Word: vigan
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Feint in the Night. While still under enemy observation, Oldendorf swept on to the north, past the entrance to Lingayen Gulf. Perhaps the Japs would think he was going to Vigan. But in the night he turned back. The sea approaches to Lingayen Gulf had been scantily mined. With little difficulty, his ships reached their bombardment runs and opened fire with everything from 5-inch to 16-inch guns. Jap shore batteries on Santiago Island answered briefly and were soon put out of action. Jap aircraft attacked, again for three hours...
...river's great bend made a logical position for a determined Japanese stand, it was crossed again at week's end, still against only token opposition. On the east, there was stiff local resistance, but if the Jap had been hoping to move major forces south from Vigan for a flank attack, his hopes were dampened by the sinking of 45 luggers and a transport trying to land supplies off San Fernando. Sealing of the Baguio road by U.S. forces further protected this flank...
...nearly all its planes shot down or destroyed on the ground. Buzz and a few others carried on, strafing airfields as soon as the Japs landed planes on them, tossing bombs and hand grenades out of their cockpits, even sinking small transports with .50-caliber bullets. One day over Vigan, Buzz and Russ Church saw 30 newly arrived Jap bombers lined up on the field. Two Zeros intercepted. Lieut. Church got one, Lieut. Wagner the other. Church was on fire, but he kept going and laid his bombs in the middle of the field before crashing. "I think...
...Vigan, 200 miles north of Manila, a lamb-meek little Nipponese shopkeeper named Hara blossomed out in his wolf's clothing when the Japanese took the city. He was soon walking crisply about town in the uniform of a Japanese Army major and calling himself "Military Governor of the Province of Ilocos Sur." In central Luzon U.S. anti-aircraft gunners found their camouflaged positions revealed to Japanese pilots by mirrors placed in treetops. In all the Japanese beachhead thrusts they showed complete and accurate familiarity with obstacles and terrain...
More highly specialized than either of these layers was Army Intelligence. It operated through a shoal of spies disguised as petty merchants (like Major Hara of Vigan), cafe proprietors, medicine-store operators. It was financed by the Japanese Tourist Bureau...