The Battle of Bataan represented the most intense phase of Imperial Japan's invasion of the Philippines during World War II. The capture of the Philippine Islands was crucial to Japan's effort to control the Southwest Pacific, seize the resource-rich Dutch East Indies, and protect its Southeast Asia flank. It was the largest surrender in American and Filipino military history, and was the largest American surrender since the American Revolution.
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The Battle of Bataan represented the most intense phase of Imperial Japan's invasion of the Philippines during World War II. The capture of the Philippine Islands was crucial to Japan's effort to control the Southwest Pacific, seize the resource-rich Dutch East Indies, and protect its Southeast Asia flank. It was the largest surrender in American and Filipino military history, and was the largest American surrender since the American Revolution.
As Japanese carrier planes devastated the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in the morning of 7 December 1941 (8 December, Manila time), Taiwan-based aircraft simultaneously pounded the main bases of the American Far East Air Force at Clark Field in Pampanga, Iba Field in Zambales, Nichols Field near Manila, and the headquarters of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines at Cavite.
From 8 to 10 December, scattered resistance by ground troops and remaining American air and naval forces failed to stop preliminary landings to seize...
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