The Invasion of Palawan (
Filipino: ''Paglusob sa Palawan'') consisted of a series of actions officially designated Operation Victor I and Operation Victor II, fought by U.S. forces against the Japanese military from 28 February to 22 April 1945 as a part of the campaign for the liberation of the
Philippines
The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
during World War II. The aim of the invasion was the recapture of the southern islands of the Philippine archipelago and liberating them from
Japanese occupation.
Background
As the elements of the U.S. Sixth Army under Lieutenant General Walter Krueger moved into the city of
Manila
Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...
to retake it from the well dug-in Japanese forces, General
Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American general who served as a top commander during World War II and the Korean War, achieving the rank of General of the Army (United States), General of the Army. He served with dis ...
issued orders for the start of preplanned operations to recapture the entire southern Philippine archipelago from the Japanese, all code-named VICTOR, regardless by which the assigned forces were to proceed.
With
Mindoro
Mindoro is the seventh largest and eighth-most populous island in the Philippines. With a total land area of 10,571 km2 ( 4,082 sq.mi ), it has a population of 1,408,454, as of the 2020 census. It is located off the southwestern coast of ...
island already in
Allied hands since 16 December 1944 and the campaign for the recapture of
Luzon
Luzon ( , ) is the largest and most populous List of islands in the Philippines, island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the List of islands of the Philippines, Philippine archipelago, it is the economic and political ce ...
already in full swing, the Americans wanted to establish another base of operations that would diminish the threat of Japanese troop incursions from the larger islands down south and cut off reinforcements coming from Japanese-occupied
Indochina
Mainland Southeast Asia (historically known as Indochina and the Indochinese Peninsula) is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to th ...
in mainland Asia via the
South China Sea
The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by South China, in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan island, Taiwan and northwestern Philippines (mainly Luz ...
and the southwestern
Sulu Sea
The Sulu Sea (; Tausug: ''Dagat sin Sūg''; ; ) is a body of water in the southwestern area of the Philippines, separated from the South China Sea in the northwest by Palawan and from the Celebes Sea in the southeast by the Sulu Archipela ...
.
The U.S. Eighth Army of Lt. Gen.
Robert L. Eichelberger
Robert Lawrence Eichelberger (9 March 1886 – 26 September 1961) was a general officer in the United States Army who commanded the Eighth United States Army in the South West Pacific theatre of World War II, Southwest Pacific Area during W ...
was directed to invade and seize the provincial capital of
Palawan
Palawan (, ), officially the Province of Palawan (; ), is an archipelagic province of the Philippines that is located in the region of Mimaropa. It is the largest province in the country in terms of total area of . The capital and largest c ...
, Puerto Princesa, after which they would proceed to the
Zamboanga Peninsula in western
Mindanao
Mindanao ( ) is the List of islands of the Philippines, second-largest island in the Philippines, after Luzon, and List of islands by population, seventh-most populous island in the world. Located in the southern region of the archipelago, the ...
and parts of the
Sulu Archipelago
The Sulu Archipelago ( Tausug: Kapū'-pūan sin Sūg Sulat Sūg: , ) is a chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean, in the southwestern Philippines. The archipelago forms the northern limit of the Celebes Sea and southern limit of the Sulu Se ...
.
On 10 Feb., 7 American soldiers landed on Palawan and made contact with the guerrilla network. There they gathered intelligence on Japanese troop strength, estimated to be 1,285 soldiers, and coordinated the forthcoming troop landings.
Operation VICTOR III
The primary objectives were to complete the isolation of the central Philippine islands of Panay, Negros, Cebu and Bohol and to expand the range of Allied air operations. Aircraft based at Palawan could conduct interdiction missions as far as Indochina and cut off Japanese sea lanes in the South China Sea, while planes flying from Zamboanga and the islands in Sulu also could reach Japanese oil installations on
Borneo
Borneo () is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world, with an area of , and population of 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Situated at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, it is one of the Greater Sunda ...
. Gen. Eichelberger chose the 41st Infantry Division of Maj. Gen.
Jens A. Doe to conduct the Palawan, Zamboanga and Sulu operations.
250px, Map of U.S. operations in Southern Philippines, 1945
Like most of the Philippine Islands, Palawan was a hostile site for an invading force. Well over in length and up to wide, the numerous reefs, sand banks, and mangrove swamps of the island's coast offered few suitable landing sites. Farther inland, the coastal plain gave way to heavily forested mountains that offered great defensive potential to Japanese forces. The 186th Regimental Combat Team of Brig. Gen. Harold H. Haney—the assistant 41st Division commander—was the principal combat unit entrusted by Gen. Doe to carry out the Palawan invasion.
A naval task force of cruisers and destroyers from the
7th Fleet under Vice Admiral
Thomas C. Kinkaid
Thomas Cassin Kinkaid (3 April 1888 – 17 November 1972) was an admiral in the United States Navy, known for his service during World War II. He built a reputation as a "fighting admiral" in the aircraft carrier battles of 1942 and commanded th ...
—which was Gen. Macarthur's naval command—would protect the landing forces on their movements to shore and then remain to provide gunfire as needed. Troops and supplies would be actually carried by elements drawn from a 7th Fleet component command, the VII Amphibious Force under Rear Adm. Daniel E. Barbey. The Palawan landings were to be undertaken by the assigned amphibious task force of Rear Adm. William M. Fechteler.
Battle
After two days of punitive air strikes by the U.S. 13th Air Force and a fierce naval bombardment by 7th Fleet warships offshore, the first assault wave from the 186th Regimental Combat Team began moving ashore at Puerto Princesa on the morning of 28 February, under the eyes of Gen. Eichelberger, who watched from a
B-17
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is an American four-engined heavy bomber aircraft developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). A fast and high-flying bomber, the B-17 dropped more bombs than any other aircraft during ...
heavy bomber
Heavy bombers are bomber Fixed-wing aircraft, aircraft capable of delivering the largest payload of air-to-ground weaponry (usually Aerial bomb, bombs) and longest range (aeronautics), range (takeoff to landing) of their era. Archetypal heavy ...
flying overhead.
As expected, the absence of suitable landing areas slowed the largely unopposed unloading operation, but the process would have been even slower if not for the outstanding efficiency of the Army Shore Party and Boat Company from the
2nd Engineer Special Brigade, units who ably supervised and managed the movement of troops and supplies at the beach landings.
The men of the 186th RCT quickly fanned out, with two battalions striking north along the eastern side of Puerto Princesa Harbor while a third battalion crossed the bay at its midpoint and then pushed north, but then as the first day progressed, it became clear to the invading American troops that the Japanese troops—holdovers from Lt. Gen. Sōsaku Suzuki's 35th Army—would not put up a fight at Puerto Princesa and had withdrawn into the hills to the northwest.
More disturbing was the revelation of a
massacre of approximately 140 American prisoners of war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...
the previous December. The presence of a passing Allied convoy made the alarmed Japanese believe that an invasion was imminent and had herded their prisoners into air-raid shelters, subsequently setting the shelters afire and shooting prisoners who tried to escape. Only 11 American prisoners of war miraculously survived immolation and escaped the shooting. Sheltered by natives until the Americans landed, they emerged during the battle to tell their horrifying tale, which only hardened American resolve to end Japanese rule over the island.
The 186th RCT encountered little opposition until its third day ashore on 3 March when fierce fighting erupted as soldiers entered the hills that lay about north of the harbor. Five days of savage combat eliminated the strongly defended Japanese pockets. In the weeks that followed, Gen. Eichelberger also directed smaller units of the 186th RCT to seize the small islands situated to the northern and southern parts of Palawan. On 9 March, a 186th RCT reconnaissance team landed on
Dumaran Island
Dumaran Island is an island in the province of Palawan in the Philippines. It is around away from mainland Palawan at its closest point and is accessible by pump boats. The island is administratively divided between the municipalities of Du ...
to the northeast of Palawan and found it unoccupied. Then on 9 April a month later, Company F, 186th Infantry, landed on
Busuanga Island, killed 10 Japanese, and reported the island secured. Subsequently, the regiment also seized nearby
Culion
Culion, officially the Municipality of Culion (), is a municipality in the province of Palawan, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 23,213 people.
Culion consists primarily of Culion Island as well as 41 minor sur ...
and
Coron. To the south, parties from the 2nd Battalion landed on
Balabac on 16 April and at Pandanan on 22 April. Both landings were unopposed.
Aftermath
Casualties on Palawan were unbalanced. U.S. Army forces lost 12 killed and 56 wounded, while Japanese dead numbered almost 900 and another 140 wounded, which were approximately ½ of the Palawan garrison.
Mopping up activities on Palawan lasted until late April, when the remaining Japanese simply withdrew farther into the trackless mountain jungles of Palawan—a pattern that repeated during all of the major operations in the southern Philippines—after which many were stalked and killed by U.S. troops and Filipino guerrillas.
Meanwhile, airfield construction began almost immediately on Palawan. Although marshy soil conditions slowed the engineers' progress, American fighter planes were using the Puerto Princesa airstrip by late March 1945. Construction of an all-weather runway for heavy bombers came too late to support Eichelberger's next operation, but it subsequently was used to interdict Japanese supply lines in the South China Sea and support the Borneo operations that began in May 1945.
See also
*
Palawan massacre
*
Military History of the Philippines during World War II
The Commonwealth of the Philippines was attacked by the Empire of Japan on 8 December 1941, nine hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor (the Philippines is on the Asian side of the international date line). Although it was governed by a semi-ind ...
*
Military history of the United States
The military history of the United States spans over four centuries, dating back to 1607 and pre-dating by nearly two centuries the founding of the nation following the American Revolutionary War. During this moment, the United States evolved f ...
*
Military history of Japan
The military history of Japan covers a vast time-period of over three millennia - from the Jōmon ( 1000 BC) to the present day. After a long period of clan warfare until the 12th century, there followed feudal wars that culminated in military ...
*
History of the Philippines
References
*Triumph in the Philippines by Robert Ross Smith (2005), Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, , pp. 589–591
*World War II in the Pacific: An Encyclopedia (Military History of the United States) by S. Sandler (2000) Routledge
Further reading
*{{cite book , url = http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/southphil/southphils.htm , series = The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II , title = Southern Philippines Campaign] , publisher = United States Army Center of Military History , id = CMH Pub 72-40 , first = Stephen J. , last = Lofgren , access-date = 2010-08-12 , archive-date = 2012-01-01 , archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120101123644/http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/southphil/southphils.htm , url-status = dead
Philippines campaign (1944–1945), Palawan
Palawan
Palawan (, ), officially the Province of Palawan (; ), is an archipelagic province of the Philippines that is located in the region of Mimaropa. It is the largest province in the country in terms of total area of . The capital and largest c ...
1945 in the Philippines
History of Palawan
Palawan
Palawan (, ), officially the Province of Palawan (; ), is an archipelagic province of the Philippines that is located in the region of Mimaropa. It is the largest province in the country in terms of total area of . The capital and largest c ...
Palawan
Palawan (, ), officially the Province of Palawan (; ), is an archipelagic province of the Philippines that is located in the region of Mimaropa. It is the largest province in the country in terms of total area of . The capital and largest c ...
February 1945 in Asia
March 1945 in Asia
April 1945 in Asia
ja:ビサヤ諸島の戦い#パラワン島