Talk:Philippines campaign (1944–1945)

Is this a joke?

"1500 killed, wounded, or captured" --HanzoHattori 11:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I've inserted some casualty figures Hawkeye7 10:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Accuracy issues

I've noticed throughout the Filipino campaign articles that obscene Japanese casualty figures are generally accepted at face value. This is ridiculous on several levels, most basically that even in a situation where a body count could be conducted enemy deaths have been known to be inflated by a factor of five or ten. See numerous articles over in the Vietnam War section of Wikipedia for ample proof of that. I doubt that the command climate of any operation with Douglas MacArthur in charge would result in a tendency to look at these kind of reports skeptically. Has anyone done rigorous, citable research on the battle and particularly on Japanese casualties of it that could inject some sanity into this? In too many of these battles Japanese deaths are found by subtracting documented Japanese survivors at the end of the war from a number of Japanese troops there at the beginning of the operation that has usually been found by the shadiest kind of number crunching possible and that's obviously not acceptable to write history beyond triumphialist propaganda.

I also note that American casualties from tropical diseases, which were massive, have been left out of the article. Finding a citation for this shouldn't be difficult, it's in the official US Army history IIRC.

Furthermore, some editor (presumably a wild nationalist) has been putting up the entire Filipino populations of the islands in question as "Filipino Troops" in the infoboxes. This is vandalism and I will deal with it as such. Kensai Max 21:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I've noticed the same thing as far as the adding of incredibly large numbers of Filipino troops, etc. to most of these articles, and have reverted them several times now. As for the issue with Japanese casualties, if someone can find a better, more accurate source, I have no problem with adding it.Parsecboy 23:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

user:125.60.243.104 has been at this again. Does someone with a better idea of the history of their edits want to nominate that the account be blocked? --Nick Dowling 11:18, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Checked and blocked for one week. Very naughty person/s using that IP. Cheers, Grant | Talk 14:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

"Mindoro was quickly overrun. U.S. Army engineers set about rapidly constructing a major air base at San Fabian." The link to San Fabian points to a location on Luzon island, and I can find no indication of a San Fabian on Mindoro island. --Rmdickson (talk) 17:44, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I have tagged the section, as it is entirely unreferenced, but I have found this regarding P-51s on the Island of Mindoro. I know this doesn't answer doesn't answer the San Fabian question, which I found a few links here, but in tagging the section, theoretically, the entire section is subject to WP:BURDEN.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:04, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

The airport appears to have been San_Jose_Airport_(Mindoro), also supported by [Wrecks]. This would also make sense as the initial landings were in San Jose (see Battle_of_Mindoro) - Changed the article accordingly. User - 15 April 2021

7 years later and this article is still absolute rubbish 207.237.136.94 (talk) 18:24, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Burma Campaign has been "rubbish" far longer than that! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.32.43.237 (talk) 13:33, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

New Zealand

What was the extent of New Zealand involvement in this theatre? The Australians left North Africa when Japan entered the war, but the New Zealand 2nd division stayed on and fought up through Italy. George Smyth XI (talk) 15:50, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Commonwealth

Please give more details about Australian, British, and New Zealand participation in this campaign. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.107.52.18 (talk) 01:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The only British participation in this campaign was a ship called the RFA Bishopdale (A128). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.107.159.125 (talk) 11:24, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Both of the Royal Australian Navy's heavy cruisers and some destroyers and covettes took part in the campaign along with some air force airfield construction and intelligence units. There was almost no British and no NZ involvement - this seems to have been an invention by our 'friend' the IP editor who has now moved into outright vandalism. Nick Dowling (talk) 12:11, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Total Allied Forces

The total number of allied forces committed to the Philippines campaign is nowhere to be found here, a curious omission considering that it's usually in other Wiki entries. However, a quick check of other sources does not produce any figure other than the 175,000 cited in this entry, which obviously is incomplete.

(Btillman (talk) 20:30, 16 September 2008 (UTC))BTillman 16 Sept 08.

Cause of death

The reason the starvation which is the big cause of a Japanese soldier's cause of death is not described at all? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.45.177.52 (talk) 03:33, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Guerilla contribution

Please do not revert my latest edit about the contribution of the American and especially Filipino guerillas during the Allied invasion. Because it is important to mention it it that article and I have reliable sources, thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.55.6.206 (talk) 11:41, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

One reference that was used is a copy past of a Wikipedia article, and Wikipedia should not reference to Wikipedia.

Although I agree with the sentiment that Filipino and American guerrilla contributions should be expanded in this and other articles, inclusion into Wikipedia, anywhere, is based on what can be verified by reliable sources. I shall tag the recent additions accordingly. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:08, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I have another reliable sources in my recent edit. Check it ,thanks --110.55.0.238 (talk) 07:06, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

The Pacific War Encyclopedia online, may not constitute as a reliable source as it may fall under WP:SPS. I have not referred it to the reliable source review board, but perhaps you should, and if the community of editors there believe that it passes muster, we can remove the tag I added in the article space.

Perhaps you can go to the green book recently released by CMH, regarding Leyte, it has information regarding guerrilla involvement in the Battle of Leyte. Furthermore, perhaps your edits better belong in that article, rather than this article, which is suppose to be about the entire campaign, and not the specifics of each battle.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:30, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Emphasis on British

Why is there a need to emphasis British India and British Burma, rather than referring to them plainly without the emphasis? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Because we are not talking about modern countries per se. The British Raj and British Burma are not the same countries they are now, indeed Burma was then simply a province of British India, ruled by completely different governments. Making it appear as if it was talking about modern countries is misleading. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 07:14, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Obsidian Soul. Modern Burma and India are different countries from British India and British Burma. "India" and "Burma" usually refer to the current day states, not India and Burma under British rule. The Madras (talk) 23:07, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Why Invade Phillipines in the first place

These battles happened after the Marinanas were taken. The US was bombing Japan. The Japanese airforce was destroyed, the navy sunk. So was the battle of the Philipines useful or just a waste of 60,000 US casualties? Was it even controvertial at the time or later (like Iwo Jima)? I would be interested to read about this, and any other books associated with it. Either justifying or condeming. Tuntable (talk) 02:25, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Max Hastings, Retribution, might be a good source on this. Basically, he asserts that military and political leaders in time of war don't even have 20/20 hindsight, let alone much foresight, and they feel obligated to simultaneously pursue as many paths to victory as their resources will support. In 1944 the U.S. had an awful lot of resources, and the strategy of opening a supply route to a Chinese port (of which the liberation of the Philippines was a part) was seen as a rather plausible path to victory.

In addition, there were political considerations to liberating the Philippines. The loyalty of the Philippine people to the U.S. cause (widespread if not universal) was of immense propaganda value in portraying the war as a war of liberation from Japanese occupation. This was more or less the argument MacArthur gave Roosevelt that tipped the strategy to an invasion of Luzon rather than an invasion of Formosa. --Yaush (talk) 14:38, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Something along those lines might make a good addition to the article, at least a reference to the book. Tuntable (talk) 03:15, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

All indications at this point said that the Japanese were intending to slug the war out to the bitter end. In addition to liberating friendly territory and gaining strategic position, I imagine the Allied forces largely figured they'd have to invade and capture the Philippines eventually anyway, especially as a pre-cursor to invading Japan proper. Milhisfan (talk) 09:20, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that there were any indications that troops would fight on after Japan itself had surrendered. And the Philippine battle only finally ended when Japan did surreder. Looking at a map, why would you go south to Philippines to invade Japan to the north (of the Marinars)? And why tie up 10(!) divisions.

I strongly suspect that this is another Iwo Jima. A pointless exercise only for the egos of MacArthur. There must be commentary on this aspect, and it would be a good contribution to the article, IMHO. Tuntable (talk) 06:29, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Please see WP:NOTFORUM & WP:NOTSOAPBOX. If there are questions regarding this subject, please refer them to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:15, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Bloated info. box

The information box for this article looks more like a cenotaph than any meaningful potted summary. Might I suggest that the list of units involved be moved as a wikitable into a separate order of battle section, and some of the long list of commanders moved there also? HLGallon (talk) 10:04, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree Nick-D (talk) 10:43, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I would not oppose moving the units involved content to a section titled Order of Battle.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 11:45, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Addition of the Mexican commander to infoboxes

@Cesartaco2005: rather than continue to edit war, can you please discuss your rationale for adding the commander of the Mexican force to infoboxes on this campaign? I have removed it as the Mexican force was so small (only a single fighter squadron). If you can provide reliable sources identifying him as being one of the main commanders of this campaign that would be very helpful. Nick-D (talk) 10:09, 27 August 2019 (UTC)