GUN
EMPLACEMENTS ON
CORREGIDOR. 3-inch antiaircraft gun
M3. |
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After the first attack no effort was made
to keep the electric railroad line on the island in operation. It had
been hit in so many places and was so exposed that it was fruitless to
attempt its repair. Almost daily the main telephone cables were cut by
bombs. Crews worked at night to repair them, but the next day the lines
would be cut again. The maintenance of communications was a never-ending
task, and there was never time to bury the cables deep enough to place
them out of reach of the bombs.
The armament of the island suffered
comparatively slight damage. The coastal batteries with their magazines
and power plants had been bomb-proofed before the war and escaped almost
unscathed. The more exposed antiaircraft units suffered more from the
bombings than the seacoast batteries, but such damage as was caused was
repaired quickly, usually within twelve hours. There were some
casualties among the gun crews, but they were not serious enough to
interfere with operations. The largest number of casualties came to
those who failed to take shelter or were careless. There is no record of
the total casualties for the period from 29 December to 7 January, but
at least 36 men were killed and another 140 wounded during the first,
second, and last days of the attack alone.
The air attacks against Corregidor ended
on 6 January, the day the Bataan campaign opened. They had proved costly
to the Japanese and had produced no decisive military results. But even
if they had and if Homma had wished to continue to bomb the island after
6 January, he would have been unable to do so. By that time the 5th
Air Group was preparing to move to Thailand, and Homma was left
with only a small air force which he could ill spare for attacks against
Corregidor. Except for sporadic raids by three or four planes and
occasional dive bombing and strafing, the first aerial bombardment was
over.
Events thus far had not worked out as the
Japanese had planned. The occupation of Manila had not given them the
use of its fine harbor or the large military stores they had expected to
find there. MacArthur had refused battle on the plains of Manila, and
drawn his forces back into the Bataan peninsula intact. The occupation
of Corregidor, which was next on the Japanese timetable, now had to be
deferred for the lengthy and expensive campaign on Bataan. If the first
air attacks against the island fortress had been intended as the prelude
for a landing, they had been wasted.
To have attempted the investment of the
Gibraltar of the East while the Bataan peninsula was in American hands
would have been disastrous and foolhardy. The heights of the Mariveles
Mountains dominated the small island only two miles offshore and were
vital to its control. Even before the war the Japanese had recognized
the intimate relationship between Bataan and Corregidor and in their
prewar estimates had noted the flank protection Bataan offered to the
island. "Mt. Mariveles in southern Bataan forms the left wall of the bay
entrance," one Japanese estimate concluded, "and because it is covered
with dense forests, use of siege guns and heavy equipment to attack this
fortress is impossible."
The southern shore of Manila Bay offered
only partial protection to the islands lying at the bay entrance. Here
the ground was less mountainous and overgrown than on Bataan, and in the
vicinity of Ternate, opposite the tip of Bataan, there were few
obstacles to military movement. Into this area could be brought heavy
equipment and siege guns. Once emplaced, these guns could bring the
southernmost of the islands, Forts Frank and Drum, under assault. It was
from here that the next attack against the harbor defenses came.
Toward the end of January reports began to
reach Corregidor of the movement of Japanese artillery into Cavite
Province. By the 25th, according to observers on the mainland, the
Japanese had emplaced their guns in defiladed positions near Ternate,
only about six air miles from Fort Drum on El Fraile Island and eight
miles from the neighboring Fort Frank on Carabao Island.
The reports were correct. A Japanese
artillery unit called the Kondo Detachment was indeed moving
into position along the southern shore of Manila Bay. Formed by 14th
Army on 24 January, this unit was under the command of Maj.
Toshinori Kondo and consisted initially of four 105- mm. guns and two
150-mm. cannons. Kondo's orders were "to secretly deploy" near Ternate
and "prepare for fire missions" against Corregidor, El Fraile, and
Carabao Islands and against shipping in Manila Bay. By the first week of
February, despite interdiction fire from Fort Frank, Kondo had completed
his preparations and was awaiting further orders.
He did not have long to wait. On 5
February, his orders arrived and next morning at 0800 the Kondo
Detachment opened fire against the fortified islands. Fort Drum was
the principal target that day and the Japanese guns hit it almost one
hundred times during the three-hour attack. By accident or design, the
choice of the early morning hours for the attack placed the sun behind
the Japanese and made observation by the Americans difficult. They
replied as best they could with their 14- and 6-inch guns, and Fort
Frank assisted with its 12-inch mortars, but scored no hits. Thus began
an artillery duel that was to continue intermittently for almost two
months.
Until the middle of February the daily
attacks followed much the same pattern. Major Kondo's 105's and 150's
usually opened fire in the morning, to be answered by counterbattery
fire from the large guns of the harbor defenses. Later the Japanese
fired at odd intervals during the day. Forts Frank and Drum, closest to
Ternate, received the heaviest weight of shells and the greatest damage
but their guns were never put out of commission and their effectiveness
never seriously impaired. Damage to Corregidor was limited to occasional
hits on buildings and vehicles.
During the course of the bombardment the
Japanese hit upon a scheme to strike a vital blow at Fort Frank without
firing a single shot. Learning from the natives that the fort received
its supply of fresh water from a dam near Calumpan on the Cavite shore,
they dispatched a demolition squad to locate and destroy the pipeline.
On 16 February, the Japanese found the line and pulled up the section
just below the dam.
Fort Frank, fortunately, had its own
distillation plant and Colonel Boudreau, who had assumed command of the
fort after theevacuation of Fort Wint in December, directed that it be
placed in operation at once. But its use required valuable fuel and
Boudreau was understandably reluctant to expend the gasoline he needed
for his guns to distill sea water. On the 19th, therefore, he made an
effort to repair the pipeline and sent a group of fifteen volunteers to
the mainland for that purpose. Before the men could restore the line
they were attacked by a Japanese patrol of about thirty men. In the
fight that followed, the Americans and Filipinos, with the support of
75-mm. guns from Fort Frank, destroyed the entire patrol, suffering only
one casualty. The fifteen men then returned to Fort Frank safely but
without having accomplished their mission. That night the Japanese
retaliated by burning the barrio of Calumpan. It was not until 9 March
that Colonel Boudreau was able to repair the broken water pipe.
Throughout the long-range artillery duel
the effectiveness of American counterbattery fire was limited by the
difficulty of locating the Japanese guns. There was no flash during
daylight, and both Kondo and Hayakawa were careful to take every
precaution to avoid giving away their position. They camouflaged their
guns skillfully, moved them when necessary, and even sent up false smoke
rings when their batteries were in action. The American and Filipino
artillerymen tried to fix the enemy's position by the use of sound
waves, but this method proved too delicate and complicated. Another
method, admittedly less accurate but easier to use, was to compute the
enemy's position by the line of falling duds. The results could rarely
be checked, but the batteries of all four forts fired daily, hopeful
that they might knock out some of the Japanese guns with a lucky hit.