Then, at dawn on the morning of 7 November (D plus 6), the Japanese
struck. Four of their destroyers put ashore 475 men well west of
the Marine perimeter, between the Laruma River and the Koromokina
Lagoon. They landed in 21 craft: barges, ramped landing boats, even
a motor boat, but, to their disadvantage, along too wide a front for
coordinating and organizing a strike in unison and immediately. A
Marine Corps combat correspondent, Sergeant Cyril J. O’Brien, saw the
skinny young Japanese who scampered up the beach with 80-pound packs
two-and-a-half miles from the Laruma to near the Koromokina, left flank
of the Marines, to join their comrades.
They were eager enough, even to die. A little prayer often in the
pockets of the dead voiced the fatalistic wish that “whether I
float a corpse under the waters, or sink beneath the grasses of the
mountainside, I willingly die for the Emperor.”
The first few Japanese ashore near the Laruma, however, did not die. An
antitank platoon with the 9th Marines did not fire because the landing
craft in the mist looked so much like their own, even to the big white
numbers on the prow. Near Koromokina, they seemed to be all over the
beach. One outpost platoon, which included Private First Class John F.
Perella, 19 years old, was cut off on the beach. Perella swam through
the surf 1,000 yards to Marine lines and came with a Navy rescue boat
and earned a Silver Star Medal.
[Illustration: _Sgt Herbert J. Thomas was posthumously awarded the
Medal of Honor._
Department of Defense (USMC) 302918
]
Lieutenant Colonel Walter Asmuth, Jr., commanding officer of the 3d
Battalion, 9th Marines, ordered a company attack, called on mortars
and the artillery of the 12th Marines. The Japanese were well equipped
with the so-called knee mortars (actually grenade launchers) and Nambu
machine guns and fought back fiercely. In that jungle, you could not
see, hear, or smell a man five feet away. Private First Class Challis
L. Still found a faint trail and settled his machine gun beside it.
An ambush was easy. The lead Japanese were close enough to touch when
Still opened up. He killed 30 in the column; he was a recipient of the
Silver Star Medal.
Yet, the Japanese didn’t give way. Ashore only hours, they had already
dug strong defenses. Even a Marine double envelopment in water,
sometimes up to the waist, did not work. By 1315, the weakened 9th
Marines company was relieved by the 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, coming
in from the beachhead’s right flank.
During darkness on that night of 7 November, enemy infiltrators got
through to the hospital. Bullets ripped through tents as surgeons
performed operations. The doctors of the 3d Medical Battalion, under
Commander Robert R. Callaway, were protected by a makeshift line of
cooks, bakers, and stretcher bearers. (As a memorable statistic, less
than one percent died of wounds on Bougainville after having arrived at
a field hospital.)
[Illustration: