more aggressive course of action. He recommended—among other things—a coastal defense strategy that would include the entire archipelago. His recommendations were followed in the plan that was eventually approved. The main force of General Masaharu Homma's 14th Army came ashore at Lingayen Gulf on the morning of December 22. The defenders failed to hold the beaches. By the end of the day, the Japanese had secured most of their objectives and were in position to emerge onto the central plain. Late in the afternoon of the 23rd, Wainwright telephoned General MacArthur's headquarters in Manila and informed him that any further defense of the Lingayen beaches was "impracticable". He requested and was given permission to withdraw behind the Agno River. MacArthur decided to abandon his own plan for defense and revert to WPO-3, evacuating President Manuel L. Quezon, High Commissioner Francis B. Sayre, their families, and his own headquarters to Corregidor on the 24th. A rear echelon, headed by the deputy chief of staff, Brigadier General Richard J. Marshall, remained behind in Manila to close out the headquarters and to supervise the shipment of supplies and the evacuation of the remaining troops. On December 26, Manila was officially declared an open city and MacArthur's proclamation was published in the newspapers and broadcast over the radio. The Battle of Bataan began on January 7, 1942, and continued until April 9, when the USAFFE commander, Major General Edward King Jr., surrendered to Colonel Mootoo Nakayama of the 14th Japanese Army. Allied surrender Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma and his staff encountered almost twice as many captives as his reports had estimated, creating an enormous logistical challenge: the transport and movement of over 60,000 starved, sick, and debilitated prisoners and over 38,000 equally weakened civilian noncombatants who had been caught up in the battle. He wanted to move prisoners and refugees to the north to get them out of the way of Homma's final assault on Corregidor, but there was simply not enough mechanized transport for the wounded, sick, and weakened masses. The March Following the surrender of Bataan on April 9, 1942, to the Imperial Japanese Army, prisoners were massed in the towns of Mariveles and Bagac. They were ordered to turn over their possessions. American Lieutenant Kermit Lay recounted how this was done: Word quickly spread among the prisoners to conceal or destroy any Japanese money or mementos, as their captors would assume