One of the captives was meek and subdued, and one man easily carried him to the river’s edge, deposited him on the bank, and returned to help with the other, who was giving two Raiders a rough time. Kicking, biting, and writhing with all of his might, this 115-pound Japanese was determined not to be carried safely out of the water to the east bank of the river. The Raiders were so large that those of us on the bank could not see the captive, except for an occasional glimpse of a hand or foot splashing in the water after he had wrenched it temporarily free. The three Raiders were getting more and more exasperated, and for a few minutes it was touch and go as to whether they would bring him safely out or assist him in dying for his Emperor, as he most assuredly seemed ready to do right then and there. Nevertheless, after some pretty rough treatment, he was subdued.

As the squad of Raiders dashed across the river and advanced through the village, sporadic firing could be heard from all directions. Most of the firing was ours, with only an occasional Japanese rifle shot being heard. My two platoons swept through the village so hurriedly that small Japanese units were isolated before they realized what was happening. A number of them were asleep, and some were dazed as if physically exhausted or at the end of their rope from battle fatigue. It was mad confusion for us and must have been even worse for them.

After we had secured the village, I returned to the crossing site and waded back across the river. On the east bank, I saw Carlson and Ho, one of our two Korean interpreters, talking with the meek prisoner. Major Mather, the Australian coastwatcher and commander of our native guides, was standing nearby. After talking with the prisoner for a few minutes, Carlson and his command group, headed by Captain John Apergis, personnel officer and commander of the "palace guard" (security platoon), crossed the river and set up the battalion command post in the center of the village.

Sergeant Cline F. West and three other members of the command group, having been placed in charge of the prisoners, now made preparations to take them across the river. The meek prisoner was no problem, but the other was another story. Sergeant West, probably the strongest man in the battalion, with help, tied the wild prisoner’s hands and feet and then attempted to take him across on his own. He had taken only a few steps, however, when the prisoner began threshing and kicking so violently that he nearly drowned himself. At this, West lost his cool and threw the prisoner back on the bank.

Hoping to prevent the prisoner from drowning himself. West cut a pole and tied his hands and feet to it. West hoped that with the would-be suicide trussed up like an animal carcass, he and three others could hold him out of the water as they crossed. Indeed, all went exceptionally well until they were within a few steps of the far bank at a spot where the river was at its deepest. Here, the prisoner dropped his head under the water and filled his mouth. When his head was lifted clear, he contemptuously spit the water into Sergeant West’s face, bringing a few giggles from the Raiders watching from the bank.

None of this, however, was funny to West who had been getting angrier by the minute, and this was the last straw. He forced the prisoner under water and held him there until it seemed certain that he would drown. When West finally lifted him out, he was limp and involuntarily spewing water—but subdued. The crossing was completed without further incident, and our corpsman, Pharmacist Mate, first class, Sparkman, administered first aid and revived the stubborn prisoner.

Upon occupying Asamana, we found tacked to the trees near the center of the village small signs in Japanese assigning areas to various companies—at least enough to make up a battalion. In all probability this was the designated assembly area for the enemy troops who had broken out of encirclement near Metapona, but having reached it first, all we had to do was wait for the enemy to come to us, which it seemed they were determined to do. There were still many Japanese wandering about helter-skelter in the surrounding jungle and trying to enter the village, and the coming night promised to be a busy one.

In the meantime, Company "E" had caught up with us, and Carlson now assigned security sectors to each company. The sector assigned to Company "B" included an area on the east bank of the river at the crossing site where, according to the signs, a company was to locate. I assigned Lieutenant Bill Does’s 2nd platoon to this sector and the remainder of the company to our share of the battalion perimeter on the upstream side of the village. My command post was set up in two native huts near the crossing site, so that I could quickly cross the river to Does’s platoon during the night, if necessary.

There continued to be sporadic firing as stray Japanese soldiers wandered into our outposts, undoubtedly thinking that Asamana was occupied by their troops. Lieutenant Does himself shot three Japanese with his pistol while he and the members of his platoon headquarters were preparing their individual positions for the night. Although Carlson repeatedly referred to such strays as "messengers" in his after-action report, there was nothing to indicate that they were anything other than stragglers, looking in vain for friendly faces.

After two tense days and a sleepless night, I was physically exhausted, but still made my usual tour of the platoon areas. Now, as I returned to my command post, the skies opened up, and a heavy, tropical rain began to fall. I was already soaked to the skin after having forded the river going to and coming from Does’s sector, but the rain still refreshed me, albeit only briefly. By the time I got to my thatch-roofed, mud-floored hut, however, I once again was completely bushed

Inside the hut Lieutenant Durant and Sergeant Kenneth McCullough, my communications chief, had brewed tea, making enough for all of us. After drinking the tea and eating a D-bar, I felt somewhat better, but was still too tired to dig even a prone foxhole. Instead, in a low, muddy place in the hut, I rolled out my shelter half, my poncho, and my blanket and lay down. In just a few seconds, I fell soundly asleep.

After an hour or so, a Japanese rifle shot cracked through our hut and woke everybody but me, or so I was told. Shortly thereafter, however, there was a veritable fusillade of shots that woke everybody, including me, and sent us grabbing for our weapons. Each of us took up a position outside the hut, facing across the river in the direction from which the firing had come. After several minutes in which we saw nothing but hard darkness and heard nothing but heavy rain, I secured the full watch and left only the duty watch for our security.

Now I cursed myself for not having dug a foxhole before lying down and decided that the night would not be safe for me until I did. Selecting a promising site, I set to digging with a will, if not great enthusiasm. After excavating only eight inches or so of the muddy earth, my entrenching tool encountered something firm but certainly not a rock. Thinking that I had come upon some long abandoned household item, I probed around in the clammy earth with my fingers to determine what I had uncovered. Suddenly to my great surprise and no little revulsion my fingers were tracing out the unmistakable features of a human head: chin, lips, nose, eyesockets. The obstacle to my digging was the recently buried corpse of a Japanese soldier.

I hastily scraped earth back onto the body and moved over a couple of yards, only to dig into another; then another, and another. The entire mud floor of our hut was lined with bodies--literally a Japanese military cemetery. If our hut were a random sample, then the estimate of 120 killed the day before would have been very conservative. But life goes on, and, notwithstanding the morbidity of the situation, I still needed a foxhole. Suppressing my feelings of revulsion and a strong urge to vomit, I dug as deeply as I could without disturbing the bodies and made my bed on top of them, thereby gaining some protection from mortar fragments and bullets that their living comrades might send our way.

Throughout the night shots were fired all around the perimeter, first in one place and then another. Most of the firing, however, came from across the river in the area occupied by Bill Does s platoon, particularly from the machine gun on the downstream flank of the platoon position. There was nothing to indicate any urgency in the situation, and, in the absence of a request for assistance, I chose to let Does handle the matter. Although only recently commissioned, Bill was a Marine of considerable experience and an extremely competent platoon commander. On the Makin raid he had been platoon sergeant of the 2nd Platoon and now as its commander was well aware of the capabilities of his men.

At daybreak, accompanied by Captain Green, Gunny Cone, and Needham, my radio operator, I started across the river to visit Does and his men. During the night the heavy rain had raised the level of the river, and now it looked to me to be too deep to wade. Barney Green, however, was confident that we could wade across, and he volunteered to try it first. I still insisted that it was too deep, but he forged ahead confidently and after only two, very careful steps disappeared completely. All we could see of him were air bubbles coming from under his steel helmet. Since Barney was six feet, two inches tall and weighed over 200 pounds with his equipment, we had quite a struggle before we managed to fish him out. When we finally got him on the bank, he attested to what we already knew. "God, it is too deep!"

Private Joseph H. Royal, Jr., our best swimmer, swam across the river with one end of a long rope and tied it to the boat captured the day before. We pulled the boat to our side and paddled across. After that the boat saw continual use as a ferry, until our demolition men felled a large tree across the river to provide us a convenient foot bridge as well as a barrier to further traffic by Japanese boatmen.

During the night, Does’s platoon had killed 13 Japanese, most of them in the area of the left-flank machine gun and Corporal Orin Croft’s squad. One of Croft’s men, Corporal William McCall, killed one of the Japanese with his bayonet. A slightly built man of about 120 pounds, McCall certainly did not look the "cold steel" type, and I asked him why he did not shoot the man instead of using his bayonet. He answered simply that the Japanese was the first to come up the trail into his area, as if that explained everything.

McCall’s mother and father had been in the Philippines when the war started and were imprisoned by the Japanese. McCall, however, still knew nothing of their fate and assumed that both had been killed. He was a student in San Francisco when the war began but dropped out of school to join the Marines and later the Raiders so he could personally exact vengeance of the Japanese. First at Makin and now at Guadalcanal, he had demonstrated himself to be a steadfast and reliable Marine and a formidable, even ruthless fighting man.

By mid-afternoon of our second day in Asamana (November 13), Bill Does’s platoon had killed another nine Japanese across the river, and Barney Green’s had killed another seven in and around the village; however, this tally was soon to be increased. As I stood under a large tree, talking with Barney and Sergeant Lawson, a lookout up in the tree excitedly called down that he could see about a company of the enemy in column formation coming through the grass about 1,000 yards to the west. Finding it hard to believe that this was really happening, I climbed the tree to see for myself.

What the lookout had said was true. Though Carlson was certainly no MacBeth about to be vanquished, and one could have looked high and low without finding a "high Dunsinane hill" near Asamana, the "Great Birnam Wood" part of the metaphor was not at all inappropriate. At first sight, I thought I was seeing a large patch of scrub moving across the grass field, but closer inspection through my binoculars revealed that it was a massed column of Japanese soldiers, each camouflaged with shrubbery from head to hips. The column would advance about 100 yards, halt, crouch down, wait a few minutes, and repeat the process, slowly but surely closing in on our position.

We sent for Carlson who soon joined us and, having watched the enemy activity for a short while, decided to request artillery fire. After a few minutes of fumbling around with our radio, changing crystals for the proper frequency, we reached Lieutenant Colonel P. M. Rixey’s 1st Battalion, 10th Marines, whose 75-millimeter pack howitzers were supporting the 7th Marines and the 164th Infantry in their operation near the coast. Rixey’s howitzers opened up on the Japanese formation with everything they had and for about five minutes blasted the area with high-explosive shells, inflicting numerous casualties.

The enemy formation, however, had scattered when the first artillery shells fell, and now most of the soldiers could be seen running in the direction from which they had come, although a few had scattered to the winds. As enemy activity seemed to be picking up, it was good to know that we had artillery within supporting range, and we called on it for support several more times during the day.

While we were waiting for the artillery fire, Carlson told us that the recalcitrant prisoner we had captured the day before had wriggled free during the night, fled from the command group, and was killed while attempting to make his way out of the base. Rumor around Carlson’s command post, however, was that the attempted escape was staged as a means for ridding ourselves of an encumbrance to movement. But whatever the circumstances, our intractable captive had finally managed to get himself killed for his Emperor.

"What a rotten turn of events."I thought, "after all the trouble we went through to capture him and to get him across the river without his committing suicide by drowning, somebody had to goof and let him escape."

As wily as he was, everybody involved with him on the previous day knew that you could not turn your back on him, even for a minute. As a matter of fact, Sergeant West remarked after he and his men finally got the prisoner across the river, "If somebody doesn’t sit on him throughout the night, he’ll sure as hell get away," and he did.

Since enemy activity seemed to be increasing, especially to the north, south, and west, Carlson decided to reinforce his position and ordered Company "C" to move from Binu and join us at Asamana. When the company arrived at around 2200, I met Captain Throneson at our outpost and, leaving Gunny Cone to guide the company to its bivouac area, accompanied him to the battalion command post. Almost immediately I could see that Hal was hopping mad, and I soon understood why.

In the absence of instructions to the contrary, Throneson had elected not to use the same trail that the rest of us had followed, reasoning that the possibility of an ambush would be high now that the enemy knew we used it. Instead, he had chosen a trail that took his company close by a patch of woods on which Carlson had requested harassing and interdiction artillery fire. In fact it was so close that a few of the Raiders got shell fragments in their packs, although none was injured. However, the mere thought of what might have happened because he had not been warned was enough to kindle Hal’s rage and make me wonder if he could contain it when he talked with Carlson. Although it was standing procedure for the base security company commander to hear all debriefings, the air soon became a little tense, and feeling that my presence was not desired, I strolled away.

Because of a sharp decrease in enemy activity, a shortage of food, and the exhaustion of the men, Carlson decided on the morning of the fourteenth to return to Binu. With Company "B" in the lead, the three companies covered the three or four miles back to base that belied our weariness. After only a single break on the trail, we marched into base to be greeted by the welcome news that a resupply of rations had arrived. Once again we drew our standard rations of rice, raisins, fatback, and tea, but in this issue there was a treat: each man received a cake of lye soap, which we needed badly.

Although I had been soaked in the river and drenched with rain several times since spending the night with the dead Japanese, my clothes still reeked of the sickeningly sweetish odor of decaying flesh, and the opportunity to bathe was most welcome. After posting security, one company at a time went into the river and washed up. First the underdrawers and the lone set of utilities were washed in the lye soap, rinsed, wrung out, and spread on the bushes to dry. While our clothes were drying, we washed from our bodies several days’ accumulation of dirt and grime, using the all-purpose lye soap, and then we shaved. My lone razor blade took on new life after I stropped a few times on my boots, and the ordeal was not to painful. There were no haircuts, however, and I was beginning to feel as if there were a thick wig between the top of my head and my helmet.

After bathing, shaving, and putting on clean, if somewhat damp clothing, we gained new strength and a fresh feeling that maybe we could make it through another day. Now all that was needed was the nourishment provided by of one of our rice-and-gourmet meals. Once we were back in the company area, the fires were soon lit and the rice pots, individual or communal, were soon bubbling away, waiting for the addition of the "whatever" that would complete the dish and our contentment. It seems, however, that the imp of the perverse always finds a way to create discord when we begin to get too contented, and this was no exception.

Suddenly a single shot rang out, and Private Royal, who was busily engaged in slicing his fatback, dropped his knife and grabbed his hand. A bullet had plowed a deep furrow across the back of his hand, and it was bleeding profusely. Doctor MacCracken patched Royal up and announced that he would be all right but would have to be evacuated on the next supply run. Royal’s mis-fortune not withstanding, Doctor Mac and I agreed that we had been mighty lucky to have no serious casualties so far.

In the meantime, investigation revealed that Royal was accidently shot when a Raider from another company, more than 50 yards away, stepped on a rifle lying on the ground, causing it to fire. To me, it was ironic that the first casualty in the company should be caused by an accidental discharge and be, of all people, Private Royal, who already had several close calls with the enemy and came through unscathed. Nevertheless, we were doubly fortunate on this occasion, because the bullet whizzed through a group of more than 100 scouts, guides, and carriers sitting on the ground between the rifle and Royal without touching one of them.

Sergeant Major Vouza, the man immediately in charge of our natives, appeared to be totally indifferent to what might have happened to his men. That it hadn’t was the important thing, and near misses were not his concern. The sergeant major was a strong looking man; barrel-chested, with strong legs and arms, and a thick neck. He was quiet until he wanted to be heard, then he could really bellow. I had first heard of him while still aboard the Nautilus after the Makin raid; the retired sergeant major of police and native of Tasimboko who, bleeding and half-dead after having been tied up, bayoneted and left to die by the Japanese, had dragged himself into Lieutenant Colonel Pollock’s front lines to warn of the impending attack across the Tenaru River. Now I felt honored to have the opportunity to serve with him.

Vouza’s commander was Major John M. Mather, who had joined the Australian Army as a coast watcher after his island of Malaita had been overrun by the Japanese in the summer of 1942. Major Mather had joined Carlson’s command group at Aola as commander of the natives and had rapidly become an indispensable aide. Between Carlson and Mather, the daily activity of the native bearers and scouts was coordinated with that of the Raiders, and all orders given to the natives, aside from the guides attached to each company, were given by Mather.

Late on the afternoon of November 14, one of Major Mather’s scouts returned to our base and reported enemy activity in a small bivouac area several miles to the south. After a few minutes of questioning, Mather determined that there were about 15 Japanese bivouacking some four miles from our base just off the trail that led generally south from the base.

It was interesting to hear Major Mather debrief the scout, he being the only person in the battalion who understood the local pidgin well enough to extract from the natives the information Carlson needed. The hybrid language was a mixture of Melanesian words, an English word here and there, and many gestures—primarily with the hands, but sometimes with the feet, head, face, and even the entire body. In addition to the basic language problem, there was a difficulty with geographic nomenclature—the natives had their own, regional names for the various villages, trails, and streams, and they had almost no concept of time and space, such things as minutes and yards meaning next to nothing to them. Mather, however, always managed to make sense

out of the natives’ words and gestures.

At the briefing for the next day’s operations, I was informed that I was to take a patrol and accompany Carlson to the command post of the 7th Marines at Volinavua on the coast. Company "F" was to patrol south to the site of the Japanese bivouac reported by the native scout, Companies "D" and "E" were to patrol westward to the Metapona River, and Company "C" would be responsible for base security.

When we had assembled for the operations briefing, I noticed almost immediately that Captain Throneson was conspicuously absent, and the first thought that ran through my mind was that what had heretofore been only a suspicion was about to become a reality. Sure enough, when Carlson finished with operational matters, he announced that, effective immediately, Captain Green would assume duties as commanding officer of Company "C," vice Captain Throneson, relieved..

Barney Green was an outstanding officer and a classmate of mine, He long since would have had a company of his own, were it not for some minor trouble with Roosevelt during a training exercise on Oahu while Carlson and Companies "A," "B," "E. ’ and ‘ F" were in the Midway area. Barney was relieved of his duties and confined to Camp Catlin, pending Carlson’s return. Upon returning to Catlin, Carlson had restored him to duty and then, after the Makin raid, assigned him to Company "B." At the same time, Carlson moved Captain Griffith and Lieutenant Jacobson to Company "F," and Warrant Officer Sparky Durant, former first Sergeant of Company "B," who was somehow involved with Barney, was transferred back to Company "B."

Nobody asked me about these transfers before the fact, but a couple of days afterwards, Carlson said that if I would use Green and Durant in my company, they could stay in the battalion; otherwise, both would be transferred out. I surely hated to lose Joe Griffith and Jake Jacobson, but Joe was already a captain, and Jake would be one soon, and in the normal turn of events both soon would be lost anyway. However, when Joe and Jake were suddenly ordered to Company "F," I could give them no explanation for their departure, but felt that I owed them one. We had been together since the very beginning, and I would have kept them both until the end of the war were it possible. As soon as I heard Carlson’s explanation for their transfer, I made haste to let them know.

Although Barney was a few numbers senior to me, this had never posed a problem. In every respect he was a gentleman, endowed with courage and intelligence, and, above all, calmness. When the going got rough, he had a facility for generating a spark of enthusiasm among his men; for changing an atmosphere of gloom to one of cheer, utilizing mostly his superb sense of humor. He was brave almost to the point of audacity, and I was continually concerned about his safety, feeling that he was doomed to become an early casualty.

Nevertheless, warfare is a risky business and raiding particularly so, and gallantry is a very desirable quality in a commander—at the proper time and place. My wish for Barney was that he would reduce his overexposure and become less conspicuous in his gallantry, reserving it for those occasions when it would be most needed and avoiding becoming an unnecessary casualty and leaving his company leaderless at a time when it might need him most.

Whenever a strong leader, such as Barney, is removed from his unit and another replaces him, there is always a period of readjustment to the eccentricities, as it were, of the new commander, no matter how good he is. However, when the second-in-command takes over, whether permanently or only until a suitable replacement is available, the adjustments are minor and quickly accomplished, as he already knows his men and they know him.

I moved Sergeant Lawson up to replace Barney as commander of the 1^st Platoon, because I had a lot of trust and confidence in Lawson, having been his commander, either platoon or company, since the battalion had formed. Paradoxical though it may sound, if Lawson had a weakness, it was that he was too strong and expected the same strength in all of his men.

In any endeavor, but particularly one involving the stress of battle, the weaker members of a unit can carry their own load and continue to make a contribution to the overall effort for a few days; then they begin to falter and become less effective than the others. Consequently, as the period of stress is extended, the weaker individuals will tend to shift from the side of production to the side of consumption, and eventually to that of reduction, becoming burdens on others—parasites, as it were.

Some strong leaders can extend the productive period of their weaker subordinates by exploiting immanent strengths, whereas others shorten the productive period by their tendency to focus solely on the objective sides of subordinates and by their continual drive to recreate them in their own image. Sergeant Lawson was of the latter type.

Lawson had a couple of men who were becoming ever more non-productive, and I sensed that he (really we) might eventually have a problem with them. Should we be ordered back to the division perimeter within the next day or two, the problem might not surface. On the other hand, if we continued our patrol for an extended period, the problem would surely arise. As Lawson’s problem was also mine, I was very curious to see how he would handle the matter. Although a radical attitude adjustment by the recalcitrants was soon obvious, it would be several weeks before I learned exactly how Lawson had brought this about.

It is always a pleasure to see good men move ahead, except when their advance results in the displacement of another good man, which I considered Captain Hal Throneson to be. As a company commander, he had enjoyed the trust and confidence of his subordinates, and he took good care of them. When Carlson announced his relief, I naturally assumed that it had something to do with the artillery incident at Asamana on the previous day. Much later I discovered that this was only one, and by no means the last, of a series of confrontations going back several months.

According to information provided by Charlie Lamb, one of Throneson’s platoon commanders, the first overt disagreement occurred on Espiritu Santo and was associated with an epidemic of dysentery that swept through the battalion. Captain Throneson was of the opinion that the dysentery was the result of improper washing of mess gear and ordered the construction and maintenance of a company wash stand. At each meal, before continuing on to the battalion mess, the company marched past the wash stand, and each man was required to wash and sterilize his mess gear. For a short time dysentery disappeared in Company "C."

Soon, however, Carlson found out about the wash stand and ordered it destroyed, apparently considering such niceties too la-di-da for Raiders being toughened to live off the land. Both Throneson and Lamb received individual "ethical indoctrination" and soon Company "C" was back in step with the rest of the battalion—with dysentery.

According to Lamb, two days before the incident at Asamana, Company "C" had been endangered by another artillery fire mission requested by Carlson. The company was in its assigned area, there was no contact with the enemy, and Carlson was miles away from the impact area, unable even to observe the results of the fire. Although there were no casualties, I can well imagine that Throneson’s reaction was not unlike his reaction to the Asamana incident.

The final disagreement occurred shortly after our return to Binu and involved what Lamb referred to as "[an] altercation about allocation of rations between Carlson and the company commander." Throneson related the details of this altercation to Lamb, who observed: "There was a strong possibility that in his zeal for the welfare of his company the company commander was disrespectful to the battalion commander."

In any event, Throneson was relieved of his command and adversely reported on for his conduct in the battle of November 11. From what I know of the facts of the case, this was a grave injustice to Throneson. Lamb, who was present throughout the battle and who was himself no tyro in the art of war, could not understand how Carlson "... . could justly brand the man for adverse conduct in that particular battle." Furthermore, Throneson’s relief on those particular grounds begs the questions: "Why was he not relieved immediately? Why leave him in command for three more days if, as Carlson asserts in the letter accompanying Throneson’s fitness report, he demonstrated ‘marked ineptitude and incompetency in action . .. ‘?"

Furthermore, in the same letter Carlson alleges that Throneson lost control of his company and failed to maintain contact with the enemy as ordered and implies that the company was held up for four hours by a handful of snipers. However, if these be grounds for the summary relief of a commander, then Carlson should have been relieved by Commodore Haines on the first day at Makin. There Carlson had permitted his two companies to be held up for well over four hours by a dozen or so snipers and, in the candid assessment of Charlie Lamb, "exercised poor command and control of his organization at all times." But Carlson was no Haines, and unfortunately another good officer joined the ever-growing list of those who had come a cropper of Evans Fordyce Carlson.

Early on the morning of the fifteenth, I and my patrol set out with Carlson on the six-or-seven-mile trek to the command post of the 7th Marines near Volinavua. After an uneventful two-hour hike, we approached our destination, and I began to feel a bit concerned for the safety of our column. After all, the 7th Marines had been fighting for three days and surely would have outposts on the trails leading into their lines and to their command post. To me it seemed a little risky just to stroll down the trail and chance being mistaken for Japanese and. fired upon by fellow Marines. Accordingly, we were exceptionally cautious and hiked into the command post without incident and without being observed—as far as I could tell.

I accompanied Carlson to see Colonel Sims, the regimental commander, and made myself unobtrusive as the two senior commanders talked. After the usual amenities were out of the way, Sims asked Carlson several pointed questions pertaining to our operations: What had we been doing? Where were we based? Where were we going next? Although displaying no particular enthusiasm for what Carlson told him, Sims did seem pleased to hear that our patrol had come all the way to his command post without seeing any Japanese. (I wondered what he thought of our coming into his command post without being challenged.) After discussing the situation for almost an hour, the two commanders agreed that we should move our base to Asamana and patrol to the south and west, while the 7th Marines operated in the area east of the Metapona River.

After an hour in the 7th Marines’ command post, during which time there was some fast scrounging by my Raiders, we saddled up and headed back to our base. "Saddle up" was a phrase that most of the Raiders used instead of the usual "fall in," and I thought that most Marines knew what it meant. Apparently, however, they did not, for I heard one of the 7th Marines ask as we moved out, "What kind of gook outfit is this?" of course he might have been talking about us in general, for we were a seedy looking crew. On the other hand, what might he have said if he had seen us before we bathed and washed our clothes?

We returned to our base without incident as did the other patrols, except Company "F," which had an after-action report that was almost unbelievable. Guided by the native scout who had discovered the enemy bivouac the day before, the patrol had approached the narrow defile that led into the position and waited there until the sentry at the entrance to the defile was called in to chow without being replaced. Then the party of Raiders slipped into the unguarded defile and surprised and killed all 15 of the Japanese in the position, suffering not a single casualty themselves. Among the material captured by the patrol, were the personal effects of Major General Kawaguchi, commander of the Japanese force that the 1st Raiders had decisively defeated at the Battle of the Ridge, after having smashed his rear services at Tasimboko a week earlier.

Late in the afternoon of the fifteenth, we moved our patrol base to Asamana to begin patrolling to the south and west from there. On the sixteenth and seventeenth our wide-ranging patrols encountered and killed only a few scattered Japanese, which suggested that the remnants of the force that escaped from the "Metapona pocket" had moved south and west into the hills beyond the Nalimbiu River. On the seventeenth, Carlson accompanied Joe Griffith and a Company "D" patrol to the west, but at the farthermost point of their route, a message arrived from the 1st Division headquarters directing Carlson to report to the division command post as soon as possible. Immediately retracing its steps. the patrol hot-footed it back to base, arriving in almost record time, hot, ‘sweaty, dirty, and worn out.

Although Carlson still had ahead of him a six-mile hike to the beach, an even longer ride in a Higgins boat to the landing at Lunga Point, and finally a short jeep ride to the division command post, he still took time to debrief his company commanders on their day’s activities. Then, after a stopover of less than 30 minutes, he set out for the beach, accompanied by the same Company "D" group that had been with him on patrol. Already they had hiked about 12 miles and had another six to go to reach the boat landing. Since it was already past mid-afternoon, they would have to set a lively pace to reach the beach before dark.

As they saddled up and headed north out of Asamana, I watched until they were out of sight, thinking all the while, "There but for the grace of God go I." Being somewhat bushed from my own patrol, I was unashamedly elated that it was Company "D" and not "B" making this extended patrol.

We already knew there were no sizeable, organized enemy forces within a five-mile radius of Asamana and hoped that Carlson would be directed to extend our patrol westward. In any event, it was a foregone conclusion that we would soon be moving from our present location, either westward or into the division perimeter. When Carlson returned on the afternoon of the eighteenth, our fondest hopes were realized: we would continue the patrol.

Our new mission was to move to the upper Tenaru River and patrol to the south, up the Lunga, in order to locate a trail reportedly constructed by the Japanese from Kokumbona south to the upper Matanikau and on south of Mombula, then eastward to the Lunga. Enemy bases discovered by our patrols were to be destroyed if possible, otherwise Carlson was to recommend a plan for operations against them. Additionally, we were to seek out and destroy roving artillery pieces which, under the generic "Pistol Pete." had been delivering harassing fire on Henderson Field for weeks. To provide greater depth to our resources, Company "A" had been ordered to Guadalcanal and should arrive in about a week.

All companies, less "B" and "F," would depart Asamana on November 19, spend one night on the trail at the Nalimbiu River, and continue on to the new base site the following day. Companies "B" and "F" would remain at Asamana, patrol to the south and southwest on the nineteenth, and then, on the twentieth, patrol all the way to the new base site over a route more northerly than that taken by the rest of the battalion.

On the morning of the nineteenth, the battalion, less two companies, headed westward toward the new base site, and Companies "B" and "F" departed on their assigned patrol routes to the south and southwest. Our patrols were uneventful, and we returned to base early in the afternoon to rest up for the day-long trek that lay ahead of us. Early on the morning of the twentieth, now well rested, we too stepped out briskly on the designated route to our new base.

After a couple of hours, my company, which was leading, came to a fork in the trail. The right leg appeared to veer too far to the north, leading toward the division perimeter, whereas the left appeared to lead in the direction we had to go—just a few points south of west. We took a break and sent a fire team down each trail for several hundred yards, making as certain as we could that our choice would be the correct one. Jemine, my guide, had already pointed to the trail to the left as being the correct one for us to take. As he had always been correct before, his selection was good enough for me.

In the meantime, Captain Schwerin walked up, pearl-handled pistols and all, and insisted that the trail on the right was the one to take. He felt so confident in his judgment that he was willing to bet a bottle of booze that he was right—never mind what the fire teams might discover. When the fire teams returned and reported their observations, it was even more obvious to me that the trail to the left was the one we should take. Nevertheless, Schwerin stuck to his choice and announced unequivocably that Company "F" was taking the right-hand trail.

Although Schwerin was senior, Carlson had placed me in command, and I now found myself on the horns of a minor dilemma. I knew that seniority could be a very important matter in a life and death situation, determining ultimately where responsibility lay. But the situation here was not that serious, at least for the moment, and I felt it was not worth making an issue of. "What the hell," I thought, "1 can let him lead the rest of the way to the new base, if he takes the left trail; otherwise, I’ll lead and take the left, and he can take whichever he likes when he reaches the fork,"

Wild Bill listened to what I had to say and said, "Peat, I’ll welcome you aboard when you reach the new base."At 1700, tired and hot but intact, Company "B" hiked into our new base, located just a couple of miles southeast of Henderson Field. Company "F," however, had not arrived, and upon reporting to Carlson, I stretched the truth only a little by telling him that I had given Schwerin permission to take an extended, more northerly route. About two hours later, when it was near hard dark, Schwerin and most of his company arrived. Stragglers, however, kept coming in all night, and the base security had to be alerted to be on the lookout for them. By daybreak, all hands somehow had managed to return safely.

From November 20 through 24, we were granted what were euphemistically called "days of rest," but which were spent washing clothes, cleaning and repairing weapons and equipment, and receiving first-aid type medical treatment, mostly for blisters on the feet and jungle rot in one place or another. Many could be seen walking about barefoot to toughen their feet and try to get rid of the effects of immersion foot. A few of the men finally succumbed to the ravages of malaria and jaundice and were evacuated. Among these were Lieutenant Durant, evacuated with malaria on the twenty-second, and Lieutenant Does, evacuated with jaundice a day or so later. Now I was the only officer in Company "B."

One of the brighter features of our "days of rest" was a change in our rice-and- diet, albeit only for a short while. During his visit to division headquarters, Carlson had arranged for a five-day supply of "B" rations (non-perishables and canned goods) for the battalion, and when these were issued to the troops they engaged in an almost continuous orgy of cooking and feasting. Some of the men, however, most notably Sam Cone, soon turned away from "luxury foods" such as Spam and back to rice and raisins, or whatever, and tea.

On one afternoon of these "days of rest," I was pleasantly surprised by a visit from Captain Don Peppard, a dear friend from officer candidate class and reserve officers class. Don, Dan McWethy, Jack Napton, Harry Phillips and I were living in the same house on Mission Bay, near La Jolla, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. All of them deployed into the Pacific with the 8th Marines and were now in the defensive perimeter alongside many classmates in the 1st Marine Division: John Chaisson, Red Scott, Marvin Schacher, Soap Orgain, Gill Croll, Dick Powell, and others. In fact, it would be safe to say that at least one-half of our class was then on Guadalcanal at one place or another, and I very much wanted to hear how they were doing.

Don had spent some time in the 5th Marines at Camp Lejeune before Pearl Harbor and had visited my family in Raleigh, North Carolina. several times. In every letter I received from home after Don’s last visit they asked about him. Shortly before Pearl Harbor, he had transferred to the 8th Marines but was now back in the 5th and had been in the thick of all their battles. I often had thought about Don and was delighted to see him alive and healthy after all he had been through. Besides, he could give me the hot scoop on our classmates, having been in both the 1st and 2d Marine Divisions.

Always the thoughtful soul, Don brought me a half-gallon can of fruit cocktail which, at the moment, pleased me more than anything be might have given me, even a farm in Georgia. I quickly opened the can and passed it around to other members of our command post group, who enjoyed it as much, if not more, than I. I reminded Doctor MacCracken of what he had recently said to me while on patrol on a particularly hot day about giving a whole month’s pay for a cold coke. He grinned at me as he drained the last of the syrup from his canteen cup and allowed that this was much better than coke and probably worth at least two months’ pay. Later it occurred to me that Don must have thought we were a bunch of clowns, seeing the way we carried on over a mere can of fruit cocktail.

After we had already wolfed down the fruit cocktail, it occurred to me that possibly Don had deprived himself to bring it to me, and I asked him about the food situation down in the perimeter. Obviously understanding my unvoiced concern, he hastened to reassure me. Although very bleak for a few weeks, it had improved considerably in the past few days and promised to get even better, now that our Navy was beginning to get the upper hand in the sea battle. We shot the breeze for a few more minutes, reminiscing about mutual friends and our golden days in California, but soon he had to leave. Upon his departure, I felt somewhat emotional, thinking what a champion he was to come so far by jeep and on foot, and not without some danger to himself, just to visit me and bring me a can of fruit cocktail.

To me there was a certain symbolism in Don’s visit and the can of fruit cocktail if ; you control the sea your food can be the best; if your enemy controls the sea. first you lose your food, then your body, and then your soul. For the immediate sustenance of my soul, nightly and sometimes in the middle of the day, I prayed that the bastards who attacked Pearl Harbor and now were trying to choke off our lifeline to Guadalcanal would suffer defeat, but not too soon. Only a slow, continuous pounding would make them remember the evil of their ways. Then, I would think of all the poor souls who had already paid or would have to pay with their lives for such lengthy: action and would switch to a prayer for a speedy victory. But somehow—I wasn’t sure exactly how—the Japanese must be made to pay for the untold misery their war had caused and would cause.

Copyright:  ReView Publications