On February 10, 1945, the GIs of the 33rd Infantry Division waded ashore at San Fabian, on the Philippine island of Luzon. They were to join the effort, begun in October the previous year, aimed at liberating Luzon from Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita's Fourteenth Area Army. Assigned to General Douglas MacArthur's Sixth Army in January 1945, the untried division was tasked with relieving the 43rd Infantry Division, protecting the American left flank during the advance across Luzon and moving toward Baguio-in happier times the Philippine summer capital but now Yamashita's headquarters.

Simple in theory, the division's assignment would prove to be extremely difficult. As the relatively open terrain of the island's central plain was seized, the American advance continued into the foothills of the Carabello Mountains. To protect the left flank of the advance and seize Yamashita's headquarters at Baguio, the division would have to dislodge the Japanese Shobu Group, comprising the 23rd Infantry Division and 58th Independent Brigade, from a series of heavily defended mountaintop positions.

Among the first obstacles that would have to be overcome was Question Mark Hill, which was one of the most dominant terrain features on Luzon. Securing the hill would anchor the tail end of the American line, deny the Japanese a convenient jumping-off point for a counteroffensive against the Sixth Army's Lingayen Gulf rear area and eliminate the first line of enemy defenses in the Baguio lines. Colonel Orville Minton's 3rd Battalion, 130th Infantry Regiment, was ordered to make the assault on February 19.

The attack, which included Companies K and L, with I in reserve, quickly bogged down into a stalemate as plunging fire from the Japanese on Question Mark devastated the two attacking companies. Soon Colonel Minton called on Company I to reinforce the drive on the hill.

The commander of Company I, Captain Alan Kennedy, led his men on a circuitous route around Company K and Company L's positions to reach the jumping-off point for the assault. The march took much of the day. Kennedy's concerns during the march centered on his men's relative inexperience. He hoped the combat would not be too tough. Ironically, he did not worry about the company's water supply, though each man carried only a single canteen. Maps of the area showed a stream stretching across his line of march, so Kennedy expected his men would have an opportunity to refill their canteens before charging up Question Mark.

Unfortunately, when Company I reached the area where the stream appeared on the map, they found only a dusty stream bed. Rotten luck, but it was too late to turn back; Kennedy ordered his men up the hill at 1700 hours. In an effort to catch the defenders off-guard, the captain attacked without a preliminary artillery bombardment.

The tropical sun was the only enemy Company I faced until the men were within 75 yards of the summit. Then the Japanese caught sight of the GIs and swung their weapons around. They delivered a withering fire that startled but did not stop Kennedy's men. The Americans struggled to within a few yards of their foes' positions, dodging grenades rolled down the slope at them as they got closer. Despite their obvious bravery, however, they were unable to seize the position.

Kennedy found himself in a precarious situation. Although he was unable to press forward into the Japanese fire, he knew that withdrawal down the hill was equally impossible for the same reason. To add to the company's problems, with the stress of combat and the grueling heat, most of the men had drunk what little water they had brought with them.

The late hour precluded any effort to extract Company I that evening, and the captain was ordered to dig in until supplies could get to his unit the next morning. Company I was going to spend an uncomfortable night in the grass.

Kennedy attempted to protect his position from enemy infiltration by calling in artillery fire to ring his perimeter. He divided his command into two groups: a forward position made up of most of his men and, farther down the slope, the wounded and a small guard detachment.

Soon friendly artillery fire ringed his position, and Kennedy took stock of his men's condition. Many of them were used up. The division history recorded that "some lay in their foxholes and sucked in huge gulps of air to ease the pain of their aching throats." Others drank their own urine after dropping a halazone purification tablet in their canteen cups.

With morning, a relentless sun revealed that the Japanese had slipped between the two perimeters and were now sweeping both with fire. To further complicate matters, an airdrop of water drifted into the Japanese lines. Grown men wept. Company I was finished for offensive combat. Kennedy and his men could merely pray to be relieved.

Aware of the desperate state of the men trapped on Question Mark, Maj. Gen. Percy W Clarkson, the division commander, met with his subordinates on the evening of February 19 and discussed how to save his beleaguered men and seize the hill. The general ordered the division reserve to strike the Japanese lines on February 20. He also ordered division engineers to act as a carrying party and take water and medical supplies to Company I. The engineers expressed anger at being asked to conduct what they considered a menial task, until General Clarkson gathered the disgruntled men around him and explained the plight of the infantrymen stuck on Question Mark.

Company A was to be brought up from the rear to act as the relieving company. Hurried into position, the company jumped off early on the morning of the 20th. The relieving force met no resistance until it reached the area occupied by Kennedy's wounded men. As they began to assist the wounded, Japanese machine guns opened up on them. Company A took heavy casualties, and it was not until 1700 that they reached the main body of Kennedy's men.

After reaching the beleaguered Company I, Company A continued on despite their casualties, pushing the Japanese back to the apex of the hill. In their wake, the survivors of Company I greedily consumed the water trekked up the slope by the engineers. Finally, dusk stopped Company A's drive. The men dug in for the night, and Kennedy and the remnants of his company stumbled down Question Mark.

Meanwhile, a nighttime march planned by Colonel Minton brought three companies into position near the hill's summit. After a day of heavy preparation-artillery bombardment and massed machine-gun fire-these companies began their assault at 0760 on February 22, and swept over the top of Question Mark. Thirty-two minutes after the attack began, the two hills were seized. No prisoners were taken.

What the hard-fighting men of the 33rd Division did not know at that time was that the commander of the American Sixth Army, Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger, had decided-that any fighting done by the 33rd would be secondary to the main push against Yamashita. Krueger believed that the 32nd Division, responsible for territory east of the 33rd's area, would be the force to break through and seize the Cagayen Valley, breadbasket for Yamashita's 150,000 soldiers in northern Luzon. The Sixth Army commander simply wanted the 33rd to tie down the Japanese forces in front of Baguio and wait for the 32nd to triumph.

It was a frustrating assignment for General Clarkson. His men were stretched across mountains that extended from the western coast to valleys miles inland, and although they probed and struck at the Japanese dug into the mountains, they were told not to push all-out for the Japanese headquarters at Baguio. Instead, the men along those heights fought to tie down Japanese troops and prevent them from attacking the 32nd Division, and died taking real estate such as Twin Peaks, which was perched on the western edge of the Kennon Road, the most direct route to Baguio. Yamashita had his crack 23rd Division straddling the road, eager to grind down the unfortunate Americans who were forced to assault them. General Clarkson was aware that the Kennon Road would be bristling with an enemy who anticipated an American move up the shortest route to Baguio, and he knew that it would be virtually impossible to crack the Kennon Road defenses without a good deal of support. He also knew that despite its strong position, the 23rd could not be avoided.

To clear the road, however, it was first necessary to wipe out the Japanese atop the high ground towering over the passage. The dominating height along the western reaches of the road was Twin Peaks. The 33rd Division's 123rd Regiment expended many lives attempting to take that height in a series of attacks that ranged from frontal assaults to sweeping maneuvers. Yet, despite the heroics of men like Sergeant Woodroe Goodpaster of the regiment's Company C-who single-handedly knocked out a Japanese machine-gun nest on the slopes of Twin Peaks the enemy still possessed the mountain when the 123rd was pulled out of the line to take part in a drive to the north.

Relieving the 123rd was the 130th Infantry Regiment. The 2nd Battalion assaulted Twin Peaks as the 1st Battalion of the 136th started its own struggle along the eastern edge of the Kennon Road. The 33rd Division history recounts: "Bitter opposition was apparent on both sides of the area. There were no weak spots ... resistance restricted gains to a few ... yards each day."

On the west side of the Kennon Road the Americans fought for Twin Peaks, while on the eastern side the target was Bue Bue, a solitary mountain that commanded the eastern regions of the road. Colonel Ray E. Cavenee, commander of the 136th Regiment, was informed that until the 3,700-foot-high hill was wrested from the enemy, movement up Kennon would be retarded. From Bue Bue the Japanese could see American movement along the road and counter it appropriately.

Bue Bue was costly for the Americans. The commander of the lst Battalion, Major Milton Ehrlich, maneuvered his men with a surgeon's skill, yet every time Ehrlich's men sliced out a section of the Japanese defensive perimeter, more Americans were killed and wounded. Bue Bue, Twin Peaks and the other mountains lining the Kennon Road would not fall until April 1945, by which time actions elsewhere made possession of the road far less important.

Unwilling to remain idle while other divisions continued to advance, General Clarkson liberally interpreted his orders to instigate offensive "patrolling" to expand his division's mission and remain in the fight. Clarkson had been instructed by Krueger to send patrols up West Coast Route 3 to determine the strength of the enemy along the coastal plains and to make contact with Philippine guerrillas operating in the area. On March 8, an improvised force of infantry and engineers known as "Gay Force" was able to seize the vital highway bridge at Aringay during a brilliant attack. Eleven days later, a similar improvised force, known as "Boy Force," charged up Route 3 in a nighttime raid on Bauang, a town straddling the road that was the westward approach to Baguio.

Accompanying the infantrymen as they advanced were men from Company B, 108th Engineers. They were ordered to seize a bridge leading into the town. Since the Hayasaki Detachment maintained a 24-hour guard on the north side of the Bauang Bridge to defend the town, the engineers' commander, Lt. Col. Ernest Jessup, directed his men to secure the bridge in the dead of night.

A member of the detail ordered to clear the bridge of mines, Pfc Peter Szot, stole onto the bridge with a handful of others from Company B and dislodged a bomb strapped on the underside of one of the girders. The bomb dropped to the river below and made a great splash; the engineers froze in anticipation of Japanese reaction, but incredibly, nothing happened.

Szot and his men finally moved on and discovered and dislodged another bomb at the north end of the bridge-the end patrolled by the Japanese. Their mission complete, the engineers sprinted for safety. As they did so, the defenders were alerted and opened up on the Americans. One man fell to the pavement, dead. Szot and another man went down wounded. A covering force from the 130th blanketed the northern side of the bridge with small-arms fire, and the two wounded engineers were able to crawl back to their own lines.

Units of the 130th then charged across the bridge while another farce flanked the village and struck it from the west. Bauang fell with the coming of dawn. Boy Force had pried open a western approach to Baguio.

To exploit the opening, the 129th Regiment of the 3 7th Infantry Division was attached to the 33rd and assembled near Bauang. Emboldened by his success along the coast road, General Clarkson now began planning for a concerted push to the Philippine summer capital. The holding action seemed at an end.

However, action elsewhere in the Philippines again delayed the general's push to Baguio. No sooner had the 130th Regiment been relieved of its duties around Bauang than the unit was shipped east, to take up the right flank of an expanded 33rd Division perimeter. The pressure of securing the southern Philippines and the intensity of fighting along every front in the north had resulted in a reshuffling of available troops, and as a result, an all-or-nothing jab at Baguio was again delayed.

South of Baguio, Clarkson's division was now spread 65 miles east to west over terrain that made coordinated movement between units virtually impossible. The general had to be content with the 123rd Regiment inching toward Yamashita's headquarters along two secondary roads from the west, while the 136th continued to tie down the Japanese on the Kennon Road, and portions of the 130th guarded mountaintops to the east.

The 123rd Regiment advanced toward Baguio along the Tuba Trail and also through the Asin Valley. Not surprisingly, the closer the regiment got to its objective, the more intense the fighting became. Eventually, movement along the trail came to a virtual standstill.

Unable to advance directly into Baguio, the regiment instead centered its efforts on the Asin Valley. April witnessed battles for Mount Bilbil and Hill X, vital points looming over Asin. During the attacks, the 123rd was chewed up in repeated clashes with Japanese forces burrowed into the mountains. Finally, on April 9, the 130th was moved in to relieve the decimated 123rd.

Colonel Arthur Collins, commanding the 130th, did not intend to beat his head against the twin anvils of Hill X and Mount Bilbil. He instead drove his regiment through the Asin Valley while merely containing the Japanese on the high ground. Collins believed that if he could seize the Asin tunnels running through a ridge at the end of the valley, he could make a serious stab at Baguio-which in turn would force the Japanese defenders of Hill X and Mount Bilbil to withdraw to more tenable positions.

On April 12, Pfc Ralph Kapchinske of Company C,130th, was part of an attack ordered to neutralize a roadblock on Hill X. When the lead scout advanced around a curve of the path and was shot in the head, Kapchinske braved small-arms fire and shrapnel to protect the wounded man. Despite his exposed position, Kapchinske-who had also been wounded-directed covering fire toward enemy positions, eliminated two spiderholes and held his ground until riflemen could come forward and remove the downed GI.

The next day, Company C secured Hill X after more bloodletting. For the next five days Company C resisted every attempt by the Japanese to retake the hill. As the company's subsequent citation stated: "Company C...alone held its position ...repulsing ... the severe and determined counter-attacks... despite nearly 50 percent casualties."

While elements of the 1st Battalion banged away at Mount Bilbil and Hill X, Colonel Minton's 3rd Battalion was pitched into the battle for the Asin tunnels. The Japanese holding the ridge and the tunnels below came under concentrated barrages, followed by aggressive patrolling by Minton's men. The enemy dug deeper into the ridge and continued to repulse the 3rd Battalion's efforts to dislodge them.

The stalemate at the Asin tunnels threatened the 33rd's advance to Baguio, Colonel Collins was determined that such a stalemate should not blemish the 130th Regiment's record. When he heard that the 129th Regiment of the 37th Division, fighting on the Naguilian Road to the north of the 130th's position, had reached a point on its front to the northeast of the Asin tunnels, Collins knew how he would break the stalemate. The Naguilian Road would provide the 130th with an avenue to strike at the Japanese defenses from behind their lines.

The colonel's scheme to take the tunnels became known as the "Blackhawks' Merry-Go-Round." To maneuver two-thirds of the regiment into position behind the Japanese, Collins trucked his regiment-long known as the Blackhawks from their history on the American frontier-out of the mountains to the west coast, north to Bauang, and then back east along the Naguilian Road to the jump-off point, 1,000 yards above the Japanese lines. The troopers traveled 48 miles to find themselves slightly over 1,000 yards from their original position, but in a far more advantageous situation. Now they held the high ground and the element of surprise.

Mountainous terrain that had localized all maneuvers and had protected the Japanese from broad frontal attacks now aided the Americans. Colonel Jessup's battalion launched its attack at dawn on April 21, and his men bowled over the surprised Japanese. The day ended with the 130th in possession of half the ridge and the Japanese reeling. It also marked the end of Colonel Jessup's combat career, as he was gravely wounded by small-arms fire while directing the assault on the ridge.

The fight for the Asin ridge and tunnels raged for two more days, with the Japanese unwisely committing their troops to banzai attacks that resulted in their wholesale slaughter. The men of Company I, 130th, ended the battle for the Asin area when they captured the second of two tunnels on April 23.

The unfolding victory at the Asin tunnels was matched by the exploits of the 123rd along the Tuba Trail. Despite fog, rain and determined Japanese resistance, the regiment was finally making significant gains up the trail, threatening the Japanese positions south of Baguio. Although they had stymied the 33rd Division's advance for more than two months, the Japanese defenses around Baguio now crumbled.

Patrols from the 33rd moved through the city from the south and southwest on April 27. They linked up with men from the 37th Division who had reached Baguio on April 24. The city was officially liberated on April 27 Japanese Emperor Hirohito's 44th birthday. The men of the 123rd who fought to possess the Tuba Trail, the GIs of the 130th who tackled the Asin tunnels and Question Mark Hill, and the troopers of the 136th who battled doggedly up Kennon Road and Skyline Ridge had succeeded in cracking Yamashita's forces in front of Baguio.

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