The Saber and Scroll
meet us on ground of his choosing , afflict maximum casualties , and compel us to maintain a large force in northern Luzon for a long time to come , thus correspondingly reducing the forces which we would have available for operations elsewhere . 6
General MacArthur wanted all Japanese forces destroyed . Therefore , General Krueger wanted them destroyed . He tasked his I Corps , with the 25 th , 32 nd , and 33 rd Infantry Divisions , with destroying the Japanese forces to their north . The 25 th fought for the Balete Pass . The 33 rd drove towards the town of Baguio . The 32 nd would slug it out along the Villa Verde Trail .
Villa Verde Trail is not a misnomer . That ’ s all it was , a trail . The Japanese 2 nd Tank Division ( with no tanks ) defended it . The veterans of the Division noted :
The terrain in this area was much worse than any that the Division had so far encountered . Hills with nearly perpendicular slopes and deep , precipitous ravines made all movements exceedingly difficult . The enemy had , moreover , utilized the terrain to best advantage by constructing numerous mutually supporting cave positions , which had to be reduced one by one , in order to permit the eastward advance of the Division to continue . The advance was , moreover , flanked 1,500-2,000 yards north of and parallel to the Villa Verde Trail by Mt . Imugan , on the forward slopes of which the enemy had established defensive positions and artillery observation posts . The Mt . Imugan positions dominated a stretch of over two miles of the Villa Verde Trail and his observation stations enabled the enemy to adjust his artillery fire on troops and vehicles moving along the trail , which ran along the crest of razor back ridges and formed the only route of advance . Besides , the Mt . Imugan positions enabled the enemy to repulse any direct attack through the valley north of the trail and constituted an ever-present threat to the line of communications of the 32 nd Division . Under the circumstances , with the enemy holding Mt . Imugan , the 32 nd Division had no choice but to crack the enemy defenses on the dominating hills directly in its front some four miles west of Imugan village , since bypassing them was not possible . The resulting struggle was slow and bloody and demanded the utmost of valor and fortitude on the part of our troops , especially since the division was unable to bring all its power into play , because it had to protect its rearward communications all the way from its front lines to Saint Nicolas . 7
The main portion of the 32 nd ’ s fight took place along less than a six-mile stretch , the distance between the start point , Santa Maria , and the ultimate objective , Santa Fe . They never made it to Santa
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