When the last American and Filipino troops on the peninsula surrendered on 9 April 1942, the Japanese were able to mass artillery for an all-out attack of the Rock and its antiquated batteries.

Corregidor in 1945—though it lacked in importance to the defensive strategy of the Japanese that it previously had held for the Americans in early 1942—remained a formidable sentinel to the entrance to Manila Bay.

The role of recapturing the Rock went to the 503rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team (503rd PRCT) of Lieutenant Colonel George M. Jones and elements of Major General Roscoe B. Woodruff's 24th Infantry Division, the same units which undertook the capture of Mindoro island.

Daily strikes by heavy bombers of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) continued until 16 February, with 595 short tons (540 t) of bombs dropped.

On 13 February, the United States Navy added to the bombardment, with cruisers and destroyers shelling from close to shore and braving sporadic Japanese artillery counterfire, with minesweepers operating around the island by the next day.

The softening up, or gloucesterizing[4] (so-called after an intense pre-invasion bombardment of Cape Gloucester the previous December), of the island lasted for three more days.

On 14 February, while assisting minesweeping operations prior to landings on Corregidor Island, the destroyer USS Fletcher was hit by an enemy shell and set afire.

Watertender First Class Elmer Charles Bigelow fought the blaze, contributing greatly to saving his ship, but was badly injured and died the next day.

At 08:33 on 16 February, barely three minutes after their intended time and facing 16–18 knot winds over the drop zones, the first of one thousand troopers of the 503rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team began dropping out of C-47 troop carriers of the US 317th Troop Carrier Group of the 5th Air Force and to float down on the surprised[citation needed] Japanese defenders, remnants of Maj. Gen. Rikichi Tsukada's Kembu Group at the two tiny go-point areas of Topside's western heights.

Despite the grueling air and naval bombardment that left the defending troops dazed and scattered, they rallied and fierce fighting erupted almost immediately.

Private Lloyd G. McCarter, a scout attached to the 503rd, during the initial landing on 16 February, crossed 30 yd (27 m) of open ground under intense fire and at point-blank range silenced a machine gun with hand grenades.

The most ferocious battle to regain Corregidor occurred at Wheeler Point on the night of 18 February and early the next morning, when D and F Companies, 2nd Battalion, 503rd PRCT, settled down in defensive positions near Battery Hearn and Cheney Trail.

Aside from flares fired throughout the night by warships laying offshore, the three-hour battle was decided by the weapons of the 50 paratroopers ranged against the Japanese marines.

The battalion pushed inland against sporadic resistance, mostly from groups coming out of the subterranean passages of the island to waylay the advancing American troops.

Two 3rd Battalion units—K and L Companies under Captains Frank Centanni and Lewis F. Stearns, respectively—managed to secure the road and both northern and southern entrances to Malinta Hill, while Capt.

For eight straight days until 23 February, these units staved off successive banzai charges, mortar attacks, and a suicide squad of soldiers with explosives strapped to their bodies; they killed over 300 Japanese.

An M4 Sherman tank fired a shell into a sealed tunnel suspected of harboring Japanese soldiers but which instead contained tons of stored ammunition.

The subsequent explosion threw the 30 short tons (27 t) tank several dozen feet, killing its crew and 48 US soldiers nearby, and wounded more than 100 others in the immediate area.