_With Wismer’s detachment were Cpl Maier J. Rothschild, at left, and
Pvt John Wantuck, at right. Both earned the Navy Cross during the
fighting at Zanana in defense of the beachhead. Wantuck died there._]
Captain Robert W. Blake’s platoon of light tanks now played an
important part in the assault and capture of Munda Airfield. The
airfield was defended by various aviation personnel, antiaircraft
units, and the 229th Infantry Regiment. During the next five days,
9th Defense Battalion tanks spearheaded the advance, knocking out
enemy log bunkers, pillboxes, and other strong points. On a number of
occasions during the assault on the enemy’s final defense positions
north of Ilanana, the tank platoon operated in the densely wooded and
irregular terrain, under conditions believed highly unsuitable for tank
employment. For the first time, the Japanese attacked the tanks with
magnetic mines and Molotov cocktails, bottles of gasoline with lit
wicks. On the morning of 15 July, the tanks broke through the enemy’s
strong positions after Army infantry had repeatedly been thrown back.
The XIV Corps attack on Munda was stalled by both the dogged resistance
of the defenders and the rugged terrain.
The “Murderers Row” of 155mm guns continued shelling the Munda
Airfield, Baanga Island, and other outlying islands throughout this
phase. The primary targets were antiaircraft and field artillery
positions, and ammunition dumps. Directed by both ground and air
observers, this firing proved very effective. “The artillery shelling’s
accuracy has become a real thing. We can never tell when we are to
die,” wrote a Munda defender. On 15 July, landing craft carried Battery
A to Tambusolo Island where it was assigned the mission of covering the
western approach to Blanche Channel with 155s against the incursion of
still dangerous Japanese ships. On the night of 17 July at Zanana, 9th
Defense Battalion Marines were involved in some memorable fighting.
A few days earlier, Lieutenant Wismer led a patrol which killed four
members of an enemy patrol and captured a fifth, from whom they learned
that a Japanese force of 150 men was in the vicinity. A rear command
post of the 43d Infantry Division with approximately 125 troops, nearly
all specialists commanded by a legal officer, was in the beachhead
area. The Marines under Wismer deployed for ground defense and Private
John Wantuck and Corporal Maier J. Rothschild manned two salvaged Army
.30-caliber light machine guns covering trails leading to the perimeter
of the Zanana area. Colonel Satoshi Tomonari’s _13th Infantry Regiment_
attacked with several groups during the night, forcing Lieutenant
Wismer’s defenders back to their gun pits, while Wantuck and Rothschild
remained forward of the lines engaging the Japanese with machine-gun
fire on each assault. The Marines were attacked by a regiment that had
“the determination of a suicide squad and under the command of the
Regimental Commander they are determined to fight to the last man.”
[Illustration: