On April 28, the sun rose like any other morning and so did the Japanese. The enemy had to realize we were knocking them out like a fox cleaning out a henhouse. Still, they continued to be formidable. K Company 28th found that out for sure. Having discovered a number of barracks southwest of the escarpment, the soldiers set out to clean house. The result? The roof fell on them.
Lieutenant Albert Strand and thirty-six men immediately got nailed by gunfire from the barracks and the southern slope of the Maeda escarpment that the men called Sawtooth.
Strand yelled to fix bayonets and get ready for one hell of a fight.
Soldiers dropped to their knees and ducked behind a boulder or a fallen tree.
The lieutenant shouted to the men that their objective was to take that barracks. He pointed to the building nearest them and said they needed to capture that rockpile. The enemy wasn’t going to throw in the towel.
No one said anything, but the men prepared for the worst. Inching their way through the thick brush, the company kept firing at the barracks while the enemy fired back just as steadily. Finally, the men weren’t but yards from the building nearest them.
Strand said in a low voice that they were going to rush the side of the barracks. When he swung his arm forward, they were to run like hell right at it.
The Japanese fired a few more rounds and then stopped. Sounded like they might be reloading.
Strand shouted and rushed forward. The men followed.
The lieutenant knew that they’d be coming out quick. He lifted his rifle.
A Japanese soldier ran around the back of the barracks. One of the men fired and he fell backward. A couple more came through the open window, and then the barracks emptied out a group of them. Men were swinging their rifles forward like lances.
A couple of Japanese had long officer’s samurai swords that they swung like baseball bats. A swordsman caught one of our men across the throat and virtually decapitated him. Another soldier screamed and plunged his bayonet into the stomach of the attacking Japanese. The enemy screamed and grabbed his belly, dropping the samurai sword.
A soldier yelled to Lieutenant Strand and fired. Strand looked over his shoulder just as the enemy sank to his knees and dropped.
A Japanese came through the window opening and jumped on one of our men. Before the soldier could turn, the enemy plunged a bayonet into his back, pushed him to the ground, and stomped on his head. Before the Japanese could raise his rifle, a soldier caught him in the side of the head with the butt of his rifle. The Japanese bounced off the side of the barracks. The soldier rammed a trench knife into his heart and stabbed him twice before the Japanese could move.
The fight went back and forth for several minutes until the last Japanese had been killed. In the sudden quiet, a few of the men stood around with faces turning white, saying nothing. Others kept rubbing their blood-red hands and holding on to their helmets. Never had any of them seen such fierce hand-to-hand combat. Of the thirty-six K Company attackers, only twenty-four remained alive.
The walkie-talkie rang.
It was Colonel Daniel Nolan calling to check on how they were doing.
The report was about as bad as it gets. They had just got through going at the enemy with bayonets and trench blade knives. A really tough struggle, indeed!
Nolan asked slowly about what was next.
Lieutenant Strand said he could see more Japanese in front of them than he had men of his own. Still, Strand said he thought they could advance.
Nolan said God bless you and hung up.
The lieutenant told the men to hang on and take the other barracks.
The men dropped to their knees and started inching forward. They had barely turned the corner when Japanese appeared to be coming out of everywhere. The men fired constantly, and the enemy fell constantly. The exchange continued unabated, but after exchange upon exchange, it appeared there were a million Japanese to replace every fallen American.
The sergeant crawled next to Strand and told him they couldn’t stand this assault must longer because they were going to run out of bullets if the enemy didn’t overwhelm them first.
Strand nodded and rang up the walkie-talkie, calling Colonel Nolan.
He told the colonel there were just too many snakes in the grass. They had to back out of there. Could they drop smoke on them?
The colonel said it would take a few minutes, but it was on the way. Major Howard Miles would execute the order.
Strand hung up and told the men that smoke was on the way. As soon as the planes dropped the canisters, they were getting out of there.
The sergeant crawled away.
The roar of airplanes came even faster than Strand expected. Diving in and out, the Corsairs attacked the barracks and surrounded the area with a thick fog.
Strand ordered the men to get the wounded out first. “Keep firing back, then get the hell out of here just as we came in.”
In short order, the remnant of K Company beat it back through the bushes, carrying the wounded and dying. The smoke bombs provided adequate cover for the men to get out of the range of fire. When they reached the rear, Colonel Nolan and Major Miles were waiting.
Nolan congratulated them on putting up one hell of a fight. He wanted to know how many were left.
Strand shook his head. They were nearly wiped out and didn’t have a count on how many could still walk. They were near the bottom.
Colonel Nolan nodded and said he was sorry, so sorry. He guessed they would have to combine with I Company to have enough men to function.
Major Miles shrugged and said, “I doubt if we got seventy in a combined company.”
Nolan shook his head. “I know it’s a bad deal.”
The lieutenant saluted, looked down, and walked on.
For a moment Nolan watched him drag away. Then he said that Miles was one good man. A fine soldier.
* * *
During the morning, Captain Louis Reuter took the G Company on an exploratory mission. They could see ahead of them the entrance to a large cave. Reuter halted the men.
He took two of them to make a preliminary search. They needed to know what was in that cavern.
The men nodded and aimed their rifles at the cave. The three men cautiously inched their way forward. For whatever reason, no Japanese fired on them.
The captain instructed the two men to follow him. He would creep in first to see what the enemy was hiding in there.
Reuter cautiously slipped around the side of the entrance but to his surprise found no one inside. Looked like the locals had exited out the back door and taken a little stroll down for teatime.
The men kept moving slowly and cautiously down the passageway but found no one.
Then one of the soldiers pointed ahead at a slight beam of light.
The men crept closer. They found themselves in a large room that had been carved out of the rock. Three tunnels ran in different directions. A hole cut in one of the walls opened to the outside world.
Reuter was shocked to see that they had a complete view of the landing beaches and the terrain we had sweated blood getting across. They could study every move the army made.
The Japanese might have hidden an army in here, one soldier observed.
Another soldier had the feeling that they could have lived indefinitely in this den. Tunnels went every which way.
Reuter held up his hand and told them to listen.
One of the men leaned against the wall. The sound of gibberish echoed faintly from the other side.
Japanese were on the other side of that wall. It couldn’t be very thick if the Americans could hear them. The enemy had no idea they were there.
The soldiers recognized they were gonna have one hell of a job cleaning out these tunnels.
“Yeah, without them killing us,” Reuter added.