_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._]
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.
[Illustration: _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.]
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.
[Illustration: SOUTHERN BEACHHEAD