Singapore and Hong Kong had fallen to the forces of Imperial Japan, Thailand and Burma had been invaded and islands across the pacific captured. But one place, one tiny island fortress in the Philippines, garrisoned by a few thousand hungry and exhausted men, refused to be beaten. That island fortress was Corregidor, which guarded the entrance to Manila Bay and controlled all seaborne access to Manila Harbour. At a time when every news bulletin was one of Japanese success, Corregidor shone as the only beacon of hope in the darkness of defeat. The Japanese 14th Army threw everything it had at Corregidor, officially named Fort Mills. But deep within the island's rocky heart, a series of tunnels had been excavated into Malinta Hill and there the US and Filipino defenders endured the terrible onslaught. At their head, until ordered to evacuate to Australia, was General Douglas Macarthur who became a national hero with his resolute determination never to surrender. With his departure, the garrison knew that there was no possibility of relief. They would have to fight on until the bitter end. When the Japanese mounted an amphibious assault on 5 May, the weakened garrison could defy the enemy no longer. Corregidor, the 'Gibraltar of the East', finally fell to the invaders. Those invaders were to become the invaded when Macarthur returned in January 1945. For three weeks, Allied aircraft, warships and artillery hammered the Japanese positions on Corregidor. Then, on 16 February, the Americans landed on the island in a combined airborne and amphibious assault. Corregidor was at last back in Allied hands. In this unique collection of images, the full story Corregidor's part in the Second World War is dramatically revealed. The ships, the aircraft, the guns, the fortifications and the men themselves, are shown here, portraying the harsh, almost unendurable, realities of war.