Chopping it up along the Verde Trail
It happened 80 years ago.
8 May 1945. Caballero Mountains, Luzon. While peace of a sort had come to Europe, WWII continued to roar in the Pacific.
Here we see a M15 Combination Gun Motor Carriage “Special” that, in lieu of the standard M1 37mm gun/. 50 cal combination normally seen, was modified with a 40mm Bofors. It is also shown with an M16 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage, which is essentially an M3 half-track chassis carrying an M45 Maxon “Meat Chopper” quad .50 cal.
A closer look at the M15. During Korea, this modification was solidified in the M34 with 102 M15s converted in Japan in 1951. The M34 mounted a single 40 mm Bofors gun in place of the M15’s combination gun mount. This was due primarily to a shortage of 37 mm ammunition, which was no longer manufactured. M34s served with at least two AAA (automatic weapons) battalions (the 26th and 140th) in the Korean War.
And a close-up of the M16/50 Quad.
M16 firing on Japanese position on the Villa Verde Trail in the Caballero Mountains, Luzon, PI, May 8, 1945
All of the above tracks are assigned to A Co, 209 AAA (Aw) Battalion of the 32nd “Red Arrow” Infantry Division, and are being used on Yamashita Ridge during the Battle of Villa Verde Trail.
As noted by the Army’s CMH, “In brief, the battle for the Villa Verde Trail became a knock-down, drag-out slug fest.”
The 32nd– which logged 654 days of combat during WWII, more than any other U.S. Army division– suffered 4,961 casualties in the Luzon Campaign.