The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [162]
E. J. Kahn described this attack and Lutjens’ injury in detail.
Odell mentions this incident in his diary. In his correspondences with Milner, Grose relates the details, too. In a letter to one of the historians working with Milner (Colonel Kemper), Odell writes bitterly, “We unanimously condemned higher headquarters for wholly inadequate recognition of the Buna situation, particularly with regard to intelligence…higher commanders constantly ordered attacks without any conception of the situation.”
Details on Sergeant George Pravda, including the articles he filed for the Daily Tribune, are from George Pravda Jr.’s collection. Details of specific attacks are from interviews with George Jr.
Details on Bottcher’s Corner are from interviews with DiMaggio and Jastrzembski, Moorad’s article “Fire and Blood in the Jungle,” and Sufrin’s story for Historical Times.
Eichelberger writes of his emotions in Our Jungle Road. He also recalls Captain Edwards’ wound. The bullet entered his belly and blew a “gaping hole near his spine.” A doctor told Eichelberger that Edwards would never make it, that there were no “facilities that far forward to take care of a man so severely wounded.” The situation was hopeless, he said. If moved, Edwards would die. “Right then and there,” Eichelberger wrote, “I decided to take Edwards back to the field hospital. If he was going to die, he might as well die on the hood of my jeep. We carted him out like a sack of meal, lashed him to the hood, and started down the trail. Much of it was corduroy road…Edwards took a terrific and painful jolting but he offered only one protest…the operation saved his life.”
Smith writes of his injury in his books.
Milner and Mayo write of Odell reaching Bottcher’s Corner. Odell describes it in his diary.
ATIS documents reveal the extent of Japanese suffering.
Scenes of the roadblock are from interviews with Bill Sikkel and Carl Smestad and a variety of 3rd Battalion members.
Medendorp writes of Horton’s wounds.
George Weller wrote a story—“Bravery and Guile Keep Phone Line Open”—about the heroic American signalmen. Weller writes of Dal Ponte in his article titled “Scene of Gallant Stand Named for Hero.” Milner and Medendorp also write of Dal Ponte’s heroism.
In Medendorp’s memoirs he writes of Father Dzienis.
Details of the fall of Gona are from Paul Ham.
Medendorp includes Horton’s diary in his memoirs. Two articles in the Detroit News also tell Horton’s story—“Hero Writes Letter as He Awaits Death in Jungles of New Guinea,” and “Out of the Jungle a Dying Soldier’s Testament of Faith.”
Chapter 17. Caged Birds
The poem “Caged Birds” is from ATIS documents.
Medendorp writes grimly of what he’s witnessed.
Eichelberger writes of MacArthur’s letter in Our Jungle Road to Tokyo.
Milner and Mayo, among others, describe the horrible scene. The dead bodies and excrement explain the stench the Americans had to contend with. Groom writes that the American soldiers were “repelled to the point of nausea by odors from these positions, blown directly at them by a prevailing onshore ocean breeze.”
Blakeley, Milner, and Anders explain the problems that plagued the American advance.
In Our Jungle Road to Tokyo, Eichelberger includes the letter that he wrote to MacArthur. Could hundreds of men have been saved if GHQ had agreed to send in tanks earlier? In his Buna Diary, Harding writes of a letter that he and E. J. Kahn composed on their way back to Australia in early December and sent to MacArthur. It said: “I shall still not have it on my mind that I let you or the division down. I didn’t succeed in taking Buna with the means at my disposal but I don’t feel that any other commander could have done more.” Anders includes a letter from Colonel Geerds, who toured the Australian hospitals with Harding. “I could have cried,” Geerds wrote, “when they told him that most had been wounded after his relief.”
The details of Boice and Bailey’s advance are from Milner’s and Smith’s books, interviews with veterans, interviews with Katherine Matthews, Sam DiMaggio’s recollections,