World Battlefronts: Welcome Home

The invasion of Leyte was like no other in the long series which had carried Douglas MacArthur back to the Philippines. It was the first piece of recovered U.S. soil he had trod; it was an area where fighting had never entirely ceased.

After the Japs had isolated the central Philippines in 1942, hard-bitten Philippine Scouts, Philippine Army men and U.S. Army stragglers had kept up the fight. To get ammunition, they had dived to retrieve thousands of rounds in a sunken Jap ship and some had burst their eardrums in the job. Fifteen out of 16 rounds had misfired, but...

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