The Greatest Rescue Operation in Modern Military History?

The clock was ticking, and there was no time to waste. The operation had to be executed according to plan, or the more than 2,000 Filipino and American prisoners held at the Los Baños POW camp would perish at the hands of the Japanese guards.

At exactly 4:00am on February 23, 1945, the American-FIlipino task force attacked with ruthless efficiency. The first unit, aboard 54 landing craft, landed near the camp, taking out the Japanese troops without raising the alarms.

Almost simultaneously, a company of American paratroopers made their way to the outskirts of the camp, securing the zone from a possible Japanese counterattack.

Meanwhile, several recon platoons that had spent the night hidden from the Los Baños camp lights attacked with a combined fire that left the Japanese guards wondering what was happening.

As the firefights broke out across the camp with the paratroopers, the recon platoons blasted their way to save the prisoners. Then the report came in: an entire Japanese division had been alerted and was on its way to retake the camp…

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