Philippine Lightning

With lightning-swift strokes, General Douglas MacArthur was winning back the Philippines. Warships churned the waters between the islands, rushing to batter open the way for more, and still more, landings.

As the first American cargo ship to enter Manila Harbor since 1942 steamed past Corregidor's battered casemates, 24th Division troops stormed tiny Verde Island, midway between Luzon and Mindoro. It was the last Japanese strongpoint astride the shortest sea route to the U.S.

Forty-first Division troops swarmed across the narrow beaches of Palawan, whose coastline flanks Japanese shipping lines through the South China Sea.

Men of the Americal Division smashed their way onto Ticao and Burias Islands in the Sibuyan Sea, to build a springboard for an eventual jump against the Japanese penned up in Luzon's Bicol Peninsula.

For General MacArthur these were emotion-filled days. His voice broke and his eyes filled as he stood between rusty brocaded drapes at a reception in Malacanan Palace (TIME, Mar. 5) and spoke his joy at the liberation of his beloved Manila, "cruelly punished though it be." Then he smiled, kissed Mrs. Sergio Osmea, wife of the Philippines' President, murmured, "I'm so glad you're home."

He returned to Corregidor in Lieut. Joseph Roberts' PT-373, much as he had left in Lieut, (now Commander) John Bulkeley's PT-41, almost 36 months before. Said MacArthur: "It has been a long way back."

And long and rocky stretched the road ahead. His men were still digging Jap stragglers out of Manila's hot rubble. Thirteen were taken in the Philippine General Hospital two weeks after it was captured. But the main Army forces, their work done, had turned away from the city, gone back to the jungles.

A fifth of the Luzon heartland--the most important fifth--was in American hands. By latest estimate, more than 100,000 of the 161,000 Japanese who had begun the defense of the Philippines were dead. But still the enemy fought on, died hard and spread horror as he died.

At Puerto Princesa in Palawan, American troops came on the wreckage of the police barracks, where the Japanese had held 150 American prisoners from Bataan. There, as liberation day approached, the Japanese had forced their prisoners into underground air-raid shelters, then poured in gasoline and tossed in torches. A few men had managed to get out, run through spraying Japanese machine-gun fire and escaped. All the rest died.

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