Pacific · United States and Philippines vs Japan
Siege of Corregidor
10 April 1942 – 6 May 1942
After Bataan fell the fortress island at the mouth of Manila Bay was bombarded for a month from the peninsula and from the air. Japanese troops landed on the tail of the island on the night of 5 May and reached the Malinta Tunnel by morning. Wainwright surrendered and was compelled to order all forces in the Philippines to lay down their arms.
Explore Siege of Corregidor on the interactive map · Wikipedia
Day by day
— The guns on Bataan
With Bataan gone, Japanese artillery is set up on the high ground above Cabcaben, three kilometres from Corregidor and looking straight down on it. The bombardment starts on the 10th and runs for twenty-seven days. About 11,000 men are on the island, half of them Bataan survivors who swam or rowed across, and the tunnel hospital is already full.
— The Emperor's birthday
The heaviest shelling of the siege is fired on 29 April to mark the Emperor's birthday, and it goes on through the night. Battery Geary's mortars are blown apart on 2 May and most of the seaward guns are out of action; the beach defences on the tail of the island are stripped of cover. Water is rationed to a canteen a man.
— The landing
Two battalions of the 61st Infantry cross from Cabcaben at 23:00 and are carried east of their beaches by the tide, coming ashore between North Point and Cavalry Point. The shore batteries and the Marines kill perhaps half of them in the boats and on the sand, but by dawn about 800 are ashore with three tanks. The Marines are pushed back on to Malinta Hill.
— Malinta
The tanks come up the road toward the Malinta Tunnel, where a thousand wounded are lying, and Wainwright decides that a fight in the tunnel mouth would be a massacre. The flag comes down at about 12:00 and he broadcasts the surrender; Homma refuses to accept Corregidor alone, so on the 7th Wainwright orders every command in the Philippines to lay down its arms. Some hold out in Mindanao until the 9th, and a few never do.
