For American Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf, commander of the 850-ship invasion fleet that sailed from the Leyte Gulf six (6) days earlier en route to Pangasian on that fateful first week of 1945, the Lingayen Gulf sortie was a repetition of their successful October campaign in Leyte.
Unfortunately, their Luzon campaign turned out to be an ordeal.
After navigating through the Surigao Strait that separates Leyte and Midnanao, the armada headed north alogn the west coasts of Panay in Western Visayas and Mindoro, unhampered.
Then all hell broke loose.
Off the fortress island of Corregidor, the fleet ran through a gauntlet of Kamikaze attacks, hitting nine American and Australian warships, including two heavy cruisers and an escort carrier. All in all, eleven vessels had been badly damaged and hundreds of American and Australian sailors killed.
As the invasion fleet entered Lingayen Gulf on January 6, while residents of Lingayen were celebrating t heir town fiesta, desperate Janpanese commanders ordered out the final Kamikaze attack against approaching liberation forces.
A flaming Japanese suicide bomber plowed into the bridge of the American battleship New Mexico, killing 29 men, including her captain and Britits Lt. Gen. Herbert Lumsden, Winston Churchill’s personal liaiason officer to Gen. Douglas McArthur.
Despite the futile air assault of the enyemy, the liberators finally arrived early in the morning of January 9 in the Gulf, which was used by the Chinese pirate Li-Ma-Hong in pillaging its coastal villages hundreds of yars earlier, and by the Japanese invaders in 1941.
After positioning the troop transports in the bay, Oldendorf trained his fleet’s guns on suspected Japanese coastal batteries; despite an urgent message he received from Filipino guerrillas on shore, assuming that “there’ll be no (Japanese) opposition on the beaches”.
But Oldendorf had no choice. He was under orders form McArthur to bombard the coast. After warning residents of Lingayen Gulf’s coastal towns to evacuate by means of leaflets dropped by American planes, the warships blasted Lingayen, killing scores of people who failed to heed the warning. The bombardment also destroyed many homes and public buildings.
At 9:30 a.m. the 68,000 men of the Sixth Army began steaming ashore, confirming the report that the Japanese had fled three days earlier. The residents of the coastal towns returned to their damaged homes, broke out long-hidden American flags and greeted the liberators with a joyful celebration.
This tableau was dramatized in January 1995 on the exact location during the reenactment of the “Lingayen Gulf Landings” during its golden anniversary festivities. More than 5,000 Filipino war veterans and their widows, along with a sizable number of American war veterans and their wives, braved the scorching morning sun to attend the well-organized commemoration rites.
It became memorable than any other grandiose reenactment happened in Lingayen. Instead of just highlighting the actual landing itself, like what they did in Leyte, young thespians played out the roles of Lingayenos during the waning days of the Japanese Occupation and their liberation.
Also, instead of having another Caucasian actor play McArthur, the reenactment on the wide and khaki-colored Lingayen beach focused on the landing of General Krueger, played by Caucasian-looking Captain Edgar Tamayo of the 2nd Philippine Marine Battalion.
Patterned after the beautifully-designed pre-war train station the imposing Lingayen War Memorial, built at the cost of P5 million pesos on a two-hectare area at the back of the provincial capitol building, showcases photos of the liberation of Lignayen, together with World War II – vintage war memorabilia – a tank, an airplane and anti-aircraft guns, all coated with non-corrosive black paint to protect them and prevent further deterioration from Lingayen’s very salty water.
After the culminating rites of Pangasinan’s liberation, this Northern Luzon province, noted for its fishponds culture of bangus and oyster farming and its picturesque Hundred Islands, will also be renowned as the gateway for the allied forces that led to the end of the War in the Pacific.
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