JAPANESE LANDINGS ON CORREGIDOR

The bombardment of the 5th destroyed the little that was left to stop a Japanese assault. Those beach defense guns along the north shore which had given away their positions were knocked out, searchlights were put out of action, land mines detonated, barbed wire entanglements torn up, and machine gun emplacements caved in. By the end of the day, wrote General Moore, the beach defenses on the north side of the island "were practically non-existent."

All wire communication was gone by late afternoon. Telephone lines were torn up by the exploding shells and all efforts to repair them were unavailing. One battery commander repaired the line to his battalion headquarters, but "three minutes after the job was done the line was out again." "This time," he wrote despairingly, "we couldn't even locate the broken ends." "Command," observed General Moore, "could be exercised and intelligence obtained only by use of foot messengers," a means of communication, he added, which was "uncertain under the heavy and continuous artillery and air action."

When the bombardment let up momentarily late in the afternoon the dust lay so heavy over the island that the men on Topside could hardly make out the features of Bottomside below them. Beyond that they could not see. Even the topography of the island had changed. Where there had been thick woods and dense vegetation only charred stumps remained. The rocky ground had been pulverized into a fine dust and the road along the shore had been literally blown into the bay. Portions of the cliff had fallen in and debris covered the entire island. The Corregidor of peacetime, with its broad lawns and luxuriant vegetation, impressive parade ground, spacious barracks, pleasant shaded clubs and bungalows, its large warehouses and concrete repair shops, was, gone. The island lay "scorched, gaunt, and leafless, covered with the chocolate dust of countless explosions and pitted with shellholes."

Men were living on nerve alone, and morale was dropping rapidly. All hope of reinforcement had long since disappeared. There was only enough water to last four more days at most and no prospect that the pipes and pumps could be repaired. In any event the power plant would not last more than a few weeks. There was a limit to human endurance and that limit, General Wainwright told the President, "has long since been passed."

This confusion during the approach, plus the failure to make proper allowance for current and tide, brought the Japanese to the wrong beaches and in the wrong order. The 2d Battalion, which had "strayed" to the right, never recovered from its initial error and came in late. The 1st Battalion arrived somewhat east of the place designated for the 2d Battalion, which found itself coming in toward a strange shore near the tail of the island and far from the area upon which the artillery had laid down its preparatory fire. Mutual support of the two battalions, which had been provided for in this plan, was impossible. "Thus," explained Colonel Yoshida, "the Division was forced to start fighting under disadvantageous conditions. ... A long, desperate struggle and heavy sacrifices were required to break the situation."

The Americans and Filipinos on shore, unaware of the confusion in the Japanese ranks and still reeling under the effects of the bombardment, met the enemy with every weapon they could muster. One 2-gun 75-mm. battery near the tail of the island, just east of North Point, had never disclosed its position and it opened fire, together with some 37-mm. guns, at a range of about 300 yards, on the incoming landing craft. The few remaining searchlights were turned on but were quickly shot out by artillery fire from Bataan. But there was enough light for the guns on shore from the tracers which "like a 4th of July display danced and sparkled pinkly from Kindley Field to Monkey Point." At point-blank range they struck the surprised and confused Japanese, sank a number of the boats, and caused many casualties. "Beach defense officers at the scene," wrote an observer, "reported that the slaughter of the Japanese in their barges was sickening."

By this time the moon had risen and the clouds had drifted away. Thus, when the 2d Battalion of Colonel Sato's 61st Infantry approached the shore shortly before midnight, it was clearly visible to the men on the beach. There was now enough light for artillery fire, and the Americans opened up with everything they had. The remaining 12-inch mortar of Battery Way went into action with a boom, followed by the shriek of the rotating bands. From nearby Fort Hughes came fire from the mortars of Battery Craighill while the remaining smaller guns at both forts, the 3-inchers and the 75's, dropped their shells on the landing barges nearing the shore. To the Japanese in the small boats it seemed as though "a hundred guns rained red-hot steel on them." Eyewitnesses at Cabcaben described the scene as "a spectacle that confounded the imagination, surpassing in grim horror anything we had ever seen before."

The Japanese, who had believed they could come ashore "without shedding blood," lost heavily during the landing. Although the 1st Battalion reached the beach on schedule under supporting fire from 14th Army artillery, it was hard hit. Estimates of its casualties varied from 50 to 75 percent.¹¹ Casualties in the battalion which came in late exceeded those of the first landing, one Japanese officer placing the number of drowned alone in his own unit at 50 percent. Total casualties for both landings were estimated at several hundred, and one Japanese officer claimed that only 800 men of the 2,000 who made the attempt reached the shore.

Though the Americans were mistaken in their belief that they had driven off a third assault, they had succeeded in sinking and damaging many more of the enemy's fleet of small boats. Between half and two thirds of the landing craft leaving Bataan that night had been put out of action. When Homma received the report of "the disastrous state" of his troops and the loss in landing craft he was thrown into an "agony of mind."

Map 25