![]() Sent north to meet the Japanese landings in Lingayen Gulf, the men of the group, still learning their way around an M3 tank, found themselves thrust into a critical role when the Philippine Army could not hold back the Japanese. One of the tankmen parked his half-track on a runway and shot down a Japanese Zero that day, but the group’s first tank-on-tank action – indeed the first American armor battle of World War II – would come two weeks later. There is some room for speculation about what the 26th Tank Regiment might've added to the defense of Iwo Jima, had its tanks not been lost en route to that island.The American Provisional Tank Group had been in the Philippines only three weeks when the Japanese attacked the islands hours after the raid on Pearl Harbor. Hold the Marianas: Japanese Defense of the Islands. ![]() Unfortunately for our interest, and unlike the small actions on Guam, this particular battle was not fought tank-vs-tank. But they had not scouted well enough to see how strong the defense was, and were decimated by Marine artillery and naval gunfire. They attacked by daylight and en masse, against the American expectation. There the Japanese 9th Tank Regiment sent its 37 tanks alongside the 136th Infantry Regiment to retake a radio station from the 6th Marines. The Marines on Saipan faced what was reportedly the largest tank-infantry battle of the central Pacific. On all of Guam there had been only 38 Japanese tanks. One of their captured officers said these ones had run out of fuel. Marine Shermans destroyed two more of their tanks on August 10, and seven more Type 97s were found abandoned. Other tank assaults were defeated by the alert Army troops who heard them coming in time. The Japanese kept up what tank-infantry defenses they could through the week. They were destroyed only when a mortar barrage caused their crews to abandon them. ![]() The foot soldiers were cut down but again the tanks broke through and killed 20 more Americans. That night, two more Type 97s with accompanying infantry attacked the 77th. In this same attack another tank, a Type 95, was hiding elsewhere in the jungle until four Shermans blew away its cover and easily despatched it. ![]() It then turned toward the US Marine sector, where two Marine Shermans finally knocked it out. They brought all the fire they could to bear but failed to stop its advance right through one of their battalion command posts. This exposed a Type 97 tank that drove right at the Americans, causing numerous casualties. On August 2, 1944, the US Army 77th Infantry Division was attacking dug-in Japanese defenders near Barrigada, Guam, when it set afire a hut. Over the past 40 years, I have seen numerous accounts of this Division's tank operations and battles in the Philippines, so it should not be difficult to find material on the subject. By 8 February, the Division had lost some 180 of its 200 tanks and its remnants became more of an infantry force than an armored unit. It fought numerous engagements over the next month, but because the terrain was mostly rice paddies it could not use its tanks in the traditional way and was forced to dig them in at road junctions and other key positions. On 8 January it was ordered to the Tarlac area to block and defeat any enemy attempt to push southeast toward the Clark Field complex and Manila. By early January 1945, it was deployed in the Cabanatuan - San Miguel area with approximately 200 tanks prepared to counter the expected Allied invasion of Luzon at Lingayen Gulf. Iwanaka) with 6th, 7th and 10th Tank Regiments was transferred from Manchuria to Luzon/Philippines in late July/early August 1944 and began arriving in September for assignment to 14th Area Army. The Japanese 2d Armored Division (Lt.Gen.
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