Note 1 — Chapter XVI · The Fall of Ormoc

Immediately after Pearl Harbor, American submarines began to attack Japanese shipping to the Netherlands Indies. From the beginning they were successful. In September 1943 the submarines accelerated the tempo of their attack. The Japanese lost to the submarines “tremendous tonnages of shipping ... all over the ocean. No route was secure from their attack; no ship was safe south of Honshu.”1 By the early fall of 1944 the Japanese line of communications to the Netherlands Indies was virtually cut.