On Oct. 20, 1944, 130,000 soldiers from the US 6th Army — with support from the Third Fleet and the Fifth Air Force — landed on Leyte, Philippines, to begin the battle to retake the nation that fell to the Japanese in 1942. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the Southwest Pacific, landed on Palo Beach accompanied by Filipino leaders including President Sergio Osmena, making good on the promise he made on evacuating Corregidor some 30 months earlier to return to the Philippines.
