He would accept no surrender that did not apply to all forces in the Philippines. When the interpreter indicated that Wainwright intended his surrender to apply only to Corregidor, Homma interrupted. and Filipino troops on Mindanao and other islands in the southern Philippines. But Homma knew that there were still 20,000 U.S. Wainwright had hoped, optimistically, to limit the surrender to the troops he commanded on Corregidor. Homma nodded to Wainwright, expecting him to begin. The Americans followed the Japanese to a table on the veranda, and the two parties took seats on opposite sides. The contrast seemed an omen of the new order in Asia. Homma was a barrel-chested 200-pounder, while Wainwright, whose nickname had always been “Skinny,” was hollow-cheeked and wasted. When General Homma emerged, the contrast between victor and vanquished was striking.

There they waited, in stifling heat, until a photographer appeared, followed by three Japanese staff cars in a cloud of dust. On the mainland, Wainwright and his aides were taken to a small frame house almost obscured by jungle. When Wainwright asked one officer why the Japanese were still firing at his positions, he was told that the American offer to surrender had not yet been accepted. From there they were taken to a dock where disdainful Japanese officers saw them aboard a launch that would take them across the strait to Bataan. Wainwright and three aides drove to the Japanese line in a battered Chevrolet staff car. Masaharu Homma’s headquarters for any surrender negotiations. Marines who approached the Japanese lines under a flag of truce were told that Wainwright must come to Gen. Wainwright, the American commander, had repeatedly radioed the Japanese that he was prepared to capitulate, but until midday on May 6, 1942, he had received no acknowledgment. Having concluded that there was no alternative to surrender, Lt. Units of the Japanese Fourteenth Army had landed on the northern tip of Corregidor and were approaching Malinta Tunnel, the headquarters for the United States command in the Philippines that doubled as a hospital for more than 1,000 American and Filipino wounded. ‘I have done all that could have been done to hold Bataan, but starved men without air and with inadequate field artillery support cannot endure the terrific aerial and artillery bombardment that my troops were subjected to’

'A Dreadful Step': Surrender at Luzon Close

Bitter Orange by Marshall Moore