The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [129]
It was a tidy plan.
On the morning of December 24, with five companies of the 127th in position, Eichelberger ordered a major attack. It began with artillery and mortars opening up on Government Gardens and the Government Station. Fifteen minutes later, the infantry moved out. What separated the 127th from its destination, though, was an obstacle course of thick, chest-high kunai grass, a swamp as wide as a football field, and a 300-yard coconut plantation. Eichelberger believed this to be the epicenter of the Japanese position. Captain Yasuda had prepared the entire area with bunkers, foxholes, firing pits, and snipers hiding in trees.
The regiment had advanced barely a hundred yards when it came up against blistering enemy fire that cut the companies to ribbons. Even with Eichelberger’s artillery officer directing mortar fire from a coconut tree not far from Yasuda’s lines, the Americans managed to carve out only another fifty yards. After being wounded in the back by a shell fragment, the artillery officer tied himself into the tree like a Japanese sniper and continued to direct the mortar fire until he lost so much blood that he lapsed into unconsciousness, and had to be evacuated.
Eichelberger, who was at the front for much of the day directing troop movements like a young lieutenant, was devastated by the failure of the attack. Christmas Eve day, 1942, he reported to MacArthur “was the low point of my life.” MacArthur, though, did not want to hear it. He wanted results. Earlier he had callously told an Australian officer, who had complained that Eichelberger would get himself killed if he insisted on leading troops into battle, “I want him to die if he doesn’t get Buna.”
Back at the evac hospital in Dobodura, which was nothing more than a big tent with rows of cots, Stanley Jastrzembski was riding out a fever. He knew that the Americans had made a big push that day by the number of casualties that kept coming in. The worst were the belly wounds; those poor guys would moan and scream out all night long. What had really gotten to him, though, was Jim Broner. Broner had been shot in the leg in the battle on November 30.
Jastrzembski did not know what to say to him. His brother, Willard, was already dead. Had he heard?
“How ya doing?” Jastrzembski said, avoiding the subject.
Broner was lying on a cot and fumbled for words. Then he blurted it out. “Tomorrow,” he said, “they’re going to take my leg off.”
What the hell for, Jastrzembksi thought to himself. The poor SOB is gonna lose his leg over some godforsaken island.
Toward evening, Jastrzembski’s buddy Chet Sokoloski came in with a big smile on his face. Jastrzembski sat at the side of his cot and grimaced. His feet throbbed. They were raw and inflamed, and the skin was peeling off in small sheets like waxed paper.
“Why the smile?” Jastrzembski winced. “Just because you ain’t dead, right?”
“Nope,” Sokoloski replied. “It’s Christmas Eve. Did you forget?”
“Christmas,” Jastrzembski groaned. “In this hellhole of a place.”
“I got you a package,” Sokoloski said.
Sure enough. Jastrzembski looked at the return address. It was from one of his sisters. He shook his head. “All the way from Muskegon.”
Jastrzembski was too weak to open the package, so Sokoloski did the honors. Tearing off the newspaper and opening the box, Sokoloski was dumbfounded. “Candy and cake,” he said.
You’re putting me on, Jastrzembski thought. Then Sokoloski passed him the box. There it was, a big Christmas cake.
“The damn thing’s full of mold.”
“Here,” Sokoloski said. Taking his bayonet, he cut off the top two inches. Then Jastrzembski and Sokoloski—a pair of Poles—devoured it on Christmas Eve in New Guinea.
On Christmas Day, instead of regrouping and allowing his men to rest, Eichelberger decided to force the issue, returning to the Urbana