Krueger was too hard on himself and even Mother Nature, too. As a potential base for sea and air forces, nothing could really turn the Leyte plow horse into a racehorse. The limitations presented by the island’s climate, infrastructure, and prevailing conditions were simply too profound. Leyte had no major ports and could provide, at the cost of prodigious labor, only minor air and supply bases, at least by the standards of the hypermodern US military forces. Leyte’s only value lay in its location at the midsection of the archipelago, an asset of transitory usage.
