mopallc.blogg.se

Petrol was stored near the west entrance, while General MacArthur's headquarters was located in Lateral 3, next to General George Moore's headquarters in Lateral 2, and President Quezon's quarters next to the east entrance. The Navy tunnel system was located south of the quartermaster area that extended south of Lateral 8.

The facility could be reached either through the main tunnel or by a separate outside entrance on the north side of Malinta Hill. A separate system of tunnels north of this housed the underground hospital with 12 laterals of its own. It contained a main east–west passage 1,400 ft (430 m) long and 30 ft (9.1 m) wide, with 25 lateral passages, each about 400 ft (120 m) long, which branched out at regular intervals from each side of the main passage. The tunnel system under Malinta Hill was the most extensive construction on Corregidor.

Americans called it "The Rock" or even the " Gibraltar of the East", comparing it to the fortress that guards the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Africa. Bottomside was the lower area, where a dock area and the civilian town of San Jose were located, besides the controlled-mine complex. Its widest and elevated area, known as Topside, held most of the fort's fifty-six coastal defense guns and mortars, and twenty-eight 3-inch antiaircraft guns, besides the three-story "Mile-Long Barracks." Middleside was a small plateau containing battery positions as well as barracks. Some 4 mi (6.4 km) long and 1.5 mi (2.4 km) across at its head, the tadpole-shaped island was 3.5 mi (3.0 nmi 5.6 km) from Bataan. Army eventually recaptured the island in 1945.īackground Gibraltar of the East Map of Corregidor Island in 1941Ĭorregidor, officially named Fort Mills, was the largest of four fortified islands protecting the mouth of Manila Bay and had been fortified prior to World War I with powerful coastal artillery.

Homma had to take Corregidor because as long as the island remained in American hands, the Japanese would be denied the use of Manila Bay and its harbor. The island bastion of Corregidor, with its network of tunnels and formidable array of defensive armaments, along with the fortifications across the entrance to Manila Bay, was the remaining obstacle to the Japanese 14th Army of Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma. The fall of Bataan on 9 April 1942 ended all organized opposition by the United States Army Forces in the Far East to the invading Japanese forces on Luzon, in the northern Philippines. The Battle of Corregidor ( Filipino: Labanan sa Corregidor Japanese: コレヒドールの戦い), fought on 5-, was the culmination of the Japanese campaign for the conquest of the Commonwealth of the Philippines during World War II. and Filipino troops, 2 gunboats, and 1 minesweeper Corregidor island in Manila Bay, Luzon Island, Philippinesġ3,000 U.S.