WW2 / Japanese Colonial

The invasion of the Philippines started on 8 December 1941, ten hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. As at Pearl Harbor, American aircraft were severely damaged in the initial Japanese attack. Lacking air cover, the American Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines withdrew to Java on 12 December 1941. General Douglas MacArthur was ordered out, leaving his men at Corregidor on the night of 11 March 1942 for Australia, 4,000 km away. The 76,000 starving and sick American and Filipino defenders in Bataan surrendered on 9 April 1942, and were forced to endure the infamous Bataan Death March on which 7,000–10,000 died or were murdered. The 13,000 survivors on Corregidor surrendered on 6 May.

Japan occupied the Philippines for over three years, until the surrender of Japan. A highly effective guerrilla campaign by Philippine resistance forces controlled sixty percent of the islands, mostly forested and mountainous areas. MacArthur supplied them by submarine and sent reinforcements and officers. The Filipino population remained generally loyal to the United States, partly because of the American guarantee of independence, because of the Japanese mistreatment of Filipinos after the surrender, and because the Japanese had pressed large numbers of Filipinos into work details and put young Filipino women into brothels.

October 20, 1944

Japan launched an attack on the Philippines on 8 December 1941, just ten hours after their attack on Pearl Harbor.[3] Initial aerial bombardment was followed by landings of ground troops both north and south of Manila.[4] The defending Philippine and United States troops were under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, who had been recalled to active duty in the United States Army earlier in the year and was designated commander of the United States Armed Forces in the Asia-Pacific region.[5] The aircraft of his command were destroyed; the naval forces were ordered to leave; and because of the circumstances in the Pacific region, reinforcement and resupply of his ground forces were impossible.[6] Under the pressure of superior numbers, the defending forces withdrew to the Bataan Peninsula and to the island of Corregidor at the entrance to Manila Bay.[7] Manila, declared an open city to prevent its destruction,[8] was occupied by the Japanese on 2 January 1942.[9]

Most of the 80,000 prisoners of war captured by the Japanese at Bataan were forced to undertake the "Bataan Death March" to Camp O'Donnell prison camp in Capas, Tarlac 105 kilometers to the north of Mariveles Bataan.[10] Thousands of men, weakened by disease and malnutrition and treated harshly by their captors, died before reaching their destination. More men died from Japanese mistreatment in the first four months in the camps than had died in the four months of battle previously.[16]

The Japanese soldiers and military are colonizing the Philippines, women gets rape and likely known as 'Confort Women'. Comfort women" is a euphemism for the estimated 20,000 to 400,000 girls and women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in military brothels (known as "comfort stations") across the Asia-Pacific region before and during World War II (1932–1945).

The system was established by the Japanese military with the stated intent of preventing widespread rape by soldiers (and the resulting anti-Japanese sentiment) and controlling the spread of venereal diseases, although historians note it did not fully achieve these goals and arguably did the opposite. The women lived in brutal conditions, facing daily physical and psychological abuse, violence, disease, and malnutrition. They were treated as "public toilets" or "female ammunition" by the soldiers and military doctors. Women were often coerced through deception, such as false promises of work as factory workers or nurses, or through outright abduction and kidnapping. The system was organized and managed by the Japanese military authorities. The majority of the victims were from occupied countries and colonies, primarily Korea and China, but also the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Burma, Thailand, and even some Dutch and Australian women. Many were minors.