January-February - Air Defense Artillery

12
"
..'
THE COAST ARTILLERY JOLIRNAL
........... ~
'-
-
The Myers Building, Manila port area, burning December 24, 1941.
placements for 155, 75, and 37mm guns, were blasted
away. Our system of barbed-wire entanglements scattered
in the blast of their exploding shell.
During the night of the 5th-6th of May preceding
the day of Corregidor's surrender, Jap landing boats
came ashore on Corregidor's north beach, east of the
Malinta Hill area out along the curving tail of the
polywog-shaped island. \\Tith an excellent artillery support-against
a resistance of weakened men with few
gun positions left-the final Jap assault found little
difficulty in effecting their landing and forcing the
surrender of Corregidor.
\\Then the decision had been made to go to Bataan
in December, General MacArthur immediately began
the movement of all of our supplies out of Manila, and
practically all of them were actually transported to
Bataan. Food already in the final defense area was
collected, especiaily rice, and prepared for use. However,
with the large number of troops on Bataan and
with the added civilian workers and native population,
it was not long before rations were cut and cut again.
On Corregidor, however, at the time of its surrender,
there was still food to last until July. Roughly speaking,
one day's food requirement for Bataan would have
lasted Corregidor eight days. No distribution of food
from Corregidor to Bataan was therefore practicable.
Corregidor also had plenty of water, although the supply
was interrupted at times through the blasting of
mains.
V\Te hauled water to Drum and to Hughes at night.
Jmllulr)'- Fe brzU1T)
At Frank they had the underwater pipe line to the south
shore and up to the reservoir at the head of a ravine.
The Japs proceeded to cut the pipe but didn't destroy
the reservoir and the Philippine Scout troops from
Frank would paddle to the shore at night and patch up
the pipe time after time. Apparently the Japs wanted
to preserve the reservoir for their own future use. There
was no shortage of water on Frank.
Our main shortage in ammunition was for .50 caliber
machine guns. Everybody seemed to be using them all
the time.
\Ve soon became short of 3-inch antiaircraft ammunition
after the heavy Jap air raids had been in force
for a short time. This shortage was especially serious
in the mechanical fuze for that caliber. \rYe did, however,
later get two "sub" loads of 3-inch ammunition
with mechanical fuzes which were brought in to Corregidor.
Even with these handicaps, the antiaircraft
fire on Corregidor was very effective, especially by those
batteries that had mechanical fuzes.
The Filipinos-members of the Philippine Scout regiments
(both antiaircraft and seacoast artillerv) on Corregidor
that had been trained there for year;-after the
first excitement was over, operated just the same as if
there weren't any bombs around. They did exactly as
they were told. After seeing bombs leave the planes,
they would jump into holes just prior to their landing
and as soon as the bombs exploded, they were back
aQain immediatel" manning their range finders and
other equipment. They did excellent work.