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Video by Staff Sgt. Jarred Woods

Defense of the Philippines

Army University Press

Nov. 20, 2020 | 42:28

On 8 December 1941, Imperial Japanese bombers and fighters launched an unprovoked attack on U.S. airfields in the Philippines. Simultaneously, Japanese infantry landed at several key beaches on the main island of Luzon. This was but the first phase of Japan’s plan to seize the Philippines and use its strategic harbors as intermediate staging bases for further aggression in the South Pacific. However, General Douglas MacArthur and the U.S. and Filipino forces on the islands had prepared as best they could for just such an event. Over the next few weeks, they mounted a determined defense in an effort to turn back the Japanese forces and upset their plans for further conquest.

This film, the first in the Philippines film series, covers the first weeks of Imperial Japan's invasion and General MacArthur's eventual application of War Plan Orange in late December 1941.