This information is from a web site of the VFW Post 7591 Madison, Wisconsin.

Guam was occupied by the Japanese in two days, and Wake Island was occupied in two weeks after heavy fighting by the US Naval and Marine forces. However, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines stalled their timetable of conquest. After initially trying to defend the island of Luzon at the beaches, General MacArthar, the Commander of United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) decided to withdrawal all forces to the Bataan peninsula. The organized retreat (retrograde) of the Northern Luzon Forces without proper air cover, under the command of Major General Jonathon (Skinny) M. Wainwright, into Bataan; and while allowing the Southern Luzon Forces, under the command of Major General George M. Parker, Jr., to proceed his forces into Bataan, has gone down as one of the greatest feats of its kind in history.

This retreat was accomplished by a force of almost totally untrained Filipino Army units with US Army cadre; elements of the US Army Philippine Division, several Army National Guard units (192nd Tank Battalion from Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio; 194th Tank Battalion from Minnesota, Kentucky, and California), and the 26th US Cavalry (Philippine Scouts), with weapons, ammunition, and equipment mostly from World War I.

It should be noted that the 194th and 192nd Tank Battalions were the first armor units ever deployed overseas by the United States Army and that they were National Guard units and not Regular Army units. These Battalions were equipped with the M3 Stuart Light Tank.

After nearly three months of combat operations on Bataan, the Filipino-American Forces on Bataan and Corregidor were nearing their end of resistance against the Japanese.

President Roosevelt ordered General MacArthur to leave the Philippines for Australia. Those that remained on the island of Luzon became known as

"The Battling Bastards of Bataan, No Mama, No Papa, No Uncle Sam, ...."

The command of all United States Forces in the Philippines (USFIP), headquartered on Corregidor in Malinta Tunnel fell on Lieutenant General Wainwright.

On 3 April 1942 (Good Friday), after a lull in hostilities, the Japanese attacked Bataan, with overwhelming artillery fire which resulted in the disintigration of the Fil-American front lines, and a collapse of organized resistance by the Fil-American forces in the II Corps area on the eastern side of Bataan. With his troops starving, and sick from various tropical diseases, Major General Edward P. King was forced to surrender all Bataan Fil-American forces on 9 April 1942, (73,000 troops) in order to save lives.

Radio Broadcast - Voice of Freedom -

Malinta Tunnel - Corregidor - April 9, 1942

Bataan has fallen. The Philippine-American troops on this war-ravaged and bloodstained peninsula have laid down their arms. With heads bloody but unbowed, they have yielded to the superior force and numbers of the enemy.

The world will long remember the epic struggle that Filipino and American soldiers put up in the jungle fastness and along the rugged coast of Bataan. They have stood up uncomplaining under the constant and grueling fire of the enemy for more than three months. Besieged on land and blockaded by sea, cut off from all sources of help in the Philippines and in America, the intrepid fighters have done all that human endurance could bear.

For what sustained them through all these months of incessant battle was a force that was more than merely physical. It was the force of an unconquerable faith--something in the heart and soul that physical hardship and adversity could not destroy! It was the thought of native land and all that it holds most dear, the thought of freedom and dignity and pride in these most priceless of all our human prerogatives.

The adversary, in the pride of his power and triumph, will credit our troops with nothing less than the courage and fortitude that his own troops have shown in battle. Our men have fought a brave and bitterly contested struggle. All the world will testify to the most superhuman endurance with which they stood up until the last in the face of overwhelming odds.

But the decision had to come. Men fighting under the banner of unshakable faith are made of something more that flesh, but they are not made of impervious steel. The flesh must yield at last, endurance melts away, and the end of the battle must come.

Bataan has fallen, but the spirit that made it stand--a beacon to all the liberty-loving peoples of the world--cannot fall!

From the book "I Saw the Fall of the Philippines," by Colonel Carlos P. Romulo, Copyright 1942

After the surrender of the Fil-American forces on Bataan, the Japanese began to march the starving, sick, and wounded survivors to Camp O'Donnel over 100 miles away. This event has become known as the "Bataan Death March." Bataan survivors were robbed of personal effects, denied food and water, or received very little; soldiers that could not keep up with the pace were, bayoneted, shot, or beheaded. The number of soldiers beaten and/or executed by the Japanese was in the thousands before the march was completed.

Corregidor an inland two miles from Bataan now faced the brunt of Japanese artillery and bombing. For another month Corregidor held out. On 5 May 1942, the Japanese invaded Corregidor. Lieutenant General Wainwright then sent his last radio message to President Roosevelt on 6 May 1942 -

For the President of the United States:

It is with broken heart and head bowed in sadness, but not in shame, that I report to Your Excellency that I must go today to arrange terms for the surrender of the fortified islands of Manila Bay: Corregidor (Fort Mills), Caballo (Fort Hughes), El Fraile (Fort Drum), and Carabao (Fort Frank).

With anti-aircraft fire control equipment and many guns destroyed, we are no longer able to prevent accurate aerial bombardment. With numerous batteries of the heaviest caliber emplaced on the shores of Bataan and Cavite out ranging our remaining guns, the enemy now brings devastating cross fire to bear on us.

Most of my batteries, seacoast, anti-aircraft and field, have been put out of action by the enemy. I have ordered the others destroyed to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. In addition we are now overwhelmingly assaulted by Japanese troops on Corregidor.

There is a limit of human endurance and that limit has long since been past. Without prospect of relief I feel it is my duty to my country and to my gallant troops to end this useless effusion of blood and humamn sacrifice.

If you agree, Mr. President, please say to the nation that my troops and I have accomplished all that is humanly possible and that we have upheld the best traditions of the United States and its Army.

May God bless and preserve you and guide you and the nation in the effort to ultimate victory.

With profound regret and with continued pride in my gallant troops I go to meet the Japanese commander.

Good-by Mr. President.

From the book "MacArthur and Wainwright-Sacrifice of the Philippines"

by John Jacob Beck

However, General Homma refused to accept the surrender of Corregidor and the other fortified islands unless the terms included the surrender of all US forces in the Philippines. For about a month the survivors of Corregidor were held hostage until all organized resistance in the Philippines ended in June 1942; this was when all elements in the Visayan-Mindanao Force in the Southern Philippines under the command of Major General William F. Sharp surrendered.

The loss of the Philippines to the Japanese, was the largest single defeat of American Armed Forces in history. This loss was not the result of a lack efforts by our the soldiers and sailors, but rather a lack of preparedness of the United States as a whole. The United States underestimated the Japanese, and we were not willing as a nation to keep our armed forces trained and ready to protect the interests of the United States and its people. The defense of the Philippines is not talked about or studied very much in today's society, and its lessons may go unlearned if we do not remember the sacrifices made the men and women we asked to defend them and us. These brave soldiers and sailors bought us time to prepare our defenses and take the offensive in the Pacific. Their stubborn sacrifices forced the Japanese to commit more forces than they originally planned to the conquest of the Philippines which denied them their use in making their drive of conquest south of the Philippines.