Leyte: The Return to the Philippines

by M. Hamlin Cannon

Capture of Palo

At the end of the first day’s fighting, C Company of the 19th Infantry had just secured the top of Hill 522 and Company B at dusk had been pinned down at the southern crest. The following morning artillery fire effectively knocked out some enemy pillboxes on the north crest. Both companies then simultaneously launched an attack down the far slope of the hill. In the sharp fight that followed fifty Japanese from the 33d Infantry Regiment were killed and the hill was secured.[43] It was not until late in the day, however, that supplies could be brought to the troops and the wounded be evacuated. The 1st Battalion spent the next few days mopping up the area and sealing off the tunnels with grenades.

On the beach the 3d Battalion, 19th Infantry, on the morning of 21 October waited for naval gunfire to knock out positions that blocked the beach road to Palo. These defenses consisted of mutually supporting well-constructed pillboxes reinforced with logs and earth, with intercommunicating trenches and foxholes. They were designed to be used in resisting attacks from the beach and from the north. After an all-night mortar concentration, naval gunfire was directed against the positions, and at 1400 the 3d Battalion attacked. When within 200 yards of a road bend, Company I and elements of the Antitank Company, leading the main assault, met strong resistance, which forced the company to dig in. The other companies occupied the same positions they had held the previous day.[44] During the night Company C of the 85th Chemical Battalion, expending 500 rounds of ammunition, laid intermittent fire from the 4.2-inch mortars on the Japanese positions.[45]

At 0900 on 22 October the 3d Battalion, with Company I in the lead, attacked with the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry, which had been released from division reserve, on its left flank. This co-ordinated advance pushed past the defensive positions of the 33d Infantry Regiment, many of which had been abandoned. The positions of the 3d Battalion, 19th Infantry, were taken over by the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry. The latter battalion patrolled the road and eliminated scattered Japanese pockets of resistance south to the Palo River.

PALO, with the Palo River and the slopes of Hill 522 in the background (above), and the junction of Highways 1 and 2 (below).

The 2d Battalion, 19th Infantry, was to secure Palo, which is situated about one mile inland on the south side of the Palo River. The town is an important road junction, the meeting point of the Leyte Valley and east coast road systems. The coastal road, Highway 1, which goes through Palo, crosses a steel bridge over the Palo River on the edge of the town. Highway 2, a one-lane all-weather road for most of its length, extends west to Barugo and Carigara.[46] Just outside Palo are two hills, one on each side of the highway, which guard the entrance into the interior. The Americans termed them Hills B and C. Elements of the 33d Infantry Regiment were guarding Palo.[47]

Early in the morning of 21 October, the 2d Battalion, 19th Infantry, moved west through enemy machine gun and rifle fire and bypassed the enemy defensive position that had held it up the previous day. At 1155 the battalion reached the junction of the beach road and Highway 1. During the movement two men were killed and two wounded. At the road junction, the battalion dispersed with machine gun fire a column of about thirty-five Japanese moving south on Highway 1. Artillery fire was then laid on a grove of trees, west of the road, to which the enemy had fled. As the battalion proceeded south along the highway between the road junction and the bridge, it came under artillery fire from an undetermined source. The tempo of the march into Palo was accelerated—“the troops wanted to move as rapidly as possible from that vicinity. They double timed across the bridge.”[48] At 1500 they entered Palo without further opposition.[49]

The residents of the town were crowded into the church. As the Americans entered, the church bell rang and the Filipinos came out and greeted the troops. After the first exuberant welcome had subsided, the soldiers ordered the civilians back into the church until they could secure the town. In the house-to-house search, the troops found some booby traps made from coconuts[50] and encountered Japanese entrenched under and between houses in the western sector of the town. Although the battalion had expected to outpost the entire town, the menace of the Japanese appeared so threatening that a night perimeter was established around the town square.