[fso301]

My Dad was there that day. Third day of the invasion of Luzon.

That would have been Oct 20, 1944. MacArthur went in on the 3rd wave Oct 20.

Oct 17-19 were spent taking minor outlying islands.

Just to the left of this picture there was a quay. Where all of the ships docked up to unload. MacArthur thought it would be more impressive IF he and the rest of them waded ashore. Then he said “I have returned”.

You know for a fact that MacArthur landed on the beach for reason you just stated??

Any chance that them being in a landing barge and the uncertainty as the whether any quay might be mined and booby trapped had a role in using a landing barge in the manner it was designed to be used?

When my father came ashore earlier in the day they had to walk on the bodies of the dead Australian and US Marines that covered the beachhead.

Leyte was a US army operation. No Australians. No US Marine fighting force.

[woodbutcher1963]

All the other soldiers, including my father got off the ships on the quay. The only reason to land on the beach was to be more dramatic for the cameras they had set up on the beach.

[woodbutcher1963]

My dad was a Staff Sergeant in the Army Air Corp. Under MacArthur's Army command.
He enlisted in 1942(like so many other young men).
He trained at March Field east of Los Angeles. He shipped out to the Pacific with a stop in Oahu. I have pictures of Waikiki Beach with nothing on it. They were still using some horses back then to pull cannons around.

He shipped out of HI. His first stop was Wee Wack on the north coast of New Guinea. His main duty was the rebuilding of air fields after they had been bombed. He was a heavy equipment operator/mechanic. He spent several months on New Guinea. They discovered Japanese ships run aground far up a river. He and another GI discovered and repaired a sunken Chris Craft cabin cruiser. They had this vessel for one day before MacArthur saw them in it and requisitioned it for himself.

Maybe the beach where he had to walk on the bodies was another landing sight in the Philippians. He was promoted during a battle from Sergeant to Captain for one day. Apparently, all the LTs and Captain were either dead or incapacitated. He was the senior Sergeant. He was replaced the next day.

During the battle of Luzon he received two injuries. A bullet through his helmet that did not penetrate his skull. A bullet to the lower abdomen that became infected and put him in the hospital for six weeks. He came home on a hospital ship.