2009-02 New Adventures in Asia--Manila

I arrived in Manila on Saturday afternoon, so I decided to do a couple of special sightseeing trips while I was here. The first was to the American Cemetery in Manila. This is the largest American cemetery outside of the US, with about 17,000 US and Filipino servicemen buried here. The grounds are immaculate. It is a circular shaped area with all the grave sites radiating out from the central memorial. The memorial is an open courtyard with a small enclosed alter on one end and then the names of the soldiers carved into a series of vertical stone tablets that form the ring around the courtyard.

Many people were at the memorial on this afternoon, including a church group of adults and children. Many individuals and couples were also wondering around, both at the memorial and through the grave sites. The grave sites were also laid out in a circular pattern and were visible from the memorial, which was at the highest point on the grounds.

I stopped for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, and found it interesting that on a Saturday evening at 7:30 PM, there were tables galore. The band did not start until 9:30, which is when the crowds do become larger. Oh how nice it would be to go out on a Saturday evening and have no wait to sit down and eat in the US.

On Sunday, I went with his co-worker Greg and two of his friends Aaron and Ghenty to visit Corregidor Island, site of a famous series of WWII battles. We arrived at the pier about 9:30 expecting a 10:00 departure, but the actual departure time was 11:00, so we had plenty of waiting time. The boat was fully enclosed and had assigned seating with coach bus style seats. They played some historical videos while we were navigating across Manila Bay. The ride took about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Corregidor was a strategic island during the war because it sits in the middle of the mouth of Manila Bay and could be used to protect the bay from attach. The US forces first started building on Corregidor in the 1910’s and made the island self-sustaining with water, electricity, housing, a movie theatre and YMCA. Many thousand men and some of their families were stationed on the island, even prior to the war.

After arriving we had lunch before boarding some open air buses for the tour. We would stop at various places and then have 10-15 minutes to explore each place. Our first stop was at the Pacific War Memorial. This is one of only two US WWII war memorials, the other being Pearl Harbor. It has a round alter under a football shaped dome, and the sun shines directly on the alter on May 6th, the anniversary date of the taking of Corregidor by US forces from the Japanese. As you keep walking through the memorial, you come to a large orange, metal sculpture that represents an eternal flame. The views from up here are towards Manila from the highest points on the island. From there, we started to work out way down the island. This was also the site of the parade grounds and the first landing zone for the US paratroopers when they came to recapture the island.

We then stopped at the mile long barracks (closer to 1/3 a mile, but still impressive). Over 5,000 men called this home at one time. It included a swimming pool (which is still visible) and bowling alley. Many of the buildings here are in some state of collapse, but we were still allowed to explore in the ruins. The buildings are all concrete, including walls and floors.. Nothing has roofs on it any more. You can see evidence of shrapnel and shell hits on all the buildings. Some have just craters, and others have actual holes blown through.

Our next stop was the island lighthouse. There are actually 2 lighthouses now, a modern taller one along with a smaller one, originally put in place by the Spaniards, although it has been rebuilt since its original placement. We were allowed to climb to the top of the original lighthouse, taking 52 steps to get there.

As we went further down the hill, we stopped and saw many of the large mortar guns used to protect the entrance to the bay. These had large diameters for shells up to about 10 inches. A pair of disappearing guns looked out towards the ocean. The unique thing about these guns was that they would rise up to fire and then settle back down below the wall upon firing their shells, making them difficult to spot from the water. They also had to switch out barrels after a series of shells as they barrels would overheat loose accuracy. The barrels were riffled to put spin on the shells to improve accuracy.

As we made it back down to sea level, we stopped at the pier that MacArthur left from to go to Australia to guide the war effort. It was from Australia that he made his famous quote “I shall return” in reference to the Philippines. A large statue has been commissioned in his honor at the docks. He led the troops and lived on Corregidor for much of the war. He was ordered off by the president to prevent his possible capture, which would give a big moral boost to the Japanese.

The last stop was the Malinta tunnel, a tunnel that was bored through the island for the purpose of storing munitions and supplies, and providing a protected and safe bomb shelter and working area. The tunnel has multiple side tunnels that go off at angles from the main tunnel. Two sets of train tracks run through the tunnel to aid in loading supplies. The tunnel is about 30 feet wide. The tour of the tunnel included a sound and light show with both video presentations and sculptures with audio narration in the lateral tunnels to give the history of Corregedor Island and the battles that occurred.

We then boarded the boat for the trip back to Manila. There were a lot of tired people on the boat, and many slept on the way home. Once we landed, we went out to eat a restaurant called Handlebars--as in motorcycle handlebars. One of the main features was there grilled meat special, that includes a cut of steak, or pork, or other types of meat, grilled out on the patio to your liking. It comes with a baked potato and fixings, cole slaw and beans. A real American picnic meal.