Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [129]
The frustrations of Sixth Army persisted through November. Krueger’s divisions were gaining ground, and killing many Japanese. But it was all happening painfully slowly. Hodge, commanding XXIV Corps, wrote: “The difficulties of terrain and weather358 were fully as difficult if not more so than was the enemy…Supply problems ranged towards the impossible.” An alarming number of Sixth Army soldiers succumbed to combat exhaustion and disease. The 21st Infantry, for instance, reported 630 battle casualties and 135 losses to “other causes.” Replacements were nowhere near keeping pace with such a drain, either in quantity or quality. By 12 November, Sixth Army was short of a thousand officers and 12,000 men—almost the equivalent of a combat division. These deficiencies were, as always, worst in infantry rifle companies. Some platoons were reduced from forty to twelve or fifteen men.
Shoestring Ridge, a few miles inland and south of Ormoc Bay, was so named by the Americans because it was the scene of a desperate defensive action, fought with slender resources against six Japanese attacking battalions. To support 6,000 Americans on the line, the 32nd Infantry could muster just twelve trucks and five DUKWs, with access restricted to a single narrow mountain track. Each vehicle journey required crossings of fourteen precarious bridges and fordings of fifty-one streams. To sustain a single infantry regiment required thirty-four tons of supplies a day. It took 31/2 days, for instance, for stores shipped from the beaches to reach forward units of 12th Cavalry. Rainstorms impeded airdrops. Somehow, the fighting men were sustained in action, the position was held; but Sixth Army could never fully exploit firepower on Shoestring, because of ammunition shortages.
The pattern of American activity was grimly monotonous. Each dawn a unit moved out, advancing up some precipitous hill until the enemy was encountered. Companies rotated the dubious privilege of taking point. Captain Paul Austin, leading F Company of the 2/34th Infantry, learned to dread his CO’s phrase, “It’s your turn in the morning359.” The first intimation of meeting Japanese was a burst of fire, often fatal to the leading Americans. The rest hugged cover until stretcher-bearers were summoned, artillery called in, a set-piece attack organised in company or battalion strength. This required hours, sometimes days. When the assault closed in, Japanese survivors withdrew—to do the same thing again a few hundred yards back.
Often, before the Americans consolidated on new positions, the enemy counter-attacked. Important ground left untenanted was swiftly seized by the enemy. There was a black comic moment on Shoestring Hill in early December, when a runner shouted an order for a three-man picket of the 2/32nd Infantry to pull back. Wilfully or not, the whole of G Company took this as a cue, climbed out of its foxholes and streamed away downhill. By the time the movement was halted, Japanese had occupied the American positions. Huge exertions were required to win them back next day.
The terrain’s steepness almost defied belief. On 6 December, a company of the 1/184th Infantry was working its way along a trail beside a clifftop. Japanese machine guns opened fire, hitting twenty men, of whom all but two fell over the precipice. Eight wounded survivors crawled into the battalion aid station that night, but the remainder died. One