December 1944 Leyte by PacificParatrooper
December 1944 Leyte Read here …
Continue ReadingDecember 1944 Leyte Read here …
Continue ReadingLeyte 1944 | Another Eye Witness Account For another insight into the landing at Bito Beach, Leyte, John Holland, of the 675th Glider Field Artillery/11th Airborne Division speaks here… “February 18, 1943, I was assigned and shipped by train to Camp MacKall, Hoffman, North Carolina, and I arrived on the 22th. The Army had started […]
Continue ReadingSmitty’s Letter XIV “On The Move (again)” By mid-November, Gen. Krueger’s 4 divisions held only a small fraction of Leyte and Yamashita’s reinforcements were still landing. The weather was grounding aircraft on both sides. 18 November, the 11th Airborne joined in on the King II Operation. The 2nd battalion of the 187th Regiment went aboard the […]
Continue ReadingWACs in New Guinea + current news Aug 23 Posted by GP WACs in New Guinea, 1944 In June 1944, about the same time that Smitty landed in New Guinea, Gen. Kenney of the 5th Air Force started building up a WAC detachment in Australia. He had nearly 200 women in the HQ doing the secretarial […]
Continue ReadingLetter XI “Java at 2100” Aug 9 Posted by GP 503rd Regiment at Noemfoer, 2 July 1944 Off New Guinea, the resistance on Biak and Noemfoor Islands was crushed as 2,000 paratroopers of the 503rd jumped and the land forces of the 158th RCT overtook the airfields. Operation Cyclone was a success. The 503rd A/B would […]
Continue ReadingAt this point in time, the jungle war training had live firing and everything was becoming a bit clearer, a bit more realistic. Major Burgess left the units temporarily to set up a jump school. This would give the glidermen and Burgess himself an opportunity to qualify as paratroopers. The parachutists began their glider training […]
Continue Reading11th Airborne Division – June 1944 – Lt. Gen. G.C. Kenney Jul 19 Posted by GP Smitty always made mention of how hard the soldiers before him had to struggle. He noticed that no matter how hard people or nature tried to disguise their surroundings, the scars of war were everywhere. In New Guinea, my father […]
Continue ReadingFor a period of five months the 11th Airborne Division would receive jungle warfare and intensified combat unit ground training in the primitive land of jungles and mountains and thatched huts and the native population fondly called, Fuzzy Wuzzies. The Papua brigades and Allied forces, that fought in what constituted the Cartwheel Operations before the […]
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