To the Outskirts of Manila
Luckily for the 511th Infantry, the area where the bulk
of its men hit the ground was not too impossible, although many of the
'troopers had landed in or among banana trees. The regiment suffered about
50 jump casualties--a low rate of less than 3 percent--of whom all but two
were listed as "slightly injured." One man was killed and another was
carried on the casualty lists as seriously injured. 45 Despite
the organizational problems the scattered jump created, Col. Orin D. Haugen,
commanding the 511th Infantry, had all his troops under his control by 1400.
He dispatched patrols westward to establish contact with the 188th Infantry,
and his men, encountering no opposition, secured the eastern end of Tagaytay
Ridge where Route 17 turned sharply north and downhill toward Manila. Haugen
also sent patrols out along roads and trails leading north and south from
the ridge crest and at evening reported to division headquarters that he had
found no signs of Japanese.
Generals Eichelberger and Swing now intended to have the
reinforced 188th Infantry hold Tagaytay Ridge and reduce the Japanese pocket
on the western nose while the 511th Infantry pushed north toward Manila with
all possible speed. Swing sent all of his available motor transportation
forward to Tagaytay Ridge to move the 511th Infantry northward in
battalion-sized shuttles and directed the 188th Infantry to follow when
ready.
This plan constituted a change in mission for the 11th
Airborne Division. MacArthur's original instructions to Eichelberger had
envisaged that the division's primary duties would be to contain Japanese
forces in southern Luzon and patrol to ascertain Japanese dispositions and
intentions in its area of responsibility.
Manifestly, the division could not carry out these duties
if it drove north to Manila. Eichelberger's authority to change the mission
apparently derived from personal contact with MacArthur, who had given the
Eighth Army commander considerable discretion on the handling of the 11th
Airborne Division. 46
Eichelberger's hopes that the 11th Airborne Division
could start its dash to Manila on 3 February did not come to fruition. It
was after daylight on the 4th before the 2d Battalion, 511th Infantry,
already over twelve hours behind Sixth Army elements coming into the city
from the north, set out from Tagaytay Ridge. Moving as fast as the
elementary requirements of caution permitted, the battalion sped rapidly
northward along two-lane, concrete-paved Route 17. At every town and barrio
through the open country crowds of cheering Filipinos greeted the column
and, once or twice, practically halted the movement in their enthusiasm.
About 1130 forward elements detrucked at Imus, a small
town almost twenty-five miles north of Tagaytay Ridge. The Route 17 bridge
over the Imus River just south of the town was out, and about fifty
Japanese, holed up in an old stone building dating back to the early days of
the Spanish occupation, blocked an alternate bridge within Imus. Most of the
infantry walked across the river along the top of a small dam south of town,
while Company D, 511th Infantry, supported by some 75-mm. howitzers of the
674th Field Artillery, undertook to reduce the Japanese strongpoint so that
the trucks could continue up Route 17. The 5-foot-thick walls of the old
building proved impervious to the light artillery shells, so T. Sgt. Robert
C. Steele climbed to the building's roof, knocked a hole through the
roofing, poured in gasoline, and started a fine flash fire inside with a
white phosphorus hand grenade. As the Japanese came dashing out, they were
summarily cut down by the men of Company D. Steele personally dispatched two
Japanese who remained inside the building. 47
With the Imus bridge secure, the parachute battalion
drove on another three miles to Zapote. Here, Route 17 ended at a junction
with Route 25, which led another half mile northeast across the Zapote River
to a junction with Route 1 a mile south of a bridge over the Las Piñas River
at Las Piñas. The Japanese had prepared the Las Piñas bridge for demolitions
and were to defend it from positions on the north bank, but the men of the 511th Infantry caught the Japanese by surprise and
secured the span intact after a short, sharp fire fight. The 2d Battalion
held at Las Piñas while the 1st Battalion, coming north on a second truck
shuttle from Tagaytay Ridge, passed through and continued toward Manila.
PARAÑAQUE, four miles south of
Manila, where on 4 February the Japanese stopped the 511th Infantry.
Driving through a densely populated area and following
Route 1 up the shore of Manila Bay, the 1st Battalion left Las Piñas behind
at 1800. The battalion ran into increasingly heavy harassing fire from
Japanese riflemen and machine gunners. At Parañaque, two miles beyond Las
Piñas, the unit found a bridge across the Parañaque River badly damaged,
defended by Japanese on the north bank, and covered by Japanese mortar and
artillery fire originating from Nichols Field, a mile and a half to the
northeast. Here, only four miles south of the Manila city limits, 48 the
Japanese stopped the 511th Infantry.
On 4 February the 511th Infantry, in various clashes,
lost 8 men killed and 19 wounded. The entire 11th Airborne Division, since
its landing, had lost approximately 35 men killed and 150 wounded, plus 50
injured in the Tagaytay Ridge jump. The division now faced the principal
Japanese defenses south of Manila.
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