Helping to control these early strikes and achieve pinpoint accuracy
was Lieutenant Colonel William K. Pottinger, G-3 (Operations Officer)
of the Forward Echelon, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing. He had taken a radio
out of a grounded plane, moved to the frontlines, and helped control
the attacking Marine planes on the spot. (This technique was an
improvised forerunner of the finely tuned procedures that Marine dive
bombers would use later to achieve remarkable results in close air
support of ground troops.)
The 3d Marine Division’s history was pithy in its evaluation, “It was
the air attacks which proved to be the most effective factor in the
taking of the ridge ... the most successful examples of close air
support thus far in the Pacific War.”
Geiger wasn’t through. He had a battery of the Army’s 155mm howitzers
moved by landing craft to new firing positions near the mouth of the
Torokina River. Now the artillery could pour it on the enemy positions
on the reverse slopes.
In one of the daily Marine assaults, one company went up the ridge for
two attacks against Japanese who would jump into holes they had dug
on the reverse slope to escape bombardment. The Japanese finally were
tricked when another company, relieving the first one, jumped into
the enemy foxholes before their rightful owners. It cost the Japanese
heavily to try to return.
In a final assault on 18 December, the two battalions of the 21st moved
from Hill 1000 to the spur in a pincer and double envelopment. But
the artillery and bombs had done their work. The Japanese and their
fortress were shattered. Stunned defenders were easily eliminated.
Patrick O’Sheel, a Marine combat correspondent, summed up the bitter
battle, “No one knows how many Japs were killed. Some 30 bodies were
found. Another dozen might have been put together from arms, legs, and
torsos.” The 21st suffered 12 killed and 23 wounded.
With Hellzapoppin finally behind them, Marines could count what
blessings they could find and recount how rotten their holidays were.
There had been a Thanksgiving Day spent on the trail while gnawing a
drumstick on the way to another engagement at Piva Forks. And now, on
21 December, four days until Christmas, and the troops still had Hill
600A to “square away.”
[Illustration: ATTACK ON HILL 600A