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October 20, 1984, Page 001002 The New York Times Archives

It was 40 years ago Saturday that Gen. Douglas MacArthur honored his famous pledge - ''I shall return'' - by landing here with 200,000 troops.

Today this palm-fringed beach is a picture-postcard version of tropical calm as local children play in the surf and the horizon is dotted with a few fishing boats against an azure sky.

But on A-Day, Oct. 20, 1944, this portion of the eastern shore of Leyte island, code-named Red Beach, presented a very different picture.

''As we came into the beach, there were shells exploding all over the place,'' recalled Paul Austin, an infantry commander who came ashore in the second wave of the landing.

A Direct Hit

Mr. Austin, now a 63-year-old resident of Fort Worth, said he remembered hearing a tremendous noise behind him. Looking back he saw the aftermath of a direct hit on a landing craft by Japanese shelling.

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''Just helmets floating in the water,'' he said. ''I'll never forget that.''

Yet most of the casualties that morning and in the weeks of fighting that followed were on the Japanese side. The combat ashore, combined with the sea battle in the Leyte Gulf, was a turning point in the Pacific campaign of World War II. It was Japan's last gasp, its final effort to stop the island-hopping Allied advance toward Tokyo. Without control of the Philippine archipelago, the Japanese would be denied access to the oilfields of Indonesia, the lifeblood of the Japanese war effort. All-Out Japanese Drive

Because of the landing, the Japanese imperial headquarters launched an all- out drive by its navy, army and air force to prevent MacArthur from establishing a solid base in the Philippines. Thus the Leyte Gulf became the scene of one of the great naval battles in history.

Both on land and at sea, Japan lost decisively. Its air force and navy were hobbled, never again to present a serious threat to the Allied forces.

Still, for all its historic significance, the ceremonies to mark the 40th anniversary of A-Day will be modest, certainly compared with the fanfare in France last June for the commemoration of the Normandy invasion, which was attended by President Reagan, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Francois Mitterrand.

The Leyte anniversary this year, however, will be the most ambitious of the observances held here annually since 1948. About 400 American, Filipino and Australian veterans and their families will watch a scaled-down re- enactment of the amphibious landing on Red Beach. Strategy and Execution

The invasion of Leyte, military experts agree, was brilliant both strategically and in its execution. But the landing and the sea battle were filled with confusion, happenstance and near- tragedy for the American forces.

On the evening of Oct. 19 MacArthur loaded his father's derringer and shoved it into his hip pocket, to assure that he would not be taken alive. At dawn the next morning, United States warships began firing on the beach. The Japanese were surprised at first by the Leyte attack; they had expected MacArthur to try for a foothold on the southern island of Mindanao. Still, Japanese resistance was fierce, especially from fighter planes.

Four hours into the invasion MacArthur climbed into a landing barge with his staff and a few foreign correspondents and then picked up the exiled Philippine President, Sergio Osmena, and Gen. Carlos P. Romulo from a nearby transport ship. The group headed for the beach, where MacArthur intended to dock and step ashore dry and unruffled.

But about 50 yards from the shore, they ran aground. This minor miscue was responsible for one of the most famous photographic tableaux of the war: MacArthur wading ashore at Leyte, all set-jawed determination and grit. More likely, according to William Manchester, the author of ''American Caesar,'' a biography of the general, is that MacArthur's flinty scowl reflected his anger at the landing craft captain who, when his boat hit bottom, shouted, ''Let 'em walk.''

Americans Seen as 'Godsend'

A cluster of Filipinos had gathered on the beach to greet MacArthur, recalled Mr. Romulo, who was later Foreign Minister.

''It is impossible to adequately record the joy of the Philippine people at MacArthur's return,'' he said. ''The people who met us at the beach, with tears in their eyes, some of them starving skeletons in rags, saw the Americans as a godsend.''

The biggest threat to MacArthur's plan came in the first few days after the landing, when the main Japanese fleet, under Vice Adm. Takeo Kurita, sped up from Singapore. In the Philippines theJapanese fleet split up, with one detachment ordered to enter Leyte Gulf from the south through the Surigao Strait, while the other would slice through the northern San Bernardino Strait. The two would then converge on MacArthur's transports, still pouring troops ashore.

On the night of Oct. 24, a detachment of Admiral Kurita's flotilla, under Vice Adm. Teiji Nishimura, tried to enter the Surigao Strait, but the Seventh Fleet of Vice Adm. Thomas C. Kinkaid had it corked. The Japanese ships were hit by relentless broadsides. Admiral Nishimura's force was wiped out, and he drowned.

Japanese Nearly Prevailed

Despite the setback, the Japanese nearly prevailed. Earlier that day a Japanese flotilla, intended as a decoy, had lured the American Third Fleet out of the San Bernardino Strait, leaving it wide open for Admiral Kurita, who was steaming straight for it.

But Admiral Kurita, misreading some American aircraft movements and two intercepted messages, thought the Third Fleet was about to trap him inside the strait. He turned and fled. The Third Fleet, under Adm. William F. Halsey, was actually three hours away.

In all, the American side lost three destroyers, two escort carriers and one light carrier. The Japanese lost eight destroyers, three light cruisers, six heavy cruisers, three battleships and four carriers. The battle involved 282 ships, compared with 250 at Jutland in 1916, according to Mr. Manchester.

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