Cape Gloucester: The Green Inferno

by Bernard C. Nalty

n the early morning

of 26 December 1943,

Marines poised off

the coast of Japanese-held New Britain

could barely make out the milehigh bulk of Mount Talawe against

a sky growing light with the approach of dawn. Flame billowed

from the guns of American and

Australian cruisers and destroyers,

shattering the early morning calm.

The men of the 1st Marine Division, commanded by Major General William H. Rupertus, a veteran

of expeditionary duty in Haiti and

China and of the recently concluded Guadalcanal campaign,

steeled themselves as they waited

for daylight and the signal to assault the Yellow Beaches near Cape

Gloucester in the northwestern part

of the island. For 90 minutes, the

fire support ships blazed away, trying to neutralize whole areas rather

than destroy pinpoint targets, since

dense jungle concealed most of the

individual fortifications and supply

dumps. After the day dawned and

H-Hour drew near, Army airmen

joined the preliminary bombardment. Four-engine Consolidated

Liberator 13-24 bombers, flying so

high that the Marines offshore

could barely see them, dropped

500-pound bombs inland of the

beaches, scoring a hit on a fuel

dump at the Cape Gloucester airfield complex and igniting a fiery

geyser that leapt hundreds of feet

into the air. Twin-engine North

American Mitchell B-25 medium

bombers and Douglas Havoc A-20

light bombers, attacking from

lower altitude, pounced on the only

Japanese antiaircraft gun rash

enough to open fire.

The warships then shifted their

attention to the assault beaches,

and the landing craft carrying the

two battalions of Colonel Julian N.

Frisbie's 7th Marines started shoreward. An LCI [Landing Craft, Infantry] mounting multiple rocket

launchers took position on the

flank of the first wave bound for

each of the two beaches and unleashed a barrage intended to keep

the enemy pinned down after the

cruisers and destroyers shifted

their fire to avoid endangering the

assault troops. At 0746, the LCVPs

[Landing Craft, Vehicles and Personnell of the first wave bound for

Yellow Beach I grounded on a narrow strip of black sand that measured perhaps 500 yards from one

flank to the other, and the leading

elements of the 3d Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel

William K. Williams, started inland. Two minutes later, Lieutenant Colonel John E. Weber's 1st

Battalion, on the left of the other

unit, emerged on Yellow Beach 2,

separated from Yellow I by a thousand yards of jungle and embracing 700 yard.s of shoreline. Neither

battalion encountered organized

resistance. A smoke screen, which

later drifted across the beaches and

hampered the approach of later

waves of landing craft, blinded the

Japanese observers on Target Hill

overlooking the beachhead, and no

defenders manned the trenches

and log-and-earth bunkers that

might have raked the assault force

with fire.

The Yellow Beaches, on the east

coast of the broad peninsula that

culminated at Cape Gloucester, provided access to the main objective,

the two airfields at the northern tip

of the cape. By capturing this airOn the Cover: A Marine patrol crosses a

flooded stream and probes for the enemy in the

forests of New Britain. Department of Defense (LISMC) photo 72290

At left: On 26 December 1943, Marines

wade ashore from beached LSTs passing

through a heavy surf to a narrow beach of

black sand. Inland, beyond a curtain of undergrowth, lie the swamp forest and the Japanese

defenders. Department of Defense (USMC)

photo 68998
Major General William H. Rupertus

ajor General William H.

Rupertus, who commanded the 1st Marine

Division on New Britain, was born

at Washington, D.C., on 14 November 1889 and in June 1913 graduated from the U.S. Revenue Cutter

Service School of instruction. Instead of pursuing a career in this

precursor of the U.S. Coast Guard,

he accepted appointment as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps.

A vigorous advocate of rifle marksmanship throughout his career, he

became a member of the Marine

Corps Rifle Team in 1915, two years

after entering the service, and won

two major matches. During World

War I, he commanded the Marine

detachment on the USS Florida, assigned to the British Grand fleet.

Between the World Wars, he

served in a variety of assignments.

In 1919, he joined the Provisional

Marine Brigade at Port-au-Prince,

Haiti, subsequently becoming inspector of constabulary with the

Marine-trained gendarmerie and finally chief of the Port-au-Prince police force. Rupertus graduated in

June 1926 from the Army Command and General Staff College at

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and in

January of the following year became Inspector of Target Practice

for the Marine Corps. He had two

tours of duty in China and commanded a battalion of the 4th

Marines in Shanghai when the

Japanese attacked the city's Chinese defenders in 1937.

During the Guadalcanal campaign, as a brigadier general, he

was assistant division commander,

1st Marine Division, personally selected for the post by Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift, the

division commander, whom he succeeded when Vandegrift left the division in July 1943. Major General

Department of Defense (USMC) photo 69010

MajGen William H. Rupertus, Cointnanding General, 1st Marine Division,

reads a message of congratulation after

the capture of Airfield No. 2 at Cape

Gloucester, New Britain.

Rupertus led the division on New

Britain and at Peleliu. He died of a

heart attack at Washington, D.C.,

on 25 March 1945, and did not see

the surrender of Japan, which he

had done so much to bring about.

field complex, the reinforced 1st

Marine Division, designated the

Backhander Task Force, would enable Allied airmen to intensify their

attack on the Japanese fortress of

Rabaul, roughly 300 miles away at

the northeastern extremity of New

Britain. Although the caplure of the

Yellow Beaches held the key to the

New Britain campaign, two subsidiary landings also took place: the

first on 15 December at Cape

Merkus on Arawe Bay along the

south coast; and the second on DDay, 26 December, at Green Beach

on the northwest coast opposite the

2

main landing sites.

The first subsidiary landing took

place on 15 December 1943 at distant Cape Merkus, across the

Arawe channel from the islet of

Arawe. Although it had a limited

purpose—disrupting the movement

of motorized barges and other

small craft that moved men and

supplies along the southern coast of

New Britain and diverting attention

from Cape Gloucester—it neverthe-
less encountered stiff resistance.

Marine amphibian tractor crews

used both the new, armored Buffalo

and the older, slower, and more vulnerable Alligator to carry soldiers of

the 112th Cavalry, who made the

main landings on Orange Beach at

the western edge of Cape Merkus.

Fire from the destroyer USS Conynghrnn, supplemented by rocketequipped DUKWs and a submarine

chaser that doubled as a control

craft, and a last-minute bombing by

B-25s silenced the beach defenses

and enabled the Buffaloes to crush

the surviving Japanese machine

guns that survived the naval and

aerial bombardment. Less successful

were two diversionary landings by

soldiers paddling ashore in rubber

boats. Savage fire forced one group

to turn back short of its objective

east of Orange Beach, but the other

gained a lodgment on Pilelo Island

and killed the handful of Japanese

found there. An enemy airman had

reported that the assault force was

approaching Cape Merkus, and

fighters and bombers from Rabaul

attacked within two hours of the

landing. Sporadic air strikes continued throughout December, although

with diminishing ferocity, and the

Japanese shifted troops to meet the

threat in the south.

The other secondary landing

took place on the morning of 26 December. The 1,500-man Stoneface

Group—designated Battalion Landing Team 21 and built around the

2d Battalion, 1st Marines, under

Lieutenant Colonel James M. Masters, Sr.—started toward Green

Beach, supported by 5-inch gunfire

from the American destroyers Reid

and Smith. LCMs [Landing Craft,

Medium] carried DUKW amphibian trucks, driven by soldiers and

fitted with rocket launchers. The

DUKWs opened fire from the land3

ing craft as the assault force approached the beach, performing the

same function as the rocket-firing

LCIs at the Yellow Beaches on the

opposite side of the peninsula. The

first wave landed at 0748, with two

others following it ashore. The

Marines encountered no opposition

as they carved out a beachhead

1,200 yards wide and extending 500

yards inland. The Stoneface Group

had the mission of severing the

coastal trail that passed just west of

Mount Talawe, thus preventing the

passage of reinforcements to the

Cape Gloucester airfields.

The trail net proved difficult to

find and follow. Villagers cleared

garden plots, tilled them until the

jungle reclaimed them, and then

abandoned the land and moved on,

leaving a maze of trails, some faint

and others fresh, that led nowhere.

The Japanese were slow, however,

to take advantage of the confusion
caused by the tangle of paths. Not

until the early hours of 30 December, did the enemy attack the Green

Beach force. Taking advantage of

heavy rain that muffled sounds and

reduced visibility, the Japanese

closed with the Marines, who called

down mortar fire within 15 yards of

their defensive wire. A battery of

the 11th Marines, reorganized as an

infantry unit because the cannoneers could not find suitable positions for their 75mm howitzers,

shored up the defenses. One Marine

in particular, Gunnery Sergeant

Guiseppe Guilano, Jr., seemed to

materialize at critical moments, firing a light machine gun from the

hip; his heroism earned him the

Navy Cross. Some of the Japanese

succeeded in penetrating the position, but a counterattack led by First

Lieutenant Jim G. Paulos of Company G killed them or drove them

off. The savage fighting cost Combat Team 21 six Marines killed and

17 wounded; at least 89 Japanese

perished, and five surrendered. On

11 January 1944, the reinforced battalion set out to rejoin the division,

the troops moving overland, the

heavy equipment and the wounded

traveling in landing craft.

After the fierce battles at Guadalcanal in the South Pacific Area, the

1st Marine Division underwent rehabilitation in Australia, which lay

within General MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area. Once the division

had recovered from the ordeal of

the Solomon Islands fighting, it

gave MacArthur a trained amphibious unit that he desperately needed

to fulfill his ambitions for the capture of Rabaul. Theoretically, the 1st

Marine Division was subordinate to

General Sir Thomas Blamey, the

Australian officer in command of

the Allied Land Forces, and

Blamey's nominal subordinate,

Lieutenant General Walter Kreuger,

of maneuver involving Army airborne troops.

commanding the Sixth U.S. Army.

But in actual practice, MacArthur

bypassed Blamey and dealt directly

with Kreuger.

When the 1st Marine Division became available to MacArthur, he

still intended to seize Rabaul and

break the back of Japanese resistance in the region. Always concerned about air cover for his amphibious operations, MacArthur

planned to use the Marines to capture the airfields at Cape Gloucester.

Aircraft based there would then

support the division when, after a

brief period of recuperation, it attacked Rabaul. The decision to bypass Rabaul eliminated the landings

there, but the Marines would nevertheless seize the Cape Gloucester

airfields, which seemed essential for

neutralizing the base.

The initial concept of operations,

which called for the conquest of

Department of Defense (usMc) photo 75882 During the planning of the New Britain operation, Gen Douglas MacArthur, right, in

command of the Southwest Pacific Area, confers with LtGen Walter Kreuger, left, Ca,,,-

manding General, Sixth U.S. Army, and MajGen Rupertus, whose Marines will assault

the island. At such a meeting, Col Edwin A. Pollock, operations officer of the 1st Marine

Division, advised MacArthur of the opposition of the Marine leaders to a complex scheme

4
western New Britain preliminary to

storming Rabaul, split the 1st Marine Division, sending Combat

Team A (the 5th Marines, reinforced, less one battalion in reserve)

against Gasmata on the southern

coast of the island, while Combat

Team C (the 7th Marines, reinforced) seized a beachhead near the

principal objective, the airfields on

Cape Gloucester. The Army's 503d

Parachute Infantry would exploit

the Cape Gloucester beachhead,

while Combat Team B (the reinforced 1st Marines) provided a reserve for the operation.

Revisions came swiftly, and by

late October 1943 the plan no longer

mentioned capturing Rabaul, tacit

acceptance of the modified Allied

strategy and also satisfied an objection raised by General Rupertus. The

division commander had protested

splitting Combat Team C, and

Kreuger agreed to employ all three

battalions for the main assault, substituting a battalion from Combat

Team B, the 1st Marines, for the

landing on the west coast. The airborne landing at Cape Gloucester remained in the plan, however, even

though Rupertus had warned that

bad weather could delay the drop

and jeopardize the Marine battalions

already fighting ashore. The altered

version earmarked Army troops for

the landing on the southern coast,

which Kreuger's staff shifted from

Gasmata to Arawe, a site closer to

Allied airfields and farther from

Rabaul with its troops and aircraft.

Although Combat Team B would

put one battalion ashore southwest

of the airfields, the remaining two

battalions of the 1st Marines were to

follow up the assault on Cape

Gloucester by Combat Team C. The

division reserve, Combat Team A,

might employ elements of the 5th

Marines to reinforce the Cape

Gloucester landings or conduct operations against the offshore islands

west of New Britain.

During a routine briefing on 14

December, just one day before the

landings at Arawe, MacArthur offhandedly asked how the Marines

felt about the scheme of maneuver

at Cape Gloucester. Colonel Edwin

A. Pollock, the division's operations

officer, seized the opportunity and

declared that the Marines objected

to the plan because it depended on a

rapid advance inland by a single reinforced regiment to prevent heavy

losses among the lightly armed

paratroops. Better, he believed, to

strengthen the amphibious forces

than to try for an aerial envelopment that might fail or be delayed

by the weather. Although he made

no comment at the lime, MacArthur

may well have heeded, what Poliock

said; whatever the reason, Kreuger's

staff eliminated the airborne portion, directed the two battalions of

the 1st Marines still with Combat

Team B to land immediately after

the assault waves, sustaining the

momentum of their attack, and

alerted the division reserve to provide further reinforcement.

A mixture of combat and service

troops operated in western New

Britain. The 1st and 8th Shipping

Regiments used motorized barges to

shuttle troops and cargo along the

coast from Rabaul to Cape Merkus,

Cape Gloucester, and across

Dampier Strait to Rooke Island. For

longer movements, for example to

New Guinea, the 5th Sea Transport

Battalion manned a fleet of trawlers

and schooners, supplemented by

destroyers of the Imperial Japanese

Navy when speed seemed essential. The troops actually defending

western New Britain included the

Matsuda Force, established in September 1943 under the command of

Major General Iwao Matsuda, a

specialist in military transportation,

5

who nevertheless had commanded

an infantry regiment in Manchuria.

When he arrived on New Britain in

February of that year, Matsuda

took over the 4th Shipping Command, an administrative headquarters that provided staff officers for

the Matsuda Force. His principal

combat units were the understrength 65th Infantry Brigade—consisting of the 141st Infantry, battletested in the conquest of the

Philippines, plus artillery and antiaircraft units—and those components of the 51st Division not committed to the unsuccessful, defense

of New Guinea. Matsuda established the headquarters for his

jury-rigged force near Kalingi,

along the coastal trail northwest of

Mount Talawe, within five miles of

the Cape Gloucester airfields, but

the location would change to reflect

the tactical situation.

As the year 1943 wore on, the Allied threat to New Britain increased.

Consequently, General Hitoshi Imamura, who commanded the Eighth

Area Army from a headquarters at

Rabaul, assigned the Matsuda Force

to the 17th Division, under Lieutenant General Yasushi Sakai, recently arrived from Shanghai. Four

convoys were to have carried

Sakai's division, but the second and

third lost one ship to submarine torpedoes and another to a mine, while

air attack damaged a third. Because

of these losses, which claimed some

1,200 lives, the last convoy did not

sail, depriving the division of more

than 3,000 replacements and service

troops. Sakai deployed the best of

his forces to western New Britain,

entrusting them to Matsuda's tactical command.

The landings at Cape Merkus in

mid-December caused Matsuda to

shift his troops to meet the threat,

but this redeployment did not account for the lack of resistance at
the Yellow Beaches. The Japanese

general, familiar with the terrain of

western New Britain, did not believe that the Americans would

storm these strips of sand extending

only a few yards inland and backed

by swamp. Matsuda might have

thought differently had he seen the

American maps, which labeled the

area beyond the beaches as "damp

flat," even though aerial photographs taken after preliminary air

strikes had revealed no shadow

within the bomb craters, evidence

of a water level high enough to fill

these depressions to the brim. Since

the airfields were the obvious prize,

Matsuda did not believe that the

Marines would plunge into the

muck and risk becoming bogged

down short of their goal.

Besides forfeiting the immediate

advantage of opposing the assault

force at the water's edge, Matsuda's

troops suffered the long-term, indirect effects of the erosion of Japanese

fortunes that began at Guadalcanal

and on New Guinea and continued

at New Georgia and Bougainville.

The Allies, in addition, dominated

the skies over New Britain, blunting

the air attacks on the Cape Merkus

beachhead and bombing almost at

will throughout the island. Although

air strikes caused little measurable

damage, save at Rabaul, they demoralized the defenders, who already suffered shortages of supplies

and medicine because of air and

submarine attacks on seagoing convoys and coastal shipping. An inadequate network of primitive trails,

which tended to hug the coastline,

increased Matsuda.'s dependence on

barges, but this traffic, hampered by

the American capture of Cape

Merkus, proved vulnerable to aircraft and later to torpedo craft and

improvised gunboats.

The two battalions that landed

on the Yellow Beaches—Weber's on

the left and Williams's on the

right—crossed the sands in a few

strides, and plunged through a wall

of undergrowth into the damp flat,

where a Marine might be slogging

through knee-deep mud, step into a

hole, and end up, as one on them

said, "damp up to your neck." A

counterattack delivered as the assault waves wallowed through the

damp flat might have inflicted severe casualties, but Matsuda lacked

the vehicles or roads to shift his

troops in time to exploit the terrain.

Although immobile on the ground,

the Japanese retaliated by air.

American radar detected a flight of

enemy aircraft approaching from

Rabaul; Army Air Forces P-38s intercepted, but a few Japanese

bombers evaded the fighters, sank

the destroyer Brownson with two direct hits, and damaged another.

The first enemy bombers arrived

as a squadron of Army B-25s flew

over the LSTs [Landing Ships, Tank]

en route to attack targets at Borgen

Bay south of the Yellow Beaches.

Gunners on board the ships opened

fire at the aircraft milling overhead,

mistaking friend for foe, downing

two American bombers, and damaging two others. The survivors,

shaken by the experience, dropped

their bombs too soon, hitting the

artillery positions of the 11th

Marines at the left flank of Yellow

Beach 1, killing one and wounding

14 others. A battalion commander

in the artillery regiment recalled

"trying to dig a hole with my

nose," as the bombs exploded, "trying to get down into the ground

just a little bit further."

Oepartrnent of Oefense (usMc) photo 72833

Marines, almost invisible amid the undergrowth, advance through the swamp forest of

New Britain, optimistically called damp flat on the maps they used.

6
By the time of the air action on

the afternoon of D-Day, the 1st

Marine Division had already established a beachhead. The assault

battalions of the 7th Marines initially pushed ahead, capturing

Target Hill on the left flank, and

then paused to await reinforcements. During the day, two more

battalions arrived. The 3d Battalion, 1st Marines—designated

Landing Team 31 and led by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph E Hankins,

a Reserve officer who also was a

crack shooter—came ashore at

0815 on Yellow Beach 1, passed

through the 3d Battalion, 7th

Marines, and veered to the northwest to lead the way toward the

airfields. By 0845, the 2d Battalion,

7th Marines, under Lieutenant

Colonel Odell M. Conoley, landed

and began wading through the

damp flat to take its place between

the regiment's 1st and 3d Battalions as the beachhead expanded.

The next infantry unit, the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, reached Yellow

Beach 1 at 1300 to join that regiment's 3d Battalion, commanded

by Hankins, in advancing on the

airfields. The 11th Marines, despite

the accidental bombing, set up its

artillery, an operation in which the

amphibian tractor played a vital

part. Some of the tractors brought

lightweight 75mm howitzers from

the LSTs directly to the battery firing positions; others broke trail

through the undergrowth for trac7

tors pulling the heavier 105mm

weapons.

Meanwhile, Army trucks loaded

with supplies roiled ashore from the

LSTs. Logistics plans called for these

vehicles to move forward and function as mobile supply dumps, but

the damp flat proved impassable by

wheeled vehicles, and the drivers

tended to abandon the trucks to

avoid being left behind when the

shipping moved out, hurried along

by the threat from Japanese

bombers. Ultimately, Marines had to

build roads, corduroying them with

logs when necessary, or shift the

cargo to amphibian tractors. Despite

careful planning and hard work on

D-Day, the convoy sailed with about

100 tons of supplies still on board.
While reinforcements and cargo

crossed the beach, the Marines advancing inland encountered the first

serious Japanese resistance. Shortly

after 1000 on 26 December, Hankins's 3d Battalion, 1st Marines,

pushed ahead, advancing in a column of companies because a

swamp on the left narrowed the

frontage. Fire from camouflaged

bunkers killed Captain Joseph A.

Terzi, commander of Company K,

posthumously awarded the Navy

Cross for heroism while leading the

attack, and his executive officer,

Captain Philip A. Wilheit. The

sturdy bunkers proved impervious

to bazooka rockets, which failed to

detonate in the soft earth covering

the structures, and to fire from

37mm guns, which could not penetrate the logs protecting the occupants. An Alligator that had delivered supplies for Company K fried

to crush one of the bunkers but became wedged between two trees.

Japanese riflemen burst from cover

and killed the tractor's two machine

gunners, neither of them protected

by armor, before the driver could

On fl-Day, among the shadows on the jungle

treatment to a wounded Marine.

break free. Again lunging ahead, the

tractor caved in one bunker, silencing its fire and enabling Marine riflemen to isolate three others and

destroy them in succession, killing

25 Japanese. A platoon of M4 Sherman tanks joined the company in

time to lead the advance beyond

this first strongpoint.

Japanese service troops—especially the men of the 1st Shipping

Engineers and the 1st Debarkation

Unit—provided most of the initial

opposition, but Matsuda had

alerted his nearby infantry units to

converge on the beachhead. One

enemy battalion, under Major

Shinichi Takabe, moved into position late on the afternoon of D-Day,

opposite Conoley's 2d Battalion, 7th

Marines, which clung to a crescentshaped position, both of its flanks

sharply refused and resting on the

marshland to the rear After sunset,

the darkness beneath the forest

canopy became absolute, pierced

only by muzzle flashes as the intensity of the firing increased..

floor, Navy corpsmen administer emergency

Department of Defense (usMc) photo 69009

Department of Defense wsMc) photo

As the predicament of this truck and its Marine driver demonstrates, wheeled vehicles, like

those supplied by the Army for mobile supply dumps, bog down in the mud of Cape Gloucester.

8
The Japanese clearly were

preparing to counterattack. Conoley's battalion had a dwindling supply of ammunition, but amphibian

tractors could not begin making

supply runs until it became light

enough for the drivers to avoid tree

roots and fallen trunks as they navigated the damp flat. To aid the battalion in the dangerous period before the skies grew pale, Lieutenant

Colonel Lewis B. Puller, the executive officer of the 7th Marines, organized the men of the regimental

Headquarters and Service Company into carrying parties to load

themselves down with ammunition

and wade through the dangerous

swamp. One misstep, and a Marine

burdened with bandoliers of rifle

ammunition or containers of mortar

shells could stumble and drown.

When Colonel Frisbie, the regimental commander, decided to reinforce

Conoley's Marines with Battery D,

1st Special Weapons Battalion, Puller had the men leave their

37mm guns behind and carry ammunition instead. A guide from

Conoley's headquarters met the column that Puller had pressed into

service and began leading them forward, when a blinding downpour,

driven by a monsoon gale, obscured

landmarks and forced the heavily

laden Marines to wade blindly onward, each man clinging to the belt

of the one ahead of him. Not until

0805, some twelve hours after the

column started off , did the men

reach their goal, put down their

loads, and take up their rifles.

Conoley's Marines had in the

meantime been fighting for their

lives since the storm first struck. A

curtain of rain prevented mortar

crews from seeing their aiming

stakes, indeed, the battalion commander described the men as firing

"by guess and by God." Mud got on

the small-arms ammunition, at times

jamming rifles and machine guns.

Although forced to abandon waterstymie even an LVT.

filled foxholes, the defenders hung

on. With the coming of dawn, Takabe's soldiers gravitated toward the

right flank of Conoley's unit, perhaps in a conscious effort to outflank

the position, or possibly forced in

that direction by the fury of the battalion's defensive fire. An envelopment was in the making when Battery D arrived and moved into the

threatened area, forcing the Japanese

to break off the action and regroup..

The 1st Marine Division's overall

plan of maneuver called for Colonel

Frisbie's Combat Team C, the reinforced 7th Marines, to hold a beachhead anchored at Target Hill, while

Combat Team B, Colonel William A.

Whaling's 1st Marines, reinforced

but without the 2d Battalion ashore

at Green Beach, advanced on the

airfields. Because of the buildup in

preparation for the attack on Conoley's battalion, General Rupertus requested that Kreuger release the division reserve, Combat Team A,

Colonel John T. Selden's reinforced

5th Marines. The Army general

agreed, sending the 1st and 2d Battalions, followed a day later by the

3d Battalion. The division commander decided to land the team on

Blue Beach, roughly three miles to

the right of the Yellow Beaches. The

use of Blue Beach would have

placed the 5th Marines closer to

Cape Gloucester and the airfields,

but not every element of Selden's

Combat Team A got the word.

Some units touched down on the

Yellow Beaches instead and had to

move on foot or in vehicles to the

intended destination.

While Ru.pertus laid plans to

commit the reserve, Whaling's combat team advanced toward the Cape

Gloucester airfields. The Marines

encountered only sporadic resistance at first, but Army Air Forces

light bombers spotted danger in

their path—a maze of trenches and

bunkers stretching inland from a

promontory that soon earned the

Department of Defense (UsMc) photo 72599

The stumps of trees shattered by artillery and the seemingly bottomless mud can sometimes

9

nickname Hell's Point. The Japanese had built these defenses to protect the beaches where Matsuda expected the Americans to land.

Leading the advance, the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, under Lieutenant

Colonel Hankins, struck the Hell's

Point position on the flank, rather

than head-on, but overrunning the

complex nevertheless would prove

a deadly task.

Rupertus delayed the attack by

Hankins to provide time for the division reserve, Selden's 5th

Marines, to come ashore. On the

morning of 28 December, after a

bombardment by the 2d Battalion,

11th Marines, and strikes by Army

Air Forces A-20s, the assault troops

encountered another delay, waiting

for an hour so that an additional

platoon of M4 Sherman medium

tanks could increase the weight of

the attack. At 1100, Hankins's 3d

Battalion, 1st Marines, moved

ahead, Company I and the supporting tanks leading the way. Whaling,

at about the same time, sent his regiment's Company A through

swamp and jungle to seize the inland point of the ridge extending

from Hell's Point. Despite the obstacles in its path, Company A

burst from the jungle at about 1145

and advanced across a field of tall

grass until stopped by intense

Japanese fire. By late afternoon,

Whaling abandoned the maneuver.

Both Company A and the defenders

were exhausted and short of arnmunition; the Marines withdrew behind a barrage fired by the 2d Battalion, 11th Marines, and the

Japanese abandoned their positions

after dark.

Roughly 15 minutes after Company A assaulted the inland terminus of the ridge, Company I and the

attached tanks collided with the

main defenses, which the Japanese

had modified since the 26 December

landings, cutting new gunports in

bunkers, hacking fire lanes in the

undergrowth, and shifting men and

weapons to oppose an attack along

the coastal trail parallel to shore instead of over the beach. Advancing

in a drenching rain, the Marines encountered a succession of junglecovered, mutually supporting positions protected by barbed wire and

mines. The hour's wait for tanks

paid dividends, as the Shermans,

protected by riflemen, crushed

bunkers and destroyed the weapons

inside. During the fight, Company I

drifted to its left, and Hankins used

Company K, reinforced with a platoon of medium tanks, to close the

gap between the coastal track and

Hell's Point itself. This unit employed the same tactics as Company

I. A rifle squad followed each of the

M4 tanks, which cracked open the

bunkers, twelve in all, and fired inside; the accompanying riflemen

then killed anyone attempting to

fight or flee. More than 260 Japanese

perished in the fighting at Hell's

Point, at the cost of 9 Marines killed

and 36 wounded.

With the defenses of Hell's Point

shattered, the two battalions of the

5th Marines, which came ashore on

the morning of 29 December,

joined later that day in the advance

on the airfield. The 1st Battalion,

commanded by Major WiUiam H.

Barba, and the 2d Battalion, under

Lieutenant Colonel Lewis H. Walt,

moved out in a column, Barba's

unit leading the way. In front of the

Marines lay a swamp, described as

only a few inches deep, but the

depth, because of the continuing

downpour, proved as much as five

feet, "making it quite hard," Selden

acknowledged, "for some of the

youngsters who were not much

more than 5 feet in height." The

time lost in wading through the

swamp delayed the attack, and the

leading elements chose a piece of

open and comparatively dry

ground, where they established a

perimeter while the rest of the

force caught up.

A 75mm pack howitzer of the 11th Marines fires in support of the advance on the Cape

Gloucester airfields.

Department of Defense (uSMc) photo 12203

11
Meanwhile, the 1st Battalion, 1st

Marines, attacking through that regiment's 3d Battalion, encountered

only scattered resistance, mainly

sniper fire, as it pushed along the

coast beyond Hell's Point. Halftracks carrying 75mm guns,

medium tanks, artillery, and even a

pair of rocket-firing DUKWs supported the advance, which brought

the battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Walker A. Reaves, to

the edge of Airfield No. 2. When

daylight faded on 29 December, the

1st Battalion, 1st Marines, held a

line extending inland from the

coast; on its left were the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, and the 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, forming a semicircle around the airfield.

The Japanese officer responsible

for defending the airfields, Colonel

Kouki Sumiya of the 53d Infantry,

had fallen back on 29 December,

trading space for time as he gathered his surviving troops for the defense of Razorback Hifi, a ridge running diagonally across the

southwestern approaches to Airfield

No. 2. The 1st and 2d Battalions, 5th

Marines, attacked on 30 December

supported by tanks and artillery.

Sumiya's troops had constructed

some sturdy bunkers, but the chesthigh grass that covered Razorback

Hill did not impede the attackers

like the jungle at Hell's Point. The

Japanese fought gallantly to hold

the position, at times stalling the advancing Marines, but the defenders

had neither the numbers nor the

firepower to prevail. Typical of the

day's fighting, one platoon of Company F from Selden's regiment beat

back two separate banzai attacks, before tanks enabled the Marines to

shatter the bunkers in their path and

kill the enemy within. By dusk on

30 December, the landing force had

oiiermn the defenses of the airfields,

and at noon of the following day

General Rupertus had the American

flag raised beside the wreckage of a

landed on New Britain.

Japanese bomber at Airfield No. 2,

the larger of the airstrips.

The 1st Marine Division thus

seized the principal objective of the

Cape Gloucester fighting, but the

airstrips proved of marginal value

to the Allied forces. Indeed, the

Japanese had already abandoned

the prewar facility, Airfield No. 1,

which was thickly overgrown with

tall, coarse kunai grass. Craters from

American bombs pockmarked the

surface of Airfield No. 2, and after

its capture Japanese hit-and-run

raiders added a few of their own,

despite antiaircraft fire from the

12th Defense Battalion. Army aviation engineers worked around the

clock to return Airfield No. 2 to operation, a task that took until the

end of January 1944. Army aircraft

based here defended against air attacks for as long as Rabaul remained

an active air base and also supported operations on the ground.

While General Rupertus personally directed the capture of the airfields, the Assistant Division ComDepartment of Defense (usMc) photo 71589

On 31 December 1943, the American flag rises beside the wreckage of a Japanese

bomber after the capture of Airfield No. 2, five days after the 1st Marine Division

12
command of the 5th Marines.

mander, Brigadier General Lemuel C.

Shepherd, Jr., came ashore on

Day, 26 December, and took command of the beachhead. Besides coordinating the logistics activity there,

Shepherd assumed responsibility for

expanding the perimeter to the southwest and securing the shores of Borgen Bay. He had a variety of shore

party, engineer, transportation, and

other service troops to handle the

logistics chores. The ad Battalion of

Colonel Selden's 5th Marines—the

remaining component of the division

reserve — arrived on 30 and 31 December to help the 7th Marines enlarge the beachhead.

Shepherd had sketchy knowledge

of Japanese deployment west and

south of the Yellow Beaches. Dense

vegetation concealed streams,

swamps, and even ridge lines, as well

as bunkers nd trenches. The progress

toward the airfields seemed to indicate Japanese weakness in that area

and possible strength in the vicinity

of the Yellow Beaches and Borgen

Bay. To resolve the uncertainty about

the enemy's numbers and intentions,

Shepherd issued orders on 1 January

1944 to probe Japanese defenses beginning the following morning.

In the meantime, the Japanese defenders, under Colonel Kenshiro

Katayama, commander of the 141st

Infantry, were preparing for an attack of their own. General Matsuda

entrusted three reinforced battalions

to Katayama, who intended to hurl

them against Target Hill, which he

considered the anchor of the beachhead line. Since Matsuda believed

that roughly 2,500 Marines were

ashore on New Britain, 10 percent of

the actual total, Katayama's force

seemed strong enough for the job

assigned it.

Katayama needed time to gather

his strength, enabling Shepherd to

make the first move, beginning at

mid-morning on 2 January to realign his forces. The 1st Battalion,

7th Marines, stood fast in the vicinity of Target Hill, the 2d Battalion remained in place along a stream already known as Suicide Creek, and

the regiment's 3d Battalion began

pivoting to face generally south.

Meanwhile, the 3d Battalion, 5th

Marines, pushed into the jungle to

come abreast of the 3d Battalion, 7th

Marines, on the inland flank. As the

units pivoted, they had to cross Suicide Creek in order to squeeze out

the 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, which

would become Shepherd's reserve.

The change of direction proved

extremely difficult in vegetation so

thick that, in the words of one Marine: "You'd step from your line,

take say ten paces, and turn around

to guide on your buddy. And nobody there .... I can tell you, it was a

very small war, and a very lonely

business." The Japanese defenders,

moreover, had dug in south of Suicide Creek, and from these positions

they repulsed every attempt to cross

the stream that day. A stalemate ensued, as Seabees from Company C,

17th Marines, built a corduroy road

through the damp fiat behind the

Yellow Beaches so that tanks could

move forward to punch through the

defenses of Suicide Creek.

Department of Defense (USA) photo SC 188250

During operations to clear the enemy from the shores of Borgen Bay, BGen Lemuel C.

Shepherd, Jr., (left) the assistant division commander, confers with Cot John 7'. Selden, in

13
Department of Defense (IJSMC) photo 69013

While the Marine advance stalled

at Suicide Creek, awaiting the arrival

of tanks, Katayama attacked Target

Hill. On the night of 2 January taking advantage of the darkness,

Japanese infantry cut steps in the

lower slopes so the troops could

climb more easily. Instead of reconnoitering the thinly held lines of

Company A, 7th Marines, and trying

to infiltrate, the enemy followed a

preconceived plan to the letter, advanced up the steps, and at midnight

stormed the strongest of the company's defenses. Japanese mortar

barrages fired to soften the defenses

and screen the approach could not

conceal the sound of the troops

working their way up the hill, and

unceasing rain.

the Marines were ready. Although

the Japanese supporting fire proved

generally inaccurate, one round

scored a direct hit on a machine-gun

position, killing two Marines and

wounding the gunner, who kept firing the weapon until someone else

could take over. This gun fred some

5,000 rounds and helped blunt the

Japanese thrust, which ended by

dawn of 3 January. Nowhere did the

Japanese crack the lines of the 1st

Battalion, 7th Marines, or loosen its

grip on Target Hill.

The body of a Japanese officer

killed at Target Hill yielded documents that cast new light on the

Japanese defenses south of Suicide

Creek. A crudely drawn map revealed the existence of Aogiri

Ridge, an enemy strongpoint unknown to General Shepherd's intelligence section. Observers on Target

Hill tried to locate the ridge and the

trail network the enemy was using,

but the jungle canopy frustrated

their efforts.

While the Marines on Target Hill

tabulated the results of the fighting

there—patrols discovered 40 bodies, and cap tured documents, when

translated, listed 46 Japanese killed,

54 wounded, and two missing—

and used field glasses to scan the

jungle south of Suicide Creek, the

17th Marines completed the road

that would enable medium tanks to

test the defenses of that stream.

Marines and Sea bees struggle to build a corduroy road leading

inland from the beachhead. Without the log surface trucks and

tanks cannot advance over trails turned into quagmire by the

14