Corregidor is a small island, 3.5 miles long and 1.5 miles wide, located some two miles off the Bataan Peninsula. At the start of World War II, it was heavily fortified, and it was to this fortress island that Lt. Gen. Douglas MacArthur withdrew his headquarters after Lt. Gen. Homma Masaharu landed his Fourteenth Japanese Army on Luzon in December 1941. While MacArthur commanded from Corregidor, the bulk of his army forces withdrew to the adjacent Bataan Peninsula. Ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to evacuate himself and family to Australia, MacArthur turned over his headquarters and his command to Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright on March 11, 1942.

Well before World War II, Corregidor had been dubbed the "Gibraltar of the East" and was stocked with ammunition and sufficient food to sustain 10,000 for six months. Heavily fortified, the rocklike island was pierced through with a network of tunnels, which contained a hospital, living quarters, and other facilities. Three smaller fortified islands were located nearby, together forming a fortress system that controlled Manila Bay and a superb harbor, which the Japanese desperately wanted.

Homma laid siege to Corregidor and mercilessly bombarded the island by air and with heavy artillery. The bombardment destroyed all the surface facilities on the island but left the underground systems entirely intact. In the meantime, the campaign to take Bataan proceeded much more slowly and at far greater cost than the Japanese had anticipated. However, on April 9, 1942, Bataan finally fell, giving Homma an artillery position much closer to Corregidor. From this position, his forces resumed continual barrages and incessant air raids, which leveled the beach defenses and knocked out all but three of the fortress island's guns. Corregidor's jungle was burned, the shore road pounded into the bay, and mountainsides and cliffs blasted into avalanche. Only after a full month of this bombardment did Homma land his 4th Division on Corregidor, during the night of May 5. This force suffered stunning losses, incurring 1,200 casualties out of the 2,000 men committed to the landing. Nevertheless, once a beachhead was established, artillery and tanks were off-loaded, and an advance was made against the half-starved Filipino and American garrison of 11,000. Wainwright incurred heavy casualties and, as the assault force closed in on the tunnels of Corregidor during the morning of May 6, Wainwright surrendered. This marked the fall of the Philippines.

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