The
Philippines campaign of 1944–45, (Operation Musketeer I, II, and III) the
Battle of the Philippines 1944–45, or the
Liberation of the Philippines was the American and
Filipino campaign to defeat and expel the
Imperial Japanese forces occupying the
Philippines, during
World War II. The
Japanese Army had overrun all of the Philippines during the first half of 1942. The Liberation of the Philippines commenced with
amphibious landings on the eastern
Philippine island of Leyte on October 20, 1944, and hostilities in a small part of the Philippines continued through the end of the war in August 1945.