A Night to Remember! (30)

When the men retired to their foxholes that first night, the atmosphere at the 92nd Evac Hospital was one of uneasy relief.  That morning they had joked about it possibly being their last day on earth, but the jokes had seeds of real concern in them.  The men were alert, but not unduly frightened.  Probably some of them had even spent part of the day swimming and poking around (Gene had  poked around some, being a naturally curious person!).  It was a good thing they were alert!

Japanese supplies amidst the wreckage from the pre-invasion shelling at Humbolt Bay

April 24, 1944 Monday
     What a night to remember!  We were in our foxholes (I on my silken sheets! and dirty shoes!) by dark.  We heard that all planes at night would be enemy.  Just at dusk a lone raider came along the beach below us.  There was no radar and no search lights.  By a lucky hit, he dropped 3 bombs on the Jap ammunition dump (probably guided by the fire on the beach from the dumps burning from the previous shelling.  Explosions were more or less continuous - some tremendous enough to shake the earth where we were on a hill about a mile (4 seconds by sound) away.  Fragments went whizzing over us and a few dropped nearby.  The display was spectacular - tracers, big flaming chunks up in the sky, fire!  Christie and some others thought it was all a tremendous counter-attack (you could hear the small arm cartridges sounding like machine guns) and were too scared to look over the top of their foxholes and see it.  Me - I had my head up peeking over to see the show, and to watch how close the red hot fragments were going to land.  If one hit my foxhole, I wanted to be ready to get out!  About 4 A.M. I had to urinate, so I used my helmet.
     We started to set up and will have 2 wards and a surgery by 5 this evening.  The area is in a little saddle between Pancake and another hill.  We had bull dozzers [sic] scraping flat benches on the hillside to put up the tents.  We have to take over a portable Hosp's patients, which is by our site.  Apparently most of our food and medical supplies were burned and blown up!  The loss of life and casualties will probably be large.  So far as they can tell, several companies were almost entirely destroyed.  What a disaster.  Why was the fire left burning? [Gene felt it guided the Japanese raider the night before].
     I dug in again with Sparky and George along a stone abuttment [sic].  The work is terribly fatiguing - perspiration simply runs off in streams.  But I have no headaches like I did last night.  Even then I slept most of the time, although I woke up at each big explosion, to keep an eye out for red hot pieces or incendiaries.  I couldn't tell which was flying thru the air.
     Probably the Japs will be back in force tonight.  Just about 300 yards up the hill from us is a battery of 90 mm ack ack and searchlight and radar.  We'll probably get the near misses when the Japs try for the emplacements.

Pancake Hill with Humbolt Bay in the middle ground; note the bomb craters

     Well, so far I haven't been afraid.  It's hard to realize that this is the real thing and that anything can happen.  The worst part is that we live like pigs.  I haven't had my clothes off since yesterday morning and probably won't for a while.  We have no provision against rain except rain coats.  Most outfits have ponchos or shelter halves.

From an unidentified, undated newspaper article:

THOUSANDS OF YANKS STORM HOLLANDIA AND AITAPE BASES: Huge Air and Sea Armada Covers Landings With MacArthur Looking On (A.P.)

     MacArthur's Advanced Headquarters in New Guinea, April 24 - Under cover of a tremendous naval and air blasting, thousands of American troops established beachheads at Hollandia and Aitape on the strategic north coast of New Guinea Saturday and Monday - 60,000 more isolated Japanese faced annihilation.

     Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who witnessed the gigantic operation, terned it Bataan in reverse.  MacArthur's triumphant communiqué Monday said 140,000 Japanese troops stretching from New Guinea to the Solomon islands are thus "neutralized and strategically impotent".  These Japanese are all that remain of a force on one-fourth million established in these islands for the invasion of Australia, he declared, adding, "Time and combat will be required to accomplish the annihilation, but their ultimate fate is now certain."

Locations mentioned in the article are marked in pink.  The map is from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection: Engineers of the Southwest Pacific, 1941-45, Vol.1

     The 60,000 Japanese are caught between Hollandia and Madang.  The other 80,000 are in New Britain, New Ireland and Bouganville. 

     The Japanese, caught far off by feints in the direction of Wewak and Madang to the southeast , offered little opposition to the powerful American forces which poured ashore on both sides of Hollandia and Aitape, 150 miles southeast.

     Immediately the Americans drove toward the airdromes at both bases with tractors and bulldozers to make serviceable the excellent airstrips which are a little over 1,000 miles from the Philippines - within bomber range.

     General MacArthur, intent upon returning to the Philippines from which the Americans withdrew a little more than two years ago, watched the Hollandia landings from the quaking deck of a bombarding cruiser and went ashore with the second wave of troops, which established a beachhead at Tanahmerah bay west of Hollandia at dawn.

     After greeting field commanders and many of the men, he proceeded to the Aitape area and watched from a destroyer as the first assault team made shore, later to seize Aitape's air strips.  MacArthur went in with the second wave again and expressed his satisfaction to the commanding generals for a job well done.

     The landings, which in the case of Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea meant the first recapture of Netherlands territory in the war, bypassed the Japanese base at Wewak with its four airfields and the other enemy air bases of Bogia, Alexishafen and Madang along the northeast New Guinea coast.  The campaign swept the New Guinea front 500 miles up the coast from the Madang sector.

     A strong force of central Pacific warships under the command of Adm. Chester W. Nimitz participated in the preinvasion shelling, lending support for the first time to a MacArthur landing operation.

     These warships previously had prevented material Japanese air interference with the Hollandia action by smashing hard at Palau and Woleai in the western Caroline islands north of New Guinea as well as Truk to the east.

     The Americans disembarked from transports in tropical predawn darkness for the Hollandia landings.  They hit shore at 7:08 a.m. and by noon had driven about two miles inland from the beachheads at Tanahmerah bay and Humbolt bay.  Their objectives were three airfields lying midway between the two beachheads.

     No land mines or obstacles interfered with rapid establishment of the beachheads.  The troops met only weak resistance as they headed inland with fixed bayonets and suffered only light losses.  The estimated 14,000 Japanese in the Hollandia area may attempt a stubborn stand around the vital airfields or may withdraw to the slopes of the Cyclops mountains commanding the airstrips.

     Hollandia's once formidable air power had been knocked out in a pulverizing 1,500-ton bombing assault which started three weeks before.  The enemy's coastal defences were hit by hundreds of tons of shells in the stiffest warship and carrier plane pounding of any Japanese objective south of the Marshall islands.

     While advanced ground units pushed toward the airfields and transport craft were disgorging more men, guns and supplies on all three beaches, hundreds of naval planes and many heavily gunned warships maintained a protective screen overhead and far out to sea.

     As the first assault waves dashed toward shore in Higgins boats and amp0hibious Alligators and Ducks, navy planes dived thru the dense smoke clouds to unload bombs on a few enemy guns that survived the bombardment.

     Amphibious tanks and trucks carried the first assault wave into the southern inlet of Tanahmerah bay, Infantry followed closely to establish the first beachhead as transports unloaded a larger force five miles to the north.  By afternoon this force had driven a strong spearhead to the westernmost of the three airdromes lying between the Cyclops mountains and Sentani lake.

     The eastern jaw of MacArthur's pincers trap was set on the shores of Humbolt bay where another assault group landed between Hollandia village and the Tami airdrome, twelve miles southeast.  One unit gained the beach, drove rapidly inland one mile to occupy a hill overlooking Hollandia village, and then cut across the main road.  Americans captured a few Japanese and killed several more in this first thrust.

     Two other units landed further south and a fourth, coming in on ducks and alligators, drove thru the center across narrow palm-fringed spits enclosing the inner harbor of Humbolt bay.

     A few minutes after the assault troops hit the beaches a naval party went ashore to set up a liaison between ground forces and naval fighters and dive bombers.

     Steaming for many of the prelanding hours within range of Japanese aerial reconnaissance, the Allied invasion armada had succeeded in keeping the enemy guessing about the ultimate objectives until it was too late for the Japanese to organize any counter-action.

     approaching Hollandia from different directions, carrier and attack fleets had rendezvoused at a point which even if detected still gave the enemy no indication of its destination.  Friday night the invasion force abruptly changed its direction and warships' heavy salvos were probably the first warning the Japanese received that Hollandia and Aitape were being invaded.

     Thruout Saturday hundreds of United States navy planes monopolized the skies while fleet units steamed offshore in case the Japanese navy decided to accept the challenge to battle which the American navy has been flaunting in the Pacific since the invasion of the Gilberts last November.