Talk:Battle of Luzon

"The Philippines were considered to be of great strategic importance because their capture by Japan would pose a significant threat to the United States"

This is pretty much bs, japan in 1945 has no offensive capability and the idea that the philippines can be used to stage a threat to the US homeland is laughable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.104.242.4 (talk) 00:51, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

That's in the background section and clearly refers to 1941. Nick-D (talk) 01:04, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

There is an inconsistency between this page and the "Manilla Massacre" section referenced. This section states that General Yamashita ordered the defense of Manilla. The other page says Yamashita ordered a withdrawal and puts the blame for the Battle of Manilla squarely on the shoulders of Admiral Iwabuchi. Unless I missremember my history, I think that the Yamashita trial has more or less been acknowledged as a travesty of justice and that true responsibility for the Manilla Massacre resides with Admiral Iwabuchi. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.58.73.254 (talk) 19:53, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Lingayen is a mistake

In some US military rewies there was a mistake. They mismatched Leyte and Lingayen. Leyte was the aim where McArthur invaded to attack main island Luzon. Lingayen was the place where the Japanese forces invade in 1942. This mistake is probably due to a picture showing McArthur stepping ashore (in Leyte) while a journalist - unaware of geography - wrote "McArthur sets foot on Luzon in Lingayen". It is true that McArthur wishes to make landfall more north as from Leyte to central Luzon and the strategic important places the way is either very far and much more easier to defend for the Japanese. Hence, he was afraid of big losses that did not appear, but not because of strategic aspects but because of Japanese weakness due to own logistic problems. Lingayen instead presents with its gulf and especially the mouth of a big river and the Sual bay a strategic natural safe harbour. Unfortunately it is in the NW of Luzon and therefore days of travel behind the US/Japanese frontier. This makes Lingayen completely unacceptable neither as primary landing place nor as primary target. Any attempt to ship to Lingayen would have had precise observation by the Japanese as a consequence. Therefore no surprise momentum would add any strngth to US attempts. Furthermore, a Japanese counterstrike could not be observed with an adequate time factor, the Japanese supply would just occur from the deep ocean while any shipment to Leyte, the Bicol coast or the south Tagalog region could be noticed by US air forces in time and a strategic answer could be prepared. If McArthur really had thought of Lingayen, it was only an idea for a larger scale involvement as an attack there would require (a) a stabile air base to supply (which could be found in Leyte), (b) a secured harbour as base of all ship movements close enough (which defenitively was not realized), and (c) a strategy how to handle Maynila as it is in betweeen Lingayen and Leyte. Maynila as a final defense base for Japanese retreat with all that population inside would have ended in a catastrophy. The US naval forces at that time (with war in Europe still going on) were surely not able to act at three different places. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.156.118.173 (talk) 07:41, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

You have quite a bit of the geography mixed up, and do you have some citation for your theory?73.212.229.38 (talk) 00:09, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Airborne Operations

Airborne operations are inherently smaller, and the great majority are small parts of much larger forces. Moreover since an entire division of Airborne (US 11th Airborne) fought in this battle, even though only sections of some regiments were dropped, it still legitimately should be included in category airborne operations, many of which in the Wikipedia list are only small parts of mostly non AB operations73.212.229.38 (talk) 00:26, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

This article covers the entire campaign, of which the battles involving airborne operations were a fairly small component (these legitimately belong in the category). The vast majority of the US troops involved were landed by ship and moved around by foot or truck. Nick-D (talk) 07:10, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Nick, I am not going to change it back, but I strongly disagree. By that logic we would need to remove "Battles and operations of World War II involving Mexico" since the Mexican part of this battle was only a small factor.

I think you are conflating airborne assault, with actions by airborne troops, especially if those actions are specific to the training airborne receives. Airborne in not just about jumping and/or glider, but logistic automony and operations beyind the lines, which were part of various 11th operations on Luzon and are better enabled by airborne unit training and tactics.73.212.229.38 (talk) 16:09, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Battle of Luzon. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090222190510/http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk:80/2WWphilippines.htm to http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWphilippines.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 18:34, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Antonio Cárdenas Rodríguez

Hi, fellow Wikipedia editors. I´m here to talk about the acceptance of Antonio Cárdenas Rodríguez as a leader in the Allied side of the battle since he was the commander in charge of the 201st Squadron and the Mexican Expeditionary Air Force, which was under full mexican command according to their own Wikipedia pages (second paragraph of in the Mexican Expeditionary Air Force page) and any page regarding the MEAF will say the unit was acting in their own command, of course, alongside Douglas MacArthur strategies and tactics. Stturm (talk) 06:02, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

What reliable sources state that Rodríguez was one of the main leaders in this campaign? Nick-D (talk) 11:44, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

The most reliable source of information comes from The Mexican Expeditionary Air Force in World War II:The Organization, Training, and Operations of the 201st Squadron which also contains their official references which I couldn´t sadly find in the internet. If you go to the section of Appendix A: United States-Mexico Agreement, which is in spanish, it is said that the Expeditionary Air Force is to be treated as any other United Stated unit with the exception of Command and Administration. Command is to be carried by mexican officers with a rank of maximum Colonel (Antonio Cárdenas Rodríguez was a Colonel when he was assigned as commander). Stturm (talk) 11:20, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

We need secondary sources which state that he was one of the main Allied leaders. If the best that's available is an appendix of a primary source which describes only the role, it doesn't seem that he was a significant figure. Nick-D (talk) 10:40, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

There is a secondary source, it is marked in the reference 77 of the site: Teniente Coronel de Estado Mayor Enrique Sandoval Castarrica, Historia Oficial de la Fuerza Aérea Expedicionaria Mexicana (México, Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional, 1946),p. 151-154 (Lieutenant Colonel of the Mayor State Enrique Sandoval Castarrica, Official Story of the Mexican Expeditionary Air Force (Mexico, National Defense Secretariat, 1946. p. 151-154). The list says Commander and Leaders, not Main Leaders; and if that was the case, Walter Krueger was just in command of the Sixth Army, if any case I´d say you take off Krueger and put George Kenney, the commander of the whole U.S. Army in the South West Pacific Area. If you read the site, you´d know that Cárdenas was received in the Phillipines by Kenney and MacArthur and he reported his operations directly to them, he didn´t even report to the 58th Fighter Group Commander. I´d say that´s distinguished. Stturm (talk) 10:01, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Krueger was the main ground force leader for this battle. Kenney commanded the Allied air forces in the theatre. Reliable sources stress their key roles in the battle. We need sources explicitly stating that Rodríguez was one of the main leaders, which doesn't appear to be the case. Nick-D (talk) 20:17, 3 October 2019 (UTC)