Corregidor Trip

Saturday morning we left for Corregidor bright and early—6am! We were all running on less than 5 hours of sleep so I’m impressed everyone got there in time. Wina did come running up at the last minute...but she still made it!

Corregidor Island is located at the entrance to Manila Bay, 48 kilometers southwest of Manila. We (Dan, Wina, Coco, Grace, Noreen, and me) headed over to Sun Cruises where we eventually boarded a shuttle to the ferry. The trip on the ferry took about an hour but we left 30 minutes late, so our poor tour guide spent the rest of the day trying to make up for lost time! The ride over was uneventful—most of us slept.

Wina, Grace and Noreen on the ferry

We arrived at Corregidor and had to choose between buses 6 and 7 for our tour. We picked bus #7, with Armando as our hilarious and very knowledgeable tour guide.

Armando, our tour guide

 The first stop was the Lorcha Dock where General MacArthur left Corregidor for Australia in 1942 (March 12--Corregidor surrendered on May 6). We stopped and posed next to the big statute, of course! The text says "I shall return", taken from MacArthur's famous quote upon his arrival in Australia, "I came out of Bataan and I shall return."

Soc, Noreen, General MacArthur, Grace & Wina

Lorcha Dock

Tour Guide Armando's clock moved a little faster than the rest of the world's. He'd give us 10 minutes to walk around someplace and 5 minutes later he'd be ringing the bell to get us back on the bus!

Next stop was the Japanese Memorial, but first--here's the only picture I got of one of the creepy Japanese caves--these are all over the island.

The Japanese Memorial is where the Japanese cemetery used to be. It was lost for years after the war and only found because someone found a picture of it at a garage sale in Portland, Oregon in the 80's! Since then all the bodies have been exhumed and cremated (as is custom for Japanese soldiers) and returned to Japan. There is a huge statue here--Armando told us that anyone who touches it will soon become pregnant. Needless to say, there was a lot of joking about that--but no one in our group actually touched the statue.

Our bus headed over to the entrance of the Malinta Tunnel and dropped off anyone who wanted to see the sound & light show. Our group had decided to skip that, so we then headed over to the Filipino War Heroes Memorial, where there are huge murals depicting major Filipino battles throughout the country's history.

Flag of the Philippines

We stopped at the Mindanao Garden of Peace, and then it was back to the Malinta Tunnel for our walkthrough. The tunnel is HUGE. And very dark. (There were some low lights on.) I can't imagine how dark it must have been during the war when thousands of people were living inside, never knowing if it was day or night.

Map of the tunnel system

Apologies for the blurry picture, but you can just barely see the light at the end of the tunnel here. That's how long it is.

One of the side tunnels (with flash).

Same side tunnel with no flash--dark! And scary!

The Malinta Tunnel is 835 feet long, 24 feet wide. During the war, thousands of people lived inside. The hospital was located here and General MacArthur's office, among other things. If you do the nighttime tour of Corregidor, you get to come back here and explore at night (which sounds totally creepy). Apparently the tour guide turns off his flashlight for a few seconds so everyone can experience the blackness of the inside of the tunnel--eek!

After the tunnel we took a break for lunch at the Corregidor Inn. Armando's joke was "yesterday for lunch they had chicken and pork, today you'll be having pork and chicken!" We were all hungry. Then it was back to the bus for the final 2/3 of the island.

Battery Way was the first stop and our first chance to see the really big guns. There were 4 of them--they really are huge. Apparently the shells weighed 1000 lbs.

Big gun.

Grace's head fits inside!

Noreen and Wina...through the barrel of a very large gun.

Then we went to Battery Hearn to see the biggest gun on the island. This gun. Was. HUGE.

I'm 5'7''. So you get the idea.

Grace looks the most excited but Soc was the first to jump up there when I suggested a picture!

Next, we stopped at the ruins of Topside Barracks. These were very impressive and really, really wrecked from the war. We walked around on the first level (some of the crazy people on our tour went upstairs even though they weren't supposed to).

Then we went to the lighthouse and climbed up to the top. It was worth it for the view and the breeze! It was pretty hazy so my pictures didn't really turn out up there, but it was amazing to see that view of the island.

One of our last stops was the Pacific War Memorial. It was beautiful and peaceful here. The memorial is a large dome, and it's set up so that the sun only shines directly on the altar one day a year--May 6, the anniversary of the surrender of Corregidor.

Altar with Eternal Flame of Freedom in the background

"To live in freedom's light is the right of mankind"

This was an excellent day trip. Part of me wants to go back someday and do the overnight tour and explore around the island. Armando showed us some of the souvenirs he has found over the years. He has also found many dog tags and sent them all back to the U.S. Recently he got word that one he found made its way to the grandson of the soldier. It's hard to believe how much history there is in such a tiny island, and how much is still there waiting to be found.