LIBERATION: Marines in the Recapture of Guam by Cyril J. O'Brien
Fonte Ridge
The two days of fierce fighting on the left of the 3d
Division's beachhead in the area that was now dubbed Bundschu Ridge cost
the 3d Marines 615 men killed, wounded, and missing. The 21st Marines in
the center held up its advance on 22 July until the 3d Marines could get
moving, but the men in their exposed positions along the top of the
ridge, seized so rapidly on W-Day, were hammered by Japanese mortar
fire, so much so that Colonel Butler received permission to replace the
2d Battalion by the 1st, which had been in division reserve. The 9th
Marines met relatively little resistance as it overran many abandoned
Japanese positions in its drive toward the former American naval base at
Piti on the shore of Apra Harbor. The 3d Battalion, after a heavy
barrage of naval gunfire and bombs, assaulted Cabras Island in
mid-afternoon, landing from LVTs to find its major obstacle dense
brambles with hundreds of mines.
General Turnage, assessing the situation as he saw it
on the eve of 22 July reported to General Geiger:
Enemy resistance increased considerably today on Div
left and center. All Bn's of 3rd CT [combat team] have been committed in
continuous attack since landing. 21st CT less l Bn in Div Res has been
committed continuously with all units in assault. One of the assault
Bn's of 21st CT is being relieved on line by Div Res Bn today. Former is
approx 40 percent depleted. Since further advance will continue to thin
our lines it is now apparent that an additional CT is needed. 9th CT is
fully committed to the capture of Piti and Cabras. Accordingly it is
urgently recommended that an additional CT be attached this Div at the
earliest practicable date.
Turnage did not get the additional regiment he
sought. The night of W plus l was relatively quiet in the 3d Division's
sector except for the 1st Battalion, 21st Marines, which repulsed a
Japanese counterattack replete with a preliminary mortar barrage
followed by a bayonet charge.
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Mount Alifan looms over the men of the 4th Marines as they move through
the foothills to the attack. In the background, a plane being used for
observation keeps track of the front lines for controlling the fire of
ships' guns and supporting artillery. Department of Defense Photo (USMC)
87239
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On the 23d, III Amphibious Corps Commander, General
Geiger, well aware that the majority of Japanese troops had not yet been
encountered, told the 3d Division that it was "essential that close
contact between adjacent units be established by later afternoon and
maintained through out the night" unless otherwise directed. Despite the
order to close up and keep contact, the 3d Division was spread too
thinly to hold what it had seized in that day's advance. When it halted
to set up for the night, it was found that the distance between units
had widened. When night fell, the frontline troops essentially held
strongpoints with gaps between them covered by interlocking bands of
fire.
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Prior to the anticipated American landing on 21 July 1944, LtGen Takeshi
Takashina, right, commanding general of the 29th Infantry
Division, inspects defenses on Agat Beach, with Col Tsunetaro
Suenaga, who commanded the 38th Infantry.
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The 3d Marines reached the high ground of Bundschu
Ridge on the 23d and searched out the remaining Japanese stragglers. It
was obvious that the enemy had withdrawn from the immediate area and
equally plain that the Japanese hadn't gone far. When patrols from the
21st Marines tried to link up with the 3d Marines, they were driven back
by the fire of cleverly hidden machine guns, all but impossible to spot
in the welter of undergrowth and rock-strewn ravines. All across the
ridges that the Marines held, there were stretches of deadly open ground
completely blanketed by enemy fire from still higher positions. On the
night of the 23d, the 9th Marines made good progress moving through more
open territory which was dotted by hills, each of which was a potential
enemy bastion. A patrol sent south along the shoreline to contact the
1st Brigade took fire from the hills to its left and ran into an
American artillery and naval gunfire concentration directed at Orote's
defenders. The patrol was given permission to turn back.
On the 24th, the 3d and 21st Marines finally made
contact on the heights, but the linkup was illusory. There were no solid
frontlines, only strongpoints. No one could be certain that the Japanese
had all been accounted for in the areas that had been probed, attacked,
and now seemed secure. Every rifleman was well aware that more of the
same lay ahead; he could see his next objectives looming to the front,
across the Mount Tenjo Road, which crossed the high ground that framed
the beachhead. Already the division had suffered more than 2,000
casualties, the majority in infantry units. And yet the Japanese, who
had lost as many and more men in the north alone, were showing no signs
of abandoning their fierce defense. General Takashina was, in fact,
husbanding his forces, preparing for an all-out counterattack, just as
the Marines, north and south, were getting ready to drive to the force
beachhead line (FBHL), the objective which would secure the high ground
and link up the two beachheads.
Since the American landings, Takashina had been
bringing troops into the rugged hills along the Mount Tenjo Road,
calling in his reserves from scattered positions all over the island. By
25 July, he had more than 5,000 men, principally of the 48th
Independent Mixed Brigade and the 10th Independent Mixed
Regiment, assembled and ready to attack.
(click on image for an enlargement in a new window)
The fighting on the 25th was as intense as that on
any day since the landing. The 2d Battalion, 9th Marines (Lieutenant
Colonel Robert E. Cushman, Jr., who was to become the 25th Commandant of
the Marine Corps in 1972), was attached to the 3d Marines to bring a
relatively intact unit into the fight for the Fonte heights and to give
the badly battered 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, a chance to rest and
recoup. By nightfall, Cushman's men had driven a salient into the
Japanese lines, seizing the Mount Tenjo Road, 400 yards short of the
Fonte objective on the left and 250 yards short on the right.
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During the Japanese counterattack on the night of 21-22 July, this
Japanese light tank was destroyed at the Company B, 4th Marines roadblock. Note the rubble of the ground thrown up by U.S. artillery,
aerial, and ships' gunfire bombardments.
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During the day's relentless and increasingly heavy
firefights, the 2d and 3d Battalions of the 3d Marines had blasted and
burned their way through a barrier of enemy cave defenses and linked up
with Cushman's outfit on the left. About 1900, Company G of the 9th
Marines pulled back some 100 yards to a position just forward of the
road, giving it better observation and field of fire. Company F had
reached and occupied a rocky prominence some 150 yards ahead of
Companies G and E, in the center of the salient. It pulled back a little
for better defense, and held. Thus the scene was set for the pitched
battle of Fonte Ridge, fought at hand-grenade range and in which
casualties on both sides were largely caused by small arms fire at
point-blank distances. It was in this action that leadership,
doggedness, and organizational skill under fire merited the award of the
Medal of Honor to the Commanding Officer of Company E Captain Louis H.
Wilson, Jr., who became the 26th Commandant of the Marine Corps in 1976,
following in the footsteps of his former battalion commander.
(click on image for an enlargement in a new window)
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In the aftermath of the Japanese counterattack, bodies of the attackers
were strewn on a hillside typical of the terrain over which much of the
battle was fought. Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 91435
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Captain Wilson was wounded three times leading his
own attacks in the intense crux of this Fonte action, and as his
citation relates: "Fighting fiercely in hand-to-hand encounters, he led
his men in furiously waged battle for approximately 10 hours,
tenaciously holding his line and repelling the fanatically renewed
counterthrusts until he succeeded in crushing the last efforts of the
hard-pressed Japanese . . . .
Captain Wilson organized and led the 17-man patrol
which climbed the slope in the face of the same continued enemy fire to
seize the critical high ground at Fonte and keep it.
'Daring Tactics' Gave Capt Wilson Medal of Honor
Captain Louis Hugh Wilson, Jr.'s Medal of Honor
citation reads as follows: "For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at
the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding
officer of a rifle company attached to the 2d Battalion, 9th Marines, 3d
Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on Fonte Hill,
Guam, 25-26 July 1944. Ordered to take that portion of the hill within
his zone of action, Captain Wilson initiated his attack in midafternoon,
pushed up the rugged, open terrain against terrific machine gun and
rifle fire for 300 yards and successfully captured the objective.
Promptly assuming command of other disorganized units and motorized
equipment in addition to his own company and one reinforcing platoon, he
organized his night defenses in the face of continuous hostile fire and,
although wounded three times during this 5-hour period, completed his
position of men and guns before retiring to the company command post for
medical attention. Shortly thereafter, when the enemy launched the
first of a series of savage counterattacks lasting all night, he
voluntarily rejoined his besieged units and repeatedly exposed himself
to the merciless hail of shrapnel and bullets, dashing 50 yards into the
open on one occasion to rescue a wounded Marine laying helpless beyond
the front lines. Fighting fiercely in hand-to-hand encounters, he led
his men in furiously waged battle for approximately 10 hours,
tenaciously holding his line and repelling the fanatically renewed
counter-thrusts until he succeeded in crushing the last efforts of the
hard-pressed Japanese early the following morning. Then organizing a
17-man patrol, he immediately advanced upon a strategic slope essential
to the security of his position and, boldly defying intense mortar,
machine gun and rifle fire which struck down 13 of his men, drove
relentlessly forward with the remnants of his patrol to seize the vital
ground. By his indomitable leadership, daring combat tactics, and valor
on the face of overwhelming odds, Captain Wilson succeeded in capturing
and holding the strategic high ground in his regimental sector, thereby
contributing essentially to the success of his regimental mission and to
the annihilation of 350 Japanese troops. His inspiring conduct
throughout the critical periods of this decisive action sustains and
enhances the highest traditions of the United States naval service."
A half century later, Colonel Fraser E. West recalled
the engagement at Fonte as bitter, close, and brisk. As a young officer,
he commanded Company G, and reinforced Wilson's unit. West joined on
Company F's flank, then reconnoitered to spot enemy positions and shared
the night in a common CP with Captain Wilson.
In late afternoon of the 25th, a platoon of four
tanks of Company C, 3d Tank Battalion, had made its way up to the Mount
Tenjo Road and gone into position facing the most evident Japanese
strongpoints. At the height of the battle by Wilson's and West's
companies to hold their positions, First Lieutenant Wilcie A. O'Bannon,
executive officer of Company E managed to get down slope from his
exposed position and bring up two of these tanks. By use of telephones
mounted in the rear of the tanks to communicate with the Marines inside,
Lieutenant O'Bannon was able to describe targets for the tankers, as he
positioned them in support of Wilson's and West's Marines. West recalled
the tanks came up with a precious cargo of ammunition. He and volunteers
stuffed grenades in pockets, hung bandoleers over their shoulders,
pocketed clips, carried grenade boxes on their shoulders, and delivered
them all as they would birthday presents along the line to Companies G
and F and a remaining platoon of Company E. Major West was also able to
use a tank radio circuit to call in naval gun fire, and guarantee that
the terrain before him would be lit all night by star shells and
punished by high explosive naval gunfire.
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Long Toms of Battery A, 7th 155mm Gun Battalion, 111 Corps Artillery,
were set up in the open 500 yards from White Beach 2 in the shadow of
the mountain range secured by the 4th Marines and the Army's 305th
Infantry after heavy fighting. Department of Defense Photo (USMC)
93106
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On the morning of 26 July, 600 Japanese lay dead in
front of the 2d Battalion, 9th Marines positions, but the battle was not
over. General Turnage ordered the military crest of the reverse slope
taken. There would be other Japanese counterattacks, fighting would
again be hand-to-hand, but by 28 July, the capture of Fonte was in
question no longer. Companies E, E and G took their objectives on the
crest. Lieutenant Colonel Cushman's battalion in four murderous days had
lost 62 men killed and 179 wounded.
It was not any easier for the 21st Marines with its
hard fighting in the morning of the 25th. Only by midafternoon did that
regiment clear the front in the center of the line. The 2d Battalion,
21st Marines, had to deal with a similar pocket of die hards as that
which had held up the 2d Battalion, 9th Marines, on Fonte. Holed up in
commanding cave positions in the eastern draw of the Asan River, just up
from the beachhead, the Japanese were wiped out only after repeated
Marine attacks and close-in fighting. The official history of the
campaign noted that "every foot of ground that fell to Lieutenant
Colonel [Eustace R.] Smoak's Marines was paid for in heavy casualties,
and every man available was needed in the assault. . . ."
General Robert E. Cushman
As a 29-year-old lieutenant colonel commanding the
2d Battalion, 9th Marines, 3d Marine Division, on Guam, Robert E.
Cushman, Jr., was awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism
during the period 21 July to 30 August 1944. The medal citation states
in part:
When his battalion was ordered to seize and hold a
strongly organized and defended enemy strong-point which had been
holding up the advance for some days, Lieutenant Colonel Cushman
directed the attacks of his battalion and the repulse of numerous
Japanese counterattacks, fearlessly exposing himself to heavy hostile
rifle, machine gun and mortar fire in order to remain in the front lines
and obtain first hand knowledge of the enemy situation. Following three
days of bitter fighting culminating in a heavy Japanese counterattack
which pushed back the flank of his battalion, he personally led a
platoon into the gap and, placing it for defense, repelled the hostile
force. By his inspiring leadership, courage and devotion to duty, he
contributed materially to the success of the mission with the
annihilation of one enemy battalion and the rout of another . . . .
General Cushman became the 25th Commandant of the
Marine Corps on l January 1972. Interestingly enough, he was succeeded
four years later by General Louis H. Wilson, Jr., who commanded a
company in Cushman's 2d Battalion, 9th Marines, on Guam.
The 9th Marines under Colonel Craig made good
progress on the 25th from its morning jump-off and reached the day's
objective, a line running generally along the course of a local river
(the Sasa) by 0915. The 9th Marines had taken even more ground than was
planned. General Turnage was then able to reposition the 9th Marines for
the harder fighting on the beleaguered left. The 2d Battalion pulled out
of position to reinforce the 3d Marines and the remaining two battalions
spread out a little further in position.
The determined counterattack that hit the 3d Marines
on the night of 25-26 July was matched in intensity all across the 3d
Division's front. It wasn't long before there were enemy troops roaming
the rear areas as they slipped around the Marine perimeters and dodged
down stream valleys and ravines leading to the beaches.
Major Aplington, whose 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, now
constituted the only division infantry reserve, held positions in the
hills on the left in what had been a relatively quiet sector. Not for
long, he recalled:
With the dark came heavy rain. Up on the line Marines
huddled under ponchos in their wet foxholes trying to figure out the
meaning of the obvious activity on the part of the opposing Japanese.
Around midnight there was enemy probing of the lines of the 21st
[Marines], and slopping over into those of the 9th [Marines] . . . . All
was quiet in our circle of hills and we received no notification when
the probing increased in intensity or at 0400 when the enemy opened . .
. his attack . . . . My first inkling came at about 0430 when my three
companies on the hills erupted into fire and called for mortar support.
I talked to the company commanders and asked what was going on to be
told that there were Japanese all around them . . . the Japanese had
been close. Three of my dead had been killed by bayonet thrusts.
In the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, sector, Private
Dale Fetzer, a dog handler assigned with his black Labrador Retriever
alerted Company C. The dog, Skipper, who had been asleep in front of his
handler's foxhole suddenly bolted upright, alerting Fetzer. Skipper's
nose was pointed up and directly toward Mount Tenjo. "Get the
lieutenant!" called handler Fetzer, "They're coming."
At about 0400, the Japanese troops poured down the
slopes in a frenzied banzai attack. Japanese troops had been
sighted drinking during the afternoon in the higher hills, and some of
these attackers appeared drunk. Marine artillery fire had immediately
driven them to cover then, but they apparently continued to prepare for
the attack.
In the area of the 21st Marines, along a low ridge
not far from the critical Mount Tenjo Road, the human wave struck hard
against the 3d Battalion and the Japanese actually seized a machine gun
which was quickly recaptured by the Marines. The 3d Division was holding
a front of some 9,000 yards at the time, and it was thinnest from the
right of the 21st Marines to the left of the 9th Marines. Much of that
line was only outposted. The 3d Battalion, 21st Marines, held
throughout. Some of the raiders got through the weakly manned gap
between the battalions. They charged harum-scarum for the tanks,
artillery, and ammunition and supply dumps. The attack seemed scattered,
however, and unorganized. The fighting was fierce, nonetheless, and it
shattered the hastily erected Marine roadblock between the
battalions.
Some of the attackers got through the lines all along
the front. A group of about 50 reached the division hospital. Doctors
evacuated the badly wounded, but the walking wounded joined with cooks,
bakers, stretcher bearers, and corpsmen to form the line that fought off
the attackers. One of the patients, Private First Class Michael Ryan,
"grabbed up the blanket covering me and ran out of the building without
another stitch on." He had to run with a wounded foot through crossfire
to reach some safety.
Lieutenant Colonel George O. Van Orden (3d Division
infantry training officer), on orders from General Turnage, assembled
two companies of the 3d Pioneer Battalion to eliminate this threat. In
three hours the pioneers killed 33 of the assailants and lost three of
their own men. The 3d Medical Battalion had 20 of its men wounded, but
only one patient was hit and he was one of the defenders.
For many men in the furious and confused melees that
broke out all over the Marine positions, the experience of Corporal
Charles E. Moore of the 2d Platoon, Company E, 2d Battalion, 3d Marines,
wasn't unique. His outfit held a position about a quarter mile from
Fonte Plateau. He recalled:
We set up where a road made a sharp turn overlooking
a draw. It was the last stand of the second platoon. There were three
attacks that night and by the third there was nobody left to fight, so
they broke through. They came in droves throwing hand grenades and
hacked up some of our platoon. In the morning, I had only ten rounds of
ammunition left, half the clip for my BAR. I was holding those rounds if
I needed them to make a break for it. I had no choice. Everybody was
quiet, either dead or wounded. The Japanese came in to take out their
dead and wounded, and stepped on the edge of my foxhole. I didn't
breath. They were milling around there until dawn then they were
gone.
The Colt .45-Caliber M1911A1 Pistol
The Colt M1911A1 pistol was standard issue to many
Marine officers, noncommissioned officers, and specialists not armed
with either the M1 carbine or rifle during World War II. From 1911, this
pistol served its Marine owners as well as members of the other U.S.
services armed with it.
The first M1911 pistols were issued to the Marine
Corps in 1912, and shortly afterwards the Corps was able to field this
pistol exclusively. Although Colt manufactured more than 55,000 pistols
by the time the United States entered World War I, not enough were on
hand to preclude arming some units of the American Expeditionary Force
with revolvers. Subsequently, more than a half million M1911s were
produced before 1926, when the M1911 was modified and the revised pistol
now dubbed the M1911A1.
These modifications included a shorter, and serrated,
trigger; wider sights; a contoured handgrip; and a longer grip safety.
Approximately 1.8 million of the newer M1911A1s were produced and the
M1911s also were up graded to meet these new specifications during World
War II. The advent of World War II also meant further changes for the
pistol. Among these was altering the finish from the common shiny
blue-black to a dull gray, in the process called "Parkerization." which
was designed to give the pistol a nonreflective matte surface. Wartime
M1911A1s also sported checkered plastic grips instead of molded
rubber.
Colt could not keep up with wartime demand, and the
following firms were licensed to produce the M1911A1: Remington Arms
Company, North American Arms Company Limited, Remington-Rand Company,
Ithaca Gun Company, Union Switch and Signal Company, and Singer Sewing
Machine Company. One curious note is that the Remington-Rand Company
actually outproduced Colt during the wartime years by approximately
500,000 pistols.
During the war, in its table of equipment, a Marine
division rated 1,707 pistols, but the actual number it had was in
general substantially higher; a tribute to the popularity of the
M1911A1. A number of Marine aviators, given the option, chose the
.45-caliber Colt over the .38-caliber Smith & Wesson "Victory"
revolver.
Second Lieutenant G. M. Anthony, USMC
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As Lieutenant Colonel Cushman, evaluating the action later, said:
With the seizure of Fonte Hill, the capture of the
beachhead was completed. In the large picture, the defeat of the large
counterattack on the 26th by the many battalions of the 3d Division who
fought valiantly through the bloody night finished the Jap on Guam . . .
. What made the fighting for Fonte important was the fact that [the
advance to the north end of the island] could not take place until it
was seized.
The enemy attack failed in the south also, and in the
south it was just as much touch and go at times. The Japanese sailors on
Orote were just as determined as the soldiers at Fonte to drive the
Americans from Guam.
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