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006 - Chapter 6 - The Coconut Grove Battle · Marine Operations in the Northern Solomons

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  Speaker 1: Chapter six of Top of the Latter Marine Operations in
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  Speaker 1: the Northern Solomons by John C. Chapin. This LibriVox recording
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  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. The Coconut Grove Battle on
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  Speaker 1: d plus ten, eleven November, a new operation order was
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  Speaker 1: issued continue the attack with a third Marine Division on
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  Speaker 1: the right east and the thirty seventh Infantry Division on
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  Speaker 1: the left west. An Army Marine Artillery group was assembled
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  Speaker 1: under iMac control to provide masked fire, and Marine air
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  Speaker 1: would be on call for close support. The first objective
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  Speaker 1: in the renewed push was to seize control of the
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  Speaker 1: critical junction of the new Minuma Trail and the East
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  Speaker 1: West Trail. On thirteen November, a company of the twenty
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  Speaker 1: first Marines let off the advance at zero eight hundred.
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  Speaker 1: At eleven hundred, it was ambushed by a sizeable enemy
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  Speaker 1: force concealed in a coconut palm grove near the trail junction.
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  Speaker 1: The Japanese had won the race to the crossroads, and
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  Speaker 1: the situation for the lead marine company soon became critical.
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  Speaker 1: The second battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Eustace R. Smoke, sent
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  Speaker 1: up his executive officer, Major Glenn File with the twelfth
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  Speaker 1: Marine's artillery observers. They reported the situation as all bad.
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  Speaker 1: Then Major Thistle was killed. Disdaining flank security, Smoke moved
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  Speaker 1: closer to the fight and fed in reinforcing companies. By
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  Speaker 1: now a lateral road across the front of the perimeter
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  Speaker 1: had been built. The next day, tanks were brought up
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  Speaker 1: and artillery registered around the battalion. Smoke also called in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen torpedo bombers. The reorganized riflemen lunched forward again in
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  Speaker 1: a renewed attack. The tanks proved an ineffective disaster, causing
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  Speaker 1: chaos at one point by firing on fellow Marines on
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  Speaker 1: their flank and running over several of their own men. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: the Japanese positions were overrun by the end of the day,
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  Speaker 1: with the enemy survivors driven off into a swamp. The
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  Speaker 1: Marines now commanded the junction of the two vital trails.
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  Speaker 1: As a result, the entire beachhead was able to spring
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  Speaker 1: forward one thousand to fifteen hundred yards, reaching inland defence
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  Speaker 1: Line D five thousand yards from the beach. One important
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  Speaker 1: result of this advance was that the two main airstrips
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  Speaker 1: could now be built the airfields would be the work
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  Speaker 1: of the sea Bees, the twenty fifth, fifty third, and
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  Speaker 1: seventy first Naval Construction Battalions. Seabees had landed on d
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  Speaker 1: Day with the assault waves of the third Marine Division
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  Speaker 1: to get ready at once to build roads, airfields and
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  Speaker 1: camp areas. They had a fighter strip operating at Toroquina
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  Speaker 1: by December. Always close to marines, the Seabees earned their
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  Speaker 1: merit in the eyes of the leather necks. Often Marines
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  Speaker 1: had to clear the way with fire so a Sebee
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  Speaker 1: could do his work. Many would recall the bold Sebee
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  Speaker 1: bulldozer driver covering a sputtering machine gun nest with his blade.
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  Speaker 1: Marines on the pivot trail later saw another determined bulldozer
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  Speaker 1: operator filling in holes in the tarmac of his burgeoning
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  Speaker 1: bomber strip as fast as Japanese artillery could tear it up.
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  Speaker 1: Any marine who returned from the dismal swamps towards the
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  Speaker 1: beach would retain the wonderment of the marine drive. It
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  Speaker 1: was a two lane Ashfald highway, complete with wide shoulders
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  Speaker 1: and drainage ditches. It lay across jungle so dense that
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  Speaker 1: the tired men had had to hack their way through
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  Speaker 1: it only a week or so before. Meanwhile, back on
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  Speaker 1: the beach, the US thiss Navy had been busy pouring
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  Speaker 1: in supplies and men. By d plus twelve, it had
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  Speaker 1: landed more than twenty three thousand cargo tons and nearly
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  Speaker 1: thirty four thousand men. Marine fighters overhead provided continuous cover
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  Speaker 1: from Japanese air attacks. The Marine third Defense Battalion was
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  Speaker 1: set up with long range radar and its anti aircraft
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  Speaker 1: guns to give further protection. This battalion also had long
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  Speaker 1: range one hundred fifty five millimeters guns that pounded Japanese
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  Speaker 1: attacks against the perimeter. By now, the thirty seventh Infantry
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  Speaker 1: Division on the left was on firm ground, facing scattered opposition,
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  Speaker 1: and able to make substantial advances. It was very different
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  Speaker 1: for the third Marine Division on the right. Lagoons and
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  Speaker 1: swamps were everywhere. The riflemen were in isolated, individual positions,
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  Speaker 1: little islands of men perched in what they sarcastically called
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  Speaker 1: dry swamp umps. This meant the water and or slimy
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  Speaker 1: mud was only shoe top deep, rather than up to
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  Speaker 1: their knees or waists, as it was all around them.
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  Speaker 1: This nightmare kind of terrain combined with heavy daily drenching rains,
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  Speaker 1: precluded digging foxholes, so their machine guns had to be
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  Speaker 1: lashed to tree trunks while the men huddled miserably in
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  Speaker 1: the water and mud. They carried little in their packs,
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  Speaker 1: except that a variety of pills was essential to stay
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  Speaker 1: in fighting shape in their oppressive, bug infested environment. Salt tablets,
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  Speaker 1: sulfur powder, aspirin, iodine, vitamins, atabrine tablets for suppressing malaria,
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  Speaker 1: and insect repellent. Colonel Fraser West, who at Bougainville commanded
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  Speaker 1: a company of the ninth Marines, was interviewed by monks
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  Speaker 1: forty five years later. He still remembered painfully what constantly
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  Speaker 1: living in the slime, timy swamp water did to the Marines.
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  Speaker 1: With almost no change of clothing, sand rubbing against the skin,
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  Speaker 1: stifling heat, and constant immersion in water, jungle rot was
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  Speaker 1: a pervasive problem. Men got it on their scalps, under
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  Speaker 1: their arms, in their genital areas, just all over. It
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  Speaker 1: was a miserable affliction, and in combat there was very
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  Speaker 1: little that could be done to alleviate it. The only
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  Speaker 1: thing you could do was with the jungle ulcers. I'd
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  Speaker 1: get the Corman to light a match on a razor blade,
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  Speaker 1: split the ulcer open, and squeeze sulf and nilamide powder
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  Speaker 1: in it. I must have had at one time thirty
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  Speaker 1: jungle ulcers on me. This was fairly typical. Corman painted
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  Speaker 1: many Marines with skin infections with tincture of methiolate or
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  Speaker 1: a potassium permanganate solution, so that they looked like the
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  Speaker 1: picks of long Ago who went into battle with their
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  Speaker 1: bodies daubed with blue wode. The Marines who had survived
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  Speaker 1: the first two weeks of the campaign were by now
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  Speaker 1: battle wise. They intuitively carried out their platoon tactics and
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  Speaker 1: jungle fighting, whether an offense or defense. They understood their
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  Speaker 1: enemies tactics, and all signs indicated that they were winning.
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  Speaker 1: Sidebars Navajo code talkers Marines who heard the urgent combat
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  Speaker 1: messages said Navajo sounded sometimes like gurgling water. Whatever the sound,
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  Speaker 1: the ancient tongue of an ancient warrior clan confused the Japanese.
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  Speaker 1: The Navajo code talkers were busily engaged on Bogainville and
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  Speaker 1: had already proved their worth on Guadalcanal. The Japanese could
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  Speaker 1: never fathom a language committed to sounds. Originally, there were
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  Speaker 1: many skeptics who disdained the use of the Navajo language
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  Speaker 1: as infeasible. Technical Sergeant Philip Johnston, who originally recommended the
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  Speaker 1: use of Navajo talkers as a means of safe voice
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  Speaker 1: transmissions in combat, convinced a hard headed colonel by a
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  Speaker 1: two minute Navajo dispatch encoding and decoding. The colonel then admitted,
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  Speaker 1: would have engaged his team well over an hour when
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  Speaker 1: the chips were down. Time was short, and the message
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  Speaker 1: was urgent. Navajos saved the day. Only Indians could talk
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  Speaker 1: directly into the radio mike without concern for security. They
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  Speaker 1: would read the message in English, absorb it mentally, then
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  Speaker 1: deliver the words in their native tongue direct, uncoded and quickly.
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  Speaker 1: You couldn't fault the Japanese. Even other Navajos who weren't
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  Speaker 1: code talkers couldn't understand the code talker's transmissions because they
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  Speaker 1: were in a code within the Navajo language. Cormans then
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  Speaker 1: one percent of battle casualties on Bogainville died of wounds
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  Speaker 1: after being brought to a field hospital, and during fifty
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  Speaker 1: operations conducted as the Battle of the Kormakino raged and
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  Speaker 1: bullets whipped through surgeons tents. Not a patient was lost.
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  Speaker 1: Those facts reflect the skill and dedication of the cormen,
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  Speaker 1: surgeons and litter bearers who performed in an environment of
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  Speaker 1: enormous difficulty. Throughout the fight for the perimeter, the field
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  Speaker 1: hospitals were shelled and shaken by bomb blasts even while
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  Speaker 1: surgical operations were being conducted. Every day there was rain
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  Speaker 1: and mud, and surgeons practiced their craft with mud to
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  Speaker 1: their shoelaces. Cormen were shot as they treated the wounded
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  Speaker 1: right at the battle scene. Others were shot as the
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  Speaker 1: Japanese ignored the International Red Cross emblem for ambulances and
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  Speaker 1: aid stations. Bogainville was the first time in combat for
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  Speaker 1: the corman assigned to the third Marine day. Two surgeons
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  Speaker 1: were with each battalion, and as in all other battles,
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  Speaker 1: a corman was with each platoon. Eight stations were as
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  Speaker 1: close as thirty to fifty yards behind the lines. The
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  Speaker 1: men from the division band were the litter bearers, always
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  Speaker 1: on the biting edge of combat. Many young Marines were
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  Speaker 1: not aware until combat just how close they would be
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  Speaker 1: to these cormen who wore the Marine uniform and who
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  Speaker 1: would undergo every hardship and trial of the men on
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  Speaker 1: the line. The corman's job required no commands. He was
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  Speaker 1: simply always there to patch up the wounded marine enough
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  Speaker 1: to have him survive and get to a field hospital.
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  Speaker 1: Naval officers seldom had command over the corman. He was
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  Speaker 1: responsible directly to the platoon, company and battalion to which
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  Speaker 1: he was assigned ashore on D Day with the invading troops.
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  Speaker 1: Pharmacists Mate second Class Andrew Bernard Laid remembered setting up
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  Speaker 1: his Third Marine's regimental aid station just Inland in the
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  Speaker 1: muck off the beach beside the c Medical Field Hospital. Later,
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  Speaker 1: as action intensified, Bernard saw fifteen to twenty wounded Marines
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  Speaker 1: waiting at the hospital for care and commented, this was
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  Speaker 1: when I noticed doctor Duncan Shepherd. The flaps of the
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  Speaker 1: hospital tent were open, and there was doctor Shephard operating away,
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  Speaker 1: so calm, so brave, so courageous, as though he was
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  Speaker 1: back in the Mayo Clinic where he had trained. On
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  Speaker 1: seven December, the Japanese attacked around the Coromokina. The official
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  Speaker 1: History of the Third Marine Division described the scene. The
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  Speaker 1: division hospital situated near the beach, was subjected to daily
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  Speaker 1: air raids and twice to artillery shelling. Company E of
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  Speaker 1: the third Medical Battalion, which was the Division Hospital under
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  Speaker 1: Commander R. R. Callaway, U. S. Navy, proved that delicate
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  Speaker 1: work could be carried on even in combat. During the battle,
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  Speaker 1: the field hospital was attacked bullets ripped through the protecting tent,
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  Speaker 1: seriously wounding a pharmacist's mate. Hellzapop and Ridge was the
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  Speaker 1: most intense and miserable of the battles for the Cormen
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  Speaker 1: of Bogainville. According to pharmacist's mate, first Class Carrol Garnett,
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  Speaker 1: he and three other Cormen were assigned to the forward
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  Speaker 1: aid station located at the top of that bloody ridge.
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  Speaker 1: The two battalion surgeons were considered indispensable and discouraged from
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  Speaker 1: taking undue risks. Regardless, Assistant Battalion Surgeon, Lieutenant Edmund A.
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  Speaker 1: Utkowitz U. S. Navy Reserve, insisted on joining the Corman
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  Speaker 1: at the forward station and remained there throughout the entire battle.
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  Speaker 1: The doctor and his four assistance were often in the open,
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  Speaker 1: exposed to fire and showered with the dust thrown up
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  Speaker 1: by mortar explosions. The corman's routine was stop the bleeding,
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  Speaker 1: apply self of powder and battle dressing, shoot sirrette of morphine,
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  Speaker 1: and administer plasma. The regular aid station was located at
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  Speaker 1: the bottom of the ridge, where the battalion surgeon, Lieutenant
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  Speaker 1: Commander Horace L. Wolf, U S. Navy Reserve, checked the
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  Speaker 1: wounded again before sending them off in an ambulance if available,
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  Speaker 1: to a better equipped station or a field hospital. Corman
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  Speaker 1: and marines were in deadly peril atop the ridge. Corman
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  Speaker 1: John A. Wetdelen described volunteers bringing in a wounded Paramarine
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  Speaker 1: who was still breathing when he and the medical team
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  Speaker 1: were hit anew by a shell. One Corman was killed,
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  Speaker 1: another badly wounded, and Weddelen was badly mauled by mortar fragments.
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  Speaker 1: Though he tried, he said to bandage myself. Doctor Wolf
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  Speaker 1: later painted a grim picture of the tauts circumstances under
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  Speaker 1: which the medics worked. Several of my brave Cormen were
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  Speaker 1: killed in this action. The regimental band musicians were the
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  Speaker 1: litter bearers. I still remember the terrible odor of our
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  Speaker 1: dead in the tropical heat. The smell pinched one's nostrils
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  Speaker 1: and clung to clothing. During combat in the swamps, about
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  Speaker 1: all one could do to try to purify water to
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  Speaker 1: drink was to put two drops of iodine solution in
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  Speaker 1: a canteen. Night was the worst when we could not
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  Speaker 1: evacuate our sick and wounded. But if one could get
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  Speaker 1: a ride to the airstrip on the jeep ambulance to
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  Speaker 1: put the sick and wounded on evacuation planes, one could
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  Speaker 1: see a female Navy or Army nurses for the first
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  Speaker 1: time in many months. End of Chapter six