The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [125]
In mid-December, however, Eichelberger’s luck changed. Tanks arrived: four light American M-3 General Stuarts that General Harding had fought so hard for and that had been denied to him time and time again. They saved the day, sparing Eichelberger a career-ending decision; MacArthur, who demanded daily battle reports, never would have tolerated Eichelberger’s plan to let attrition take its toll.
A day after receiving the tanks, Eichelberger began to prepare for an all-out assault on Captain Yasuda’s and Colonel Yamamoto’s forces on the Urbana and Warren Fronts. In the waning light on the evening of December 17, five hundred Australian infantrymen assembled near the front. The Australians were the same troops who had defeated the Japanese at Milne Bay. They were new to the Warren Front and would lead the attack, while the Americans were held in reserve.
At sunup on December 18, the tanks and the camouflaged Australian troops moved out. Ahead of them sat the stranded Bren gun carriers that had failed to dent the Japanese defenses two weeks earlier. Farther ahead was the Duropa Plantation, with its elegant coconut palms swaying in the slight breeze. Underneath the trees in the long kunai, Colonel Yamamoto’s elite 144th and 229th Infantry troops hid in their bunkers and machine gun nests, unaware of the approaching battle.
Just before 7:00 a.m., artillery battered the plantation. Ten minutes later, even before the smoke cleared, the Australians advanced. The General Stuarts opened up on the bunkers with their 37 mm guns. An American officer described the results: “The tanks really did the job. They apparently completely demoralized the Japs [who] fought like cornered rats.” The Australians, wielding tommy guns and hurling grenades, moved forward in the wake of the tanks and caught Yamamoto’s men by surprise.
Except for heavy Australian casualties, the day was a success. The Allies now controlled everything east of the Girua River except the Old Strip and Giropa Point.
In a letter to Sutherland that evening (each night Eichelberger penned a letter to MacArthur’s headquarters and to his wife Emmaline), Eichelberger wrote, “I am glad he [Brigadier Wooten] has the tanks to help him. I do not believe he or anyone else would have gone very far without them.”
General Harding had been vindicated. The tanks, however, had not arrived in time to save his career.
Meanwhile, Major General Yamagata was trying to rally the Japanese troops on the Urbana Front. On December 17, he issued a message to the front’s commanders, calling for the “complete annihilation and expulsion of the enemy from the soil of New Guinea.”
At the same time, Eichelberger was putting his men into position for an assault on the Government Station.
With the entire 127th at his disposal, Eichelberger relieved White Smith’s 2nd Battalion, sending them to the village of Siremi for a well-deserved rest. To make up for the loss of White Smith’s men, he pulled the Ghost Mountain Battalion, under Jim Boice, out of reserve after barely a week’s rest. Boice moved a portion of his men into the Coconut Grove and the rest of his troops into the Triangle east of Entrance Creek.
At the Triangle, bunkers, firing trenches, and chest-high swamp guarded every possible approach to the raised track that led to the Government Station. The plan was for two companies to attack the Triangle from the Coconut Grove via the bridge that spanned Entrance Creek, while a third company moved on the point of the Triangle from the south. Prior to the assault, the