The "Desanters"

The Japs had been among the first belligerents to use airborne troops in combat. At Palembang they had used them successfully. But that was in February 1942, against a foe ill-equipped to resist them. Last week, when they tried airborne attacks again, the Japs landed in a different league.

To supply a diversion for an attempted breakout from their pocket in northwestern Leyte, the enemy dropped parachutists from a score of planes (twin-engined transports resembling the DC-3) in the area west of Dulag, and especially around Burauen airfield. U.S. antiaircraft destroyed some of the planes, but about 200 paratroopers landed. Under Jap uniforms, some wore civilian clothes.

For a while, before they were run down and killed, Japs ran in & out of U.S. tents and huts in shouting disorder. In the twilight, some slipped away and organized themselves into groups which had to be cleaned out later. A few held out in revetments until week's end. All in all, they wrought little damage but they made plenty of confusion, caused some casualties and lost the GIs a lot of sleep.

As She Is Wrote. In the pockets of some of the dead paratroopers were phrase lists in English. The most succinct: "Go to hell, beast." More dramatic was a formal statement to be made on landing, with the name of a U.S. airfield to fill the blank: "I am chief commander on Japanese desant [descent] paratroop army. All the airdrome of [blank] has been taken tonight by the Japanese Army. It is resistless, so you must surrender. Answer yes or no. All the Japanese Army has done great attack."

Among their other effects the "desanters" had grenades, demolition charges, radios and condensed rations. Tokyo had planned big things for them, claimed a whopping success even as its airborne men were being killed. But U.S. troops wasted little time laughing at the ill-conceived attack, the funny English of the captured documents. In the Pacific the Japs were still not a subject for sustained laughter.

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