Word: mindoro
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Between U.S. forces on Leyte and the inviting western island of Mindoro was the whole complex of the Visayan Islands, largely held by the Japanese. On many of the islands (see map), Filipino guerrillas working with U.S. officers had seized control of great areas, which dominated some of the straits. Within these areas there could be no Jap airfields, few or no observation posts. So the bold stroke would not be a desperate stroke...
...rain-lashed east coast of Leyte, an assault convoy was assembled. Its mission: to land on Mindoro, set up airfields overlooking the South China Sea, com plete the job of bisecting the Philippines begun at Leyte...
Dunckel had visited Mindoro in 1930. Said he, with a characteristic nervous tic of the left eye: "It's like a saucer tilted toward the sea. High and difficult mountains shelter it. This is the dry season, but clouds generally overhang the mountains...
...miles by 50. It's also very close to Luzon." That was Mindoro's chief value and every man in Dunckel's force knew it. From the San José airfields, patrols could wing far over the South China Sea, harrying Jap shipping; Luzon could be softened for invasion and General MacArthur's return to Manila. Mindoro's fields would take the load off Admiral "Bull" Halsey's carrier airmen, who even then, acting as tactical air force for MacArthur, were smashing at the Japs' Philippine airdromes...
...third morning was payoff time: the convoy was off Mindoro. As the sky lightened behind Mindoro's peaks, destroyers and rocket ships raced inshore, laying down a barrage on the flat, inviting coast. No settlement was to be shelled unless Japs were detected, and none were...