At dawn Japanese bombers and fighters struck the American air bases at Clark Field in Pampanga and Iba Field in Zambales. They destroyed many planes still parked on the ground. In a single day the Far East Air Force lost roughly half its strength. In the nearby towns people heard the heavy explosions and watched thick black smoke rise over the fields and forests.

That same morning, far to the north, a small Japanese force came ashore on Batan Island in Batanes to seize its airfield. It was the first foot on Philippine soil. The island is closer to Taiwan than to Manila, and word of the landing was slow to travel south.

In the night of 8 to 9 December, Japanese bombers returned and struck Nichols Field, the fighter base just south of Manila. People in the city were woken by the drone of engines and the crash of bombs so near the capital. With Clark and Iba already burning, the air force that was meant to shield the islands was being destroyed on the ground, field by field.

At midday Japanese bombers flew over Manila Bay in careful formation, beyond the reach of the guns, and set the Cavite Navy Yard on fire. The yard burned through the day; hundreds of workers and sailors were killed or wounded. In the days that followed, the large ships of the American Asiatic Fleet slipped away to the south and did not return. Along the shore of the bay, people understood that the sea no longer had a defender.

Japanese ground troops landed on the northern coast of Luzon, detachments drawn from the 48th Division. They came ashore to seize airfields for their own fighters. Local Philippine Army units offered only limited resistance. The Japanese secured the beaches quickly and began moving south along the coast and into the interior.

About 2,500 soldiers of the 16th Division landed at Legazpi in south-eastern Luzon. They met almost no opposition at the beach, because the nearest main Philippine forces were far away. From Legazpi they began advancing inland and to the north-west, in the direction of Manila.

Moving up from Legazpi along the rail line and the road, the Kimura detachment entered Naga, the old capital of Camarines Sur. There was little fighting in the town. The people of the Bicol valley now lived behind the Japanese line, among the first in the country to learn what occupation meant.

Wenceslao Q. Vinzons, congressman of Camarines Norte and a reserve lieutenant, did not wait for orders. With his band of Traveling Guerrillas he ambushed Japanese troops at Laniton Bridge in Basud, killing five soldiers. It was among the earliest organized acts of armed resistance in the islands — proof, in the same month as the landings, that the people would fight.

After a day of bombing, a Japanese battle group diverted from Palau, under Lieutenant Colonel Toshio Miura, landed at Davao in the far south. They captured the city and its airfield by mid-afternoon, and the fighting ran into the following morning. Elements of the 101st Division of the Philippine Army withdrew into the hills. The Japanese at once began setting up a seaplane base. Now the war stood at both ends of the country.

The main Japanese invasion force, more than 43,000 men, landed along the eastern shore of Lingayen Gulf at Agoo, Caba, and Bauang. General Homma's 48th Division, supported by tanks and artillery, formed the core of the landing. By the following day the Japanese had pushed about ten miles inland and linked with the troops moving south from the Vigan area.

Against the great landing, Filipino soldiers fought to buy time. The 26th Cavalry, the Philippine Scouts, together with units of the 11th and 71st Divisions of the Philippine Army, fought delaying actions at Damortis, Rosario, Sison, and Binalonan. They could not hold the beaches, but their stand slowed the advance and covered the retreat of larger forces to the south.

More Japanese troops of the 16th Division landed at Lamon Bay on the eastern coast of Luzon, to the south-east of Manila. This landing formed the southern arm of the advance. From Lamon Bay the columns began pushing to the north-west, to meet the forces coming down from Lingayen Gulf. Manila now lay between two closing arms.

On Christmas Day, days after Davao fell, Japanese forces — the 56th Brigade with naval landing troops — came ashore on Jolo and took the island. The old sultanate capital, with its harbor between Mindanao and Borneo, passed into Japanese hands with little resistance. Far from Manila and far from help, the people of Sulu entered the occupation alone.

As the Japanese columns pressed toward Manila from north and south along the central plains and the coast roads, General MacArthur ordered the USAFFE forces to withdraw into the Bataan Peninsula, rather than be trapped in the capital. On 26 December Manila was declared an open city, in the hope of sparing it from heavy fighting and destruction. The army streamed westward into Bataan, and the city waited, undefended.

On the day set by law, Manuel L. Quezon took his oath for a second term as President of the Commonwealth — not on the Luneta before crowds, but on a crude wooden platform inside the damp Malinta Tunnel on Corregidor, with the thud of distant bombs above. The government of the Filipinos had not surrendered. It had only moved underground.