Battle of Corregidor | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Pacific Theater of World War II | |||||||
American and Filipino prisoners, captured at Corregidor | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Japan | |||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Jonathan M. Wainwright (POW) George F. Moore (POW) Samuel L. Howard (POW) |
Masaharu Homma Kureo Taniguchi Gempachi Sato Kizon Mikami Haruji Morita Col. Koike Col. Inoue | ||||||
Units involved | |||||||
Ground units:
Naval Units:
|
Ground units: Aerial units: | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
13,000 U.S. and Filipino troops, 2 gunboats, and 1 minesweeper | 75,000 Japanese troops | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
800 killed 1,000 wounded 11,000 POWs 1 gunboat sunk 1 gunboat scuttled 1 minesweeper scuttled |
900 killed 1,200 wounded |
The Battle of Corregidor (Filipino: Labanan sa Corregidor; Japanese: コレヒドールの戦い), fought on 5–6 May 1942, was the culmination of the Japanese campaign for the conquest of the Commonwealth of the Philippines during World War II.
The fall of Bataan on 9 April 1942 ended all organized opposition by the United States Army Forces in the Far East to the invading Japanese forces on Luzon, in the northern Philippines. The island bastion of Corregidor, with its network of tunnels and formidable array of defensive armaments, along with the fortifications across the entrance to Manila Bay, was the remaining obstacle to the Japanese 14th Army of Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma. Homma had to take Corregidor because as long as the island remained in American hands, the Japanese would be denied the use of Manila Bay and its harbor. The U.S. Army eventually recaptured the island in 1945.