Dad's Squadron spent a few months in the Philippines after we'd invaded Luzon. For the first time in the Pacific, he had opportunity to get a weekend pass and decided to visit Manila. Manila had been well defended by the Japanese and much of the city had been damaged by the fighting.
Here is kinda a funny story about his visit to Manila.
"Everywhere I went in the city, you could easily see the damage done to the buildings. Few windows were intact, heavy cal bullet hits in the brick/stone of the walls/sides of structures. Easy to spot where some field piece or tank was used to blast the Japanese that fought from a building."
Then I decided to go down a street that had an army MP standing on the corner. As I walked down the street, I noticed not a single building on either side of the street had any damage that I could see. When I reached the end of the block I'd walked down, there was another MP standing on the corner. I stopped at the intersection and looked down the crossing street and again, lots of damage to be seen in both directions. On the next block of the street I walked down, again you could see damaged buildings. I turned around and looked back down the block I just walked. The MP had watched me and commented kinda strange isn't it. Dad asked him how come everywhere I've walked in Manila and have seen evidence of fighting, that this block is undamaged?" MP answered, well some guy named Douglas MacArthur owns a couple of buildings on this block, so no fighting was allowed here. Now you also know why my fellow MP and I are stuck on this block."
For you uninformed, MacArthur was the U.S. Army commander in the Pacific and had lived in the Philippines many years before the war. His father had been Governor-General of the Philippines for many years.
