MEN AT WAR: Wrong G.I.

To the very end of the bitter campaign for Leyte, the Japs kept at their old tricks. The jig was up, but still some of them filtered into a regimental command post of the 32nd Division on a foully dark night. Their helmets were daubed with phosphorous paint for identification. But in close-quarter brawls, many helmets were knocked off.

Pint-sized, scrappy Lieut. James Deloach peered through the forest gloom at two men locked in a murderous struggle. He saw that one had a wire looped around the other’s neck, and that the man being strangled was a Jap. When the job was done, he nudged the killer and mumbled approvingly. The killer answered in Japanese. Deloach shot him.