"We lost more to sickness than Japanese bullets on Leyte." (Audio Interview, 15:44)

Richard Wendell Johnson

War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: Army Unit: 96th Division, 383rd Regiment, I Company Service Location: Leyte Island (Philippines); Okinawa Island (Ryukyu Islands) Rank: Staff Sergeant Place of Birth: MI

Enemy soldiers were not the only cause for concern on the battlefield. Disease, adverse conditions, and lack of supplies took vast tolls on American servicemen fighting in the Philippines. After landing on Leyte on October 20, 1944, Army Staff Sergeant Ralph Wendell Johnson and his company became isolated from the supply ships. They existed on coconuts, wild corn, and sugarcane; he lost thirty pounds in two weeks. Such conditions also led to ingenious survival strategies: his squad used small explosives to boil corn and C-rations in the wet and muddy foxholes. For his twenty-first birthday, his buddies treated him to a feast of roasted wild pig.