The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [161]
In Our Jungle Road to Tokyo Eichelberger writes of his meeting in Port Moresby with MacArthur. General Kenney has a slightly different version, but the essence of the encounter is largely the same. Geoffrey Perret also details this meeting.
E. J. Kahn wrote, “The men at the front in New Guinea were perhaps among the most wretched-looking soldiers ever to wear the American uniform.”
In 1942, Groom, too, writes of the men’s suffering.
Eichelberger’s account of their meeting differs slightly from Jastrzembski’s.
Accounts of the meeting with the “brass” can be found in Smith’s books. Other historians describe the scene, too.
Harding defended Mott. The situation at Buna favored the Japanese. It was hard on the troops. In 1936 Harding wrote in Infantry Journal, “Flesh-and-blood troops don’t conform to Leavenworth and Benning ground rules.”
In a letter he wrote to MacArthur on December 7, 1942 (after he was relieved), which Tom Doherty quotes in his article “Buna: The Red Arrow’s Heart of Darkness,” Harding stated, “I cannot agree with General Eichelberger’s conclusion that the ‘men were licked.’ The impression I got was that the men still had plenty of fight left but had no stomach for another go at a position which had beaten off four attacks. They felt, and with good reason, that the bunkers and the strong fixed defenses that had held them up should be blasted out before they went at it again.”
Eichelberger writes of the flood in Our Jungle Road To Tokyo: “Various personal items floated around like chips in a millstream. I waded knee-deep to get my shaving mirror…. In Buna that year, it rained about a hundred and seventy inches.”
The incident with the soldier in the hospital is taken from Anders’ Gentle Knight.
Phil Ishio wrote an article for the American Intelligence Journal in 1995 on the Japanese-American contribution to the Allied victory in the Pacific.
Kahn writes of Swede Nelson and Ned Meyers in “The Terrible Days…”
In The Fight for New Guinea, Patrick Robinson details the enemy’s tactics. So do a number of other authors, including John Vader in New Guinea: The Tide Is Stemmed and John Ellis in The Sharp End. In Burma, according to Ellis, British soldiers referred to Japanese infiltration attacks as “jitter raids.” The intention was to draw fire and cause soldiers to give away their positions.
Lutjens decribes the incident and Schultz’s calm in shooting the sniper out of the tree.
The details of Colonel Yokoyama’s order to soldiers without weapons to defend the garrison with anything they could find are from ATIS documents and Ham. Hospital conditions are also described by Ham and by various Japanese soldiers in translated documents.
Yamagata’s speech is from ATIS documents.
Details of the conditions at the roadblock are from Milner, George Weller’s articles, the Detroit News, Medendorp’s memoirs, and veterans of the Sananda Front whom I interviewed.
The details of Roger Keast’s time in Marquette, Michigan, are derived from Harry Keast’s collection of biographical information on his father.
Captain Peter Dal Ponte said of Roger Keast, “He excelled in every mission that confronted him…. His heroic actions and gallantry instilled confidence in and maintained the high morale of his men constantly.”
Details of Keast’s and Shirley’s deaths are from Medendorp and a series of articles in the Grand Rapids Herald and the Detroit News.
Chapter 16. Breaking the Stalemate
Smith includes a description of Grose’s imperiousness