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| Plate No. 70 Mindoro-Marinduque |
Battle of Manila (3 February – 3 March 1945).
The battle for Manila was the fiercest urban fighting in the entire Pacific War. Few battles in the closing months of World War II exceeded the destruction and the brutality of the massacres and savagery of the fighting in Manila. In Manila's business district only two buildings were not damaged.
Filipinos lost an irreplaceable cultural and historical treasure in the resulting carnage and devastation of Manila, remembered today as a national tragedy. Countless government buildings, universities and colleges, convents, monasteries and churches, and their accompanying treasures dating to the founding of the city, were ruined. (Wikipedia)
Prior to this, from 1943 to 1944, U.S. submarines and aircraft carriers had sank a total of 9 Japanese ships around Marinduque - these were transport ships MEIKAI MARU, INDUS MARU, ISUZU MARU MEIZAN MARU, fast transports T.6, T.10, T.9, escort destroyer TAKE and a recent still unnamed ship that was downed on November 15, 1944, in northern Marinduque.
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| Nov. 15, 1944. US bomber prepares to hit the Japanese ship that was later sunk by a US submarine. It was "sitting on the edge of a reef and did not sink right away". View of northern Marinduque in the background. Photo and data contributed by: Curt Shepard |
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| The name of this Japanese that sink in northern Marinduque on November 15, 1944 has not been fully verified. Photo: Curt Shepard |
Then exactly a month before the Battle of Manila, the US 21st Infantry on January 3, 1945, undertook ground operations in Marinduque for the establishment of radar installations. Excerpts from Reports of General MacArthur, Chapter 9:
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| The Legislative Building in Manila destroyed. |
As the first step in the tactical deception effort, one company of the 21st Infantry of the 24th Division moved on Bongabong along Mindoro's east coast on 1 January. Other troops of the same regiment then advanced by shore-to-shore movement to Calapan, the main town on northeastern Mindoro, while enemy-held villages on the northwestern side were also cleared. In all of these actions substantial assistance was rendered by organized guerrilla forces.
Occupation of Marinduque Island, situated close to southern Luzon's Bicol Peninsula, was the next operation undertaken. On 3 January, a small force of the 21st Infantry landed unopposed at Buenavista, on the island's southwestern shore, and consolidated positions for the establishment of radar installations.
Concurrently with these ground operations, additional steps were taken to conceal the Lingayen invasion plan from the Japanese. While United States bombers struck carefully selected targets on Luzon, other aircraft flew photographic and reconnaissance missions over the Batangas-Tayabas region and transport planes made dummy drops over the same area to simulate an airborne invasion.
At the same time, Seventh Fleet motor torpedo boats patrolled the southern and southwestern coasts of Luzon as far north as Manila Bay from new bases on Mindoro, and mine sweepers cleared Balagan, Batangas, and Tayabas Bays. Landing ships and merchantmen also approached the beaches in these areas until they were fired upon by the enemy and then slipped away under cover of darkness.
