World Battlefronts: Shredded Coconut Grove

When it sloshed ashore fortnight ago on the west coast of Leyte, Major General Andrew Bruce's 77th Division caught the Japs so far off balance that, before they recovered their poise, the 77th had penetrated Ormoc. But there the Japs stood, and stood fast. Most of last week the 77th used its artillery to blast a group of coconut log and concrete blockhouses 600 yards north of Ormoc on the road to Valencia. The Japs still had artillery and mortars, still had enough infantrymen to make three desperate counterattacks.

The position, which G.I.s dubbed...

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