Lack of front-line manpower became an acute problem for I Corps once the bloody sweep from Lingayen Gulf to the Philippine Sea had split the enemy's Luzon force into southern and northern pockets. When it appeared that the horizonal severance was imminent, General Yamashita withdrew the major part of his command into the Caraballo Mountains and dug in along a front which stretched from one coast of the island to the other. His strategy and its effect on Corps personnel problems did not take long to crystallize.

By confining its activities to the hill country, the Japanese High Command accomplished several favorable ends. First of all, cognizant that I Corps must follow the fight in its role of attacker, the Nip selected a battleground which emphasized his numerical superiority. Too, Yamashita forced General Swift to conform to the Japanese pattern of action: man-against-man campaigning where Corps would have to commit large numbers of troops to secure relatively lightly manned positions. Another factor in the enemy's favor was his ability to minimize the effects of American armor, heavy artillery and mobile reconnaissance units whose operations were restricted by the nature of the terrain.

Corps did not have sufficient infantry to engage the enemy at all points of his line. Instead, ground commanders concentrated on breaking through the most heavily defended sectors in the Nip defense: the Galiano-Pugo-Kennon Road area, the Villa Verde Trail and Balete Pass. By mid-April, the operational successes of the three divisions active in these zones had forced Yamashita to renege on his boasts of invincibility. Baguio was all but taken; the Cagayan Valley was seriously threatened.

Enemy tacticians had no choice but to dissolve portions of their original line and recommit the troops in key sectors. While these now inactive areas posed no threat to the success of the Northern Luzon operation, it still became necessary to maintain surveillance in order to prevent reorganization and establishment of escape routes for defeated remnants. General Swift found the men to accomplish these patrolling and roadblock missions by the simple means of requisitioning reserves from his active divisions. Orders from Corps G-3 attached all idle division reserves and quickly re-designated them as I Corps reserve. Reserve commanders reported to General Swift's CP at Rosales for orders and then were immediately dispatched to the hinterlands. The task force sent to Dingalan Bay-manned and commanded by a 33d Division nucleus-was conceived when Corps named the 1st Battalion, 1234 Infantry, as its reserve.

Just prior to this attachment, the battalion had experienced several days of rough fighting during its seven vain attempts to breach the Bilbil-Lomboy vise at Galiano and race through to Asin. General Clarkson, recognizing the urgency of this mission and the poor condition of his assault force, replaced this unit with the 1st Battalion, 130th Infantry, on 9 April. Lt. Colonel Coates, the 123d battalion commander, was directed to take his weary troops back to Sison for service as Division reserve. It was intended that they rest. However, as soon as Division notified Corps of the relief, a message reached G-3 instructing the Division to turn its reserve over to I Corps. Concurrently, word came to Division requesting that one rifle company of the new Corps reserve and the battalion executive officer report to Rosales immediately.

Company A, commanded by Capt. Harry Ice, was selected to accompany Major Robert V. Connolly to the Corps CP on the morning of the 10th. As soon as Connolly and Ice reached Rosales, Able Company was deployed around the Corps installation as CP security while Connolly was ushered into the office of the G-3. He was told at once that he was to head a vital, high-priority Corps mission.

A complete briefing then took place. In recent weeks Corps had received reports from Rangers and guerrillas operating in the Dingalan Bay sector-Corps' eastern flank-giving complete details of Japanese infiltration back into the bay area. An escape route had been established close by and bands of stragglers who had been crushed by XIV Corps in Southern Luzon were moving northward with the hope of eventually linking up with the Japanese Northern Luzon force. At Dingalan Bay they were reorganized and many were dispatched toward the Cagayan Valley, while others took over the task of harassing the guerrillas and keeping the route open. Corps operated two large sawmills near Dingalan Bay, one on the shore and the other at Bitoluk, several miles inland, and it was feared that the enemy might launch an attack on these valuable installations.

Major Connolly was informed that he was responsible for cracking the escape route, protecting the sawmills, and killing off the organized groups of Nips at Dingalan Bay. Elements of his cwn battalion were scheduled to accompany him and serve as the nucleus of his unit. The conglomeration of American troops and guerrillas was to be known as Connolly Task Force.

Corps granted Connolly carte blanche in the selection of 123d Infantry elements to accompany him on his assignment. For his rifle company he chose Ice's outfit. Good friends, both officers had much in common. Each was deliberate, unexcitable and aggressive; carryovers from pre-war days when both had received national recognition as college football stars. Connolly, a giant of a man standing well over six feet and weighing about 225 pounds, played tackle and end for New York University from 1937 to 1939. Ice, on the other hand a comparatively puny specimen, made most of the 1941 All-Americas as a University of Missouri halfback. He was a veteran of Sugar Bowl and College All-Star play. Captain Ice was designated task force executive officer. Command of Able Company passed to Lieutenant Roop.

Practically the entire 1st Battalion staff was transferred to Connolly. Intelligence and operations were combined under Lieutenant John F. Reardon, normally battalion S-2. The assistant battalion surgeon, Lt. Howard W. Foley, joined the force as its surgeon. For supply officer Major Connolly requested Lt. Daniel J. Ferrone, the regular S-4. S/Sgt. Robert V. Easton, battalion operations sergeant, was assigned as Lieutenant Reardon's assistant. Supporting weapons came from Company D, which furnished a section each of heavy machine guns and 81mm mortars. By the time clerks, aid men and drivers were picked up, the 1st Battalion's contribution to Connolly Task Force numbered 12 officers and 137 enlisted men.

Once component units were assembled and oriented at Rosales, Corps trucks carried them to Dingalan Bay. Connolly proceeded directly to the headquarters of the 1st Anderson Battalion-Filipino guerrillas-for an on-the-ground accounting of the situation. Located on the northern shore of the C-shaped bay, the guerrilla camp-site appeared to be a likely site for the force CP. Connolly quickly grouped all subordinate command posts in this area, erected his own CP and named the enlarged installation Task Force Headquarters. Meanwhile Company A, awaiting a tactical assignment, was impressed to guard the bay-front camp.

Active operations began on the morning of 13 April. After weighing the multitude of guerrilla and Alamo Scout team reports and recommendations, Connolly decided to post the cream of his force, Company A, at points in the bay area subject to the heaviest enemy traffic. A logical spot for a major strongpoint was the mouth of the winding Umiray River. From its source in the Sierra Madre hill range northeast of Manila, the stream rolled through more than seventy miles of mountain country before emptying into the southern arm of Dingalan Bay.

Some fifty miles southwest of where the Umiray begins, the war was very much in progress. XIV Corps troops were engaged in pushing thousands of Nips across the mountains toward Luzon's eastern shore These enemy hordes, one-time defenders of the Manila waterworks in the Marikina-Antipolo area and the Shimbu Line, constituted the last Japanese threat to the security of Manila. Once they were crushed, the closing of the Luzon campaign would be dependent upon I Corps' northward progress. When defeat and ultimate annihilation appeared inevitable, large numbers of the retreating Nips, mostly sick, hungry troops who had lost contact with their units, sought to flee toward the Cagayan Valley. The Umiray was there to guide them. Once they reached Dingalan Bay they had but to swing wide around its waters and then resume their trek.

Connolly counted on surprising these Nips at the halfway mark of their route to the valley. He took one rifle platoon from Ice's company, reinforced it with light and heavy machine guns, a light and heavy mortar section, a group of Anderson's guerrillas, and an Alamo Scout team and sent the force to the Umiray. The Scouts, with their SCR-284, moved up the Umiray to the junction formed by Mararaqui Creek and set up a listening post. Attached Filipinos covered a pair of fords in the river midway between Dingalan Bay and the Umiray-Mararaqui intersection. Able Company's single rifle platoon plus the crew-served weapons took up positions at the anticipated hot spot: a flat, open sand bar at the mouth of the river.

Moving the men from task force headquarters to the river mouth brought the problem of inadequate transportation to the fore. Connolly had one nineteen-foot motor launch available for use if he desired to ferry his troops across the bay to their positions. On the other hand, should an overland route be taken, it necessitated a fourteen-hour march through the steamy jungles fringing the bay front. For a time it looked as though the doughboys would be forced to hike until one astute character suggested a convoy of native canoes. These craft, called bancas, were attached to the launch by lines and towed across the bay with their American cargo. The Umiray garrison afloat looked like anything but a combat force.

Remaining elements of Company A, less a CP security detachment, set up a base camp in an unrelated zone. They were posted in the tiny barrio of Papaya, about fifty miles west of the Connolly headquarters. Umiray and Papaya units had much the same mission: prevent the enemy from breaking through to the north. Patrol and kill.

Success crowned patrolling operations from the start. And, as expected, the Umiray River turned out to be the center of activity for the Dingalan Bay forces. Any unit working out of the river mouth base was assured an interesting time. Troops searching the river racked up appalling numbers of enemy KIAs. Soon the execution of Umiray stragglers boiled down into an exact but simple science. Men alerted for a patrol usually received a post-breakfast briefing on the combat schedule, picked up an extra K ration and then journeyed several hundred yards downstream in search of an ambush location. Company A riflemen could always count on meeting a dozen or so Nips while en route to the ambush scene. Once well into the bush country, the patrol leader proceeded to well travelled portions of the jungle trail or to a section of the river bank known to be a bivouac location for the fleeing Nips. There, he deployed his men so that all approaches and exits to and from the ambush were covered by a cordon of M- is and BARs. The wait was never long. Traffic generally flowed at an even pace. A returning patrol which failed to report a bag of fifteen to thirty enemy was greeted with scorn by their fellows at the sand bar.

So it went for almost three weeks. By the end of April Major Connolly was able to report to General Swift that more than two hundred Japs had been killed at Dingalan Bay without a single American casualty.

Humorous incidents occasionally took place which prevented a few patrols from falling into the category of "routine." One squad of Able Company, led by newly commissioned Lt. Edwin F. Voss, once came across a pair of Nips who had visions of ambush themselves. However, Voss's lead scout spotted the two, crouched over a Nambu light machine gun alongside the trail, and brought one down with his first round. Suddenly discouraged, his comrade tucked the Nambu under his arm and raced for the river. Lieutenant Voss's scout quickly took up the chase and pursued the Jap. The rest of the patrol came up in time to see the scout leaning against a tree carefully watching the enemy flounder across the shoulder-deep stream. Just as the Nip was about to enter the jungle on the opposite side, the scout calmly brought his M-1 to firing position and killed him with a bullet through the head. A sergeant, amazed at this seemingly exaggerated nonchalance, heatedly reamed out the hapless scout for almost permitting the Jap to escape. "Gosh, Sarge," muttered the rifleman with an inured air, "I just wanted to see if the poor bastard could swim."

Another officer commissioned in the field, Lt. Harry Slain, also figured in an experience which had the Umiray as its locale. Slain took three guerrillas and a squad of infantrymen out on a mission along the river. He was charged with patrolling one side of the stream for several hundred yards, crossing at a ford, and then striking back along the opposite bank. Lieutenant Slain's first scout had just clambered down the southern bank prior to crossing when a Nip did the same on the northern side. Both American and Jap were too surprised by each other's presence to do anything but stare. Collecting his wits, the Able Company dough decided to capture the enemy if possible. He called to the Nip to surrender. With a big smile on his face the Jap answered back "surrender." Slain's man placed his rifle on the ground and the Nip followed suit with alacrity. Telling the second scout to drop his weapon and follow, the doughboy swam across the water to claim his prisoner. The second scout, unarmed, and a guerrilla carrying a carbine were right behind him.

As the three dripping riflemen emerged from the stream, the smiling Nip greeted them with the statement-spoken in perfect English-that they were his prisoners. In a second both Yanks were on top of the enemy, pounding him into submission with their fists. The Filipino sat down on a rock to watch the fight, carefully laying his carbine across his knees. A real Pier Six brawl was under way when the Jap suddenly made an unforgivable violation of Marquis of Queensberry rules. He reached for a hand grenade concealed in his clothing. The guerrilla, regarding this move as an abhorrent lack of sportsmanship, ended the bout with a shot from his carbine.

However, not all was laughter with Connolly Task Force. Tragedy, m the form of its first casualty, struck hard on 6 May. Lieutenant Reardon, anxious to investigate guerrilla reports that the enemy had found new assembly areas, scouted out the lower Umiray from the nose of an Air Force B-25. During the reconnaissance, the medium dumber came under sustained ground fire from a Japanese force. Enemy machine guns sent the plane plummeting to earth. All aboard perished in the crash.

Reardon's death was a cruel blow to Major Connolly. During the three weeks of the task force's life he had come to regard the youthful Washingtonian as an indispensable assistant. Lieutenant Reardon's intelligence-operations decisions were infallibly sound and mature; his personal gallantry on reconnaissance of the highest type. Only a few days before, in a periodic report to Corps, Major Connolly had cited Reardon as "the most valuable single member of the force." In his final report to Colonel Serff, once the force was disbanded, Connolly eulogized Lieutenant Reardon in this manner: "Reardon augmented material received from rifle units and guerrillas with numerous patrols of his own. Most of his day was spent on reconnaissance along the Umiray and most of the night in piecing together his discoveries. His interpretation of facts secured, his estimates of enemy strength and his planning of patrols to counteract these capabilities contributed enormously to the success of the operation." Corps awarded Lieutenant Iteardon the Silver Star posthumously.

Several days after the B-25 crash, an enemy prisoner, captured during Skirmish along the Umiray, broke down during interrogation and supplied information which was responsible for a general alert of all task force elements. Under the none-too-gentle persuasion of an infuriated guerrilla lieutenant, the Jap disclosed every detail of an enemy plan to overrun the Able Company outpost at the mouth of the river. Speaking in halting English, he explained that 150 stragglers had been rounded up, armed, and concealed in the hills, awaiting a chance to strike the sand bar. A date for the attack had finally been set. On 11 May, under the cover of early morning darkness, the Japanese force was slated to come out of hiding. At dawn the attack would begin. Oddly, the principal objective of the enemy troops was the large store of rations at the outpost. Ill and half-starved, the Nips' prime requisite was food if they were to continue their northward journey. An attack against the sand bar garrison was their sole solution.

This new development was reported to Corps at once. At Rosales, the G-3, fearful that Connolly lacked sufficient manpower and variety of weapons, decided to attach fresh troops to the Dingalan Bay force. Company D, 136th Infantry, just relieved from heavy fighting on Skyline Ridge, was alerted for a move to the coast. Trucks carried them to Major Connolly's CP. By dawn of 10 May the Umiray outpost had been reinforced by a platoon of Dog Company machine guns and a section of 81mm mortars.

With the arrival of this new contingent of men, defense preparations began on a feverish scale. Major Connolly accompanied the D Company troops to the sand bar and took personal charge of erecting additional fortifications. New pillboxes, reinforced with logs and covered with sand, went up to house the added guns; individual foxholes were drawn closer together in an effort to reduce the area of vulnerability between emplacements; communications trenches were constructed running from platoon CPs to rifle and weapons units. Heavy-weapons commanders coordinated on a fire support plan designed to best cover the installation. In turn, riflemen were disposed to provide protection for the machine guns. Each of the seven mortars, three lights and four heavies, was assigned a separate zone of responsibility so that 360-degree fires could be laid in the event that the attack came from all sides.

Day gave way to night at 2000 but there was no sleep for the Umiray garrison. An air of unmistakable tension hung over the perimeter like a black cloud. Foxhole companions softly speculated as to whether or not higher-ups had jumped off the deep end in their prediction of a counterattack. Guards crouched forward expectantly, eyes peering into the gloom, ears straining for any untoward sound. Watches were changed with unusual frequency; ground commanders wanted fresh men on guard throughout the night. Midnight passed, then the early morning hours. It began to appear as though the Japanese thrust was merely a figment of somebody's imagination. With dawn scarcely an hour away there was no sign of the night-time activity which generally preceded the enemy's morning moves.

Private First Class John R. McKinney, manning a light machine gun on the edge of the perimeter, momentarily abandoned his speculation for a glimpse of his watch. It was 0455. Gray filters of dawn were beginning to find their way through the blackness of night. Whispering to his assistant gunner to maintain the alert, McKinney crawled to a neighboring emplacement and wakened his relief. In a moment he reappeared at his gun. At 0500 another pair of A Company doughboys crawled into the position and McKinney worked his way to a foxhole ten yards from the machine gun which he shared with two guerrillas.

Finally relaxed after a long hour at the gun, McKinney-a Woodcliff, Georgia, farmer in civilian life-made ready for a short nap before his next turn on guard. As he sat in his canvas-roofed emplacement he suddenly became aware of hands fumbling with his shelter. Before he could move, the canvas flap swung open and a saber-swinging Jap plunged into his hole. His first frenzied blow caught McKinney alongside the ear, dazing him and sending the blood flowing from a deep gash. Instinctively, the 24-year-old Georgian grabbed his rifle and bludgeoned his attacker with a single butt stroke. At the same moment another Nip charged in to the emplacement from the rear. McKinney struggled to his feet, whirled, and brought him down with a desperation hip-shot.

Now McKinney looked for the two guerrillas who had shared his shelter but in the melee both had left the hole and had run toward the interior of the position. Quickly his thoughts switched to the machine gun ten yards in front of him, the only American obstacle separating the Japanese from the heart of the perimeter. He saw the piece lying idle; one of the crewmen had been wounded and the gunner was trying to drag him to safety. Without pausing to round up assistance McKinney raced toward the gun, reaching it a few paces before the shouting enemy. Unable to fire from such close range, he attempted to pull the machine gun to the rear but the enemy swarmed over him before he had taken three steps. He managed to get off one burst before he was borne backward by the Japanese horde.

From then on McKinney's actions were highly spectacular. The Georgian fought like a dervish, shooting, biting, kicking, gouging, and then swinging his rifle by its barrel when he had expended a clip. In between these operations he managed to push fresh clips into the receiver of his M-1 and work the machine gun farther to the rear. Again he dropped down and triggered the light .30, but by this time the piece was fouled by dirt kicked into it and McKinney was unable to make it function.

Instead he circled back to his foxhole and stuffed several clips of rifle ammunition inside his shirt. Again he moved forward to the machine gun to engage a second wave of enemy. Standing erect in the hole, with no cover from his knees up, the Georgian pumped rapid, effective fire into the Japanese ranks. Off to the right he could hear almost a hundred Nips hammering against other points in the Able Company line. Twice hand grenades exploded at his feet and a knee mortar shell detonated within five yards of him but the Woodcliff farm boy stood his ground. As fast as he sighted the Nips through the murky haze McKinney knocked them down with his M-1.

Technical Sergeant Alfred W. Johnson, second-in-command of Company A's Weapons Platoon, reported that when activity finally simmered down around McKinney, he and several other men were able to fight through to the Georgian and help him dispatch a few survivors. In recounting the sight that greeted him, Johnson said: "We found McKinney in firing position, bleeding profusely from a head wound. The light machine gun lay against his feet in the foxhole. He assured us that he was OK. There were-by actual count-thirty-eight freshly slaughtered Japs stacked in piles of twos and threes around the emplacement within a fifteen-yard radius. Another few paces away lay two more, slumped over a knee mortar. Those Nips all belonged to Mac; the rest of us had our hands full fifty yards away where they also came into the perimeter unobserved."

Final tabulation of casualties disclosed that ninety-five of the enemy had been slain on the sand bar. American and Filipino casualties combined showed three dead and seven wounded. Captain Ice immediately submitted Private First Class McKinney's name for an award of the Medal of Honor. In due time it cleared all necessary channels and, like Kerstetter of the 130th Infantry, the country boy from the South received the Nation's highest award from the hands of President Truman at a White House ceremony.

Numerous other acts of gallantry occurred during the unexpected dawn attack, although none matched McKinney's for sheer courage. S/Sgt. Neal A. Cowin, later commissioned in the field, earned the Silver Star for leaving the perimeter to repair a broken telephone line under heavy enemy fire. Cowin led a section of machine guns from Company D, 136th Infantry. His platoon leader, T/Sgt. Victor J. Wendling, received the same award for saving an officer's life in addition to killing five of the enemy. Wendling saw a Nip sneak up on Lt. Max Ladin, commanding a section of heavy mortars, while the lieutenant was computing firing data at the guns. Sergeant Wendling shot the Jap at the precise moment he was about to decapitate Lieutenant Ladin with a heavy sword. Seconds later when the Nips charged his position, the Saginaw, Michigan, noncom stopped them with rifle fire.

Lieutenant Voss and Sgt. LeRoy Nix of Company A also won the Silver Star during the sand bar fracas. Voss kept the attached guerrillas from becoming panicked during the initial stages of the fight. The enemy move came so abruptly that the Filipinos were unable to retain organization. A few of them began to shout and race around the perimeter. Lieutenant Voss ignored enemy fire long enough to leave his foxhole, round up the guerrillas and lead a counterattack which expelled the Japs from the Filipinos' original position.

Sergeant Nix's Silver Star stemmed from his boldness and dexterity with a mortar. In the first phase of the fight, a Nip knee mortar registered in on Nix's gun and was on the verge of finding its emplacement. Nix rose to sight the enemy muzzle flash and responded with counterbattery fire which silenced the Nip piece and killed its crew. Later, a group of Japanese who had managed to infiltrate through the front line of holes, converged on Nix's position. Sergeant Nix rounded up a few guerrillas, reorganized his crewmen into a rifle squad and polished off the invaders in a brief hand-to-hand struggle. This accomplished, he resumed perimeter fires which caught many of the enemy as they sought to back out of the installation.

One major decision evolved from the fight on the sand bar: Corps and Connolly both realized that a single rifle company was not enough to contain the hundreds of Nips who infested Dingalan Bay. As a result Corps moved in reinforcements on the afternoon of the 11th and notified Connolly that his force would be disbanded as soon as all elements of the relieving 1st Battalion, 136th Infantry, were in position.

On 17 May at 0800 Connolly Task Force relinquished responsibility for Dingalan Bay and reverted back to the 123d Infantry. Its record stood as a tribute to the fighting qualities of its men: from 12 April to 16 May the force accounted for 368 Japanese dead and took 22 prisoners. In turn, it suffered the remarkably light toll of two men killed and three wounded. Succeeding the force was Ehrlich Task Force, built along the same lines and named for Lt. Col. Milton Ehrlich, lanky, semi-bald commander of the 1st Battalion, 136th Infantry. Lt. Colonel Ehrlich's command was also extended to include all Rangers and guerrillas in the bay area.

Activity was in no way affected by the change of personnel. As a matter of fact, the Ehrlich force was blessed with materiel and transportation which Connolly had requested but was unable to obtain. At the same time that command of Dingalan Bay forces passed to Lt. Colonel Ehrlich, I Corps dispatched several LVTs and LCMs to the bay-front CP. These were employed with excellent results several days later when task force elements commenced to patrol the Umiray closer to its source.

There was no change in the mission. Lt. Colonel Ehrlich was charged with continuing the task assigned to Connolly. When his battalion was finally in position, it lined up like this: Company B, commanded by Lt. William S. Harris, occupied the sand bar at the mouth of the Umiray. Most of the battalion's heavy weapons were attached to this unit. Captain Cavender's Able Company set up its headquarters adjacent to the Corps sawmills in Bitoluk and patrolled the roads and trails for ten miles around the small barrio. Men from Company A also manned a series of trailblocks erected at regular intervals along the 13itoluk-Dingalan Bay road. For CP security Lt. Colonel Ehrlich employed the antitank and ammunition and pioneer platoons out of Battalion Headquarters Company. Company C assumed positions in the general vicinity of task force headquarters but was not charged with its defense. Instead, Captain Fox's unit was designated as task force "trouble shooters;" a rested mobile reserve prepared to strengthen any point in the Dingalan Bay area on a moment's notice.

To no one's surprise, most of Ehrlich Force's action centered around Baker Company at the mouth of the river. Despite the enemy's abortive 11 May assault, they still coveted the barren sand bar with its lifesaving stocks of GI rations. Although their subsequent efforts lacked the numbers and organization of the War Against McKinney, the Japanese continued to throw squads and platoons against the outpost. Now, however, the perimeter was armed to the teeth and the Nips were cut down as soon as they appeared in the open. In little more than a week of these tactics, 108 Japs met their deaths at the hands of Baker riflemen and Dog machine gunners. No friendly troops fell casualty.

Corps' magnanimous gift of amphibious vehicles permitted Company B to vastly widen the scope of its activities. With adequate land and water transportation available it was now possible to go out and meet the Nip rather than wait for him to appear at the sand bar installation. On several occasions a reinforced platoon was loaded on LVTs and carried southward to known Japanese assembly areas on the coast of Luzon. Never before molested in these locations, the enemy invariably fell a victim to these surprise strikes. Baker Company fast became known within the 1st Battalion, 136th Infantry, as the Butchers of the Bay.

On one amphibious patrol, however, this fast-growing reputation suffered a serious reverse. Lieutenant Harris took one of his platoons, backed it up with two bazookas and a section of light machine guns and pointed for a section of the beach reported to house a sizable Nip colony. The trip down was uneventful, all hands wondering whether the outfit's luck would hold up. As the lumbering Alligators rolled to a stop on the palm-fringed beach the platoon went over the side, deployed into a wide skirmish line and sprinted for the cover of the trees. Back at the LVTs machine gunners were ready to lay down a blanket of covering fire. Suddenly the Japanese "force" emerged from the bush and charged down on Baker Company.

It consisted of precisely five women. More shock could not have been manifested had Yamashita himself appeared from those trees clad in BVDs and Samurai sword.

One, dressed in a Jap officer's shirt with the tails hanging loosely over a tattered skirt, approached the company commander and offered to show him their living quarters. As she guided the Baker leader to a large pit shielded from the sun by a grass-thatched roof, the emaciated Nip maiden told him in excellent English how her "squad" happened to be in that particular sector.

"We moved to Dingalan Bay shortly after you started air strikes in the Manila area last year," she explained. "Ten of us were among the entourage of a Japanese colonel. Then you came here and forced us away from the village. That took away our food. Five of us have slowly starved to death. When the soldiers saw you coming this morning they ran for the hills, but we decided to give ourselves up."

Harris too had a story to tell as he lingered outside the S-2 tent after returning to headquarters with his "prisoners."

"We may have had an uneventful voyage out, but the trip back held enough excitement for me," he went on. "Those girls were willing to seduce a whole boatload of GIs for a single can of C ration. And you should have seen the hole where the five of them lived. It was cluttered with ladies' unmentionables, kimonos, face powder, hair brushes and most everything else needed to round out a lady's boudoir. For a second I thought I was standing next to the cosmetics counter in the Evansville, Indiana, five-and-dime store. Nylons? No, that's one item they didn't have."

Lieutenant Colonel Ehrlich's task force was closed out on this note. On 30 May Corps issued orders directing that the 1st Battalion, 136th Infantry, return to the Division, now in Baguio. General Swift's headquarters was wholly satisfied with the results obtained by the force. In its brief period of operation, the unit accounted for 276 of the enemy plus 32 prisoners of war. All of Ehrlich's battalion reached Camp John Hay on the afternoon of 1 June. Their confidence primed by two weeks of successful hunting, the veterans of Skyline Ridge looked forward to the rest and relaxation afforded by the cool Baguio climate.