Last weekend it was up to Manila to meet my visitors (!!!) and then off to Corregidor Island for a piece of the Philippines' ample WWII history. Corregidor, as many of you know, was a key site in American and Philippine defense of Manila in WWII, due to its strategic location at the entrance to Manila Bay. After the fall of Bataan (of death march infamy) directly North, the allies held out on Corregidor for an incredible and brutal 27 more days. After the island finally did fall, it became the site of General MacArthur's famous and more politely stated version of the famous Terminator catch phrase, "I shall return," (as he snuck off in a submarine in the middle of the night, leaving the rest of his troops there). "But don't hold your breath," my dad adds, looking at the statue of MacArthur waving goodbye. Nearly three years later he did return, recapturing the now battered island, and all the other 7,000+ Philippine islands with it.
Today it is a hot, thickly forested place riddled with both very big guns and bomb craters. And souvenir shops of course.
Kate pointing out Bohol
Japanese cemetery
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