From 20 to 22 February, the 145th Infantry Regiment repeated this exercise a block to the east at the City Hall and General Post Office. At the City Hall, the regiment employed the usual method of having artillery pound the exterior walls and then assaulting into the structure that remained. As at the New Police Station, the process of bombardment and assault had to be repeated several times. Americans in the assault made generous use of “submachine guns, bazookas, flame throwers, demolitions, and hand grenades.” At one point when Japanese resistors in a first floor room refused to surrender, the Americans blew holes in the ceiling, put flamethrowers through them, and annihilated all of the defenders. Americans sometimes had to fight their way into prepared positions in the darkened basements of these buildings. By the evening of 22 February, the 145th Infantry Regiment had fought its way through the worst of the strongpoints to the walls of Intramuros.
Dr. Thomas M. Huber