A Tribute to the Unsung Heroes of World War 2 On The Occasion of the 69th Leyte Landing Memorial
Written by Albert Veloso Mulles, a young aspiring Filipino e-book author and writer who maintains several blogs on social trends, education research, political insights, military history and food and travels. His grandfather, the late Hon. Antonio Veloso Sr., was a World War 2 veteran attached to the United States Armed Forces in the Far East. He was a first lieutenant when the war broke out and barely escaped capture in the infamous Battle of Bataan. He served as 9-term mayor of Hinundayan, Leyte and ran for the gubernatorial post under the LP during the Marcos era. His memoirs on the war was never published.
69 years ago today in the city where I call my abode stood an ideal so flagrant with zeal and fervor that Americans and Filipinos have to lay down their lives so that others may smell the sweet breeze of its victory. That ideal was --- freedom. On October 19, on the outskirts of the blue horizon just on the silhouette Eastern sky of the Leyte Gulf stood one of the biggest naval armada assembled by the Americans for the liberation of the Philippines.
This was the 3rd Fleet commanded by Admiral William “Bull” Halsey. It consisted of a flotilla of frigates, destroyers, LST’s (landing ships), battleships, cruisers and aircraft carriers laden with an assortment of aircraft from PBT’s to Avengers and the famed P-51, the “Cadillac of the Sky” and the most feared aircraft of the Japanese fighter pilots. The armada also carried hundreds of thousands of GI Joes, green marines barely as young as 18 years old to as old as the husky 70 year old captain of one warship. Near the shore, signal teams have landed on several outcroppings of rock just beyond Dulag, Leyte. The weather was stormy, albeit the tides were not favorable for a landing. The overall commander, Gen. Douglas MacArthur decided that the landing will have to be situated in X landing beach whom we now call Red Beach in Palo, Leyte on the next day, October 20. Just before five o’ clock in the morning, the roaring cannons of the battleships with all sorts of caliber and rounds opened fire on the landing zone, decimating its Japanese defenders lofting in their pillboxes and foxholes. The coastal areas were peppered by the ack ack of aircraft and simultaneous bombing runs made by the P-51’s. For the ordinary greenhorn marine, this was the most spectacular fireworks display imaginable. But just beyond the shoreline and towards the towns and the city of Tacloban, the sound of gunfire was sweet music to the ears of its native inhabitants which was capped when Gen. Douglas MacArthur in full frenzy of the media, finally announced to the Filipino people the words “I have returned”. For almost two months, the Japanese 35th Army in Leyte, led by Gen. Sosaku Suzuki, finally retreated towards Villaba where they fled to Negros of what remained of the crack 35th Army.
Today, this battle is barely a whisper among our youth, a textbook material in a history class. The Battle for Leyte has indeed earned its dust in the annals of our history. But let it be that I and you cherish the memory of the past, for they exalted that we may live to enjoy the present. There are things we need for the knowing that the youth may appreciate the significance that in destruction, hope can rise, in agony, a smile can build and in pain, forgiveness springs. Hence, let it be that the people may know that Tacloban once became the capital of the Philippines, let it be that that Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita conceded that the Philippines was lost when he lost the Battle for Leyte, let it be that the Japanese navy was destroyed in Leyte Gulf and helped overturn the tide of the Pacific war, and let it be that Col. Ruperto Kangleon, a Leyteno, was the most decorated war guerilla. But let it also be that thousands more suffered from the duress of war, thousands more were killed and maimed from the hate of man against man, that thousands more became ostracized from society from the guilt of one person to the other. By allowing these things to permeate our soul we also start to honor their memory. For it is only in understanding our history where we can learn to give dignity to the dead and appreciate the value of the living. We bear testimony of the valor, loyalty and patriotism that our unsung soldiers and heroes did to give back to the country its liberty. History allows us to remember that there are facts that cannot be removed for we cannot ignore to give back to history the relevance of truth that helped righted our path. Today, we see the remnants of war as a vestige of a dark history that will forever haunt us of the evils that man can do to one another. Japan was one of the finest examples of humanity's greatest feat after the war, to rise amidst destruction and dischord. But above all, to bury the angst of their heart. Every year, hundreds of Japanese tourists visit Leyte to remember the past. I would like to think that it is their way of honoring the dead, that never again can inhumanity cross what is sane in man. Let these cultural values be emulated even among us Filipinos, for the path to moral ascendancy is never grey, it can be a hodge podge of all good things that mix to achieve the brightest color. We learn to forgive, we learn to move on, and we learn to build. We honor the Filipino soldiers, the American soldiers, the Japanese soldiers and all the soldiers who died and gallantly fought for an ideal they believed was right. We honor the people who died in the war regardless of color, religion or race. In war, people are not the enemy, only the politics of sin that thrives on people's greed, vice and discontentment.
And I plant on this hallowed ground that people may once again know the truth that there is a greater war being fought today which is even far more greater than the liberty which we have so undyingly defended for. We can move forward if we remember that today, the 20th of October, seven men came ashore on a tiny stretch of beach in Leyte, bringing a beacon of hope that the Philippines after all, can be rebuilt to where it was originally founded – good governance and faith.
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