Here is a 1930s photo of "The Diamonds Restaurant" & gas station at the junction of Highways 66 -50 & 100, Villa Ridge, Missouri. You can see the Rt. 66 shield in the bottom right corner. The Diamonds was promoted as "The World's Largest Roadside Restaurant" serving one million customers per year. Restaurant employee Louis Eckelcamp and Nobel kay took over the Diamonds in 1935. A fire so intense that it shut down Route 66 destroyed this building in 1948. The business started in 1919 when Spencer Groff set up a stand to sell plums from the family orchard where the Ozark Trail met the Old Springfield Road. A customer said it reminded him of a "Banana Stand", and the name stuck. He opened this facility on July 3, 1927, and name it the Diamonds for the shape of the property.
In January and February 1945, American forces made successful amphibious landings at three locations in the Philippines and paratroopers were dropped into another site. These American forces all began to converge on Manila.
The capital city of the Philippines, Manila was known as “the Pearl of the Orient,” a beautiful fusion of Spanish, Asian, and American architecture and culture, with a million residents. When General McArthur had withdrawn in 1941 he had declared Manila an “open city,” in order to spare it from destruction. He hoped and expected the Japanese would do the same.
Realizing he could not defend the city, the Japanese commander General Tomoyuki Yama****a ordered his forces to abandon Manila and converge in the north, where he intended to fight the Americans. But Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi, commanding a force of about 17,000 men (mostly sailors and marines) refused to follow Yama****a’s instructions, believing that as a naval officer he was not bound to. Instead, with the blessing of his naval superiors in Japan, he determined to make a stand in Manila, and there to fight to the death.
Not expecting resistance, the American forces rolled to the outskirts of Manila then began to enter the city. General McArthur proclaimed that Manila had been liberated. But, in fact, the fight had just begun and would go on for another bloody month. Iwabuchi’s men barricaded streets, blew up the city’s bridges and stubbornly contested the American advance, fighting street by street. As they slowly withdrew deeper into the heart of the city, they brutally massacred more than 100,000 Filipino civilians and committed horrific atrocities involving mutilations and mass rapes. After weeks of savage fighting Iwabuchi’s remaining men were pushed back into Intramuros, the old walled colonial city, the oldest party of Manila. There, the Japanese made their final stand. As American artillery pounded the area, destroying all the historic structures, Iwabuchi committed ritual suicide. His entire force fought to the death. Those who weren’t killed in the fighting, committed suicide.
One thousand ten American soldiers were killed in the Battle of Manila and over 5,500 were wounded. Iwabuchi’s entire force (approximately 17,000 men) were killed. By most estimates approximately 200,000 Philippine civilians were killed, but the number could be much higher. The city of Manila was nearly completely destroyed.
After the war General Yama****a was tried by a war crimes tribunal, convicted, and sentenced to death, for having failed to control his subordinates and take appropriate action to prevent the massacres. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and Yama****a was hanged on February 23, 1946.
The Battle of Manila ended on March 4, 1945, seventy-seven years ago today.
The photo is of Intramuros, the old walled city of Manila, after the battle.