Hero of the Pacific_ The Life of Marine Legend John Basilone - James Brady [25]
Now, unexpectedly, on the twenty-fifth fighting erupted again with new massed Japanese assaults. This time it wasn’t Puller’s and Basilone’s turn but the 2nd Battalion of the same regiment, the 7th Marines, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Herman Henry Hanneken, that found itself grappling with the attacking Japanese infantry in lethal close combat, and it would be Mitchell Paige, another, and quite different, machine-gun sergeant whom Basilone actually knew, who would be at the heart of the most horrific fighting and would himself be nominated for a Congressional Medal of Honor. More on that later.
About four on Sunday morning, the twenty-fifth, the Japanese punched another hole in the Marine lines between Basilone’s C Company and A Company, but that was the end to his hard fighting for the moment. Proser describes his getting the crackers and the jam, and quotes Basilone as saying of himself and his handful of hungry but surviving men, “We were all wounded.” I find no independent proof of this. Customarily, unless a wounded man is treated by a medic (a Navy corpsman) who notes the fact, no Purple Heart is awarded. Myriad cuts, burns (Basilone’s scorched arms, for example), and scratches are often ignored, overlooked by the Marine himself. Despite his words about being “wounded,” the records indicate he earned only the one Purple Heart for wounds, for those suffered at his death on Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945, some three years later. Nor does his citation for the Medal of Honor mention his being wounded on the ’Canal, which such carefully vetted citations customarily do.
Marine Ops doesn’t break out daily USMC casualties for each night of the three-day battle of Bloody Ridge but says “sources” put the entire three-day cost to the 7th Marine Regiment at 182 dead. Basilone’s reference to C Company’s having been wiped out and his handful of men the only ones left is clearly an exaggeration. And his service record book notes that Basilone “joined Company D, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines May 29, 1941,” while Puller’s own written citation for the Medal of Honor calls Basilone a member not of C Company but of D Company. It seems to me axiomatic that Puller would know one of his rifle companies from another. And surely Basilone would have no such doubts about his own outfit. Blame confusion in battle, but family and other reminiscences are replete with such perplexing errors of fact.
As for the Japanese, their losses at Basilone’s machine-gun position are put at thirty-eight dead by PFC Nash W. Phillips of Fayetteville, North Carolina, who was in Basilone’s company on the ’Canal. Total enemy losses on October 23-26 are recorded as 3,500 dead, including one general, Yumio Nasu, and his two regimental commanders. Puller’s citation for Basilone’s medal (countersigned by Chester Nimitz himself) refers to a thousand dead Japanese buried or left unburied in front of 1st Battalion’s position.
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Basilone’s own terrible night was succeeded only hours later by the equally desperate nightlong fight by the 2nd Battalion in which Mitchell Paige distinguished himself and would be written up for a Congressional Medal by his own commanding officer, Colonel Herman Hanneken. In a 1975 book by then Colonel Paige titled A Marine Named Mitch, he recalled a temporary lull in the aftermath of the October fighting, including his own, on the Guadalcanal ridgelines: “The next day Chesty Puller came up to see me. He sat down next to me after we shook hands and he told me about the big attack they had down at the airport on the night of the 24th [Paige’s own battle was fought late