From Here to Hell

Book 3

By: David Alexander

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

The battle for the Philippine Islands centered on Luzon. Because it is an island roughly equal in size to the British Isles, nowhere in the Pacific theater could land-based troops of division strength wage war on the magnitude of European engagements. Indeed, the battle for Luzon involved the second largest American troop commitment of the entire war, save that which followed the D-Day invasion landings in Normandy, France.
Commanded by the ruthless Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the forces that controlled Luzon were thinly stretched. None, including the Japanese who occupied the island, ever entertained serious hopes of the Emperor's ultimate victory. Attack being their principle military doctrine, the Jap forces were here on Luzon placed in the unfamiliar role of defenders. To this role they were not well suited. Poorly equipped and defending a broad front, the Japs grew more ferocious while they steadily lost ground to U.S. advances.
Knowing that an assault formation of American combat troops was coming, General Yamashita concentrated his forces in three strategic locations. The first of these was the vast mountain wilderness to the north of the island. The second stronghold was the heights east of Manila. The third Japanese stronghold was the rough mountain country of the Bataan Peninsula. It was in these places that men fought and men died in some of the fiercest fighting of World War Two.
Despite all this, ultimate defeat was assured the Japanese. However, since the Japanese, almost to a man, chose death before surrender, the only question left unanswered was precisely when this inevitable defeat would occur. It turned out that the Japanese were not fully evicted from Luzon until the very end of the war, and indeed reports of holdouts in the wilds of the northern part of the island continued to filter in until well after the war was over.