Support Operations During the Approach March
Logistical Problems
One of the major problems the XIV Corps and the 11th
Airborne Division faced during their drives to Manila was logistical in
nature, deriving from the speed of the advances, the distances covered, the
chronic shortages of motor transportation, and the destruction of bridges. 49 General
Krueger's request of 20 January that the Allied Air Forces cease knocking
out bridges on Luzon proved of little help to XIV Corps. By that time most
of the bridges that the Allied Air Forces, the Japanese, or the Filipino
guerrillas ever intended to destroy in the XIV Corps zone were already down.
It is well-nigh impossible to ascertain to whom the
credit for bridge destruction on Luzon should go, for the cycle of
demolitions, repairs, and redestruction was often quite involved. For
example, in 1941-42 General MacArthur's withdrawing forces had destroyed
fifteen major highway bridges and four major railroad bridges between the
Agno River and Manila. 50 Part
of this destruction had not been too successful, and the Japanese had had
little trouble repairing some spans, such as those at Cabanatuan and Gapan.
In 1945 the 1st Cavalry Division was able to send its heaviest loads across
both bridges after engineers made relatively minor repairs. While the
Japanese had repaired many spans for heavy loads, they had replaced others
with light, wooden structures that could not bear Sixth Army loads. In 1945
the Japanese not only demolished bridges they had once repaired but also
knocked out many spans that MacArthur's forces had not needed to destroy in
1941-42. While the Allied Air Forces bombed many of the bridges in the
Central Plains (and in southern Luzon as well), it appears that the Japanese
executed most of the bridge destruction south from the Agno to Manila during
January and February 1945, a conclusion borne out by guerrilla reports and
because the type of destruction accomplished usually resulted from carefully
placed demolition charges rather than aerial bombardment. The extent of
Japanese plans for bridge destruction is indicated by the fact that almost
all the bridges the XIV Corps and the 11th Airborne Division captured intact
had been prepared for demolition. The Allied Air Forces, and carrier-based
planes too, did destroy or damage some bridges, while the guerrillas also
had a hand in some of the destruction, or at least prevented the Japanese
from effecting permanent repairs after 9 January.
To span the many streams on the way to Manila, Sixth Army
engineers leap-frogged bridging equipment southward, sending ponton and
heavy treadway bridging forward as Baileys and other semipermanent crossings
were erected over the Agno River and other streams back to Lingayen Gulf.
For example, at the Sulipan Canal, a mile north of Calumpit, the first
bridge was a light ponton affair that the 530th Engineer Light Ponton Company set
up on 1 February. On the next day heavy ponton equipment arrived from a
dismantled bridge over the Bued River at Lingayen Gulf, and by 1030 on the
2d the 556th Engineer Heavy Ponton Battalion, having worked at a feverish
pace, had completed a new bridge that could carry 16-ton loads across the
canal. As soon as the larger Sulipan bridge was in place, trucks laden with
heavy treadway bridging dismantled from the Agno River crossing at Bayambang
came over the canal on their way to the Pampanga River at Calumpit. The
heavy treadway that the Sixth Army engineers had trucked south proved sixty
feet too short to span the Pampanga but, improvising with all sorts of
equipment, the 37th Division's 117th Engineer Battalion was able to complete
the crossing. According to General Beightler, this contretemps at the
Pampanga held up the 37th Division for a full day on its way to Manila while
the division waited for its supporting tanks and artillery to cross the
river. 51
As soon as the Pampanga bridge was ready, the 530th Light
Ponton Company dismantled the bridge they had erected across the Sulipan
Canal and moved it south to the Bigaa River. Still further south, at
Meycauyan, engineers assembled another ponton bridge, using sections removed
from the Agno River at Villasis in I Corps' zone, where other engineers had
completed a Bailey bridge. By a complex continuation of such processes, the
engineers assured a constant flow of supplies and heavy equipment down Route
3 behind the 37th Division.
In the 1st Cavalry Division's zone the first major,
unbridged water obstacle was the Angat River. After most of the division had
crossed that stream via fords in the vicinity of Baliuag and Sabang,
engineers began constructing a heavy treadway bridge, using equipment
originally earmarked for the Pampanga River at Cabanatuan but not needed
there. The cavalry seized the Tuliahan bridge near Novaliches on 3 February,
but the next night a Japanese raiding party destroyed it--the division's
security was not good enough. Since the Tuliahan was unfordable, an acute
supply problem immediately arose and, worse still, the main body of the 1st
Cavalry Division could not get into Manila for two days, leaving General
Chase's Flying Columns virtually isolated at Santo Tomas University. On 4
and 5 February the division sent supplies to General Chase's force over
roads and bridges in the 37th Division's zone, but on the 6th engineers
built a ford near Novaliches and supplies again started crossing the
Tuliahan.
Japanese infiltration parties continued to harass the 1st
Cavalry Division's rather exposed, easterly supply route. Therefore, when
XIV Corps engineers completed a bridge over the Angat at Plaridel, the
division abandoned the Novaliches route and sent its traffic south along
Route 5 three miles from Plaridel to the Routes 3-5 junction at Tabang and
thence into the city. Needless to say, bridge congestion became chronic
between Tabang and Manila, a situation that obtained for many crossings in
XIV Corps' area. Engineers at first had been able to erect only one-lane
spans at each stream. As a result, on one side of a river Manila-bound
traffic soon jammed up, while on the other empty vehicles returning
northward for another load created a second traffic jam. Only constant, carefully
co-ordinated efforts of traffic control officers prevented complete chaos.
Having captured most of the bridges along its route of
advance, the 11th Airborne Division encountered no serious crossing problems
until it reached the Parañaque River. Initially, the division employed small
rafts made from rubber assault boats to move its supplies and equipment
across the Parañaque, but within a few days division engineers had completed
temporary timber repairs at the damaged Parañaque span and vehicles began
crossing.
Even with adequate bridging installed, the XIV Corps and
the 11th Airborne Division continued to face knotty transportation problems.
The speed and distances involved in the advances toward Manila meant that
all trucks were in almost constant use. All other available motor transport
also had to be employed. Dukws, not designed for the job, made long overland
hauls; jeeps and engineer flat-bed trailers, often overloaded, carried
general supplies; LVT's, employed as ferries at many rivers, also sometimes
carried cargo for long distances overland. The demands on maintenance
personnel and equipment became abnormally heavy, even though vehicles were
in such constant use that it was nearly impossible to pull them off duty for
the most pressing repairs. If maintenance officers and men verged on nervous
breakdowns, they can hardly be blamed. Trucks consumed tires at an alarming
rate, especially over gravel roads in the 1st Cavalry Division's sector and
along a particularly vicious stretch of sharp gravel along Route 17 between
Nasugbu and Tagaytay Ridge.
Another problem arose in the 11th Airborne Division's
zone. The beaches at Nasugbu, contrary to expectations, proved
unsatisfactory for discharging LST's. From time to time it became relatively
difficult to supply even the small 11th Airborne Division over these
beaches, and the adverse conditions there convinced planners that it would
be impracticable to unload and supply the 41st Infantry Division through
Nasugbu. Plans to employ the 41st Division on Luzon were thereupon dropped. 52
None of the problems proved insoluble, and troops at the
front were never without at least the bare minimum of essential supplies.
For a time the 11th Airborne Division faced a serious gasoline shortage, but
this was eliminated when, on 5 February, C-47's began flying drums of
gasoline to a hastily prepared airstrip at Nasugbu. Later, cargo planes
dropped general supplies along Tagaytay Ridge, thereby overcoming the
inadequacies of the Nasugbu beaches, shortening the division's supply line,
and reducing the problem of tire wear. Nevertheless, the 11th Airborne
Division was unable to eliminate all of its supply problems until it began
receiving supplies from the north, through Manila.
In the 1st Cavalry Division General Chase's Flying
Columns, reduced to two K-ration meals per day, went a bit hungry on 4 and 5
February after the Japanese destroyed the Novaliches bridge. Practically the
only other supply problem in the 37th Infantry Division and 1st Cavalry
Division sectors evolved from delays incident to the installation of heavy bridging
that trucks, tanks, and artillery could cross. As the result of such delays,
supporting units sometimes did not get forward as rapidly as the infantry
and cavalry unit commanders desired.
Thus, it is obvious that the success of the dash to
Manila depended in large measure upon the success of Engineer,
Transportation, and Quartermaster units. That the dash was successful is
ample testimony to the effectiveness with which these supporting units
operated.
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