by Len Levinson
Meanwhile, up and down the regiment’s line, all the other units were on the attack also. They swept forward into the jungle, screaming at the tops of their lungs, in accents that came from every nook and cranny in America.
Colonel Hutchins led the way, jumping over shell craters, dodging around trees. He came to the first line of Japanese fortifications; they had been devastated by the bombardment. Japanese machine guns were upside down, Japanese howitzers lay on their sides, and Japanese soldiers lay everywhere, many minus head and limbs. The ground was splashed with blood, and the dust settled on top of it.
Colonel Hutchins saw a head rise up from a hole, and he pulled the trigger of his submachine gun, blasting the head into lasagna. Then he saw movement in another hole and pulled a grenade from his lapel. He yanked the pin and hurled the grenade.
“Hit it!” he yelled.
All the GIs nearby dropped to the ground. The grenade exploded in the hole, and three Japanese soldiers flew into the air.
“Up and at ‘em!”
Colonel Hutchins jumped to his feet and charged again. A dazed Japanese soldier raised his rifle and fired wildly. The bullet cracked over Colonel Hutchins’s head, and he leveled a deadly stream of submachine-gun fire at Japanese soldiers. They ducked down, and a sergeant from Baker Company threw a hand grenade into a foxhole. The GIs hit the dirt, waiting for the big explosion. It shook the ground and sent rocks and clods of earth flying through the air, along with several Japanese soldiers.
The GIs didn’t wait for Colonel Hutchins’s command. They knew what to do. Before the Japanese corpses landed, the GIs were on their feet again, firing rifles and BARs from the waist as they advanced into the salient the Japanese had made in their lines.
Some Japanese soldiers stayed put and fought to the death, while others retreated back toward the Driniumor. Meanwhile, GIs from the Eighty-first Division’s Fifteenth Regiment were crossing the Driniumor to the left of the Japanese salient as GIs from the Eighteenth Regiment crossed on the right of the salient. Their mission was to link up and cut off the Japanese retreat.
The GIs from the Twenty-third Regiment continued their headlong attack against the Japanese front. Resistance was light and they made steady progress. General Hawkins had been correct in his assessment: The Japanese presented only a thin crust on the west side of the Driniumor, and it wasn’t difficult to break through. The American artillery and aerial bombardment had done most of the work.
Here and there the GIs came upon an intact Japanese bunker, which slowed down the advance. The GIs wiped out the bunkers cautiously, using the principles of fire and maneuver, and then continued to charge, killing all the Japanese soldiers still alive and pushing the rest back.
American casualties were light. Japanese casualties were heavy. In his headquarters General Hawkins smoked a cigarette and looked down at his map, smiling as reports from the front came in. He was winning a victory. His career was not ruined after all.
Meanwhile his GIs continued their rampage through the jungle, pushing their way toward the Driniumor.
Inside the cave they heard the fighting draw closer. They knew what was happening and were biding their time.
Heaps of dead Japanese soldiers lay outside the cave, where they’d been shot by nurses and GIs from the recon platoon or annihilated by bombs and artillery shells. The jungle below was torn apart, and bodies of dead Japanese soldiers could be seen from the entrance to the cave.
Craig Delane and Jimmy O’Rourke lay at the rear of the cave, wrapped in bandages, unconscious. Corporal Froelich and Pfc. Wilkie were lined up nearby, and beside them was Captain Doris Stearns, her uniform blouse soaked with blood, her eyes wide open and staring.
The other three nurses sat with the wounded, but they themselves also had been wounded, and wore bandages on their heads, arms, legs, and bodies. Lieutenant Pagano’s nose had been broken, and Lieutenant Jones was missing a few teeth. Lieutenant McCaffrey’s left arm was in a sling.
At the front of the cave the five survivors from the recon platoon also wore bandages. Exhausted, weakened from hunger and the loss of blood, they stared hollow-eyed at the jungle below, waiting for the US Army to arrive.
Lieutenant Breckenridge sat against a wall of the cave and lit a cigarette. The sun was bright and sent rays of light deep into the cave. He puffed the cigarette and looked at his bloody, mauled men. He could hardly believe that he was alive. If the fight had gone on for another five minutes, he and the others would have been wiped out.
The American bombardment had saved them all, but just barely. Lieutenant Breckenridge was cut and bruised all over his body. He felt more dead than alive. All he wanted to do was sleep, but he couldn’t sleep until he was sure he and the others were safe.
His mind was too fatigued to think. He just puffed the cigarette and stared off into space. He hurt everywhere, but his leg provided the most pain. He’d probably need an operation before long.
“Hey, I see something down there!” said Frankie La Barbara, leaning over the barricade and pointing.
“Where?” asked Morris Shilansky.
“There!”
Lieutenant Breckenridge managed to drag his voice out of his throat. “Be careful!” he cautioned. “It might be Japs!”
“They ain’t Japs,” Frankie said. “They’re our guys!”
Frankie stood up, tilted to one side and then the other, and waved his arms in the air. “Halp! We’re up here!”
“Yeah!” replied Shilansky. “We’re Americans!”
Victor Yabalonka stood up and showed himself. The Reverend Billie Jones clasped his hands together and murmured a prayer of thanks. Lieutenant Breckenridge knelt at the barricade and saw the green fatigue uniforms and steel pots of the United States Army. They looked better than a field of flowers resplendent with all the colors of the rainbow.
The GIs in the jungle swerved toward the hill. An officer stepped forward and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Who are you up there?”
Lieutenant Breckenridge pushed himself to his feet. “Recon platoon, Twenty-third Infantry!”
“What the hell you doing there?”
“We’ve been cut off for two days!”
The officer beckoned to them. “Well, come on down, for Chrissakes! You ain’t cut off anymore!”
Lieutenant Breckenridge looked at the others and smiled. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.
The GIs picked up their dead and wounded. The Reverend Billie Jones carried Jimmy O’Rourke over his shoulder, and Victor Yabalonka cradled Craig Delane. The others carried Froelich and Wilkie. Lieutenant Breckenridge lifted Captain Doris Stearns, and Lieutenant McCaffrey came over to close Captain Stearns’s eyes.
The GIs and nurses climbed over the barricades and descended the side of the hill. Some GIs in the jungle climbed up to help them out, and the rest stared at the bloody, mangled crew coming toward them, tripping and stumbling.
They reached the bottom of the hill and stopped, their mouths wide open, their dead and wounded on their shoulders or in their arms. The GIs in the jungle crowded around them, gazing at their bandages and wounds, their torn uniforms, and the glaze of horror in their eyes.
The officer was Captain Richard Swette, the CO of Easy Company, and he recognized Lieutenant Breckenridge.
“You all right, Dale?” he asked.
“I think so, but you’d better get us some medics.”
Captain Swette turned to his runner and told him to call for medical assistance. Lieutenant Breckenridge set Captain Doris Stearns down on the grass and then sat beside her. He lit another cigarette and blew the smoke out the side of his mouth.
“Anybody got any water?” he asked.
Somebody handed him a canteen. More canteens were passed to the other GIs from the recon platoon, and to the nurses. Lieutenant Breckenridge gulped some water out of the canteen, then handed it back and lay down on the grass, closing his eyes. All the tension left his body as he went slack on the ground. His ciga
rette dangled out the corner of his mouth, and the other survivors dropped down around him, thinking of hot meals, clean uniforms, and someplace quiet where they could go to sleep.
