Mindanao 1945:
Battle for the Visayas
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
January 2026

Panzer Grenadier: Mindanao 1945 is a Campaign Study, featuring 10 new scenarios based on the battles for control of the Visayas and Mindanao. You'll need Saipan 1944, Dragon’s Teeth (two pieces for one scenarios), Marianas 1944 and Leyte 1944 to play them all.

The Visaya Islands of the central Philippines lie between Luzon to the north and Mindanao to the south. They’re fairly mountainous, covered in lush vegetation, and thickly populated. The islands produce sugar, copra, rice, and other agricultural items, and the people are known for throwing almost-constant festivals. Samar, in particular, became noted as a hotbed of resistance to all foreign interlopers: Spanish, American, and Japanese.

The Japanese occupied the islands in early 1942 and set up their own administration. Filipino resistance mounted steadily, and by the time the Americans invaded Leyte (the northernmost of the Visayas) in October 1944, tens of thousands of guerillas had taken to the hills and forests to wage war on the Japanese.

The American campaign in the Visayas began in March 1945, on the island of Panay. The Japanese garrison numbered about 1,500 combat troops, all of them from the 102nd Infantry Division, and about 400 civilian personnel. The guerillas included about 22,000 men, most of them uniformed and organized as part of the 107th Division. The 61st Infantry Division of the Philippine Commonwealth Army had defended Panay in 1942, and its disbandment provided a solid cadre for the guerillas.

Following a lengthy air and naval bombardment, the American 40th Infantry Division, a California National Guard unit, landed on Panay on 15 March 1945. The Japanese did not contest the landing and only put up token resistance to the American drive on the island’s capital, Iloilo. The garrison commander, Lt. Col. Ryoichi Totsuka, did not defend the city (which housed his headquarters and almost all of his troops) and instead withdrew his men into the mountains in the island’s interior, just as the Filipino and American defenders had done in 1942. The American 185th Infantry Regiment on Panay claimed that fewer than 500 Japanese had fled into the hills in isolated groups, and both American and Filipino troops made little effort to find them. When he learned of Japan’s surrender, Totsuka led 1,560 men out of the mountains, the unofficial and unspoken truce having spared lives on both sides.

The Visaya Battleground of 1945.

The 40th Infantry Division would next invade the large island to the east of Panay, Negros. After securing the smaller islands between Panay and Negros, the landings took place on 29 and 30 March 1945. Negros had a much larger garrison: 9,969 men under the commander of the 102nd Infantry Division’s 77th Brigade, Lt. Gen. Takeshi Kono. But of those, most were rear-area service personnel, with only about 4,000 combat troops. With only 8,000 rifles for the entire garrison, many of those rear-echelon types weren’t even armed, and for the combat troops, Kono had very little in the way of support weapons or artillery.

Japanese troops crafted a ground mount for a 20mm cannon taken from a Zero fighter and had a .50-caliber machine gun captured from the Filipino guerillas. The heavy anti-aircraft guns ringing the airfields on the northern end of the island could not be moved, as Kono lacked any vehicles capable of pulling them. The U.S. Army’s official history claims that the Japanese had “numerous” automatic weapons salvaged from aircraft, including 30 machine guns, but Japanese accounts are clear that “numerous” equaled “one.” The Japanese did have their squad light machine guns, and at least a few light mortars. What Kono did have were a large number of unarmed men and a great many aerial bombs. And so, the Japanese organized five-man suicide squads who would remain behind with these bombs when the rest of their platoon withdrew, wait for the Americans to reach their position, and set them off. This tactic did not work as planned.

The Japanese withdrew steadily into the mountains of northern Negros, followed by the 40th Infantry Division and its attached 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment (which had been earmarked for a drop on the island’s mostly defunct airfields). The Japanese continued to fight until 4 June, when Kono ordered a withdrawal in small groups into the mountains. Even then fighting continued until the Empire surrendered, with the last battle on Philippine soil taking place on Negros.

Paratroopers Henry Dufault (left) and B.B. Morton of the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, on Negros Island, April 1945.

The U.S. Army’s Americal Division began landing near Cebu City on 25 March 1945. Cebu, the second-largest city and second-largest port in the Philippines after Manila, held enormous strategic significance and would serve as a staging area for the upcoming invasion of Japan. The Japanese did not defend the city or the nearby beaches but had left extensive minefields behind them as they withdrew into the island’s rugged interior, following the same strategy employed on the other large islands of the Visayas. When the Americans followed them, they stood and fought with surprising determination, given the vast disparity in numbers and firepower.

Troops of the Americal Division's 3rd Battalion, 132nd Infantry land on Talisay Beach, Cebu. 26 March 1945.

With his frontal assault halted, Maj. Gen. William H. Arnold of the Americal Division called for reinforcements to mount a flanking operation. Those entered the line by 9 April, but the American advance remained slow, and the Japanese successfully withdrew in front of them as Makime had intended all along. The Americans followed, but not very closely. Col. Satoshi Wada, the 102nd Infantry Division’s chief of staff, opined after the war that the Americal Division was not a well-led, efficient formation and should have been able to surround and destroy the Japanese defenders. An outbreak of venereal disease amid the division’s rear echelon brought a reprimand from Eighth Army headquarters for poor discipline, supporting Wada’s assessment.

The Japanese lost a great many weapons and much of their food and ammunition in the withdrawal. In June, the Americans turned over responsibility for containing the Japanese on Cebu to the Philippine guerillas. Arnold’s headquarters claimed that over 9,000 Japanese had been killed in battle, but when the Empire surrendered Fukuei, the 102nd Division’s disgraced commander, led 8,500 men out of the mountains to surrender them and himself. He was promptly shipped off to Singapore, tried, and shot for war crimes committed there against Australian prisoners of war.

Order Mindanao 1945 Here.

Pacific Island Battles
Fight for Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Leyte, Luzon, and Mindanao: six maps, 671 pieces, 151 scenarios. One hundred and fifty-one scenarios. 

Read More Here

• Saipan 1944
• Pacific Armor
• Mindanao 1945
• Leyte 1944
• Marianas 1944
Retail Price: $211.95
Package Price: $180
Gold Price: $144

Storm the Beaches.

Sign up for our newsletter right here. Your info will never be sold or transferred; we'll just use it to update you on new games and new offers.

Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife and three children. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

Daily Content includes no AI-generated content or third-party ads. We work hard to keep it that way, and that’s a lot of work. You can help us keep things that way with your gift through this link right here.