Enemy reconnaissance patrols were numerous around 2130, trying to draw
fire and determine Marine positions. Colonel Suenaga was out in front
of the center thrust which began at 2330 after a brisk mortar flurry
on the right flank of the 4th Marines. The Japanese came on in full
force, yelling, charging with their rifles carried at high port, and
throwing grenades. The Marines watched the dark shadows moving across
the skyline under light of star shells from the ships. Men lined up
hand grenades, watched, waited, and then reacted. The Japanese were
all around, attempting to bayonet Marines in their foxholes. They even
infiltrated down to pack-howitzer positions in the rear of the front
lines. It was the same for the 22d Marines. A whole company of Japanese
closed to the vicinity of the regimental command post. The defense
here was held largely by a reconnaissance platoon headed by Lieutenant
Dennis Chavez, Jr., who personally killed five of the infiltrators at
point-blank range with a Thompson sub-machine gun.
Four enemy tanks in that same attack lumbered down Harmon Road. There
they met a bazooka man from the 4th Marines, Private First Class
Bruno Oribiletti. He knocked out the first two enemy tanks and Marine
Sherman tanks of Lieutenant James R. Williams’ 4th Tank Company platoon
finished off the rest. Oribiletti was killed; he was posthumously
awarded the Navy Cross for his bravery. Enemy troops of the _38th_ also
stumbled into the barely set up perimeter of the newly arrived 305th
Infantry and paid heavily for it.
After one day and night of furious battle the _38th_ ceased to exist.
Colonel Suenaga, wounded in the first night’s counterattack, continued
to flail at the Marines until he, too, was cut down. Takashina ordered
the shattered remnants of the regiment north to join the reserves he
would need to defend the high ground around Fonte Ridge above the
Asan-Adelup beachhead. The general would leave his troops on Orote to
fend for themselves.
_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 1 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 1 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.
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
throughout 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.
[Illustration: _FRONTLINE--W-DAY AGAT BEACHHEAD_