Note 44 — Chapter XII · The Mountain Barrier: Part One

On the morning of 8 November a typhoon, moving in from the west, swept over the entire island. Jan Valtin, a member of the 24th Division, graphically describes it: “From the angry immensity of the heavens floods raced in almost horizontal sheets. Palms bent low under the storm, their fronds flattened like streamers of wet silk. Trees crashed to earth. In the expanse of ... [cogon] grass the howling of the wind was like a thousand-fold plaint of the unburied dead. The trickle of supplies was at a standstill. On Carigara Bay the obscured headlands moaned under the onslaught of the ... seas. Planes were grounded and ships became haunted things looking for refuge. Massed artillery ... barrages to the summit of Breakneck Ridge sounded dim and hollow in the tempest. Trails were obliterated by the rain. The sky was black.”44 In the midst of the storm, the infantry attacked.