Because he felt that he had not made sufficient preparation, General Suzuki requested that the attack be postponed until 7 December. General Yamashita disapproved this request, but since bad weather was forecast for 5 December, he sent a message to General Suzuki changing the date of attack to the night of 6 December. This information was immediately transmitted to the 26th Division. At the same time, efforts were made by General Suzuki’s headquarters to relay the information to the 16th Division, but because of radio difficulties General Makino never received the message.
General Makino, after receiving the order for the airborne attack on the night of 5 December to be followed with an attack by his forces on the following morning, concentrated the remaining strength of the 16th Division into one battalion. General Suzuki personally took command of the Burauen operation, and on 1 December he and a part of his staff moved east into the mountains near Burauen. General Tomochika was left in command of the Ormoc forces.[5]
Unwittingly, the Japanese were flogging a dead horse. General Krueger had stopped all work on these airfields on 25 November.
The American Dispositions
The Sixth Army planners for the Leyte operation had not envisaged the employment of the 11th Airborne Division during the campaign. This division, commanded by Maj. Gen. Joseph M. Swing, was to have staged on Leyte for subsequent operations.[6]
On 22 November, however, General Hodge ordered the relief of the 7th Division, minus the 17th Infantry, by the 11th Airborne Division in order to free the 7th Division for the drive up the eastern shore of Ormoc Bay. On the same day the 11th Airborne Division, along with the 17th Infantry, less the 2d Battalion, was ordered to seize and secure all exits from the mountains into Leyte Valley in its area. The division was then to advance through the central mountain range, and secure the western exits from the mountains in order to assist the attack of the 7th Infantry Division in its drive north toward Ormoc.[7] Upon receipt of this order, General Swing assigned to the units of the 11th Airborne Division the mission of securing the mountain exits.
General Swing immediately started to relieve elements of the 7th Division and by 28 November the relief was completed. For several days the 11th Airborne Division sent patrols to the west and maintained small security guards at the Buri and Bayug airfields.
There were three airstrips—San Pablo, Bayug, and Buri—north of the Dulag-Burauen road in the area between San Pablo and Burauen. Both the Bayug and San Pablo airfields were on the Dulag-Burauen road. The Buri airstrip was almost directly north of the Bayug airstrip. The land between the Bayug and Buri airstrips was flat for a distance of about 800 yards. The northern half of this flat land was a swamp, sometimes five feet in depth. At the northern end of the swamp was a narrow stream, about fifteen feet wide, which ran along the base of a plateau. This plateau, which was directly north of the Buri airfield, was forested with palm trees and jungle growth. Buri airfield lay between the swamp and the plateau.[8]
By 27 November information from captured documents and prisoners interrogated by units of the Sixth Army indicated that the enemy was planning a co-ordinated ground and airborne attack to seize the airfields in the Burauen area. The intelligence officers of the XXIV Corps, however, thought that the Japanese were not capable of putting this assault plan into effect. The American patrols operating west of Burauen had found no new trails being constructed nor any old ones being extensively used. Furthermore, the American forces had blocked all known trails leading east over the mountains into the area. Although the enemy might be able to make an airborne attack, “he is not at this time capable of launching a co-ordinated ground airborne attack of major proportions in the Burauen area.”[9]