070 - Pockets and Points and Gaps

Bataan's Battles within the Battle

After the breakdown of communications among the Allied War Planners and their Field Commanders, the Five Battle Line plan was scrapped. The Japanese Army faced the same troubles as the chaos erupting from the broken battle lines at Mt. Natib disorganized all troops, making fighting often a matter of platoon versus platoon. This small scale fighting became known as the “Battle of the Pockets”, with land no longer being seized by force, but a matter of slow advance and retreat.

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Most notably, Filipino and American Forces pinned small squads of Japanese soldiers within the lowlands within the Tuol and Gogo-Coatar River valleys. As the allies captured outposts including machine gun nests surrounding the river valleys, Japanese General Homma pulled back in order to regroup his troops for a more organized attack on the Allies’ second battle line. This also gave him the opportunity to rest his troops and wait for much-needed troops to arrive by transport.

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On the night of January 22^nd, Japanese troop transports approached the western shore of Bataan, attempting to attack in a skirmish known as “The Battle of the Points”. The objective was to create two flanking forces that would trap the defensive lines between two Japanese fronts. However, the speedy Allied Q-Boats intercepted the transports and quickly dispatched them with torpedo strikes and machine gun fire. Of the four transports, two were sunk.

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The remaining two transports had not made the beachhead and had to wade in surf that was several meters deep. While they swam to the shoreline, fighting forces consisting of Filipino Scouts and United State Air Corps pilots successfully fought off the invaders.. Throughout all of February and into the second week of March, the Japanese made little headway against the second battle line. Fighting was fierce and skirmishes mostly resulted in a standoff between the two groups. However, as soldiers waited for supplies to come, there was a song heard on the lips of many American soldiers.

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“We’re the battling bastards of Bataan.

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No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam.

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No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces.

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No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces

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And nobody gives a damn.”

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