Leyte

 HOME

In mid November, 1944 , we once again loaded up some LSTs and headed for the P.I.  About 3 days later we landed on Leyte beach and there we sat for 6 weeks spinning our wheels.  There were no air strips available for out Aircraft.  During that time we sat out a typhoon with 90 mph winds that flattened every tent in the area - except ours and 3 others, which had been framed.  We sweated out a jap paratroop landing on an airstrip a mile inland from our camp.  Nobody got any sleep that night, but the Infantry made short work of them come daylight.  I spent about a week in the hospital with my second bout of Dengue Fever, and shed another 15 lbs.  For Christmas dinner we had canned turkey.  Oh yes, during those 6 weeks we got our first issue of BEER.  I guess after 3 years they figured we had earned a free beer.  

 

1

2

 3

4

Capt. Robert Speith

 

1&2 - These were taken on the trip from Hollandia to Leyte in mid Nov. '43.
3 - Looking down on the beach where we would spend the next 6 weeks spinning our wheels, because there were no air strips available for our A-20s.
4 - Quite a difference from home.  At home there would be an auto sitting in from of a modest home with cedar or asphalt shingles.  Here we have an ox cart and thatched roofs.
5 - Capt. Robert Speith had been active in Boy Scouts before the war.  On a trip to Tacloban, we found this monument to the Boy Scouts.