asia · Philippines
Leyte Air Field (Tacloban) — 22nd Bomb Group attachment, January 1945
U.S. Army Air Forces airfield at Tacloban on the northeast coast of Leyte Island in the central Philippines. Captured by U.S. forces during the October 1944 Leyte landings — Douglas MacArthur came ashore here on 20 October 1944 with his famous 'I have returned' speech. The 22nd Bomb Group moved to Tacloban from Peleliu in early January 1945, and Robert Earl Wildermuth's attached Van Valen crew flew five night Taiwan missions from this strip — 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 January 1945. Heavy Japanese counter-air-raids hit the town nearly every night.
Why this place matters
The base from which the Van Valen crew flew their five January 1945 night missions over Taiwan — including the 17 January Strosier-Courtney crash on Samar and the 19 January Tokyo Rose beer-bottle response. 50,000 newly-landed Japanese troops were still fighting on Leyte; the crew jumped into foxholes most nights to watch the searchlights track Japanese bombers over Tacloban.
Leyte Air Field at Tacloban sat on the northeast coast of Leyte Island in the central Philippines, on the narrow neck of land between San Pedro Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The Tacloban strip was captured by U.S. forces during the Battle of Leyte in October 1944 — General Douglas MacArthur came ashore at the nearby beach on 20 October 1944 with his famous “I have returned” radio broadcast.
The 22nd Bomb Group moves to Tacloban — early January 1945
The 22nd Bomb Group — the “Red Raiders,” a 7th Air Force B-24 unit — moved from Peleliu Air Field to Tacloban in early January 1945 as the U.S. heavy-bomber order of battle pushed forward to the Philippines. The Van Valen crew, on temporary attachment from the 90th BG, came with them. The transition happened mid-mission:
“We flew a mission on this date from Peleliu to a target on Taiwan leaving late in the afternoon and on our way back we were to land at Leyte Air Field the next morning where we would then be stationed. Thereafter we would stage out of Leyte.”
What happened here for Robert Earl
From Tacloban the Van Valen crew flew five night Taiwan missions in five days — 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 January 1945. The five-day cluster included two of The Big One’s marquee moments:
- 17 January 1945 — the Strosier-Courtney crash on Samar. Robert Earl’s Selman Field navigation-cadet classmate F/O Jay Strosier and Lt. Courtney’s crew flew into a thunderstorm just off the southern tip of Samar Island and hit a mountain ridge.
- 19 January 1945 — the Tokyo Rose beer-bottle response. One of the Jolly Roger crews threw a case of empty beer bottles out over Taiwan; Tokyo Rose’s next-day broadcast called it a “new psychological weapon.”
- 20 January 1945 — the last 22nd BG mission. “Praise the Lord!!” The crew returned to the 90th BG — which had moved from Biak to Mindoro by ship while they were attached out.
Nightly Japanese air raids on Tacloban
Heavy fighting was still going on on Leyte Island throughout January 1945. From The Big One:
“Heavy fighting was still going on on Leyte Island where I recent landing of 50,000 Japanese troops had just arrived. We got an almost nightly Japanese air raid. They always seemed to bomb the town of Tacloban about ten miles away but we would jump into our fox holes and watch our search lights seek them out.”
The foxhole-watch nights on the Tacloban strip are the kind of small recurring war-experience the memoir holds onto — the kind a twenty-year-old aircrewman remembered for the rest of his life.
After the war
Leyte Air Field at Tacloban is today Daniel Z. Romualdez Airport, the civilian airport serving Tacloban City and Leyte. The MacArthur Landing Memorial Park on the Red Beach landing site is a national historical landmark. The Battle of Leyte Gulf naval-history layer sits in the surrounding waters.
Sources: The Big One, Phase 2 (22nd BG attachment); Battle of Leyte on Wikipedia.