Lepers' Liberation

Lieut. General Robert L. Eichelberger's Eighth Army, busy winning back the Philippine Islands south of Luzon, found time for an errand of mercy. Troops of Major General Jens A. Doe's 41st Division landed on tiny Culion island, just north of Palawan, to bring freedom, food and medical supplies to the ulcerated, miserable inmates of the world's largest leper colony.

The Japanese had confiscated stocks belonging to the colony, then left the lepers to their fate. During the occupation more than 2,000 of the prewar total of 5,000 patients died of starvation or in attempts to escape. A Filipino doctor was beheaded for trying to smuggle out a message.

Now the arrival of the troops and the first boatload of relief supplies dramatized what was happening everywhere in the Philippines. Other 41st Division troops landed at Jolo, the old capital of the Sulu sultans, to take complete control of the Sulu Archipelago. Veteran units of the Americal Division hit the beaches at Bohol, between Leyte and Cebu. In southern Luzon enemy resistance collapsed under the blows of XIV Corps troops.

But incredibly tough fighting remained. In northern Luzon strong Jap forces, bountifully supplied from their Aparri base, were holding their mountain lines before Baguio. The weary 25th Division in Balete Pass won and lost a single hill four times; after four weeks' bitter fighting it had managed to gain 1,000 yards. Thirty-third Division troops fought artillery duels with Japs snugly hidden in caves on mountain slopes. Bit by bit both divisions worked closer to their objectives. On Mindanao the slow cleanup of Zamboanga peninsula continued. Davao, the excellent port and key area of the second largest island, was heavily bombed by the Thirteenth Air Force.

The Japanese could see the end. From a Filipino just escaped from Japanese-held territory came word that General Tomoyuki Yamashita, onetime conqueror of the Philippines, had decided not to imitate other Jap commanders by remaining to die with his trapped troops. The general, together with Jose P. Laurel, quisling president of the Philippine puppet government, departed suddenly for Japan.

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