News that allied forces had taken Manila became the primary topic of conversation, this day in 1945.
American troops reached the heart of Manila yesterday and raised the Stars and Stripes over the Philippine capital for the first time in more than three great years. Yanks of the hard-hitting First Cavalry Division, in a wide encircling move by dark, entered the city Saturday night against harassing sniper fire and quickly captured Malacanan Palace and the large Santo Tomas concentration where thousands of Americans and British civilians camp may be interned. The northern half of Manila, Pearl of the Orient, was in American hands.
The Japanese in the northern part of the city offered no major stand, but explosions were heard and fires were seen south of the wide and deep Pasig River barrier which splits the city in two. The Japanese may put up a bitter and bloody fight for the historic and commercial center of Manila, but for those who might survive, there will be no escape. 3,000 Wait Three Years for Deliverance While the 37th Division cautiously pushed through the Grace Park Airdrome from the north Saturday night, First Cavalry spearheads circled into the city from the east and yesterday morning reached Santo Tomas University grounds and threw a protective cordon around its concentration camp. Santo Tomas is perhaps the area in Manila closest to the hearts of American and British hearts. Within Santo Tomas the American and British civilians-3,000 men and women at one time–have waited deliverance for three long years.
Malacanan Palace, in Yank hands, was the historic residence successively of Spanish and American governors general, American high commissioners and from the birth of the Philippine Republic until the hurried departure on Christmas Eve, 1941, of the late President Manuel Quezon. it was just three years and six weeks ago that the last units of MacArthur’s tired, outnumbered Filipino and American forces left the capital.
Major-General Verne D. Mudge’s veteran First Cavalry regulars won the race for Manila which began 26 days before on the Lingayen Gulf beaches 107 miles to the north. In a dramatic envelopment maneuver which climaxed a 100-mile advance in 36 hours they streaked into the city from the east in darkness and raced through the modern city to the Pastig River, which flows through the center of the capital. At the same time, Major-General1 Robert S. Beightler’s Thirtyseventh Division moving from the northwest broke into the northern suburbs.
The Thirty-seventh and First Cavalrymen seized the Grace Park airdrome on Manila’s outskirts as well as the big Novaliches watershed and reservoir. On the south Major-General Joseph M. Swing’s Eleventh Airborne Division, in its first parachute operation of the Philippines campaign, seized Tagaytay municipality, 28 south of Manila, and moved swiftly northward to within 18 miles of the city as of Saturday night.
The action announced early this day covered the period through Saturday night (Philippines Time). It was probable that in the ensuing 36 hours the Americans had seized a considerable part of the city. It was believed, however. that the Japanese forces in the old section of the city, trapped by the paratroopers’ advance, were prepared for a suicide stand. “It may be a hell of a job.” a high officer said.
“It may be several days before we have the city cleaned out. But they (the Japs) have no chance.” The men of the First Cavalry drove into Manila three years, one month and two days after the Japanese took the city without a struggle when MacArthur’s battered forces withdrew to Bataan. They rescued 3,000 civilian internees after fighting their guards room-to-room through the university buildings at Santo Tomas. MacArthur said their main objective was to rescue the internees at Santo Tomas. The First Cavalry men, veterans of Leyte and in the Admiralties, also seized Grace Park Airdrome on the northeastern of the city, and the Malacanan, Palace on the north bank 200 to 300-yard Pasig River which empties westward into Manila Bay.
Here is that bulletin and report as it was heard over NBC on February 4, 1945.
