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Just as the Western Allies in the European theatre in 1944 were focused on the invasion of France, the central drive of the Allies in the in the South-

West Pacific Area (SWPA) was towards the Philippine Islands. The liberation of the Philippines had been the personal ambition of General Douglas MacArthur, SWPA’s theatre commander, since his bitter defeat by the invading Japanese in early 1942. Ordered to leave the Philippines, on 20 March MacArthur gave his first interview with the press after arriving in Australia. He pledged: “I have come through … and I shall return.” Two and a half years later, on 20 October 1944, MacArthur waded ashore at Leyte island. “People of the Philippines,” he declared, “I have returned.”

Following the United States-led amphibious landings at Leyte, the next major phase in the campaign was to land on Luzon island in Lingayen Gulf and advance towards Manila. As a preliminary, and in order to provide land-based aircraft close enough to cover the ground operations on Luzon, a smaller landing was made on Mindoro island,

south of Luzon, on 15 December. With airstrips established on Mindoro, the landing in Lingayen Gulf took place on 9 January 1945. The Japanese fiercely opposed every phase of MacArthur’s offensive at sea, in the air, and on land. Fighting continued until the sudden end of the war on 15 August.

Like Australia’s earlier involvement in Normandy (see Wartime Issue 66), the depth and variety of Australia’s contribution to the Philippines is little appreciated today. Few people would be aware that over 4,000 Australians fought to free the Philippines from Japanese occupation and that nearly 100 Australians died in the process. The greatest sacrifice was borne by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN).

By mid-1944 Australian and American soldiers had fought their way across Papua, New Guinea, and eastern areas of the Netherlands East Indies, and MacArthur was preparing to honour his pledge. Australia expected to be involved as well. Responding immediately after MacArthur’s promise on 20 March 1942,

AUSTRALIANS PLAYED A PART IN THE LIBERATION OF THE PHILIPPINES, 1944–45. By Karl James

MACARTHURTaking

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the Australian Prime Minister, John Curtin, commented that what had been lost to the Japanese in Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies could be taken back: “MacArthur’s gallant men, too, [then still fighting] in the Philippines, will find Australia and her Allies advancing to them.” When MacArthur came ashore at Leyte, however, he was not accompanied by Australian ground forces. Nor would the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) participate in any of the subsequent operations in the Philippines.

Despite MacArthur’s long-standing comments and assurances to Prime Minister Curtin and General Sir Thomas Blamey, commander of the Australian Military Forces (AMF), the AIF was excluded from the Philippines. In late September 1944, for example, when MacArthur met Curtin for the final time, the general repeated his promise that the AIF would accompany American forces “in the advance against the Japanese”. A week later, however, on 7 October, MacArthur’s chief of staff told Blamey that it was “not politically

expedient for the AIF to be amongst the first troops

into the Philippines”. The American invasion began soon afterwards. For Blamey and many other senior army officers, this was a period of immense frustration.

By February 1945 an end to the major campaign in the Philippines was in sight: there were even plans for a victory parade in Manila. Yet no Australian representative was initially invited to participate. This only added further insult to already slighted Australian sensitivities. Lieutenant General Frank Berryman, heading the small Australian headquarters attached to MacArthur’s General Headquarters (GHQ ), wrote bitterly in his diary:

I have not even hinted that we should be represented as our dignity & pride is proof against inclusion in a flamboyant Hollywood spectacle … In his [MacArthur’s] hour [of] victory his ego allows him to forget his former dependence on the AMF & is in keeping with GHQ policy to minimise the efforts of Australia in SWPA.

THE PHILIPPINES: TAKING MACARTHUR BACK

Above left: A US Navy LST carrying members and equipment of No. 3 Airfield Construction Squadron, RAAF, approaches the invasion beaches on Mindoro island, Philippines, 15 December 1944. AWM OG1895

Above: Squadron Leader Frederick Bibby entices Ah Hing with a piece of chewing gum into becoming friends, on Leyte Island, Philippines, 19 November 1944. AWM 017824

Inset: A souvenir pennant celebrating the RAN ships that participated in the liberation of the Philippines. AWM REL/01952

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Above: Captain Ralph Eldridge (left) with American soldiers in a coconut grove on Leyte, October 1944. Eldridge was one of several Australian army officers attached as observers with American forces. AWM 017748

Right: Frank Norton, Kamikaze attack on HMAS Australia, Lingayen Gulf, January 1945 [1963, oil on canvas, 122 x 274.5 cm). AWM ART27552

the 6th Division in the Middle East in 1940–41. In late 1944, when the division was sent to New Guinea, the four soldiers stowed away on an American ship and then a flying boat to reach the Philippines, where they attached themselves to the US Army’s 1st Cavalry Division. The stowaways fought on Luzon in 1945 and, in a small way, helped liberate Manila. They subsequently returned to Australia and were court martialled.

The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) was also present in the Philippines. When MacArthur returned to Leyte, he was accompanied by members of No. 6 Wireless Unit, RAAF. Dubbed the “Foreign Legion”, these highly skilled Australian wireless operators intercepted and decoded Japanese signals. In 1945 the unit moved up to Lingayen, and then Manila on the island of Luzon, where it was joined by Nos. 4 and 5 Wireless Units, RAAF. The Australians went on to San Miguel, some 130 kilometres north of Manila.

Elsewhere, No. 3 Airfield Construction Squadron, RAAF, arrived in the Philippines in November 1944, and after a brief stopover in Leyte joined the amphibious force for the invasion of Mindoro. At dawn on 15 December, the Australians came ashore in the wake of the first assault waves of the invading American infantry. As the Landing Ship Tank (LST) carrying the squadron beached, Japanese suicide bombers hit two neighbouring LSTs. This was the first in what would be many such attacks. By evening, the squadron and most of its equipment were three kilometres inland near the proposed site of Hill Field. The Australians began work on the new

For years historians and scholars have debated why the AIF was excluded from the campaign, citing political and logistical reasons as much as personal tensions between MacArthur and Blamey. Rather than the Philippines, MacArthur assigned the AIF, almost as a consolation prize, roles in Borneo in the Netherlands East Indies, where the 7th and 9th Divisions conducted a series of spectacular amphibious operations in mid-1945. The AIF’s official presence in the Philippines was limited to Berryman’s headquarters and a few officers who were attached to US Army units as observers. A handful of soldiers, though, did fight in the islands.

In 1943 eight Australians, who had been captured in February 1942 at the fall of Singapore, escaped from the Japanese prisoner-of-war camp at Sandakan in north-east Borneo. With help from the local people and Filipino fishermen, the Australians made their way to Tawitawi, a small island off Borneo’s northern tip and south-west of Mindanao. On Tawitawi they met Lieutenant-Colonel Alejandro Suarez, commanding the 125th Infantry Regiment of the US Forces in the Philippines. The Australians trained and fought with Filipino guerrillas for four months. Sergeant Rex Butler, from the 8th Division Ammunition Sub-Park, died in an ambush set by the pro-Japanese indigenous Moro people on 18 August. In October the remaining seven Australians made their way to Mindanao, where t hey joined another guerrilla unit. On 21 December, a Japanese sniper killed the 2/18th Battalion’s Lieutenant Charles Wagner. In March 1944, three of the Australians were rescued by an American submarine and were repatriated. The rest were rescued later.

In March 1945 General Blamey was in Manila where he met some 80 recently liberated Australian civilian internees. Four soldiers in American uniforms approached Blamey and one said nervously:

“Excuse me, sir, but I am representing the AIF in the Philippines.”

“I thought I was,” said the general. “I and three others have been fighting

here,” Corporal Frank Hay replied. “Oh, I see. Well, you are for it, my

lads,” answered Blamey. Hay and the others had served with

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“Stream of single enemy aircraft operating … Fire merrily blazing on strip is our first and only avgas storage tank completed this afternoon and hit by aircraft.”

airstrip the next day. On the beach, however, Leading Aircraftman William Barham was killed unloading stores, and several others were badly burnt when a Japanese aircraft exploded attempting to crash-dive into a beached LST.

Hill Field was completed in a few days and was quickly in use by American transport and fighter aircraft. The airstrip’s rapid construction was even more remarkable, given that members of the squadron also manned the field’s perimeter as well as maintaining the rail yards and electrical supply to the nearby town of San Jose. There was little rest to be had during the squadron’s first weeks on Mindoro, and only the frequent Japanese air raids – over 100 by 24 December – caused any interruption to work. Squadron Leader Acheson Overend left a graphic account of a Japanese attack on Christmas night:

Great enemy air activity after dusk. One shot down immediately above strip … after dropping bombs. Twin-engine bomber dropped heavy stick immediately after. Stream of single enemy aircraft operating … Fire merrily blazing on strip is our first and only avgas storage tank completed this afternoon and hit by aircraft shot down. More aircraft burning on strip as strafing continues. Loud cheering from adjacent ack ack [anti-aircraft] crew who have got a direct hit … Continued all night.

By the year’s end the squadron had completed a new airstrip at Elmore Field, near San Jose. The Australians remained on Mindoro building runways, maintaining roads and constructing various buildings and facilities, until mid-June 1945.

The RAAF’s flying squadrons played a role too. From December 1944, the twin-engine Consolidated Catalina flying boats from Nos. 43 and 11 Squadrons, RAAF, operated from Leyte and Wundi Island, flying night missions to lay sea mines around Mindoro and Manila Bay. In one raid, on 14 December, a Catalina with a nine-man crew from No. 43 Squadron, captained by Flight Lieutenant Herbert Roberts, failed to return. He and his crew are commemorated on the Labuan Memorial. Between March and May 1945, Catalinas from Nos. 20 and 42 Squadrons, RAAF, were briefly based at Jinamoc Island, at the head of Leyte Gulf, and flew long-range missions off the coast of China and towards Hong Kong.

In the main, however, with operations south of the Philippines, the RAAF was confined to a supporting role, concentrating instead on the Netherlands East Indies. In June 1945, Nos. 22, 30 and 31 Squadrons, RAAF, flying the formidable Bristol Beaufighter, and No. 76 Squadron, RAAF, with the Curtiss Kittyhawks, operated from Sanga Sanga Island, a small island immediately south of Tawitawi. The Beaufighters and Kittyhawks provided close air support for the Australian invasion of Brunei Bay and Labuan Island in North Borneo. Several airmen were killed during this period.

The RAN made the most significant Australian contribution to liberating the Philippines, with Australian cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and other smaller ships operating closely with the US Navy. The heavy cruiser HMAS Australia (II) suffered the worst casualties. It was preparing to carry out shore bombardment

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at Leyte Gulf when, just after dawn on 21 October 1944 – Trafalgar Day – the ship was struck by a Japanese dive bomber (see Wartime Issue 28). Thirty men (seven officers and 23 ratings) were killed or died from their wounds. Australia’s captain, Captain Emile Dechaineux, was among the dead. An experienced and decorated officer, Dechaineux had joined the navy as a 13-year-old cadet midshipman. Sixty-two men were wounded, including Commodore John Collins. Collins commanded the Australian Squadron which operated as the joint Australian–American Task Force 74. Australia was his flagship.

The other heavy cruiser, HMAS Shropshire (with Australia, the RAN’s two most powerful warships), and the destroyers HMAS Arunta and Warramunga provided shore bombardment for the landing at Leyte Gulf. On 25 October, Shropshire and Arunta fought in the final surface engagement of the Second World War, the battle of Surigao Strait. During the night battle, Shropshire’s 8-inch guns engaged the Japanese battleship Yamashiro while Arunta carried out a torpedo attack. This action was fought as part of the broader battle of Leyte Gulf that saw the end of the Japanese navy as a fighting force. Arunta afterwards spent 28 days patrolling Leyte Gulf and although frequently attacked from the air, the

destroyer did not suffer any damage.The Australian heavy cruisers and

destroyers performed similar roles for the landings in Lingayen Gulf in the New Year. During the hellish battle, Australia was repeatedly targeted by Japanese suicide aircraft. The heavy cruiser was hit five times over five days, killing another 44 men (three officers and 41 ratings) and wounding 69. (See Wartime Issue 31.) While Australia took the worst pounding, on 5 January 1945 a Japanese aircraft almost smashed into Arunta’s port side. Two ratings, Able Seaman Henry Sellick and Petty Officer Stoker Richard Hand, were mortally wounded. Writing in his personal diary on board Warramunga, 22-year-old Petty Officer Eugene Fernandez described the fear and anxiety experienced by many sailors as they weathered the kamikaze storm:

6 January0740 [7.40 am] My nerves are pretty

bad. The bomb that fell off our bow was 500 pounds. If it had hit us I don’t know what our fate would have been. The planes are too much for us.

1625 [4.25 pm] Two naval forces are now entering the gulf. I feel a little safer. The Australia and Shropshire are here too. But the Aussie [Australia] has part of her funnel damaged. I can see where the suicide plane crashed.

1725 [5.25 pm] The Australia has been hit again. I saw her get hit. A great flash

SAMAR

MINDORO

PANAY

NEGROSLEYTE

PAC I F I C O C E A N

S o u t hC h i n a

S e a

Surigao Strait

PALAWAN

S u l uS e a

C e l e b e s S e a

Lingayen Gulf

LUZON

MINDANAO

0

0

200 kilometres

100 miles

PHILIPPINES

HMAS Australia hitby kamikaze 5, 6, 8

and 9 January 1945,HMAS Arunta near

miss 5 January 1945

HMAS Australia hit21 October 1944

RAN

RAAF

9 January 1945

15 December 1944

RAAFRAN 20 October 1944

+

+

N

Below left: Australians in the Philippines. Cartography by Keith Mitchell.

Below: Captain Emile Dechaineux (centre) on the bridge of HMAS Australia, 4 September 1944. He was killed some six weeks later. Earlier in the war, he temporarily commanded a British destroyer during the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force in mid-1940 before commanding a destroyer flotilla hunting German E-boats in the North Sea. Dechaineux was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross in 1941. AWM 017623

Right: A Filipino award, this Philippine Liberation Medal was awarded posthumously to Able Seaman Alan Lade who was killed serving in HMAS Australia (II) on 6 January 1945. AWM REL44539

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THE PHILIPPINES: TAKING MACARTHUR BACK

went into the sky. It’s a job to hold back the tears when I think of those poor lads who are being killed or burnt.

The RAN’s three troop-carrying Landing Ships, Infantry (LSIs), HMAS Manoora, Kanimbla and Westralia, veterans of many earlier amphibious landings in the SWPA, again transported American troops and supplies for the invasions of Leyte and Lingayen Gulfs. In Lingayen Gulf, the LSIs came under attack, with Kanimbla suffering a near miss from a Japanese aircraft while Westralia, which was also nearly hit, shot down a Japanese aircraft.

Smaller RAN ships played a role too. Operating with American hydrographic and minesweeping vessels, the frigate HMAS Gascoyne spent a month working as a survey vessel in Leyte Gulf from mid-October to mid-November 1944. During October Gascoyne was in the thick of the action, experiencing 39 air attacks close to the frigate while 30 Japanese aircraft were shot down within sight of its complement. Four bombs fell within 100 metres of the frigate but only one man was wounded. The motor launch HDML 1074 likewise helped plot the approaches to the invasion beaches. Gascoyne carried out similar duties in Lingayen Gulf during the first two weeks of January 1945.

The tanker HMAS Bishopdale, the ammunition ship HMAS Yunnan and the stores ship HMAS Merkur kept the RAN squadron fuelled, equipped and supplied, and they shared many of the same risks. The stores ship HMAS Poyang was also involved in the Leyte Gulf landings.

In mid-February 1945 Warramunga and Arunta joined a cruiser and destroyer force bombarding Corregidor prior to the drop of American paratroopers and an amphibious landing on the island. Dubbed “the Rock”, Corregidor had been the scene of the final American and Filipino stand in defence of the Philippines in 1942, from where MacArthur had left for Australia. Corregidor’s recapture helped open Manila Bay to Allied shipping. (The American 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, who dropped onto Corregidor, made their first operation jump in September 1943, dropping onto Nadzab in New Guinea where they had operated with Australian forces to capture Lae. [See Wartime Issue 64.]) The first Australian ship to enter Manila Bay after the battle of Manila in March was the

lighthouse tender HMAS Cape Leeuwin. The tender had previously been used as a navigational aid at Leyte, Mindoro and Subic Bay. At Leyte the tender narrowly missed being hit by a bomb from a Japanese aircraft that then crashed into nearby motor torpedo boats.

In late March 1945 Warramunga and the light cruiser HMAS Hobart, recently arrived in Filipino waters to replace the battle-scarred Australia, took part in an attack on Cebu City. In April, the newly commissioned frigate HMAS Lachlan also briefly performed hydrographic work and took part in operations around Mindanao. Between December 1944 and May 1945, the sloop HMAS Warrego carried out similar survey operations in the Philippines. The frigate HMAS Burdekin regularly escorted convoys between Hollandia, in Dutch New Guinea, and Leyte; it subsequently escorted convoys between Leyte and Lingayen. In April, Burdekin formed part of the anti-submarine force for Leyte Gulf.

The variety of Australian roles and activities in the Philippines shows the diversity of Australian experiences in the Second World War. Like Australia’s contribution to D-Day and the struggle to free western Europe from Nazism, Australia was equally willing to commit sizeable forces to help liberate Asia and the Pacific from Japanese occupation. The Australian government was eager for Australian soldiers, sailors and airmen to fight in the wider conflict that was fought far beyond Australian shores. Although the AIF’s eventual exclusion and side-lining was a source of frustration and disappointment, those Australian forces that were committed to the campaign were active participants in freeing the people of the Philippines.

Later reflecting on the battle of Leyte Gulf, the then Vice Admiral Sir John Collins said that more Australians should “be proud” that the RAN had “a small but active part in the victory”. This sentiment is equally true of Australia’s wider contribution to liberating the Philippines. Able Seaman David Mattiske was well aware of the significance of his efforts, later writing: “Well here we were in Shropshire, fulfilling a prophecy, a promise and creating history. The lowliest seaman can say to his grandchildren with pride, ‘I helped take MacArthur back.’” ◆

“The Australia has been hit again. I saw her get hit. A great flash went into the sky. It’s a job to hold back the tears.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr Karl James is a Senior Historian in the Military History Section at the Australian War Memorial.