GUN EMPLACEMENTS ON CORREGIDOR. 3-inch antiaircraft gun M3.

 

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.

 

 

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