The Ghost Mountain Boys: Their Epic March and the Terrifying Battle for New Guinea--The Forgotten War of the South Pacific (37 page)

The next day, Wada continued, “What a discouraging and miserable state of affairs—and too, when the New Year is just ahead. What is going to happen to us? I pray to the morning sun that our situation of battle be reversed. All of the patrol (guard) unit has fled and at the present time, there are only four of us…. I pray with the charm of the clan deity in my hand.”

On the Warren Front, a Japanese soldier read a leaflet dropped by Allied planes: “SOLDIERS OF THE JAPANESE ARMY,” it said, “Our Allied Forces are steadily advancing on all fronts…. You are already doomed. Your situation is hopeless.”

When he read the leaflet on December 21 the day it was dropped, he scoffed at it. The Old Strip was surrounded by swamp and littered with trenches and bunkers. The Japanese believed it was unassailable. Colonel Yamamoto’s men were also heavily armed with machine guns and mortars, two 75 mm guns, two 37 mm guns, automatic cannons, and 3-inch naval guns. A week later, though, as Allied forces bore down on Japanese positions in the Old Strip and on Giropa Point, he was forced to take its message seriously. Officers continued to promise reinforcements, but even the lowliest Formosan conscripts knew what was happening.

Masaji Kohase, a First Class Seaman with the Yokosuka Special Naval Landing Force, watched the Allied advance. “The enemy,” he wrote, “is trying to squeeze us out of our vital position by shelling the whole of Buna with mortar and artillery fire. Their tanks came rumbling forward and finally the time has come when we may meet our end any day, but we will fight till the last as our commander has ordered.” As he wrote in his diary, his buddy may have been reading a letter from his twelve-year-old sister, and dreaming of home. Dated October 15, her letter read, “In the place, where you are now, there will be plenty pineapples, bananas, coconuts and other fruits, I think. I want to go and see the South Seas myself, sometime.”

The following day the Allies captured the Old Strip. Now only Giropa Point remained.

On December 30, Eichelberger found out that Blamey had petitioned MacArthur for the 163rd and MacArthur had buckled. Reversing his earlier decision, MacArthur now agreed that the regiment should go to the Sanananda Front. From General Herring, Eichelberger also learned that the Australians were in no hurry to see the Americans capture Buna Government Station before Wooten took Giropa Point.

Eichelberger was mad as hell, and though he had planned to rest his troops on December 31, he called for an all-out attack that would precede Wooten’s offensive. His troops would seize the Government Station first.

Counting on the element of surprise, Eichelberger’s troops jumped off well before the sun crested the horizon. When they spotted two Japanese landing barges stranded on the beach, however, a number of men disregarded the strict “no fire” rule and tossed hand grenades at the barges. It was a stupid stunt, and gave away their position. The Japanese immediately lit up the area with flares and fired on the Americans wading through the shallows northeast of Musida Island.

Abandoning the attack, the Americans retreated as fast as they could. Colonel Grose intercepted them and ordered them forward. The attack had failed in general, but thanks to an alert company of 128th Infantry troops that had dug in at the sand spit, the Americans had their first real grasp on the Government Station. Eichelberger knew now that it was only a matter of time. The Japanese were caught in the Allied vise.

That night, Eichelberger wrote a note to Sutherland. “Little by little,” he said, “we are getting those devils penned in and perhaps we shall be able to finish them shortly.”

Glory was not to be Eichelberger’s, though. By dusk on New Year’s Day, as a terrific lightning storm bore down on Buna, Wooten’s tanks were clearing out the last pockets of enemy resistance on the Warren Front. On patrol, Stenberg and the small reconnaissance group he was a part of met up with a patrol from there. They exchanged greetings and smiles and then went about the dirty business of clearing out pockets of Japanese resistance. All could sense that the end was near.

Simon Warmenhoven had been moving between the Triangle and the Sanananda Front, stitching up troops and supervising the portable hospitals, making sure that they were performing as intended. For the last month and a half, he had only had one break and that was when he himself was hospitalized with a temperature of 105 degrees. Now, he finally had a moment to write home again.

Dearest Lover:

And how’s my Mandy to-day? Been patiently waiting for the letters that just don’t come any more lately? Well, honey, from now on they’ll be coming in like old times. I’ll be writing at least three a week again. It just couldn’t be helped for awhile, and I’m sure you realize the reason. Hope you didn’t worry too much about it. I’ll assure you I’m safe and sound for which I’m very thankful. Will say that I’ve said plenty of prayers. I assure you on that point too that if anything happened, I wouldn’t be afraid, but I do hope that we all may be together again…. I sure want to see my Mandy again, and Muriel and Ann, and also Simon Jr. I’ll bet he’s getting to be quite a boy already. Another two months and he’ll be sitting at the high chair pounding with a spoon for his meals…. I had the lovesick dream last night…. when I woke up…. I found myself lying in my cot in our native hut. I dreamed that I’d returned back home, and that we didn’t get along…. Wish I could dream that I was making love to you…. Remember New Year’s Eve last year? Walking in New Orleans…. Well, Goodbye darling. Love to the children.

All my heart’s true love.

Sam

Flashes of lightning lit up the coast. Before dawn on January 2, Japanese troops were fleeing any way they could. Twenty Japanese soldiers, carrying heavy packs, food, medicine, and three machine guns, tried to make a run for the stranded landing barges, hoping to somehow get them into the water. A company of 127th soldiers caught them in the act, and cut them down with machine guns and rifles.

Not long after, as the first rays of sunlight filtered through the clouds and splashed across the sea, White Smith’s troops and the men of the 128th Infantry’s 1st Battalion, which had established a stronghold between the Government Station and Giropa Point, saw Japanese soldiers swimming up the coast.

By daylight, in a scene reminiscent of General Horii’s attempted escape two months earlier, Japanese soldiers by the hundreds, grabbing on to anything that would float, took to the sea. American and Australian machine gunners sprayed them with bullets. Then the artillery opened up. By 10 o’clock that morning, the air force was strafing the remaining swimmers. Those who had not already drowned were shot to death.

At the same time, American artillery pulverized Buna Government Station, and white phosphorous smoke shells set the entire area ablaze. Japanese soldiers ran from their bunkers, and American troops cut them down. Some of the Japanese were carrying M-1s and wearing American helmets and fatigues.

Stenberg’s patrol went from bunker to bunker and destroyed each one with grenades. Sometimes the Japanese burst out swinging swords or bayonets. A number of Japanese climbed trees and hid, or rushed into the swamps. Those who remained in their bunkers, refusing to surrender or run, were buried alive.

While the Americans stormed Buna Government Station and flushed out the last of its defenders, Australian tanks were destroying the remaining bunkers at Giropa Point. As the Australians approached what had been Colonel Yamamoto’s command post, two Japanese officers appeared. One was Yamamoto and the other Captain Yasuda, who earlier had left the Government Station to join Yamamoto.

“Surrender,” the Australian commander shouted to the two officers. “You must surrender.”

Yasuda and Yamamoto pretended not to hear the order. Yasuda drifted off into a grove of coconut trees, while Yamamoto appeared to be washing himself in the muddy waters of Siremi Creek. When he finished he rose and bowed three times in the direction of the morning sun. Then turning to the Australians, he stood saber straight.

“I’ll give you until I count ten to surrender,” the Australian commander shouted.

Again Yamamoto did not respond. He tied a Japanese flag to the blade of his sword. Then with one hand he raised the sword and with the other he stretched the flag across his breast.

“Nine,” yelled the Australian commander. A second later, the Australian riflemen shot Yamamoto dead. Later they found Yasuda. He had committed suicide by cutting open his belly in the fashion befitting a Japanese soldier.

That afternoon, Allied troops took control of Buna Government Station. The beach looked like a charnel house as the corpses of dead Japanese, some of which had been chewed on by sharks, rolled in on the waves. They swelled in the sun and in no time were filled with maggots.

The following day, January 3, as Allied patrols hunted down enemy stragglers, soldiers at “Maggot Beach” removed their boots and rolled up their pant legs and walked barefoot in the warm sand. Some men took the opportunity to wash their filthy clothes; some swam naked in the bay. Others lay sprawled under the scarred trunks of coconut palms or curled up in remnant foxholes.

Blamey and Herring sent messages congratulating Eichelberger. The general’s sense of accomplishment, however, was tempered by the realization that he had sent too many soldiers to their deaths. In a letter to Emmaline, Eichelberger confessed, “To see those boys with their bellies out of the mud and their eyes in the sun…. made me choke, and then I spent a moment looking over the American cemetery which my orders of necessity have filled from nothing.”

Curiously, no message came from MacArthur. When two days later there was still nothing from the commander in chief, Eichelberger penned a brief letter to Sutherland, “Is your secretary sick?” he asked.

Nearly a week after American forces took Buna Government Station, MacArthur finally wrote Eichelberger. If the general was hoping for gushing praise, MacArthur disappointed him.

Dear Bob,

I am returning to G.H.Q., Brisbane, Saturday morning the 9th so will not see you until some later time. I have been wanting to personally congratulate you on the success that has been achieved. As soon as Fuller [Major General Horace Fuller, commanding general of the 41st Division] takes hold, I want you to return to the mainland. There are many important things with reference to rehabilitation and training that will necessitate your immediate effort. The 32nd Division should be evacuated as soon as possible so that it can be rejuvenated.

I am so glad that you were not injured in the fighting. I always feared that your incessant exposure might result fatally.

With a hearty slap on the back,

Most cordially,

MacArthur

On that same day, MacArthur issued a communiqué stating that the campaign in New Guinea was “in its final closing phase.” “The Sanananda position has now been completely enveloped,” MacArthur told correspondents. “A remnant of the enemy’s forces is entrenched there and faces certain destruction…. This can now be regarded as accomplished.”

Although MacArthur and his staff had described Sanananda as a “mopping up operation,” Eichelberger and the Australians knew otherwise. Barely able to contain his disgust, Eichelberger would exclaim, “If there is another war, I recommend that the military…. and everyone else concerned, drop the phrase ‘mopping up’ from their vocabularies. It is not a good enough phrase to die for.” Eichelberger added, “The best plan” for Sanananda “would seem to be to surround the area and cut off all supplies, accompanied by plenty of mortar fire and constant harassing. This seems to me very slow work, but I realize that any other decision may result in a tremendous loss of personnel without commensurate gains.”