The Ghost Mountain Boys: Their Epic March and the Terrifying Battle for New Guinea--The Forgotten War of the South Pacific (20 page)

While the salvage team was out, Smith learned from regimental headquarters that Colonel Quinn had been aboard the plane that had crashed. Privates, corporals, and officers alike wept when they learned that Quinn was one of the casualties. Medendorp, upon learning of the colonel’s death, captured the mood of the entire regiment. “To our sorrow,” he wrote, “our magnificent Colonel was killed.”

When Sam DiMaggio heard the news, he trembled. Back at Camp Livingston, Colonel Quinn had asked him to be his personal runner, and DiMaggio had seriously considered the offer. All the men knew that Quinn was a “stand-up guy.” He was a regimental commander who really cared about his soldiers. There was another attraction, though. As Quinn’s personal runner, it was likely that if a war broke out, DiMaggio would be spared front-line duty. In other words, he would have a better chance of making it home alive. Joining Quinn, however, would have meant leaving his buddies in Company G. As a draftee, it had taken a long time for him to gain the acceptance of the Muskegon boys from G Company, but they had become his family. So when Quinn presented the idea, DiMaggio respectfully declined. There were times when he kicked himself for passing on the offer. On November 5 in Natunga, DiMaggio realized that had he accepted the invitation, he probably would have been aboard Quinn’s plane.

Jim Boice must have been devastated by Quinn’s death. Initially, they had both been outsiders in the 126th—Boice was an Indianan; Quinn was an Oklahoman, ten years his senior, who had fought in World War I and had been awarded the Silver Star and a Purple Heart. Both were family men. Boice had one son and Quinn had a daughter, June. Perhaps because of a similarity of circumstance, they developed a friendship, which is reflected in the messages they traded as Boice was making his way toward Buna.

On October 23, Quinn sent Boice a message that had a paternalistic quality: “You have done a grand job and we are all proud as hell of you.”

Two days later, on October 25, Quinn sent Boice another one: “My Birthday ninth November. Would like very much have tea with you in Buna that day. Good luck.” It was vintage Quinn—funny, encouraging.

Later that day, Boice responded, “Please have faith in us. We will lick [the] hell out of them.”

A few days later Boice received another message from Quinn, which Quinn asked him to read to the troops. The colonel wrote: A few weeks ago this force was assigned a mission described by many as “impossible.” You have advanced with your arms and equipment over the “impossible” Owen Stanley range. You have overcome almost unsurmountable obstacles. You have proven yourselves to be rough and rugged field soldiers of the highest order. Today I am especially proud of you.

Now comes the second phase of this “impossible” operation, the advance to contact, the attack and the destruction of the enemy. I know you are tired…but I also know that your morale is high and that your spirit of never say die is stronger than ever…I know you will advance boldly, destroy the enemy wherever you meet him and once again accomplish the “impossible.”

Yet despite the sense of loss Boice must have experienced when he learned of Quinn’s death, he mentions it only briefly in his diary: “Col. Quinn killed.” The entry says less perhaps about Boice and his relationship to Quinn than it does the nature of war. In the face of death, resignation is the only defense.

After the initial shock, Smith, too, reacted soberly to Quinn’s death. There was little time to mourn. He radioed Captain Keast at Laruni and ordered Father Stephen Dzienis sent forward to perform the burial ceremony.

Lutjens had just returned from the village of Pongani, where he and Art Edson had been directed to make contact with the 128th in order to get its radio frequency so that Smith could stay in touch with General Hanford MacNider and his coastal force. Upon arriving in Natunga, Lutjens noted that the salvage team pulled out “mashed bodies” with one hand and enjoyed undamaged fruitcake it had found among the wreckage with the other. For the minute or two it took the men to devour the cake, hunger trumped grief.

Affected perhaps by Quinn’s death, Art Edson felt the need to write his sweetheart, though he could not have known if the letter would even make it out of New Guinea.

Dearest Lois,

Just a few lines to let you know that I’m still alive and kicking. We are still in New Guinea.

Forever, Love Art

On the other side of the mountains, General Harding knew that the 32nd had just lost a good man and his “best regimental commander, and that by a wide margin.”

On November 8, the 126th held a memorial for Colonel Quinn in Port Moresby. The regimental chaplain presided over the service. “He is not present to lead the regiment,” the chaplain said, “but Larry Quinn marches on and will lead this regiment. What he put in you will not be lost in this war or after. But when you go, and you will go soon and you will go far, I am sure as I stand here that the spirit of Larry Quinn will go forward with you and join with you in making the name of ‘Les Terribles’ death in the eyes of our enemy.”

Chapter 11

F
EVER
R
IDGE

O
N NOVEMBER
6, 1942, the day after Colonel Quinn died in the plane crash, MacArthur moved his headquarters from Brisbane to Port Moresby, leaving behind his wife and son. Upon arriving in New Guinea, MacArthur settled into the comfortable Government House, which had been the residence of the colonial governor for the last fifty years. The house had been refurbished for his arrival. It was probably the only building on the entire island of New Guinea with modern plumbing. It was appointed with fine tropical furniture, hardwood floors, and even a library. MacArthur enjoyed a menu of fresh eggs, milk, salad, and meat. He also had a staff of nine native boys, who wore serving gloves and pressed white lap-laps decorated with blue stars and red stripes.

The house, which the soldiers referred to as the “Ivory Tower,” was situated in a grove of stately coconut palms on a grassy hill overlooking the port area. From its spacious veranda, adorned with bougainvillea, hibiscus, and pink frangipani, MacArthur could lounge in his silk dressing gown with a black dragon emblazoned on the back, enjoy the breeze, and admire his handiwork. He had ordered his chief engineer officer to transform the port into a first-rate base, and the officer had done just that.

Four days before leaving Australia, MacArthur established a tentative date for the Allied attack on the Buna coast, postponing it by two weeks from the original plan. The 128th Infantry Regiment, which had been waiting for orders to move out since arriving at Wanigela by plane, greeted the announcement with anger and frustration.

After arriving at Wanigela during the third week of October, the 128th had begun marching in the direction of Pongani. En route there, however, the regiment got mired in the vast swamps of the Musa River delta, which slowed its movement to a crawl. When it became obvious that the regiment could not continue its journey on foot, the men hiked back to Wanigela, where they were picked up and transported north to the village by a small flotilla of shallow-draft luggers, the only vessels MacArthur had at his disposal.

Pongani, roughly thirty miles southeast of Buna, was a sweltering, sun-beaten hellhole infested with sand fleas, flies, and mosquitoes. After setting up camp, the men waited for orders to move on Buna.

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 be airlifted to New Guinea’s north coast, wrote his wife a hurried letter:

Somewhere in New Guinea
Sunday Nite 10:45 PM.
November 8, 1942

My Lover:

Hello Mandy darling. I’m going to sit down here and dash off a letter…Things are moving fast right now and am taking time out to let you know that my thoughts are with you, the grandest and most wonderful person in my life…Don’t be surprised hun if there’ll be a little lull in my letters.

I’m ever so much in love with you…Until next time…

Lovingly Always, Sam

As the Allies were assembling their forces, MacArthur received news from Guadalcanal: Admiral Halsey’s fleet had destroyed an eleven-ship Japanese convoy carrying most of Japan’s reserve troops. It was now safe for Marine Corps troops, reinforced by the army, to begin their raid on the Japanese-held garrison. Admiral Halsey’s victory was a turning point in the war, one to which MacArthur, weighing the impact of the report from his secluded veranda, must have responded ambivalently. Though he no longer had to worry about a massive Japanese assault on New Guinea, he desperately wanted to beat the Marines to the punch and claim for himself the first American land victory in the South Pacific.

A few days later, General Harding issued the divisional plan of attack. The bulk of the 128th Infantry Regiment would advance on Buna from the east and southeast. One battalion would approach Cape Endaiadere, two and a half miles east of Buna Government Station (which the American army incorrectly called Buna Mission) via a coastal route. A second battalion would advance on Buna by way of
Siremi
(mistakenly called
Simemi
in military history accounts of the battle), a village located about three miles inland of Cape Endaiadere, while the 128th’s 2nd battalion would be held in reserve.

Though Major Smith’s Ghost Mountain boys were still a ways out, the plan was for them to advance on Buna by way of Bofu, at the headwaters of the Girua River, roughly twenty miles from the coast. West of the Girua River, the Australians would begin to move toward the coast.

Although they would soon be entering battle, none of the men were physically ready. The men of Major Smith’s Ghost Mountain Battalion were in Natunga, trying to recover their strength. The 128th did not have to endure the march over the mountains, but they were no better off. Then there were the Australians, who had pursued the Japanese from Ioribaiwa Ridge across the Owen Stanleys to the Kumusi River crossing. They were in no shape to fight either.

The men of regimental headquarters, the 126th’s 3rd Battalion and elements of its 1st Battalion, halfway through a twelve-day march from Pongani to Bofu, were suffering, too. William Hirashima, the regiment’s only second-generation Japanese-American (Nisei) soldier, remembers how rugged the trail was. Hirashima had been assigned to regimental headquarters as an S-2, specializing in intelligence work—captured documents and prisoner interrogation. “We were very disorganized,” he says.

Each of us started out with a minimum full pack, but by the time we got half-way there…our arms were down to a minimum. We had thrown our steel helmets away and spare ammunition…. By the time I was on the trail for three or four days most of my original equipment was gone. I had thrown it away. I kept a quarter of a pup tent, one blanket. My mess kit was down to just the pan…. I just had one big spoon…. It wasn’t just me; everybody was doing it…. Some of the people had thrown away most of their ammunition, down to perhaps two clips. So we were not really a battle prepared unit…. I was carrying a rifle, an M1. Then I was given a carbine because I had these weighty dictionaries to carry, too.

William Hirashima was born and raised in Santa Barbara County, California. His father emigrated to the United States during Japan’s rice crisis of the 1890s. Reaching Hawaii, he had worked as a cutter in the pineapple orchards. Later he left Hawaii and moved to the Santa Barbara area to work on the railroad. It was backbreaking labor even for a man accustomed to toiling in farm fields from sunup to sundown. After getting a job as a janitor at the Seaside Oil Company, he felt he was finally settled, and sent back to Japan for a bride. His son William was born in March 1920, the second of three brothers.

Hirashima grew up like any other kid in America. In fact, he was treated better than the Oklahomans who flooded California during the Depression. The Hirashimas tried their hardest to be a typical American family. Like many Japanese-Americans, they eschewed any association with Japan and Japanese culture. They attended July 4 parades and on Memorial Day went down to the town flagpole and set out flowers to commemorate the service of World War I veterans. In school, William recited the Pledge of Allegiance with conviction; America was his country. By the time he was a teenager, he was playing football and baseball, earning varsity letters in both sports.

It was not until he attended the University of California at Berkeley that he experienced any sort of racism. There, Japanese-Americans lived in segregated boarding houses and he and his friends were shunned by their “hakujin” (Caucasian) classmates.

Hirashima studied chemistry at Berkeley, but became disillusioned with the program when he realized there were few job opportunities for a Japanese-American. He was resigned to spending his life in the farm fields like the Issei—first generation Japanese-Americans—and Nisei he knew, and after dropping out, he started at the Salinas Vegetable Exchange as a lowly lettuce trimmer. He probably would have ended up working there for much of his life if not for the draft. In February 1941, much to his surprise, he received his notice. The general population of Japanese-Americans were considered 4-C, enemy aliens, and were not usually eligible for the draft.

A few weeks later he was on his way to Fort Lewis, Washington, where he was placed in the army, 15th Infantry, 3rd Division. Just over six months later he was sent to the Language School at the Presidio in San Francisco. The army needed translators. Though Hirashima’s knowledge of Japanese was basic at best, he was chosen to attend. At the Presidio, Nisei students drilled in Japanese night and day.

In the spring of 1942, Hirashima boarded a Liberty ship with eight other Nisei and a Marine unit. Like the soldiers of the 32nd Division, he did not even know where he was going.

The ship stopped in Auckland, New Zealand, and then continued on to Melbourne. By August, 1942, while the 32nd Division was training at Camp Tamborine, Hirashima was at Camp Indooroopilly, a short train ride from Brisbane, where he was refining his translation and prisoner interrogation skills.

Back in the United States, though, the tolerance that Hirashima had grown up with was a thing of the past. Thanks to President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, Hirashima’s parents and older brother were living in a horse stable in an internment camp (Tulare) between Sacramento and Fresno.