The Filipino people struggled for three years to free their land from Japanese occupation. Hundreds of thousands resisted, while most did their best to just survive, providing what support they could to the resistance. A few Americans, civilian and military, also remained behind and formed a leadership cadre around which Filipinos could coalesce. Theirs was a lonely existence until the first fragile contact was established with Allied forces in Australia. First, they fought to survive. Next, they fought for recognition from MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Area headquarters, which would bring with it legal protection, promotions, supplies, arms, equipment, money, and prestige. Finally, they often fought one another, sometimes as a matter of ideology but more often for power. The resistance grew on the back of Japanese atrocities that turned the Filipino people firmly against the occupation of their homeland. Slowly, steadily, inexorably, American and Filipino leaders formed the framework for a robust guerrilla struggle against Japanese occupation that morphed into one of the great resistance movements of World War II.

In just nine months, the Philippines campaign isolated the Japanese homeland from its conquered empire to the south, made possible an air and sea blockade to prevent the resources of the Netherlands East Indies from reaching Japan, gained a base equivalent to the British Isles in preparation for the invasion of Japan, liberated the Philippines and its people from Japanese occupation, freed Allied prisoners of war and civilian detainees held in camps, destroyed the majority of the remaining Japanese fleet, and destroyed several thousand aircraft. SWPA undertook eighty-seven amphibious landings – more than in any other theater. SWPA logisticians performed legendary feats of improvisation on a shoestring budget. Air support was crucial to the effectiveness of operations in the Philippines. Japanese atrocities convinced MacArthur to charge Yamashita with war crimes on the basis of command responsibility, for which the Japanese general was tried and executed. Civil affairs units and engineers were crucial to rehabilitating the Philippines, which had been devastated by three years of Japanese occupation and nine months of combat operations.