Market Garden and Manila

After the invasion on June 6, 1944 the Allied American, English, Canadian, French and Polish armies reached Paris within two months. The Germans fled in disarray. English Marshal Benard Montgomery submitted to Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower a plan to reach Berlin before yearend: Operation Market Garden.

It provided to cross the five bridges over the Maas, Waal, Scheldt, Albert Canal, and the Rhein. General James Garvin warned: That is one bridge too far. Eisenhower accepted the plan reluctantly. Indeed the plan failed because the last bridge over the Rhein at Arnhem in Holland could not be taken. However parts of German-held Belgium and Holland were freed.

Everybody thought the Allies would cross into Germany at another place and finish the war soon. The Americans planned to transfer the main effort to defeat the Japanese in the Eastern theater of WWII. But Hitler surprised all by ordering the ‘Ardennenoffensive’ known in English as the Battle of the Bulge. So the liberation of the Philippines was postponed.

The offensive began on December 16, 1944. Target was to cut Allied supply by seizing the Belgian Port of Antwerp. Some 200,000 soldiers with 600 tanks among them 90 of the much-dreaded Tiger tanks attacked Ardennes forest situated in southern Belgium and northern Luxemburg on a 170 km frontline. German commander in chief Gerd von Rundstedt gave SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Joachim Peiper the order to separate the American from the English forces and crossing the Meuse River reaching the highway to Antwerp. English bombers destroyed Peiper’s panzers. The much-weaker American Sherman tanks also destroyed some Tigers. But many more were destroyed by the German Tigers and Panthers.

So Peiper, a convinced Nazi and war criminal, did not reach the Meuse, lost all weaponry, and had to walk with the remainder of his troops back into Germany. On December 25, Rundstedt briefed Hitler that the offensive had failed, but delirious Hitler ordered to pursue the war. He still believed in the final victory and threatened any German who doubted the ‘Endsieg’ with execution. Many resistance fighters were hanged.

Patton’s and Bradley’s armies liberated Eastern France, Saarland, and Palatinate west of the Rhein. On March 22, 1945 the Allies crossed a pontoon bridge over the Rhein near Remagen. On April 11, they met the Russians at the Elbe River. Eisenhower declared that Berlin was no longer a military target thus leaving all territory east of Elbe to the Russians including Berlin.

Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. On May 8, 1945 the German Reich capitulated without condition. WW II was over in Europe.

Only at Potsdam Conference in July 1945, Stalin ceded to each of the three western allies a sector in West Berlin. But his arri?re pensée was that later he would get all back by blocking the access routes from Berlin to West Germany. The Berlin Airlift thwarted his plan.

While the battle of the Bulge was raging on, the Americans landed at Leyte Gulf on October 20, 1944. Commander in chief Douglas MacArthur fulfilled his promise given at Bataan two years earlier. He had returned to the Philippines and waded ashore with President Sergio Osmena and Foreign Secretary Carlos Romulo. The scene is immortalized by the larger-than-life statues at the landing memorial.

After many Japanese counter-attacks and kamikaze raids, the Americans landed at Lingayen Gulf. Commander in chief Tomoyuki Yamashita wanted to spare Manila and ordered 170,000 troops to withdraw to Baguio. MacArthur ordered a cavalry division to liberate Manila. But he did not know that Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi disobeyed the order. He defended Manila to the death. From February 3 on the Battle for Manila raged on for four weeks. Around 100,000 civilians died in the crossfire and Japanese massacres. In June the Philippines was liberated.

After two Japanese cities were nuked, the Japanese surrendered. On September 2, 1945 WWII ended.

Today the Japanese as well as the Germans are among the most pacifist nations in the world. Unfortunately both have authoritarian neighbors. Belligerent Russia and bellicose China and North Korea threaten world peace with nuclear weapons.

Many Filipinos think that American bases make this country a target. The opposite is true. Authoritarian rulers attack only weakly-defended nations. President Marcos’ envisioned security triad with Japan and America is the right policy. It deters Xi Jinping.

Erich Wannemacher