The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [82]
Our troops were pinned down everywhere…. It wasim possible to see where the enemy fire was coming from; consequently our own rifle and machine gun [fire] was ineffective…. Grenades and mortars…were difficult to use because, first, it was difficult to pick out a nest position to advance upon with grenades, second, the thick jungle growth, and high grass, made throwing and firing difficult, and, third, because it was nearly impossible to observe our fire.
It was “the longest [day] of my life,” said one of the American soldiers. “We were surrounded by the terrible din and confusion of battle—the clatter and clang of rifles and machine guns.
“The parade of injured GIs was heartbreaking to watch…. The walking wounded struggled past us…. A few were being carried on litters, and some were left where they died, until the next day when they could be taken care of by special burial squads.”
Eventually, the chaos ended. The sun was dropping fast. Unaccountably, the Japanese did not launch a massive attack. If they had, they would have caught the Americans back on their heels, disorganized and dispirited.
As it was, the Americans had a chance to lick their wounds, recover some of the dead bodies, and assess their losses. The Japanese had stopped them in their tracks, mauled them, and the Americans had little to show for it—nothing more than thirty feet of lousy jungle.
The Americans did not take any chances with the few Japanese soldiers who had tried to slip around behind the advancing army and were killed. They bayoneted them or shot them again. Native carriers sent out to collect the enemy dead were instructed to slit their throats before moving them. The Japanese were known for their tricks. Wounded soldiers would lie among the corpses, feigning death, “playing possum,” and would open up on a squad or platoon after it had passed.
Most of the Americans could not resist the chance to view the dead Japanese. They were stunned by what they saw. What they were looking at were not the gaunt corpses of men who had fought and starved in the mountains. These were strong, well-armed physical specimens, and the Americans went from thinking they were fighting “a few sick Japs” to believing they were in combat against “jungle supermen.” Sergeant Roy Gormanson of Company A said, “I always thought that the Japanese were small people, but then I saw my first dead Jap. He was six feet one or better.”
The reality was that despite a formidable Allied air presence, the Japanese had succeeded in landing nine hundred fresh troops at Basabua on November 17. These were probably the soldiers that Gormanson had come upon. Many of them were from the 144th Infantry and the 3rd Battalion’s 229th Infantry, a unit whose two sister battalions were fighting on Guadalcanal. The 229th was made up of experienced jungle troops who had fought in China, Hong Kong, and Java. All nine hundred men were deployed east of the Girua River in the Cape Endaiadere-Duropa Plantation area, under colonel Yokoyama, who formerly was in charge of the Sanananda-Girua area, west of the river.
As curious as the Americans were to see the bodies of Japanese soldiers, they were unnerved and frightened at the sight of their own dead. Some of the men avoided the corpses. The shock that they had experienced in their first battle had turned into a kind of despair—to look upon a dead friend might mark them for death in the next battle. Others came to pay their last respects before the bodies were covered up. Many cried. A handful turned bitter and made silent promises to themselves that they would pretend to fight, but when the bullets were spraying across the jungle, they would crawl behind a tree. They had no intention of dying in some godforsaken place.
Others vowed revenge. In future battles, they would kill like machines and afterward take souvenirs. It was a barbaric ritual, but one that became commonplace. These men rifled through the pockets of the Japanese dead, scrounged