[Includes 16 charts, 54 maps and 196 illustrations] Triumph in the Philippines is the story of the largest joint campaign of the Pacific phase of World War II. Devoted principally to the accomplishments of U.S. Army ground combat forces and to the operations of major organized Philippine guerrilla units that contributed notably to the success of the campaign, the volume describes the reconquest of the Philippine archipelago exclusive of Leyte and Samar. The narrative includes coverage of air, naval, and logistical activity necessary to broad understanding of the ground combat operations. The strategic planning and the strategic debates leading to the decision to seize Luzon and bypass Formosa are also treated so as to enable the reader to fit the Luzon and Southern Philippines Campaigns into their proper perspective of the war against Japan. For the forces of General MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Area the reconquest of Luzon and the Southern Philippines was the climax of the Pacific war, although no one anticipated this outcome when, on 9 January 1945, Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger’s Sixth Army poured ashore over the beaches of Lingayen Gulf. Viewed from the aspect of commitment of U.S. Army ground forces, the Luzon Campaign (which strategically and tactically in-chides the seizure of Mindoro Island and the securing of the shipping lanes through the central Visayan Islands) was exceeded in size during World War II only by the drive across northern France. The Luzon Campaign differed from others of the Pacific war in that it alone provided opportunity for the employment of mass and maneuver on a scale even approaching that common to the European and Mediterranean theaters. The operations of Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger’s Eighth Army, both on Luzon and during the Southern Philippines Campaign, were more akin to previous actions throughout the Pacific, but the southern campaign, too, presented features peculiar to the reconquest of the Philippine archipelago.

The reconquest of the Philippine archipelago (exclusive of Leyte), with detailed accounts of Sixth Army and Eighth Army operations on Luzon, as well as of the Eighth Army's reoccupation of the southern Philippines.

[Includes 11 tables, 25 maps and 71 illustrations] The soldier reading these pages would do well to reflect on the wisdom of the statement exhibited in a Japanese shrine: "Woe unto him who has not tasted defeat." Victory too often leads to overconfidence and erases the memory of mistakes. Defeat brings into sharp focus the causes that led to failure and provides a fruitful field of study for those soldiers and laymen who seek in the past lessons for the future. The statesman and the unformed citizen reading these pages will realize that our military means as well as our estimates and plans must always be in balance with our long-range national policy. This lesson-signposted by the Battle of Manila Bay; the Treaty of Paris, signed in December 1898 when we decided to keep the Philippines; the Washington Conference of 1921-22; and the Manchurian Crisis of 1931-we ignored before Pearl Harbor. The result was defeat on the field of battle and the loss of the Philippine Islands.

(Includes maps) From the moment of his departure from the Philippines in 1942, General MacArthur was determined to return to the islands and restore the freedom of the Philippine people. Capture of the main island of Luzon in 1945 substantially realized this goal. How his armies accomplished it forms the body of the story unfolded in this volume. In some respects the Luzon Campaign repeated the pattern of Japanese conquest three years earlier, although with action on a much larger scale and for a much longer period. Unlike the Japanese conquest, the operations of 1945 involved a fierce month-long battle for Manila, the only such protracted action by U.S. forces in a big city during World War II. It also involved a complicated and costly reduction of three mountain positions into which the Japanese withdrew, in one of which there was still a substantial core of resistance when Japan surrendered. Within the broad scope of this work, covering the intensive operations of two armies for seven months, the author has necessarily concentrated on what is most instructive and significant to the outcome. The clarity, thorough scholarship, and careful mapping of this volume should make it especially useful for the military student, and all who read it will benefit by the author's forthright presentation of this dramatic and climactic story of U.S. Army operations in the Pacific war.

A detailed description of the three-month defense of Bataan, the siege of Corregidor, the soldier's life in the crowded intimacy of Malinta Tunnel, MacArthur's evacuation, and the surrender of 78,000 American and Allied troops.