Late in the morning on 7 July the raider advance guard met up with
the enemy for the first time. In a brief fight it killed two men and
captured the remaining five members of a small Japanese patrol near the
village of Maranusa. From there the trail followed the steep sides of a
coral ridge for a mile. In the village of Triri, at the western end of
the ridge, the advance guard encountered a second patrol. The raiders
killed 11 Japanese here, but lost three dead and four wounded. The
attackers set up around Triri for the night and arranged ambushes along
the trails entering the village. At dawn on 8 July a strong enemy force
bumped into the platoon of raiders from Company D blocking the trail to
Bairoko. The fight lasted all morning and the Japanese did not break
off till Company C arrived on the scene. The enemy left behind 50 dead.
While the Army companies held Triri, the raider battalion moved out in
the afternoon for Enogai. That trail entered yet another swamp along
the southern edge of the inlet. This one was so bad that Griffith
decided to return to Triri and try a new route the next day. It was
just as well, for the Japanese had renewed their counterattack on the
Bairoko trail and were pressing hard on the soldiers. A raider platoon
from Company B slipped around the enemy flank and soon caused the
Japanese to withdraw again.
On the morning of 9 July the 1st Raider Battalion headed down a
different trail toward Enogai. It crossed the swamp by an easier route
and led onto the high ground that dominated the objective. At 1500
Company C made contact with the Japanese defenses. Company A went into
line on the left of Company C, anchoring its left flank on Leland
Lagoon. Company B took the right flank. Thick jungle canopy prevented
the use of mortars, but the lack of light also kept undergrowth to a
minimum, leaving good fields of fire for small arms. Companies A and
C were soon pinned down, though Company B reported no contact to its
front. As night fell the firing slacked off.
Early the next morning Company B patrols moved forward and discovered
their portion of the front unoccupied. Griffith then ordered his right
flank to attack through the open terrain near the inlet. Mortars
provided valuable support and Company B advanced quickly. With their
flank turned, the Japanese began to pull out and cross to the spit
of land on the north side of Leland Lagoon. Company A’s machine guns
turned that into a bloody retreat, but its infantry platoons still
could not crack the tough resistance in their immediate front. By
evening, however, the raiders had surrounded these final holdouts. At
first light the following day (11 July), Company D attacked with hand
grenades and cleaned out the area.
American losses in the campaign against Enogai were 54 dead and 91
wounded. But the Marines and soldiers had killed 350 Japanese and
seized 23 machine guns and four 140mm coastal defense guns. These
results were remarkable given the handicaps which the American forces
faced. The rough terrain had made it impossible for the troops to carry
all the rations and ammunition they needed. (The 1st Raiders had gone
without food for more than a day when supplies air-dropped to Triri
finally reached them on the front lines at Enogai the evening of 10
July.) With the exception of one air strike, fire support had come
entirely from the raiders’ handful of 60mm mortars.
There was also no way to quickly evacuate wounded to adequate hospitals
until the Marines had taken Enogai. Then, on July 11, three PBYs
flew in to carry the casualties to the rear. That mission almost had
an unhappy ending when two Japanese planes appeared and strafed the
PBYs as they sat on the water boarding the wounded. Luckily damage
was slight and the amphibian planes were able to take off after the
attack. When the PBYs departed they carried two of Liversedge’s staff
officers with a plea for better aerial resupply and for the 4th Raider
Battalion.
_Bairoko_
Things were worse for the 3d Battalion, 148th Infantry. After breaking
off from the line of march of the 1st Raiders on 6 July, the soldiers
had moved over equally difficult terrain to assume their blocking
position on the Munda-Bairoko Trail on 8 July. After initial success
against surprised Japanese patrols, the Army battalion fought a
bloody action against an enemy force of similar strength that pushed
the American soldiers off high ground and away from the important
trail. Heavy jungle and poor maps prevented aerial resupply of their
position, while illness and casualties sapped manpower. Liversedge led
a reinforcing company from the 3d Battalion, 145th Infantry, to the
scene on 13 July. Disappointed at the results of this portion of the
operation, and unable to reinforce or resupply this outpost adequately,
the raider colonel decided to withdraw the force to Triri. There the
soldiers would recuperate for the upcoming move on Bairoko and disrupt
enemy movement on the Munda-Bairoko Trail with occasional patrols.
[Illustration: