Combat· World War II
Leyte Liberation
When the Army invaded Leyte on 20 October 1944, the first Marines ashore were not aviators but the 1,500 men of the V Amphibious Corps Artillery, who landed on 21 October and fired in support of the Army's XXIV Corps until relieved in mid-December.
Marine aviation followed in early December: the Corsairs of MAG-12 and the radar-equipped Hellcat night fighters of VMF(N)-541, which helped shut down the Japanese reinforcement runs into Ormoc Bay. VMF(N)-541 later earned the Army's Distinguished Unit Citation, the only Marine aviation unit so honored in the war. Marine involvement on Leyte was aviation and artillery support rather than ground combat; the clearest discrete loss figure is MAG-12's, which suffered nine pilots killed and 34 planes lost by the end of December.
Podcast episodes on World War II
Record no. 579