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…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
Native outrigger canoes meet up with a Coast Guard transport. [Please do not be offended by certain remarks, remember that these letters were written 77 years ago when people lived in another time and another world]. As the ships drew closer to Leyte, the American soldiers already on shore were…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
3 November – When the Japanese 57th Regiment arrived at Limon, Gen. Krueger’s 24th Division was on the other side of the mountain range.  Rather than attack the lightly defended enemy positions, he halted his troops.  For some reason, he was expecting a possible enemy amphibious landing and the US…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
Leyte, Oct. 1944 20 October – the X and XXIV Corps of the 6th Army, under General Krueger, made their amphibious landing on a 25-mile (40 km) stretch of coastline between Dulag and Tacloban on the eastern side of Leyte. At 0945, the 1st Cavalry went ashore on White Beach,…

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
LST’s # 66,67,18,245,102 on 20 October 1944 While the Imperial Navy was floundering in their attempts to halt the persistent invasion of Leyte, Gen. Yamashita was in his headquarters at Fort McKinley on Luzon. ?He was receiving very little information from his own people and upon hearing of the US…