Spanish colonial era The island came under Spanish sovereignty on May 19, 1570, when
Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and his forces arrived in Manila Bay. Legazpi was authorized by the Spanish Crown to establish the capital of the Philippines in Manila, and to convert the Muslims in Luzon and
Mindanao to
Christianity. Corregidor was used as a support site for the nine Spanish
galleons used during the campaign. Under
Spanish rule, Corregidor served not only as a fortress of defense, a penal institution, and a station for
customs inspection, but also as a signal outpost to warn
Manila of the approach of hostile ships. The name "Corregidor" comes from the Spanish word
corregir, meaning "to correct".
Isla del Corregidor, the old name of the place, literally means "the Corregidor's island". Several explanations for how the island was named have been suggested. One story states that the island was called
Isla del Corregidor (literally, Island of the Corrector) due to the Spanish customs system, wherein all ships entering Manila Bay were required to stop and have their documents checked and "corrected". Another version claims that the island was used as a penitentiary or correctional institution by the Spanish government, and thus came to be called
El Corregidor.
Corregidor is also a specific position of authority within the former Spanish administrative structure, the title for the man who was the head of a territorial unit known as
un corregimiento. The institution of administrative districts called
corregimientos (with each district chief known as
El Corregidor) was in use throughout Spanish America and the Philippines. For example, the Philippines had "
corregidores" in charge of Bataan and Zambales, among others. On November 23, 1574, the Chinese pirate
Limahong and his 65-vessel fleet with 3,000 men anchored between Corregidor and Mariveles. From that site, he launched two successive attacks against Manila, commanded either by Limahong himself or by the Japanese pirate Sioco. Both attacks failed due to a fierce battle defense led by the governor,
Juan de Salcedo. In November and December 1600, during the
Eighty Years' War between the Netherlands and Spain, the Dutch privateer and Admiral
Olivier van Noort used the surroundings of Corregidor Island as an anchorage for his last two ships,
Mauritius and
Eendracht. From there he engaged in activities that the Spanish considered to be piracy, targeting ships on the sailing route to and from Manila. This situation ended after the naval combat of
Fortune Island on December 14, 1600. The Spanish lost their flagship, the hastily converted
Manila galleon San Diego, as the unbalanced weight of her extra cannon caused a permanent list and put her gun ports below the waterline. But they captured the Dutch ship
Eendracht, and Admiral van Noort retreated from the Philippines. Continuing the three-year voyage in his one remaining ship and arriving home with 45 men still alive, van Noort became the first Dutch sea captain to
circumnavigate the world. The
Dutch East India Company was formed a few months later. In response to these events, and also to prevent sudden attack by Muslims from Mindanao, a watch vessel was posted at Corregidor to control the entrance to the bay. According to data from 1637, this vessel had a crew of twenty men, who were paid 540 pesos a year for this task. Corregidor Island was taken over by the Dutch in June 1647, and from there they launched an offensive against
Cavite which was repelled by the Spanish garrison under the command of Andre Lopez de Azalduigui. The Dutch would remain on the island for seven more months, however, as it served them well as an operations base from which to intercept Chinese merchant traffic in the vicinity of
Luzon and
Cebu. Finally they withdrew with few of their expectations fulfilled. In October 1762, during the
British invasion of Manila and Cavite led by
Samuel Cornish and
William Draper, Corregidor was used as an anchorage for warships, particularly
HMS Panther and
HMS Argo. It was also used as an anchorage for the fully loaded Spanish treasure galleon
Santisima Trinidad they had captured, during November 1762. The British sailed the captured galleon to
Portsmouth,
England, where it was sold for a fortune. The arrival of the Spanish fleet led by General Ignacio Mario de Alava, with the mission to place the Philippine Islands on alert, did not affect the fortunes of Corregidor Island. He limited his activity to the setting up of a
naval station at
Cavite. On January 18, 1853, the
Corregidor Island Lighthouse was first lit on the highest part of the island, to mark the entrance of Manila Bay for vessels coming in from the South China Sea. The Spanish government built this
Second-Order light, which is situated above
sea level and visible for .
Spanish–American War Corregidor Island was included in the Philippines' defense plan prepared in 1885 by General Cerero, but no action was taken to implement it. When the
U.S. Navy's attack was thought to be imminent, a
12 cm gun of the "Hontoria System", which came from the
Spanish Navy's
cruiser Antonio de Ulloa, and two shorter
12 cm guns of the same
caliber from the Spanish
gunboat General Lezo, were installed on the rocky island of El Fraile. On
Caballo Island, south of Corregidor, the
Spanish army installed three
15 cm naval guns from the Spanish navy cruiser
Velasco, which was undergoing repairs. At midnight on the night of April 30 to May 1, 1898, U.S. Navy Commodore
George Dewey led his naval squadron, with his flag hoisted on board the
protected cruiser , eastward along the southern coast of Corregidor Island, beyond the reach of Spanish batteries and with no navigational lights on, preparing to fight the
Battle of Manila Bay. At a distance about one mile off El Fraile, Dewey's fleet changed course to the northeast, steaming towards Manila. When they were discovered, the Spaniards fired from El Fraile's artillery. An American response followed immediately, first by and then by , and . Since the flotilla's speed was ten knots, they were soon far away from the Spanish batteries. Dewey sailed for Cavite where he destroyed the naval forces of
Admiral Montojo. Once the Cavite shipyard was subdued by means of a stipulated pact, two American ships went ashore at Corregidor Island on May 3 forcing the Spaniards on the island to surrender. Colonel Garces, chief of the coast batteries at the entrance of Manila Bay, and the island's governor, First Class Naval Lieutenant Augusto Miranda, were urged to come to terms with the Americans, and so they did. Therefore, Miranda remained on the island with only 100 soldiers under the Spanish flag; Garces and officers under his command, as well as 292 men with their weapons and ammunition, were transferred to Mariveles port. From there they moved through the provinces of Bataan and Pampanga until they reached Manila on May 5. There they joined the Spanish navy battalion which was already quartered in Sampaloc. On May 4, the American ships opened fire against the 100 men who, according to the pact, had been left on Corregidor and demanded the garrison forces be reduced to 25 men. The Spanish governor consulted Manila authorities, and they ordered the evacuation of the island. The troops were sent to
Naic,
Cavite on boats while the island's governor was transferred to the American cruiser
USS Baltimore and became a prisoner with his family. The Americans offered to free him but the governor rejected this. Shortly afterwards, he was disembarked in
Balanga, Bataan. In this way the Spanish presence on Corregidor Island, which had lasted 328 years, came to an end. A cannon that had guarded the residence of the Spanish colonial governor on Corregidor, the
Dewey Cannon, was taken as a prize of war to the United States. It was later awarded to the rural town of
Three Oaks, Michigan, where it was remounted as a historical display.
American colonial period In 1902, the island was organized as an American
military reservation. In 1903, a convalescent hospital was established by the
U.S. Army. The
Board of Fortifications chaired by
William H. Taft recommended that key harbors of territories acquired after the
Spanish–American War be fortified. Consequently, Corregidor was fortified and incorporated into the
harbor defenses Manila and Subic Bays. In 1908, a Regular Army post was established on the island, designated as
Fort Mills, in honor of Brigadier General
Samuel Meyers Mills, Jr., Chief of Artillery of the U.S. Army from 1905 to 1906. By early 1909, H Company of the 2nd Battalion of the
Corps of Engineers was assigned to Corregidor and started on the construction of concrete emplacements, bombproof shelters, and trails at various parts of the island. This pioneer engineer company left Fort Mills on March 15, 1912. All or part of 35 different numbered
Coast Artillery Corps companies served tours at Fort Mills between 1909 and 1923. The defense of Corregidor was the immediate responsibility of the Philippine Coast Artillery Command, commanded by Major General George F. Moore at the start of World War II. Stationed on the island after the return to the regimental system in 1924 were the following regular units: •
59th Coast Artillery (U.S. Regular Army) •
60th Coast Artillery AA (U.S.
Regular Army) •
91st Coast Artillery (
Philippine Scouts) •
92nd Coast Artillery (Tractor Drawn) (Philippine Scouts) • Headquarters,
Harbor Defenses of Manila and Subic Bays and the Seaward Defense Command. In addition to
Fort Mills; the army post on
Caballo Island was named
Fort Hughes; on
El Fraile, Fort Drum; and on Carabao Island,
Fort Frank. According to the war plan, these forts could withstand a six-month-long siege, after which the
United States would provide aid. The fortifications on Corregidor were designed solely to withstand seaborne attack. Though American military planners realized that airplanes would render Fort Mills obsolete, the United States was restricted from improving the fortifications by the
Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. In 1932–1934, the U.S. Army constructed the
Malinta Tunnel, with its series of related laterals, to protect its military stores and vital installations in the event of war. Fort Mills's defense installations had cost the
U.S. government more than $150 million, which did not include the expense of fortifying the neighboring islands of Caballo, Carabao, and El Fraile.
Infrastructure There were of paved roads and trails on the island and of electric railroad track. The latter were used largely to haul heavy equipment and ammunition from Bottomside to the different Batteries. The Corregidor High School was where children of both Filipino and American servicemen assigned on the island studied. The island also had an electric trolley system as public transport, a movie house (Cine Corregidor), a baseball field and a swimming pool. The business and social center of this community was found on Topside.
Water supply Before the war and during the siege, Corregidor depended on Bataan for most of its potable water. For this purpose, barges were used to haul water either from
Mariveles or Cabcaben, Bataan.
World War II During
World War II, Corregidor was the site of two costly
sieges and pitched battles—the first during the first months of 1942, and the second in February 1945—between the
Imperial Japanese Army and the U.S. Army, along with its smaller subsidiary force, the
Philippine Army. During the
Battle of the Philippines (1941–42), the
Imperial Japanese Army invaded Luzon from the north (at
Lingayen Gulf) in early 1942 and attacked Manila from its landward side. American and Filipino troops under the command of General
Douglas MacArthur, retreated to the
Bataan Peninsula, west of Manila Bay. The fall of Bataan on April 9, 1942, ended all organized opposition by the
U.S. Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) and gave way to the invading Japanese forces in Luzon in the northern Philippines. They were forced to surrender due to the lack of food and ammunition, leaving Corregidor and its adjacent islets at Manila Bay as the only areas in the region under U.S. control. Between December 24, 1941, and February 19, 1942, Corregidor was the temporary location for the Government of the Philippines. On December 30, 1941, outside the Malinta Tunnel,
Manuel L. Quezon and
Sergio Osmeña were inaugurated respectively as president and vice-president of the
Philippines Commonwealth for a second term. General
Douglas MacArthur also used Corregidor as
Allied headquarters until March 11, 1942. The Voice of Freedom, the radio station of USAFFE broadcast from Corregidor, aired the infamous announcement of the fall of
Bataan. In April 1942, one battalion of the
Fourth Marines was sent to reinforce the island's beach defenses. The
Battle of Corregidor was the culmination of the Japanese campaign for the conquest of the Philippines. The fortifications across the entrance to Manila Bay were the remaining obstacle for the
14th Area Army of the Imperial Japanese Army led by Lieutenant General
Masaharu Homma. American and Filipino soldiers on Corregidor and the neighboring islets held out against the Japanese to deny the use of Manila Bay, but the Imperial Japanese Army brought heavy artillery to the southern end of Bataan, and proceeded north to
blockade Corregidor.
Japanese troops forced the surrender of the remaining American and Filipino forces on May 6, 1942, under the command of Lieutenant General
Jonathan Wainwright. The
battle for the recapture of Corregidor occurred from February 16 to 26, 1945, in which American and Filipino forces successfully recaptured the island fortress from the Japanese occupying forces. Due to the intense bombing of the island by both the Japanese and American forces, the island was later reforested with seeds dropped by aircraft.
Jabidah massacre In 1968, an area near Kindley Airfield at Tailside was the site of the
Jabidah massacre, a key event in the history of the
Bangsamoro and the Moro people. In connection with the
North Borneo dispute, the President of the Philippines at the time,
Ferdinand Marcos, had secretly authorized the execution of
Operation Merdeka, in which a secret Moro commando unit code-named "Jabidah" would be trained in Corregidor to destabilize and take over Sabah. Varying accounts say 18 to 69 recruits, mostly
Tausug from Sulu, The officers then allegedly shot all of the men to death, with only one witness, Jibin Arula, managing to escape by pretending to be dead. and eventually triggered calls for Moro independence; the rise of separatist movements such as the
Muslim Independence Movement, the
Moro National Liberation Front, and the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front; and the
Moro conflict in general. In 2015, during a ceremony marking the 47th anniversary of the massacre, a symbolic peace marker: 'Mindanao Garden of Peace: Corregidor Island' was turned over to the families of the survivors of the massacre. ==Fortifications==