Corregidor: Fortress in the Sea 1963 US Army; The Big Picture TV-587 (Patreon)

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STORY OF RECAPTURE OF CORREGIDOR IN WORLD WAR II BY GENERAL MACARTHUR'S FORCE - INCLUDES RECOLLECTIONS OF ARMY NURSE, PARATROOPER, COMMANDER, AND ARMY SERGEANT

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Corregidor_(1945)

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The Battle for the Recapture of Corregidor (Filipino: Labanan para sa Corregidor), which occurred on the 16th until the 26th of February, 1945, pitted American forces against the defending Japanese garrison on the island fortress. The Japanese had captured the bastion from the United States Army Forces in the Far East during their 1942 invasion.

The retaking of the island, officially named Fort Mills, along with the bloody battle to liberate Manila and the earlier recapture of the Bataan Peninsula, by invading U.S. forces from the occupying Japanese, marked the redemption of the American and Filipino surrender on 6 May 1942 and the subsequent fall of the Philippines.

The surrender of Corregidor in 1942 and the ensuing fate of its 11,000 American and Filipino defenders led to a particular sense of moral purpose in General Douglas MacArthur, and as shown in the subsequent campaigns for the liberation of the Philippine archipelago, he showed no hesitation in committing the bulk of US and Philippine forces under his command. To the American soldier, Corregidor was more than a military objective; long before the campaign to recapture it, the Rock had become an important symbol in United States history as the last Pacific outpost of any size to fall to the enemy in the early stages of the Pacific War...

The honors for recapturing the Rock went to the 503rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team of Lieutenant Colonel George M. Jones and elements of Major General Roscoe B. Woodruff's 24th Infantry Division, the same units which undertook the capture of Mindoro island. The 503rd PRCT included the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, Co. C, 161st Airborne Engineer Battalion, and elements of the 462nd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion with 75 mm pack howitzers. They were airlifted by C-47 aircraft of the 317th Troop Carrier Group. The amphibious assault was by the reinforced 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, carried by Landing Craft Mechanized (LCMs) of the 592nd Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment...

On 23 January 1945, the aerial bombing to soften up the defenses on Corregidor commenced. Daily strikes by heavy bombers of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) continued until 16 February, with 595 short tons (540 t) of bombs dropped. Estimated figures since the bombing campaign started up to 24 February showed 2,028 effective sorties, with 3,163 short tons (2,869 t) of bombs dropped on Corregidor.

On 13 February, the United States Navy added to the bombardment, with cruisers and destroyers shelling from close to shore...

At 08:33 on 16 February, barely three minutes late from their intended time, and facing 16–18 knot winds over the drop zones, the first of one thousand troopers of the 503rd PRCT based at Mindoro, began dropping out of C-47 troop carriers of the US 317th Troop Carrier of the 5th Air Force and to float down on the surprised[citation needed] Japanese defenders, remnants of Maj. Gen. Rikichi Tsukada's Kembu Group at the two tiny go-point areas of Topside's western heights...

The most ferocious battle to regain Corregidor occurred at Wheeler Point on the night of 18 February and early the next morning, when D and F Companies, 2nd Battalion, 503rd PRCT, settled down in defensive positions near Battery Hearn and Cheney Trail. At 22:30 under a black, moonless night, 500 Japanese marines came out of the Battery Smith armory and charged the American and the Philippine positions...

Aside from flares fired throughout the night by warships laying offshore, the three-hour battle was decided by the weapons of the 50 paratroopers ranged against the Japanese Special Landing Force...

At the same time the 503rd paratroopers touched down at 'Topside', the first wave of 3rd Battalion under Lt. Col. Edward M. Postlethwait of the 24th Infantry Division's 34th Infantry Regiment (under Col. Aubrey S. "Red" Newman) waded ashore and established a beachhead at San Jose Point on the eastern end of Corregidor named 'Black Beach'...