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By Root 405 0

Late in the afternoon the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, learned they were not only facing General Tadashi Sumiyoshi’s command but another, and unexpected, flanking move by Maseo Maruyama, when an enemy officer was spotted on high ground south of the airport studying Bloody Ridge with field glasses, and then a scout-sniper report came in from that same quarter of “many rice fires” two miles south of Puller’s extended line. Marine Ops acknowledges that at this moment, with the fight not yet begun, the Marines seemed to hold a significant advantage in heavy weapons. As noted, the Japanese had left behind, strewn along the difficult Maruyama Trail, all of their heavy artillery and had even discarded most of their mortars. While the entrenched Marines were supported by all of their own mortars and heavier guns, there was some early hope of moonlight to aid the gunners in zeroing in on enemy targets. But though the rains slackened briefly toward seven p.m. (according to Robert Leckie), heavy rains came again and full darkness settled in on the front. Yet it was then that Maruyama ordered his left-flank regiment, the 29th Infantry, forward toward the main line of resistance.

Leckie reports that Sergeant Ralph Briggs Jr. called in from the outpost and reached Puller. Speaking softly, Briggs said, “Colonel, there’s about three thousand Japs between you and me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. They’ve been all around us, singing and smoking cigarettes, heading your way.”

“All right, Briggs, but make damned sure. Take your men to the left—understand me? Go down and pass through the lines near the sea. I’ll call ’em to let you in. Don’t fail, and don’t go in any other direction. I’ll hold my fire as long as I can.”

“Yes, sir,” Briggs said, and hung up. Crawling on their bellies to the left, he and most of his forty-six outpost men got out. The Japanese caught and killed four of them. This was about nine-thirty p.m. Soon the enemy had reached the tactical barbed wire in front of the 1st Battalion and began to cut lanes through it.

Toward eleven o’clock, still in heavy rain, the main body of the Japanese force attacked Puller’s line amid the usual screaming of “Blood for the Emperor!” and “Marines, you die!”

The Marines responded with, “To hell with your goddamned emperor!” and, hilariously, “Blood for Franklin and Eleanor!”

Writing years later in New Jersey, Bruce Doorly provides us a first mention of Basilone that crucial night about ten o’clock: “The field phone rang. Having waited for days, they thought it must be just another outpost getting lonely. However, when John answered the phone he heard trouble. It was one of his men from a post closer to the front line. He screamed, ‘Sarge, the Japs are coming. ’ In the background John could hear the sound of explosions and gun fire. ‘Thousands of them, my God! They just keep coming, Sarge, they just keep coming.’ The phone went dead.”

This reputed exchange doesn’t entirely make sense. Basilone headed a two-machine-gun section of perhaps six or eight men total. Why would he have an outpost of his own reporting to him? Wouldn’t an outpost Marine with the enemy that close have whispered and not screamed?

Doorly then writes, “John Basilone took control. He turned to his men and said, ‘All right, you guys, don’t forget your orders. The Japs are not going to get through to the field. I’m telling you that goes, no matter what!’”

Doorly cites battle descriptions by Basilone that “were often very descriptive and at times comical.” Doorly pictures the first assault wave this way: “They could soon hear the Japanese cutting the barbed wire. Unfortunately, they could not see the Japanese in the dark as they had hoped. Their first line of defense, the barbed wire, was already falling. Basilone set the strategy for his unit. He told his men to let the enemy get within fifty yards and then, ‘let them have it!’ They fired at the first group of attacking Japanese, successfully wiping them out.” He quotes Basilone as saying, “The noise was terrific and I could see the Japs jumping as they were smacked