Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian W. Toll

As the battle for Manila entered its terminal phase, Japanese soldiers began rounding up civilians all over the city. They began with men and teenage boys above the age of eleven or twelve. Innocent Filipinos and expatriate civilians were kept as hostages against U.S. airstrikes. This brutal practice accomplished its purpose, inasmuch as MacArthur never acquiesced to aerial bombing in Manila. In the end, however, massive and sustained artillery barrages did the same work that the bombers would have done. No one knows how many innocent souls perished in the Battle of Manila, but the figure was certainly enormous—perhaps more than 100,000. Some were buried under the rubble of their dwellings, hiding places, and prisons, but many more—again, reliable statistics are elusive—were murdered by the Japanese in one of the most iniquitous atrocities of the twentieth century. Mass execution orders were distributed in writing to Japanese troops. Roundups and executions of “guerillas” became steadily less discriminate as U.S. forces had crossed the Pasig River. Documents captured on the battlefield refer to “disposals” on a large scale.