The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [170]
Foster, Edgar, “All The Way Over,” Glory Magazine.
Greenwood, J. T., “The Fight Against Malaria in the Papua and New Guinea Campaigns,” from a revised version of a paper delivered by Greenwood at the U.S. Army–Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force Military History Exchange, Tokyo, February 2001.
Harding Interview, S. Milner, The OCMH Collection, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.
Hiari, Maclaren J., “My Father’s Experiences with the Australian and American Military Forces During World War Two,” privately held.
Ishio, P., “The Nisei Contribution to the Allied Victory in the Pacific,” American Intelligence Journal, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 1995).
Kahn, E. J., Jr., “The Terrible Days of Company E,” The Saturday Evening Post, January 8, 1944.
Moorad, G., “Fire and Blood in the Jungle,” Liberty Magazine, July 3, 1943.
Murdock, C., “The Red Arrow Pierced Every Line,” The Saturday Evening Post, November 10, 1945.
Series of articles that war correspondent Robert Doyle wrote for The Milwaukee Journal. Series of articles that war correspondent F. Tillman Durdin wrote for The New York Times. Series of articles that war correspondent George Weller wrote for The Detroit News and the Chicago Daily News.
Spencer, M., “2 Allied Generals Swim Half Mile,” St. Paul Dispatch, Saturday, November 21, 1942.
Stanley, Dr. P., “He’s (Not) Coming South: The Invasion That Wasn’t,” Australian War Memorial, 2002.
Sufrin, M., “Take Buna or Don’t Come Back Alive,” Historical Times, November, 1970.
Variety of articles in the Infantry Journal.
George Pravda’s articles for the Daily Tribune in Grand Haven, Mich.
Colonel J. T. Hale’s letter to Lewis Sebring, Hanson W. Baldwin Collection, George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Va.
Articles on Lt. Colonel S. Warmenhoven from the Grand Rapids Press, Sunnyside Sun, and the Junior Review.
Life Magazine, January 25, 1943; February 15, 1943; February 22, 1943.
Acknowledgments
This book is a work of nonfiction based on information contained in written accounts, war diaries, reminiscences, letters, scrapbooks, memoirs, or stories related to me by the veterans or their surviving family members and friends. Every attempt has been made to reconstruct the epic journey undertaken by the men of the 32nd Division—especially the march of the Ghost Mountain boys—and the brutal battles at Buna and Sanananda as accurately as possible.
I do not pretend to have written the complete history of the Red Arrow Division at Buna and Sanananda. Consequently, countless men and their acts of bravery and selflessness are missing from these pages. It is my hope, however, that through research, I have come as close as possible to describing an experience that all veterans of this savage campaign will recognize as true.
This book has taken me three and a half years to research and write. The project has been a memorable one. I have met many veterans whom I have come to regard as friends. I have attended their reunions, eaten with them, played cards, drank beer, traded stories, visited with them in their homes, and talked with them for hours on the phone. To all of these men who opened old wounds and exhumed long-buried memories, and to their family members who stood by them with equanimity, love, and support, I am extraordinarily grateful.
The saying goes that in order to understand someone, you have to walk a mile in his shoes. In an attempt to appreciate what the 32nd Division’s soldiers went through, I walked across New Guinea in the footsteps of the Ghost Mountain boys. The trek was a grueling one. I injured my knee, and one expedition member had to be flown out because of serious leg infections. Eventually half the team came down with malaria. I saw the battlefields, the clouds of mosquitoes, and the leeches. I felt the blazing sun of the coast, the chill of the mountains, and the suffocating stillness of the swamps. Thankfully, I never had to go to war.
In New Guinea, the