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government. at a recent event of politics and prose bookstore in washington, d.c., northwestern university professor spoke about america's territory to the pacific during world war ii. ii. here's here is a portion of the program. >> it is adopted as a europe first policy in the war. over the european theater and pacific and united states would, logically and in terms of priority consider the european theater first. the first goal was to turn back he would give speeches where he would talk about the great need of aid england. but since all the speeches sounded like from manila why are

we talking about saving the british empire when the united states is leading his own territory. it would probably hit the united states western territories. virtually the philippines only had a certified defense and it was no surprise that they were very quickly able to take these western territories of the united states. the one thing they did do to prepare for this expected war in the 1930s was to the philippines on the road to independence so that if the philippines of the countdown if it is okay before the war started in the united states would be obliged to defend because it would be an independent country and not my

problem. anyway, so the president of the commonwealth and its not like an independent country, it is like a big government of a state. listened to roosevelt on the radio talking about england it's expressed vividly and his reaction to this, he said, i cannot stand the constant reference england to europe. i am here, my people are here under the heels. how typically american to arrive while a daughter is being raped in the backroom. that isn't just a metaphor. the japanese occupation of the philippines was violent and involved a fair amount of central violence. the commonwealth then asked fdr

to grant immediate independence of the philippines. maybe he thought if they could become independent, then we could negotiate with japan and become a neutral territory you can't negotiate with japan. you have no power. you are not the head of the state and in fact the united states will defend its flood. it is an accurate position that was put by the secretary of the war in a conversation with winston churchill. it seems you are aware thinking particularly of the philippines and the secretary of defense and said that was also an accurate prediction.

as others might put it, we conquer the colonies. guam first in the united states fortified since they were able to take it through the day going another way with a bookmark difficult. in preparing to take guam, the united states bombarded them for two weeks taking on japanese military targets but laying waste to the capital cities overall with four fifths of the buildings in guam were destroyed and there was a japanese assault on fighting a fight and they begin beheading and executing hundreds of them and had started rolling through the streets. that was a preview of what might have been in the philippines. shortly after the united states under douglas macarthur went to

take the philippines and particularly focused its attention on the city of manila. a cd containing a million people. it was at that point the sixth largest city in the united states. the united states forces first started by bombarding it and aiming for the japanese targets but aware they can't always discriminate friend from foe and then with the united states army came in on the ground hoping to dislodge japan from this city where the japanese had set up a fortified positions. and it started by doing it this ortiz away building small arms fire trying to dislodge the japanese from where they were called uheld up and quickly it t at the cost of the soldiers.

it contains hostile japanese sailors were soldiers and the way that the head of the outcome of the commander of the division but it cometh to me, the thought of losing an american life to save the building was unthinkable, which makes sense. it's not a hard call to make until you understand the buildings he's discussing our occupied by u.s. nationals and filipinos in the buildings next door processing that's always the case. we took a month off fighting block by block turning as its unofficial history said the block for the city into a bloody pulp. overall in manila in the months of fighting, 100,000 filipinos

died, and about a thousand u.s. soldiers died. that is a good sense of what has been city after city when it is retaken. overall, the discount for the filipinos is 1.1 million. according to the government account if you add the japanese deaths and the mainland military which are much smaller, you get 1.6 million which is more than two civil wars. world war ii in the philippines is the bloodiest act that ever happened on u.s. soil, by a lot. and yet it is often no not in u. history textbooks. it's not in the surveys of the united states because generally, when we read a u.s. history we are reading the history of the mainland, not the history of the entire thin thing and so the paf the u.s. history that have been off of the mainland don't always factor into the stories that we

tell. at the end of the war, in the wreckage of manila i have this account from a boy that was there that lived through it and ask her. he was just a young boy at the time you met a g.i. and he looked ashelooked at him and sau very much. we were very confused and looked at him and said how do you speak english and he looked back and said when you colonize us you send over sent over a bunch of schoolteachers and so the language and instruction and i grew up speaking english and the soldier looks back at him and says we colonized you. and honestly i don't know what

to say. you have to think from the soldier's perspective you go all the way across the pacific come you've been given a gun, imap, told where to go and at no point did it dawn on him that he's there to liberate people that are like him. he thought he was invading a foreign country.

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