PHOTO: 11th Airborne Officers Attend Ammo Demo in Batangas, April 45

By mid-April, Batangas was for all intents and purposes liberated from Japanese occupation. The 11^th Airborne Division, the large US Army group responsible for the liberation of the province of Batangas, was just mopping up at the Malepunyo Mountain Range east of what is now Lipa City and had only Japanese defenses at Mt. Maculot to deal with¹.

The respite offered US soldiers the chance to engage in activities other than combat, such as the ammo demonstration shown in the picture above. The picture² was taken from the United States National Archives with the following caption:

Image credit:  US National Archives.

“Officers of the 11^th Airborne Division attend a demonstration of a new type of artillery fuse, a short distance from Japanese lines. Luzon, P.I. 15 April 1945.

“Signal Corps Photo#SWPA-SC-45-15119 (Pierce) released by BPR 29 May 1945.”

From the information provided by the caption, we can assume that the fuse demo was held either at Mt. Maculot or somewhere in the Mt. Malepunyo mountain range.

The picture has been reduced to 2000 x 1558 pixels for quicker download and also processed using graphics editing software to improve overall quality.

Notes and references:
¹ “The Angels: A History of the 11th Airborne Division 1943-1946,” by Major Edward M. Flanagan Jr., published 1948 in Washington.
² Image taken from the United States National Archives.