Note 7 — Chapter XI · Logistics and Civil Affairs
Reading edition
On 25 October the 7th and 8th Fighter Squadrons of the 49th Fighter Group assisted in the work on the Tacloban strip. The 8th Squadron was dismayed. The entire Cataisan Peninsula, on which the airstrip was located, was an “unadulterated bog” and the “confusion was awe inspiring.” Labor details were called to work and then dismissed. Upon returning to their bivouac area, they would be recalled, and the process repeated.7 On 25 and 26 October the Japanese air force came over the airfield in great waves. Many times the men were forced to drop their tools and sprawl into gullies and slit trenches as the Japanese “returned for more blood.”8