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Other Members:

Dr. Dirk Ballendorf, Jerry Beser, Don Farrell, and Dr. Augusto de Viana

U.S. infantrymen hunker down against Japanese resistance.

Known Dead Allies = 3,500

Known Dead Japanese = 10,000

Missing in Action (MIA) = Several hundred American, Japanese, Filipino, and Australian.

Objective: Follow the footsteps of General Douglas MacArthur to positively ID as many MIAs from all participating nations as possible.

Leads and Contacts:

• Enthusiastic Support of Philippine Ambassador Yan, himself a Death March survivor.

• Support of the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, Honorable Ryozo Kato

• Marauder Jerry Beser, heading a team of volunteers from Howard University and John Hopkins research center in Washington D.C., conducted intensive research  of both Philippine and American archives. 

Therefore, the Sixth Army under command of German-born Lt. General Walter Krueger with its XXth Corps (Major General Franklin C. Sibert) and the XXIVth Corps (Major General John R. Hodge) was able to land at Dulag and Tacloban and fight their way inland against only light but determined enemy resistance to capture the Japanese airfields located there.

MacArthur, President Sergio Osmena and Resident Commissioner Carlos Romulo waded ashore with the third wave.  MacArthur radioed to the Filipinos, “This is the Voice of Freedom. . . . Rally to me!”  Despite tough resistance at the airfield, Osmena was sworn in as the President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines on October 22 in Tacloban. 

What the Americans did not know was that Lt. General Sosaku Suzuki, commander of the Thirty-fifth Army in the central islands, had chosen not to defend the beachheads as his predecessor had done on Saipan. 

Instead, he carefully placed his Sixteenth Division (Major General Shiro Makino), the unit that had done the dirty work at Bataan, in well-entrenched positions to lay in wait for the American advance across Leyte Island.  General Kuniaki Koiso, who was placed in command of the Japanese Imperial Army forces after the fall of the Marianas in August, had ordered Lt. General Tomoyuki Yamashita, "The Tiger of Malay," to take command of the Japanese Fourteenth Army based in Luzon on December 10.

Although Yamashita preferred to make his stand on Luzon with all the troops available to him, Koiso ordered him to reinforce Leyte through the port of Ormoc and support Suzuki against the Americans there.

The Japanese Fleet immediately advanced to face both the US 7^th and 3^rd Fleets, the largest armada ever assembled in the Pacific, 738 ships, in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.  The first of a series of battles began on October 22 and did not finish until the evening of October 25.  Although the Allied victory was absolute and the Japanese Navy virtually ceased to exist, many American warships also sank that day; courageous men on PT boats, destroyer escorts and destroyers went down, as did many naval aviators.

As for the land campaign, General Krueger’s “dog faces” slugged their way through the dense wet jungle in the mountainous inner core of Leyte, serving not only as infantrymen but also as their own pack mules.  Many men were lost in sudden clashes with well-hidden and determined defenders. On November 3, the 34^th Infantry captured Carigara on the northern coast of Leyte and proceeded west along the coast line. 

At the same time, General Frank Sibert and the Xth Corps moved south toward Ormoc Bay some 25 miles away.  Only one mile along their trek, Major General Frederick A. Irvings' workhorse 24^th Infantry Division ran into Lt. General Takasu Kataokas' crack 1^st Division with 4,000 men entrenched with artillery on what became known as "Bloody Breakneck Ridge." The ridge was captured after several days of fighting, but at great loss of life on both sides.

MacArthur then landed General Andrew E. Bruce’s 77^th Infantry Division, also known as the "Statue of Liberty" division or the “Old Buzzards”, on December 7 just outside Ormoc, capturing it in three days and cutting off Yamashita from reinforcing the defenders of Leyte. 

Rather than fight it out at Ormoc, General Suzuki conducted a strategic withdrawal to regroup the 27,000 men he had left in the highlands of central Leyte.  Although General MacArthur declared the Leyte campaign “closed” on December 26, General Robert Eichelberger’s newly formed Eighth Army fought on against Suzuki’s men in “minor operations” until May 5.  Yamashita radioed Suzuki, “I shed tears of remorse for . . . my countrymen who must fight to the death on Leyte.”

The Japanese defenders on Leyte did fight to an honorable death.  Thousands of Americans, Australians and Filipinos were killed or wounded in the largest ground battle fought thus far in the Pacific War.  There were also hundreds of Missing in Action. 

Following an intensive research campaign conducted in both Philippine and American archives, on February 1, 2007 Moore’s Marauders will land where MacArthur landed and follow his trail to victory, seeking Filipino, American, Australian and Japanese missing in action along the route. 

With the support of Professor Augusto de Viana from the University of Santo Thomas and other Philippine and American scholars, including Dr. Dirk Ballendorf, our goal will be to clear the record on as many American Missing in Action in the Philippines during World War II as our collective research efforts will support. 

Working together with Ambassador Yan, the Philippine Ambassador to Thailand, himself a Death March survivor, and with the anticipated support of the Japanese government through its ambassador to the United States, we will spearhead the MIA recovery effort.