_The cost of battle. Fellow Marines mourn as a buddy is to be buried._]
The avalanche hit the 105th Infantry, dug in for the night with
two battalions on the main line of resistance and the regimental
headquarters behind them. However, those two forward battalions had
left a 500-yard gap between them, which they planned to cover by fire.
The Japanese found this gap, poured through it, and headed pell-mell
for the regimental headquarters of the 105th. The men of the frontline
battalions fought valiantly but were unable to stop the banzai
onslaught.
Three artillery battalions of the 10th Marines behind the 105th were
the next target. The gunners could not set their fuses fast enough,
even when cut to four-tenths of a second, to stop the enemy right on
top of them. So they lowered the muzzles of their 105mm howitzers and
spewed ricochet fire by bouncing their shells off the foreground.
Many of the other guns could not fire at all, since Army troops ahead
of them were inextricably intertwined with the Japanese attackers.
However, other Marines in the artillery battalions fired every type
of small weapon they could find. The fire direction center of one of
their battalions was almost wiped out, and the battalion commander was
killed. The cane field to their front was swarming with enemy troops.
The guns were overrun and the Marine artillerymen, after removing
the firing locks of their guns, fell back to continue the fight as
infantrymen.
[Illustration: