Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [125]
Beyond grief inflicted344 by the enemy, there was that created by the weather. Within days of the landings, it began to rain. Deluges of tropical intensity persisted through the weeks that followed. Men grew accustomed to marching, fighting, eating, sleeping soaked to the skin. Roads and tracks collapsed beneath the pounding of heavy vehicles. Phone lines shorted. Tanks and trucks bogged down or were wrecked. Streams swelled and burst. Liver fluke rendered bathing in rivers hazardous. Batteries swiftly deteriorated. It was difficult for gunners to keep cordite dry. Howitzers had to be cleaned three times a day. Blankets became covered with mildew. Folded canvas rotted. Bolts on vehicles and machinery rusted irretrievably into place. Fungus grew in weapon optics. White phosphorus in shells melted in the heat, which also blew out the safety disks of flame-thrower tanks. It proved necessary to keep vehicle fuel tanks fully filled, or moisture seeped in.
Airfield construction became a hopeless task. A minor typhoon on 29 October blew away tentage and created havoc at stores dumps. Many men found themselves on short rations, because the overstrained logistics system was obliged to prioritise ammunition. “The task of supply and evacuation345 of wounded soon assumed staggering proportions,” the American official historian acknowledged later. Richard Krebs of the 24th Division described a blow which struck the island on 8 November: “Floods raced346 in almost horizontal sheets. Palms bent low under the storm, their fronds flattened like streamers of wet silk. Trees crashed to earth…The howling of the wind was like a thousandfold plaint of the unburied dead.”
Though overall American casualties were not excessive, some units suffered severely in local actions. For instance, in three days at the end of October, the 2/382nd Infantry lost thirty-four men killed and eighty wounded, fighting for the town of Tabontabon. George Morrissey wrote on 5 November: “I saw the creek bed347 where the fighting had been yesterday, and we brought the bodies out. Thank God I’m not a rifleman. Near the scene were two sad heaps of humanity. In the first were five Filipino men, bound and bayoneted. In the second three women and three children, bound, bayoneted and partially burned.”
Leyte Valley was secured by 2 November. After ten days ashore, SWPA headquarters announced that the Japanese had suffered 24,000 casualties for American losses of 3,221, including 976 killed and missing. MacArthur’s staff persistently and grotesquely misjudged the campaign’s progress. As early as 3 November, SWPA reports referred repeatedly to enemy “remnants” or “final remnants” in full retreat. “The end of the Leyte-Samar348 campaign is in sight,” asserted a press communiqué. Yet five days later, a bulletin grudgingly acknowledged “sharp fighting…The enemy has rushed reinforcements into this sector.” Two days later still, SWPA announced that Sixth Army had destroyed the entire original Leyte garrison—but added lamely that this had been replaced by reinforcements from Luzon. American intelligence throughout the battle was poor, partly because the Japanese seldom directed local operations by radio, partly because MacArthur and his subordinates were unwilling to heed what they learned. “Ultra,” claimed Sixth Army’s G3 Clyde Eddleman, discussing the role of enemy signal decrypts, “was of little value to Sixth Army directly. It gave some indication of Japanese morale but little else.” There were notable disadvantages to fighting an enemy short of sophisticated communications.
SIXTH ARMY now began the second phase of the Leyte battle: the struggle to clear the mountains which dominated northern and western areas of the