Corregidor Fall and Liberation 1942 -1945 (Color) -

The fall of Bataan on April 9, 1942, ended all organized opposition by the U.S. Army Forces Far East to the invading Japanese forces on Luzon, in the northern Philippines. The island bastion of Corregidor, with its network of tunnels and formidable array of defensive armament, along with the fortifications across the entrance to Manila Bay, was the remaining obstacle to the 14th Japanese Imperial Army of Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma. Homma had to take Corregidor, since as long as the island remained in American hands, the Japanese would be denied the use of Manila Bay, the finest natural harbor in the Far East. The Battle for the Recapture of Corregidor, 16–26 February 1945, pitted American liberation forces against the defending Japanese garrison on the island fortress. Prior to the Japanese invasion in 1942, the USAFFE had held the bastion until they surrendered in 1942. 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 US 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.