‘Stop any more Xmas hampers coming till we have cleared the position’
—General Herring to General Blamey, 21 December 1942
Christmas Eve was a violent night. It poured incessantly. Eichelberger couldn’t budge the Japanese at the Triangle, south of Buna Government Station. Many of his men had died in the attempt, and it was the pathos of their deaths that added to the American general’s depression.
The black dog had visited Eichelberger often in the past week. He reflected on recent events with near despair. The last bout started a few days previously, when another river blocked his path on the eastern Urbana front: the swift tidal river called Entrance Creek, fordable only by a narrow footbridge. Japanese guns on the opposite bank held the creek and the bridge in their sights.
Heavily weighted Americans troops couldn’t swim across. That they were willing to try was an intimation of their new-found courage, tested in circumstances that deeply touched their commander. So many were shot and drowned in the water, Eichelberger ordered the attempt to stop. He decided to try further downstream, at Government Gardens, where the river was shallower and the Japanese presence weaker.
The men needed a rope to drag their boats across, like punts. They were deliberating how best to do this when, on the night of 21 December, an impatient Lieutenant Edward Greene suddenly grabbed the end of a thick rope and, with several of his men, took to the water. He was shot almost instantly, along with others, who drowned. But someone made the opposite bank and secured the rope. All night, under covering fire, the Americans dragged their little dinghies across the river.
Others swam the creek; hundreds gained a foothold on the shore, forced their way into an enclave south of Government Station, and clung on. Meanwhile, the capture of Musita Island, with only slight enemy resistance, opened another flank for the final push to Government Station. Heavy artillery rolled over the little island in readiness for Eichelberger’s Christmas Eve onslaught.
The pathetic losses depressed Eichelberger more than the breakthrough cheered him. His men had prevailed. But his scorned troops had tried to swim an unfordable river under fire at night1—a nerve-shattering experience even for battle-hardened marines, Eichelberger reflected. On the 22nd their bodies were found bobbing in the stream, and his mind darkened. Depression began to eclipse his judgment.
We can see this thoughtful Teutonic general, in his crew cut and khakis, sitting in his tent clutching his cup of soup, studying his maps and sitreps, his mood swinging between hope and gloom. He expected good news on Christmas Eve. It didn’t come. Bad luck, poor reconnaissance, and misadventure dogged his Christmas Eve attack. Once again the Americans were stopped in their tracks, and driven into the mud, with heavy loss. The new commander of Urbana Force, Colonel McCreary, was seriously wounded. Hit in the back by shrapnel, he’d strapped himself to a tree and continued directing his men until he lost consciousness.
Herring was beginning to sound like the chattering monkey on Eichelberger’s shoulder. With his usual smugness, and from the safety of Dobodura, he told Blamey: ‘Eichelberger’s men didn’t do very well today, they didn’t succeed in taking out the triangle which is a preliminary to a successful attack on the coast…they found today [it] contained pillboxes…they should have found this out days ago. Today they rather milled about much to his disgust…’2
In these struggles, the courage of two American sergeants—Elmer Burr and Kenneth Gruennert—deserves a moment’s contemplation: Burr saved his unit’s commander by smothering a live grenade with his own body, killing himself. Gruennert charged a bunker, blew up the occupants, got wounded, dressed his own wound, refused to withdraw and attacked another bunker with grenades. Enemy snipers then riddled him. Both men won the Congressional Medal of Honor, America’s highest award for bravery.
Fraternisation, a brief cease-fire and the singing of hymns have marked Christmas during other wars. On the Western Front in the Great War carols were sung in the trenches; at Gallipoli, a day’s peace broke out while the dead were buried. Even at Stalingrad in 1942, the starving German 6th Army sang Stille Nacht, Heilige Nachte (Silent Night) in their frozen bunkers.3
Not on the Papuan beaches. Only the briefest flicker of recognition of the 1942nd anniversary of Christ’s birth interrupted the mayhem. Allied padres did hold services in the rear, with more enthusiasm than hope; soldiers tried to rally something of the memory of Christmases at home. For most, it was another day of slaughter. In fact, on Christmas Day, the war massively intensified at several places along the coast. Both sides launched air, mortar and artillery attacks.
Japanese soldiers vividly described the pounding they received. As Christmas approached, wrote one, ‘day after day the number of incoming shells increased greatly. Especially on Christmas Eve…The stutter of the surrounding machine-guns and the rate of fire increased enormously. In one night alone it must have exceeded 10,000 rounds.’4
On or near Christmas, another scrawled: ‘As the darkness lifted, yesterday’s jungle was no more, and the gaps through which the blue of the sky could be seen had increased tremendously. It would fit the situation to say that the shape of the mountain had changed.’5
Holed up at Giruwa, Private Wada Kiyoshi, a signalman, awoke to write: ‘25th December—Our mess area was blown to bits by enemy artillery fire during the morning…I suppose the enemy is not having much of a Christmas either. A handful of rice for supper.’6
On Boxing Day, he recorded the destruction of a Japanese field hospital: ‘…terrific artillery fire. The field hospital is the target…it is certainly a lamentable situation when everyone runs off and not a single person remains to take care of things. Can these men be called soldiers of Japan?’7
For their part, the Japanese launched a massive air and mortar barrage on Christmas morning. They meant to demoralise the Allies on their sacred day. The heavy air bombardment awoke Eichelberger at dawn on the Urbana front where he had gone forward to see the state of his troops; he came back severely rattled. That night enemy mortar shells shook his Christmas dinner—a cup of soup—out of his hand.8
There were gifts. The Australian troops received a packet of boiled sweets, or a ‘table-spoonful each of diced vegies’.9 The 18th Brigade sardonically applauded their ‘sumptuous dinner’ of bully beef and army biscuits, their normal fare. Christmas pudding was ‘some vile-tasting, lolly-coated Japanese fish balls’ salvaged from an enemy bunker.10
Some gifts were deeply resented. The few planes that landed at Popondetta on 20–21 December brought Christmas hampers for the Americans, at a time when the Australians were running short of ammunition. Herring politely appealed to Blamey to ‘stop any more Xmas hampers coming till we have cleared the position…’11
Elsewhere Christmas was a jolly occasion. At Port Moresby, Blamey and his staff prepared to tuck into a huge turkey; while MacArthur treated his loyal staffers to his favourite: a brace of duck. Blamey invited Herring to fly back for the gang nosh, writing with his usual sensitivity: ‘I do not know whether any of you are coming back to eat Xmas dinner with us, but would you let me know…? [We have] a considerable amount of Xmas fare on hand…this will include a turkey of about 10 lbs…It has been in the freezer for some time…’12
It was a very different day for Eichelberger, grimly clutching his cup of soup. The extreme casualty rate, his failure to defeat the enemy, and the sheer wretchedness of the war led him famously to tell MacArthur, on Christmas morning, ‘I think the low point of my life occurred yesterday.’13
He was wrong. The low point of his life actually occurred on 28 December. After days of tremendous losses—an entire company were wiped out—Eichelberger learnt that his troops were cut off in enemy territory. The news came in that the men couldn’t advance, and were suffering a relapse of severe battle shock.14 They were trapped somewhere in Government Gardens, beyond Entrance Creek, without relief. Their condition was ‘deplorable. The dead had not been buried. [The] wounded, bunched together…’15
‘I was thoroughly alarmed,’ Eichelberger recalled. ‘There was no way to evacuate our units…I decided to sleep an hour and then go forward. Tossing in my cot, there in the tropical darkness, I remembered my conversation with General MacArthur three weeks before on the verandah at Port Moresby.’16
The words, ‘take Buna or don’t come back alive’, were understandably resonant. Buna, Eichelberger feared, would go down as another American military disaster, like the Philippines. He would die with it. At this point he seemed to crack up. The trigger was the utter collapse of another attack from the island, on the 28th. It ended in utter chaos: the bridge adjoining the mainland collapsed, and troops fell into the sea; others simply got lost. Eichelberger ‘ranted and raved like a caged lion’, observed one colonel. He had indeed reached his nadir, and came very close to being relieved.
But then a remarkable thing happened: there was a startling turnaround. On the morning of the 28th, as yet unknown to Eichelberger, one Major Edmund Schroeder broke through to the US forces in Government Gardens, resupplied them and carried out the wounded. Reinforcements arrived. The effect on morale was inestimable; near lifeless men were reanimated. They turned on the encircling enemy, and secured the Gardens all the way to Entrance Creek. The Japanese in the hitherto impenetrable Triangle were themselves cut off from their northern HQ.
On the 28th, General Adachi, commander in Rabaul, acknowledged the sudden turn of events, and ordered the evacuation of the Triangle, which an American patrol found deserted later that day.
The war crackled on with a terrible momentum of its own. The retreating Japanese—from the west and south—were cornered in the tiny precinct of their HQ at Buna Government Station, with their backs to the sea. Two columns of Allied troops, from the east and south, bore down on them.
It was, in a word, over; but not without a series of last-ditch battles, in which Eichelberger and Wootten—American versus Australian—raced to win the laurels. Lives were expended in this puerile pursuit. On New Year’s Eve, for example, Eichelberger issued sudden orders that defied common sense—with disastrous results. Meanwhile Wootten’s brigade came crashing along the coast to Giropa Point, sweeping all before them. Wootten eventually prevailed.
At Buna HQ, the naval landing force commander, Colonel Yasuda Yoshitatsu, sent one of his last telegrams to Rabaul at 5.30 a.m. on 28 December: ‘Enemy’s concentric gunfire keeps destroying our positions one after another; our garrison troops have been continuingly counterattacking…[but] I have to admit that we will lose Buna probably today or tomorrow. [For] 40 days, both soldiers and civilian employees have made sincere efforts to defend this place…I pray for the prosperity of the Japanese Empire and everyone’s military fortune.’17
General Adachi tried to get supplies through from Rabaul by submarine—his only way of eluding Allied air bombardment. This failed, and in their anxiety the dying army threw abuse at the navy: ‘You landed the Army without…food and then cut off the supply. It’s like sending someone on a roof and taking away the ladder,’ remarked one officer.
Adachi declared that he himself would go to Buna, to lead his troops personally. This was preposterous, roughly equivalent, in the context, to Blamey announcing his intention to charge a bunker field. Adachi’s chief of staff, Tsutomu, tried to dissuade him: ‘Although one can sympathise with [Adachi’s] feelings…the influence of the GOC would be most important in subsequent operations.’18 To this, Adachi replied: ‘If I don’t go, who will save the Buna Detachment? I am not going to look on while my only son is killed in battle.’19 This unusual softening of severity at the top would only infect the troops, as the illusion of victory faded. Adachi was persuaded to change his mind; his only son died.
The New Year ushered in a final act of desperation. Yamagata, the most senior commander on the Papuan shore, received orders in late December to move along the coast to ‘rescue’ the Buna garrison. Somehow his very presence—and high rank—would raise the indomitable Japanese spirit. He and his subordinate Colonel Yazawa hatched a plan to evacuate 430 survivors at Buna. They never went. It was too late, and the envelopment, complete. The Allies overran Buna Government Station on New Year’s Day.
Yasuda’s men—then defending Buna HQ—were ordered to ‘retreat from Buna and relocate in Giruwa in order to defend Giruwa district’.20 The last two telegrams of the Yasuda Naval Landing Force were sent on 29 December 1942: ‘1515 hours (Outgoing telegram): Four enemy tanks appeared right around the HQ of the Special Landing Force and we are now engaging against them. Now, we are burning up all of the cryptographic documents.’ ‘1710 hours (Outgoing telegram): I am now destroying the communication device.’21
Yamamoto and Yasuda—respectively the most senior army and navy officers at Buna, and good friends despite the ill-will between the services—died in a manner befitting Japanese warriors. Theirs were spectacular exits. On New Year’s Day, as the Allied armies drew near, the two commanders waited in the Buna HQ bunker with their staff.
In a unique development, the Japanese army and navy—never friends—cooperated closely at Buna. Yamamoto, who succeeded Kusunose as commander of the 144th Regiment, had refused to retreat from Buna. In defiance of orders, he decided to stay with the survivors of Yasuda’s Naval Landing Force, who were not allowed to retreat. Then the situation reversed: Yasuda received orders to withdraw and Yamamoto received fresh instructions to stay at Buna until reinforcements arrived (they never did). It was Yasuda’s turn to defy orders, and help his friend. So the last army and navy troops at Buna prepared to die together.22
Australian grenades were exploding at the northern entrance of their bunker. ‘We put a light machine-gun at the entrance and shot the enemy infantry when they tried to come in,’ wrote Yamamoto’s surgeon. The rest gathered at the south-west entrance. Deep in their surrounded bunker, Yasuda joked to his men, ‘I hope we all survive tonight. Because if we die, our families would not be able to celebrate New Year’s day from now on.’
They greeted death—now inevitable—as the highest honour. Yamamoto smiled to his men, ‘I wish I could eat papaya before I die here.’ The unit’s surgeon replied, ‘Yes sir. Fleshy papaya chilled in the refrigerator would be very nice.’
Yamamoto, who had been wounded on the arm, handed out tobacco and lit the surgeon’s cigarette with his healthy arm. The surgeon thanked him: ‘Smoking tobacco in the smoke of hand grenades makes you feel better.’ Yamamoto replied, ‘It will be unnecessary soon.’23
A Japanese journalist, Hongo Hiroshi, reported Yasuda’s last moments, as told to him by a witness. On 2 January 1943, Yasuda leapt from the bunker with ten men brandishing swords and bayonets, and charged a group of Allied soldiers moving among the palm trees. The witness heard Yasuda’s familiar voice shouting, ‘Long live the Emperor and the Empire of Japan!!’ as he died. ‘Then, the enemy ceased fire and the same calmness came back.’24 Yasuda, who had wanted to study liberal arts at university, received a posthumous promotion to the rank of major-general.25
On the same day, Yamamoto emerged from his bunker. He stood with his deputy commander in front of the Australian troops. He shouted, ‘Now you are crowing over us. You wasted a great amount of equipment profusely and are about to outmuscle us. But we never wasted a single bullet during the fighting. At some stage, you know Japan will win the war and take over the world! Do not shoot me yet. Long live the Great Empire of Japan! Long live the Emperor! Now, I will show you how Japanese soldiers end their lives. Shoot me.’26
Not all the Japanese died fighting. Some fled to Sanananda, and the dreaded Giruwa hospital. A few sick and wounded reached Rabaul on ships that had pulled up at night on the Buna shore, but most did not survive. Suddenly finding themselves safe, a number of the badly wounded ‘passed away in their comrades’ arms and left their souls for an eternity on Buna Beach…’27
Hundreds plunged into the sea. All along the coast Japanese troops were seen clinging to boxes and logs, or rowing away in canoes and rafts. Allied machine-guns shot up the surf; Kittyhawks and Wirraways flew in low and strafed the swimming survivors—soon there were none.
The total Allied casualties at Buna were 2817 (excluding the sick)—of whom 620 were killed, 2065 wounded and 132 missing. The American 32nd Division sustained 1954 of these—353 killed, 1508 wounded and 93 missing. The 18th Brigade lost 267 dead and 557 wounded.
There were some 1400 Japanese troops buried at Buna. Thousands of the sick and wounded died, or killed themselves—the exact number is not known. One Japanese military historian described the Buna defeat as ‘the limit of [a] magnificent tragedy’.28
There were a handful of prisoners. The Australian forces took one prisoner on 2 January, and eight on New Year’s Day, six of whom were Chinese labourers, and technically already prisoners of the Japanese. Chang Yock, 24, a street hawker, had been captured in Hong Kong and employed in Papua carrying timber for bunkers. He accused the Japanese of starving Chinese coolies; he survived by stealing salt and soy sauce.29
Blamey and MacArthur received the warmest congratulations from their respective governments, and praised the ‘magnificent and prolonged effort’ of the troops. The commanders singled out Brigadier Wootten for high decoration, in recognition of his ‘soundness and steadiness in control’ and ‘valour and determination in execution’.
MacArthur personally congratulated Eichelberger. ‘Dear Bob,’ he wrote, ‘I am so glad that you were not injured in the fighting. I always feared that your incessant exposure might result fatally. With a hearty slap on the back, Most cordially, MacArthur.’30
The supreme commander later failed to correct the impression that he personally oversaw the victory at Buna, and allowed the idea to percolate that he was somehow involved in a front-line role. An understandably embittered Eichelberger wrote to his wife at the time: ‘The great hero went home without seeing Buna before, during or after the fight while permitting press articles from his GHQ to say he was leading his troops in battle.’31