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were unaware that Kenney’s aircraft could scarcely fly out of Leyte. Ironically, therefore, on 27 November and 6 December they lavished scarce resources on launching commando and paratroop landings against the American strips. These attacks caused panic in Krueger’s rear areas—air corps service personnel fled one position, abandoning all their weapons, which the Japanese promptly turned on the Americans. The intruders were soon killed or dispersed, order restored, but Leyte never became a significant USAAF base. The difficulties of stockpiling and shifting stores increased, rather than diminished. MacArthur had allowed the geographical convenience of the island to blind him to its unsuitability for every important strategic purpose.

AN AMPHIBIOUS landing south of Ormoc on 7 December enabled the Americans three days later to seize the port, and cut off the Japanese from further resupply or reinforcement. Troops entering the ruined town found “a blazing inferno372 of bursting white phosphorus shells, burning houses, and exploding ammunition dumps, and over it all hung a pall of heavy smoke from burning dumps mixed with the gray dust of destroyed concrete buildings, blasted by…artillery, mortar, and rocket fire.” In the week 15 to 21 December, western Leyte’s Ormoc Valley was secured. MacArthur announced the formal completion of operations across the entire island on Christmas Day, 1944: “The Leyte-Samar campaign can now be regarded as closed except for minor mopping-up,” said a SWPA communiqué. “General Yamashita has sustained perhaps the greatest defeat in the military annals of the Japanese army.”

In Manila, the Japanese high command sought to preserve formalities, somewhat hampered by American air raids. On 23 December, Yamashita held a sumptuous full-dress dinner in honour of the local naval commander, Vice-Admiral Mikawa. The power supply failed in midfeast, plunging a glittering array of officers into darkness until a young staff officer bustled round, distributing candles. Two days later, Mikawa returned the compliment on a ship in Manila harbour. Yamashita limped aboard, having been injured by metal fragments during demonstrations of a new weapon. His chief of staff murmured to Mikawa that it might be wise not to give the invalid too much wine. “Rubbish, you damn fool!” exploded Yamashita, who overheard. “I drink what I like.” The general had plenty to forget, and indulged freely. That same day, 25 December, he had signalled General Suzuki that thenceforward Japanese troops on Leyte must fend for themselves. There could be no further reinforcement or resupply. The battle for the island was lost. Suzuki’s remaining elements dispersed into the mountains.

But as many as 20,000 Japanese remained. Even though they now adopted guerrilla tactics rather than fighting as regiments with support weapons, for four more months they sustained the struggle. A communiqué from MacArthur asserted that 117,997 enemy troops had been killed on Leyte, at least double the real total. MacArthur’s soldiers were infuriated by his public announcement of a victory which was still far from secure. Though Krueger’s Sixth Army was withdrawn from combat to prepare for the Luzon landing, Eichelberger’s Eighth Army endured hard fighting to accomplish the “mopping up” of which their supreme commander spoke so carelessly. “MacArthur’s communiqués are373 inaccurate to a disgusting degree,” wrote Lt. Gage Rodman of the 17th Infantry. “We who were on the spot knew we were only beginning to fight when he made his ridiculous announcement that our objective was secured.”

The capture of Leyte cost some 15,500 American casualties, including 3,500 dead—almost 700 of the latter, a battalion’s worth, after MacArthur proclaimed his “victory.” Japanese losses were confused by uncertainty about how many troops were drowned in transit to the island when transports were sunk by U.S. aircraft or submarines, but the total approached 50,000. Eighth Army claimed a “body count” of 24,294 Japanese merely for the period from Christmas 1944 to May 1945. Even if this figure