The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia: Davao (original) (raw)
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The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia | |
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Davao (125.626E 7.068N) is the principal city and portof the island of Mindanao, at the southeast end of the Philippines. It has a large, deep anchorage, often used by units of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet in 1941, but facilities were limited.
On the morning of December 8, 1941 the U.S. Navy was operating a patrol squadron, VP-101 (4 Catalinas,) from William B. Preston anchored in Davao harbor. Aircraft fromRyujoraided the seaplane base, destroying two of the Catalinas but failing to damage the tender. 500 men of the 33 Regiment, 14 Army, were landed near Davao on the night of 19 December 1941. The defenders, from 101 Philippine Division, broke and fled and the Japanese quickly occupied the town.
In a speech to the Diet on 18 December 1941, Tojo claimed that the Americans had tortured 10 Japanese to death and shot 38 others at Davao. However, Tojo himself began to doubt the truth of the allegations by 23 December, suspecting that they had been manufactured by jingoistic newspaper reporters.
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The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007, 2010 by Kent G. Budge. Index
