When American troops landed in Lingayen Gulf in January 1945, General Douglas MacArthur was convinced that recapturing Manila would only take a few days. Reality turned out to be brutal. Instead of a triumphant entry into a liberated city, the Americans were forced into a month-long battle that claimed more civilian lives than many of the largest military operations of the entire Pacific War.
The Situation Before the Battle
The commander of Japanese forces in the Philippines, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, had no intention of defending the metropolis of 800,000 people. He fully understood that the city’s wooden buildings were highly flammable and feeding such a huge population during a siege was impossible. His plan was to withdraw his main forces into the mountains of northern Luzon, where he intended to tie down the American troops for as long as possible, thus delaying any potential invasion of the Japanese Home Islands.
Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi, however, had entirely different plans. This naval officer, who had previously lost the battleship Kirishima off Guadalcanal, was looking for an opportunity for redemption.
He assembled in Manila the Navy Defense Forces under his command, consisting of survivors from various sunken vessels, and decided to defend the city to the last man. When the commander of the army troops in the capital region saw that the navy was preparing to fight, honor compelled him to also leave his own battalions in the city.
This disastrous decision, made against Yamashita’s orders, sealed the fate of Manila and its residents. Iwabuchi ordered defensive positions to be prepared, everything that could be of use to the attackers to be blown up, and minefields to be laid. The historic district of Intramuros, surrounded by walls from Spanish times, was to become a fortress.
The Pincer Closes
The Americans approached from two directions simultaneously. From the north came the 1st Cavalry Division, whose commander received a laconic order from MacArthur: to liberate the prisoners at Santo Tomas, seize the presidential palace, and capture the legislature building.
From the south advanced the 11th Airborne Division, which landed near Nasugbu without significant resistance. Both formations benefited from the invaluable assistance of the Filipino resistance, which at its peak numbered 270,000 members.
The rapid cavalry raid allowed them to reach the Santo Tomas University complex by the evening of February 3, where the Japanese were detaining over three thousand civilian internees. Their liberation was a propaganda success, but the joy quickly gave way to horror. As Americans tried to push into the southern districts, they encountered fierce resistance—and something much worse.
Japanese defenders, aware of their inevitable defeat, began systematically massacring the civilian population. Residents were herded into buildings, which were then set alight or blown up. Women and girls were victims of mass rapes, often killed afterward.
The victims included citizens of neutral countries and even Japan’s allies. The Venezuelan consul was killed along with his entire family; a similar fate befell a representative of the Vichy government. At the German Club, a dozen citizens of the Third Reich were murdered, even though one tried to save himself by showing his German passport.
The End of the Historic District
The fate of Intramuros was particularly tragic. The Japanese herded nearly five thousand Filipinos there, using them as human shields and hostages. When American artillery began shelling the old town, about a hundred civilians were placed on the walls. Still, the command did not stop the fire. Over several days, a total of 185 tons of shells, including 203 mm howitzer rounds, fell on the small district.
In the dungeons of Fort Santiago, which for centuries served as a prison and execution site, the Americans later discovered the bodies of hundreds of brutally murdered men. Many showed signs of torture or extreme starvation.
The Catholic clergy suffered particularly heavy losses. Over eighty priests and monks and fifty nuns were killed, some raped before they died. At De la Salle College, Japanese soldiers murdered thirty-nine people, including fifteen Christian Brothers of various nationalities.
The Battle of Intramuros ended on February 24. Of the nearly two-thousand-strong Japanese garrison, only twenty-five soldiers were taken prisoner. Fighting for government buildings continued for another week. Only on March 3 did the last stronghold, the ruins of the Department of Finance, fall, where Rear Admiral Iwabuchi committed suicide.
The Price of Liberation
Manila was free, but it was difficult to call the victory a triumph. One thousand American soldiers were killed, over five thousand wounded. Nearly all of the sixteen thousand Japanese defenders were wiped out. Yet the greatest toll was paid by the civilian population: according to American estimates, nearly 100,000 killed in less than a month.
The material losses were equally overwhelming. Intramuros was almost entirely destroyed, with only the Church of Saint Augustine surviving. The historic walls were half-demolished. The port districts, Malate and Ermita, lay almost completely in ruins. The Philippine National Library lost hundreds of thousands of books, and the National Museum lost 2,500 works of art.
MacArthur, touring the ruined city where he had probably spent the best years of his life, said simply: Manila is the Warsaw of Asia. American war correspondents echoed this comparison, calling the Philippine capital the most destroyed city in the world after the Polish capital.
The analogy was apt not only in terms of the scale of destruction. Like Warsaw, the massacre took a significant portion of the pre-war elite—hundreds of activists, artists, scholars, and entrepreneurs. The Philippines faced decades of political instability, which ultimately led to dictatorship.
Autor
Rory Thornfield
Rory's grandfather left behind a wartime diary filled with accounts of a minor Burma skirmish that history books never mentioned. Reading it, Rory realized: behind every famous battle are dozens of forgotten struggles, each with its own human drama.
His preferred topics: The overlooked corners of military history – secondary campaigns, shadow battalions, local conflicts that never made headlines. From medieval sieges to twentieth-century expeditions, he focuses on the soldiers, not the generals. The people who faced impossible choices and carried those experiences forever.
Rory strips away the romanticism without losing respect for those who served. He combines tactical analysis with personal stories, examining human endurance and moral complexity rather than celebrating warfare. His writing is balanced, thoughtful, and deeply researched.
Outside work, Rory visits forgotten battlefields (now quiet farmland), photographs war memorials nobody tends anymore, and interviews veterans' families.