The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [70]
A mile and a half downriver, Horii’s raft ran aground, and he and his party scrambled up the bank, followed the river toward the coast, and discovered a native canoe. The canoe, though, was too small to accommodate the entire party. The decision was an easy one. While the rest of the party stumbled its way toward Awala, Horii, his staff officer, and his personal orderly floated down the river toward the coast, his mad hope of reinforcements shattered. The troops Rabaul had promised were being diverted to the Solomons.
No one would ever see the general again. Accounts of his death differ. Some say that the canoe overturned and Horii drowned. Others suggest that he paddled out to sea where the canoe, hit by fierce winds, capsized. Horii’s staff officer drowned and the general and his orderly attempted to swim to shore. Miles out, Horii tired. With enough energy for a final dramatic gesture, legend has it he raised his hands over his head, and in a resounding voice, shouted, “Tennoheika Banzai!” (“Long Live the Emperor!”)
Back at Gorari, the Australians celebrated. Vasey was heralded as a hero. From Port Moresby Blamey effused, “The greatest factor in pressing the continuous advance has been General Vasey’s drive and personality.”
Vasey, though, was hardly satisfied with half a victory. The Japanese were still firmly entrenched on New Guinea’s north coast, and Vasey was envisioning a final, decisive battle.
It’s “Buna or bust,” he told his men, “And we will not bust.”
In the mountains things were not going well for Stutterin’ Smith’s Ghost Mountain boys. Short of food, they marched from Jaure to Natunga, raiding gardens, shooting domesticated pigs, and scrounging whatever they could find along the way, especially bananas and papayas to guard against scurvy. Out of desperation they disobeyed one rule that Medendorp insisted was unbreakable—never touch the natives’ property.
By the time the battalion reached Natunga, many of the men flopped down in the mud at the village’s edge and lay there without moving, more dead than alive. “Malnutrition, malaria, dysentery,” Lutjens wrote. “Shoes and clothes are all shot to hell.”
Back at regimental headquarters on the south coast, Colonel Quinn had grown increasingly concerned about the condition of his troops. When Smith alerted him that the men needed food and medical supplies to continue, Quinn took matters into his own hands. He would personally oversee the airdrop.
Natunga looked to Smith like the perfect spot for a drop. In the distance, Mount Lamington loomed blue and ominous, its peak obscured by clouds. Heavy jungle stretched from Natunga to the mountain’s steep slopes and north along the rain-swollen Girua River, but Natunga itself sat in a large meadow on a hilltop. Smith realized that it might be the battalion’s last chance to resupply before going into battle.
Natunga also had a ready supply of healthy, well-fed natives to carry provisions. They were stout and strong men, who sported full body tattoos that they had acquired during elaborate initiation ceremonies. They wore their hair in long plaits interwoven with cloth made from the tapa tree, and plucked their beards and their body hair.
For days, the sky hung low over the village. Smith was beginning to despair when on November 5, the weather broke. Smith sent Quinn an urgent message: “Weather clear. Drop. Drop.”
When Quinn left Seven-Mile Drome outside Port Moresby, the jagged peaks of the Owen Stanleys pressed up against a cloudless sky. Perhaps, at last, Lady Luck would be on the 2nd Battalion’s side. Looking down from the plane, Colonel Quinn would have been able to see the terrain that Smith’s men had covered. It must have made him shudder. Solid jungle sprawled in every direction.
As the