Battle of Corregidor (1945)

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Battle for the Recapture of Corregidor
Part of the Pacific Theater of World War II
USS Claxton provides fire support during the Corregidor landings
Date 16–26 February 1945 Location Corregidor Island, Philippines Result American victory
Belligerents
United States	Japan
Commanders and leaders
George M. Jones Edward M. Postlethwait	Rikichi Tsukada
Strength
7,000 US troops	6,700 Japanese troops
Casualties and losses
207 killed 684 wounded	6,600 killed 50 wounded 19 prisoners 20 surrendered postwar

The Battle for the Recapture of Corregidor (Filipino: Labanan para sa Corregidor), which occurred from 16 to 26 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 of Manila and the earlier Battle of Bataan, 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.