Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
Jump on Aparri As the ground races up to meet the troopers, they see the tall, thick fields of the sharp kunai grass, flooded rice paddies, carabao ruts and bomb craters – all would prove dangerous. The Task Force would lose 7%, two men killed and 70 wounded as they…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
Luzon With his thoughts still focused on his R&R in Australia, Everett “Smitty” Smith landed back at Lipa City, P.I. only to discover that a mission was scheduled. The last remaining organized Japanese group, the Shabu Forces, were holed up in the northeast corner of Luzon and General Swing had…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
Lipa Railway Station, May 1945 showing damage, looking south from Lipa Cathedral The 11th Airborne continued their patrols, moping up details and training at Lipa. General Swing had another jump school built that created 1,000 newly qualified paratroopers. Plus, the entertainer, Joe E. Brown came to visit. The new glider…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
The reduction of Mount Macolod 2 April, the 187th attacked and cleared the area to the base of the mountain, but were unable to hold the ridges. One pocket of the enemy were dug in between the two southern ridges and small Japanese patrols were strewn along the highway near…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
Mt. Macolod, Luzon US Army still fighting Yamashita’s formidable soldiers… When General Swing, Commander of the 11th Airborne Division, moved into the stripped-down Manila Hotel Annex, General Krueger began to visit him every other day. His competitive nature tried to get Swing to back-off from pushing into Manila first by…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
Los Banos depicted by: Mariusz Kozik First Lt. John Ringler was in charge of those troopers who would drop 900 yards from the camp. They made their jump at approx. 500 feet instead of the usual 700-1,000′ since the drop zone was so small and the men would have less…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
? The importance of Manila cannot be stressed enough. The natural harbor has served as a strategically situated port for commerce and trade for centuries. Manila Bay and Laguna de Bay are connected by the Pasig River. As the 11th Airborne? was switched back to the 6th Army, General Swing…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
Entering Manila The 6th and 8th Armies on Luzon were repeatedly in close and brutal combat with the Japanese.  By dawn on 4 February the paratroopers ran into increasingly heavy and harassing fire from Japanese riflemen and machine gunners. At the Paranaque River, just south of the Manila city limits, the…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
16 December – Douglas MacArthur was promoted to Five-Star General. ?It seemed that General MacArthur’s promotion to General of the Army would require assistance from many sides.? It posed a problem in the respect that there was no such object as a five-star insignia in existence in the Pacific.? A…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
John Holland, 11th Airborne Division For another insight into the landing at Bito Beach, Leyte, John Holland, of the 675th Glider Field Artillery/11th Airborne Division speaks here… “February 18, 1943, I was assigned and shipped by train to Camp MacKall, Hoffman, North Carolina, and I arrived on the 22th.  The…