_Evacuation of the wounded was always difficult. These men are carrying
out a casualty from the fighting on Hill 1000._]
At the end of the action-filled day, the Marines were stalled. In the
morning of 26 November surprised scouts found that the Japanese had
pulled out in the darkness. Now all of the wet, smelly, churned-up
terrain around the Piva Forks, including the strategic ridgeline
blocking the East-West Trail, was in Marine hands.
There now occurred a shuffling of units which resulted in the
following line-up: 148th and 129th Infantry Regiments on line in the
37th Division sector on the left of the perimeter. 9th Marines, 21st
Marines, and 3d Marines, running from left to right, in the Marine
sector.
_The Koiari Raid_
As a kind of final security measure, IMAC was concerned about a last
ridge of hills, some 2,000 yards to the front, and really still
dominating too much of the perimeter. Accordingly, on 28 November,
General Geiger ordered an advance to reach Inland Defense Line Fox.
As a preliminary, to protect this general advance from a surprise
Japanese attack on the far right flank, a raid was planned to detect
any enemy troop movements, destroy their supplies, and disrupt their
communications at a place called Koiari, 10 miles down the coast from
Cape Torokina. The 1st Parachute Battalion, just in from Vella Levella
under Major Richard Fagan, drew the assignment, with a company of the
3d Raider Battalion attached. While it had never made a jump in combat,
the parachute battalion had been seasoned in the Guadalcanal campaign.
Carried by a U.S. Navy landing craft, the men in the raid were put
ashore at 0400, 29 November, almost in the middle of a Japanese supply
dump. Total surprise all around! The Marines hastily dug in, while the
enemy responded quickly with a “furious hail” of mortar fire, meanwhile
lashing the beachhead with machine gun and rifle fire. Then came the
Japanese attacks, and Marine casualties mounted “alarmingly.” They
would have been worse except for a protective curtain of fire from the
155mm guns of the 3d Defense Battalion back at Cape Torokina. With an
estimated 1,200 enemy pressing in on the Marines, it was painfully
clear that the raiding group faced disaster. Two attempts to extricate
them by their landing craft were halted by heavy Japanese artillery
fire. Now the Marines had their backs to the sea and were almost out
of ammunition. Then, about 1800, three U.S. destroyers raced in close
to the beach, firing all guns. They had come in response to a frantic
radio signal from IMAC, where the group’s perilous situation was well
understood. Now a wall of shell fire from the destroyers and the 155s
allowed two rescue craft to dash for the beach and lift off the raiding
group safely. With none of the original objectives achieved, the
raid had been a costly failure, even though it had left at least 145
Japanese dead.
_Hellzapoppin Ridge_
Now the action shifted to the final targets of the 3d Marine Division:
that mass of hills 2,000 yards away. Once captured, they would block
the East-West Trail where it crossed the Torokina River, and they would
greatly strengthen the Final Inland Defense Line that was the Marines’
ultimate objective. A supply base, called Evansville, was built up for
the attack in the rear of Hill 600 for the forthcoming attacks.
The 1st Marine Parachute Regiment, under Lieutenant Colonel Robert H.
Williams, was informed, two days after its arrival on Bougainville,
that General Turnage had assigned it to occupy those hills which IMAC
felt still dominated much of the Marine ground. That ridgeline included
Hill 1000 with its spur soon to be called Hellzapoppin Ridge (named
after “Hellzapoppin,” a long-running Broadway show), Hill 600, and Hill
600A. To take the terrain Williams got the support of elements of the
3d, 9th, and 21st Marines (which had established on 27 November its
own independent outpost on Hill 600). By 5 December, the 1st Parachute
Regiment had won a general outpost line that stretched from Hill 1000
to the junction of the East-West Trail and the Torokina River.
Then on 7 December, Major Robert T. Vance on Hill 1000 with his 3d
Parachute Battalion walked the ridge spine to locate enemy positions on
the adjacent spur that had been abandoned. The spur was fortified by
nature: matted jungle for concealment, gullies to impair passage, steep
slopes to discourage everything. That particular hump, which would get
the apt name of Hellzapoppin Ridge, was some 280 feet high, 40 feet
across at the top, and 650 feet long, an ideal position for overall
defense.
Jumping off from Hill 1000 on the morning of 9 December to occupy the
spur, Vance’s men were hit by a fusillade of fire. The Japanese had
come back, 235 of them of the _23d Infantry_. The parachutists attacked
again and again, without success. Artillery fire was called in, but the
Japanese found protective concealment on the reverse slopes. Marine
shells burst high in the banyan trees, up and away from the dug-in
enemy. As a result, the parachutists were hit hard. “Ill-equipped and
under-strength,” they were pulled back on 10 December to Hill 1000. Two
battalions of the 21st Marines, with a battalion of the 9th Marines
guarding their left flank, continued the attack. It would go on for six
gruelling days.
Scrambling up the slopes, the new attacking Marines would pass the
bodies of the parachutists. John W. Yager, a first lieutenant in the
21st recalled, “The para-Marines made the first contact and had left
their dead there. After a few days, they had become very unpleasant
reminders of what faced us as we crawled forward, in many instances
right next to them.”
Sergeant John F. Pelletier, also in the 21st, was a lead scout. Trying
to cross the ridge spine over to the Hellzapoppin spur, he found dead
paratroopers all over the hill. There were dead Japanese soldiers still
hanging from trees, and it seemed to him that no Marine had been able
to cross to the crest and live to tell about it.
[Illustration: HELLZAPOPPIN RIDGE