The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [141]
Carl Stenberg was put on limited service in Australia, where he was assigned to a replacement depot in Brisbane and later to Signal Section headquarters. In August 1944, Stenberg was bound for the United States aboard a Norwegian freighter, and four months later he was discharged. He suffered from malaria attacks for another ten years and still has scars on his legs from jungle ulcers. Stenberg received the Combat Infantry Badge, the Presidential Citation, two Oak Leaf Clusters, and the Bronze Star, but what he treasures more than anything else is the Christmas card he received from Jim Broner in December 1996. The note reads: “I will never forget the effort that you made in saving my life, so many years ago: And believe it or not I’m still enjoying every minute.”
Paul Lutjens spent a year in Australia, recuperating from malaria and the wounds he sustained in battle on December 5 and was awarded the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and the Distinguished Service Cross. When he returned to the United States, he was still so gaunt he could wrap his hands around his waist. The first thing he did was to make his way to San Jose, California, and propose to Lorraine Phillips, the woman to whom he wrote from the swamp on November 29, 1942. He and Lorraine were married at the Presidio in San Francisco. In February 1944, he traveled to military bases throughout the South, lecturing about the Buna campaign to troops preparing to go overseas. Afterward, he embarked on a career in military intelligence and counterintelligence, and was stationed at bases across the United States, as well as in the Philippines and Japan. Later, he commanded military intelligence groups in Hawaii, Germany, and at the Presidio.
Herbert “Stutterin’” Smith was sent to the 105th General Hospital at Gatton, about thirty miles from Brisbane, where he recuperated in a small ward with Paul Lutjens and Harold Hantlemann (Hantlemann would eventually marry the ward’s Red Cross nurse). Afterward he was made executive officer and port inspector of Base Section 4 in Melbourne. Just before going back to the United States, he checked into the 4th General Hospital, where his roommates were Guadalcanal veterans from the 1st Marine Division. According to Smith, “They continuously harped about the tough times they had endured” until one day Smith put on his blouse and they asked him where he acquired his ribbons—a Combat Infantry Badge, the Purple Heart, and the Distinguished Service Cross. When Smith told them Buna, they did not refer again to Guadalcanal in his presence. On October 6, 1943, Smith sailed for the United States and not long after he retired from the military. On June 28, 1990, forty-six years after he left the army, the State of Wisconsin honored Smith with the Wisconsin National Guard Distinguished Service Medal.
Captain Alfred Medendorp suffered recurrent malaria and was classified as “unfit for combat duty.” He was reassigned to the Amphibious Training Center where he worked with the navy to improve the performance of troop and equipment landing craft. He was rotated home in April 1945 and was awarded the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and the Combat Infantry Badge. In 1950, Medendorp (by then a major) volunteered for active duty during the Korean War. He was stationed at Fort Monroe, Virginia, until the spring of 1954. He was then assigned to the Military Assistance Advisory Group in Taiwan. On September 3, 1954, during his inspection of Chinese Nationalist Forces on the island of Quemoy (now Kinmen Island), a mile and a half from the Chinese mainland, Medendorp was killed during an artillery barrage.
General Eichelberger said of Herman Bottcher, “He was one