With the enemy still reeling from the blows inflicted by the Division in the Question Mark-Bench Mark Hill fights, General Clarkson pursued his advantage by directing that immediate steps be taken to clear existing enemy pockets from the chain of foothills south of Question Mark. Before any major effort could be exerted along forbidding Kennon Road it first became imperative to drive the Nips from their positions on the Division's right flank and rear. These Japanese, holed up on commanding ground, were capable of impeding supply and communication functions carried on from Division bases at Sison. With the Golden Cross gathering momentum for its northward push, it was vital that rear echelon bases be kept free from Japanese interference.

Numerous reconnaissance patrols, dispatched on Division order and manned by personnel of the 1st Battalion of the 130th Infantry, 2d Battalion of the 136th Infantry, and the 33d Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, were pushed through the Labayug-Alibeng area with the mission of pinpointing each enemy pocket. Reports coming back to G-3 carried the desired information. The largest concentration of enemy troops occupied the crest of Hill 1802. The enemy garrison on 1802-a huge tree-covered mountain midway between Labayug and Alibeng was estimated at a lone enemy rifle company reinforced by several light machine guns and mortars. Lesser Jap groups were reported on a chain of smaller hills leading into 1802.

As soon as G-3 had assimilated all patrol information and fitted it into a single picture, the battalions were committed to action. Lt. Colonel Jessup's outfit and the 2d Battalion, 136th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Colonel Haycock, received orders to liquidate the smaller enemy remnants by aggressive combat patrolling. Upon completion of this phase, designed to isolate the 1802 garrison, the joint effort would be turned against this strongpoint.

On 23 February, just one day after the end of the Question Mark battle, both battalions dispatched combat patrols which raked over the area surrounding 1802. For three days the rifle companies did nothing but tramp hills and root out die-hard Jap groups. The sun was hot, water was forever scarce, and the enemy, usually numbering fifteen or twenty to a band, bitterly contested every yard of advance. Gradually however, the Japanese holdouts were either annihilated or scattered, and by nightfall of 25 February Golden Cross doughs occupied all key terrain in the vicinity of the hill.

Colonel Cavenee, responsible for sweeping clean the Labayug-Alibeng area, decided to strike the Japs on 1802 without further delay.

He chose the 1st Battalion, 130th Infantry, attached to him for this operation, for the frontal assault against the Jap positions. While the Blackhawks were carrying out their strike, the plan called for Lt. Colonel Haycock's battalion to sweep through the countless ravines and gullies leading down from the hill. In this way, should the enemy decide to reinforce 1802, his routes of approach would be barred. By the same token, if the Jap attempted to fall back in the face of the attack, his avenues of withdrawal would be denied him.

Shortly before dusk on the afternoon of 26 February, Lt. Colonel Jessup led his men in an approach march up the slope of 1802. Enemy outposts were mysteriously missing and as the Blackhawks dug in several hundred yards below the crest, the Nips had no hint of an impending attack. When the men had completed their digging and had cleared fields of fire for their automatic weapons, the battalion commander grouped his company commanders and went over the plan of attack.

Because of the heavily wooded terrain, it was deemed advisable to have but one company make the assault. Baker Company, led by Kentucky-born Capt. James L. Brown, was picked for the effort. Following behind and prepared to swing out to the flanks in the event that Baker Company was unable to overrun the enemy positions were Able and Charley Companies, under Capts. James L. Mills and Patrick Kelly, respectively. Dog Company's mortars, located in a defiladed gully at the base of the hill, were to throw out a fifteen-minute HE barrage before the jump off. Capt. Billy Fleming, the weapons-company commander, acting as mortar observer, was to accompany Baker Company.

At 0845, Captain Fleming radioed his mortar positions to commence firing. In a few minutes rounds were symmetrically dotting the objective area. Baker Company inched forward to within 150 yards of the target while the mortars forced the enemy to seek cover underground. At 0900 the fires lifted and the company moved out in the attack. The enemy quickly shook off the effects of the high-explosive pounding and went into an active defense. Machine guns and light mortars ripped through the trees and tore up the ground in front of Captain Brown's men. Immediately the company spread out laterally and began to close in on the crest in a series of short rushes.

Fire and movement pulled the Blackhawks close to the Japanese line. On signal the doughs rose from the ground and ran over Nip troops and guns in a single surge. A short hand-to-hand fight followed, but every enemy attempt to stem the attack was crushed. Finally, after a

systematic destruction of each hole and gun position the hill was secured. Lt. Colonel Jessup radioed "Bart"-Colonel Cavenee-at 1227, less than three-and-a-half hours after jump off time, that 1802 had fallen.

Able and Charley Companies, in keeping with their assignments, swept in behind Baker Company and broke off into the deep ravines to mop up the few stragglers fortunate enough to pull off the crest. These would-be escapees were run down and shot as they fell into the tight vise clamped on them by Able and Charley from above and the 2d Battalion, 136th Infantry, covering escape routes from below. So complete was the enemy's defeat that it was possible to garrison Hill 1802 with one rifle platoon that night.

By 28 February patrols could gain no further contact with enemy forces in the 1802 area. In five days Lt. Colonel Jessup's force had accounted for 123 dead Japanese at a cost of twelve men killed in action. With its mission successfully completed, the battalion was released from attachment to the 136th Infantry and returned to its regiment at Rosario. Seeking to prevent the Nips from moving back into this zone, Colonel Cavenee kept Lt. Colonel Haycock's battalion, less Fox Company, in this sector for an additional ten days. By then Labayug-Alibeng was scoured clean and the enemy threat to the Division right flank dispelled.

The stage was set to open the drive on the Corps objective-Baguio. Now came the big question. How was the Division to get there? The Japs obviously expected the main effort to be made along Kennon Road. Intelligence reports from the 43d Division, friendly Filipinos and Golden Cross patrols disclosed that the enemy had garrisoned the high ground along the road with the cream of his foot troops. He had an awesome defense in depth stretching from the road entrance at Camp One clear back to the summer capital where Yamashita confidently held forth in his headquarters. The Enemy Order of Battle Section of Division G-2 estimated that 2,500 Japanese troops made up the Kennon Road holding force on 1 March.

General Clarkson realized that any main effort made through this street-wide route of approach would be doomed to quick failure. There could be no element of surprise introduced into any moves along the road. Holed up in the perpendicular escarpments that rose from the road to heights of four and five thousand feet, the enemy would be capable of blasting any Division activity from its inception. Maneuver was limited. To top it off, the Japs had destroyed a long suspension bridge running over a deep rocky gorge midway between Camps Three

and Four. This was his ace in the hole. Even if the Division somehow managed to push up to the bridge it would be impossible to resume an attack and expect lines of supply and friendly howitzers to follow in the trail of front-line doughs.

Kennon Road, yes. There were more than 2,500 Japs there. Someone had to engage them. The Division was forced to take up the Kennon Road challenge-but not as the main effort.

In prewar times when Baguio was at its height of popularity as the summer capital of the Philippines, Kennon Road was referred to by Manila travel agencies as the "Scenic Route" to the mile-high playground. The natural beauty of the rocky bluffs lining the highway had once awed tourists with their majestic splendor. Now they afforded countless locations for Japanese snipers, machine guns and artillery pieces. The densely wooded cuts which indented the sides of the mountains provided excellent assembly areas for Jap reserves. As the road wound northward the flanking terrain rose higher and the cuts grew deeper, affording almost perfect defilade from artillery and small-arms fire. A man on the road could not so much as pick his teeth and go unobserved by the enemy.

The entire defensive set-up of the road was the fondest dream of a tactician come true. With terrain such as this in their possession it is small wonder that the Japanese expected to hold out in Northern Luzon for five years.

At any rate, the Division's course of action was clear. From Camp One to the suspension bridge ruins it would be slug, slug, slug.

Although Kennon Road is generally identified as strictly a 136th Infantry engagement, units of the other two regiments saw heated action in this sector during the early days of the push. Actually the 1st Battalion, 123d Infantry, under Lt. Colonel Coates, was the first unit to shed its blood on the road. This battalion fought forward on the left side of the road to Twin Peaks while the 136th Infantry was still engaged in the Labayug-Alibeng area. Major Askren's 2d Battalion, 130th Infantry, was the next Golden Cross unit to receive a Kennon Road baptism. On 4 March it relieved Lt. Colonel Coates' battalion and continued the drive along the high ground to Twin Peaks.

Major Ehrlich's 1st Battalion was the first 136th unit to be committed along the mountain-lined gorge. Starting at Camp One, this outfit battled its way over the high ground on the right side of the road until it took Klondikes on 10 March. At this time, the Kennon Road force still shunned the highway proper. Activity was restricted to breaking through the maze of Japanese strong-points lining the bluffs on both sides of the road. Colonel Cavenee, responsible for the entire sector, intended to launch a strike along the gutted concrete pavement and thus solidify his line as soon as the flank advances justified such a move.

Bitter opposition was apparent on both sides of the area. There were no weak spots on the flanks of the enemy positions; he depended

on his deep rock-ribbed defense to halt every Golden Cross move. Whether it was the 136th on the right or the 130th on the left, fanatical resistance restricted all gains to a few meager yards each day. Long-range patrols were sent out to reconnoiter routes of approach which might enable the doughs to sweep in on the enemy's flanks. These patrols could bring back no information which might forestall the fast-developing frontal slugging match. However, they returned to their bases with valuable information on enemy weapons and troop concentrations, information which was useful in later fighting.

Regimental headquarters took off on a new tack. If it had to be a toe-to-toe battle, the Bearcats would do well to strip the Jap of a part of his observation.

Between Camp One and Pell Mell Creek stands Bue Bue, a hump-shaped skyscraper standing 3,700 feet above Kennon Road. Dominating the entire right side of the road up to Pell Mell Creek, Japanese observers on the mountain-top had unimpeded fields of vision. From Bue Bue they could diagnose all Golden Cross moves as soon as they began to develop. "Bart" told Baker Company to take Bue Bue.

Technical Sergeant Ray E. Livengood, later commissioned a second lieutenant in the field, started out for Bue Bue's heights with a Baker Company rifle platoon. The rest of the 1st Battalion was displaced forward over the mountains until it formed a line which curved from a point immediately southeast of Bue Bue to Kennon Road. Captain Cavender's Able Company fought for and won a piece of high ground southeast of the mountain. Baker Company, less one platoon, moved to the western foot of Bue Bue, and Charley Company took up positions between Baker and Kennon Road.

Sergeant Livengood, expecting nothing more than a small OP on Bue Bue, ran into a heavily defended strongpoint. His only route of advance from the south lay over a long, sweeping spur which led down the mountainside. As Livengood walked up the spur with his lead squad, he was met with fires from two enemy machine guns. Cover was scarce on the semi-barren spur and nine of the first eleven men to begin the climb were hit by 7.7mm bullets. Fortunately all of the casualties were walking wounded and managed to withdraw under their own power.

Livengood pulled his platoon back to a covered position and laid plans for another try. This time he committed a heavy-machine-gun squad from Dog Company which was attached to him. The HMG crew, led by squad leader Frank Sencen, opened up on one of the Jap gun positions as another squad attempted to cross the spur. Sergeant Sencen's gun covered one of the enemy Nambus, but the other enemy gun took the Dog Company piece under fire, seriously wounding Pfc. Alex Wojceichowski, the gunner. The Jap machine gun which had been silenced was now free to fight and again threw heavy fire into Livengood's platoon.

Bue Bue Japs continued to pour fire in the direction of Sergeant Sencen's attached gun, seeking to destroy it. Sencen, a husky blond New Yorker, sprinted across the grassy hill with two of his ammunition bearers and managed to pull the gun back to a defiladed spot. Without pausing he made the trip again, this time for Wojceichowski, who lay prostrate and bleeding on the side of the hill. Sergeant Sencen made this second try good also, even though he took a bullet in the arm while rescuing Wojceichowski.

Livengood was stopped cold again. He radioed Captain Kissel, his company commander, on the western side of Bue Bue with the rest of Baker Company, that he could not take his objective.

While the one Company B platoon was engaged on Bue Bue, Company C advanced on the high ground flanking the road. By nightfall on 10 March it was dug in on a meadow-like piece of ground overlooking Pell Mell Creek. The 3d Battalion of Bearcats, now on the left side in lieu of the 2d Battalion, 130th Infantry, had kept pace with the Charley Company move.

Now the time was ripe to drive a wedge through the middle. The 1st and 3d Battalions were ordered to hold fast and not attempt further advances until a force moving up the road proper joined the line.

Back at Sison, where the 2d Battalion was in regimental reserve after cleaning out the Labayug-Alibeng area, the force was formed. It was initially a small one, consisting of Company F, under Lt. Wallace F. Gleason; a heavy-machine-gun platoon from Company H; the 2d Battalion assault group; battalion medical personnel; and a forward observer party from the 210th Field Artillery Battalion. This composite group took its orders directly from Colonel Cavenee. It was called the X-Ray Force.

On 12 March X-Ray moved up Kennon Road to within five hundred yards of Pell Mell, detrucked and immediately struck off up the highway on foot. Everything was quiet along the road. As the doughs slowly walked forward in silence, the only noise to be heard was the sound of the Bued River-running parallel to the road on the left side -as it swirled against huge boulders in the river bed. At 1100 lead scouts closed on the regimental line at Pell Mell Creek. The force continued to move forward and instead of being the regimental laggard, it suddenly became the regimental spearhead. A patrol of guerrillas, led by Filipino Capt. Silverio Dulay, attached to the 3d Battalion, quickly moved out on the high ground to the left of the X-Ray Force, providing flank security.

An hour after leaving Pell Mell Creek, the force reached a small bridge just short of Camp Two. The Jap intended to use this bridge as a 136th Infantry stumbling block.

The enemy waited until the lead scouts had crossed the bridge and waved to their mates to follow, before cutting loose. From cleverly concealed mortar and machine-gun emplacements on the far side of the bridge he suddenly opened up as the first Fox Company platoon was caught bunched up on the span. Both scouts were cut down. Enemy snipers hidden in the rocky crags overlooking the road added to the sudden uproar with fusillades of rifle fire.

Platoon leaders and noncoms kept their men under control. The doughs pulled back from the bridge, leaving several of the wounded behind. Immediately they regrouped and started across in threes and fours, braving the murderous fires hitting them from their front and from the mountainside. X-Ray's mortars set up in defilade and were soon adjusted on enemy mortar and gun positions. Men not actually crossing the bridge unlimbered their M-is in answer to the sniper fire. Gradually the tide of the fight turned. The enemy's automatic weapons slowly were blanketed under the barrage of mortar shells, and snipers hidden in the rocks were picked off one by one.

By 1530 the entire force had crossed the bridge and all casualties had been evacuated to rear medical installations. This was Round One on Kennon Road. Close, but it was the X-Ray Force that provided the haymaker. The first breach in the road defenses had been forced.

"Bart" followed up immediately by reinforcing his thin salient. Another section of mortars from How Company, the 3d Battalion assault group, and detachments from Company C, 108th Engineers, were rapidly sent forward. The engineers, under Capt. Frederick J. Lund, went to work as soon as they had checked in to the force CP. A by-pass, capable of taking tracked-vehicle traffic, was constructed alongside of the wreckage of the bridge. The following morning, 13 March, a platoon of medium tanks from the 775th Tank Battalion rumbled up to assist the force in blasting the Nips from their labyrinth of emplacements lining the highway. Item Company pulled stakes the same morning and followed Captain Dulay's guerrillas as additional flank security.

Dulay's patrol struck a bonanza the following day. Moving across country along the mountain tops, the group was prepared to bed down for the night when one of the members detected movement on an adjacent hill as he was digging his foxhole. Dulay took a dozen men with him and immediately went out to investigate. Moving stealthily in the gathering dusk, the guerrillas broke up into pairs and converged on the hilltop. Eleven Japs, unprepared to meet an intrusion, were quickly knifed or shot. This group of Nips had composed the personnel for an artillery observation post. Wire communications, range finders, telescopes, and other fire-control instruments were either destroyed or captured by the Filipinos.

Scarcely an hour before it was wiped out, this CP had directed approximately twenty rounds of 105mm howitzer fire against the regiment's rear positions on the road. The first rounds landed in the Charley Company perimeter overlooking Pell Mell Creek. Five men were killed. This was the first enemy howitzer fire to fall on Golden Cross elements since the end of February when the Jap had been driven from his Question Mark holdings and his supporting artillery pieces captured. It was not, however, the last. From 14 March until the last few days before the Kennon Road was declared secured, the Japs slammed pointblank fire from guns at Camps Three and Four into 136th troops, CPs and ammunition dumps lining the road.

Lieutenant Gleason and his troops continued to make small daily gains through the Jap defense. The enemy kept a continual flow of rear guards moving south in efforts to halt the force's advance while he busied himself in the Camp Three area preparing a solid line of resistance. On the evening of 15 March, Gleason reported back to Colonel Cavenee that he was dug in one mile short of Camp Three. In the day's fighting his company had sustained several casualties and was down in strength to a point where the success of the drive was jeopardized unless he was reinforced. "Bart" notified Gleason, a six-footer weighing more than two hundred pounds, that George Company would assume the role of spearhead the following morning.

Shortly before noon, George Company, led by Lieutenant Weatherwax, 23-year-old ex-musician from Wichita, joined the force. Major Ivan L. Taylor, battalion executive officer, slogged up the road with Weatherwax and assumed command of the two-company unit as soon as contact was made with Gleason. Capt. William Garland's Antitank Company also joined X-Ray, and was spread out the length of the highway in a series of roadblocks. Caliber .50 machine guns, too cumbersome to be used by exhausted doughs in the hills, were employed at each barrier. The antitankers had the mission of keeping open lines of supply, communication and evacuation.

Meanwhile, what of the 1st Battalion? Charley Company was still near Pell Mell Creek, Able Company held fast on one side of Bue Bue and Baker on the other. On 17 March, "Bart" ordered Baker to make another attempt to take Bue Bue, but this time from the west where the entire company, less Livengood's platoon, was engaged in aggressive patrolling.

Major Ehrlich attached the battalion assault group to Baker Company for the attack. From the outset, Captain Kissel knew he would have to face the same problem that had confronted Livengood. His sergeant had tried to advance along a narrow spur from the south; Kissel was limited to the same type of razor-back from the west. At dawn on 17 March, a platoon from Company B started to crawl across the razor-back.

The enemy was obviously under orders to hold Bue Bue at all costs. Machine guns immediately opened up and felled the first Baker wave. Since the ridge was only seven yards wide, only four men could move abreast at one time. As soon as other Company B men filled the gaps and tried to crawl forward, they too went down. In a matter of minutes, the company had taken a dozen casualties and pined no ground.

That night Baker Company dug in at the foot of the razor-back waiting for morning and resumption of the attack. Captain Kissel decided to lead off the next attempt with the assault group. With a preponderance of automatic weapons, bazookas and flamethrowers, the assault group had the ideal armament to cope with the situation. Came dawn and the assault group moved out, followed by the 3d Platoon of the company.

With Sgt. William Thys, group leader, acting as scout, followed by BAR-man James Hollingsworth and flamethrower-operator Sgt. Arthur Parrott, the assault group was forced to essay the same trail used the previous day. Again the Jap was on the alert and blanketed Thys and Hollingsworth with fire. Thinking he had spotted the gun, Thys called Parrott up with the flamethrower. The Jap, seeing stocky Sergeant Parrott getting ready to unleash a ball of flame, fired first. Before Parrott got the chance to press his release, he was knocked to the ground with wounds in both legs and one arm. Hollingsworth immediately attempted to counter with BAR fire, but had his weapon shot from his hands when enemy bullets shredded the BAR's sights. Splinters of steel from his own weapon cut Hollingsworth about the face.

Again the company couldn't gain ground. Major Ehrlich sent orders to Charley Company, located at Pell Mell Creek, to move to Bue Bue and relieve Company B. Kissel in turn was directed to move down to the creek immediately upon his relief. Captain Fox took over Baker Company's mission.

Fox immediately called for artillery fire on the objective. Lt. Colonel Truxtun, commander of the 210th Field Artillery Battalion, personally went up to Bue Bue to adjust and direct fire. Standing in full view of the enemy, he gradually brought his fire in on the ridge. Shells tore into the Jap positions all that afternoon and night. The next morning, 19 March, was selected for the fifth crack at Bue Bue.

Light mortars prefaced the attack with a 100-round barrage. The 2d Platoon, led by Lt. Sanford H. Winston, began to creep across the razor-back. Instead of countering with his machine guns, the enemy unloosed a barrage of knee-mortar shells. The first round landed in the midst of the first four-man wave composed of Lieutenant Winston, Pfcs. Willis Smith and Edward Stilwell and Sgt. Alvin Lewis. Smith was wounded in the neck by a fragment and both Stilwell and Lewis were killed. Pfcs. Erick Ellison and Jerome Kroeger moved up to fill out the line.

Suddenly Smith, who had refused Lieutenant Winston's order to go to the rear for medical aid, sprang forward with submachine gun spouting. Infuriated by the pain of his wound, and the loss of a good friend in Sergeant Lewis, the quiet youngster from Stidham (Oklahoma) blasted three Japs as they crouched in their spider holes. He was ready to move down the ridge when the Nip machine guns opened up, spattering bullets at his feet and forcing him to take cover. Kroeger, Ellison and Lieutenant Winston then raced forward to join Smith. Among them they accounted for four Japs in the fifteen-yard trip.

As soon as the enemy guns quieted, the four-man team threw grenades and rushed forward as soon as they exploded. The process was repeated. Five more Japs, hunched in spider holes to escape their own machine guns, were killed. The Japs retaliated with combined mortar and machine-gun fires. Six inches above the riflemen's heads the air was full of flying steel; bullets landed so close that chunks of sod were kicked into their eyes.

Realizing that further advance could only result in needless casualties, the platoon leader decided to call for fire from the Charley Company mortars. Lieutenant Winston heaved a smoke grenade in the direction of the enemy guns and fell back with Smith, Ellison and Kroeger until the barrage was finished.

Charley's 60s took exactly three rounds to adjust on the white blossom of smoke. Thirty rounds later, the fires were completed and the same four men prepared for another rush. But the mortars had done little if any good. The same machine-gun and mortar greeting was forthcoming as soon as the Japanese detected the men. Smith again drove toward the enemy by himself, wiping out another brace of Japs before he had his arm shattered by a bullet. Forward movement was halted.

Again the Bue Bue defense had held up. This one Charley Company platoon covered more yards, killed more Japs, and remained in closer contact with the enemy for a longer period than any of the other attacking units, but the net result was the same. Pfcs. Smith, Ellison and Kroeger and Lieutenant Winston were all decorated for their gallantry in this fight: Smith received the DSC and the others the Silver Star. Colonel Cavenee told Captain Fox to move back to Pell Mell Creek and bypass Bue Bue. The garrison there could be dealt with at the regiment's leisure.

Bue Bue action and the rapid advance along Kennon Road combined to disturb the Japanese high commanders. The defenders were instructed to resume their former tactics of night-time harassments. They became more aggressive. Every night from 18 March until the windup of the Kennon Road fight was marked by enemy activity. The Japanese made it SOP to hit at least one of the company positions on the road and off to its sides. Demolition teams attempted nocturnal infiltrations through the regimental line to CPs and ammunition dumps located well behind the forward line. Fortunately, security detachments were able to intercept these thrusts and turn them back.

Jap artillery trebled its output. Every move on the road was an irresistible temptation to enemy cannoneers. The regimental casualty rate soared. The inability of the Golden Cross artillery to place accurate counter-battery fires on the Nip's mountain guns resulted in a general shrinking of morale. L-4s based at the Rosario Cub strip flew constant patrols over the road and its surrounding masses of mountain. But still the Japanese were able to wheel out their pieces, get off a few rounds at almost point-blank range, and then roll the guns back into cliffside caves. The entire procedure was finished before pilots could secure a "fix."

"Bart's" Bearcats had absorbed brutal punishment in their fifteen days of Kennon Road campaigning. The ruggedness of the fight could not be attributed to the enemy alone. Troops were completely exhausted. The hellish climbs up the near-perpendicular slopes caused almost as many casualties as enemy action. Daily spanning of one steep mountain after another lowered the body resistance of 136th men to the point where simple fevers removed a large number from the battle. Courage galore was apparent as each unit sought to accomplish its share of the mission. But ordinary courage was not enough. It took superhuman fortitude to stand the filth, flies, Japs, and daily patrols.

Salt tablets were life-savers. It took only three or four minutes of steady climbing in the overpowering tropical heat to drench a man in his own perspiration. Sweat seeped through web equipment and leather boots, and sometimes actually bleached M-1 stocks. Common sights along the mountain paths were wet, salt-covered doughs lying uninjured on the trail because they could not gather enough strength to maintain the pace of a plodding, exhausted column. It was pitiful to see these infantrymen madly rip their clothes with sweat-drenched hands in order to capture an eddy of cool air.

But there could be no let-up. General Clarkson already had sent his other infantry regiments toward Baguio in the main effort. It became more imperative than ever for the 136th Infantry to keep this major enemy force tied up along Kennon Road.

X-Ray Force was content to sit tight outside Camp Three from 17 to 19 March. Offensive action was confined to platoon patrols sent up the road on close-in security missions. The 1st and 3d Battalions handled the long-range reconnaissance jobs. One patrol, made up of a Fox Company platoon, ran into a strong ambush while checking the highway north of the force position on 19 March. As they slowly moved along the road in open squad columns, the men were suddenly subjected to heavy fire from a Nambu on a grass-covered bluff jutting out of the mountainside. The two squad leaders in the lead were hit by the opening rounds.

An assistant squad leader, Cpl. Robert O. Kopplin, immediately took command of the situation. Designating one squad to clear the road and form a base of fire, he led the others to a partially covered position off the highway. Corporal Kopplin reappeared on the pavement a moment later armed with an automatic rifle. Firing from the hip, he started toward the bluff. Unable to resist such an inviting target, the Japanese brought all of their fire to bear on the corporal.

Miraculously weathering the hail of lead tearing up the concrete at his feet, Kopplin shouted to his comrades to leave their cover and follow him. Still spraying the bluff as he moved forward, the corporal led a bold counterattack which spilled over the hill, causing the enemy to fall back. A parting shot from a retreating sniper killed him as he stood on the edge of a Nip emplacement and fired down into it. Corporal Kopplin was posthumously awarded the DSC.

Just after sundown that evening the enemy retaliated. Waiting until artillery L-4s had ceased operation, the Nips shelled the force command post. Major Taylor, X-Ray's commander, rose to his knees in his foxhole searching for a give-away gun flash as rounds exploded in the CP area. An HE round abruptly screamed into a tree next to his hole and the major was instantly killed in the resulting blast. Shrapnel from the same shell severed the leg of Lieutenant Peebles, regimental I & R Platoon leader.

Regimental and Division intelligence believed that the enemy was stepping up patrol actions and artillery fires to mask his preparations for a counterattack on Kennon Road. Patrols brought back unmistakable evidences to substantiate this theory. A thirty-man reconnaissance group from King Company, led by Lt. Orie C. Wiebusch, spotted two enemy companies assembled on the western slope of Hill 5500. Lieutenant Wiebusch's patrol also observed small groups of Japanese patrolling the trail net from this hill down to Camp Three. Either the enemy was reinforcing his line at Camp Three, or else he was gathering enough men there to launch a counterthrust. Division headquarters chose to believe the latter.

As a result, X-Ray Force was dissolved on 20 March and the entire 2d Battalion moved into the outskirts of Camp Three on 21 March. Lt. Colonel Haycock assumed command and set up a CP just off the high. way. Protective measures were undertaken at once. Thousands of sandbags were hauled forward by S-4. Guns were emplaced, fields of fire were cleared, and commanding ground fully developed. Concertina rolls and double-apron fences wired in all battalion strong points.

Enemy artillery fires began a steady pounding the following morning. Artillery pilots and observers, happy that the enemy had finally decided to declare himself, circled the mountains like vultures, bringing Golden Cross counter-battery fire on several gun positions. In light of this the Jap was forced to commit artillery reserves. Pieces of 15cm caliber, located near the Loacon Airfield in the Baguio suburbs, augmented the Japs' Kennon Road batteries. Small raiding parties followed up behind the Nip fires, seeking a soft spot in the 2d Battalion line.

Colonel Cavenee quickly decided to initiate an advance and beat the Jap to the punch. Capt. Joseph H. Sherrard IV, Easy Company commander, was called back to the CP and given orders to drive through Camp Three that same afternoon. His mission was to seize the high ground overlooking the ruins of the suspension bridge between Camps Three and Four. Sherrard's troops had to fight in order to break through Camp Three, but the enemy, caught out of position, was powerless to halt the move. The majority of Japanese foot troops was grouped on the slopes of Hill 5500 and Bench Mark Middle. To intercept Sherrard they would have had to abandon their positions on the east side of the road and cut across the pavement.

By dusk Easy Company had managed to fortify two sharply rising knobs covering the southern entrance to the bridge. George Company meanwhile pulled the battalion right flank up to Camp Three. Only token resistance met Weatherwax as his men cleared the summit of a 3,000-foot-high hill and quickly developed defenses there.

As Company G was heating coffee over small fires the next morning the enemy launched a surprise assault. Sixty Nips hacked away at the outer line of the perimeter as their mortars and machine guns raked the company position. Quickly the fight resolved itself into a hand-tohand affair. Numerous grenade duels highlighted the action. When the Jap saw that he could not advance frontally, he pulled back, opened up his mortars and then drove into the flanks. The net result was the same-no gain. Convinced that nothing in their standard armament could force a breach, the enemy pulled a new stunt out of their repertoire of cunning.

Japanese troops brought up cans of gasoline and sprayed it around the high cogon grass on the mountain top. In a matter of seconds the dry, withered blades went up in a smoky, roaring blaze. A favoring wind whipped the flames into full fury and soon dense clouds of black

smoke were drawn over the George Company area. Crying, choking men were forced to abandon the summit and pull down into a deep draw on the southern slope. The Japanese followed the fire and occupied the ground as soon as the flames and smoke abated.

Weatherwax reorganized his company and led it forward in a counterattack before the Nips could effect a solid defense. Only after a bloody fight in which the company sustained a dozen casaulties could Company G dislodge the enemy and retake the ground.

That night at 0345 the enemy shifted the fight to another strongpoint. This time they selected the battalion CP as a target for their offensive. For two and a half hours the same type of hand-to-hand battle raged. Not until dawn was the enemy beaten off. The assault was repulsed without loss to the battalion command group, while sixteen Jap marauders lay dead in front of the CP.

George Company obviously held a strange attraction for the Japanese. Just after the moon disappeared at 0400 on the morning of 26 March, two platoons of Japanese made a second assault on the company perimeter. This time they attacked without advance-notice mortar and machine-gun fire. The first inkling of the attack came when the Nips rocked a section of the installation with grenades. But by 26 March Company G's holdings had been reinforced with sandbags and barbed wire. Weatherwax brought protective mortar fires down along his wire line and reduced the thrust to nothing more than a suicidal assault.

Finally convinced that he had neither the weapons nor men to unseat the company, the enemy again drenched the hill with gasoline and waited for fire and smoke to do the work that couldn't be accomplished by direct assault. Just as the flames mounted and began to inch toward Company G, a sudden shift in the direction of the wind brought them roaring back upon the attackers. Many were trapped before they could backtrack to safety. At daylight George Company checked its holdings. Within twenty yards of the outer foxholes riflemen found twenty-five charred bodies, thirty-one rifles, a light machine gun and a mortar.

During a routine search of the Japanese corpses a valuable sketch and field order were removed from the body of an enemy captain. The scorched order revealed that the enemy intended to reinforce his garrison on Bench Mark Middle, and mount his next counterattack from that terrain feature. "Bart" alerted Lt. Colonel Hulbert's force for an all-out battalion strike against Bench Mark on the following morning 27 March.

Frequent raids made against 2d Battalion positions on the road and off to the right indicated the Japs' desire to make these positions untenable. Accelerated artillery fires were brought down on the battalion after each enemy assault, and took a terrific toll of personnel. Not Only did these fires materially reduce the strength of the line units, but they practically decimated the battalion command group. In the week following Major Taylor's death, the S-1, Capt. Stanley Wicher; the Communications Officer, Lt. Joseph H. Bunch; the Ammunition Officer, Lt. Thurman Gray; and the Antitank Officer, Lt. Boyd I. Antes, were all killed by fires directed against the CP. Captain Wicher and Lieutenants Bunch and Gray were felled by artillery fire, and Lieutenant Antes met his death on a security patrol that was hit by machine-gun fire.

Lieutenant Colonel Haycock was wounded by a small shell fragment although he did not require hospitalization. Only Capt. Ben Conrad, S-3, Capt. Morton Wolfson, S-2, and Lt. Eugene Bruaw, S-4, managed to go through the shellings unscathed.

Bench Mark Middle was hit according to plan. After a heavy mortar and artillery concentration had pounded the slopes, Item, King and Love pressed forward over the difficult terrain. Movement was coordinated brilliantly even though the only contact between companies was by radio. So finely timed was the approach march that all three groups hit the slopes at the correct moment-1130, 27 March. The usual fire fight ensued, but each company managed to gain a foothold on the ridge. By dark I, K and L all held favorable positions for an early morning assault on the crest.

They moved out at dawn of the next day. The enemy, hit from three sides, was slowly pulverized by heavy multi-sided fire. By 1000 the Jap garrison had been either killed or driven off. There would be no Japanese counterattack coming from Bench Mark Middle.

Regimental positions along the road grew stable as March faded into April. The order was: "Hold what you've got. No company advances. Offensive activity is to be limited to security patrols." It was just as well. The pace had been a killing one. Casualties-battle and non-battle-had brought rifle companies below effective fighting strength. Some rifle platoons were down to eight and ten men. Diarrhea and yellow jaundice were rampant throughout all battalions. There had been no rest since the beginning of the drive.

But if the regiment's condition was bad, the Jap's was worse. The constant pressure placed against him on both sides of the road had depleted his infantry elements. He too suffered the ravages of disease. Division Artillery batteries had blasted his supply depots and shredded supply trains as they journeyed toward the front. He came to rely more and more on his artillery to halt the forward surge of the 136th Infantry.

Fire from 75s and 105s persisted during the "hold fast" period. Fearful of detection, the enemy had been unable to displace his guns to the rear as the regiment advanced. By 1 April it seemed as if his rounds zoomed into company positions a split-second after they left their barrels. On this date Charley Company-holding high ground near camp Three-received twenty-two rounds in half as many minutes. Half of them were live shells and the remainder duds. Only the comparatively poor quality of Japanese ordnance prevented' the enemy from reaping the full in casualties. During the Charley Company shelling one round split the ground between two men, ripping a foot wide furrow the length of the foxhole. Both doughs were unharmed.

Relief finally came for the 2d Battalion and part of the 1st on 7 April. The 3d Battalion, with Charley Company attached, took over the entire sector. The mission was the same: hold fast and patrol. Colonel Cavenee compensated somewhat for the shortage of 3d Battalion personnel by giving Lt. Colonel Hulbert an abundance of supporting fire. A platoon of 4.2-inch mortars from Company B, 98th Chemical Mortar Battalion, two M-7s from Captain Duchala's Cannon Company, and two medium tanks from the 775th Tank Battalion were committed from regimental reserve.

With one undersized battalion slated to do the work of three, a re-disposition of troops was necessary. Company K, commanded by Capt. Bernard Nussbaum, fortified all of Bench Mark Middle. Capt. George Lindsay and Company L joined Nussbaum in holding the right side of the road. Love Company took over a piece of high ground overlooking the south bank of Halfway Creek. Charley Company stayed in place near Camp Three. The remaining rifle company, Item, constructed defensive positions on a high ridge across the canyon from Charley Company. Heavy machine guns from Company M, under Capt. William Batteiger, were attached to K and L, while two HMGs from Dog Company went to Company I. The battalion CP remained in a large cave lust off the highway.

The Jap was hungry but he wasn't blind. He had waited and hoped for a situation such as this. Selecting Item Company-alone on the left flank-as the battalion soft spot, he wasted little time before counterattacking. Just seven hours after the battalion moved into these new positions the Nips struck hard. First came an artillery barrage against the Company I perimeter. This fire lifted and an entire Japanese company swarmed over the hill. Company D's heavies, crossfiring with the rifle company's lights, opened up on final protective lines. Scores of Nips fell as soon as they came into range.

Somehow a few of the enemy managed to breast the lines of fire and came sprinting toward the outer holes, pausing only to heave hand grenades. Just as they closed with Company I, the enemy artillery suddenly opened up again. Shells ripped into the perimeter, hitting American and Jap alike. Even with his own artillery pounding his exposed ranks, the enemy refused to withdraw. Crazed with shock caused by their own guns, the Japs charged right into heavy machine guns. They were quickly stacked up in piles. The artillery bombardment stopped suddenly and a semblance of sanity returned to the Japs. Without pausing to gather any of their dead, the survivors fled.

Both Dog Company squad leaders, Sgts. Max Kujawa and James Drennan, were killed by shell fragments when the enemy fired into his own troops.

Charley Company was detached from the 3d Battalion on 9 April and sent east to Tebbo where a major fight had developed on the Division right flank. Consequently, three rifle companies were left to handle a vital assignment formerly filled by nine. To offset this loss, ground action was temporarily halted and greater emphasis placed on artillery and air strikes. For a solid week all offensive action was in the hands of aerial observers flying out of Rosario in liaison planes. In addition to normal artillery-adjustment functions, they guided in air strikes on enemy troop concentrations and supply points on Hill 5500 and the nearby Lablab Creek. The HE-Napalm treatment threw remaining Jap defenses into a chaotic state. Pockets of foot troops were decimated; whole batteries of mountain guns destroyed.

The Jap was growing weak. Circumstances forced him to act in the manner of the little Dutch boy who plugged the leak in the dyke. This time, however, there were a dozen holes and the Nip had but ten fingers to block them. Japanese commanders had been forced to weaken Kennon Road regiments by employing elements of them at Asin where the 130th Infantry was fighting forward toward Baguio in the main effort. Captured documents indicated that most of the Japanese 64th, 71st and 72d Infantry Regiments had been pulled off the road and committed in other Northern Luzon sectors.

Despite his lack of men and materiel, the enemy refused to acknowledge the Bearcats' successes. He made a last-ditch effort to penetrate the 3d Battalion line on 16 April. Three days of steady artillery fires preceded his attempts to hammer a wedge into Lt. Colonel Hulbert's Positions. Captain Lindsay's company was the first unit to be hit.

At 0300 a Japanese force of company size charged the Love Company perimeter. For sheer desperation this counterattack was unmatched in Kennon Road fighting. The Company L machine gunners and automatic riflemen cut down the swarms of frenzied enemy as they heedlessly rushed into final protective lines. The shrill battle cries of the Nips and the moans of their wounded could be heard above the roar of battle. One BAR man, Pfc. Burton J. Lee, was overrun by several who miraculously broke through the line of fire. Lee leaped out of his hole and brought down six Nips with a single magazine from his rifle.

Lee's foxhole was at the point of the bitterest action the following morning when the Nips shook off the effects of their nocturnal beating and returned in a second counterattack. It was the same story as in the first assault. Again many broke through and converged on Lee's foxhole. This time the intrepid gunner walked out to meet them. Pausing only to press his magazine release and insert a fresh ammunition load, Lee threw round after round into the tightly packed Japanese ranks, causing the enemy to hesitate and then hit the ground. Lee continued to advance, his weapon active every step of the way. Dumbfounded doughs, who had never before witnessed daring of this sort, saw Lee suddenly stagger as several puffs of dust showed on the back of his fatigue blouse. A full burst of Nambu fire had caught him squarely in the chest.

Almost cut in half, Lee didn't fall. Those watching him could see him fight to hold his feet with his BAR still spitting fire! Four, five, six yards, firing all the time, then Lee abruptly dropped his rifle and pitched to the grass, dead. Captain Lindsay recommended him for a posthumous Medal of Honor. General MacArthur's headquarters reduced the award to a Distinguished Service Cross.

Company L continued to repel the enemy's efforts to puncture the perimeter. Finally the Nips gathered several of their wounded and withdrew.

Now it was up the the 3d Battalion to see exactly what the Jap had left in the Camp Three-Camp Four area. After another seven days of air strikes and artillery shellings, Lieutenant Colonel Hulbert organized a reconnaissance in force. Two platoons of Company L, augmented by a pair of 775th Tank Battalion mediums, made up the unit. At 1000 on 26 April lead scouts of the force left the battalion CP and began the march up the pavement.

Rifled 4.2-inch mortars supported the move by laying concentrations on all suspected assembly areas in the Love Company path of advance. Not a shot was fired until the first platoon began to search out the banks of Halfway Creek. Stubborn opposition was encountered there. The enemy spilled onto the roadway from their caves and made repeated efforts to blow up the supporting tanks with satchel charges. Riflemen moving abreast of the tanks wiped out most of them with M-1 fire. The rest ran back to their emplacements near the creek.

Freed from the threat of destruction, the tanks rumbled up along side the creek and poured point-blank 75mm fire into the network of caves and foxholes. Mortar observers radioed back to their guns and had salvos of heavy shells on the way in a matter of minutes. Infantrymen followed up the HE and phosphorus fires of the 4.2s, moving into the enemy positions as soon as supporting fires were lifted.

At 1500 the reconnaissance was completed and the force returned to the battalion CP. Two days later Lt. Daniel R. Bauer took a patrol from Company L and returned to Halfway Creek. If any part of the Japanese rear guard had managed to survive the tank-mortar-infantry fires, it had fled the area. Not a live Nip was encountered in the course of the day-long patrol. Bauer and his men counted fifty-five Japanese bodies at Halfway Creek.

Baguio fell to the 33d and 37th Divisions on 29 April. This was the signal for remaining Japanese assembled in the area stretching from Camp Four,north to Baguio to pack up and head for the safety of the mountains east of the city. Artillery L-4s had been alerted for just such a move and ranged over the hills in search of fleeing columns. On the day that Baguio fell, an air observer picked up a long Nip column withdrawing down the eastern slope of Hill 5500. He waited until the entire party had cleared the hillside and then brought sudden fire crawling the length of the column. When the black smoke of the explosions dissolved, the pilot flew close above the trail and then radioed the fire direction center that almost a hundred Japanese had been torn apart by the concentration.

Division was anxious to secure the area south of Baguio now that the city had fallen. Orders were issued directing a link-up of the Baguio and Kennon Road forces. Lt. Colonel Hulbert dispatched Company K and the tanks to move up the road past Camp Four and meet Company I, 123d Infantry, coming south from the resort. Scouts of the two companies sighted each other near Honey Creek on 1 May. That afternoon the entire 3d Battalion walked the length of the road and moved into Baguio.