The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [47]
No matter how miserable he was, no matter how short the entry, Boice was dutiful about writing. He liked the feeling of the diary in his hands. Just to hold it seemed to fill him with Zelma’s love. And the act of writing allowed him to conjure walking with Zelma through the quiet neighborhood while Billy slept in his arms and friends sat on their front porches sipping lemonade in the still, hot summer air. It enabled Boice to live, if only for a moment, in his former life.
With Boice’s message that the Kapa Kapa trail was “taxing, but practicable,” MacArthur’s plan for an overland advance on Buna was ready to be put into motion. The crux of the plan was this: The 250-man Wairopi Patrol, under Captain Alfred Medendorp’s command, would set out first. It would be followed by troops from the 126th Infantry Regiment, with the regiment’s 2nd Battalion leading the way. From the Australians’ experiences on the Kokoda track, the U.S. Army knew that a large group of soldiers could not rely on carriers alone. They got sick, they deserted, they needed food. Medendorp’s job, therefore, was to establish drop sites along the route that pilots could easily identify. He and his men would also be counted on to clear the trail of Japanese interference. The 2nd Battalion did not need to be fighting its way north across the mountains.
MacArthur originally wanted the 126th to penetrate and cross the Owen Stanleys, cut west, and sneak in at the rear of the Japanese on the Kokoda track, where it would ambush Horii’s army, cut off his supply line, or at the very least, hasten the Japanese army’s retreat to the north coast. Because of Boice’s report, however, MacArthur knew that he could never get a large number of troops over the mountains fast enough, so he amended his strategy. The 126th’s new mission was to reach Jaure and secure the Kumusi River valley west to Wairopi on the Buna-Kokoda track, a maneuver designed to cover the right flank of the advancing Australians. In time, the 126th would push north to the villages of Buna and Sanananda, where the Japanese army had established its coastal stronghold.
The blast-furnace heat was crippling. At Nepeana, Captain Alfred Medendorp stood in the shade of a coconut palm, trying to escape the sun, waiting for General Harding’s jeep to arrive.
Working from dawn till dusk, Company E and the 91st Engineers had slashed a road not just to Gobaregari, but another ten miles upriver to the village of Nepeana. Although the road, which Company E dubbed “Michigan Avenue,” was nothing more than a “peep trail,” a bone-jarring path that quarter-ton vehicles could negotiate, it allowed the Americans to transport supplies farther inland. The advance base was located just south of Gobaregari at Kalikodobu, which the Michigan boys, following a theme, called “Kalamazoo.” The name also brought to mind a favorite 1940s song—“I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo.”
Like Boice, Medendorp might have been trying to conjure images of home. Autumn in lower Michigan: the yellow-orange hickories shining in an electric blue sky; ducks in the sloughs; field corn ready to be picked; crisp nights and a big, shining harvest moon. He might have tucked in his shirt and massaged his hair into place. How absurd, to care about his looks in a place like New Guinea.
Growing up in his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Medendorp had been regarded as a handsome ladies’ man. Unlike many other young men his age, his popularity with the opposite sex did not stem from his ability as an athlete. In fact his father, a Dutch immigrant, had never liked the brutality of football, and refused to let his son play on the high school team. Instead, Medendorp focused on music. He had a talent for it. Just out of high school he started