Bloody Luzon

After grueling weeks of all-out warfare, the Philippine mop-up began to look like a mop-up.

One of the toughest actions ended last week when U.S. and Filipino forces joined at the onetime enemy base of Banaue in northern Luzon, split the Jap remnants into three parts. Immediately the combined forces drove hard on one pocket where, natives insisted, Jap troops were still being led by Lieut. General Tomoyuki Yamashita, blatant conqueror of the Philippines.

The splitting of the already weakened Jap forces meant that the Philippine campaign was close to its end. A captured Jap war correspondent said that the remaining troops were so poorly armed and so near starvation that only iron discipline backed by harsh courts-martial kept them in the firing line. He reported that soldiers fought and often murdered comrades for food. U.S. patrols found growing evidence of cannibalism.

But the Americans, too, had paid. Example: the 32nd Infantry Division's battle for Villa Verde Trail had been one of the bloodiest in U.S. Army history. In 119 days of almost constant fighting, the 32nd lost 1,051 killed, 3,201 wounded, 14 missing--4,266 in all. And the final count was still to be made.

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