By Sweeps and Inches

In lightning lunges U.S. troops invaded Cebu and Negros, the last of the larger Philippine islands. Liberation was proceeding apace. But on Luzon, where a sizable Japanese garrison was dug in. General MacArthur's men were fighting out a slow, bitter, bloody campaign.

From two directions Major General Innis Palmer ("Bull") Swift's I Corps moved on Baguio, summer capital of the Philippine Government. It was hard slugging over tortuous mountain terrain dominated by Japanese mortar and artillery fire. Progress was measured in yards. Fighting was a matter of probing the resistance with infantry patrols, then falling back until artillery could soften the hard spots--and they were very hard.

Inching through the Balete Pass, south of Baguio, was Major General Charles L. Mullings' 25th Division, which was at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 and has been in the Pacific ever since. Behind these veterans were Guadalcanal, New Georgia, Vella Lavella. Ahead of them, seven exasperating miles filled with Japs fighting from caves, was Baguio. Pushing in from the west, over the same kind of country, at the same pace, against the same stiff opposition, were Swift's other divisions, the 32nd and 33rd.

Elsewhere the campaign went faster. On Luzon's long southeastern tail, elements of Major General Oscar W. Griswold's XIV Corps, spearheaded by Brig. General Hanford MacNider, landed to capture Legaspi and its airfield. Battle-seasoned doughs of Major General William H. Arnold's Americal Division, with Rear Admiral Russell Berkey's group of Seventh Fleet warships blasting the way for them, stormed ashore on Cebu. Midget submarines, attempting to interfere with the landings, were driven off. The Americals captured Cebu city, second largest in the Philippines (peacetime pop. 145,000) with its fine port and airfield.

Units of Major General Rapp Brush's 40th Division landed on the west coast of Negros, fourth largest of the islands. One column drove northeast to capture the capital, Bacolod, another moved to a junction with Filipino guerrillas.

But the way always came back to Baguio. There Lieut. General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the Japanese commander, stood for the final Philippines battle.

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