Victory on land at the Battle of Leyte, in concert with the naval victory in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, was the opening act in Douglas MacArthur's promised return to the Philippines. These two battles allowed MacArthur to launch an amphibious invasion of Luzon, the principal island of the vast Philippine archipelago.

Preliminary to the invasion of Luzon was the landing by U.S. Eighth Army units under Robert Eichelberger on Mindoro, south of Luzon, on December 15, 1945. At San Jose, the infantry secured a large beachhead and immediately scratched out two airfields to accommodate air support for the Luzon operation.

On Luzon, Japanese general Yamashita Tomoyuki prepared his defenses by dividing the Fourteenth Japanese Army into three defensive groups: Shobu (140,000 men) in the north, Kembu (30,000) in the center, and Shimbu (80,000) in the south. The Japanese also unleashed a massive kamikaze campaign against the ships of the Third Fleet (under William Halsey), which furnished carrier-launched air support, and the Seventh Fleet (Thomas Kinkaid), which provided principal transport for the U.S. Sixth Army invaders under Walter Krueger. Kamikaze attacks sank 20 U.S. ships and severely damaged another 24.

Krueger landed at Lingayen Gulf on January 9, 1945--68,000 men in that first day--and immediately began a drive inland, penetrating 40 miles by January 20. I Corps, which pushed eastward, encountered the heaviest initial opposition from Yamashita's Shobu Group. Eichelberger kept pouring in reinforcements, including the 158th Regiment, the 25th Infantry Division, and the 32nd Infantry Division. (Notably, during this titanic battle, a detachment of army Rangers staged a raid behind Japanese lines to liberate several hundred Allied prisoners at Cabanatuan.)

While I Corps and its reinforcements slugged it out with Shobu group, XIV Corps, to the right of I Corps, advanced rapidly southward across the Central Plain of Luzon. It reached Clark Field--held by the Japanese since the beginning of the war--on January 23 and, within a week, secured this major base installation while also penetrating 25 miles farther south to Calumpit. . .

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