“Japs,” shouted the staff officer, “that can’t be Japs. That fire is coming from our fifties.”
“That’s right ... and the Japs are doing the shooting!”
“Where in the hell did the Japs get our machine guns?”
“How in hell should I know, sir?”
“The bullets are coming right through the general’s quarters.”
“Tell the general to get down on the floor. Incidentally, that yelling you hear is a Banzai raid on our mess hall.”[44]
The air force personnel were pushed back until they reached the hospital, where they halted and held. They then counterattacked and drove the enemy away from the area. The Japanese left thirty of their dead behind them.
This action was the last major effort of the Japanese against the Burauen airfields. Only a little more than a battalion of the 26th Division, which was to have assisted the 16th Division, managed to reach the airstrips, and it had arrived in a very disorganized condition. Immediately afterward, General Suzuki, the commanding general of the 35th Army, learned that the 77th Division had landed just below Ormoc on the eastern coast of Ormoc Bay. Since Ormoc was the southern entrance to Ormoc Valley, it was highly important that the town be defended at all costs. General Suzuki therefore ordered that the operations against the Burauen airfields be discontinued and that all troops repair to Ormoc Valley. The return through the mountains was difficult. Nearly all organization was lost, and the Japanese made their way back through the mountains as scattered individuals.[45]
The air transports allotted to Tacloban were destroyed by antiaircraft fire, while those destined for Dulag crash-landed, killing all their occupants.[46]
The Japanese had failed to achieve any major objective. Though they had destroyed minor fuel and supply dumps and a few American aircraft, delayed airfield construction, and isolated Fifth Air Force headquarters for five days, they had not appreciably delayed the Leyte operation.[47]