Bataan - Land of Filipino Heroes
Bataan is a province of the Philippines occupying the whole of Bataan Peninsula on Luzon. The province is part of the Central Luzon region. The capital of Bataan is Balanga City and is bordered by the provinces of Zambales and Pampanga to the north. Bataan is almost 3 hours away from Manila and an hour and a half away from Pampangga.
Bataan is subdivided into 11 municipalities and 1 city.
City
Municipalities
The province of Bataan was established in 1754 by Governor-General Pedro Manuel Arandia out of territories belonging to Pampanga and the corregimiento of Mariveles which, at the time, included Maragondon, Cavite across the Manila Bay.
In 1647, Dutch naval forces landed in country in an attempt to seize the islands from Spain. The forces massacred the people of Abucay in Bataan. In the late 1700s, Limahong, a Chinese pirate used Bataan as the launching point for his conquest of Luzon, which was unsuccessful.
Bataan featured prominently during World War II. Just ten short hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese planes surprised US forces again at the main US air base in the Philippines on the island of Luzon. After two weeks of diversionary tactics, the main Japanese invasion force landed at Lingayen Gulf on December 22, 1941. Japanese General Masaharu Homma’s 57,000 troops waded ashore against a typhoon and the resistance of US trained Philippine reservists. Homma landed tanks and artillery later that day, and began advancing south toward Manila, despite the valiant efforts of Major General Jonathan Wainwright’s Philippine Scouts, including the 26th Cavalry which suffered losses of 80 percent of its forces. On Christmas Eve, 1941, more of Homma’s forces landed to the east of Lamon Bay and advanced toward Manila, preparing to crush the American-Philippine forces in a “pincer” maneuver. General Douglas MacArthur put into effect plan “Orange 3″; the original plan for defense of the island. The Philippine Scouts heroically opposed the Japanese advance while the main forces complied with MacAruthur’s order to withdraw to the Bataan Peninsula, leaving behind the food and medical supplies crucial to the support of their units.
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