Across the parking lot from Manila City Hall under the large flag pole.

A Philippine Official Historic Marker.

From the US Army Website: 1st Cavalry Division and the Battle of Manila.  

The origins of the 1st Cavalry Division's motto, "First Team," can be traced back to World War II and the Battle of Manila from February 3 to March 3, 1945. This year marks the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of the city and the Division's "flying columns" which led them to be the first in Manila.

After coming ashore in 1945 were directly ordered by Gen. Douglas McArthur to "Go to Manila! Go around the [Japanese], bounce off the [Japanese], save your men, but get to Manila! Free the internees at Santo Tomas! Take the Malacanan Palace and the legislative building!"

The Division was broken down into three mobile columns mainly made up of a tank company, artillery, engineers, and a medical squadron. They carried only what they needed and, in true cavalry fashion, charged headlong toward Manila. In three days and over 70 miles the column spearheaded by the 8th Cavalry Regt. reached Santo Tomas where 4,000 foreign (mainly American) internees had been held since the fall of the Philippines in 1942.

The battle was only just beginning with the liberation of the internees at Santo Tomas. Over 16,000 Japanese Soldiers and navy personnel had refused to abandon the city to the Americans and dug in forcing the 1st Cavalry and the 37th Infantry Division to root them out street by street. Originally, McArthur had made very restrictive rules of engagements for the city to include no use of artillery or air strikes, but had to change the plan when the Japanese refused to surrender.

The resulting engagements over the next 28 days leveled the city and left thousands of innocent civilians dead. But it was the barbarity of the enemy and their merciless killing of the young, the old, men, women and children that would account for the over 100,000 civilian deaths in Manila.

LATE IN THE AFTERNOON OF

FEBRUARY 3, 1945 TWO GROUPS OF

THE FLYING COLUMN OF THE 1ST

CAVALRY DIVISION, INCLUDING THE

ATTACHED 44TH TANK BATTALION,

ENTERED MANILA, WITH THE FIRST

GROUP TAKING POSSESSION OF MALA-

CANANG PALACE AND THE SECOND

GROUP LIBERATING THE AMERICAN

AND OTHER ALLIED CIVILIAN INTER-

NEES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SANTO

TOMAS. THEY WERE FOLLOWED BY

THE 37TH INFANTRY DIVISION, WHICH

RESCUED ALLIED CIVILIAN INTERNEES

AND PRISONERS OF WAR AT BILIBID

PRISON. FROM THE SOUTH THE 11TH

AIRBORNE DIVISION CLOSED IN ON

MANILA. THE JAPANESE IMPERIAL

FORCES IN INTRAMUROS WERE ANNI

HILATED BY FEBRUARY 24.

THIS MARKER WAS INSTALLED

PURSUANT TO BOARD RESOLUTION

NO. 2.S.1994 OF THE NATIONAL HIS-

TORICAL INSTITUTE.