Initially the regiment was tasked with a "reconnaissance en force" operation, but their orders changed to take and hold the passes through the mountains in the center of the island, and engage and reduce the Japanese forces in the area, ultimately in support of the battle of
Ormoc which was simultaneously ongoing. The 511th successfully performed this mission during harsh monsoonal weather in the steep, heavily forested terrain, emerging shortly after Christmas of 1944 onto the Ormoc plain after suffering severe casualties. After a brief rest and resupply the regiment was sent to the island of Mindoro as the 11th Airborne was preparing for its part in the
Battle of Luzon. On 3 February 1945 the 511th on board 48 C-47 aircraft performed a combat jump on
Tagaytay Ridge. Due to the shortage of planes, the regiment and its associated elements jumped in 3 echelons. Despite some misdrops, the 511th assembled successfully at its drop zone at the Manila Hotel Annex on Tagaytay Ridge and proceeded in battalions north towards Manila, encountering occasional Japanese resistance in the towns of Imus and Las Piñas before engaging the Japanese at the Parañaque River just south of Manila. During the
Battle of Manila, the 511th fought through the Japanese Genko Line from 5–12 February, penetrating as far into Manila as the Dewey-Libertad area, before turning east to attack and recapture
Fort William McKinley (Fort Bonifacio, now
Bonifacio Global City). On 23 February its 1st Battalion took part in the
Raid at Los Baños, freeing over 2,000 foreign Allied civilians from a Japanese internment camp south of Manila, with its B Company performing a parachute jump on the camp itself. The regiment proceeded to clear a transport corridor from Manila to the towns of
Lipa and
Batangas City, which has an important port, and took the crossroads town of Santo Tomas. With the rest of the 11th Airborne it also engaged Japanese forces throughout the provinces of Laguna, Batangas, and Tayabas (modern Quezon); the regiment's 1st and 2nd battalions in Sixth Army reserve in the towns of Batangas and Bauan, its 3nd battalion in active fighting. From 27 to 29 April it engaged and eliminated the remaining Japanese forces entrenched in underground complexes in the Mount Malepunyo (
Malarayat) range east of Lipa. On 23 June elements of the regiment took part in the war's final combat jump at
Aparri in northern Luzon, part of the effort to seal off the retreat of Japanese commander
General Yamashita. The regiment remained in the Lipa-Batangas area, training for the planned invasion of Japan, until
the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ==Japan==