The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [73]
Conditions at Pongani, which the men christened “Fever Ridge,” were dreadful. According to Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Hollenback, commander of the portable surgical hospital there, the hospital was filled way beyond capacity with malaria and dengue fever cases, and quinine was in short supply. Dysentery, which the men came down with shortly after arriving in Port Moresby in late September, raged through the camp. Everyone, it seemed, had a case of jungle rot. Boots that had gotten wet on the aborted walk from Wanigela to Pongani never dried out. Trenchfoot became a problem. Men’s feet swelled and numbed and turned bluish-white. It felt as if they were walking on wood blocks. As the trenchfoot grew worse, their feet blistered. When the blisters burst, men were in such pain that they could barely stand up. To make matters worse, the soldiers began to suffer from malnutrition, too. Their daily intake amounted to “one-third of a C-ration and a couple of spoonfuls of rice a day,” hardly more than a thousand calories.
The weather added to their misery. The camp felt like a sauna. Soldiers withered from lack of fresh water. When it rained they collected it in their helmets; when it was not raining, the tropical sun burned their backs red. Many of the men were so sunburned that it hurt to move.
After two weeks a general malaise set in. Men stopped washing; they did not bother about the bugs; they did not see the point in sterilizing their mess kits; they grew absentminded and forgot to drop an iodine tablet in their water; those who had quinine discarded it because it made them sick.
According to a ground forces observer at Pongani, “the lid really blew off” when they heard the news of MacArthur’s decision. He wrote:
The reason for the order was, of course, to gain time to stockpile supplies for the impending advance, but the division, restive and eager to be “up and at ’em” did not see it that way. Opinions were freely expressed by officers of all ranks…that the only reason for the order was a political one. GHQ was afraid to turn the Americans loose and let them capture Buna because it would be a blow to the prestige of the Australians who had fought the long hard battle all through the Owen Stanley Mountains, and who therefore should be the ones to capture Buna.
MacArthur also postponed the attack because he was reluctant to concentrate large numbers of Allied troops on the Buna coast until the situation on Guadalcanal clarified itself. Recalling the tragedy of Bataan, what he feared most was that if the Japanese took Guadalcanal they could commit the full might of their forces to an invasion of New Guinea. The Americans would then be trapped on the north coast.
MacArthur insisted on a plan for the swift withdrawal of Allied troops, and General Blamey assured him that he had one. Blamey had already endorsed General Harding’s plan to fly the remaining portions of the 126th Infantry Regiment into Pongani, where a usable airfield had been discovered and improved. Aware of MacArthur’s reservations, Blamey added his own wrinkle: After landing, they would hike inland and temporarily join Major Smith’s 2nd Battalion at the village of Bofu, north of Natunga, and wait for orders to attack. The entire route, Blamey assured MacArthur, would be protected by the Hydrographer’s Range, a sprawling series of mountains that butted up against the coastal plain. At worst, if the Japanese invaded en masse, the 128th Infantry Regiment could use the same route to evacuate the coast. On the other hand, if all went well and the Japanese were preoccupied with Guadalcanal, the Allies could launch a three-pronged advance on Buna, beginning sometime in mid-to late-November after the Australians had crossed the Kumusi River.
MacArthur was satisfied with Blamey’s blueprint, and the transfer by air of regimental headquarters, and the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 126th Infantry Regiment began on November 8, two days after MacArthur arrived in Port Moresby.
Major Simon Warmenhoven, preparing to