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Moving in the darkness was something the old salts of Gloucester and Peleliu didn't like at all. We were stubborn in our belief that nobody but the Japanese, or damned fools, moved around at night. The new replacements who had come into the company a few days before seemed so pitifully confused they didn't know the difference. But moving up under cover of darkness was the only sane way to approach Kunishi Ridge. The 1st Marines and the 7th Marines had already found it necessary to move that way to get across the open ground without being slaughtered.

We moved slowly and cautiously across dry rice paddies and cane fields. Up ahead we saw shells exploding on and around the ridge as our artillery swished overhead. We heard the familiar popping of rifles, rattle of machine guns, and banging of grenades. Enemy shells also exploded on the ridge. We all knew that this was probably the last big fight before the Japanese were wiped out and the campaign ended. While I plodded along through the darkness, my heart pounding, my throat dry and almost too tight to swallow, nearpanic seized me. Having made it that far in the war, I knew my luck would run out. I began to sweat and pray that when I got hit it wouldn't result in death or maiming. I wanted to turn and run away.

We came closer to the ridge silhouetted against the skyline. Its crest looked so much like Bloody Nose that my knees nearly buckled. I felt as though I were on Peleliu and had it all to go through over again.

The riflemen moved up onto the ridge. We mortarmen were positioned to watch out for Japanese infiltrating from the left rear. We didn't set up our weapons: the fighting was so close-in with the enemy on the reverse slope and in the ridge that we couldn't fire high explosives.

Our 105mm artillery was firing over Kunishi Ridge while we moved into position in the dark. To our dismay, a shell exploded short in our company's line. The company CP alerted the artillery observers that we had received short rounds. Another 105 went off with a terrible flash and explosion.

“Corpsman!” someone yelled.

“Goddamit, we're getting casualties from short rounds!” an officer yelled into his walkie-talkie.

“What's the word on those short rounds?” the company executive officer asked.

“Says they'll check it out.”

Our artillery was firing across the ridge into and around the town of Kunishi to prevent the enemy from moving more troops onto the ridge. But each time they shot, it seemed that one gun fired its shells in a traversing pattern right along the ridge in Company K's lines. It was enough to drive anyone into a state of desperation.

The Japanese were throwing grenades all along the line, and there was some rifle and machine-gun fire. On the right we began to hear American grenades exploding well within our lines.

“Hey, you guys; Nips musta gotten hold of a box of our grenades. Listen to that, wouldja?”

“Yeah, them bastards'll use anything they can get their hands on.”

During the next flurry of grenades, we heard no more U.S. models explode within our area. Then the word came along in the dark to be sure all the new replacements knew exactly how to use grenades properly. One of our new men had been discovered removing each grenade canister from a box of grenades, pulling the sealing tape from the canister, and then throwing the unopened canister at the enemy. The Japanese opened each canister, took out the grenade, pulled the pin, and threw the deadly “pineapple” back at us. The veterans around me were amazed to find out what had happened. The incident, however, was just one of many examples of the poor state of combat readiness of the latest group of new replacements.

With daylight I got a good look at our surroundings. Only then could I appreciate fully what a desperate, bitter battle the fight for Kunishi Ridge had been—and was continuing to be. The ridge was coral rock, painfully similar to Peleliu's ridges. But Kunishi was not so high nor were the coral formations so jagged and angular as those on Peleliu. Our immediate