The Rock: a fortress at the mouth of Manila Bay
The island was fortified as Fort Mills, the main work of the Manila Bay defenses, beside the smaller island forts Hughes, Drum and Frank. Its defenses were strong enough, Morton writes, to justify the name "Gibraltar of the East"; it was also simply "the Rock". Louis Morton's official US Army history describes a tadpole shaped island 3.5 miles long, high Topside to the west and low Bottomside at the neck, with 23 seacoast batteries of First World War vintage. Under Malinta Hill a tunnel with 25 side galleries held headquarters, stores and a hospital.4
Major General George F. Moore commanded the harbor defenses. At the end of December 1941 the 4th Marines, withdrawn from Olongapo, joined the garrison and took over the beaches, later filled out with sailors and soldiers.5
A government in a tunnel
When Manila was given up, Corregidor became the seat of the Commonwealth government and of MacArthur's headquarters. On 30 December 1941 Manuel Quezon took the oath for his second term as president at the tunnel entrance. Douglas MacArthur left in March to take up a higher command, and Wainwright took over all US forces remaining in the islands.6
The siege: under the guns of Bataan
After Bataan surrendered on 9 April 1942, Japanese artillery moved onto the heights across the North Channel, with one battalion firing from Cavite to the south. The Inquirer counts 27 days of this crossfire. For the final week Miller's Marine Corps history counts 75 guns and howitzers, nine of them 240 mm; on 2 May one such shell blew up the magazines of Battery Geary. A Marine Corps account recalls low rations of food and water.7
The armies and commanders
Colonel Samuel L. Howard of the 4th Marines held the beaches. Wainwright, quoted by Morton, spoke of close to 11,000 men on the island: American soldiers, sailors and Marines beside Filipino troops and Philippine Scouts. Homma, the Japanese commander in the Philippines, gave the assault to the 4th Division. Its 61st Infantry under Colonel Gempachi Sato would land first on the tail of the island, a second regiment on the head the next night. Miller gives the first landing force 2,400 men; a Japanese officer quoted by Morton spoke of 2,000.8
The night landing, 5 to 6 May
Shortly before midnight on 5 May the first battalion came ashore near North Point on the eastern tail. An unexpected current carried the boats about 1,000 yards east, and the second battalion lost its way and landed late into intact defenses. Morton writes that half to two thirds of the landing craft were knocked out and that ammunition boats dumped their loads into the sea.9
By about 01:30 the Japanese held a line across the tail at Battery Denver. Howard fed in his reserves, at 04:30 the 4th Provisional Battalion, which one officer called "a group of 500 sailors with 500 rifles". Then the three tanks the Japanese had brought ashore joined the attack shortly before 10:00. With nothing heavier than automatic rifles to stop them, Miller writes, the line fell back toward Malinta Hill.10
Why did Corregidor surrender?
Corregidor surrendered because its defenders could no longer stop the Japanese once tanks were ashore. A month of shelling had wrecked guns, beach defenses and water supplies, the reserves were spent, and Malinta Tunnel was crowded with wounded. Wainwright judged that further resistance would bring slaughter in the tunnel, so he gave up to save lives.
The surrender and the broadcast
At 10:00 on 6 May Wainwright decided to surrender, fearing for about 1,000 wounded in the tunnel. He told President Roosevelt the garrison had "accomplished all that is humanly possible". At noon a white flag came out of Malinta Tunnel. The 4th Marines burned their colors, and Howard wept that he was "the first Marine officer ever to surrender a regiment".11
Homma would not accept the surrender of Corregidor alone. Meeting Wainwright that afternoon near Cabcaben on Bataan, he demanded the surrender of every American and Filipino force in the islands and sent him back to surrender to the Japanese commander on Corregidor, where the document was signed around midnight. Late on 7 May, Morton writes, Wainwright went on radio station KZRH in Manila and ordered all forces in the Philippines to lay down their arms.12
Casualties and captivity
Morton writes that by the surrender decision 600 to 800 defenders had been killed and about 1,000 wounded. Japanese losses in the landing were "several hundred" in Morton's account, and one Japanese officer claimed only 800 of 2,000 men reached the shore. The prisoners were taken to Manila, held at Bilibid Prison and later sent to the Cabanatuan camp, the Inquirer recounts, and many died in captivity: 474 of the 1,487 captured men of the 4th Marines. Wainwright was held in Taiwan and Manchuria until August 1945.13
The American and Filipino side
For the defenders Corregidor ended a five month campaign fought without hope of relief. Morton concludes that the defense "demonstrated that the Japanese were not invincible". The Philippine Daily Inquirer remembers the fall of the Rock beside Bataan and the captivity that followed.14
The Japanese side
For Japan, Corregidor completed the conquest of the Philippines and opened Manila Bay. Homma told his commanders in April 1942 that Bataan and Corregidor were "not merely a local operation", Miller writes. The crossing was an ordeal: by the Japanese accounts Morton used, the first battalion lost an estimated 50 to 75 percent, and one officer put the drowned in his unit at half. Smith's later Army history says they lost about half their first assault force.15
1945: the recapture of Corregidor
In February 1945, with Americans fighting for Manila, Corregidor blocked the reopening of Manila Bay. On 16 February the 503d Parachute Regimental Combat Team under Colonel George M. Jones dropped onto the tiny drop zones of Topside, while the 3d Battalion, 34th Infantry landed by boat; together they formed Rock Force. Of the 2,050 men who jumped that day, about 280 became casualties of the drop by the official history's count, most of them injured on landing in the strong wind.16
American intelligence expected 850 defenders, according to the US Army history; there were over 5,000, nearly all naval troops under Captain Akira Itagaki, who was killed on the first day.17
On the night of 21 to 22 February a huge blast of stored ammunition rocked Malinta Hill, apparently cover for a breakout; more blasts two nights later, Smith writes, seemed to be suicides. On 26 February a blast in an underground arsenal at Monkey Point killed over 200 Japanese and about 50 Americans, according to Smith. The island was declared secure on 2 March.18
Smith counts about 4,500 Japanese dead, perhaps 200 more killed trying to swim away, at least 500 possibly sealed in caves, and 20 prisoners. Rock Force lost about 210 killed among some 1,005 casualties. On 2 March MacArthur returned, and Jones greeted him: "Sir, I present to you Fortress Corregidor." His return to the Philippines had begun at Leyte, with the naval Battle of Leyte Gulf.19
Corregidor today
On Topside stands the Pacific War Memorial, built by the United States and completed in 1968. In 2017 Marines of today's 4th Marine Regiment came from Okinawa for the 75th anniversary of the surrender. The ruined batteries and Malinta Tunnel can still be visited, and a Japanese Garden of Peace, where Japanese veterans and families come to pray, remembers the Japanese dead. See also the greatest battles of the Pacific War and the commanders of the Pacific War.20
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