Philippine Campaigns

Philippine Campaigns (1) On 22 December 1941, Japan’s Fourteenth Army (100,000 soldiers) invaded the Philippines, held by 23,600 US troops, 20,000 Philippine regulars, and 100,000 newly mobilized Philippine reservists. Allied forces held out for six months on Bataan and Corregidor.

(2) On 20 October 1944, General Douglas MacArthur landed the Sixth Army, later joined by the Eighth Army, on Leyte Island, which was held by just 16,000 of General Tomoyuki Yamashita’s 270,000 troops. The US Navy defeated an attempt to destroy the invasion flotilla at the battle of Leyte Gulf. US forces sustained 15,584 casualties, and inflicted 70,000 on the Japanese, before enemy resistance ended in Leyte on 25 December.

(3) During 2 January–4 February 1945, the Sixth and Eighth Armies invaded Luzon Island; they took Manila in March and ended enemy resistance in May. US losses: 7,933 killed, 32,732 wounded. Japanese losses: 192,000 dead. Resistance by 102,000 Japanese in the southern Philippines (principally Mindanao) continued through the war’s end.