Note 13 — Chapter X · Northern Leyte Valley: Part Two

At 1750 Battery C, 11th Field Artillery Battalion, placed fire on the fortification, but after forty-two rounds of ammunition had been expended, the battery reported that the muddy ground “caused [the] guns to go out of action.”13 From 1850 to 1905, Battery A of the 14th Field Artillery delivered harassing fire on Pastrana,14 and from 2200 to 2400 the 13th Field Artillery Battalion took over the task of placing fire on the sector around the town.15 With the coming of daylight, the 4.2-inch and 81-mm. mortars took up the shelling. The night-long pounding of the Japanese positions around Pastrana was so effective that on the morning of 27 October Company K of the 3d Battalion was able to move around the town and establish a roadblock at a demolished bridge a few hundred yards southwest. The rest of the day the 3d Battalion, assisted by Colonel Zierath’s 1st Battalion, which had followed the 3d Battalion, mopped up in the town and sent out patrols to investigate the terrain and enemy dispositions west and south of the town.