CORREGIDOR'S EPIC FIGHT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 106, 7 May 1942, Page 6

CORREGIDOR'S EPIC FIGHT

£ORREGIDOR has fallen, but its name and those of its gallant defenders will shine amid the legends and records of valour and endurance as ion* as freedom lives. For five months the island fortress has been unaer the fire of the Japanese; since the fall of Batan it has withstood an ordeal of an intensity and fierceness which no beleaguered garrison except Malta has ever been called upon to face. Ceaselessly battered by the biggest guns which the Japanese could mount on the shores surrounding the islet, remorselessly hammered by heavy bcmbers, shot at every hour of every day by dive-bombers, harassed by sorties from the sea under the cover of the most intensive barrages, short of food and water, so short of ammunition, with no hcpe of replacement, that every shell had to be counted before it was fired, given no respite day or night T»%oii er K ♦ garrison fought an epic battle against overwhelming odds! It fell, but its dogged resistance was of incalculable value to the Allies during the most critical pericd of the war. It prevented the use of Manila Bay as a Japanese base, it immobilised a great force of men ?i'" S .. an u pl ?. n ??' 11 delayed the Japanese High Command's programme of attack and thus, in all probability, contributed in a very important degree to the mobilisation of the Allied forces now disposed about the whirh C ft#r2 f° in safe and ,speedy occupation of the posts from which their offensive will eventually be launched. Psychologically its stand was a much-needed tonic to the Allies, a reminder that even partly equipped forces endowed with courage and resolution can stem the tide of enemy progress and give back blow for blew so long as resources stand the strain The defence of Corregidor will shine fs a blaconof valour and confidence until the end of the war; it will inspire the Allied & rCe £ \° 2? ? mu at,on whl £ h wi " t** l6 no good to the enemy. Corridor has helped to give us a breathing space; while that resoite mntimipe we J" u ®t take tne fullest advantage of it by a determination to work at the highest possible pressure in our own defence, to strengthen our forces and to ensure that the quality of our leadership, in civilian life as well as in the army, shall reach its apex while there is yet time.

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