Leyte: The Return to the Philippines

by M. Hamlin Cannon

On 25 December 1944, General Yamashita, commanding the 14th Area Army, notified General Suzuki, the 35th Army commander, that he had written off the Leyte Campaign as a loss; henceforward the 35th Army on Leyte would be self-sustaining and self-supporting, the units on Leyte would be transferred to other areas, and, finally, the units on the island would be assembled at a point from which raiding operations could be conducted. Since these orders were ambiguous and apparently contradictory, General Suzuki asked that the message be repeated but he never received an answer. Accordingly, in the latter part of December, he sent his chief of staff to Manila for further clarification of the orders. The chief of staff arrived at Manila, by way of Cebu, in late January, but he was unable to obtain any further information for General Suzuki.

The decision of General Yamashita to abandon the Leyte operation followed a series of rapidly moving events. On the 14th of December, he canceled an optimistic plan for an amphibious assault through the shallow waters of Carigara Bay against Carigara, an assault that had been scheduled for 16 December. This cancellation followed the sighting of an Allied convoy en route to Mindoro.[5] The convoy reached Mindoro and the troops landed successfully on 15 December. On 19 December, two days prior to the junction of the X and XXIV Corps on Highway 2, General Yamashita told General Suzuki that he could no longer send any reinforcements and supplies to Leyte and that the 35th Army would have to become self-supporting. On the same day, General Yamashita assigned to the defense of Luzon three divisions that Imperial General Headquarters had earmarked for Leyte. Shortly afterward, at a conference with representatives from the Southern Army and Imperial General Headquarters, the representative from the latter told General Yamashita to forget the Leyte operation.

In the meantime, General Suzuki interpreted his orders to mean that units of the 35th Army would assemble at a common point at which they could be self-supporting. He had selected the western area of Matagob-Palompon in the vicinity of the road leading from Highway 2 at Libongao over the mountains to Palompon on the west coast. Palompon was to have been used as the rear center of the line of communications and the army headquarters was to have been established at Kompisao, but the seizure of Palompon on 25 December by the 77th Division forced Suzuki to change the location of his army headquarters.[6] He then selected as a base of operations an area in the vicinity of Ginabuyan that overlooked Silad Bay and was about three kilometers north of Villaba.

The new area was a plateau with an elevation of about 1,200 feet, heavily forested and having rocky eastern and western slopes that made it “a natural fortress.” From it one could command a view of Ormoc Valley to the east and the Camotes Sea and Cebu to the west. There were a few Filipino huts, and cultivated fields and coconut groves, interspersed with salt beds, lay along the beach. The area “was admirably suited for an extended period of defensive action.”[7] General Suzuki ordered the units of the 35th Army that were retreating westward to repair to the vicinity of the new base of operations.

The units continued to straggle westward towards the selected area. By 1 January, most of them had taken up positions in the Balanac sector, which was about three and a half miles southeast of Villaba and overlooked the Palompon road. They had been hard pressed. The 68th Brigade and the 1st Division made contact and successfully concentrated south of Villaba in early January. The 12th Independent Regiment (the Imahori Detachment), the Mitsui Shipping Unit, the 4th Airborne Raiding Regiment and the remaining troops of the 77th Infantry Regiment, which had been operating northeast of Ormoc, reached the southern Matagob area about the middle of January. It was not until the beginning of February that these units made contact with the 35th Army. The few remaining elements of the 16th Division stayed in the vicinity of Valencia until the end of February. The 26th Division also remained in this area until the middle of January, when it moved west and established contact with the 35th Army.[8]

The 102d Division presented certain difficulties. There had been instances of forty to fifty deserters fleeing to Cebu or Negros on boats they had built for themselves. Deserters that were apprehended were court-martialed. General Suzuki for some time had been out of touch with Lt. Gen. Shimpei Fukue, the commanding general of the 102d Division, which was in the Mt. Pina area. By chance, one of Suzuki’s officers learned that Fukue was planning to evacuate to Cebu. General Suzuki was incensed since he and his staff felt that Fukue “was violating the military code in taking these steps without consent.” He thereupon sent the following message to Fukue: “Lt. General Fukue and his headquarters will remain in Leyte and at the same time I am attaching other units and groups in the Visayan and Mindanao sectors to your Division. General Fukue and his Chief of Staff will report to me in person at Army Headquarters.” The commander of the 102d Division did not answer but his chief of staff sent the following reply: “We appreciate the efforts of Army but at the present time we are very busy preparing for retreat. The division commander and chief of staff are unable to report to Army Headquarters.”[9]

General Suzuki was “entirely displeased” with the reaction of Fukue and sent his chief of staff, General Tomochika, to investigate the situation. When Tomochika arrived he found that Fukue, with his chief of staff and some headquarters personnel, had already left for Cebu. This fact was communicated to General Suzuki by Tomochika, who states that “for several days I had a difficult time in consoling the general.”[10] The sequel to these events was that General Suzuki relieved General Fukue of his command and ordered him to remain on Cebu until he received further orders. Upon the arrival of Suzuki in Cebu in the spring of 1945, Fukue was sentenced to confinement for thirty days. General Suzuki asked Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo for authority to court-martial General Fukue; no reply was forthcoming. General Fukue was released and later returned to command of the 102d Division.[11]

In the meantime, the leaderless 102d Division, with a strength of approximately 2,000 men, crossed Highway 2 north of Libongao and reached the southern area of Matagob about 24 December. The troops failed to contact the 35th Army and after remaining for a short time at Matagob moved to the vicinity of Villaba.

The units that arrived on the west coast were much understrength and very poorly equipped. All artillery had been lost. There were only five to ten machine guns per regiment in addition to individual weapons. Each man had an average of sixty rounds of ammunition and several hand grenades.

On the 30th of December, General Yamashita sent the following message to General Suzuki: