Battle of Luzon

The Battle of Luzon was a series of amphibious landings carried out by the 6^th Army under Lieutenant General Walter Kreuger with a focus on capturing Manila in January 1945. It is one of the largest amphibious operations in the war, consisting of more than 170,000 men landing on multiple beaches as part of multiple corps operations, including the 11^th Airborne Division. The Allies had taken control of all strategically and economically important locations of Luzon by March 1945, although pockets of Japanese resistance held out in the mountains until the unconditional surrender of Japan. While not the highest in U.S. casualties, it is the highest net casualty battle U.S. forces fought in World War II. Except for those forces surrendering at the end of the war, the Japanese lost virtually all the 230,000 military personnel on Luzon, in addition to some 70,000 casualties from the previous battle on Leyte Island. By the summer of 1945, the Americans had thus destroyed nine of Japan's best divisions and made another six combat ineffective. Losses stemming from the battle so drastically reduced Japanese air power that the use of kamikaze operations was necessary throughout the rest of the war. It also marked the first time that the Japanese were driven from a strategic area that they had captured at the beginning of the war.

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