The Raid on Los Baños (Filipino: Pagsalakay sa Los Baños) in the Philippines, early Friday morning on 23 February 1945, was executed by a combined United States Army Airborne and Filipino guerrilla task force, resulting in the liberation of 2,147 Allied civilian and military internees from an agricultural school campus turned Japanese internment camp. The raid has been celebrated as one of the most successful rescue operations in modern military history, although it led to the massacre of 1500 Filipino civilians in retaliation. It was the second precisely-executed raid by combined U.S.-Filipino forces within a month, following on the heels of the Raid at Cabanatuan at Luzon on 30 January, in which 522 Allied military POWs had been rescued.
Background
Since the landings of the U.S. Sixth Army at Lingayen Gulf and the U.S. Eighth Army at Nasugbu, Batangas on 9 January 1945 and 31 January 1945 respectively, to retake Luzon, the Imperial Japanese Army was being repeatedly pushed back and was increasingly becoming desperate. Soon news was filtering down to Allied commanders that the Japanese were killing innocent civilians and prisoners of war while falling back.
General Douglas MacArthur was deeply alarmed about the plight of thousands of prisoners who had been interned in various camps on Luzon, since the early days of the Pacific War. There was concern that, with deliverance so near, they might be killed. Earlier, some daring raids were carried out to rescue POWs, including one at Cabanatuan and at the University of Santo Tomas Internment Camp and Bilibid Prison at the height of the Battle for Manila.
Los Baños Internment Camp
In Los Baños, Laguna, at the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture and School of Forestry, now the University of the Philippines Los Baños, which was located on a 60-acre (240,000 m2) site, was the POW and civilian concentration camp, wedged between the foothills of Mount Makiling and the northern shore of Los Baños facing Laguna de Bay. The camp was being constructed next to Baker Hall, by the first group of 800 men who arrived in May 1943. In December 1943, an additional 200 inmates arrived from the University of Santo Tomas Internment Camp, followed by 500 in April 1944, and 150 in December.
Surrounded by barbed wire fences in clusters of thatched huts were Americans, British, Australians, Dutch, Norwegians, Poles, Italians, and Canadians. Aside from eleven navy nurses under the command of Chief Nurse Laura M. Cobb and a few servicemen, almost all of the inmates were civilian businessmen, teachers, bankers, and missionaries caught by the Japanese during the course of the war and incarcerated in various POW camps in the country.
While incarcerated, the POWs had formed an Executive Committee to deal with the guards for self-governing purposes and to obtain whatever marginal freedom or concessions they could obtain from the Japanese prison authorities. Nonetheless, the internees were made to get by on dwindling rations, limited clothing, poor housing and non-existent sanitation and endure the sadistic tendencies of the camp guards. Because of the large number of foreign catholic religious men and women incarcerated in the camp, Apostolic Delegate Guglielmo Piani created the Prelature Nullius of the Los Baños Internment Camp on September 1944 using the extraordinary faculties granted to him by Pope Pius XII. The prelature was tasked to oversee the welfare and spiritual needs of the 335 foreign missionaries and religious from allied countries residing in the Philippines who were incarcerated in the camp. The interned Bishop of Tuguegarao Constant Jurgens was appointed bishop prelate while the interned diocesan priest Msgr. Edward Francis Casey was appointed as vicar general. Monsignor Casey was the chaplain of the Catholic College Chapel located in UPLB. A cathedral was set up in the camp called the Cathedral of Saint Joseph, which was one of the barracks in the section of the camp where the foreign religious men and women were interned.
The first commandant of the camp, Major Tanaka, was considered "reasonably fair" in his treatment of the prisoners. He was later replaced by Major Urabe, who was also a reasonable man. In July 1944, he was replaced by the third commandant, Major T. Iwanaka, a cruel man:
To the internees, Iwanaka appeared afflicted with what would today be called dementia. He left the day-to-day operations of Los Baños to a subordinate, Warrant Officer Sadaaki Konishi. Both seemed inclined to inflict as much suffering upon the internees as possible.
By early 1945, the conditions in the camp turned hellish, with enforced limited rations and mounting abuse, courtesy of Konishi.
Mission
The U.S. 11th Airborne Division under Major general Joseph Swing arrived in the southwest Pacific in mid-1944. Prior to taking part in the invasion of Leyte in October, the division had undergone theater combat training in New Guinea. Together with the 503rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team, these were the only U.S. Army airborne forces in the Pacific theater of operations. After Leyte, the 188th Glider Infantry Regiment spearheaded the landings at Nasugbu with the U.S. Eighth Army on 31 January, while the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment parachuted into Tagaytay Ridge on 3 February.
That same day, 3 February 1945, Swing was tasked with a rescue mission to rescue the internees at the Los Baños camp, some 20 miles (32 km) behind the Japanese lines. However, with the 11th Airborne committed to a series of pitched battles south of Manila and the resolute Japanese defense at Nichols Field and Fort William McKinley, immediate deployment was out of the question. As an interim measure, Swing ordered his subordinates to develop a plan that could be implemented at the earliest possible moment, a task that was headed by his G-2 Colonel Henry Muller. Then on 18 February, the 1st Battalion, 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment, under Major Henry Burgess, the main unit assigned to carry out the mission, was pulled out from its battlefield position on the so-called Genko Line, a fortified system of interlocking pillboxes and anti-tank fortifications running along the southern Manila district of Las Piñas and proceeded to Parañaque district to rest and regroup.
By 20 February 1945, the conditions on Luzon turned favorable, such that the various elements could be withdrawn from combat and apprised of their mission. They were ordered to their staging posts and readied to go, with the raid scheduled for 07:00 on 23 February. For the jump phase of the assault plan, the 511th regimental commander, Lt. Col. Edward Lahti appointed Company B, 1st Battalion, 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 11th Airborne Division under 1st Lt. John Ringler together with the Headquarters Company Light Machine Gun Platoon of 2nd Lt. Walter Hettinger. The 188th Glider Infantry Regiment of Colonel Robert Soule had perhaps the most daunting task; trying to stave off a counterattack from the main highway. Bivouacked across the San Juan River were some 8,000–10,000 Japanese troops of the 8th "Tiger" Division, commanded by Lieutenant general Shizuo Yokoyama.
Guerrilla connection
The various Filipino guerrilla groups operating in the vicinity of Los Baños played a key role that led to the successful liberation of the camp. Earlier, in the partisan war against the Japanese, a combined guerrilla command was formed to bring some order to the effort by the defunct USAFFE command, which was in charge of unconventional forces in the Philippines, and renamed as the General Guerrilla Command (GGC) of Luzon under Major Jay D. Vanderpool of the U.S. Army whom the 11th Airborne soldiers affectionately called, "The Little Corporal".
Under the GGC, the Hunters ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) guerrillas, made up originally of former cadets of the Philippine Military Academy along with some former ROTC and college students under the command of Colonel Frank Quesada were one of the most active groups. Other formations included President Quezon's Own Guerrillas (PQOG) under Colonel Fil Avanceña, Red Lion's Unit, the Filipino-Chinese 48th Squadron and the Villegas group of the Hukbalahaps were tasked by the GGC to coordinate operations related to Los Baños. Among the members of Hunters-ROTC guerillas who participated in the raid was the future Filipino film star Mario Montenegro, then only sixteen years old.
Plan
Long before the arrival of the U.S. liberation forces, the guerrillas conducted intelligence operations that gathered precise inside information about the POWs in Los Baños and their guards. Many prisoners were long-time friends of partisan families before the war. With Lieutenant colonel Gustavo Inglés designated as overall guerrilla coordinator with the 11th Airborne Division, information was shared with Swing's Command Staff, including Colonel Henry Muller (G-2), and Colonel Douglas Quandt (G-3), as well as other top planners, who fine-tuned the final strategy.
On 12 February, Freddy Zervoulakos, a 19-year-old Greek-Filipino, slipped out of the camp and made contact with the guerrillas. He was sent back into the camp with the promise that the internees would be rescued. But the internee committee decided that it would be best for the prisoners to do nothing. A week later, another escapee from the camp, a civilian engineer named Pete Miles, gave further valuable information to the 11th A/B Division planners, including the daily routine in the camp, details of troop positions and the exact location of the internees. This proved a great asset to the planners and enabled them to finalize the four-phase plan that was timed to coincide with the guards' exercise period, which was conducted by the Japanese troops without clothing, equipment, or weapons, thereby minimizing the risk of harm to the internees during the rescue. Meanwhile, two lieutenants made a reconnaissance of the drop zone with the guerrillas and the two internees.
The Joint U.S. Army-Guerrilla Assault Plan was as follows:
- Phase 1 would begin when the 11th Airborne's Provisional Reconnaissance Platoon, under the command of 1Lt. George Skau, together with some twenty Filipino guerrilla guides, would travel behind enemy lines by bancas (local fishing boats) across Laguna Lake two nights before the raid, where they would wait. Four assault teams under Sergeants Martin Squires, Terry Santos (4th class graduate of the Alamo Scouts Training Center), Cliff Town and Robert Angus would assault the camp gate from different angles. At 07:00 on 23 February they were charged with marking the Drop Zones, Landing Zones and for the neutralizing of the camp gate guards, simultaneous with an attack from the remaining directions by the guerrillas' 45th Hunter Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Inglés, who would also surround the entire camp perimeter prior to the signaled hour.
- In Phase 2, B Company, 1st Battalion, 511th PIR led by Lieutenant John Ringler, with the support of Lieutenant Walter Hettinger's Machine Gun Platoon, would parachute into a small drop zone next to the camp, rendezvous with a Hukbalahap guerrilla unit, neutralize the remaining camp guards and secure the internees.
- In Phase 3, the remainder of 1st Battalion would board 54 LVT(4) tracked amphibious assault vehicles of the 672nd Amphibian Tractor Battalion commanded by Lieutenant colonel Joseph W. Gibbs at 04:00 and slip into Laguna de Bay and head for Mayondon Point, near San Antonio, some 2 miles (3.2 km) from the camp. A Recon Platoon squad under Sergeant Leonard Hahn would mark and guide them to their landing point. Here they would travel overland and make their way to the camp, scheduling to arrive shortly after 07:00. They would then carry the internees back to Mayondon Point and make good their escape to Mamatid village.
- Phase 4 involved the 188th Glider Infantry Regiment (minus its 2nd Battalion) and Company C of the 637th Tank Destroyer Battalion together with elements of the 472nd and 675th Field Artillery Battalions, under Colonel Robert H. Soule. The force would move down Highway 1 to act as a diversionary force and to engage the Japanese 8th Division, if necessary, so as to protect the flank.
Other guerrilla units such as Marking's Fil-American troops and the 48th Chinese Squadron were to set up road blocks in the towns of Calauan, Bay and Pila to delay possible Japanese reinforcements. The Hunters-ROTC 47th Regiment under Lieutenant colonel Emmanuel de Ocampo would do the same in the Calamba-Pansol area.