Once again, merchant ships would absorb the most vicious attacks that the enemy could deliver and would still come out victorious. The nature of the campaign also required merchant ships to remain in Philippine waters for long periods of time before they unloaded.Īll in all, the battle for the Philippines was, from the standpoint of the Armed Guard, the most severe action in the Pacific and was comparable to the worst days on the North Russia run, the Salerno landings, or the awful struggle at Anzio. His bombs and torpedoes did little damage as compared with the havoc wrought by his kamikaze pilots. Here, for the first time, the enemy decided to use suicide attacks on a large scale. Here, the enemy had numerous air bases that could not be easily and quickly knocked out. The action in the Philippines, however, was a different story. Merchant ships had also suffered little from air attacks, for the early island bases which we conquered offered only limited air opposition, and even that was quickly neutralized before merchant ships went into anchor in large numbers. It is true that there had been combat and losses, but the warfare against submarines had been mild as compared to that in the Atlantic. Up to the landings at Leyte, Allied merchant ships had fared rather well in the Pacific.
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