Battle of Leyte - Battle - Battles of Breakneck and Kilay Ridges

Battles of Breakneck and Kilay Ridges

On 7 November the 21st Infantry went into its first sustained combat on Leyte when it moved into the mountains along Highway 2, near Carigara Bay. The fresh regiment, with the 19th Infantry's 3rd Battalion attached, immediately ran into strong defenses of the newly arrived Japanese 1st Division, aligned from east to west across the road and anchored on a network of fighting positions built of heavy logs and interconnecting trench lines and countless spider holes, which became known as "Breakneck Ridge".

A typhoon began on 8 November, and heavy rains that followed for several days further impeded American progress. Despite the storm and high winds, which added falling trees and mud slides to enemy defenses and delayed supply trains, the 21st Infantry continued its slow and halting attack, with companies often having to withdraw and recapture hills that had been taken earlier. The Americans seized the approaches to Hill 1525 2 mi (3.2 km) to the east, enabling Irving to stretch out the enemy defenses further across a 4 mi (6.4 km) front along Highway 2.

Five days of battling against seemingly impregnable hill positions and two nights of repulsing enemy counterattacks proved fruitless, so Irving decided on a double envelopment of the enemy defenders. The 19th Infantry's 2nd Battalion swung east around Hill 1525 behind the enemy right flank, cutting back to Highway 2, 3 mi (4.8 km) south of Breakneck Ridge. To take the left flank to the west, Irving sent the 34th Infantry's 1st Battalion under Lt. Col. Thomas E. Clifford, over water from the Carigara area to a point 2 mi (3.2 km) west of the southward turn of Highway 2 and moved it inland. This amphibious maneuver was made in eighteen LVTs of the 727th Amphibian Tractor Battalion. After crossing a ridge line and the Leyte River, they approached the enemy left flank at 900 ft (270 m) Kilay Ridge, the highest terrain behind the main battle area. Both battalions reached positions only about 1,000 yd (910 m) apart on opposite sides of the highway by 13 November despite strong opposition and heavy rains. Clifford's battalion promptly attacked Kilay Ridge on the west, while the 2nd Battalion assaulted a hill on the east side. Neither unit achieved their objectives.

It took Clifford's men two weeks of struggle through mud and rain—often dangerously close to friendly mortar and artillery fire—to root the enemy out of fighting positions on the way up Kilay Ridge. On 2 December Clifford's battalion finally cleared the heights overlooking the road, and 32nd Division units quickly took over. Clifford's outfit suffered 26 killed, 101 wounded and two missing, in contrast to 900 enemy dead. For their arduous efforts against Kilay Ridge and adjacent areas, both flanking battalions received Presidential Unit Citations. Clifford received the Distinguished Service Cross for the action. It was not until 14 December that the 1st Cavalry Division and the 32nd Division finally cleared the Breakneck–Kilay Ridge area, placing the most heavily defended portions of Highway 2 between Carigara Bay and the Ormoc Valley under X Corps control.

Throughout this phase, American efforts had become increasingly hampered by logistical problems. Mountainous terrain and impassable roads forced Sixth Army transportation units to improvise resupply trains of Navy landing craft, tracked landing vehicles, airdrops, artillery tractors, trucks, even carabaos and hundreds of barefoot Filipino bearers. The 727th Amphibian Tractor Battalion made daily, often multiple, trips with ammunition and rations between Capoocan and Calubian. From Calubian, the 727th tractors would navigate the Naga River to Consuegra and then traverse overland to Agahang. On their return trip, they would evacuate the casualties. Not surprisingly, the complex scheduling slowed resupply as well as the pace of assaults, particularly in the mountains north and east of Ormoc Valley and subsequently in the ridgelines along Ormoc Bay.