Back to the Philippines

[Image]  Story by Heike Hasenauer

BY spring 1942, the Japanese empire spanned some 5,000 miles from Tokyo in
almost every direction. Emperor Hirohito reigned over one-seventh of the
globe. Some pessimists in Washington, D.C., estimated it would take 10 years
to reconquer the Pacific.

But by June, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur, then the supreme commander of the
southwest Pacific area, received two partially trained divisions, he decided
the time was ripe to plan an offensive.

Over the next two years, he conducted what he called a
"hit-em-where-they-ain't" campaign of speed and surprise that included 16
successful amphibious landings. All were considered stepping stones to the
Philippines.

By July 1944, MacArthur's forces had landed on the northwestern tip of New
Guinea and he believed the United States could reclaim Bataan, Corregidor
and Manila.

The U.S. naval commander in the Pacific, Adm. Chester Nimitz, had fought
brutal battles against the Japanese, conquering the islands of Guadalcanal,
Tulagi, Makin, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Eniwetok and Saipan.

Then, in early September, Adm. William "Bull" Halsey launched carrier-based
aircraft against the Philippines. The bombers flew 1,200 sorties over two
days, shooting down 173 Japanese planes, destroying more than 300 on the
ground, and sinking 59 enemy vessels.

Soon after, the Joint Chiefs of Staff moved up the target date for the
invasion of Leyte to Oct. 20.

In preparation for "KING TWO," the impending return to the Philippines,
American aircraft attacked from their carriers shortly after dawn on Sept.
21. Their goal was to annihilate Japanese fighter planes at Clark and
Nichols airfields.

Meanwhile, 738 ships of the Navy's Third Fleet sailed toward the Gulf of
Leyte. Among the most powerful naval force ever assembled were 18 aircraft
carriers, six battleships, 17 cruisers and 64 destroyers.

[Image]  On Oct. 17, as the mammoth fleet neared Leyte, one cruiser opened

fire and pounded the little island of Suluan. That cleared the way for 500
men of the U.S. 6th Ranger Battalion to storm the beach.

Led by Lt. Col. Henry A. Mucci, the Rangers were to seize Suluan and three
other islands that guarded the entrance to Leyte Gulf. Securing those
islands, which U.S. military officials believed housed Japanese military
installations, would clear the way for the main invasion fleet.

After knocking out an enemy radio station on Suluan, the Rangers headed
overland. But they hadn't made it far when the Japanese opened fire from a
concealed machine-gun nest, and PFC Darwin Zufall became the first American
soldier to die in the quest to reclaim the Philippines.

Before dusk, two more Ranger companies and a company of the 21st Infantry
Regiment stormed the beach at Dinagat, another of the islands. Once ashore,
they found a U.S. flag and hoisted it over Philippine soil. It was the first
U.S. flag flown there since Japan conquered the islands in 1942.

Meanwhile, out at sea, the main invasion force - soldiers of X Corps' 24th
Inf. and 1st Cavalry divisions, and XXIV CorpsÍ 7th and 96th IDs - paced the
ships' decks. It was "a moonless, quiet night," one soldier wrote in his
diary.

"Men peered through the darkness as though imagining their fate," he
continued. "They checked their weapons time and again, and they said
prayers." Two corps were to hit two separate beaches 11 miles apart. Then,
they'd link up and press across the rugged Leyte terrain.

MacArthur thought about the impending battle, too. His troops would be up
against the Japanese 16th Div., "the outfit that did the dirty work on
Bataan," he'd told a reporter. On A-day, at 6 a.m., the great attack began
as hundreds of warships fired their guns at the islands. Their thunder
reverberated for miles, and the warships' barrages sent blankets of black
smoke over the beaches.

Navy aircraft swarmed the skies as they conducted bombing runs. By 11 a.m.,
soldiers of the 96th ID had secured a key piece of land known as Hill 120
and moved one mile inland.

Simultaneously, 1st Cav. Div. troops had secured a small airstrip near
Tacloban that would be used for a U.S. fighter-bomber base, and 7th ID
soldiers seized a second key airfield.

Meantime, MacArthur climbed aboard an assault boat that also carried the
Philippine president and his commissioner. When the boat ran aground on a
shoal, the group walked the 50 yards to shore in knee-deep water.

Mortar shells and automatic weapon fire continued to rip through the air
around him, but MacArthur appeared oblivious to it as he searched for the
24th ID's command post. From there he broadcast a message to thousands of
Filipinos and to Americans back home.

"This is the voice of freedom," he said. "People of the Philippines, I have
returned. ... At my side is your president. ... The seat of your government
is therefore now firmly reestablished. ... Let no heart be faint."

But the battle to retake the Philippines would continue for four grueling
months and at great cost to both sides.

U.S. infantrymen had pushed forward during the first 10 days. Then, Japanese
Lt. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita called in reinforcements.

[Image]  On Oct. 28, soldiers of the 7th Div.'s 17th Inf. Regt. attacked

Dagami, 10 miles inland. As they waded through waist-deep swamp, the enemy
cut them down with machine gun and rifle fire. Pvt. Leonard Brostram lived
long enough to avenge some of his comrades.

Alone, he charged a pillbox and two machine-gun nests. And after three
bullets pierced his stomach and abdomen, he continued to crawl forward,
pitching grenades that finally silenced the Japanese guns.

Bitter clashes raged all over northern Leyte. On Oct. 30, soldiers from the
24th ID's 34th Regt., commanded by Col. Red Newman, met equally harsh
resistance about 20 miles to the northwest.

The Japanese pummeled the American soldiers with heavy small arms and mortar
fire in the town of Jaro. And Newman suffered a gaping stomach wound. "Leave
me here," he commanded his men. But they eased him onto a poncho and dragged
him to the rear. And he lived to tell the story.

At the same time, X Corps commander Gen. Frank Sibert was attacking north
across the Leyte Valley toward Carigara Bay, pushing toward the
Japanese-held port of Ormoc on Leyte's west coast.

There, 24th ID soldiers faced a deadly ridge, infested with some 4,000
soldiers from Japan's crack 1st Div. U.S. troops called the treacherous site
Breakneck Ridge. The fighting between Nov. 7 and 17 would be remembered as
some of the bloodiest of the war in the Pacific.

Infantrymen used grenades, TNT, rifles and flamethrowers to eliminate enemy
positions. When the tense battles at Breakneck Ridge were over, 2,000
Japanese soldiers were dead and 24th ID troops had advanced only one mile
closer to Ormoc.

They marched on, advancing, falling back, wondering when the hell would end.
In early December, 1,400 Japanese troops assaulted three American airfields.
They torched and blew up aircraft and buildings and ran around firing flares
and shouting "Banzai."

In the chaos of flying bullets and grenade blasts, soldiers on both sides
were often unsure whether an enemy or a comrade was nearby.

Capt. Ken Murphy, an 11th Airborne Div. soldier, had leapt into a two-man
foxhole not realizing until first light that he'd been sharing it with a
Japanese soldier. After suffering two blows from the enemy's bayonet, Murphy
shot him.

Innumerable tales of heroism flooded out of the Philippines in stories filed
by combat reporters. They included one about PFC Elmer Fryar, a young man
from a small town in the South who no one ever figured for a hero.

A member of the 11th Abn. Div.'s 511th Parachute Inf. Regt., fighting east
of Ormoc, Fryar had been shot, but he kept firing his weapon and killed 27
enemy soldiers - more than any other soldier had during any one episode of
the war. He died moments after throwing himself in front of a bullet aimed
at one of his officers, but not before pulling the pin of a grenade in a
last act of revenge. The battles raged on. Then, finally, the day after
Christmas, MacArthur announced that the Leyte campaign was over. U.S. forces
had secured the area that would be a springboard to Luzon, the jewel of the
Philippines, and ultimately, to Japan.

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Return to the Philippines

ON Dec. 22, 1941 - just weeks after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor -
the Japanese stormed Luzon. Located some 5,000 miles west of Hawaii, it was
the most strategically important island in the Philippines.

In a one-hour attack, Japanese bombers destroyed nearly half of the American
warplanes at Clark Field, near Manila, virtually wiping out the U.S. Navy's
only Asian base.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific, led a force
of about 15,000 Americans and 64,000 Filipino soldiers, most of the latter
inadequately trained and ill-equipped.

Their attempts to defend Luzon were futile. The Japanese pushed them
steadily back toward the tiny Bataan peninsula on Manila Bay.

Meanwhile, from Corregidor, another small island on Manila Bay, 20 miles
from Bataan, MacArthur continued to radio Washington, D.C., in a plea for
help. President Franklin Roosevelt had promised thousands of reinforcements
and hundreds of bombers. And the soldiers on Bataan, who came to be known as
the "Battling Bastards of Bataan," still hoped they would arrive.

But help never came. Roosevelt decided instead to turn America's might
against Nazi Germany before dealing with the Japanese. The men on Bataan and
Corregidor were all but forgotten.

In one of the greatest tragedies of World War II and MacArthur's career,
Japanese artillery saturated Corregidor on May 4. An amphibious force
stormed ashore, and some 15,000 American troops were forced to surrender.
They were among some 76,000 prisoners who were marched 55 miles from Bataan
to a railhead at San Fernando.

In all, 2,300 Americans and an estimated 10,000 Filipinos died on the
infamous Bataan Death March.

MacArthur did not share his troops' fate, however, for Roosevelt ordered him
to leave the Philippines for Australia. Many of the soldiers left behind saw
his departure as cowardice, and MacArthur was for years afterward called
"Dugout Doug" by many of the men who survived Japanese imprisonment.

As he boarded a small boat for the first leg of his journey to Australia,
MacArthur vowed to return quickly with an army capable of ousting the
Japanese from the Philippines.

The grim fact was, however, that there were only 32,000 Allied troops - most
of them noncombatants - in all of Australia, fewer than 100 aircraft, and
not a single tank.

MacArthur told a crowd in Melbourne, "the president ordered me to break
through Japanese lines ... for the purpose ... of organizing an offensive
against Japan, a primary objective of which is the relief of the
Philippines."

His famous last words of that speech were: "I came through and I shall
return." The last three words became the Filipinos' battle cry and,
eventually, their victory motto. - Heike Hasenauer

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