Challenge for the Pacific

He was not.

Colonel Furumiya, Captain Suzuki, and seven others had survived the Americans’ systematic slaughter of the Seventh Company. Throughout Dugout Sunday they lay in the undergrowth within enemy lines, their bodies draped with leaves and vines. American patrols passed them but did not see them.

Like Colonel Ichiki before him, Colonel Furumiya thought of burning his colors and committing ceremonial suicide before the smoke. But the smoke might attract attention and bring the Americans to capture the colors before they were completely destroyed. To lose the regimental flag was unthinkable. Although the 29th Infantry may have been zemmetsu so far as its officers and men were concerned, it lived while its flag remained unviolated. To lose that flag was to lose the 29th’s honor. Annihilation in battle was a thousand times more preferable to such disgrace. This was why, according to many historians, the great General Maresuke Nogi committed suicide after the Emperor Meiji had died: he was expressing his apology for having lost his battalion colors during the Satsuma Rebellion. No, the flag, the very esprit de corps of the Japanese Army, could not be risked.

So Colonel Furumiya thought of escape instead. He sent Lieutenant Ono and two soldiers to look for a way out. They did not return, and Warrant Officer Kobayashi went to look for them. He, too, vanished.

Peering from his thorny hideout, Furumiya watched the Americans digging in. He made notes on their defenses, observing that their machine-gun positions were about fifty yards apart and that no one seemed to be manning them. From this he concluded that the guns were fired by remote control.

Colonel Furumiya also observed that the enemy seemed to be cheerful. Some of them even sang as they worked.

We have a weapon that nobody loves,
They say that our gun’s a disgrace,
You crank up 200, and 200 more—
And it lands in the very same place.
Oh, there’s many a gunner who’s blowing his top,
Observers are all going mad.
But our love it has lasted
This pig-iron bastard
Is the best gun this world ever had.

It was thus that Marine mortarmen sang of their stovepipes, those harmless-looking tubes that shoot straight up and down and kill men, and it was thus that Chesty Puller’s mortarmen were singing while they stacked up piles of shamrock-shaped triple shell casings.

Mortar shells were the only supplies which Puller had been able to get to his lines on Dugout Sunday. All of the aerial fighting, naval shelling, and the constant pounding of Pistol Pete had made movement difficult. Nevertheless, Puller was better prepared than on the previous night, having been able to shorten his front while the 3rd Battalion, 164th Infantry, took over the leftward sector he had held. On the soldiers’ left were their comrades of the 2nd Battalion, 164th.

Puller was confident, and he and his headquarters troops could hoot and jeer in derision at the English voice over Radio Tokyo which was announcing their defeat and impending demise. The fact that it was now the football season in America was not lost on the commentator, who simulated a sportscaster’s staccato, and said:

“The score stands—U.S. Navy, 0; Japan, 21—with the Japanese deep in American territory, ten yards to go. Coach Roosevelt passes up and down chain-smoking cigarettes. A pass is knocked down. America calls time out and Ghormley is pulled from the game. The Rising Sun cheers loudly for Coach Tojo. Roosevelt sends in Halsey to call signals. Another pass is called, but the ball is fumbled on the one-yard line, and the heavy favorites, the U.S., are in a bad way as the gun signals the end of the first half.”⁶

And then it was dark: Colonel Furumiya lay in the bushes waiting for the attack that would rescue them, the American soldiers and Marines braced behind their guns, and the Sendai came flowing out of the jungle in the heaviest of all Guadalcanal’s charges.

“U.S. Marine you going die tonight,” they chanted, “U.S. Marine you going die tonight.”

They were greeted by the customary volleys of obscenity, particularly from American soldiers, against whom the charge was breaking with equal fury, and who were enraged that the enemy should, just like the Stateside newspapers, give all the credit to the Marines.

So the Sendai charged, and American mortars fell among them, artillery shells flashed in the assembly areas, bullets riddled them—and they were cut in two before they reached the wire. It was not a charge, this frenzied rush to destruction, it was a mere death-swarming. They flowed into American steel like moths into flame. Without artillery preparation of their own and without adequate maps or knowledge of the enemy’s position, with arrogant confidence in the superiority of “spiritual power” over firepower and a vaingloriously suicidal determination to look upon death before defeat, Maruyama and his officers sent the Emperor’s best division into a holocaust.

General Nasu was killed, Colonel Hiroyasu was killed, four battalion commanders fell, half of the Sendai’s officers perished, and another thousand men were destroyed.

And still the Sendai Division charged.

Colonel Oka was at last attacking.

His men struck hard at the ridge held by Sergeant Paige’s section.

The Japanese came screeching up the hillside full into Paige’s guns spitting orange flame a foot beyond their flash-hiders. Short shapes fell, but more came swarming in. It was hand-to-hand. Paige saw little Leiphart down on one knee fighting off three attackers. Paige shot two of them. The third killed Leiphart with a bayonet, but Paige killed the killer. Pettyjohn’s gun was knocked out. Gaston fought a Japanese officer, parrying saber swings with his rifle, until the rifle was hacked to pieces. Then Gaston kicked at the blade. Unaware that part of his leg was cut away, he kicked high—and caught the officer under the chin and broke his neck.

All over the ridge the short shapes and the tall shapes flowed, merged, struggled, parted, sank to the ground or rolled down the slopes. Everywhere were the American voices crying, “Killl! Killl!” the gurgling whoops of the Japanese shouting, “Bonnn—za—ee!” or screaming “Marine you die!”

Then the short shapes flowed back down the ridge, and Mitchell Paige ran to fix Pettyjohn’s disabled gun. He pried out a ruptured cartridge and slipped in a fresh belt of ammunition, just as a burst from a Japanese machine gun seared his hand.

Yelling again, the short shapes came bowling up the hill once more. They could not force the left, where Grant, Payne, and Hinson still held out, though all were wounded. In Paige’s center they hit Lock, Swanek, and McNabb. They moved through the gap. Paige dashed to his right to find a gun to stop them. He found Kelly and Totman beside their gun, protected by a squad of riflemen. He ordered the riflemen to fix bayonets, and led them on a charge that drove the Japanese back. Then he set up the gun in the center and fired it until dawn.

As daylight came creeping over the jungle roof to his left, he saw one of his platoon’s machine guns standing unattended on the forward nose of the ridge. Three men in mushroom helmets were crawling toward it. Paige rose and ran forward.…

It had been a warm night at sea.

Aboard flag carrier Shokaku all seemed calm, until the silence was shattered by the ringing of alarms and voices crying “Air raid! Air raid!”

One of Admiral Nagumo’s staff officers dashed for the bridge. He saw two Catalinas come gliding down toward Zuikaku about three miles astern. Four plumes of water rose into the air to starboard of Zuikaku. The officer held his breath. Then the plumes flowed back into the sea and Zuikaku sailed on unruffled.

The officer tumbled down the ladder and raced into Admiral Nagumo’s cabin to report. Admiral Kusaka was