By the time the fighting stopped on Luzon, U.S. troops were being redeployed from Europe to the Pacific, and in July the first contingent of service troops from the ETO arrived in Manila. In August the U.S. First Army established its command post on Luzon.
On 19 February 1945 Iwo Jima in the Bonin Islands was assaulted by marines who, by 16 March, overcame the stubborn enemy resistance and secured the island for an advance air base from which the U.S. Air Forces could support the invasion of Japan. On 1 April the invasion of Okinawa in the Ryukyus began. This island, assaulted by Marine and Army troops, was the last in the island-hopping warfare—in fact the last of the battles before the fall of Japan itself. As on Iwo, the enemy had prepared elaborate defenses and fought fanatically in the unsuccessful attempt to prevent the U.S. forces from seizing the island. Because of its closeness to Japan, the enemy was able to attack Okinawa by air from its home bases and air superiority had not been gained by the Allies before the amphibious assault began. This period of fighting was marked by Japanese suicide attacks against Allied naval ships and the Navy sustained heavy losses, losses greater than in any other campaign during the war. On 21 June the island was declared secure and the next few days were spent mopping up enemy pockets. The fall of Okinawa and Iwo gave the Allies the air bases from which the almost daily aerial attacks on the principal industrial cities of Japan were to be launched, as well as emergency landing fields for crippled B-29’s returning to their more distant island bases from attacks on Japan.
PHILIPPINES
THE PHILIPPINES
PHILIPPINES
PBY CATALINA AMPHIBIAN FLYING BOATS over the U.S. invasion fleet in Lingayen Gulf, Luzon. The Luzon Campaign began on 9 January 1945 when U.S. forces landed in the Lingayen-San Fabian area. (Consolidated Vultee.)
PHILIPPINES
