Vintage Military - Part 35

 World War II - Philippines

Before World War II, the Philippines had been a Spanish colony, then a U.S. colony.  In 1935 the U.S made the Philippines a semi-independent Commonwealth with foreign affairs still handled by the U.S.  The photo above, taken by LIFE photographer Carl Mydans, shows Philippine soldiers showering in 1941 shortly before World War II broke out.

8 hours after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Japan invaded the Philippines.  U.S. and Philippine forces under General Douglas MacArthur withdrew to the Bataan peninsula, where they held out for a few months.  Japan's conquest of the Philippines is considered by some to be the worst defeat in U.S. military history.  President Franklin Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to relocate to Australia to become Supreme Allied Commander in the Southwest Pacific.  When he left the Philippines, MacArthur famously promised, "I shall return."

After reconquering New Guinea from the Japanese, which we have seen in previous posts, MacArthur fulfilled his promise to return to the Philippines by landing on the island of Leyte on Oct. 20, 1944.  Above is a photo of a second U.S. invasion of Leyte in December, 1944, with supplies being unloaded from LST craft.  To avoid working in wet uniforms, the troops either wore undershorts or worked naked.

Except where noted, all of today's photos are from the amazing LIFE photo archive and were taken by LIFE photographer Carl Mydans, who accompanied the U.S. troops.  These photos were not published in LIFE magazine.  Disclosure: I cropped the photo above to show detail.

This photo from the book My Buddy: World War II Laid Bare shows a sailor lathering up in Ormoc Bay in December, 1944 during the invasion of Leyte.

On S-day, January 9, 1945, the Americans invaded Luzon, the Philippine island containing the capital, Manila.  Again, Carl Mydans was on hand to photograph supplies being unloaded from LSTs.

Above is a cropped and enlarged section of the previous photo, showing a soldier at the front of the LST working without clothes and without concern.

Soldiers bathed however they could.  In a 1945 photo set called The Battle Moves Toward Manila, Mydans showed soldiers bathing with tins of water on the porch of a building.

Others had buckets of water.

Soldiers in the field might bathe in a river.

Or they might take a bucket shower in camp with the help of a buddy.

We end with short video clip from the U.S. National Archives of soldiers bathing in a fountain in Ormoc on the island of Leyte.  This sequence also appeared in a Pathé newsreel.  We think we're more permissive than our parents and grandparents, but people in the 1940s thought nothing of seeing soldiers' butts in a newsreel shown in public theaters.

Manila was secured by March, 1945 and all Japanese resistance in the Philippines was over by June.  After World War II ended, the U.S. recognized the Philippines as a fully independent nation on July 4, 1946.