Diary Of A WWII Officer: Journey From Clemson ROTC To Tokyo Occupation by William Burton

Author:William Burton [Burton, William]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2017-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

8 LEYTE, PHILIPPINES

While Hollandia was in the Theater of Operations, by the time we got there, the action, for all practical purposes, was over. Occasionally a Jap would wander into the general area, usually hunting food, but he was glad to surrender. The Japs had used Hollandia mainly as a supply base and the troops who had been stationed there were not as fully indoctrinated or motivated as were the combat soldiers. We went about our daily business with no thought of carrying firearms and were about as safe as we had been in Memphis. But Leyte was another situation.

Sixth Army's progress had been held up by two things. One was that October 1944 saw the heaviest rains in the rainy history of the island. The already poor roads went to pieces under heavy military use and the fields lying not far back from the bay turned into bogs impassable to trucks. Troops often had to resort to the use of caribou, a husky native animal looking somewhat like an ox, to get supplies to frontline units.

The second was that the Japs were pouring additional men onto the island every night. Since we now had air superiority, they did not risk moving these troops by day but every night they leapfrogged them island by island until two weeks after the start of the invasion there were many more Japs on Leyte, in spite of their heavy casualties, than there had been when the Sixth Army first landed.

Nevertheless, our advance echelon was ordered to move up and we boarded the Australia, an old Australian coastwise steamer now operated by the Aussie navy. The ship was as crowded as had been the General Pope but it had the advantage this time of having environment windows and portholes which gave much more comfortable nights. We were in much greater danger from Jap subs now and within the range of their air strikes, strict blackout discipline was enforced. We were told that if anyone on deck lit a match after dark, they would not tell him to put it out, they'd shoot it out! But at least we were permitted on deck after dark instead of having to go below as we did on the Pope.

From the deck, you could see the waves made by the ship by the phosphorescence in the water but it was the phase of the new moon and you could not make out the next ship in the convoy except by a slightly darker spot in the darkness. We continued to zig zag after sundown and it amazed me that every ship turned exactly the right way at the right time. At least, we had no collisions.

The Australian navy was as casual and undisciplined a bunch of sailors I've ever encountered, but they got the job done. One thing we definitely liked about their system was that at 1600 every afternoon, they stopped the war and had afternoon tea. I believe that if we had been in the middle of a fierce battle, they would have continued this practice.

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