Leyte: The Return to the Philippines

by M. Hamlin Cannon

TANAUAN AIRSTRIP built to replace San Pablo and Buri airfields.

Throughout November the allocation of areas to the units continued to present difficulties. On 12 November General Krueger formed the Area Allocation Group, which consisted of representatives from MacArthur’s General Headquarters, the Sixth Army, the Air Forces, the Navy, and the Army Service Command. The various units submitted requests for particular areas to this group, which accepted or rejected the requests, or allocated different sites. Since many of the applicants wished to be in the Tacloban area, some of the requests could not be granted because of insufficient space. Many of the sites best suited for hospitals or storage were occupied by MacArthur’s advance headquarters and other headquarters. The search of ASCOM for suitable storage areas continued throughout the month.[18] On 28 November General Krueger moved the Sixth Army command post from Tanauan to Tolosa so that an airstrip could be constructed in the Tanauan area.[19]

By 20 November General Krueger’s program for hospital construction was far behind schedule. Of the eight hospitals planned for the area only one was as much as 34 percent complete, and one was only 5 percent complete.[20] The lack of hospital facilities, which continued throughout December, was somewhat offset by the rate of evacuation and the use of hospital ships and LST’s operating under naval medical procedure. Next to airfields and roads the construction of hospitals was given priority. But “an adequate number of engineer battalions ... to do justice to the original requirements” was not available. At the same time General Krueger ordered that the hospitals be given first priority on structural materials and on portable buildings. No lumber, including ship dunnage, could be used in constructing quarters for either officers or enlisted men until the hospitals were completed.[21] All units that could be spared from airdrome and road construction were used to build either hospitals or port and POL (petrol, oil, and lubricants) installations.

As for port facilities, the Japanese failed to destroy two existing deepwater berths at Tacloban. Despite numerous enemy aerial attacks on these docks and on shipping, no material damage resulted. By 1 December ASCOM had constructed an additional dock and several lighterage wharves. During November the Army Service Command established, in addition to the main supply base at Tacloban, a subbase at Dulag for the southern areas and a supply point at Carigara for the troops of X Corps.[22]

Supplies

Since the assault troops had brought with them only limited supplies and ammunition and since they were deep inside Japanese territory and 1,500 miles from their nearest supply base, at Hollandia, the need for immediate establishment and stocking of supply bases was especially urgent.[23]

Because some of the LST’s offshore in the vicinity of Hill 522 and Palo were heavily shelled by the Japanese on A Day, the remaining LST’s were directed to the Cataisan Peninsula, where many of them discharged their loads on the Tacloban airfield, over which the supplies were scattered. The proposed runway and dispersal areas were strewn with hundreds of vehicles, together with thousands of tons of ammunition, rations, and petroleum products. Since there was only one egress road, the airstrip became tremendously congested.[24]

Another important cause of the congestion was the dictum of General Headquarters that certain airfields were to be operational by an early date. The Air Forces had therefore loaded the vessels with a considerable number of service troops and a quantity of equipment which could not be used until the airfields were in operation. When construction of the airfields was delayed, these troops and equipment were unemployed for many days, thus cluttering the beaches and adding to the congestion. Ironically, because of limited shipping space, they had displaced “engineers and other service troops which would have been of great value.”[25]

On 8 November an estimated 120,000 American troops were on Leyte. The rations of some of these were on board the vessels that had brought them to the island, and cargo was not being discharged at a satisfactory rate. Col. William N. Leaf, the supply officer of the Sixth Army, did not believe that more than sufficient rations, clothing, and construction equipment to meet minimum requirements could be unloaded unless the discharge capacity of the ports was substantially increased. While this condition was not entirely satisfactory, it was not as bad as appeared, since incoming units brought and discharged thirty days’ supply for themselves.[26] General Krueger set up a committee to determine the priority of discharge for the various classes of cargo. On 9 November the committee gave top priority to the following items, in order of preference: ammunition, 1,400 tons a day; rations, 1,000 tons a day; bridge timber, no specified amount; landing field mats, 500 tons a day; and aviation gasoline, 1,000 drums a day.[27]