Note 6 — Chapter X · Northern Leyte Valley: Part Two

At 1000 on 26 October the 2d Battalion of the 34th Infantry, commanded by Colonel Pearsall, moved out of its assembly area at Malirong in a column of companies and pushed westward on Highway 2. The battalion met slight resistance at the Malirong River bridge, but mortar fire knocked out the enemy opposition, and the advance continued. Since the battalion encountered few Japanese, the flank protection, which had to traverse difficult terrain, was called in, and the advance then proceeded at a much more rapid pace. The 2d Battalion met, and killed or routed, small groups of the enemy. It crossed streams where the bridges had been destroyed. The 3d Engineer Battalion put temporary structures in for two of these bridges in order that the first elements might proceed, and it placed a Bailey bridge over a third stream. The 1st Battalion, which followed the 2d, used Japanese handcarts to transport supplies between the destroyed bridges and the forward troops.6 By 1730 Colonel Pearsall had all of his battalion in Sante Fe. The following day, Lt. Col. Thomas E. Clifford, Jr., who had become the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, pushed his unit through the 2d Battalion and advanced 7,000 yards without opposition to the Mudburon River, where the troops established their night perimeter at 1545.7