General Yamashita, who was in Manchuria, received notification of his appointment on 23 September, and on the 9th of October he assumed command of the 14th Area Army.[46] On his arrival in the Philippines, he found conditions were “unsatisfactory.” Of the eleven members of the old staff only five were left and the new staff officers were unfamiliar with conditions in the Philippine Islands.[47] The state of affairs was well exemplified by a remark of his new chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Akira Muto, who arrived in the Philippines on 20 October from Sumatra, where he had been in command of the 2d Imperial Guards Division.[48] Upon being told that the Americans had landed on Leyte, Muto is said to have replied, “Very interesting, but where is Leyte?”[49]
GEN. TOMOYUKI YAMASHITA
Maj. Gen. Toshio Nishimura, one of three assistants to Yamashita, states that the planning for the Leyte campaign was “very bad.” The supply situation, however, was favorable. Since Manila was the main depot not only for the Philippines but also for other places in the south such as Borneo and Singapore, a sufficient amount of everything needed was at hand.[50]
LT. GEN. SOSAKU SUZUKI
There were two tactical concepts of defense of the islands in July and August 1944. One was termed the policy of “annihilation at the beachhead” and the other the policy of “resistance in depth.” The respective merits of the two concepts were bitterly debated by their partisans. The proponents of resistance in depth thought that the beach defenses, which had been constructed with a great deal of labor, were useless, since it was believed they could not withstand naval bombardment. On the other hand, the friends of annihilation at the beachhead felt that semipermanent beach fortifications could withstand bombardment. Imperial General Headquarters, after studying the battle lessons of the Pacific Campaign and the actual effect of naval bombardment, decided to adopt the resistance in depth tactics and instructed the entire army forces to comply. Consequently, the various group commanders abandoned their beach defenses with regret and began to build strong fortifications in selected areas of the interior.[51]
The control of the Visayan Islands and Mindanao was vested in the 35th Army, which was the equivalent of an American army corps. General Suzuki, its commander, compromised between the two concepts of defense. At a meeting of the 35th Army unit commanders in the middle of August 1944, he stated that although the main battle was to be fought away from the beaches some troops should remain to resist the American landings and “therefore part of the troops must suffer premature losses.”[52]
The 16th, 102d, 30th, and the 100th Divisions, which were in Leyte, Panay, and Mindanao, were placed under the 35th Army, whose headquarters was at Cebu.[53]