The Ghost Mountain Boys - James E. Campbell [87]
Soon, the Wairopi Patrol heard rifle and machine gun fire, the explosions of mortars and “high overhead the soft sigh of…shells on their way to blast the enemy.” It was “sweet music” to Medendorp. But the Japanese were returning fire, too. When that noise “developed a lower pitch and became harsh and severe, like a buzz saw going through a knot,” Medendorp knew it was time to dive for cover.
Medendorp finally reached Tomlinson’s command post. Keast informed him that after a series of setbacks—just two days before they had lost more than a hundred men killed or wounded—Colonel Tomlinson, a hard-nosed West Pointer, had scheduled his largest attack yet for the morning of November 30. Medendorp was relieved by the news of the delay. He and his men badly needed a day of rest.
The day before the attack, Colonel Tomlinson pulled aside Medendorp and Keast to discuss plans for the following day’s attack. Tomlinson’s shirt was streaked with sweat and salt. He had large rings under his armpits and a skunk-like band that ran from his neck to the small of his back.
“There’s only about half a dozen Japs out there,” Tomlinson roared. “Three of those have dysentery and the other three fever! They move one machine gun from place to place. Our men are green, and they think that every bullet has their name on it. We must teach them to keep on advancing as long as they are not exactly being fired at. After hitting the ground they must learn to get up and get along. Now get in there and do your part in cleaning them out, or I’ll just have to tell the Australian general in command on this front that our regiment cannot accomplish its mission.”
Neither Medendorp nor Keast knew what to make of Tomlinson or his speech. They had had almost no contact with the new colonel. Quinn had been their regimental commander, the leader they loved, but Quinn was now buried in a grave in the misty mountains. Who was Tomlinson kidding, trying to convince them that they were up against only a skeleton force? They had seen the wounded Allies being carried from the front.
“It won’t be any pushover tomorrow,” Keast said, when he and Medendorp left Tomlinson.
Medendorp’s account of Tomlinson’s speech was infused with sarcasm: “Properly impressed with the necessity of giving the enemy a killing, we started out on the half-day march to get into position.”
As the men were assembling, Father Stephen Dzienis paid the soldiers a visit. By now Dzienis had proved himself. He had earned Medendorp’s respect on the long, cold journey from Camp Livingston, Louisiana, to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, when instead of going by troop train he went with Medendorp in an unheated army-issue truck with a canvas top and side curtains. More recently, he had volunteered to march across the mountains with the 2nd Battalion. Never again would he be thought of as a pampered chaplain.
Dzienis had a great field of a beard. As always, he was filled with spirit and good cheer, though his legs, Medendorp noticed, were a “mass of running sores.” At one point, Dzienis pulled Medendorp aside. “Be sure,” he winked, “to use plenty of hand grenades, Skipper. They’re buried up to their eyebrows.”
Medendorp carried Tomlinson’s orders for the attack in his pocket. When he and Keast got to the front, Medendorp turned them over to the battalion’s executive officer, who scratched out a diagram of the plan in the soft, black jungle humus. The orders called for Medendorp and Keast to attack eastward from the left flank on November 30. Another group of men would attack head on, and one would advance from the right. The goal of the attack was to establish a roadblock north of the main Japanese position on the Soputa-Sanananda track.
“We’ll get those bastards,” Captain John D. Shirley assured the battalion XO after the meeting. “Tomorrow, we’ll get those