<Li> South China Sea raid </Li> <Li> Action of 24 July 1945 </Li> <P> The Philippines campaign, the Battle of the Philippines or the Liberation of the Philippines (Filipino: Kampanya ng Pilipinas, Labanan sa Pilipinas & Liberasyon sa Pilipinas), (Operation Musketeer I, II, and III) (Filipino: Operasyon Mosketero I, II, at III), was the American and Filipino campaign to defeat and expel the Imperial Japanese forces occupying the Philippines during World War II . The Japanese Army overran all of the Philippines during the first half of 1942 . The liberation of the Philippines commenced with amphibious landings on the eastern Philippine island of Leyte on October 20, 1944 . United States and Philippine Commonwealth military forces were progressing in liberating territory and islands when the Japanese forces in the Philippines were ordered to surrender by Tokyo on August 15, 1945, after the dropping of the atomic bombs on mainland Japan and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria . </P> <P> By mid-1944, American forces were only 300 nautical miles (560 km) southeast of Mindanao, the largest island in the southern Philippines--and able to bomb Japanese positions there using long - range bombers . American forces under Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz had advanced across the Central Pacific Ocean, capturing the Gilbert Islands, some of the Marshall Islands, and most of the Marianas Islands, bypassing many Japanese Army garrisons and leaving them behind, with no source of supplies and militarily impotent . </P>

When did the us invaded the philippines in ww2