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He refused.

On Monday night May 3, 1943, he wrote Mandy.

Dearest Lover:

Had a lovely letter from you yesterday, darling. Came at the right time too believe me. Sure had the “blues” here for a couple of days. That’s why I haven’t written you. I don’t often allow myself to get that way but after all, when one is away from his best friend in the world you my wife, and away from such grand children, you just can’t help it. I love the way you ended your letter, Sweetheart, about “not being so far apart because we’ll live forever in each other’s hearts.”

Lovingly Always, Sam

Two days later, Lieutenant Colonel Simon “Sam” Warmenhoven shot himself in the head.

EPILOGUE

I laid him down by the bend in the stream;

And erected a cross at his head.

His funeral song was a kockatoo’s scream,

As if they knew my buddy was dead…

I’ve evened the score, yes, a dozen times o’er,

But no matter the distance between,

My mind wanders yet and I’ll never forget,

His grave by the bend in the stream.

BOB HARTMAN,

BUNA VETERAN

It would take months for the 32nd Division to be transported to Australia, where upon arriving, the sick and wounded were sent to a variety of hospitals in the Brisbane area. Those in relatively good health went to Coolangatta on Australia’s Gold Coast for R&R. The men chased girls and got roaring drunk. They told stories, too. The stories were not sad or dark; in fact, according to Bill Sikkel, they were full of “GI humor.” The one that really busted up Sikkel and the guys who had been on the Sanananda Front was about Father Dzienis.

It was in late November and Father Dzienis excused himself from a conversation to visit the recently dug two-hole outhouse. When a Japanese navy ship shelled the track, Dzienis came running out with his pants down around his ankles, “mad as a hornet.”

“To hell with the Geneva Conventions,” he thundered (according to the Geneva Conventions, a chaplain was not allowed to be armed). “Give me a pistol!”

When victory at Sanananda was declared on January 22, 1943, the war on New Guinea’s Papuan Peninsula came to a close. For the first time in World War II the Allies had defeated the Japanese in a land operation. Two and a half weeks later, the fighting on Guadalcanal ended.

New Guinea was a flashback to earlier wars. General Eichelberger called it a “poor man’s war,” one largely unaffected by America’s industrial machine. For two months, the Allies beat at nearly impenetrable enemy defenses. One American destroyer, bombarding Japanese positions, could have shortened the campaign by weeks. Shallow-draft landing craft, commonplace when the Marines invaded Guadalcanal, could have brought the campaign to a quicker close by hauling in much-needed tanks and artillery. Even something as basic as transport ships reliably delivering supplies could have eased the suffering of the soldiers.

Eventually, the Allies succeeded in pounding the Japanese into submission, but at what cost? What would MacArthur have lost by letting the Japanese starve? Major Mitsuo Koiwai was the commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, 41st Infantry. When captured at the end of the war, he said, “We lost at Buna because we could not retain air superiority, because we could not supply our troops…. We were in such a position…that we wondered whether the Americans would bypass us and let us starve.”

At the war’s end, MacArthur privately resolved to never again force a “head-on collision of the bloody, grinding type.” There would be “No more Bunas,” he said. On the other hand, he publicly congratulated himself during the war for his patient execution of the campaign. On January 28, he issued his final campaign communiqué, declaring that in the battle for New Guinea the “time element was…of little importance.” It added, “The utmost care was taken for the conservation of our forces, with the result that probably no campaign in history against a thoroughly prepared and trained army produced such complete and decisive results,