Malinta Hill - North Side

In the past I had recorded the location of all entrances and airshafts of the Malinta Tunnel with my GPS. Recently I noticed that somehow I had deleted the co-ordinates of one airshaft on the north side of the hill above the 1000 Bed Hospital (north-west corner). It is not important to have this waypoint but it made my collection incomplete, I decided to head up there again to fix this little problem and today would be that day.

I made a GPS Track of my travels and planned to follow Karl’s great idea of overlaying it onto Google Earth. Unfortunately the Google Earth satellite photo of Corregidor Island is crap and it did not look very good at all. For clarity I decided to use a map and manually label my trip plus some points of interest. Using nearby references and map contour intervals, the labels are quite accurate.

Map Legend
1 = 1000 Bed Hospital NW tunnel entrance
2 = Airshaft above the 1000 Bed Hospital, NW corner
3 = EG IV 3 (Emergency Gun Group Fire Command Station Supplemental Sector 3)
4 = Searchlight #8 tunnel
5 = 75mm gun shelter
6 = Three structures opposite the Enlisted men’s Swimming Beach
Yellow line = North Shore Road

From the North Shore Road, the easiest way up the airshaft is to follow a relatively steep ravine almost straight up the hill. Keeping a bit to the left would bring me to the airshaft and going slightly to the right would bring me to the tunnel entrance. This small tunnel connects the north-west corner of the hospital to the outside hill.

The start and end points of my Malinta Hill trek were on the North Shore Road. At this location we are looking down the road towards the Enlisted Men’s Beach.

The airshaft itself was well hidden by big leafy vegetation but fortunately I knew roughly where it was. A short while later I could just make out the straight lines of concrete through the sea of green plants. I made my way over to the airshaft to record the location (#2 on the map).

You can just make out concrete straight ahead.

The damaged airshaft above the NW corner of the 1000 Bed Hospital.

Another view of the airshaft. Note the rear vents are nearly full of soil that has slid down the hill over the years.

Looking down the airshaft. It drops vertically from the surface then transitions to approximately a 45 degree slope down into the Hospital.

While the GPS was doing its thing, I wandered around a bit. Standing a ways above the airshaft and looking uphill I noticed light filtering through the base of the trees. This may have been just part of a cliff visible higher up the hill however my trusty GPS told me that this was actually the ridge between Malinta Point and the top of Malinta Hill.

I took some photos of the airshaft and headed further up the hill. Straight up was getting a bit steep so I kept slightly to the right. Within minutes I was standing on top of the ridge looking down on Bottomside.

You may be wondering, that fots guy just climbed another hill, so what! Well, at least for me, I did not think that it was possible to safely get up the north side of Malinta Hill anymore. No one I know has ever mentioned doing this before. If you stand on the North Shore Road and look up Malinta Hill it looks too steep. I did have to hold onto trees for balance much of the way but it was not a difficult climb at all.

In February of 1945, Japanese soldiers coming up this part of the hill would have seen few standing trees but there would have been roots and rocks to hold onto. The fact that they were probably less than half my age and in good shape would have helped too.

Getting up here clearly demonstrates that Japanese soldiers coming from the inside of Malinta Tunnel or other nearby tunnels would have had no problem storming up to the top of Malinta Hill in force. Also it shows that they could have climbed to the ridge above the Hospital Tunnel and poured down onto Bottomside if they had chosen to do so. This never happened either.

I wonder if one of the reasons this did not happen is hidden in Valtin’s account of the battle regarding 3rd Platoon on Malinta Point. He wrote:-

"We also kept wondering what had happened to the 3rd Platoon, marooned out there on the promontory (Malinta Point). Contact was finally made by radio.

"This is Joe Blow to King Three. King Three, tell me your situation."

"King Three to Joe Blow...We're okay...Over," they answered.

"Joe Blow asks have you had any trouble...Over."

"Two attacks. We have three walking wounded. Not bad...Over."

"What are you firing at? What are you firing at? Over."

At the other end somebody chuckled.

"Just good clean fun, we've got..."

The 3rd Platoon explained: They had a bead on a distant water well, on the eastern end of the island, and the Nips seemed to have become mighty thirsty. They kept dashing up to the well with jugs and the marksmen of the Third Platoon were picking them off.

(When Valtin mentions “on the eastern end of the island”, I assume he means ‘east’ of Third Platoon. Malinta Point is actually far from the eastern end of Corregidor Island).

Since the Japanese were shot at every time they dashed to the water source, did they incorrectly assume that a large US force was just down the hill? Did this affect their decision to not attack up the hill in force?

The distance from 3rd Platoon in the concrete defensive position on top of Malinta Point to the NW Hospital Tunnel entrance is 156 metres (170 Yards). This is a nice ‘sporting’ distance and yes, the tunnel is east of 3rd Platoon. Note that 5 ft contour interval maps ‘do’ show a clear line of sight between these two locations. Could this tunnel be from where the Japanese were coming from? Thirty feet or so away from the tunnel is a steep ravine eroded by rain water. It is mostly dry now but like many similar dry streams, if you dig down bit you can often find water. Perhaps a crude water source existed there somewhere but is filled in today. I can’t say for sure.

Where I was standing on the ridge I do see a few old foxholes but nothing like the quantity that exists on the two hills to the north-east down below me. Since it was a nice day and I had lots of time left, I decided to walk up the ridge to the top of Malinta Hill. This is an easy walk and I reached the crest in front of an Emergency Command Station (#3 on the map). I spent some time up here just looking at the view and enjoying the nice breeze.

Emergency Command Station (#3 on the map).

The entrance to Searchlight #8 tunnel (#4 on the map).

This photo was taken from the tunnel entrance looking out to where the searchlight would have been positioned when in operation.

I never noticed this before. If you look straight up near the tunnel entrance you will see this loop embedded in the concrete.

A recent typhoon has removed a tree on top of Malinta Hill so you now have a great view of the 92nd Garage area and the eastern tip of the island.

At the 75mm gun shelter (#5 on the map), the view is as good as ever. Here we are looking westward down onto the north side docks. From top to bottom they are Engineer Dock, North Dock and Lorcha Dock.

For my return path I decided to walk down the ridge towards Malinta Point. From there it is a short slope down to the North Shore Road and then around the hill to Bottomside. For something different I kept to the left side of the ridge looking for anything new. There is a horizontal trench that goes almost 1/4 of the way down the ridge but not much else of interest.

When I got to a narrow section of the ridge, I went over to the north side to look at the view of Engineer Point. Looking down the hill through the trees I saw something that I had not seen in the past. Going straight down the north side of Malinta Hill is a noticeable ridge. This is not shown on the map. To make it even more interesting, my GPS showed the tunnel entrance to be right down the center line of the ridge.

Well, it was time for a change of plans. I had just come up this side of the hill so going back down it should not be a great problem. Again I held onto trees for balance but this was easy. Soon I saw a mini cliff in front of me and I was looking down at the tunnel entrance (#1 on the map). The steepest part of the whole ascent was here as I held onto tree roots to get about 15 feet or so down to the level of the entrance.

1000 Bed Hospital NW tunnel entrance (#1 on the map).

This tunnel is quite long and seems to have been constructed as a drainage path for a sewage pipe coming from the Hospital toilet. You have to crouch over quite a bit to get through there.

In places, a concrete pipe can still be seen in the floor of the tunnel.

For a moment I considered going into the tunnel, through the Hospital laterals and over to the main Malinta Tunnel shaft to sneak up behind the guard. I was joking a bit with him yesterday but wisely give up on the idea. First, I don’t know him that well and two, he is armed. This is more fun anyway.

At the tunnel entrance, I am now not far above the North Shore Road. I can see the silver guard rails through the trees. After taking a few more photos I continued down the hill. Back out on the North Shore Road, I am amazed at how easy that was. If I ever did this again I would go up the same way I just came down.

THE RETURN JOURNEY

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