quote:

In 1945 during the offensive to recapture Manila, the heavily fortified island was the last position in the bay that was held by the Japanese.[18] After a heavy aerial and naval bombardment, U.S. troops gained access to the deck of the fort on April 13 and were able to confine the garrison below. Rather than attempting to break in, the troops and engineers adapted the solution first used some days earlier in the assault of mortar forts on Fort Hughes. There, the troops pumped two parts diesel oil and one part gasoline into mortar pits, stood off, and ignited it with tracer bullets.
At Fort Drum, a similar technique was employed, using air vents on the top deck, but a timed fuse was used rather than tracer fire.[19] Upon ignition, the remaining Japanese were annihilated; the flammable mixture kept a fire burning in the fort for several days. It took 14 days before the fortress could finally be examined.[18] With the Manila Bay forts neutralized, including Fort Drum, Japanese resistance in the Bay area ended.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffK

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-P-Triumph/USA-P-Triumph-19.html

El Fraile

The next small island target was El Fraile, about five miles south of Caballo and a little over two miles off Ternate. Basically a reef, El Fraile had been turned into a formidable fortress long before World War II by U.S. Army engineers, who had constructed atop the reef a concrete, battleship-shaped citadel known as Fort Drum. The fortress walls were 25 to 36 feet thick, the top was 20 feet thick; the battleship was about 350 feet long and 145 feet wide, and it rose 40 feet above mean low water. The fort's four 14-inch guns and four 6-inch guns had been knocked out by Japanese fire or American demolitions in 1942 and had never been repaired by the Japanese.8

Manifestly, some special method of attack had to be devised for Fort Drum, especially since Japanese machine guns covered the only feasible entrance, a sally port at the east end. The existence of a Japanese garrison had been discovered in late February when the crew of an Allied Naval Forces PT boat, having decided that the fortress was abandoned, made an unscheduled reconnaissance. The Japanese garrison of seventy naval troops permitted seven of the Americans to make their way into a sally port and about a third of the way through Fort Drum's corridors. Suddenly, a Japanese machine gun opened up, killing one American naval officer and wounding another. The landing party made a hurried withdrawal, and it was the second week of April before an attempt to clear the fortress was undertaken.9


FORT DRUM

The 38th Division, responsible for the capture of Fort Drum, developed a plan of attack that followed naturally from the one employed successfully at Caballo Island--get troops atop Fort Drum and then feed oil and demolitions down ventilator shafts.10 Since the fortress walls were unscalable, the 113th Engineers, 38th Division, rigged a drawbridgelike ramp to the conning tower of an Allied Naval Forces LSM, and Company F, 151st Infantry, on the morning of 13 April, dashed across the bridge to the top of Fort Drum. While the infantry covered all openings, engineers followed across the ramp with an oil line and 600 pounds of TNT. The LCM employed at Caballo Island then began pumping oil into an open vent and engineers lowered TNT into another opening. After the engineers lit a 30-minute fuze, all hands withdrew and the LCM kept pumping. Suddenly, rough seas broke the oil line. Maj. Paul R. Lemasters, commanding the 2d Battalion, 151st Infantry, together with a few enlisted men, dashed back over the ramp to cut the demolition fuze with only minutes to spare. Engineers then repaired the oil line and resumed pumping.

The Japanese inside Fort Drum were strangely quiet throughout all this activity, although a few rifle shots from an old gun port wounded a seaman aboard the LSM. Pumping continued without incident, and shortly after 1020 the LSM, the LCM, and a few LCVP's that had kept the LSM alongside the fort, pulled off to a respectful distance. By that time nearly 3,000 gallons of oil had been pumped into the ventilator.

The initial explosion, occurring about 1035, proved a disappointing, weak, and scarcely noisy failure. But while the commanders concerned were gathering aboard Admiral Barbey's flagship to discuss the failure, burning oil seeped through openings created by the first explosion and reached the fort's magazines, most of them containing ammunition from 1942 that the Japanese had never hauled away. At approximately 1045 there was a deafening roar from the fort. Great clouds of smoke and flame shot skyward; a series of violent explosions threw steel plates and chunks of concrete hundreds of feet into the air and a thousand yards out to sea; smoke and flames poured from every vent, gun port, shell hole, and sally port. The holocaust exceeded all expectations.

Fires and explosions of some magnitude continued until late afternoon, while smoke, heat, and minor explosions made reconnaissance of the fort's interior impossible until 18 April. On that day infantry patrols penetrated Fort Drum's innermost recesses and found 69 Japanese bodies. The entire Japanese garrison of a seemingly impregnable stronghold had been wiped out at the cost to the attackers of one man wounded.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

Wow, just that one operation has major motion picture written all over it. Entangle with one of the Japanese officers in the Ft. Drum garrison being an overall nice guy (could even be one of the "protagonist") who develops a love affair with a Philippino local woman and bears a child with her, but his superior is a brutal tyrant who insist on stupid and brash Bushido tactics . . . and then some comparably interesting American protagonist characters . . . 75% of the movie could be a build up to the storming of Ft. Drum, and then the closing scenes . . . one of the surviving U.S. troops who was one of the engineers who stormed the fort . . . and OH! for added 'dramatic' value! he coudl be half-Japanese . . . OR! he could be a Philippino irregular who has been engaged as a partisan during Japanese occupation and has been assisting allied forces in their advance through the islands AND is the brother of the Japanese officers love interest! So then the closing scenes are this guy "Jorge" or whatever, returning the Japanese officers watch or something to the lady with baby in arms . . .

"El Fraile" the movie! Starring . . . Ben Affleck . . . [:D]

quote:

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Iam thinking ... TRILOGY !

quote:

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

I have a suggestion. Admiral Barbey should be played by a gorn. I need the work.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid
Wow, just that one operation has major motion picture written all over it. Entangle with one of the Japanese officers in the Ft. Drum garrison being an overall nice guy Gorn (could even be one of the "protagonist") who develops a love affair with a Philippino local woman half-Klingon/half Filipino love child lady and bears a child with her, but his superior is a brutal tyrant who insist on stupid and brash Bushido Borg tactics . . . and then some comparably interesting American Star Fleet protagonist characters ! Starring . . . Ben Affleck . . . [:D]