The Fight on the Tanapag Plain
27th Division
6 July 1944

Change in Attack Plans

by US War Department

General Griner, upon hearing at 0915 of the change in divisional zones from Corps, had immediately notified his regimental commanders that there would be a new division order. Through the 5th of July, the main effort had been made on the left and had brought little result. The new division boundaries and objectives handed down by the Corps would have the effect of shifting the weight of the 27th's attack from left to right, as the axis of advance swung form northeast to due north. This change of direction involved pivoting on the left wing while the 165th Infantry pressed through the hills inland to reach the coastal plane. Some time would be required to mount the attack on the new axis, but the battalion commanders of the 165th reported their readiness by 1130. King Hour for the 27th Division's attack was then set for 1200, when the main effort would be made by the 165th Infantry and, on the edge of the hills, by the 3d Battalion of the 105th.

This plan involved some shifting in the units of the 105th, notably with respect to the 3d Battalion. Realizing that the Harakiri Gulch position was an extremely strong one and that Company L had experienced little success in penetrating it thus far, Lt. Col. Edward T. Braddt, in command of the 3d Battalion, decided to bolster his right flank for the main effort by inserting his reserve, Company I, on the right of his line, between L and the left wing company of the 165th Infantry.

With his reserve committed and the main effort of the 105th now in his zone of action, Colonel Bradt had asked that he be allowed to withdraw Company K from the line, to use on his right if such a move became necessary. Col. Leonard A. Bishop agreed to this, stipulating that when the emphasis of the attack changed from left to right, Major McCarthy and the 2d Battalion would assume responsibility for all of the Tanapag Plain zone. The 2d Battalion commander therefore ordered his Company G, which had previously been mopping up in the rear areas, to prepare to relieve Company K beyond the coconut grove at 1200. Peyre was then to withdraw Company K to the 3d Battalion CP in reserve, and be ready on call to reinforce the effort up on the hill to the right.

Pending the relief, Company K was to limit its action to capturing the knoll in front of the coconut grove. This assignment did not seem too difficult to accomplish in the two hours before noon. Lieutenant Peyre's men had been successful in keeping the Japanese away from their machine gun positions along the little ridge, and armored support would again be available. Lieutenant Dorey had returned with his tanks at approximately 1030, and the Company K commander discussed with him a plan for neutralizing the enemy fire both in Harakiri Gulch and along the cliffs.

Peyre had decided to send his right platoon, the 3d, out ahead to capture the rise, while the left platoon remained on the fringe of the grove, delivering covering fire. Dorey, with his tanks, was to move up the cross-island road, take the trail that led up into Harakiri Gulch, and go into the gulch delivering fire on the cliffs, thus neutralizing the enemy cave positions as much as possible.

With these plans laid, Company K made ready to move off in attack between 1045 and 1100. There followed a sequence of events in such rapid order that it was difficult for the men to keep them straight in recounting the action.

When Company K's 3d Platoon moved out, the men were under orders to cover the ground to the rise as rapidly as possible; here the red earth had been plowed, and there was not even the low grass present elsewhere on the coastal plain. With every man on his feet at the signal, the platoon jumped up from behind the road and began running at full speed across the open ground. The Japanese within Harakiri Gulch and from the cliffs along the axis of the advance had evidently been waiting for just such a move. Almost at once a deadly hail of small-arms and machine gun fire was laid across the whole space of open ground.

Most of the Company K men were forced to take to the earth almost at once, but one man, Pvt. Herman C. Patron, kept on running and managed to get all the way to the crest of the little knoll before he was hit through the chest by a bullet. Sgt. John A- Monaco, seeing Patron hit, got to his feet and ran out to where the wounded man lay. He was joined there a moment later by Tech/Sgt. Arthur A. Gilman. Together the two sergeants tried to get Patron back out of the fire, and within a few minutes had managed to drag him back behind the rest of the platoon. They called for an aid man, but while they waited Sergeant Monaco was shot and killed. When the aid man reached their side, he was wounded.

Meanwhile, Peyre, seeing the right platoon stalled, had ordered his left platoon to make a try for the rise, and this platoon now ventured out of the coconut grove, laying down covering fire as they came. The company commander had also directed that his light machine guns and one section of heavies from Company M should move forward with the advancing riflemen. Lieutenant Peyre had his orders to capture the rise, and was making every effort to do so.

The Japanese had picked this precise moment to launch a counterattack on their own part, in an effort to get back to the gun positions along the ditch before the American attack could reach them. The men of Company K could plainly see the enemy soldiers running down from the cliffs on paths that led to the ditch just behind the rise. Sergeant Gilman, who was a few yards from the knoll at the time, with Sergeant Monaco and the two wounded men, looked up to see two Japanese running directly towards him at full speed. Just exactly what happened next has never been established, but there was a terrific explosion not more than 50 yards from the little ridge.

Gilman saw the two leading Japanese fly up into the air. He described it later as a tremendous geyser of dirt and debris. Before he was knocked from his feet by the concussion, Gilman swears he saw parts of the first Japanese soldier's body flying at least a hundred feet in the air. It appears from all the testimony received that this explosion was caused when the leading Japanese inadvertently stepped on the horn of one of a series of large, spherical, sea mines that had been placed in the ground in this general area. Bits of the debris that fell within our lines consisted of parts of one of these mines, and demolition and mine-detector squads who worked in the area later found a minefield had been placed there.

Whatever the cause of this gigantic explosion, which evidently involved a number of heavy mines if not the whole minefield, its effect was devastating. Within the Japanese lines it created havoc. Crews were hurled away from their weapons, and the counterattack which had started was literally blown to pieces. For some time afterwards our troops could see random Japanese soldiers picking themselves up off the ground and wandering back up into the cliffs in a dazed manner. All firing from the enemy virtually ceased and, for over an hour afterwards, American troops wandered around in the open without having a shot fired at them.

Company K, which bore the brunt of the concussion on our side of the lines, did not suffer quite as much, although several freak accidents occurred. Nearly every man was blown from his feet. One soldier involuntarily squeezed the trigger on his gun and shot himself through the hand. Another man was hit twice by flying debris, with a distinct interval between the blows, and suffered a broken arm and a broken leg. Three men were wounded by fragments, and nearly all of the company were dazed and bewildered by the force of the blast. Reactions were confused and for a moment all organization was lost. Lieutenant Peyre, who had just called for artillery support a moment before, thought that the explosion was from our own artillery shells landing short. He consequently yelled for the men to get back to the edge of the grove to cover. One squad of the 2d Platoon, on the left, did not hear his order and remained sprawled out on the ground near the top of the rise. The machine gun squad from Company M, which had been displacing forward and had almost reached the top of the ridge when the explosion occurred, misunderstood the or-der, set up their machine gun, and then walked down off the hill, leaving it in plain view of the enemy while they waited for another explosion.

Figure 5. Japanese Molotov incendiary grenade

To add to all the confusion, Lieutenant Dorey's tanks just at this moment became involved in a fight in front of Harakiri Gulch. These vehicles had been slowly moving up in single file behind the infantry at the time of the explosion, and the blast shook up the men in the tanks quite severely. While they were trying to get their bearings in the disorder that followed, two Japanese soldiers ran out of the mouth of Harakiri Gulch, attached a magnetic mine to the lead tank, and threw a Molotov cocktail at another. Both vehicles were put out of action and Lieutenant Dorey hurriedly withdrew his remaining tanks. The crews of the disabled vehicles got out and "ran for it."

Lieutenant Peyre quickly took hold again in an effort to get his men back in hand. He soon realized that it was not our own artillery that had caused the explosion, and ordered his two platoons to recross the open ground and retake the rise that they had held so briefly. While the majority of the company were reorganizing, those men who had been left behind on the knoll came to, and ran back to rejoin the rest of the unit in the coconut grove.

In the midst of this reorganization Capt. Frank H. Olander of Company G came up to report his readiness to assume responsibility for the zone of action, and Lieutenant Dorey came down the road with his tanks from the hillside. Under the circumstances Lieutenant Peyre decided not to try to take the rise again, but to have Company G effect its relief in the relative security of the grove.

It was while the conferences were going on relative to the relief that everyone suddenly became conscious of the Company M machine gun sitting unattended on the top of the hill. The Japanese seemed to have discovered it at the same time, and the Company K men could see one or two enemy soldiers running along the base of the cliff toward it. Sergeant Gilman and one of his men, Pfc. Rayburn E. Harlan, made a mad dash for the rise, almost 150 yards away.

By hard running Private Harlan managed to get there first, dove behind the gun, and got off a burst at the Japanese who were almost on him. This burst killed both enemy soldiers, but in a moment or two Harlan himself was hit in the hands by enemy rifle fire; both he and Gilman, who had come up, had to try to find cover from concentrated fire. Another of Peyre's men was hit in the face by a random bullet.

In this situation, one of the Company M machine gunners, Pfc. Wong, commandeered one of Lieutenant Dorey's tanks and got aboard. From this exposed position he directed the vehicle out across the open ground to the man with the broken arm and leg and lifted him aboard. Then he very calmly walked over to the machine gun, picked it up and put it aboard the tank. As he finished this task, he himself received a serious head wound, but managed to make his way back to the safety of the grove along with Harlan and Gilman, beside the tank.

It was now nearly 1230 and Company K's line was still on the north edge of the coconut grove. The next hour was spent in relieving K with Company G. Lieutenant Peyre moved his men back to the battalion CP behind the grove and Captain Olander began to organize his company preparatory to making, in his turn, an assault on the disputed rise beyond the grove. As the morning's action ended on the Tanapag Plain, the 2d Battalion was taking over the whole zone as far as the edge of the hills. No appreciable advance had yet been made beyond the positions reached the day before.

More Fight on the Tanapag Plain 6 July 1944 27th Division

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