About the battle of Manila

[Honza]

Found out a few facts about the Manila battle. It was not actually a very big affair in terms of number of units involved. Particularly when compared to some ETO urban battles. The Japanese only had 16,500 men in the city. The Americans over 30,000. The American casualties were 1000 dead and 5,500 wounded. If you compare this to the 26,000 US casualties at Iwo Jima it puts the scale of the battle into perspective. The main difference is that at Manila over 100,000 civilians died, possibly as many as 200,000. Iwo had no civilians.

Undeniably the battle was fierce. But my first impressions were that the battle was bigger in scale. All the Japanese 16,500 men died at Manila. At Iwo the Japanese death total was 20,000. I also found out that the Japanese actually retreated most of their forces from Manila. To make a stand elsewhere. The ones remaining were actually disobeying orders - they were told to leave too. But had the Japanese actually decided to keep their main force at Manila it would have been a much bigger affair.

 

[Hutch]

Read: (As mentioned before)
The Battle for Manila Richard Connaughton
By Sword and Fire Alphonso J. Aluit
Rampage James M. Scott

They all describe the Japanese brutality of the Manila population, and the defense (against orders) by Adm. Iwabuchi.

plus The Case of General Yamashita A. Frank Reel

 

[ParaMarine]

It’s easy to get caught up in the anecdotes about western failures in Europe, or the cruel/gay culture of West Point and its disastrous effect on leadership, or isolated psychopaths like Charles Lee (a supply general) who would strut through hospitals with a riding crop and talk down to combat wounded Men and make fines for those too badly wounded from their battle to ‘stand’ at attention in their hospital beds.

But these are still nothing like the endemic problems of Japan’s military and its army/navy rivalry. While the pre and post war US forces were a joke where shitty physiqued ring knockers would laugh at serious warriors and care more about a game of hand egg than the profession they pretended at, they still did not actually hate their counterparts in the other services. The Japanese army and navy had two hundred years or more of rivalries between some opposing families. They couldn’t work together. While later generations may have become pathological with their service rivalries, it is something you tend to dismiss as the clearings of a weak man.

It’s also impossible to compare because the Japanese were so class conscious and officer heavy. The cruelty/gay shit that was practiced at West Point wasn’t like the Japanese culture, where beating was common. I think as diets and physical exercise improve, the influence of raging manlets and shitty postured officers diminishes. Also it wasn’t actually until the 1950’s when it became common in the Marines for drunken fat fleet dodger DIs to actually hit their recruits.


The bottom line is that the non-deferential societies actually make the more effective armies. Beating up on the lower ranks is fundamentally an expression of cowardice. It isn’t really acceptable to treat the mass of a country like junior frat boys because of the implicit danger that they will just make your nose explode. Ironic that the Prussian/German officer school was the most humane, but that’s a product a system designed with a purpose of winning battles, not just designed to be a social club for the wealthy and shitty bodied.

 

[ParaMarine]

In summary, US army navy rivalries coming down to a children’s game shows more about the unprofessionalism of the sons of the rich than any sort of antagonistic rivalry between army and navy.

 

[Gunner Scott]

Dude, that is some serious screed.

 

[stuh42asl]

General Yamashita.. also had an agenda...he had many hidden mines and caverns dug out for the massive amount of gold and other treasures the Japanese confiscated. Some of the treasure is still suspected to be somewhere in Manila. but a lot was taken with him to the north. Where his last stand was is where the suspect several massive complexes were dug and then sealed. History channel had a great series on Yamashitas gold and the White Orchid group.

 

[ParaMarine]

We tended to stick our embarrassments in places where they did less harm. Mark Clark in the vineyards where he could piss on himself, and Charles Lee in Paris where he could yell at wounded men and steal their money.

They had their reward. Now may we forever remember them as a disgrace.

 

[PresterJohn]

And Patton had plenty of his own issues too. History was kinder to him than some.

 

[hongkongwargamer]

The Rape of Manila: The Forgotten War Crime of WWII

The Rape of Manila was one of the most brutal and bloodiest battles during WWII with over 100,000 to 500,000 casualties, and over thousands raped by the Japanese.

sofrep.com

 

[Faded 8-1]

...or isolated psychopaths like Charles Lee (a supply general) who would strut through hospitals with a riding crop and talk down to combat wounded Men and make fines for those too badly wounded from their battle to ‘stand’ at attention in their hospital beds.

"If we had more men like him, we'd have less men like him."