THE OPEN
CITY (Japanese photograph). |
|
On 26 December, Manila was declared an
open city. All newspapers published the text of the proclamation and
radio stations broadcast the news through the day. A huge banner bearing
the words Open City and No Shooting was strung across
the front of the city hall. That night the blackout ended and Manila was
ablaze with lights.
With the evacuation of the government and
the army, a feeling of foreboding and terror spread through the city,
and the exodus, which had ceased after the first confusion of war, began
again. "The roads back into the hills," noted one observer, "were black
with people striving to reach their native villages . . . . The few
trains still running into the provinces were literally jammed to the car
tops." The business district was deserted and there were few cars along
Dewey Boulevard.
Here and there a few shops made a brave
attempt at a holiday spirit with displays of tinsel and brightly wrapped
gifts. On the Escolta, two Santa Clauses with the traditional white
beards and red costumes looked strangely out of place. One walked up and
down as if dazed while the other, more practical, piled sandbags before
the entrance to his shop. "No girls in slacks and shorts were bicycling
along the water front," wrote Maj. Carlos Romulo reminiscently, "and
there were no horseback riders on the bridle path . . . the Yacht Club,
the night clubs and hotels ... all looked like funeral parlors." "Let it
be known," reported NBC correspondent Bert Silen, "that our Christmas
Eve was the darkest and gloomiest I ever hope to spend."
Late on the night of 26 December Radio
Tokyo acknowledged receipt of the Manila broadcasts declaring the
capital an open city.5
Official notification to 14th Army came later, either on the
28th or after, when Imperial General Headquarters forwarded the
information from Tokyo. Apparently MacArthur made no attempt to notify
the Japanese forces in the Philippines of his intentions, but a
mimeographed announcement of the open city declaration was in the hands
of the Japanese troops by 31 December.
Either the Japanese in the Philippines
were unaware of the open city declaration or they chose to ignore it,
for enemy aircraft were over the Manila area on 27 December. The Army's
5th Air Group sent 7 light and 4 heavy bombers against Nichols Field,
and at least 2 fighters over the port district that day.7
But the main bombing strikes, directed against the Manila Bay and Pasig
River areas, were made by naval aircraft. For three hours at midday,
successive waves of unopposed bombers over Manila wrought great
destruction on port installations and buildings in the Intramuros, the
ancient walled city of the Spaniards. The attacks against shipping
continued the next day, with additional damage to the port area.