On 20 October 1944, after nearly four hours of heavy naval bombardment to soften up Japanese defenses, United States Army forces emerged from landing craft and poured across the beaches of Leyte. Within hours of the landing, General Douglas MacArthur waded ashore in the company of the 24th Infantry Division, and made his dramatic announcement: "People of the Philippines, I have returned!" It was the beginning of the end of the war in the Pacific. But much hard fighting lay ahead.

Early in 1945, the Japanese staged a counter-attack on the coastal town of Palo, which happened to be where the 24th Division’s Quartermaster Company was set up. The Japanese were hoping to destroy the trucks and Quartermaster supplies stored there. Many in the company were sorting supplies in a flimsy wooden building when they heard firing a few blocks to the south. Then the enemy, disguised as local Filipinos, set up a machine gun in front of the building and opened fire on a nearby Infantry regimental CP.

The Japanese had infiltrated in force, and a few had gotten to the Company’s motor pool and Class III supply point. There was the smell of gasoline. Then flames erupted.

PVT James A. Denoff grabbed a blanket and ran outside through the enemy fire toward a flaming truck. A Japanese soldier blocked his path, but Denoff clubbed him to death and reached the truck, where he smothered the fire with his blanket. Then gave first aid to two other members of the company who had been wounded while defending the motor pool.

PFC Theodore C. Sharpe, left the building with Denoff and opened fire on the Japanese machinegunners. He killed one and forced the others to flee. Sharpe then volunteered to accompany the commander of the nearby regiment, who had left his CP without a guard, to cross a nearby bridge. On the way, Sharpe killed his second enemy soldier.

At the bridge they were joined by PVT Wladyslaw E. Swarter, another Quartermaster soldier. Swarter rescued a wounded GI on the riverbank, and after dragging him to safety, single-handedly killed an enemy sniper – then returned to cover the regimental commander and his escort until they could get across the bridge.

All three Quartermasters – Privates Denoff, Sharpe, and Swarter – showed they were tactically as well as technically prepared...and had both the know-how and the PERSONAL COURAGE to act.

Compiled by the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps Historian Fort Gregg-Adams, Virginia