Isegoria

The ride through the Japanese capital was both interesting and instructive, Dunlap found, as “our fire bombs had burned three-quarters of the city”:

In fact, just about everything inflammable was destroyed. Very little high explosive had been dropped on the city itself, so all the roads and bridges were in use, most of them completely undamaged.

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Ruined lathes and other machines stood deserted, evidence of the effectiveness of strategic bombing.

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Not so many had the horn-rimmed spectacles of the propaganda boys and the cartoonists, but some did. A few looked more Caucasian than Oriental, and I saw quite a few with rosy complexions, with no sign of yellow. The “yellow” business is overworked of course. A proportion of Chinese and Japanese have yellowish coloring, but most are just brown. We got a kick out of the color scheme, for we, the whites, were darker than the Japs and a lot of us had atabrine tans making us as yellow as the yellowest!

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The kids were just kids. They enjoyed the parade and laughed and waved. After awhile some of the men began to wave back. Regardless of color or race, kids have the same ideas and do not have any “nationality” politically. You cannot get mad at a grinning sprout who thinks soldiers are swell and candy even better, even if you have been trying to catch his big brother or his old man in the sights of a gun for a couple of years.

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Samurai style swords were in fair demand, although not as popular as pistols. We had only a few good ones (older blades, property of private officers, probably), most being army issue type, with metal handles.

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Legitimate old swords have long handles, about 12″, and the scabbard will always be of wood, covered with leather. The handles, whether decorated or not, have wooden bases, formed of two pieces, inletted to accept the tang of the blade and held on with just a wooden peg or pin. Usually the name of the sword maker, date, name of owner, etc. is written on a piece of paper under one of these wooden handle halves. Not always, but it was the old custom to do so. The blades of swords were of course beautiful.

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A few explosive bombs had been used against the modern buildings, without too much success. Tokyo’s recent buildings were of the earthquake-resistant architecture and therefore could take a beating.

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A pretty good deal, as the yen was valued at 6²/₃¢ — 15 to the dollar.

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I saw sailors doing a brisk business in cigarettes and candy, at terrific prices. The Japs had had no place to spend their money and were crazy to get sweets or good tobacco, or food. During the war their civilian ration of sugar had been about one tablespoon per month. Despite their low pay rates, they were paying as high as 30 yen ($2.00) for a pack of cigarettes and about the same for chocolate bars.

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Japanese police guarded the palace and directed traffic on most busy corners. All wore blue uniforms and carried their little dress swords, symbols of their authority to the Japanese. The swords were a straight, unsharpened ceremonial type, with knuckle-guards like a saber, comparable to our “lodge” swords, though smaller. In no case did they have the old short fighting sword, which resembles the two-handed samurai long weapons.

The end of the war in Europe meant that Dunlap’s division in the Philippines would be greatly strengthened — to invade Japan:

The war was picking up, even though the replacements got younger and dumber.

Then Japan surrendered, and the men didn’t feel much emotion about it:

No one thought of celebrating much because we knew it would be months before we would get home and to us getting home and out of the army meant the real end of the war.

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The point system was in full swing and a third of the “old men” were gone by the middle of August. I was shy two points, so had to stay. The cavalry was throwing Purple Hearts and Bronze Stars around promiscuously, to give most of their combat men a chance to get enough points to get home before the division left the Philippines. I was now sorry I had not collected a Bronze Star on that last flying column deal. That southern Luzon trip was a sore point with those of us who had been on the contact party with the expedition, for every man who went on it — except us — got the award. Even the guy who brought our mail up to us after we had been on the road a week got one! Of course we did not do anything to deserve any kind of medal, but neither did anybody else on that excursion. Five points was five points. Bronze Stars meant less and less as the war went on, and by the end they had far less value among the soldiers than the Combat Infantryman badge. Company clerks got them for keeping the typewriters clean; or getting fresh eggs for the captain. All officers gave them to themselves; every officer I knew of had one. That is no exaggeration.

Dunlap eventually settled in a former government experimental station for coconut products, in southern Luzon, with an officer’s club and an NCO club, which was open to anyone:

By putting the liquor on a military basis and making the technical sergeants — and the top sergeants — act as bartenders everything was kept under a fairly sensible schedule. Prices were lower than in the native joints, we had ice, electric lights, and it was not necessary to worry about the next day, for individual capacities were known and watched.

Dunlap saw Manila burn — for weeks:

What the Japanese could not burn, they holed up in, so we blasted them out. Buildings lost either way — either the Japs fired or demolished them or we blew them apart dislodging Nips.

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A lot of naval depth charges were used for both demolition and antitank mines, and what happens to a Sherman tank when it runs up against that much TNT in one package is a caution.

Then they moved on:

Two of my old squad in the MP’s were killed in the city, and several other MP’s as well. They were practically a reconnaissance outfit by now, under a new officer who wanted to see the war first-hand at all times (he eventually went home with a hole in him, and the boys went back to regular schedule, on which they had a better than 50-50 chance of finishing the war).

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I feel us rear-echelon men should be better taken care of. Rifle bullets I can take or leave, if necessary; bombs don’t bother me too much; planes I did not worry about; but artillery is unpopular.

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Our trouble started when some dim-witted Air Corps colonel parked his personal B-25 (not a bomber, but an aerial limousine) right in front of us, not 50 yards from my tent. It was mirror-shiny and could be seen 30 miles, let alone three. Naturally the Nips could not pass it up, so they threw three or four shells at it about 10 o’clock that night. Luckily, all went over both the plane and us.

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When my company left Alabang and headed south to keep in touch with the troops we began to see for the first time towns destroyed by the war. I say the war, and exclude Manila because these towns and small cities had been burned before our invasion, and not specifically because of it. Southern Luzon is covered with these ruins, as about nine out of 10 towns are gone. Nearly all had been burned because of the guerrilla movement. If the town was big enough to be strategically important, the Japs put a garrison in it and the Filipino guerrillas destroyed it to get rid of the Japs; if the town was small, the guerrillas moved in and the Japs burned it to get them out. The community lost either way. These were not jungle villages, but semimodern cities up to 40,000 in prewar population.

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The boys made quite a haul in loot, in an indirect way, here. There were many diamonds in the ruins of the church, from the rings and earrings of the murdered Filipino women, and by going through the ashes in one of the rooms it was possible to find them. Unfortunately for me, I did not find out about it until it was cleaned out. After the company moved up, it was a common pastime to go through the ashes of some of the destroyed homes and find coins. Evidently there had been forgotten hoards in a lot of houses, for the boys found Spanish coins dating as far back as the 17th century.

Dunlap managed to avoid an ugly firefight:

They were pinned down at one spot for several hours and accounted for over 100 Nips with machine gun fire. Finally a tank came looking for them and got them out of trouble, but it was really an engagement. The lieutenant in charge took a walk when the shooting started, and a part-Indian staff sergeant took over and ran the bunch. He got a Silver Star and a commission out of it and a couple of other NCOs collected Bronze Stars. I think the G.I. who ran the .50-caliber on the weapons-carrier and did most of the damage got something out of it a few months later. Nothing was ever done to the lieutenant other than to give him a five or six weeks’ vacation in a “rest camp” and a transfer. An enlisted man would have drawn 15 years for running away, if he was not shot by the rest of the gang. That officer was kept away from the company, just in case.

Dunlap’s company managed to settle down and hire some local help for a while:

The local population practically lived with us and the women made the rounds of the tents every morning and evening asking for clothes to wash. It was probably the only time these Filipino farm women ever had a chance to make a little money. The laundry was a big help to both soldiers and the “lavenderas.” They would wash everything from socks to blankets in the little brooks and creeks, beating the clothes on the stones with both their hands and wooden paddles. Somehow they were able to get them clean without wearing them out; I never did understand how. Drying the wet wash in the moist, rainy climate was a problem they solved by shaking the clothes in the air and then folding them and sleeping on them overnight. It worked. We had to supply the soap, otherwise they used their own rather rank coconut-oil types which left an unpleasant odor requiring two or three days airing and sunning to dispose of.

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The Filipinos loved our food, especially the bread and meats we had, as their main diet had been rice, fruit and vegetables. We were completely fed up on corned beef and dehydrated stuff and did not even eat half our share of it so there was plenty for the Flips. For canned meat and clothes the people would trade eggs, chickens, bananas, even their cherished bolos.

Dunlap describes the “mighty cavalry air force” they had in the Philippines:

Our forces now held all the airfields on the island and we had plenty of planes. A great force of bombers raided Ormoc, but the enemy in the hills was almost indestructible from the air. What got them was artillery. The little spotter planes — our mighty cavalry air force, the “PC70’s” (Piper Cub, 70 miles per hour) — were in the air almost every hour of daylight, picking up bullet-holes from Jap ground machine guns and rifle fire every day, dodging the Zeros from Negros island by flying at treetop height and maneuvering so close to the ground they got muddy. The flight officers and lieutenants who flew them, without parachutes, armed only with a pistol or a carbine, really rated respect from both the foot soldiers and the Air Corps. Every time they saw more than two Nips close together they called for a 105 to drop a shell there. It paid off, I guess.

As it was a few guys from the 12th lived through the war. If they had had to go after all the Nips by hand more would have died. By the end of the Leyte battles at least two of the troops (companies) of the 12th had less than 30 men left. I do not mean 30 of the original men, I mean 30 men, period. Not many replacements went into action in the cavalry after the first week of the invasion, and as the weeks passed men fell out not only due to battle casualties but also to diseases, other injuries and such strength-reducing causes.

The camp was isolated in a way because of the terrain. A lot of useful items could not get up and a lot of wounded could not get down. From the combat zone about two to three miles away to our small hospital facilities was a three-hour trip for an able-bodied man, unburdened. A stretcher required not less than 10 men to handle it and a day for the trip. It had to be raised and lowered and handed along the steep and rough spots over the trails and only emergency cases were brought out. Most of the wounded stayed up where they were until they could move out under their own power and with the help of a couple of Filipinos, or soldiers. Very few dead were carried back. I remember seeing only one blanket-wrapped bundle coming down, tied to a pole.

One man came down on a stretcher for an emergency operation. A Mexican-American, he was one of the division’s famous fighters and had been shot in the stomach. The division surgeon came up that night riding a cat and operated, but the boy died four days later. A lot of men suffered and died because they did not or could not receive prompt attention.

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We gathered up what loot we had acquired — bolos traded from the Filipinos, a Jap rifle or two, a couple of knee mortars and bayonets. The Jap stuff came from souvenirs sent back from the line troops for safekeeping. We would keep it and take care of it, and when an owner was reported killed, we would take the item over ourselves rather than destroy it. Nothing could be sent home, so all anyone could do with it was play with it personally or maybe find a sailor or marine to trade it to, if he ever got to the beach. The naval forces could get things home we could not.

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Japanese planes made fewer and fewer daylight flights, and those only in fast planes for observation only. One day I saw two single motor fighters make monkeys out of a pair of P-38’s. The Japs would flip around in a tight turn and the Lockheeds would swing out two miles. Neither set could harm the other and finally the Nips decoyed the P-38’s into a diving turn, cut back past them and streaked for their home base somewhere northwest. By the time our planes got straightened out, the Japs were long gone. This was late in December, 1944, over Tunga, in the northwestern section of Leyte.

Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult, as Dunlap discovered in the rough terrain of the Philippines:

Jap stragglers were all through the area covered, and he had to try and protect the driver and tractor from them, which was a tough assignment since the noise of the motor would drown out the sound of Jap rifle fired at even close range. The Japs might easily get more than one shot at the men before they would even know they were in danger. I know, because one took a shot at me when I was going up and I still do not know in what direction he was, although I heard both the bullet and, faintly, the report of the rifle.

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Only those few men pulling and pushing levers on the jolting, sliding tractors kept the ammunition and food moving up. They sure did not keep any union hours, either. I often wondered what the people at home would feel if they knew just how thin the string was that held us together.

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Quite a few tents were up, since they could be dropped from planes without damage.

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While we were carrying our belongings into the tent, three or four soldiers came down the trail and passed us, heading back, all leading huge dogs. I asked a trooper standing by what the idea was and he said “Oh, those are the war dogs — they’re takin’ ‘em back because the country’s too rough for ‘em.” Nice place we had come to.

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A hospital had been set up, with three or four tents and cots for maybe 50 men, and a kitchen was running, serving hot food to everyone around. This kitchen was important. When a man had been up in the line too many days on cold rations and got sick or just played out, he would be sent back here to “guard rations” one, two or three days. Actually, it was a chance to relax and sleep in a straight line and get a few hot meals. The men would get some of their strength back then we would see them going back up one morning with the ration pack train.

The rations went from here on the backs of Filipino carriers because only men could navigate the trails from here on. They worked in pairs either carrying their load on a pole sling or one walking empty-handed until his partner got tired. Some were young boys, some almost old men. Every age and class of person was represented. They were hired, or perhaps rounded up is a better expression, by the guerrillas, who usually acted as guards along the trails. It was terrible labor to handle some of the items, such as C-ration cases or cases of pistol ammunition, and often some of the men would want to quit. The guerrillas did not let them. Remember, some of the paths went almost straight up and down and it was necessary to use ropes and vines to assist ascent and descent and always the footing was slippery clay or mud. The trip up and back required about nine or ten hours, allowing for a short rest at the front end.

A lot of rations were flown in to us a week or so later when transport planes reached the island. Delivery was fast — a crew member just kicked the boxes out the open door of the airplane as it flew over, 200 or 300 feet up. Cargo parachutes were tried a few times on medical equipment, but did not do so well. Chutes tore, or did not open, so they just went back to throwing stuff out and hoping it would hit a bush or small tree to break the fall. Attempts were made to drop rations right at the line, but the Japs got half of them and the men up there could not hunt through the brush for the boxes. Also, a couple of guys got hurt by boxes landing on them, so it was decided to keep up the packtrains, which had to handle the ammunition anyway.

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The ambulance is for my money the best army wheeled vehicle for going places. I have seen them go through mud and rough country that jeeps, weapons-carriers and six-by-sixes could not pass.

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The unusual point or feature about this camp was that there was absolutely no guard system. Each man was his own perimeter, so to speak, and kept his rifle or carbine within reach at all times. You ate with your gun across your lap. The only time we kept an all-night guard was once when a Filipino reported he had seen several Japs dressed as Filipinos prowling around about a half mile away. That night the Filipinos were warned not to move at all after dark and we decided to shoot completely on suspicion.

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The banks and bed of this one were composed entirely of smooth boulders and the water was clear, clean and cold, perfect for bathing. Soldiers in the Pacific were always looking for decent places for a bath. A lot of water was bad — carrying infections and diseases. The sole objection to this stream was that a would-be Jap sniper liked to haunt it. He would take a shot at somebody every afternoon. He did not hit anybody while I was there, but it was annoying. We kept on using the same spots, for after all, it was a swell place for a bath.

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The troop armorers as a rule were not much good at anything except cleaning guns and replacing broken parts which were obviously out of kilter, but a few of them became expert by their own interest and study of weapons.

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Most of the men from the foxholes stopped in at our tent on their way to or from the line. They really appreciated our being up there and we appreciated their appreciating us, if you get what I mean. We did no sloppy jobs, for our hearts were really in our work. When a man asked for a carbine or an M1, we would go over all we had and give him our best, with whatever we had in the way of patches, oil, extra magazines or other helps.

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The M1’s were going to ruin for lack of cleaning in the holes up front — the poor guys did not have anything to take care of them with, and often were not in a position to shoot them often enough to keep the barrels clear of corrosion (grass won’t grow on a busy street — regardless of the corroding primer compound, if a .30-06 barrel gets a bullet through it every six or eight hours it will stay in pretty good shape).

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We happened to have an almost new rifle to give him, so after he changed the rear sights he felt all right. He had filed the top of his original aperture out into a large open V and wanted to keep it. Said he had killed eight Japanese all within 50 feet, in bad light, and did not need or want an aperture rear sight. He would not use anything except the rifle, as he considered the extra penetration he could get compensated for the weight. Most men wanted carbines as they could be carried so much easier than the M1, but the boys who really wanted to kill Nips liked the rifles. “Kill ‘em through trees,” was their story.

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The Thompsons were only popular in the jungle, where a fast spray-effect was desired. Much of the Philippine fighting was in comparatively open country or rough mountain terrain where the submachine gun was heavy to carry and not too effective.