In the predawn darkness of December 22, 1941, Japanese transport ships in Luzon’s Lingayen Gulf began to disgorge their contents into small boats in rough and choppy waters. As had been the case with Tomoyuki Yamashita’s 25th Army disembarkation two weeks earlier, the seas were not cooperating with Masaharu Homma’s 14th Army. Some of the transports had overshot their specified positions, and his troops would be out of alignment when they went ashore. Born on Sado Island in the Sea of Japan, Homma was used to the sea, and he understood it as an unforgiving environment in which to work. His teeth were clenched as he peered into the inky darkness at things not going according to plan.
A 1907 graduate of the IJA Academy, he had been a military attaché in the United Kingdom for eight years, had become fluent in English, and had actually seen service with the British Expeditionary Force in France during World War I. Since then, he had toured Germany, shaken hands with Adolf Hitler, and commanded the 27th Division during the war in China.
The 14th Army, which went ashore at Lingayen over the course of 48 hours, was centered on the 48th Division, commanded by Lieutenant General Yuitsu Tsuchihashi (translated in US Army sources, notably by Louis Morton, as Yuichi Tsuchibashi). They were, in turn, supported by the 8th Field Artillery Regiment, with 105mm guns and the 22nd Field Artillery with 75mm guns, as well as two units with 150mm guns, the 9th Independent Field Artillery Battalion and the 1st Field Artillery Regiment. Between them, the 4th and 7th Tank Regiments brought nearly 100 tanks.
While Homma took the main part of the 14th Army ashore on December 22 at Lingayen Gulf, about 120 miles north of Manila, the 16th Division under Lieutenant General Susumu Morioka would go ashore at Lamon Bay, about the same distance southeast of the capital, two days later.
The plan was that after initial operations, the 48th Division would ship out to the Dutch East Indies and be replaced by the smaller and less combat-capable 65th Brigade, under Lieutenant General Akira Nara, which was intended mainly as an occupation force.
The Lingayen landing took place on the east shore of the gulf across a roughly 15-mile beachhead between the towns of Bauang and Agoo. The city of Baguio was in the mountains about 20 miles directly inland from the beachhead. Favoring Homma’s troops was that Highway 3, a paved road that went all the way to Manila, ran parallel to the beachhead, connecting all of the landing sites.
A landing at Lingayen Gulf was an ideal choice. The high seas notwithstanding, it was a bay, not open ocean, and there were no major terrain features between it and Manila. Though some distance would have to be covered in the march toward Manila, there were paved roads running generally parallel to the rivers in the area, minimizing the number of bridges that would have to be secured or rebuilt.
Opposition was minimal. A landing here was not unexpected by Homma’s foe, General Douglas MacArthur, who had previously discussed plans for an aggressive defense, but the landings were met only by small arms fire. There were two Philippine Army divisions of General Jonathan Wainwright’s North Luzon Force in the area, but only one had artillery, and it was anticipating an attack on the south shore of the gulf. MacArthur had said that he would meet the invaders on the beaches, and Homma worried about such a thing, but a vigorous defense was not mounted.
Thus Homma’s troops were able to get ashore and expand their beachhead north to San Fernando Point. To the south, however, their advance from the beachhead inland to Rosario was held up by the US Army’s 26th Cavalry Regiment, still a horseback cavalry outfit, commanded by Brigadier General Clinton Pierce.
Meanwhile, the 16th and 20th Regiments of Susumu Morioka’s 16th Division had landed across a 20-mile beachhead on shallow Lamon Bay at 1:30 am on December 24 in calm seas. They too, met minimal opposition. The units of the South Luzon Force under Major General George Parker were scattered and in the process of changing positions. Those in the vicinity of Lamon Bay had no artillery.
Homma came ashore himself at Lingayen on December 24 to set up his 14th Army headquarters and to observe preparations for the attack southward through Luzon’s central valley toward Manila. Spearheaded by the 7th Tank Regiment, they began moving south at 5:00 am, but two hours later, they met and were halted by the 26th Cavalry. The ensuing firefight was costly for both sides, but the Scouts managed to hold up the Japanese until mid-afternoon before withdrawing south of the Agno River. General Wainwright, a former cavalryman himself, arrived to see this action and commented that it was a “true cavalry delaying action, fit to make a man’s heart sing. Pierce that day upheld the best traditions of the cavalry service.”
Almost as quickly as it had begun, however, the battle of northern Luzon was over in the mind of Douglas MacArthur. He had already begun implementing plans for a strategic withdrawal into the rugged, 500-square-mile Bataan Peninsula north of Manila Bay.
The theory, which had been articulated in the prewar War Plan Orange (WPO-3), was that the terrain was defensible, and MacArthur’s forces could hold out there until reinforcements arrived from the United States – as expected. However, while those on the ground in the Philippines assumed that help was on the way, the US Army War Plans Division was on the verge of making a firm decision to write off the defenders. A rescue mission, they decided from the comfort of their Washington offices, would be too costly and time consuming at a time when resources should be devoted to the war with Germany.
In a message to Chief of Staff General George Marshall, on December 22, MacArthur indicated that he might have to make his move to Luzon rather quickly because his command numbered less than 50,000 men on Luzon, and that the “Japanese disembarking from the 70 to 80 transports in Lingayen Gulf had a strength of 80,000 to 100,000 men.” In fact, like Percival in Malaya, he was overestimating by a substantial factor. The total strength of the 14th Army invasion force was 43,110.
In a meeting with President Manuel Quezon, as well as their respective aides, Colonel Manuel Nieto and Lieutenant Colonel Sidney Huff, related in Quezon’s book, The Good Fight, MacArthur told the president that he was “preparing for the worst in case the Japanese should land in great force at different places,” at which time, he would concentrate his army on Bataan, move his headquarters, the High Commissioner’s office, and the Commonwealth Government to Corregidor and declare Manila an open city.
“Do you mean, General,” asked Quezon, “that tomorrow you will declare Manila an open city and that some time during the day we shall have to go to Corregidor?”
“No,” MacArthur said, he didn’t think it would be necessary quite that soon.
Quezon recalled being “startled” by MacArthur’s sudden pessimism.
Nevertheless, MacArthur decreed that WPO-3 was in effect and ordered that the shipment of supply stockpiles to Bataan should begin.
To oppose the 14th Army offensive that was coming south toward Manila, the USAFFE implemented the North Luzon Force Plan, which called for a series of delaying actions that would take place at specific places surveyed before the war under the scenario that an enemy landing would take place at Lingayen Gulf. There would be five defensive lines separated by a distance of one night’s march. Each one was associated with a specific defensible terrain feature, such as a river, hill, or swamp. The first defensive line, called D-1, lay in the flats about 15 miles south of Lingayen, and had already been breached by December 24.
D-2, the second defensive line, ran parallel to the Agno River, the only major river in the area that ran across, rather that parallel to, the broad valley between Lingayen and Manila. The American and Filipino troops began digging here on Christmas Eve, hoping for the best.
At that same moment, President Quezon and his family, along with High Commissioner Francis Sayre and other Philippine Commonwealth officials boarded the interisland steamer Mayan, and left Manila for the relative safety of Corregidor, the heavily fortified island in the center of Manila Bay.