_Soldiers and Marines consolidate their positions and construct barbed
wire obstacles on the Dragons Peninsula after the attack on Bairoko.
Their apparent condition, mixture of clothing, and the ever-present
jungle provide eloquent testimony to the physical demands of the
campaign._]
On 5 July, the Northern Landing Group landed at Rice Anchorage east of
Enogai and Bairoko. A narrow beach, difficult landing conditions, and
concerns for an enemy naval attack caused the destroyer-transport force
to depart, taking the raiders’ long-range radio with it. The landing
from eight APDs and destroyers (DDs) was unopposed and met only by
porters and scouts (Corry’s Boys) under Australian Flight Officer John
A. Corrigan. Griffith described them as small men, “but their brown
bodies were wiry and their arm, leg and back muscles were powerful.
They wore gaudy cheap cotton lap-lap, or lavalavas.” These 150 New
Georgians were the Northern Landing Group’s supply transport in a
region without roads.
Undeterred by the situation, Liversedge moved out on jungle trails in
pouring rain to his first objectives, leaving two Army companies to
secure the rear. In Griffith’s words, they “alternately stumbled up one
side of a hill and slipped and slid down the other.” The 1st Raider
Battalion pushed on to reach the Giza Giza River by the night of 5 July
with the larger and heavier Army battalions following. Here Liversedge
split his force. The 3d Battalion, 148th Infantry was sent south to
block the Bairoko Trail and the remaining units went north towards the
Japanese on the Dragons Peninsula. On the night of 6 July, the naval
Battle of Kula Gulf erupted with the resultant loss of the cruiser
USS _Helena_ (CL 50). This isolated the Northern Landing Group from
even naval support. The villages of Maranusa I and Triri were occupied
and patrols were soon in contact with the enemy, members of the _6th
Special Naval Landing Force_, so-called Japanese “marines.”
On 9 July, the Enogai defenses were reached and, after an air strike,
Liversedge launched an immediate attack with Lieutenant Colonel
Griffith’s 1st Raider Battalion. Captain Thomas A. Mullahey’s Company
A was on the left, Captain John P. Salmon’s Company C in the center,
Captain Edwin B. Wheeler’s Company B on the right, with Company D under
Captain Clay A. Boyd in reserve. Employing machine guns and grenades,
the battalion advanced toward the Japanese position until halted at
nightfall. The Japanese were well dug-in and well armed with machine
guns and mortars, but their heavy-caliber coast defense artillery could
only be used seaward. Supported by 60mm mortars, the raiders resumed
the attack the morning of 10 July, and took Enogai Village. Richard
C. Ackerman, a Marine with Company C, remembered “we soon came to a
lagoon which stopped our forward motion. Our right flank, though, did
overrun the enemy’s warehouse and food storage area.” The Japanese lost
300 men at a cost of 47 Marines killed, another 74 wounded, and 4 men
missing. The battalion had fought for 30 hours without rations or water
resupply. Army troops carried up water and K-rations and candy bars
received in an air drop. The elimination of the Japanese coast defense
artillery at Enogai allowed American destroyers and torpedo boats to
operate unhampered in the Kula Gulf, where they disrupted Japanese
barge traffic.
Under Japanese air attacks, the 1st Marine Raider Regiment consolidated
its gains and blocking positions, while Colonel Liversedge studied the
Bairoko Harbor defenses. Communications, resupply, and fire support
were problem areas. The Japanese improved their own dispositions and
continued to bring in troops and supplies from Kolombangara by sea and
then moved them overland to Munda Point. The main Japanese line was
on a ridge in front of the Americans. The enemy fighting positions
were log and coral bunkers that made excellent use of terrain and
interlocking machine-gun fire supported by heavy mortars. On the
night of 12-13 July, the Navy intercepted a Japanese troop landing
at Kolombangara. Four days later, on 17 July, Liversedge pulled
the 3d Battalion, 148th Infantry back to Triri Village for closer
mutual support, while other Army companies continued to hold the Rice
Anchorage area and communications routes.
Reinforced on 18 July by the 4th Raider Battalion, Liversedge planned
to attack Bairoko on 20 July 1943. The attack was launched on schedule
despite the failure of a requested airstrike to arrive. Liversedge sent
in Griffith’s battalion, followed by Currin’s battalion, to find an
undefended flank or a breakthrough point. Griffith committed Wheeler’s
Company B and Company C under First Lieutenant Frank A. Kemp. His other
companies had been used to bring these two up to strength. Currin’s
battalion fielded four companies, but was some 200 men understrength.
Companies B and C soon stalled on the Japanese defenses. Captain Walker
took Company P forward for support, while Snell’s Company N tried to
find an open flank along the shoreline to the north. One of Snell’s
men, Frank Korowitz, remembered feeling that he wanted to get up and
run when Japanese attacked by surprise at close range, but “I also felt
that I would rather be killed than have anyone know I was scared.”
Liversedge fed in his remaining units to cover the gaps that developed
between the two battalions and no longer had a reserve. Walker
recalled, “without some kind of fire support (naval gunfire or air)
these raiders could not penetrate the fortified enemy line.” McCormick,
with Company Q, wrote that the Japanese had plenty of time to prepare
and had “machine gun pits in the natural shelter provided by the
roots of banyan trees and cut fire lanes through the underbrush.” The
combination of machine guns, mortars, and snipers guaranteed “almost
instant death” to any Marine caught in these fields of fire.
At 1445, a Japanese mortar barrage was followed with a counterattack
in the 1st Battalion area. After this, another assault attempted by the
Marines of Company Q lead by Captain Lincoln N. Holdzkom bogged down
within sight of Bairoko Harbor. By now there was a loss of almost 250
Marines, a 30 percent casualty rate. The 1st Marine Raider Regiment had
46 killed and another 200 or so wounded, and about half the wounded
were litter cases. Liversedge made no further headway and withdrew that
night to Enogai. It required another 150 men to move the casualties
back and all units were in defensive positions by 1400, 21 July.
By then, the effects of the fighting and living conditions had taken
a toll in sickness and exhaustion of the Northern Landing Group.
Liversedge was ordered to hold what he had with available forces.
Resupply and casualty evacuation were by air and there was no further
reinforcement, except a 50-man detachment under Captain Joseph W.
Mehring, Jr., of the 11th Defense Battalion that provided needed 40mm
and .50-caliber antiaircraft guns at Rice Anchorage.
[Illustration: _1st Raider Regiment casualties from the attack on
Bairoko had to be treated in place or evacuated by aircraft. Some 200
casualties were carried from the field, then taken by rubber boat to
Consolidated PBY Catalinas. After this picture was taken a Japanese air
attack disrupted this effort and damaged one aircraft._
Department of Defense Photo (USMC) 152113
]
Bairoko Harbor was attacked by destroyers and torpedo boats, and bombed
by B-17 Flying Fortresses. On 2 August, XIV Corps informed Liversedge
that Munda Point was reached and his force should cut off retreating
Japanese near Zieta. On 9 August, the Northern Landing Group linked
up with elements of the 25th Infantry Division advancing from Munda
Point and assumed control of the 1st Marine Raider Regiment. Scattered
fighting continued around Bairoko until 24 August when it was occupied
by the 3d Battalion, 145th Infantry. The Japanese defenders, the
_Special Naval Landing Force_ men, had pulled out by sea. Occupying
Corrigan’s “Christian Rest and Recreation” camp of thatched lean-to’s,
the Marines totaled their casualties for this effort; regimental
headquarters had 1 killed and 8 wounded, 1st Raider Battalion lost
74 killed and 139 wounded, 4th Raider Battalion had 54 dead and 168
wounded; and all suffered from the unhealthy conditions of the
area. By 31 August 1943, the 1st Marine Raider Regiment was back on
Guadalcanal for reorganization scheduled in September, officially
noting the presence of “bunks, movies, beer, chow.”
[Illustration: