Logistical Problems

One of the major problems the XIV Corps and the 11th Airborne Division faced during their drives to Manila was logistical in nature, deriving from the speed of the advances, the distances covered, the chronic shortages of motor transportation, and the destruction of bridges.⁴⁹ General Krueger's request of 20 January that the Allied Air Forces cease knocking out bridges on Luzon proved of little help to XIV Corps. By that time most of the bridges that the Allied Air Forces, the Japanese, or the Filipino guerrillas ever intended to destroy in the XIV Corps zone were already down.

It is well-nigh impossible to ascertain to whom the credit for bridge destruction on Luzon should go, for the cycle of demolitions, repairs, and redestruction was often quite involved. For example, in 1941-42 General MacArthur's withdrawing forces had destroyed fifteen major highway bridges and four major railroad bridges between the Agno River and Manila.⁵⁰ Part of this destruction had not been too successful, and the Japanese had had little trouble repairing some spans, such as those at Cabanatuan and Gapan. In 1945 the 1st Cavalry Division was able to send its heaviest loads across both bridges after engineers made relatively minor repairs. While the Japanese had repaired many spans for heavy loads, they had replaced others with light, wooden structures that could not bear Sixth Army loads. In 1945 the Japanese not only demolished bridges they had once repaired but also knocked out many spans that MacArthur's forces had not needed to destroy in 1941-42. While the Allied Air Forces bombed many of the bridges in the Central Plains (and in southern Luzon as well), it appears that the Japanese executed most of the bridge destruction south from the Agno to Manila during January and February 1945, a conclusion borne out by guerrilla reports and because the type of destruction accomplished usually resulted from carefully placed demolition charges rather than aerial bombardment. The extent of Japanese plans for bridge destruction is indicated by the fact that almost all the bridges the XIV Corps and the 11th Airborne Division captured intact had been prepared for demolition. The Allied Air Forces, and carrier-based planes too, did destroy or damage some bridges, while the guerrillas also had a hand in some of the destruction, or at least prevented the Japanese from effecting permanent repairs after 9 January.

To span the many streams on the way to Manila, Sixth Army engineers leap-frogged bridging equipment southward, sending ponton and heavy treadway bridging forward as Baileys and other semipermanent crossings were erected over the Agno River and other streams back to Lingayen Gulf. For example, at the Sulipan Canal, a mile north of Calumpit, the first bridge was a light ponton affair that the 530th Engineer Light Ponton Company set up on 1 February. On the next day heavy ponton equipment arrived from a dismantled bridge over the Bued River at Lingayen Gulf, and by 1030 on the 2d the 556th Engineer Heavy Ponton Battalion, having worked at a feverish pace, had completed a new bridge that could carry 16-ton loads across the canal. As soon as the larger Sulipan bridge was in place, trucks laden with heavy treadway bridging dismantled from the Agno River crossing at Bayambang came over the canal on their way to the Pampanga River at Calumpit. The heavy treadway that the Sixth Army engineers had trucked south proved sixty feet too short to span the Pampanga but, improvising with all sorts of equipment, the 37th Division's 117th Engineer Battalion was able to complete the crossing. According to General Beightler, this contretemps at the Pampanga held up the 37th Division for a full day on its way to Manila while the division waited for its supporting tanks and artillery to cross the river.⁵¹

As soon as the Pampanga bridge was ready, the 530th Light Ponton Company dismantled the bridge they had erected across the Sulipan Canal and moved it south to the Bigaa River. Still further south, at Meycauyan, engineers assembled another ponton bridge, using sections removed from the Agno River at Villasis in I Corps' zone, where other engineers had completed a Bailey bridge. By a complex continuation of such processes, the engineers assured a constant flow of supplies and heavy equipment down Route 3 behind the 37th Division.

In the 1st Cavalry Division's zone the first major, unbridged water obstacle was the Angat River. After most of the division had crossed that stream via fords in the vicinity of Baliuag and Sabang, engineers began constructing a heavy treadway bridge, using equipment originally earmarked for the Pampanga River at Cabanatuan but not needed there. The cavalry seized the Tuliahan bridge near Novaliches on 3 February, but the next night a Japanese raiding party destroyed it--the division's security was not good enough. Since the Tuliahan was unfordable, an acute supply problem immediately arose and, worse still, the main body of the 1st Cavalry Division could not get into Manila for two days, leaving General Chase's Flying Columns virtually isolated at Santo Tomas University. On 4 and 5 February the division sent supplies to General Chase's force over roads and bridges in the 37th Division's zone, but on the 6th engineers built a ford near Novaliches and supplies again started crossing the Tuliahan.

Japanese infiltration parties continued to harass the 1st Cavalry Division's rather exposed, easterly supply route. Therefore, when XIV Corps engineers completed a bridge over the Angat at Plaridel, the division abandoned the Novaliches route and sent its traffic south along Route 5 three miles from Plaridel to the Routes 3-5 junction at Tabang and thence into the city. Needless to say, bridge congestion became chronic between Tabang and Manila, a situation that obtained for many crossings in XIV Corps' area. Engineers at first had been able to erect only one-lane spans at each stream. As a result, on one side of a river Manila-bound traffic soon jammed up, while on the other empty vehicles returning northward for another load created a second traffic jam. Only constant, carefully co-ordinated efforts of traffic control officers prevented complete chaos.

Having captured most of the bridges along its route of advance, the 11th Airborne Division encountered no serious crossing problems until it reached the Parañaque River. Initially, the division employed small rafts made from rubber assault boats to move its supplies and equipment across the Parañaque, but within a few days division engineers had completed temporary timber repairs at the damaged Parañaque span and vehicles began crossing.

Even with adequate bridging installed, the XIV Corps and the 11th Airborne Division continued to face knotty transportation problems. The speed and distances involved in the advances toward Manila meant that all trucks were in almost constant use. All other available motor transport also had to be employed. Dukws, not designed for the job, made long overland hauls; jeeps and engineer flat-bed trailers, often overloaded, carried general supplies; LVT's, employed as ferries at many rivers, also sometimes carried cargo for long distances overland. The demands on maintenance personnel and equipment became abnormally heavy, even though vehicles were in such constant use that it was nearly impossible to pull them off duty for the most pressing repairs. If maintenance officers and men verged on nervous breakdowns, they can hardly be blamed. Trucks consumed tires at an alarming rate, especially over gravel roads in the 1st Cavalry Division's sector and along a particularly vicious stretch of sharp gravel along Route 17 between Nasugbu and Tagaytay Ridge.

Another problem arose in the 11th Airborne Division's zone. The beaches at Nasugbu, contrary to expectations, proved unsatisfactory for discharging LST's. From time to time it became relatively difficult to supply even the small 11th Airborne Division over these beaches, and the adverse conditions there convinced planners that it would be impracticable to unload and supply the 41st Infantry Division through Nasugbu. Plans to employ the 41st Division on Luzon were thereupon dropped.⁵²

None of the problems proved insoluble, and troops at the front were never without at least the bare minimum of essential supplies. For a time the 11th Airborne Division faced a serious gasoline shortage, but this was eliminated when, on 5 February, C-47's began flying drums of gasoline to a hastily prepared airstrip at Nasugbu. Later, cargo planes dropped general supplies along Tagaytay Ridge, thereby overcoming the inadequacies of the Nasugbu beaches, shortening the division's supply line, and reducing the problem of tire wear. Nevertheless, the 11th Airborne Division was unable to eliminate all of its supply problems until it began receiving supplies from the north, through Manila.

In the 1st Cavalry Division General Chase's Flying Columns, reduced to two K-ration meals per day, went a bit hungry on 4 and 5 February after the Japanese destroyed the Novaliches bridge. Practically the only other supply problem in the 37th Infantry Division and 1st Cavalry Division sectors evolved from delays incident to the installation of heavy bridging that trucks, tanks, and artillery could cross. As the result of such delays, supporting units sometimes did not get forward as rapidly as the infantry and cavalry unit commanders desired.

Thus, it is obvious that the success of the dash to Manila depended in large measure upon the success of Engineer, Transportation, and Quartermaster units. That the dash was successful is ample testimony to the effectiveness with which these supporting units operated.