.
At nightfall on 5 May Colonel Gempachi Sato assembled his Left
Flank Force at Limay on the Bataan Peninsula. The gathered
troops "sang softly the high thin haunting melody of 'Prayer in the
Dawn,'" and then climbed into 19 landing craft for the assault. The
landing craft varied in size, the smallest carrying 30 men and the
largest 170. More important, five tanks of the 7th Tank Regiment
were also embarked in two landing craft. The landing craft and
barges approached Corregidor in a three-line formation with expected
landfall at 2300, shortly before the rise of the moon.
At 2240 the artillery shelling
concentrated on the north shore beach defenses in the 1st Battalion
sector. At 2300, supplies of food and water were just reaching the
beach positions when landing boats were reported offshore. A second
artillery concentration pounded the beach defenses for 6-7 minutes.
The shelling was particularly intense, ending with phosphorous
shells. Three to four minutes of silence followed the last shell
when word reached Beecher at battalion headquarters that seven
Japanese landing craft were nearing the beach. The initial Japanese
landing of 790 men of the reinforced 1st Battalion, 61st Infantry
was headed for the beaches from Infantry Point to North Point.
Photo
courtesy of Dr. Diosdado M. Yap |