A Month of Street Fighting Destroys Manila

On February 3, 1945, advance elements of the United States Army pushed into the northern outskirts of Manila to liberate the Philippine capital from Japanese occupation. Allied forces, including American soldiers and Filipino guerrillas, made initial rapid gains across northern neighborhoods, capturing Malacañang Palace and liberating thousands of internees at the University of Santo Tomas and Bilibid Prison. Although General Douglas MacArthur announced on February 6 that Manila had fallen, organized resistance had only begun to stiffen across the Pasig River.

The defense of the city revealed a significant division within the Japanese command. General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the supreme Japanese army commander in the Philippines, intended to withdraw his forces to the mountainous regions of northern Luzon to conduct a campaign of attrition. Yamashita considered the city indefensible, declared it an open city and ordered Iwabuchi to evacuate. However, Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi, commander of the Manila Naval Defense Force, refused to leave and organized approximately seventeen thousand naval personnel and army troops into fortified enclaves throughout the capital.