Shadows In the Jungle by Larry Alexander

Author:Larry Alexander
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-03-01T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

“Maybe We Can Save the World.”

Leyte and Samar Missions: October-December 1944

In the early morning hours of Friday, October 20, 1944, Gen. Douglas MacArthur stood on the bridge of the cruiser USS Nashville and watched with satisfaction as ships of Adm. Thomas Kincaid’s 7th Fleet and Adm. William F. Halsey’s 3rd Fleet pounded the coastline of the island of Leyte with their big guns. Through binoculars, he followed LSTs and Higgins boats loaded with men and tanks of General Krueger’s 6th Army as they circled the troopships like gnats, then turned and headed for land. Seeing the smoke and the flame, and hearing the rumble of battle from the distant shore, MacArthur smiled grimly. This was the day of fulfillment of the promise he had made thirty-one months earlier after his harrowing escape from Corregidor on Lt. John Bulkeley’s seventy-seven-foot plywood boat. This was the first day of his retribution against those who had caused his defeat and humiliation.

This was his return to the Philippines.

Code-named Excelsior, the Philippines stretch for 1,150 miles, which, if laid over a map of the United States, translates to the distance from the Great Lakes to Florida. The archipelago’s 7,083 islands, of which just 466 are larger than one square mile in size, cover 114,400 square miles. In 1944, only 2,773 of the islands, or about a third, bore names, and only between 600 and 700 were inhabited by any people, many of whom spoke a language called Tagalog.

Called Hito or Firippin by the Japanese, the Philippines were vital to Nippon as a natural barrier between the advancing Allied tide, the Japanese homeland, and their Dutch East Indies conquests, with their wealth of much-needed natural resources, particularly oil and rubber. Or at least what resources could safely slip through the American submarine network, which was taking an ever-higher toll on merchant shipping.

Volcanic in origin, the Philippines largely consist of rocky terraced ridges and deep valleys, mostly running north to south. Hardwood forests of teak, ebony, and cypress cover 70 percent of the land, while the lowland plains are extremely fertile.

Leyte, the island chosen for the Americans’ initial assault, is the perfect example. Located 340 air miles south of Manila, Leyte is 115 miles long and 45 miles wide. The eighth largest island in the chain, most of its 2,799 square miles is rugged, mountainous terrain, with a narrow coastal plain to the south, which widens to 5 to 10 miles in the central area, facing Leyte Gulf, where Krueger’s men were now coming ashore. To the north, the island’s coastal plain becomes the 25-mile-wide Leyte Valley, running out to the Samar Sea. Climate-wise, there is on average only ten degrees difference between Leyte’s hottest and coldest months, and rainfall, as the Americans were about to find out, averages seventy inches a year, with some spots getting two hundred inches, especially during the monsoon season of October to April.

About one million people called Leyte home in 1944, mostly in the more hospitable northern region, especially in

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