Foreword 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 sub- stantially 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 th e 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 involve d a fierce month-lon g battl e for Manila , the onl y such pro - tracted actio n b y U.S. forces in a big cit y durin g Worl d War II. It als o involved a complicated an d costl y reduction o f three mountain position s 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 autho r ha s necessarily concentrated o n 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 o f this dramatic an d climacti c story of U.S. Army operations in the Pacific war. JAMES A. NORELL Washington, D.C. Brigadier General, USA 15 March 1961 Chief of Military History vii The Author Robert Ross Smith received a B.A. and M.A. in American History from Duke University. A graduate of the Infantry Office r Candidat e School at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1943 , he served on the staff an d facult y of the Special Services School at Washington and Lee University and then, for two years, was a member o f the G-3 Historica l Division a t Genera l Douglas MacArthur's General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area. H e presently holds a reserve commission as a lieutenant colonel of Infantry. Mr. Smit h has been with th e Offic e o f the Chie f o f Military History, either as an officer on active duty or as a civilian, since January 1947 . Hi s first boo k i n th e serie s TH E UNITE D STATE S ARM Y I N WORL D WAR II, The Approach to the Philippines, was published in 1953 . H e is currently working on his third volume for the series, The Rivier a to the Rhine. Mr . Smith's other works include an essa y in Command Decisions (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1959, and Washington: Offic e of the Chief of Military History, 1960); an article on tactical supply prob- lems in Military Review; the article on the Pacific phase of World War I I in the Encyclopædia Britannica; and an account of the Battle of Ox Hill (1 September 1862) in Fairfax County and the War Between the States, a publication of the Fairfax County (Va. ) Civi l War Centennial Commission. viii Preface Triumph in the Philippines i s the story of the largest joint campaign of the Pacific phase of World War II. Devote d principally to the accomplish- ments of U.S. Army ground combat forces and to the operations of major organized Philippine guerrilla units that contributed notably to the success of th e campaign , th e volum e describe s th e reconques t o f th e Philippin e archipelago exclusive of Leyte and Samar. Th e narrative includes coverage of air, naval, and logistical activity necessary to broad understanding of the ground combat operations. Th e 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 Cam- paigns into their proper perspective of the war against Japan. For th e forces of General Douglas 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 Lingaye n Gulf. Viewe d from th e aspect of commitment of U.S. Army ground forces, the Luzon Campaign (whic h strategically and tacticall y in- cludes the seizure of Mindoro Island and the securing of the shipping lanes through the central Visayan Islands) wa s exceeded in siz e during World War I I onl y by the drive across northern France. Th e Luzo n Campaig n 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 Mediterranea n theaters. Th e operation s of Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger's Eighth Army, both on Luzon and during the Southern Philippine s Campaign, wer e more akin t o previou s action s throughout the Pacific, but the southern campaign, too, presented features peculiar to the reconquest of the Philippine archipelago. Triumph in the Philippines bega n as the joint effor t o f two authors, myself and a former colleague, Dr. M. Hamlin Cannon. Befor e completion of the manuscript's first draft, Dr. Cannon accepted another position and the task of completion an d revisio n fel l upo n m y shoulders. I ha d acces s t o Dr. Cannon's draft chapters, which proved valuable guides to research and which helped me avoid many pitfalls. A detailed discussion of all source material is to be found at the end of the volume in The Sources : A Critical Note. Fo r thi s preface i t is sufficient t o state that the only limitation on access to or use of records concerned questions that could be shown to have ix