Seventy-five years ago, U.S. forces began the invasion of Luzon, the largest and most populous island in the Philippines, thereby fulfilling Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s 1942 pledge to recapture the island from the Japanese.
Since the Japanese controlled nearly every island between the Philippines and Hawaii in 1942, getting to the Philippines meant seizing many of those islands, which included Guadalcanal, Saipan, Tinian, Tarawa and Peleliu. The islands would provide runways for U.S. aircraft and deny them to Japan.