On the Munda front, meanwhile, the 169th and 172d Regiments were engaged in their limited offensive to hold the Japanese in position and secure more high ground from which to launch the corps offensive that was to start on 25 July. (See Map 10.)
Map 10: Capture of Munda Point
Jumbo Map: Capture of Munda Point (very slow: 238K)
The 172d Infantry
From 16 through 24 July the 172d Infantry expanded the Laiana beachhead. It moved west about six hundred yards and established a front line that ran for about fifteen hundred yards inland from the beach near Ilangana. During this period it had the support of tanks for the first time. Reconnaissance had revealed some trails in front of the 172d that the tanks could use. Therefore three M3 light tanks of the 9th Marine Defense Battalion were assigned to each of the 172d's battalions, and six riflemen were ordered to advance with and cover each tank.
In the zone of the 2d Battalion, 172d, on the beach, the tanks made good progress along a jeep trail on 16 July. But when they reached the trail's end, their rate of advance slowed to about one mile an hour as logs, stumps, and trees caused constant backing, towing, and rerouting. About seventy-five yards beyond the 2d Battalion's front lines, in an area where artillery fire had partly cleared the vegetation, the tanks sighted Japanese pillboxes. They deployed into a wedge formation, then fired 37- mm. high explosive shells. As this fire cut down the underbrush other pillboxes became visible. Japanese machine gunners manning positions in grass shacks opened fire, but were immediately blasted by canister from the tanks.
Such heavy fire then struck the tanks that they were forced to close their turret hatches, but they found the source of much of the fire-a machine gun position at the base of a banyan tree. The marines shot at this position for some time, but as they killed one gunner, his replacement would bound forward from the rear, man the gun, and keep shooting until he was killed. At length the tanks destroyed the gun, drove the surviving crew members into a nearby pillbox, pulled up close, and demolished three pillboxes with short-range fire. Troops of the 2d Battalion then moved forward to grenade the wreckage.
The three tanks operating with the 3d Battalion, to the right of the 2d, had less success, as the ridges in that zone were so steep that the tanks could not elevate or depress their guns enough to hit the enemy positions.
PILLBOX MADE OF COCONUT LOGS AND CORAL near Munda Airfield.
The destruction of the pillboxes near the shore gave the troops an opportunity to inspect the type of defenses they would have to overcome before they could take Munda. The pillboxes were not concrete, as had been feared, but were made of coconut logs and coral. From ten to twelve feet square, they had three or four layers of logs banked with six to eight feet of weathered coral.
About ten feet from floor to ceiling, they were dug into the earth so that only two or three feet of pillbox projected above the ground. Each had several firing slits for riflemen as well as a firing platform for a heavy machine gun. Outside were foxholes among banyan and mahogany trees. Trenches connected all positions, which were well camouflaged. Besides employing terrain contours for concealment, the Japanese used earth, grass, vines, palm fronds, and leaves to such good effect that the American soldiers might receive fire from a pillbox and still not be able to see it. Soldiers of the 43d Division remarked that the Japanese positions were easier to smell than see. As usual, the Americans reported the presence of many snipers in trees, but these reports had little basis in fact. No one ever seems to have actually seen one.
The tanks attacked again on the 17th, but lack of tank-infantry co-ordination hampered their efforts. The Marine tanks and the Army infantry had not trained together. Foot soldiers had no sure means of communicating with the tanks when they were closed up for action. Tank crews, with hatches closed, could see very little in the jungle. The tankers uttered the classic complaint that the riflemen did not give them proper support and protection, while the infantrymen claimed that the tanks did not always press forward to support them. Doubtless both accusations were based on truth.
Japanese antitank tactics, practically nonexistent at first, improved each day, for staff officers had hurried down from Rabaul to instruct Sasaki's men in methods of dealing with tanks. The Japanese used mines, flame throwers, Molotov cocktails, and fuzed charges of TNT against the tanks, but apparently had no antitank guns. After two tanks were permanently disabled on 17-18 July, General Griswold withdrew the other tanks from the front to permit repairs. He ordered the 9th Marine Defense Battalion tank commander to reconnolter for terrain suitable for tank action, and at the same time requested that the Tank Platoon of the ioth Marine Defense Battalion, then in the Russells, be sent to New Georgia.
Kelley Hill
In the 169th Infantry's zone farther north, the 3d Battalion's seizure of Reincke Ridge was being exploited. The 2d Battalion was able to capture the hill immediately north of Reincke Ridge, and on 15 July Maj. Joseph E. Zimmer, commanding the 1st Battalion, reconnoitered the high ground (Kelley Hill) four hundred yards southwest of Reincke Ridge in preparation for an attack.
At 0830 the next day, 16 July, the 155-mm. howitzers of the 136th Field Artillery Battalion and the 3d Battalion's mortars put fire on the objective. At the same time the 1st Battalion, fortified by hot coffee and doughnuts, passed through the 3d Battalion's lines and advanced to the attack. One platoon from C Company, carrying .30-caliber light machine guns, struck out down the west slope of Reincke Ridge and up the east slope of Kelley Hill, seized the crest, and set up machine guns to cover the advance of the battalion's main body, which was to envelop Kelley Hill from the south. The whole effort was bloodless. The battalion's advance elements climbed the hill without meeting any opposition. They found only empty pillboxes and abandoned foxholes.
By 1530 the entire battalion was on the ridge top. The men found they could look west and see the waters south of Munda Point, although the airfield was hidden from view. Because natives had formerly dug yam gardens on the ridge, there was an open area about 75 by 150 yards. Zimmer's men, using Japanese positions when possible, started building an all-round defense in the clearing. Automatic rifles, machine guns, and M 1903 and M 1 rifles were posted on the line, with mortars in supporting positions in rear.
There was a brush with a Japanese patrol at 1650, and before dark, when the emplacements were still incomplete, Japanese artillery and mortar fire struck the battalion. Fourteen men died, including 1st Lt. John R. Kelley, in whose memory the hill was named. just fifteen minutes after midnight part of the 3d Battalion, 229th Infantry, now commanded by Captain Kojima, assaulted the hill from positions on Horseshoe Hill. Beaten off, Kojima tried twice more against the right (north) and rear (east) but failed to dislodge Zimmer's battalion.
The 1st Battalion held to the ridge, but as day broke on 17 July the troops realized that their situation was not enviable. That the Japanese were still active was indicated by their resistance to an attempt by the 2d Battalion to drive into the draw between Reincke Ridge and Kelley Hill. This attempt was beaten back.
The 1st Battalion's rations and ammunition were running low; the battalion surgeon had no medical supplies. And when Japanese machine guns fired on a party carrying twenty wounded men to the rear and forced it to return west to Kelley Hill, the men of the battalion knew that they were virtually isolated. Fortunately the telephone line to the regimental command post was still operating, and Major Zimmer was able to keep Colonel Holland informed on his situation.
As the hot day wore on, the supply of water dwindled. Some men left their positions to drink from puddles in shell holes. Eight of those who thus exposed themselves were wounded by Japanese riflemen. In midafternoon succor came. A party of South Pacific Scouts accompanied by Capt. Dudley H. Burr, the regimental chaplain, escorted a supply party through to Kelley Hill. The party brought ammunition, rations, water, blood plasma, litters, and orders from Holland to hold the hill. The wounded were carried out. The unwounded on Kelley Hill, securely dug in, made ready to meet the Japanese night attack which they had reason to expect.
The Enemy Counterattacks
Up to now, Japanese ground troops had harried the Americans at night with local attacks, but had not attempted any large co- ordinated offensives. They had manned their defensive positions, fired at the American infantry, and had received bombs, shells, and infantry assaults without retaliating very actively. This quiescence, so different from enemy reactions during the Guadalcanal Campaign, puzzled the American commanders. General Sasaki was well aware that only offensive action would destroy the Allied forces on New Georgia, and he had brought the 13th Infantry to Munda from Kolombangara for that purpose.
Sasaki ordered the 13th, acting in concert with as much of the 229th Infantry as he could spare from the defenses east of Munda, to assemble on the upper reaches of the Barike, fall upon the Allied flank and rear, and destroy the whole force. (This order probably accounts for the withdrawal of part of the 229th from Kelley Hill.)
The 13th Infantry, having completed its march from Bairoko, assembled on the upper Barike on 15 July. It claims to have attacked the 43d Division's right flank on that date, a claim that is not supported by the 43d Division records. Two days later the 13th made ready to attack from the upper Barike.
In the afternoon of the 17th American patrols operating on the practically open right flank reported that an enemy column, 250-300 men strong, was moving eastward. A platoon from the 43d Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop went out to ambush the column but failed to intercept it. It was obvious that the Japanese had some sort of offensive action in mind.
It was equally obvious that the Allied forces in front of Munda were in a vulnerable position. Their right flank was in the air; the front line positions were exposed to envelopment from the north. The Japanese reinforcement route from Bairoko was still open, and 43d Division rear installations, strung out from, Zanana to the front, were unguarded except for local security detachments. Movement was slow along the Munda Trail; the track north from Laiana was not yet completed. It would thus be difficult to send speedy reinforcement to any beleaguered unit. A resolute, skillful attack by the 13th Infantry, such as Sasaki had planned, could destroy the 43d Division's rear installations, cut the line of communications from Zanana to the front, and if co-ordinated with the efforts of the 229th Infantry might surround the American regiments on the front lines.
Captain Kojima was ready to do his part. He had prepared another attack against Kelley Hill. At 0015, 18 July, Japanese machine guns north of Kelley opened fire. They covered the advance of riflemen who were attempting an assault against the west slope of Kelley Hill. The 1st Battalion fired at the Japanese infantry with all weapons that would bear, including two captured Japanese machine guns. Tracers from Kojima's machine guns revealed their location, and 3d and 1st Battalion mortar crews put their fire on the Japanese positions to the north.
Kojima's first attack failed. His men pulled back, regrouped, and tried again, this time from the north. They succeeded in seriously threatening the line. The broken ground on the north slope of Kelley Hill provided some cover from the fire of one of the machine guns that was supposed to sweep the area.
The Japanese, taking advantage of the dead space, crawled within grenade-throwing range of the northern line of the 1st Battalion. But mortar fire killed some of them and forced the others to withdraw. The 1st Battalion reported counting 102 Japanese bodies on the slopes of Kelley Hill after daybreak.
Pre-Dawn Attack
A predawn attack by the 2d Battalion, 229th Infantry, against the beach positions of the 3d Battalion, 103d Infantry, in the 172d's sector, was readily repulsed. (The 3d Battalion, 103d, was attached to the 172d Infantry.)
Elsewhere on the night of 17-18 July the Japanese caused alarms and uproar. They launched simultaneous raids against the engineer and medical bivouacs and the 4.1d Division command post at Zanana. Near one of the Barike bridges they ambushed a party taking wounded of the 16qth to the rear, then attacked the hasty perimeter set up by the party and killed several of the wounded.
The attacks against the engineer and medical bivouacs were easily beaten off, but at the command post the raiders' first onslaught carried them through the security detachment's perimeter and into the communication center where they ripped up telephone wires and damaged the switchboard before being chased off. The division artillery liaison officer, Capt. James Ruhlen, called for supporting fire from the 136th Field Artillery Battalion. Adjusting by sound, he put fire on a nearby hill where the Japanese were thought to be emplacing mortars and laid a tight box barrage around the command post. This fire was continued throughout the night. During the action Lt. Col. Elmer S. Watson, 43d Division G-3, was wounded. Maj. Sidney P. Marland, Jr., his assistant, took his place.
Shortly after receiving word of the attack, General Griswold ordered a battery of artillerymen from Kokorana to Zanana to protect the command post, and on his orders Colonel Baxter selected the 1st Battalion of his 148th Infantry to move from Rendova to Zanana at daybreak.
The 13th Infantry then withdrew to the north. It had caused a few casualties but accomplished very little, certainly not enough to justify its trip from Kolombangara. As might be expected, General Sasaki was disappointed. (Japanese records do not indicate just what the main body of the 13th actually did during the period 17-19 July. The various raids could not have been the work of the entire unit. The main body apparently never got into action at all. The 170 hungry survivors of Major Hara's Viru garrison may have caused some of the trouble to the Americans, for on 18 or 19 July they reached Munda after marching overland from Viru and infiltrating the American lines from the rear.)
Reincke Ridge, Kelley Hill, and Laiana beachhead remained in American hands.
More Griswold Takes Over
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