Bataan and Corregidor, Battles of
Bataan and Corregidor, Battles of (1942).From December1941 to May1942, after the entry of the United States into World War II, U.S. and Philippine forces fought desperate and ultimately doomed battles to resist the Japanese invasion of the main island of Luzon. Implementing one of the U.S. war plans—War Plan Orange—Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commander of all U.S. and Philippine forces, chose to make the stand against the invaders on the Bataan Peninsula and on the island fortress of Corregidor in Manila Bay. Well before the Japanese Fourteenth Army under Lt. Gen. Homma Masaharu made its main landing on 22 December at Lingayen Gulf, north of Bataan, MacArthur had suffered two major setbacks. On 8 December, Japanese air raids had destroyed over half of the U.S. B‐17 bombers and P‐40 fighters on the ground at Clark Field on Luzon. The subject of much subsequent controversy (MacArthur...
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