World Battlefronts: Fireworks on Leyte

The victorious trend of the fight for Leyte Island, whose capture will give U.S. Army forces a strong clamp on the mid-Philippines, did not change last week. But the complexion of the fight was altered considerably. The Japs stiffened, and they brought in help from other bases. It looked as though U.S. communiqué writers had been overconfident again.

This change in complexion was hastily noted by Associated Pressman C. Yates McDaniel. He wrote one day, “The end of the Leyte-Samar campaign [is] in sight,” and said next day: “Japanese reinforcements landed on Leyte Island indicated today the Nipponese will bitterly and bloodily dispute General Douglas MacArthur’s belief that the end of the Leyte-Samar campaign in the Philippines is in sight.”

Actually, the Japs had stiffened before their new troops ever met MacArthur’s infantrymen. Major General Frederick Irving’s 24th Division, which had drawn one of the biggest shares of the fighting, won the little village of Cavite after a bayonet charge—a rare expedient for firepower-conscious U.S. soldiers. Pressing on, the 24th had a hard tussle before Carigara. It took the town after four days, when the Japs suddenly pulled out.

Then Irving’s soldiers hit strong Jap defenses on the road to Pinamopoan. The 24th took heavy casualties in a 50-ft. by 400-ft. defile, finally forced its way past Pinamopoan toward Ormoc. Veteran 7th Division troops advanced from the south toward Ormoc, where the Japs probably would make their last stand.

The New Force. Somehow dodging air observation, the Jap landed his reinforcements in four transports at Ormoc, at the south end of the hammerhead of Leyte. Two transports were sunk by P-38 and P-40 fighter-bombers, but only after they had been unloaded. By that time fresh Jap tanks and trucks were moving up the highway from Ormoc to the front. It was still true that the battle for Leyte had been decided, but its length and its total cost were yet to be counted. Nobody believed that the Japs would fail to run true to Bushido form, fight to the last man.

Only Jap unit identified by last week was Lieut. General Shiro Makino’s 16th Division. But it was now obvious that Jap strength was far more than a division. Even before Makino’s men were reinforced, General MacArthur had counted 12,000 Japs killed, estimated 18,000 wounded. U.S. casualties by last midweek were still low: 3,221 (including 976 killed or missing).

In the Air. MacArthur’s hastily prepared air strips could accommodate only fighters during the battle’s first fortnight, but the fighters were busy. Their task was not only to defend eastern Leyte’s installations and supply dumps, but also to work as bombers against Jap airfields on Cebu and Negros. The first job was harder than the second.

For the first time since Guadalcanal, the U.S. superiority in the air was seriously challenged—but only spasmodically, usually at night, when ack-ack provided the main U.S. defense. From Cebu and Negros Jap airmen—some of them only four days out of Tokyo—repeatedly bombed and strafed MacArthur’s positions.

These raiders could hardly be put in the nuisance class—they blew up an ammunition dump and a merchant ship, caused casualties. Usually the Japs came in small numbers (four was a good average), but they came often. By week’s end there had been 70 separate raids. One night the Japs hit several places simultaneously every half hour between 12:30 and dawn. Tokyo’s fantastic radio claimed that constant Jap attacks had driven the U.S. “Voice of Freedom” station off the air.