Chapter 9
Lightning Joe Collins had a nightmare of his own on his hands up north along the King’s Road. The last ridge blocking the way to Tavua had been partially taken by the 1st Marines before they were relieved, but the Japanese still held Hill 1000, frowning over the road and bristling with Japanese dugouts and MG nests. It had to be taken to permit any meaningful advance beyond that point, and the Regiment tapped for the job was the 27th, the ‘Wolfhounds’ who had served in the Siberian Intervention and seen the Japanese up close when they occupied Vladivostok. They came marching in to the tune of the ‘Wolfhound March,’ with tawdry lyrics about the ladies in Manila being ever-readies who wore no teddies.
The ladies they would meet on Hill 1000 were of another sort, though they were ever ready as well. Major General Takeo Ito was a hard man who had fought in China, at Hong Kong, and as part of the invasion of Timor and Ambon. Even at rest, he would sit with his left hand on the haft of his Samurai sword, always ready. The world already knew what some of his troops had done in Hong Kong, and brutality was a hallmark of his command, with many instances where prisoners were summarily executed. So the men on that hill were accustomed to kicking their enemy around, and kicking them hard, and they would not give ground up once they dug into it, not for any reason in the face of the enemy.
It was the arrival of General Sano’s 38th Division that had finally brought the 1st Marines to a halt. They had beaten the Sakaguchi Detachment. Now came the Ito Detachment, first to arrive, with all the 228th Regiment and a battalion of the Yokosuka SNLF Naval Marines. Collins had sent in his Wolfhounds twice, thinking to get that hill quickly, and each time they were repulsed, the companies falling back as the Japanese hurled grenades down after them.
The hill itself was perfect for defense, with a series of five ridges extending east toward the enemy like gnarled fingers. Each finger joined the higher ground to create a stony knuckle, with clumps of thick trees on the western slope that allowed the enemy to move up to the hill unseen. At one point a steep cliff looked that way, frowning over the village of Korovou. From that height, the Japanese could see the approach and deployment of the entire 25th Division, the officers watching the columns moving along the winding coast road, which would then bend around the hill into Korovou before continuing due west to Tavua. They could call in their artillery, positioned further west near Tavua, and raise hell.
The air duel over the island was an ongoing thing, and occasionally one side or another would get a few planes into the action. But for the most part, it would be a contest of artillery, and the iron will of the men on either side. The hill was occupied by the Asano and Kamura Battalions of Ito’s 228th Regiment, with III Battalion under Nishimura on the lower ground to their right, in a saddle that linked to the next two fingers of that ridge system.
When the Wolfhounds attacked, they had two choices. They could either scale those fingers and advance along the ridge tops toward the knuckles, or move up the gullies between them instead. Either way, the attackers would be exposed to withering fire, so the Americans relied on the considerable power of their artillery to pound that hill for a full hour before the troops went in.
It wasn’t enough.
The Japanese had burrowed into the reverse slope, digging out stony hideouts and riding out the bombardment in self-made caves. Many crouched at the base of that tall cliff, watching the enemy rounds thunder overhead. Then, when the fire finally lifted, the officers would blow their trumpets, and the troops would climb up rope ladders to reach the top again and leap into dugouts and trenches that networked the crest of the hill. They had all their mortars pre-registered on the most likely approaches, and the casualties were heavy when the US tried them that morning.
For two days it went on like that, with the tanks and halftracks unable to get around that hill on the coast road, and the infantry unable to take it. But events further south would be the undoing of Ito’s defense. There, the 1st Marines had taken a much higher ridge extending up some 600 meters and overlooking the village of Davota about 7 kilometers south of Korovou. Unable to break Asano and Kamura on Hill 1000, Collins had deployed two of this three regiments in that sector, and now they made a concerted push off that high ground and down into the valley below.
That was where Tanaka’s 229th Regiment was holding, and it put up a stalwart defense, until the great weight of both US Regiments was simply too much to hold back. If Ito could have deployed his entire division, evening the odds, it was very likely that he would have stopped the Tropic Lightning that week. As it was, his 230th Regiment was deployed in reserve at M’ba, and just when he needed it, five battalions of US Marines were staging to attack the airfield.
When it came to the fight at hand, Edson and Carlson quickly put their differences aside. All that mattered now was the mission in front of them, and overcoming the enemy that stood between them and that airfield. Red Mike, the man with the carrot red hair, was leading in 1st Raiders ahead of the 2nd Marines. His men scouted the way, then waved the leathernecks through so they could jog west around the bend in the river and link up with Carlson. The 2nd Raiders had come way around that flank, eventually creeping up on the village of Solo and the small foot bridge there that crossed the river to the airfield.
By now, General Toshinari Shoji’s 230th Regiment had been alerted to the presence and approach of the enemy. Two battalions had been dispatched to try and stop the Marines from crossing the river locations scouted out by Edson’s Raiders, the third went for Solo, where it immediately got entangled with Carlson’s Battalion. There was a widely scattered firefight, with Carlson trying to edge to his left around the enemy defense. Then Edson’s men appeared on the trail leading right to the village from the south, and he was raring for a fight.
Two companies of Japanese infantry defended the village, and they had a 70mm Infantry gun emplaced in a sturdy stone building. Edson’s men tried suppressing it with their BARs, but it just kept firing. It was then that Mad Merrit the Morgue Master decided he needed some additional firepower, so he turned to his runner, Corporal Walter Burak. He was a tough, fast, running back in college, 190 pounts and all muscle.
“Wally, go find those elephant guns and get ‘em here on the double.”
An incoming round from that 70mm gun served to put a fine point on the urgency of the order, and Corporal Burak was off in a running crouch, weaving his way through a couple falling mortar rounds instead of opposing linebackers this time. Edson loved the lad, almost like a son to him, and he had personally trained him on map and compass work. But Burak did not need a map to find those Boys AT rifles. He knew Major Nickerson had one in C Company, which was right behind the front, and he soon found the ATG team and led the way back.
They had to come in on their bellies to get up to Edson’s position again, as the enemy fire had thickened considerably. Then one man crept forward, positioning the big rifle on its bipod and then bunching up a light pack stuffed with anything soft he could find to shield his right shoulder from the heavy recoil. The gun had a five round cartridge with bullets half an inch thick that could penetrate nearly an inch of steep at 100 yards. He sent all five rounds into the enemy gun position, smashing into the stone wall of that building. Something got through, because that big 70 was quieted just long enough for a rifle team to make a rush and get grenades on it. But then an enemy machinegun opened up, and Edson flinched when he saw two men down with wounds, one looking bad.