Anniversary of the Liberation of the Battle of Manila – February 3, 2025

History of Anniversary of the Liberation of the Battle of Manila

More than 100,000 Filipino citizens died during the U.S.-Japanese war over Manila. On small, sparsely populated islands and in the Pacific, the Pacific War saw the most devastating urban battle.

From Manila to the mountainous north, U.S. forces quickly overran Luzon. Tomoyuki Yamashita, commander of the Imperial Japanese Army, defended the city from the north. Army forces entered the city’s outskirts on February 3, 1945. It was a brief respite for both inmates and the Japanese troops guarding them while the U.S. and Japanese forces reached a short truce at a nearby university that turned into a Prisoner of War camp.

American troops entered heavily entrenched Japanese sectors of the city on February 5. However, as the Japanese defenders became more determined, MacArthur relaxed his restrictions on aerial bombardment and artillery fire. While much of Manila was still under Japanese control, MacArthur declared victory on February 6. It got worse quickly when Japanese forces encamped in the city, often in 17th-century structures. They immediately lost their coherence and discipline and began mass-murdering Filipino citizens in retaliation.

Assaults by hand-to-hand fighters and heavy artillery bombardments ravaged the city’s oldest districts over the next three weeks. The combat and artillery barrages destroyed numerous historical structures. The Japanese used human shields and horrific massacres against civilians (including attacks against co-belligerent Germans living in towns). Japanese organized resistance stopped in March.