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Post by rik on Oct 7, 2013 15:45:08 GMT 8
"Respect" probably isn't the right word but this is something I've been wondering since learning the whole story of The Rock. The average American is very, very familiar with the D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy and rightly so as it was certainly the pivotal battle in winning the war in Europe. So why doesn't Corregidor get anywhere near as much attention? I would argue that Corregidor/Bataan was as important to winning the Pacific theater as D-Day was to winning the European theater. Not only that but you could also make the case that the men and women who held out as long as they did under impossible odds on The Rock sacrificed as much as the men who landed in Normandy, also under impossible odds. It's not my intention to denigrate D-Day at all, I've just always thought that Corregidor deserves to be held in equally high regard. It disappoints me greatly that more Americans don't know anything about Corregidor beyond it being just another battle of WW2.
Thoughts?
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Post by okla on Oct 7, 2013 21:50:56 GMT 8
Hey rik....I would agree with much you say, but Normandy, D-Day, etc will always get the larger spotlight, for lack of a better word, because it was such a major operation, and pivotal step in the recapture of Western Europe from Germany. Corregidor/Bataan takes no backseat to any battle as far as sacrifice, heroism, etc, but it was a delaying action by the way things were shaking out in those early days of the Pacific conflict. Bataan/Corregidor certainly was important as a "symbol". The Japs were running wild all over the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia, but not so in the PI. The Amer/Fil defenders, by their stubborn defense, subsequent to the withdrawal into the Peninsula, as War Plan Orange dictated,, said, in effect "not so fast. We ain't going to be such easy pickings as have the other areas have been". Maybe I have over simplified things, but this is my take. Those guys, although not in the same numbers, bled blood, just as red as those on Omaha Beach. It just wasn't in a larger, more complex/complicated, venture as far as the "big picture" goes. I will always believe that their "holding out" might have tied down enough Japanese troops, shipping, etc to blunt the enemy strength when they entered New Guinea campaign, making a difference in the drive toward Port Moresby. Maybe if the Japanese had possessed just one more Regiment, they may have broken thru the Aussie line at Kokoda. but that Regiment was being replenished, retrained, or replaced due to being expended in the last fighting on Bataan or the landings on "the Rock". If nothing else the Bataan/Corregidor guys showed the world that the Emperor's troops weren't invincible "supermen". I like to think this is so. Cheers.
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Post by rik on Oct 8, 2013 1:32:56 GMT 8
Okla, I like the way you think: holding out as long as they did under completely impossible odds quite possibly cost Japan the war in the long run. Consider that the Japanese 4th Division was earmarked to go augment Japanese forces fighting in the island campaigns after Corregidor was captured; by the time Corregidor was finally taken, the 4th Division was decimated so badly (down to somewhere around 10% strength I think?) that they had to be sent back to Japan to be decommissioned. If they'd taken Bataan and Corregidor as quickly and cleanly as they anticipated and the 4th did go on to augment their forces fighting the island campaigns, how many of the the Allied victories would have been losses? Would Japan have been able to invade Australia as they planned? I think one has to read some of the detailed accounts ("Saga of a Fortress" is my favorite) of what the defenders of Corregidor went through, not just to survive but to inflict massive damage to the Japanese war machine to really get a sense of exactly how important The Rock and Bataan were to the eventual Allied victory in the Pacific. And that was only the first half of its part in the war; the airborne operation to retake it was nothing short of miraculous when you consider everything that could (and should) have gone wrong but didn't. It was like a great tragedy in two parts with a bittersweet ending. Taken together, there really was no greater subplot to the Pacific campaign. It astounds me that Hollywood has never bothered to make a major production film about Corregidor. Hell, the miniseries "The Pacific" omitted Corregidor completely.
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Post by raven316 on Oct 8, 2013 2:17:47 GMT 8
My father served on the USS Crosby and landed the 1st Bn, 503'd on day two. I don't think it is a lack of respect for the accomplishment, I think it is a matter of scope. Iwo Jima was at the same time and the casualties were so much greater, almost 7,000 Americans and 21,000 plus Japanese KIA. Compared with 207 American and 6,600 Japanese on the Rock. The Assault on Corregidor required incredible bravery on the part of the Americans involved and those days never left my father but it is understandable to me that it does not have the same name recognition as some other battles.
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Post by darthdract on Oct 8, 2013 6:37:36 GMT 8
It astounds me that Hollywood has never bothered to make a major production film about Corregidor. Hell, the miniseries "The Pacific" omitted Corregidor completely. Not only that I think corregidor is strategically important during the 1942 campaign, I also think the 1945 retaking aside from being part of the over all strategy is somewhat dramatic as dramatic as the 1942 Bataan death march/delaying campaign. I would love to watch a motion picture tribute to corregidor a video documentary will also be great I dig those things. I think a movie about the battle of Manila including the corregidor campaign would be great especially if done very well hollywood style. Just seeing pre war Manila City hall, The STO. Tomas camp and corregidor re created in CG would be a treat.
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Post by rik on Oct 8, 2013 12:34:17 GMT 8
I don't think it is a lack of respect for the accomplishment, I think it is a matter of scope. Iwo Jima was at the same time and the casualties were so much greater Well, like I said, I think "respect" is probably the wrong word. What I meant was more a lack of being recognized for its importance. For instance, I can't remember Corregidor ever being taught in any of my history classes in high school or college yet I can recall practically every battle in Europe and North Africa being taught ad nauseum. The Pacific part of WW2 seems to get reduced to: Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the US retaliated by capturing a bunch of islands in the south Pacific culminating in raising the flag at Iwo Jima, then dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki thus ending the war. How can you teach the Pacific campaign without at least going into some detail about Corregidor? I own dozens of WW2 documentaries on DVD, probably several hundreds of hours worth and not a single one of them give The Rock more than a passing mention. If they do, it's usually as a side note to the Bataan Death March.
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Post by raven316 on Oct 8, 2013 21:38:03 GMT 8
I can't argue with you. My dad was pretty bitter about the emphasis on the European Theater both during and after the war. He wouldn't go near the D-Day Museum, "nuts, I was in 28 D-day's!" until they opened the Pacific Wing and renamed it.When we went to the dedication there were a couple of truck loads of sailors from Taffy 3. I asked him what that was and he didn't know. "The Greatest Naval Victory in American history, he was right there in Leyte and HE hardly knew about it. "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" make a pretty good case that the battle was minimized because Halsey screwed up and they didn't want it to be made too public. How many people really grasp what Okinawa was in terms of TO&E and casualties? I guess there are plenty of examples of events that are not given the notice they deserve, that's why I am happy this site is here.
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Post by okla on Oct 8, 2013 22:01:48 GMT 8
Hey rik/raven.....Even within the Pacific Campaign emphasis has been placed more upon one battle as compared to another. The New Guinea battles, going on at approximately the same time, if memory serves, had equal if not more Army casualties as we suffered on Guadalcanal, but very little is known about the slugfest around Buna, Gona, Lae,etc. Of course, the Navy lost huge numbers of men and vessels in the surface and air battles down in the Solomons, whereas, the Japanese Fleet didn't venture into the waters off New Guinea in any significant numbers. This, of course, would contribute to the little knowledge of the fighting in the SW Pacific as opposed to the Solomon Islands fighting. The Pacific Campaign, as the High Command saw it, was secondary. This was the view from the "git go". The "Europe First" philosophy held sway over the Pacific from the outset, although Admiral King and MacArthur raised enough Hell that we did begin to get a bigger portion of men and materiel earlier then the planners had anticipated. If the Germany first people had their way, we might have sat on our haunches, after New Guinea and the 'canal were secured, and awaited Hitler's downfall, before a concerted effort was made against Japan. If this had taken place, our Brothers in the PI would have suffered even more than they already had. Again, just my humble.
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Post by raven316 on Oct 9, 2013 21:34:27 GMT 8
Hey OKLA,
Yea, it's all complex. I was raised in a Navy household, the old man was an enlisted sailor on the Crosby and, after her earned his degree post-war, he took a commission. I was raised on tales of the Pacific and have only recently began reading about the war in Europe. The most stunning thing I came across was that there were more deaths among European bomber crews than marine deaths in the Pacific! You probably knew that but it was a shock to me. I visited the Mighty Eight Air Force Museum in Savannah last year and it's quite a place. I looked back and see that you were USAF and at Clark in the 50's. I was Army and did tours in Korea, 67-68 and Vietnam 68-69.
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Post by okla on Oct 9, 2013 21:43:08 GMT 8
Hey Raven....Yes, I was USAF from 1951 till 1955. I was with an F-86 Wing in frozen Chosen from July 1952 till July 1953. I labored in the Wing Ops/Intelligence Section. In fact, the Korean Armistice was signed while I was aboard a troop ship, celebrating my 21st birthday, returning to Seattle. By coincidence, our boatload was the first returning group from Korea. I was never at Clark, but moved heaven and earth (as much as a Sergeant can do such things), to extend my overseas hitch for an additional year down in the PI instead of taking my normal rotation back to the ZI. This effort ended in failure and I returned to the US to serve out my four year hitch in Texas. That wasn't too bad as I was within a 3 day pass distance from my home in the Tulsa area. I, too, was shocked, several years ago to learn that the 8th Air Force suffered more combat casualties than did the USMC during WW 2, but when one stops to think about it you can readily see why. The Gyrenes would usually hit a beach, fight like Hell for some number of days, weeks, take heavy losses, and pull out to regroup, retrain, etc and ready themselves for their next ordeal. The European bomber groups would lose up to, maybe 50 or 60 B-17s and B-24 (not to mention the light bomber craft, with their 10 man crews day after day, week after week. This adds up in a hurry. That raid on the ball bearing factory at Sweinfurt in 1943, alone(I am guessing at the spelling here) cost 60 Flying Fortresses with their 10 crewmen. Right there they lost 600 men, either KIA, MIA, wounded or POW. Yes, like you, I was surprised to learn this about USAAF losses in Europe. Your Father, obviously, was involved in more than his share of action. An older neighbor/friend of mine (now deceased) was on the USS Franklin when she was hit. He was one of the fortunate ones who survived by crawling thru an air shaft from the Galley to the flight deck where he suffered minor burns and bitched till his dying days about never receiving a Purple Heart. I also worked for several years with a man who was on the USS Nevada at Pearl Harbor, another work mate served during the conflict on the USS Pennsylvania from early 1942 (after she was repaired from her Pearl Harbor damage) all thru the war. He said he was in the "black gang" and during invasion bombardments and Suriago Gulf, somebody Topside would, on the "pregnant dog box", keep them abreast of the goings on, kinda like listening to a ballgame. He said during the Suriago battle that he and his black gang buddies were a bit "uptight". I guess it would be a long climb to safety if you took a hit, especially below the waterline. Nice talking to you. Cheers. Postscript...I also worked with a fellow who lost an Uncle on a Submarine. Thing is, it was a German U-Boat. This guy's mother was a German War Bride, coming to the US in 1948. Her older brother was a Chef in a Berlin Hotel and was drafted into the Kraut Navy and ended up cooking on one of Donitz's U-Boats.
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