To memorialize those killed, the organization erected a statue in Intramuros of a weeping mother cradling a dead infant, surrounded by other dead or dying figures. Complicating the challenge for American war planners was the mix of intelligence they were receiving. “I did not know what to do.”, That same day, Japanese forces surrounded the German Club, a large social hall where more than 500 civilians had gathered in the crawlspace for protection against the shellfire. “Defeat is a bitter pill that the Japanese will not swallow,” she wrote. (National Archives). Yamashita was convicted on December 7, 1945. An American soldier watches Manila burn. “We were powerless to stop it—we had no way of knowing in which of the thousands of places the demolitions were being controlled,” the general wrote in a report. The 123 charges against him accounted for 62,278 tortured and murdered civilians, 144 slain American officers and enlisted men, and 488 raped women. Many others loved the beautiful city as well. (Left: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy; Right: National Archives). Summarizing what happened in Manila, London Daily Express reporter Henry Keyes wrote, “At last the Japanese have matched the [1937-38] Rape of Nanking.”. THE INVESTIGATORS’ TENACIOUS WORK formed the basis of the prosecution’s case in fall 1945 against General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who had walked out of the mountains of northern Luzon and surrendered on September 2, 1945. Standing in MacArthur’s way was Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita, the senior military commander in the Philippines and legendary “Tiger of Malaya.” Yamashita’s job was to turn the Philippines into a tar pit and bog down American forces. A mother and child are among the victims of widespread butchery. Manila, Open City is a 1968 war film written, produced, and directed by Eddie Romero about the Battle of Manila in World War II. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. “To live in Manila in 1941,” remembered CBS news correspondent Bill Dunn, “was to experience the good life.”. To retake Manila, American forces carved up the city. THE STORIES TOLD BY the survivors outraged American commanders, MacArthur in particular. American soldiers would soon discover that this was only the first of dozens of atrocities committed during the Battle of Manila. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by Historynet LLC, the world's largest publisher of history magazines. “Big, modern, reinforced concrete and steel office buildings were literally blown from their foundations to settle crazily in twisted heaps.”. Japanese marines fanned out that day through the district of Malate, rounding up hundreds of civilians and herding them into the cavernous dining hall at Saint Paul’s College, promising them safety from the battle. The Japanese went so far as to lure victims into an open lot on Kansas Street by planting a Red Cross flag. But the good life ended on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and, a few hours later, bombed the Philippines. Victory had proven costly—613 city blocks flattened, an estimated 100,000 civilians dead, and another 200,000 homeless. Iwabuchi saw in Manila a chance to redeem himself by creating an urban bloodletting similar to that at Stalingrad. The 37th Infantry would cross the Pasig River near Malacañang Palace, turn west, and drive toward Intramuros and the waterfront. General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, who had lived in Manila before the war and had hoped to spare the city, was outraged. “Gains were measured more by street intersections cleared rather than city blocks secured,” one infantryman recalled. The inscription at the base of the statue provides a powerful epitaph for the tens of thousands of men, women, and children who died during those terrible weeks in February 1945. its destruction. The troops then proceeded to behead the men one after the other in an assembly line of horror. “Defensive preparation of civilian homes,” read another. That effort began in earnest after American forces secured the city on March 3, just 29 days after troops first rolled into Manila and liberated Santo Tomas. Others photographed wounds and walked through massacre sites alongside survivors, sketching diagrams and taking photos. But the good life ended on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and, a few hours later, bombed the Philippines. (National Archives), The following afternoon, Japanese marines stormed the Red Cross headquarters, going room by room shooting and bayoneting more than 50 civilians, including two infants—one just 10 days old. The men who wriggled out to escape were gunned down. “I was raped between 12 and 15 times during that night. Louis Auchincloss, novelist (Portrait in Brownstone, The Embezzler). “It was impossible to hold back the worshipping and joyous internees.”. To do this, Iwabuchi divided his 17,000 men into several geographic commands that covered northern, central, and southern Manila. MacArthur endured 77 days in the tunnels of Corregidor before escaping, upon President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s order, on March 11, 1942, in a PT boat under the cover of darkness.