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

Morning Attack at Harakiri Gulch

by US War Department

Under the original plans for 6 July, the 3d Battalion of the 105th was responsible for the hillslopes along the coastal plain. Here, Company L had reached the edge of Harakiri Gulch the day before, and then had been stopped by strong Japanese resistance. On the morning of the 6th, with Company K fighting to move past the foot of the gulch on the plain, Company L had renewed its effort to cross the draw itself, near the lower end.

In view of experience gained on the previous day, Capt. Robert J. Spaulding planned carefully for what promised to be a most difficult attack. Narrow and canyon-like at the mouth, the draw forked into two smaller draws as it met the long hillslopes; the larger of the two ran south, still steep-sided, for 400 yards and then dwindled into a ravine that curved east around a plateau of rocky wastelands.

Near the mouth on the plain both sides of the draw presented steep rock faces, almost cliffs, 50 to 60 feet high. Enemy firing positions, dug in, or using caves on the steep eastern wall, could sweep the floor and the west side of the gulch from end to end. By grazing fire they could also control the crest of the nose over which Company L must attack, and make it difficult for Captain Spaulding's supporting weapons to get direct fields of fire or even observation. Artillery could not be used effectively to get at the enemy cliff positions without endangering Company L itself. Nevertheless, supporting fire was the key to any successful advance, and Spaulding proposed to get it in two ways.

He had asked for a platoon of tanks; these he planned to send down near the plain, around the nose of high ground on his side of the gulch, and up into the draw. Tanks had tried to work down the gulch from its upper end on 4 July and two had been knocked out. Spaulding thought approach from below, along the short trail, would give the tanks better ground, and that he could help them somewhat by covering fire.

His other device for building fire support involved use of the little secondary draw that ran beside Company L's position down into the main gulch; deep, curving, narrow, and covered with foliage, the route promised protection until it reached the floor of the main draw. Beyond that point, there was no solution to the problem of finding cover; the brush on the floor of the gulch would give no protection against plunging fire. But Captain Spaulding thought his 1st Platoon could get as far as the mouth of the ravine and there set up machine guns to control enemy positions along the gulch and on its opposite sides. Under covering fire from the machine guns and the tanks, Spaulding proposed to send his 2d Platoon straight down and across the gulch.

Timed to start with the attack in the plain below, Spaulding's effort began at 0700. His 1st Platoon crawled up over the edge and down into the tributary ravine without drawing any fire. Moving stealthily in single file along this narrow corridor, the platoon escaped detection until they reached its mouth. There they set up two light machine guns and began firing at the caves in the face of the opposite wall of Harakiri Gulch. Only a few bursts got away before the enemy began to retum the fire with .50 cal. and the 37 mm guns aboard the disabled American tanks in the gulch. (These were lost higher up the gulch in attack on 4 July.)

These tanks they had cleverly camouflaged. The fire drove L's machine gunners off their weapons, and when two men were brought up with rifle grenades in an effort to put the tanks out of action, both were seriously wounded.

The intense Japanese fire continued, and finally Tech/Sgt. Siegbert S. Heidelberger, in command of the platoon, went back to Captain Spaulding and described his situation. Inasmuch as he was no longer doing any good in the valley, the company commander ordered a withdrawal. Sergeant Heidelberger's platoon then laboriously made their way back up the ravine and climbed out to their original starting position. This futile attempt against the enemy had consumed most of the forenoon.

The effort to bring tank fire into play at the lower end of the gulch was equally unsuccessful. The tanks assigned to the 3d Battalion, 105th Infantry, consisted of two platoons of lights under the command of Lieutenant Dorey and 2d Lt. Gino Ganio. Ganio's platoon, which Company L expected to use, consisted of four lights instead of five, the state of tank casualties on Saipan having reduced almost the whole provisional tank battalion to skeleton platoons, scraped together from whatever was at hand.

Ganio's instructions on the morning of 6 July were not too explicit. He was to proceed up the coast road to Road Junction 2 and report to the 3d Battalion near the coconut grove. Delay in moving up to the front lines was caused by congestion of supply traffic on the narrow thoroughfare up the coast; when Ganio reached Road Junction 2, it was to find that no one knew exactly where the 3d Battalion CP really was. (Lt. Dorey, taking a different route, had arrived right on time. He was helped, to some extent, by knowing where he had left K Company on the preceding afternoon.)

After moving up the inland road haltingly for some little time, Ganio finally met Lieutenant Peyre of Company K on the road in front of the grove. At that time, the Company K commander was in the midst of his attempts to neutralize his right flank troubles, and Dorey had just reported that he was running low on ammunition. Peyre, thinking that these tanks of Ganio's had been sent up to take over while Dorey resupplied, tried to put the new platoon to work. He was about to give them targets when Captain Spaulding came down the hill looking for the vehicles that had been assigned to him. After a sharp argument between the two rifle company commanders, Spaulding finally convinced both Ganio and Peyre that the tanks were meant for him. He then took the platoon on up the hill and showed Ganio what he wanted done and where he wanted him to work. It was already nearly 1000.

Captain Spaulding had not changed his original plan. He told the tank platoon leader that he wanted him to go up the trail that forked left from the main road into the middle of the gulch, and take the enemy in the cliff face under fire. Ganio told Spaulding that unless he remained buttoned up he could not move into the area, on account of heavy small- arms fire, and that if he did go in buttoned up, his work would be of little use without men on the phones to call targets.

At this point Pfc. James R. Boyles volunteered to go along with the lead tank if the others would cover him. This was agreed upon and Ganio's tanks moved back down the road to the trail, made the turn around the end of the nose, and started to move up into the draw. Almost at once Boyles was shot and mortally wounded. For over half an hour Ganio worked to get him back out of the gulch, but by the time Boyles was brought back to the aid station he was dead.

Ganio now reorganized his tanks and decided to make a try at the gulch without any infantry help. Leaving the road again, his column had no sooner begun to nose up into the valley than three enemy soldiers jumped out of the bushes and clapped a magnetic mine onto the side of the third tank in line. The gunner in the vehicle behind shot down the three Japanese, but the damage had already been done. The mine exploded and the disabled tank slid into the ditch minus a track. Lieutenant Ganio, with the help of Lieutenant Dorey, whose vehicles had now returned, helped to evacuate the crew from the crippled tank; upon completion of that task, he again organized for a drive up into the valley.

Using one vehicle to cover the others, he managed to get well up into the gulch and sprayed the walls thoroughly but without noticeable effects. At the time of the explosion north of the valley, he withdrew to the mouth and the road, and while sitting there he began to receive fire from the guns of the two American tanks which the Japanese had taken over within the gulch. He withdrew altogether from the area.

Failure of the efforts to build up supporting fires had made impossible any direct attack by movement of infantry into the gulch. On the left of Spaulding's company front the 2d and 3d Platoons were behind the ridge, ready to take advantage of any break in the enemy fire. But no such chance came during the morning whenever a man showed his head at the crest, he immediately drew a heavy concentration of grazing fire that swept the length of the ridge line. As a result of the morning's trials, Spaulding and his platoon leaders were more convinced than ever that, until the enemy firing positions on the opposite side of the draw were neutralized, no attempt to get into the center of resistance would succeed.

Meanwhile, as a result of the change in Division's plans during the forenoon, the gulch promised to become a main zone in the 27th's battle, and on a more extended front.

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

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