Memories are short, because we do not want to remember.
We must forgive, but not forget.
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Odis Unley Swallows Sr.
Age 18 Residence - Springfield, Robertson Co. Tennessee Regiment - Infantry 37th Division, 148th Infantry Regiment, 3rd battalion Company L 44 044 097 Rank - Tec 5 Induction - December 9, 1944 at Fort Oglethorpe, Gerogia Date of Departure for Service Outside of Continental US - April 28, 1945 Date of Arrival in Philippines - May 17, 1945 Date of Departure from Philippines - September 14, 1946 Date of Return - September 30, 1946 Discharge - November 28, 1946 at Fort Sheridan, Illinois Total Length of USA - Service 6 months 17 days Total Length of Foreign Service - 1 year 5 months 3 days Battles and Campaigns - Luzon Commander - Major General Robert S. Beightler |
To see more about Odis Swallows Names of Old Army Buddies
Other WW II Photos
Odis Swallows Sr. Goes to War Memorabilia
Photos and poems
Betty Jane O'Neal (Odis's wife)
Odis Swallows and family 1953
Decorations and Citations
Good Conduct Medal
WW II Victory Metal
2 Bronze Stars
Asiatic Pacific Theater R Ribbon
Battle Star
Combat Infantry Badge
Expert with Rifle
Phillippine Liberation Ribbon
Good Conduct Medal It is awarded for exemplary behavior, efficiency, and fidelity
in active Federal military service. It is awarded on a selective
basis to each soldier who distinguishes himself or herself from
among his or her fellow soldiers by their exemplary conduct,
efficiency, and fidelity.
W II Victory Metal Despite its having been issued in the millions and the relative ease with which collectors can acquire it, the WW II Victory Medal is significant because it marks a turning point in American medallic history. It was the last "Victory" medal. The figure of Victory, which graced the fronts of both the WW I and WW II Victory medals was not used on the Korean Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, or the Southwest Asia Service Meal. Perhaps the names of these last three medals support the perception that America is not in the business of winning wars anymore.
Bronze Star The Bronze Star was awarded for distinguished, heroic or meritorious service, in conncection with military operations against an armed enemy.
The Philippine Liberation Medal
The Philippine Liberation Medal is awarded to members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the U.S. Armed Forces, and recognized guerrilla units by the Philippine Government for service of at least 30 days in the liberation of the Philippines from October 17, 1944 to September 3, 1945.
Ruptured Duck
It was issued to service personnel who were about to leave the military with an Honorable Discharge. It also allowed them to continue to wear their uniform for up to thirty days after they were discharged since there was a clothing shortage at that time. This showed the MP's that they were in transit and not AWOL. Well, the boys thought the eagle looked more like a duck; and, because it meant they were going home, the popular saying was, "They took off like a Ruptured Duck"...hence the nickname.
Asiatic Pacific Theater Ribbon
Combat Infantry Badge
Special recognition of the unique role of the Army infantryman, the only soldier whose daily mission is to close with and destroy the enemy and to seize and hold terrain. The infantryman continuously operated under the worst conditions and performed a mission which was not assigned to any other soldier or unit.
Expert Infantryman Badge
2 Battle Stars
Souvenirs from the Philippine Islands
Click below to Play the
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
Odis was inducted in the Army December 7, 1944, three years to the day after Pearl Harbor. He went down to Camp Forrest Tennessee (See note 1) and spent two days there in orientation. Then he went to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. (See note 2) He was sworn in there, given a sack lunch and sent down to Fort McPherson in Atlanta (See note 3) where they issued clothing. He spent a weak getting processed.Then they shipped him out to Camp Wheeler, Georgia on down close to Macon to start his basic training with the Infantry Replacement Center. (See note 4) He was in the 11th Battalion down there. Of course it was a regular routine training - marching, getting up in the morning, staying out till 10 or 11 or 12 o'clock at night and up before daylight the next morning.
See Photo of Odis's Company at Camp Wheeler, Georgia January 1945
4th Platoon
Company B
11th Battalion
Company Commander Captain W. A. Myers
Lieutenant Myers
1st Sergeant Cash
Sergeant PruettOn the Rifle Range Odis tested expert with a rifle. He received the highest score of his entire company. He had 8 weeks of actual training and 2 weeks of maneuvers before being sent out to Fort Ord, California. (See note 5) There was a debarkation out there for the South Pacific.
Odis left Fort Ord, Cal. on the (APA troop carrier) USS General Mann (See note 17) April 28, 1945 . His ship passed the Hawaiian Islands and he saw the Diamond Head sticking up way at a distance but that's the closest he ever got to the Hawaiian Islands. He was probably off New Guinea or Bouginville when he saw the enemy.
The Philippines
They went on up then to Leyte May 17, 1945. They issued him equipment up there - guns, grenades, ammo, bandoleers, rifle belts, canteens, and shovels. They were loaded back on the ship and headed up to Luzon. They then went up to Subic Bay and Lingayen Gulf. They didn't land around Subic Bay but went on up the coast and landed. (See Note 13 for BAR or Browning Automatic Rifle or M1.)
Odis arrived at Lingayen Gulf, Philippines May 17 1945. He arrived in the middle of action to retake the Islands. The US recapture of the Philippines began on the island of Leyte in October 1944. Yet the primary objective of assaulting Leyte was to provide a staging area for a much larger effort, the assault against the island of Luzon where most of the Japanese land defenses lay. The operations on Leyte in December gave the Americans little more than a foothold in the Philippines.
See MapBefore Luzon could be attacked, the US needed a base of operations closer to our objective than Leyte. We picked Mindoro, an island with minimal Japanese defenses just south of Luzon. About half the size of New Jersey, Mindoro is blanketed by mountains, with a few narrow plains along the coast. The high peaks trap clouds moving up from the south, causing almost daily rains and high humidity and making the island a breeding ground for malaria and other tropical diseases.
The invasion of Mindoro began on December 15, 1944. The seizure of Mindoro was assigned to Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger's Sixth Army. Krueger, in turn, gave the task to Maj. Gen. Roscoe B. Woodruff, commander of the 24th Infantry Division, who was to employ the 19th Infantry, and the separate 503d Parachute Regimental Combat Team. Although the airborne unit was originally scheduled to jump into the battle area, the limited capacity of the Leyte airfields dictated that they arrive by sea, alongside the infantry. In any case, naval support for the small landing was substantial, with 6 escort carriers, 3 battleships, 6 cruisers, and many small warships providing direct support.
General MacArthur intended to strike first at Lingayen Gulf, an area of sheltered beaches on the northwestern coast of Luzon. A landing there would place his troops close to the best roads and railways on the island, all of which ran through the central plains south to Manila, his main objective. Also, by landing that far north of the capital, MacArthur allowed himself maneuvering room for the large force he intended to use on Luzon. But once the beachhead was secure, his initial effort would focus on a southern drive to the Filipino capital. Possession of this central core, as well as Manila Bay, would allow his forces to dominate the island and make a further coordinated defense by the Japanese exceedingly difficult. Ultimately ten U.S. divisions and five independent regiments would see action on Luzon, making it the largest campaign of the Pacific war and involving more troops than the United States had used in North Africa, Italy, or southern France.
The weather on January 9, 1945 (called S-day) was ideal. A light overcast dappled the predawn sky, and gentle waves promised a smooth ride onto the beach. At 0700 the preassault bombardment began and was followed an hour later by the landings. With little initial Japanese opposition, General Krueger's Sixth Army landed almost 175,000 men along a twenty-mile beachhead within a few days. While the I Corps, commanded by Lt. Gen. Innis P. Swift, protected the beachhead's flanks, Lt. Gen. Oscar W. Griswold's XIV Corps prepared to drive south, first to Clark Field and then to Manila. Only after the Manila area had been secured was Swift's I Corps to push north and east to seize the vital road junctions leading from the coast into the mountains of northern Luzon.
MacArthur disagreed. He thought it unlikely that the Japanese were capable of mounting an attack in Sixth Army's rear or flank and directed Krueger to follow his prearranged plans, seizing Clark Air Field and the port facilities at Manila as soon as possible. So on 18 January Griswold's XIV Corps moved south with the 37th and 40th Infantry Divisions, leaving Sixth Army's eastern flank undefended as it proceeded from the beachhead area. But with Yamashita's Shobu Group relatively inactive, Krueger's concerns proved unwarranted. As at the beachhead, the Japanese put up little opposition to the drive south, having evacuated the central plains earlier. Only when Griswold's troops reached the outskirts of Clark Field on 23 January (date believed to be incorrect) did they run up against determined resistance, and it came from the relatively weak Kembu Group. For more than a week the Japanese fought a stubborn battle against the advancing Americans, and it was not until the end of January that the airfield was in American hands. Leaving the 40th Division behind to occupy the area, Krueger regrouped the XIV Corps and on 2 February (date believed to be incorrect) continued south toward the capital.
From the beginning, MacArthur remained unhappy with the pace of the advance. He personally drove up and down the advancing line, inspecting units and making suggestions. On 30 January (date believed to be incorrect), after visiting the 37th Division as it advanced south from San Fernando toward Calumpit, MacArthur sent off a message to Krueger criticizing "the noticeable lack of drive and aggressive initiative." He had the force to rush toward Manila while the rest of the division followed and mopped up.
The "race" for Manila was now between the 37th Division and the 1st Cavalry Division, with the cavalry in the lead. Since the operation had begun in late January, its units had been fortunate enough to find bridges and fordable crossings almost everywhere they went. On 2 February Chase's flying column was dashing toward Manila, sometimes at speeds of fifty miles per hour, with individual units competing for the honor of reaching the city first. The 37th Division, on the other hand, was slowed down by difficult crossings which forced it to either ferry its artillery and tanks across or wait for the engineers to build bridges.
On 3 February elements of the 1st Cavalry Division pushed into the northern outskirts of Manila
That evening, the 8th Cavalry passed through the northern suburbs and into the city itself. The troopers had won the race to Manila. As the sun set over the ocean behind the advancing Americans, a single tank named "Battling Basic" crashed through the walls surrounding Santo Tomas University, the site of a camp holding almost 4,000 civilian prisoners. The Japanese guards put up little resistance, and soon the inmates, many of whom had been incarcerated for nearly two years, were liberated.Despite the initial American euphoria, much fighting remained. Although the approach to the city had been relatively easy, wresting the capital from the Japanese proved far more difficult. Manila, a city of 800,000, was one of the largest in Southeast Asia. While much of it consisted of ramshackle huts, the downtown section boasted massive reinforced concrete buildings built to withstand earthquakes and old Spanish stone fortresses of equal size and strength.
On 4 February 1945, General MacArthur announced the imminent recapture of the capital while his staff planned a victory parade. But the battle for Manila had barely begun. Almost at once the 1st Cavalry Division in the north and the 11th Airborne Division in the south reported stiffening Japanese resistance to further advances into the city.
Following the initial American breakthrough on the fourth, fighting raged throughout the city for almost a month. The battle quickly came down to a series of bitter street-to-street and house-to-house struggles. In an attempt to protect the city and its civilians, MacArthur placed stringent restrictions on U.S. artillery and air support.
Once the 37th Division began to move into Manila, Griswold divided the northern section of the city into two sectors, with the 37th responsible for the western half and the 1st Cavalry responsible for the eastern part. By the afternoon of the 8th, 37th Division units had cleared most Japanese from their sector, although the damage done to the residential districts was extensive. The Japanese added to the destruction by demolishing buildings and military installations as they withdrew. But the division's costliest fighting occurred on Provisor Island, a small industrial center on the Pasig River. The Japanese garrison, probably less than a battalion, held off elements of the division until 11 February.
The final weeks of fighting were thus bloody, but the results were inevitable. On March 4, 1945 with the capture of the giant Finance Building in the city center, Griswold reported that enemy resistance had ceased. Manila was officially liberated. But it was a city no more. Some observers commented that the destruction was more complete than in Cologne, Hamburg, or even London.
On March 15, 1945 the 6th Division, with the 112th Regimental Combat Team attached, passed to the control of the XI Corps, and the 37th Division was placed in the Sixth Army reserve and given the mission of patrolling Manila. See Picture
Turning inland Maj. Gen. Percy W. Clarkson, the division commander, decided to dash along Route 9 and attack Baguio—the prewar summer capital of the Philippines and currently Yamashita's headquarters—from the northeast. To assist, Krueger added the 37th Infantry Division to the attack and with the aid of air strikes and guerrilla harassment, wore down the defenders until they were on the verge of starvation. A small garrison made a last stand at Irisan Gorge, where the road crossed the Irisan River some three miles west of Baguio, but on April 27, 1945 the town fell to American troops.
Until the end of the war, Sixth Army forces continued to push Yamashita's men farther into the mountains, taking heavy casualties in the process. The 32d Division, which had also seen heavy fighting on Leyte, was worn down to almost nothing, but the defenders suffered even heavier battle casualties as well as losses to starvation and disease. By the end of the war, the Japanese were still holding out in the rugged Asin Valley of the Sierra Madre in north-central Luzon, enduring the drenching summer monsoons. Nevertheless, General Yamashita and about 100,000 of his men surrendered only after the close of hostilities on Septmember 3, 1945.
They later hanged General Yamashita down in Rizal Stadium. They convicted him of his war crimes. They were going to hand him and a bunch of the soldiers went down to see the hanging. That upset MacArthur something greatly. He threatened all of them with court martial if they didn't leave. But they supposedly hung him there in Rizal Stadium, which was a football field, in a private hanging. He was a top General of the whole South Pacific. He was in what was called the 'Rape of Nanking (See Note 15) (General Yamashita went to the gallows on February 23, 1946)
On 30 June 1945 Krueger's Sixth Army was relieved by the Eighth Army, whose task was to mop up scattered Japanese positions. By the end of March, however, the Allies controlled all of Luzon that had any strategic or economic significance.
MacArthur can be both lauded and criticized for the Luzon Campaign. On the one hand he had swiftly recaptured Manila and all areas deemed critical for further operations against the Japanese. On the other hand the enemy was not totally subdued and the Japanese troops still posed a serious threat even after several months of fighting.
Casualties on both sides were staggering. Except for those forces surrendering at the end of the war, the Japanese lost virtually all of the 230,000 military personnel on Luzon, in addition to some 70,000 casualties from the previous battle on Leyte Island. By the summer of 1945, the Americans had thus destroyed nine of Japan's best divisions and made another six combat-ineffective.
American casualties were also high. Ground combat losses for the Sixth and Eighth Armies were almost 47,000, some 10,380 killed and 36,550 wounded. Nonbattle casualties were even heavier. From 9 January through 30 June 1945, the Sixth Army on Luzon suffered over 93,400 noncombat casualties, including 260 deaths, most of them from disease. Only a few campaigns had a higher casualty rate.
When the Japanese occupied the Philippines in 1942, the Filipino army was decimated. Guerrillas organized in the country side and began a protracted campaign against the Japanese. The guerrillas were called Hukbalahap (Huk for short, pronounced ‘Hook’ which meant People’s Anti-Japanese Army). The guerrillas were primarily reacting to the atrocities that the Japanese inflicted on the Filipino people.When the U.S. captured the islands in 1946, the U.S. immediately moved to give the Filipino’s self-governance and free elections. The first elections in 1946 were corrupt and favored only one Huk candidate. The Huks were outraged. Many Japanese collaborators had been allowed to remain in government, and the Huks felt as though they had no real influence on the political system. The Huks wanted trials to be held for traitorous Japanese sympathizers and for the election results to be corrected. President Manuel Roxas cracked down on the dissenters, and the Huks retreated to the jungle. Civil war began.
The major stronghold of the Huks was on the island of Luzon.
********* Since I have written the above I have received a very informative letter about the guerrilla activity in the Philippines during WW II. I have permission and would like to include it here. I feel it can only help clarify.
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003
Subject: HUKS, in the Philippines
Dear Trish,
Enjoyed reading about US Army involvement in the retaking of the Philippines. Only noticed one point that needed correcting, and you have probably received this before me. In your mentioning that the Filipino Guerrillas were called 'HUKS' is a disservice to all Guerrillas in the liberation of the Philippines. While the HUKS were fighting the Japanese in the Philippines, they were communist and only a small faction of the Guerrillas.Major Edwin Ramsey and Major Robert Lapham, both US Army officers fighting as Guerrilla leaders in the Philippines, were nearly killed by HUKS through deceit and deception. Several other Guerrilla leaders can attest to this HUK deceit. While Gen Mac Arthur presented several officers after the War with Distinguished Service Crosses, for their Guerrillas efforts, I don't think any HUKS were presented any awards.
I must mention, though, that the US Army made Guerrilla units give these HUKS supplies to be used to fight the Japanese. This was in 1945 while the US Army was retaking the Philippines.Except for you description of the HUKS, you article was enjoyable.
Thomas McGeeney
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