A RESEARCH PROJECT

JAPANESE OCCUPATION IN THE PHILIPPINES

AND

POST JAPANESE WAR

BOMBING OF NAGASAKI AND HIROSHIMA

Attempting to bring an earlier end to World War II, U.S. President Harry

Trumanmade the fateful decision to drop a massive atomic bomb on the Japanese city
of Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945, this atomic bomb, known as "Little Boy," flattened
the city, killing at least 70,000 people that day and tens of thousands more from
radiation poisoning.

While Japan was still trying to comprehend this devastation, the United States

dropped another atomic bomb.This bomb, nicknamed "Fat Man," was dropped on the
Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people immediately and
another 20,000 to 40,000 in the months following the explosion.

On August 15, 1945, Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced an unconditional

surrender, ending World War II.

Hiroshima

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of
Hiroshima. The bomb was known as "Little Boy", a uranium gun-type bomb that
exploded with about thirteen kilotons of force. At the time of the bombing, Hiroshima
was home to 280,000-290,000 civilians as well as 43,000 soldiers. Between 90,000
and 166,000 people are believed to have died from the bomb in the four-month period
following the explosion. The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that after five
years there were perhaps 200,000 or more fatalities as a result of the bombing, while
the city of Hiroshima has estimated that 237,000 people were killed directly or
indirectly by the bomb's effects, including burns, radiation sickness, and cancer.

The bombing of Hiroshima, codenamed Operation Centerboard I, was approved by

Curtis LeMay on August 4, 1945. The B-29 plane that carried Little Boy from Tinian
Island in the western Pacific to Hiroshima was known as the Enola Gay, after pilot
Paul Tibbets' mother. Along with Tibbets, copilot Robert Lewis, bombardier Tom
Ferebee, navigator Theodore Van Kirk, and tail gunner Robert Caron were among the
others on board the Enola Gay. Below are their eyewitness accounts of the first atomic
bomb dropped on Japan.

Nagasaki

Three days after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a
second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9 – a 21-kiloton plutonium
device known as "Fat Man.” On the day of the bombing, an estimated 263,000 were in
Nagasaki, including 240,000 Japanese residents, 9,000 Japanese soldiers, and 400
prisoners of war. Prior to August 9, Nagasaki had been the target of small scale
bombing by the United States. Though the damage from these bombings was
relatively small, it created considerable concern in Nagasaki and many people were
evacuated to rural areas for safety, thus reducing the population in the city at the time
of the nuclear attack. It is estimated that between 40,000 and 75,000 people died
immediately following the atomic explosion, while another 60,000 people suffered
severe injuries. Total deaths by the end of 1945 may have reached 80,000.

The decision to use the second bomb was made on August 7, 1945 on Guam. Its use
was calculated to indicate that the United States had an endless supply of the new
weapon for use against Japan and that the United States would continue to drop
atomic bombs on Japan until the country surrendered unconditionally. 

The city of Nagasaki, however, was not the primary target for the second atomic
bomb. Instead, officials had selected the city of Kokura, where Japan had one of its
largest munitions plants.

The B-29 "Bockscar", piloted Major Charles Sweeney, was assigned to deliver the
"Fat Man" to the city of Kokura on the morning of August 9, 1945. Accompanying
Sweeney on the mission were copilots Charles Donald Albury and Fred J. Olivi,
weaponeer Frederick Ashworth, and bombadier Kermit Beahan. At 3:49am,
"Bockscar" and five other B-29s departed the island of Tinian and headed towards
Kokura.

When the plane arrived over the city nearly seven hours later, thick clouds and
drifting smoke from fires started by a major firebombing raid on nearby Yawata the
previous day covered most of the area over Kokura, obscuring the aiming point. Pilot
Charles Sweeney made three bomb runs over the next fifty minutes, but bombardier
Beahan was unable to drop the bomb because he could not see the target visually. By
the time of the third bomb run, Japanese antiaircraft fire was getting close, and Second
Lieutenant Jacob Beser, who was monitoring Japanese communications, reported
activity on the Japanese fighter direction radio bands.

Running low on fuel, the crew aboard Bockscar decided to head for the
secondary target, Nagasaki. When the B-29 arrived over the city twenty minutes later,
the downtown area was also covered by dense clouds. Frederick Ashworth, the plane's
weaponeer proposed bombing Nagasaki using radar. At that moment, a small opening
in the clouds at the end of the three-minute bomb run permitted bombardier Kermit
Beahan to identify target features.

At 10:58 AM local time, Bockscar visually dropped Fat Man. It exploded 43

seconds later with a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT at an altitude of
1,650 feet, about 1.5 miles northwest of the intended aiming point.

The radius of total destruction from the atomic blast was about one mile, followed by
fires across the northern portion of the city to two miles south of where the bomb had
been dropped. In contrast to many modern aspects of Hiroshima, almost all of the
buildings in Nagasaki were of old-fashioned Japanese construction, consisting of
wood or wood-frame buildings with wood walls and tile roofs. Many of the smaller
industries and business establishments were also situated in buildings of wood or
other materials not designed to withstand explosions. As a result, the atomic explosion
over Nagasaki leveled nearly every structure in the blast radius.

The failure to drop Fat Man at the precise bomb aim point caused the atomic
blast to be confined to the Urakami Valley. As a consequence, a major portion of the
city was protected from the explosion. The Fat Man was dropped over the city's
industrial valley midway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south
and the Mitsubishi-Urakami Ordnance Works in the north. The resulting explosion
had a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT, roughly the same as the Trinity
blast. Nearly half of the city was completely destroyed.

At least 70,000 people were killed in the initial blast, while approximately
70,000 more died from radiation exposure. "The five-year death total may have
reached or even exceeded 200,000, as cancer and other long-term effects took hold,"
according to the Department of Energy's history of the Manhattan Project.

The U.S. dropped another bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945, killing up to
80,000 people. Japan unconditionally agreed to accept the terms of surrender on
August 14.
 BATAAN DEATH MARCH

The march of Military Prisoners in the Philippines of some 66 miles (106 km)

that 76,000 prisoners of war (66,000 Filipinos, 10,000 Americans) were forced by the
Japanese military to endure in April 1942, during the early stages of World War II.
Mainly starting in Mariveles, on the southern tip of the Bataan Peninsula, on April 9,
1942, the prisoners were force-marched north to San Fernando and then taken by rail
in cramped and unsanitary boxcars farther north to Capas. From there they walked an
additional 7 miles (11 km) to Camp O’Donnell, a former Philippine army training
centre used by the Japanese military to intern Filipino and American prisoners. During
the main march—which lasted 5 to 10 days, depending on where a prisoner joined it
—the captives were beaten, shot, bayoneted, and, in many cases, beheaded; a large
number of those who made it to the camp later died of starvation and disease. Only
54,000 prisoners reached the camp; though exact numbers are unknown, some 2,500
Filipinos and 500 Americans may have died during the march, and an additional
26,000 Filipinos and 1,500 Americans died at Camp O’Donnell

Camp O’ Donnell

Japanese military leaders had severely underestimated the number of prisoners that
they were likely to capture and were therefore unprepared, logistically and materially,
for the tens of thousands taken into captivity. As word spread of King’s decision,
Allied troops surrendered in groups large and small. It was at this time that the first
atrocity occurred, when Japanese soldiers summarily executed 350–400 Filipino
officers. With prisoners of war scattered across the peninsula, the Japanese finally
ordered them to Bataan’s east coast and the main road there, where they were
marshaled into columns and force-marched north to a rail head in San Fernando.

Most of the prisoners began the long walk in Mariveles, at the tip of Bataan,
and had to march the full 66 miles to the rail head; others joined along the way. One
constant was the attitude of the Japanese soldiers, who considered surrender a base act
and prisoners of war little more than chattel: they were spoils of war that were good
for little but forced labour. The Japanese brutalized their captives during the march
north to the trains that would take them to a prison camp. They beat them incessantly,
sometimes to move them along, sometimes just for sport. Many of the prisoners were
battle worn and incapable of keeping up the grueling pace of the march, especially in
the tropical heat and with little water. Those who dropped from exhaustion or
sickness, fell behind, broke ranks to fetch water, or tried to escape were bayoneted,
shot, or beheaded. Men who could not rise the next morning to continue were often
buried alive or beaten to death with the shovels of the ditch diggers, other prisoners
who were forced to carve out graves along the way.
At the rail head at San Fernando, prisoners were jammed into small prewar boxcars,
100 men or more into a conveyance meant for 40. There was little air in the ovenlike
cars, and hundreds of men died standing up. Finally, after an additional march, the
sick, starving, and brutalized captives were herded into prison camps, one for Filipino
soldiers and another for Americans, across the road from each other at a former
Philippine army training ground called Camp O’Donnell. Here, from April to October
1942, thousands of men died of sickness and starvation. During that time, the
American prisoners were divided into forced-labour gangs and trucked throughout the
Philippines to build airfields and roads. In October the Filipino prisoners were
released.
 DIOSDADO P. MACAPAGAL (1961-1965)

Agricultural programs

   Discovery of “miracle rice” – International Rice Research Institute

 Organized a Land Reform Program
  Socio-economic programs
  “New Era” Program – to lift the government regulation in American dollars
and to stabilize the Philippine peso through the formation of various economic
projects which would further strengthen the foundation of the currency
  Establishment of the Philippine Veteran’s Bank
  Formation of the National Cottage Industry Development Administration
(NACIDA)

Political programs

 Proposed for the formation of the MAPHILINDO – an association of states

which included Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines
  The President served as a mediator in solving the international conflict between
the United States and Cambodia
 He also helped to solve the dispute between the Federation of Malaysia and
Indonesia
 He also made a provocative declaration that the Sabah Island was a former
territory of the Philippines

Cultural Programs

 Macapagal promoted the usage of the native language in our diplomatic

credentials such as passports and stamps
 He also released an order that the Filipino language should be used in traffic
signs and in naming the typhoons’
 His administration was also historical because he changed the date of
Philippine independence from July 4 to June 12

AGRICULTURAL LAND REFORM CODE (RA 3844)

It was a major advancement of land reform in the Philippines and was enacted

in 1963 under President Diosdado Macapagal. It abolished tenancy and established a
leasehold system in which farmers paid fixed rentals to landlords, rather than a
percentage of harvest. In agriculutral leasehold, the farmer cultivates the land
belonging to, or possessed by, another with the latter's consent for a price certain in
money or in produce or both. It also established the Land Bank of the Philippines to
help with land reform, particularly the purchase of agricultural estates for division and
resale to small landholders, and the purchase of land by the agricultural lessee.

While the law was a significant advance over previous legislation, though the
bill was weakened by numerous amendments imposed by Congress, which was
dominated by landlords. It was also weakened by the failure of Congress to allocate
necessary funds for effective implementation of the law. The act has been further
amended several times subsequent to becoming law by later legislation.

Provisions
The main provisions of the Agricultural Land Reform Code were:

 To establish and encourage the formation of family-sized farms as the basis for
Philippine agriculture
 To improve the lives of farmers by liberating them from harmful practices such
as illegal interest rates
 To encourage greater productivity and increase income of small farmers
 To apply labor laws equally regardless of status
 To provide a land settlement program and promote equitable distribution of
land
 To make poor farmers self-reliant, responsible citizens to strengthen society

MAPHILINDO

Maphilindo was initially proposed as a realization of Filipino national hero

Dr. José Rizal dream of uniting the Malay peoples, seen as artificially divided
by colonial frontiers. In July 1963, Quezon's later successor, President Diosdado
Macapagal, convened a summit in Manila where the three countries signed a series of
agreements to resolve controversies over the former British colonies of North
Borneo and Sarawak joining Malaysia.

While the union was described as a regional association that would approach
issues of common concern, it was also perceived as a tactic employed by the
Philippines and Indonesia to hinder the formation of the Federation of Malaysia as
Malaya's successor state. The Philippines had its own claim over the eastern part
of Sabah (formerly British North Borneo), while Indonesia protested the formation of
Malaysia as a imperialist plot.

The union was dismantled a month later[2] when Sukarno, President of

Indonesia, adopted a policy of Konfrontasi (Indonesian, "confrontation") with the
newly constituted Malaysia. The aim of the Konfrontasi was to prevent Malaysia from
achieving full sovereignty, and was introduced to President Sukarno by
the Communist Party of Indonesia or PKI. The PKI had convinced President Sukarno
that the formation of Malaysia was a form of neo-colonization that will later affect
Indonesian stability.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROGRAM

The removal of controls and the restoration of free enterprise was intended to
provide only the fundamental setting in which Macapagal could work out economic
and social progress. A specific and periodic program for the guidance of both the
private sector and the government was an essential instrument to attain the economic
and social development that constituted the goal of his labors.

Such a program for his administration was formulated under his authority and
direction by a group of able and reputable economic and business leaders the most
active and effective of which was Sixto Roxas III. From an examination of the
planned targets and requirements of the Five-Year program – formally known as the
Five-Year Socio-Economic Integrated Development Program – it could be seen that it
aimed at the following objectives.

 immediate restoration of economic stability;

 alleviating the plight of the common man; and
 establishing a dynamic basic for future growth.
 Free enterprise was restored with decontrol. The Five-Year Economic Program
had been prescribed. Land reform abolishing tenancy had been launched. These were
essential foundations for economic and social progress for the greatest number. [12]

The essential foundations having been laid, attention must then be turned to the
equally difficult task of building the main edifice by implementing the economic
program. Although the success of Macapagal's Socio-Economic Program in free
enterprise inherently depended on the private sector, it would be helpful and necessary
for the government to render active assistance in its implementation by the citizens.

Such role of the government in free enterprise, in the view of Macapagal, required
it (1) to provide the social overhead like roads, airfields and ports that directly or
proximately promote economic growth, (2) to adopt fiscal and monetary policies
salutary to investments, and most importantly (3) to serve as an entrepreneur or
promote of basic and key private industries, particularly those that require capital too
large for businessmen to put up by themselves. Among the enterprises he selected for
active government promotion were integrated steel, fertilizer, pulp,
meat canning and tourism.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE DAY

On May 12, 1962, President Diosdado Macapagal moved the Philippine

Independence Day celebration from July 4 to June 12.

President Macapagal noted that Independence Day should be changed to June

12, the date General Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed the independence of the Filipinos
in Kawit, Cavite, in 1898.

Hence, on June 12, 1962, Philippine Independence was celebrated at the Luneta
grandstand with General Emilio Aguinaldo as the guest of honor.
 President Macapagal pointed out that July 4 was not the right day for Filipinos
to celebrate their independence since it somehow connoted subjection and dependence
to the United States.

July 4 is now observed as "Filipino-American Friendship Day."

Finally, On August 4, 1964, President Macapagal signed at Malacañang

Republic Act No. 4166 statutorily prescribing June 12 as Philippine Independence
Day.

FOREIGN POLICY

Macapagal's foreign policy displayed an eccentric course. On the one hand, he

affirmed that he would never recognize Communist China despite what the United
States or other nations might decide. On the other, he criticized in May 1962 the
United States support of Laos neutralists as "a species of sophistry that can only
weaken the defense of the free world."

In June 1962 Macapagal registered a claim of Philippine sovereignty over

British North Borneo (Sabah). In July he proposed the establishment of a greater
Malayan confederation which would supersede the British-sponsored plan for the
Federation of Malaysia. This would be a step toward ultimate establishment of a Pan-
Asian Union. Macapagal initiated the Manila Accord of July 31, 1963, signed by
himself, President Sukarno of Indonesia, and Abdul Rahman of Malaya; on August 6
the three chiefs of state issued the Manila Declaration toward the establishment of
Maphilindo, designed to set up closer ties between the three countries in their
collective fight against neocolonialism. This plan broke up with the formation on Aug.
1, 1964, of the Federation of Malaysia by the Malayan and British governments.
NORTH BORNEO CLAIM

On September 12, 1962, during President Diosdado Macapagal's

administration, the territory of eastern North Borneo(now Sabah), and the full
sovereignty, title and dominion over the territory were ceded by heirs of the Sultanate
of Sulu, HM Sultan Muhammad Esmail E. Kiram I, to the Republic of the Philippines.
[
The cession effectively gave the Philippine government the full authority to pursue
their claim in international courts. The Philippines broke diplomatic relations with
Malaysia after the federation had included Sabah in 1963. [25][26] It was revoked in 1989
because succeeding Philippine administrations have placed the claim in the back
burner in the interest of pursuing cordial economic and security relations with Kuala
Lumpur. To date, Malaysia continues to consistently reject Philippine calls to resolve
the matter of Sabah's jurisdiction to the International Court of Justice Sabah sees the
claim made by the Philippines' Moro leader Nur Misuari to take Sabah to International
Court of Justice (ICJ) as a non-issue and thus dismissed the claim.
REFERENCES

 https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-
nagasaki
 https://www.thoughtco.com/atomic-bombing-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-1779992
 https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/bombings-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-
1945
 https://www.britannica.com/event/Bataan-Death-March
 https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-
Sheets/Display/Article/196214/imperial-brutality-bataan-death-march/
 http://www2.gvsu.edu/walll/The%20Bataan%20Death%20March.htm
 https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/1126/today-in-philippine-history-
may-12-1962-president-macapagal-moved-the-independence-day-celebration-
from-july-4-to-june-12
 https://www.revolvy.com/page/Maphilindo
 https://www.revolvy.com/page/Agricultural-Land-Reform-Code-
%28Philippines%29
 http://diosdadom.blogspot.com/2011/08/d.html