Liberation of the University of Sto. Thomas , Manila, Philippines

I was a ten year old toddler living about two blocks from the University of Sto Tomas where US civilians were interned during the duration of the Japanese occupation of Manila. The campus was liberated by the US Army coming in from the North. Does any one know or hear of the name of the outfit which first entered the campus? I subsequently befriended quite a few of the GIs and I remembered seeing the uniform patch of some of the soldiers wearing the insignia of the Blackhawk, 86th division.

 

I think I got the answer. I was watching YouTube (Liberation of Sto. Tomas) and it mentioned the 1st Cavalry as the unit that first entered the compound to free the inernees.

 

From Triumph in the Philippines:

"Plans for securing the water and electric installations were far from the minds of the men of the 2d Squadron, 8th Cavalry, as they moved into Manila on the evening of 3 February.[SIZE=-1]4[/SIZE] Their immediate mission was to free the civilian internees at Santo Tomas University; further planning would have to wait until the cavalrymen could ascertain what the morrow would bring.


"Upon their arrival at Santo Tomas, the advance elements of the 8th Cavalry,[SIZE=-1]5[/SIZE] a medium of the 44th Tank Battalion serving as a battering ram, broke through the gates of the campus wall. Inside, the Japanese Army guards--most of them Formosans--put up little fight and within a few minutes some 3,500 internees were liberated amid scenes of pathos and joy none of the participating American troops will ever forget. But in another building away from the internees' main quarters some sixty Japanese under Lt. Col. Toshio Hayashi, the camp commander, held as hostages another 275 internees, mostly women and children. Hayashi demanded a guarantee for safe conduct from the ground for himself and his men before he would release the internees. General Chase, who had come into the university campus about an hour after the 8th Cavalry entered, had to accept the Japanese conditions."

HyperWar: US Army in WWII: Triumph in the Philippines [Chapter 14]

http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-P-Triumph/index.html

http://www.west-point.org/family/japanese-pow/POW%20Photos.htm

Dave

 

Addendum. So it was the 8th Cavalry instead of the 1st who first entered and liberated the internees inside the university campus. During the evacuation and immediately after the campus was empty of internees, the Japanese started to target the place with their mortars and howitzers from across the Pasig river. They must have very poor fire control tactics or more than likely just don't care who they hit because the house in front of where I lived and another a couple of blocks away got hit. The occupying US forces set up their guns inside the empWe got so used to tied campus and started shooting back towards the Japanese positions. Day in and out all we heard where the booming sound of cannons and no one can get some sleep. People got so used to the duel that most sat around their windows at night to watch the tracers. Our make shift shelter, a small tunnel we dug up under the house and stacked with furniture would not stand a chance if we get a direct hit.