From an unidentified newspaper article:
YANKS WIN JAP FIELD OFF GUINEA:
Mokmer Drome Is 880 Miles From Philippines
Advanced Allied Headquarters, New Guinea, June 8. - (A.P.) - Mokmer airfield on Biak island was in American hands Thursday, a prized base from which to launch air assaults against the Philippines.
The coastal coral strip, Allied goal since the May 27 invasion of the island off northern Dutch New Guinea, fell into American hands Wednesday at 11 a.m.
A Yank column, battling its way westward down island ridges from the invasion village of Bosnek, stormed Japanese position from behind and took the field.
Then the force continued west toward Biak's two other landing strips, Borokoe, an inland drome two miles away and Sordio, a coastal field three and a half miles distant.
Another American column striking along the coast had been halted five miles east of Mokmer. Southwest Pacific headquarters announced that this Japanese block was widely encircled by the inland column which struck from the rear to take Mokmer.
"Surprise was thereby attained and the enemy's forces were routed with light losses to ourselves," the communiqué declared.
From Mokmer and other air fields which readily may be constructed on the flat, low-lying southeastern two-thirds of Biak island, Fifth air force fighters could control all western Dutch New Guinea and to the Philippines, only 880 miles distant.
On Biak island, 135 miles east of Manokwari, American forces rushed to repair work on Mokmer strip which they seized from the Japanese Wednesday morning.
June 9, 1944 More casualties coming in.
June 10, 1944
Things have quieted down a bit as air activity against us is concerned. That is, we haven't been bombed or straffed [sic] lately. But not professionally. 3 days ago I went over to the small island of Owi to superintend the setting up of surgery. It will be a fine place - after several months of work! It will be in a run-down coconut grove with high undergrowth between the trees. I slept in Sterling's tent, right on the beach. It is fine there. There are more mosquitoes than on Biak, but more shade. He even has the nurses' area planned for [the nurses only join a hospital after the nearby fighting is over]!
But such an ill-timed move right when the fighting is going on continually! All surgery is needed in one spot - not part of it an hour's travel (though only 4 miles) away. Maybe the bombs on Biak got Sterling's goat so much he just wants to run, for he is staying on Owi! Anyway they sent for me and the surgery boys next morning. I worked all day until 1:30 AM. Then the next day we received 50 or 60 more. Fortunately the LST's were in the day before and we sent out a lot of minor stuff without even re-dressing them. They will be fixed on the boat. When we had the 2 surgeries with 6 tables going, we could really turn out the work.
This morning I had my first bath in 4 days. That's another thing - no water on Owi! I'm certainly doing lots of surgery. Dick [McIlroy] and I fixed up a badly lacerated (Jap sniper) perineum scrotum and penis with severing of the urethra. The boy (Mexican) will have a slant to the S.W., I fear! I did my first cystostomy suprapubic [a new connection to drain the bladder], of which I should have done some in private practice. Under [Capt. Ed] Power's guidance I opened a belly and found a hole thru the upper pole of the Rt kidney and a large retro peritoneal hematoma [a collection of blood behind the kidney]. We used a small pack in the kidney and brought it out thru a stab wound in the flank. I've amputated a leg, fingers and toes. Lots of compound [broken in more than one place] and comminuted [splintered or crushed] fractures - tibia and fibula [lower leg], femur [upper leg], radius and ulna [lower arm], humerus [upper arm], scapula [shoulder blade], skull, ribs, hands, feet, vertebrae. I've assisted on brain, sucking chest wounds [air enters the chest and the lung collapses], intestinal wounds, colon perforations, and every sort of soft tissue wound.
We certainly get some cynical laughs hearing MacArthur's communiqués about this operation. According to him, a few days ago we secured the Mokmer air strip and were clearing out pockets of the enemy. Actually we still hold only one side and the Japs the rest, plus the ridges over looking it [our side of the strip] from which they shell the beach and our other positions with mortars, mountain guns, dual purpose AA and coast defense guns. The 186 trying to come in from behind is meeting terrific resistance. The Japs in their caves have almost perfect protection and have not suffered much from the tons and tons of shells and bombs. We don't even know where their main bivouac area is, so we haven't been able to shell effectively. Our losses must be several hundred killed and a thousand wound[ed]. I heard of one company (200 men) that tried to hold a ridge with a captain and 18 men. The rest were killed, wounded or sick from exhaustion. But at that, malaria, psychoses and exhaustion have caused more non-effectives than battle casualties. But they are gradually going ahead and gaining ground. There are few pill boxes that the tanks can get at to blast the beach at Mokmer drome. Some casualties were treated by the first aid and it was 2 or 3 days before they could be brought back by buffaloes and ducks [semi-aquatic means of transport]. The Negro duck drivers proved themselves real heroes, going right thru the toughest kind of mortar fire. Last night the 12th Portable was to try to land there. Another one had been shelled off the beach a few days before. The 162 is on that beach and the 186 back of the drome - only 2000 yards apart but they can't break thru and join up. Col. Shaw said another Jap convoy headed here, was broken up. Lord help us if they get one thru. In a Jap home broadcast and reported by a listening station in the US, they said Biak is of vital importance - that if they lose it their whole N.G. and Dutch East Indies section will fold up and the Philippines put within easy bomb range. So the Japs are really making a fight for it.
The 41st has now had 2 solid weeks of the toughest kind of fighting and is entering the 3rd. If an airstrip can be secured and used, it will help a lot.
June 11, 1944
It's calm and peaceful, following a quiet night. In church this morning we could hear the distant boom of the guns in the mad symphony of war.
Some time back the 49th Fighter Squadron was bombed, about a mile from us. 18 killed and 36 wounded. They had no foxholes, or weren't in them!
Gene wrote at the top of the following article from an unidentified newspaper, possibly the Montana Standard, "I treated this chap (Comstock)."
PRIVATE SIVULA, REPORTED MISSING, FIGHTS WAY BACK TO SAFETY
By Spencer Davis
WITH SIXTH ARMY FORCES ON BIAK ISLAND, Dutch New Guinea, June 14 - (Delayed). - (A.P.) - For 16 days Pfc. Edward Sivula of Butte, Mont., and T/4 Roger Comstock of Los Angeles were cut off behind Japanese lines.
But the hardy soldier from Montana's copper country and the blond Californian, hardened by football, finally made their way back through the fire of mortars, enemy snipers and a concentrated American barrage.
(Pfc. Sivula is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Victor Sivula, 459 East Broadway. His parents have read this dispatch after having received word only Thursday that their son was missing in action.)
On May 28, the second day of the Biak invasion, they were in a forward position, observing and reporting artillery fire, when a Japanese counter-attack isolated them. Comstock was nicked in the left arm and leg by an exploding mortar shell.
Sivula helped his companion to a limestone cave on the beach front. While spreading dried palm fronds over the entrance to conceal their position, he was injured in the right leg by mortar fragments.
They remained in their hideout four days. Once a Japanese sniper, smoking a cigarette, stepped into the cave, but he failed to see the wounded Yanks.
While fighting was still underway, they started back toward their outfit, walking two miles to a jetty at Mokmer village, then held by the Japanese.
Dodging machine gun fire they climbed into a wrecked Japanese barge. The incoming tide flooded them out within an hour.
The artillerymen again took refuge in a cave, subsisting on a small stream of fresh water trickling through it and on Japanese tinned meat and biscuits.
Comstock found a water logged native dugout canoe June 3. they bailed out the craft, stuffed rags and sticks in its holes and set out again.
Several hundred yards offshore the canoe overturned. A sniper on the cliffs above opened fire as the two Americans waded ashore. One bullet struck Comstock's canteen, which was hanging on his belt, and another pierced Sivula's helmet, grazing his forehead.
The Americans returned to their cave, hiding out for nine more days and nights, while American forces maintained a consistent barrage against Japanese positions near them.
They made another break on the night of June 11. Just before dawn, they cautiously approached the beach at Parai village, where they had observed the arrival of some Americans. Then Comstock tripped over a wire. Flames sputtered five or six feet away. It was a booby trap which failed to explode, but they ducked for safety behind a log.
They heard approaching footsteps, then a Midwestern voice growled: "Hey you two. Git up, git up."
"That GI's voice," said Comstock, "sounded like music from heaven."
"It was the happiest moment of our lives," added Sivula.
They were evacuated to a hospital. Sivula was able to rejoin his outfit after a few days' rest, and Comstock's condition was not serious.
June 12, 1944. Moving to Owi. Maj. Schwatel from the 33rd Div. with us to observe. He's been working, too!
The "mad symphony" goes on and on.
A Yank column, battling its way westward down island ridges from the invasion village of Bosnek, stormed Japanese position from behind and took the field.
Then the force continued west toward Biak's two other landing strips, Borokoe, an inland drome two miles away and Sordio, a coastal field three and a half miles distant.
Another American column striking along the coast had been halted five miles east of Mokmer. Southwest Pacific headquarters announced that this Japanese block was widely encircled by the inland column which struck from the rear to take Mokmer.
"Surprise was thereby attained and the enemy's forces were routed with light losses to ourselves," the communiqué declared.
From Mokmer and other air fields which readily may be constructed on the flat, low-lying southeastern two-thirds of Biak island, Fifth air force fighters could control all western Dutch New Guinea and to the Philippines, only 880 miles distant.
On Biak island, 135 miles east of Manokwari, American forces rushed to repair work on Mokmer strip which they seized from the Japanese Wednesday morning.
 |
| Mokmer Airdrome |
June 10, 1944
Things have quieted down a bit as air activity against us is concerned. That is, we haven't been bombed or straffed [sic] lately. But not professionally. 3 days ago I went over to the small island of Owi to superintend the setting up of surgery. It will be a fine place - after several months of work! It will be in a run-down coconut grove with high undergrowth between the trees. I slept in Sterling's tent, right on the beach. It is fine there. There are more mosquitoes than on Biak, but more shade. He even has the nurses' area planned for [the nurses only join a hospital after the nearby fighting is over]!
But such an ill-timed move right when the fighting is going on continually! All surgery is needed in one spot - not part of it an hour's travel (though only 4 miles) away. Maybe the bombs on Biak got Sterling's goat so much he just wants to run, for he is staying on Owi! Anyway they sent for me and the surgery boys next morning. I worked all day until 1:30 AM. Then the next day we received 50 or 60 more. Fortunately the LST's were in the day before and we sent out a lot of minor stuff without even re-dressing them. They will be fixed on the boat. When we had the 2 surgeries with 6 tables going, we could really turn out the work.
This morning I had my first bath in 4 days. That's another thing - no water on Owi! I'm certainly doing lots of surgery. Dick [McIlroy] and I fixed up a badly lacerated (Jap sniper) perineum scrotum and penis with severing of the urethra. The boy (Mexican) will have a slant to the S.W., I fear! I did my first cystostomy suprapubic [a new connection to drain the bladder], of which I should have done some in private practice. Under [Capt. Ed] Power's guidance I opened a belly and found a hole thru the upper pole of the Rt kidney and a large retro peritoneal hematoma [a collection of blood behind the kidney]. We used a small pack in the kidney and brought it out thru a stab wound in the flank. I've amputated a leg, fingers and toes. Lots of compound [broken in more than one place] and comminuted [splintered or crushed] fractures - tibia and fibula [lower leg], femur [upper leg], radius and ulna [lower arm], humerus [upper arm], scapula [shoulder blade], skull, ribs, hands, feet, vertebrae. I've assisted on brain, sucking chest wounds [air enters the chest and the lung collapses], intestinal wounds, colon perforations, and every sort of soft tissue wound.
 |
| Japanese bunker on Biak |
The 41st has now had 2 solid weeks of the toughest kind of fighting and is entering the 3rd. If an airstrip can be secured and used, it will help a lot.
It's calm and peaceful, following a quiet night. In church this morning we could hear the distant boom of the guns in the mad symphony of war.
Some time back the 49th Fighter Squadron was bombed, about a mile from us. 18 killed and 36 wounded. They had no foxholes, or weren't in them!
Gene wrote at the top of the following article from an unidentified newspaper, possibly the Montana Standard, "I treated this chap (Comstock)."
PRIVATE SIVULA, REPORTED MISSING, FIGHTS WAY BACK TO SAFETY
By Spencer Davis
WITH SIXTH ARMY FORCES ON BIAK ISLAND, Dutch New Guinea, June 14 - (Delayed). - (A.P.) - For 16 days Pfc. Edward Sivula of Butte, Mont., and T/4 Roger Comstock of Los Angeles were cut off behind Japanese lines.
But the hardy soldier from Montana's copper country and the blond Californian, hardened by football, finally made their way back through the fire of mortars, enemy snipers and a concentrated American barrage.
(Pfc. Sivula is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Victor Sivula, 459 East Broadway. His parents have read this dispatch after having received word only Thursday that their son was missing in action.)
On May 28, the second day of the Biak invasion, they were in a forward position, observing and reporting artillery fire, when a Japanese counter-attack isolated them. Comstock was nicked in the left arm and leg by an exploding mortar shell.
Sivula helped his companion to a limestone cave on the beach front. While spreading dried palm fronds over the entrance to conceal their position, he was injured in the right leg by mortar fragments.
They remained in their hideout four days. Once a Japanese sniper, smoking a cigarette, stepped into the cave, but he failed to see the wounded Yanks.
While fighting was still underway, they started back toward their outfit, walking two miles to a jetty at Mokmer village, then held by the Japanese.
Dodging machine gun fire they climbed into a wrecked Japanese barge. The incoming tide flooded them out within an hour.
The artillerymen again took refuge in a cave, subsisting on a small stream of fresh water trickling through it and on Japanese tinned meat and biscuits.
Comstock found a water logged native dugout canoe June 3. they bailed out the craft, stuffed rags and sticks in its holes and set out again.
Several hundred yards offshore the canoe overturned. A sniper on the cliffs above opened fire as the two Americans waded ashore. One bullet struck Comstock's canteen, which was hanging on his belt, and another pierced Sivula's helmet, grazing his forehead.
The Americans returned to their cave, hiding out for nine more days and nights, while American forces maintained a consistent barrage against Japanese positions near them.
They made another break on the night of June 11. Just before dawn, they cautiously approached the beach at Parai village, where they had observed the arrival of some Americans. Then Comstock tripped over a wire. Flames sputtered five or six feet away. It was a booby trap which failed to explode, but they ducked for safety behind a log.
They heard approaching footsteps, then a Midwestern voice growled: "Hey you two. Git up, git up."
"That GI's voice," said Comstock, "sounded like music from heaven."
"It was the happiest moment of our lives," added Sivula.
They were evacuated to a hospital. Sivula was able to rejoin his outfit after a few days' rest, and Comstock's condition was not serious.
June 12, 1944. Moving to Owi. Maj. Schwatel from the 33rd Div. with us to observe. He's been working, too!
The "mad symphony" goes on and on.
Wow...I cannot even imagine!
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