the IJN 3rd Fleet under Vice Admiral Ibo Takahashi and units of Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo’s 2nd Fleet. All three convoys arrived together at Lingayen Gulf on the night of 21 December. The landings The Takao convoy was scheduled to land at Agoo, a small village in La Union Province on the eastern shore of Lingayen Gulf beginning 0500 on 22 December. The Mako convoy was intended to start landing at 0550 hours at Caba, seven miles north of Agoo, and the Kamijima Detachment was to land at Bauang, seven miles north of Caba from 0730 hours. This was intended to give the IJA 14th Army a fifteen mile wide landing zone along the narrow coastal plain just north of the central plains of Luzon and protected from flanking counterattack from the east by the Cordillera Mountains. Once ashore, the troops were to move inland without consolidating the landing zone. The Kamijima Detachment in particular was to strike north to occupy San Fernando, and Baguio and to consolidate with the Vigan invasion force under Colonel Tanaka which was moving south along the coast. The remaining two forces were to press south past Rosario to secure the bank of the Agno River, the first major geographic obstacle on the road to Manila. However, the landing operations did not proceed smoothly as planned. Hampered by bad weather, the convoy overshot its target and anchored four miles further south than intended. Heavy seas made landing difficult and a number of landing craft were destroyed. Rather than the pinpoint landings planned, the Japanese forces found themselves spread apart over a wide area of the landing zone and unable to land the tanks and heavy equipment as planned. The American response Despite considerable advance warning of the impending invasion, American forces in the Philippines were ill-prepared. Lingayen Gulf was the most logical site for a large invasion force to land, but the entire 120 mile coast was protected by only two Philippine Commonwealth Army divisions, of which only one had any artillery. The Americans anticipated that a landing would occur at the southern end of the gulf, which is where the Philippine 21st Division placed its artillery batteries. The northern sector was held by the Philippine 11th Division, supplemented by the 71st Division, a training division with only ten weeks of training, and the 26th Cavalry Regiment (Philippine Scouts), which was stationed on Route 3,