MARIVELES, PHILIPPINES - APRIL 10: Imperial Japanese Navy Land Force soldiers make banzai cheers a day after U.S. military surrender after the fall of Bataan during the Philippines campaign of the Pacific War on April 10, 1942 in Mariveles, Philippines
The Imperial Japanese 14th Army, commanded by Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma, captured the U.S. Naval Section Base in Mariveles on April 9, 1942. The rapid advance of the 65th Independent Brigade, led by Lieutenant General Akira Nara and elements of the 4th Division forced the final collapse and surrender of the Allied forces on the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula. Though the Mariveles Naval Section Base was largely incomplete at the outbreak of the war, it played several vital strategic and tactical roles during the Battle of Bataan. Mariveles Harbor was the primary receiving port for all Allied maritime supply transport lines between the Bataan front lines and the island fortress of Corregidor. It served as the final hideout for the submarine tender USS Canopus (AS-9). Though heavily bombed, its crew camouflaged it daily to look abandoned, operating it at night to repair submarines, construct improvised gunboats, and service the tactical needs of the defenders. When Japanese troops attempted amphibious landings behind Allied lines, sailors stationed at Mariveles were organized into the Naval Battalion. Alongside the 4th Marine Regiment, these sailors successfully fought as infantrymen to repel elite Japanese forces during the critical Battle of the Points. The base housed the Dewey Drydock, a massive floating drydock vital for ship repairs. To keep it out of enemy hands, the U.S. Navy scuttled it in Mariveles Bay on April 8, 1942, just hours before the surrender.
Following the base's capture, Mariveles became Kilometer 00, the main assembly point where thousands of starving American and Filipino prisoners were gathered to begin the brutal, 65-mile forced march to prison camps. |
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