The 503rd Prcht Inf (and the 501st Prcht Bn and what was left of the test platoon, little Kelly out of Co F, Cpl Collee and Voils all out of Co F and this Bn) went to war and jumped on Japanese soil

0300 hrs

   Breakfast in the dark.

0430 hrs

Troops entruck as planned. 22 men or bundles on each truck, one plane load.

0530 hrs

   43 Truck convoy moves out for Jackson Drome.  Weather misty, troops packed in tightly.”

0700 hrs

   Convoy arrives at Jackson Drome.  Chutes are put on.  There are photographers all over the place.  On the ground are more transports than most people have ever seen at one time.  On adjoining strips the fighters are warming up, across the way bombers are taxing from their revetments, creeping along like gigantic cats slinking behind a fence toward the kill.

   The Adj. and Sgt. Major were with a plane of Co F, the left assault Co.*  The jump master transmits his coolness and confidence to the men, inspects their equipment rigedly producing strong cord for a man who might lose his helmet, tape for another who was sweating some equipment catching on the door, rearranges the attachment of weapons so that they won’t get lost or bang their weapons on the chin.  He lines them up and designates again the order in which they shall jump, warns them that on this jump they may have to stand up a little longer, but by his manner lets them understand that he knows exactly what he is doing and exactly what he is going to do.

*Lt. Bradbury

During a jump the Thompson Sub Machine Gun was normally carried in a cloth case made by our parachute maintenance people.  When one went out the door, it was tucked between the legs.  After the parachute had opened, one would shift it over so that it was on the left hip.  If one forgot to shift it over, and descended gently backwards, one got a strike to the testicles not soon forgotten.

The jump master considered the Australians not trained sufficiently well to be familiar with jumping with all side arms. Their side arms/small arms shall go out the door in a pannier.

0715 hrs

   Troops enplane and wait.  The coordination of a hundred odd transports with fighter escort and bomber support, the biggest air armada yet assembled in the South West Pacific Theatre, takes patience.  Because of all the estimated timing in the planning a few small errors will multiply one upon the other.  Yet the finished product must be perfection and whatever time H hour is, at H minus one minute the jump fields will be bombed and straffed.  H hour itself must see eighty nine transports disgorge eighteen hundred men into the air over four jump areas.  H hour must see a waiting engineer bn cross a river with rubber     boats and eight hundred natives.  And at H plus five minutes the bn objective must be straffed.  H plus one hour must see six transports drop a battery of Australian Artillery and their guns on the ground.

0715 hrs

   The jumpmaster* issues a map to each man, tells them to memorize the azimuth from the jump field to the assembly area and the azimuth to the mountain.  He has each man hold up his compass to ascertain that each has it where he can get to it when he gets on the ground.  He cautions them that the grass may be over their heads.

*Lt. Bradbury

0800 (approx)
 

   The planes’ motors start and vibrate as they warm up for the take off, then the first of them swing out like a row of prehistoric monsters and start down the strip past where General McArthur is standing with his traditional corps of photographers, and newspapermen-press agents for the great.  Now around the horseshoe, they pause and gun motors before starting that long roaring run that ends with the plane in the air.  One after another they circle over Port Moresby waiting for the armada to be formed.

0930 hrs

   Over the Owen Stanley Range, the men are cold and quiet and this attitude is natural enough and yet strangely too, that of an ordinary jump with full equipment.  The jumpmaster and the crew chief are comparing notes on crew chiefs, planes and finally, places in Sydney.

0935 hrs

   The pilot sends back word that we ought to get there about eleven ‘o clock.  The jumpmaster nods as though the information has no importance to him, as though to say “I’ll know about it when the time is right, whether it is ten, eleven, or twelve.”  There is the question of how long it will take the hundreds of planes in the armada to rendezvous for H hour.

1000 hrs

   The jumpmaster has discarded his indifference toward the terrain and is now looking out the door showing a calm aloof interest.  He indicates by signs to his planeload to buckle helmets, check leg straps and equipment containers.

1015 hrs

   Passing over big river now “Stand up and hook up”  “Sound off for equipment check.”  A bustle and every man is hooked up.  The nose of the bundle is sticking out the door.  The jumpmaster is standing with the bundle on his left, watching the ground and the plane ahead for the moment when the first parachute shall blossom.  The planes are low.  Very low.  They pitch and buck.  It is the low approach we have been told about, theoretically they will gain a higher altitude just before the men jump.  Out the door can be seen other planes.  "44", a plane of Co “F” is evidently out of line because it is flying right along side when it should be to the left and the second plane ahead of this plane which is "46"  Following and even lower, maybe two hundred or two fifty are the planes of Headquarters Company 2nd Battalion.

1027 hrs

“Okay, here we go.”  The jumpmaster and the #2 man (the adjutant)* give the bundle a push.  The jumpmaster is right behind it followed by twenty one others as fast as they can get out the door.  In the air the chute openings can be heard, the rattle of machine guns straffing; the aerial laid screen can be seen on the ground.  The jumper gives a hasty  glance at the canopy after the shock, grabs his risers to slip toward where the planes are coming from, sees mountains, realizes he hasn’t seen the much advertised orientation peak.  Scans the ground for a trail he doesn’t see.  Then the grass comes up rapidly, and the jumper prepares to land and swings into the high grass covering the ground with no more than a training jump bang.  Thinks “Not hurt this time” and struggles on the ground to remove his parachute.  He rolls and tosses and it seems as though the thing will never come off.

*Jerry Riseley

1030 hrs

   After he gets the chute off he remembers the orders to ball and chain the chute and carry it to the assembly area.  He listens hopefully but everything is quiet as moonlight on a lake.

1035 hrs

The chute now in the kit bag, he realizes that all that can be seen is Kunai grass and he can barely see the top of that.  After taking the compass bearing he shoulders the chute and starts to fight his way through the grass.

   After about 10 feet - this is foolishness.  After another ten feet - the basic problem is survival of the fittest.  He sits down, panting, wet with sweat.  A smart man would leave this goddamn parachute here.  He gets up and realizes that he is so exhausted he’s looking cross eyed.  To hell with that parachute, I’ll pay for it on statement of charges.  He beats his way through the grass.  It begins to get a little shorter.  Over on his right a couple orange helmets are bobbing -then a pair of shoulders.  They don’t have a parachute on them either.  Then he sees a group of five men all going toward what he imagines is the assembly area.  Reaching the edge of the woods he finds a couple officers and 10 or 11 men.  The woods is light jungle, navigatable only with a machette.  He sits down, watches a soldier reach up and cut a lawyer vine and lo and behold water.  He tries it himself but the vine is apparently out of water.  So are the others around.  It’s all in knowing how.  “To hell with it”, he thinks.  “To hell with the war and the entire Jap Army”.  He gets out his map and figures where he is. 

   Lt. Fishburn, one of the officers, sends out a two man patrol in each direction to try to find the assembly area.  Shots are heard but not very close.  This trail (on the map) should be the trail we are on.  It shows a native village over here about 400 yds.  If you go down the trail and come to the village you’ll know exactly where you are.  Chances are there are other people around who have  soldiered in the same type of terrain who will do the same thing. 

   (The jungle is very similar to that near the beach and around Rio Chico, Republic of Panama.)

1100 hrs

   The radio operator is trying with the radio without success.  The other officers decide to depend on their patrols so he and our or five other soldiers decide the war isn’t getting any younger and start down the track.  Toward the village?

1105 hrs

Lt. Sidi Parks, CO Co F, is coming up the track.  “This is just like Panama, Sidi — where’s the company?”  “Don’t know.”  I show him the map and tell him what I’ve decided about the village.  One thing about Sidi Parks, he’s open to suggestions.  So we continue on down the track out of the jungle across a bit of Kunai grass and enter a banana grove.  On the other side of the banana grove are three or four native huts.  We fan out and approach it.  This is the village of course.  Determining  that it is unoccupied, Sidi Parks and Rascob Riley “capture” the village.  The entire clearing looks like it had just been swept with a new broom.  There are new cut coconuts under the eve of one hut, a chicken on a nest under the eve of another.  A trail leads out on the other side of the village toward the coconut road (point D) and after rummaging around for a bit we start down the track.  Only to meet one of the other people around who has soldiered in the same type of terrain.  Capt. Greco and he has most of the battalion with him.  By now it is around 1230.

1300 hrs

   Capt. Greco brings the battalion into the village, decides to alter the original plan which called for Co F, Bn Hqs, Hq Co, and Co D to approach Gabsonkek via the north trail (Coconut Road).  Co E was to take the south trail through Point D (the village).  Now Capt. Greco decides to send Co E on that trail and follow it with the remainder of the battalion such as it is.  Capt. Falcon leads out with Co E, Co F follows next, a good piece of Co D under Lt. Meade, one mortar squad with gun, most of Lt. Howard’s LMG platoon.

1310  hrs

   Co E starts to move out.

1415  hrs

   Colonel Jones arrives at pt D.  He is exhausted having been with Col Kinsler.

1320  hrs

   All the while the battalion is assembling I have been pestering hell out of everybody, asking if they have seen this officer or that officer, and how many men and machine guns and mortars they got.  This because I know that as soon as Lt. Col. Jones gets his breath he’ll expect me to know just what we have and where it is and what we don’t have and where that is.

1330 hrs

   The battalion passed through the village, what there is left of it.  Some platoon leaders have 10 men and some have 50.  Lt. Col. Jones sends me to follow the trail.  Before we have gone a quarter of a mile there are men sitting exhausted along the side of the trail, drinking milk out of coconuts.  These are probably the people who lost their energy carrying their parachutes and wandering aimlessly instead of sitting down and studying their maps.

1345 hrs

   The track is a well used one.  It is just a winding channel through the jungle.  It’s a good jungle, there are coconuts and paw paws (papaya) in abundance.  The men are beginning to throw away some ammunition and at least one mortar plate. 

   A frugal machine gun squad of Co F found and carried to the objective 5000 rounds of ammunition. One mortar Sergeant threw away his mortar sight and base plate.  When we met the rest of his squad they were disappointed in him.  What they said will never find its way into a courts martial, but the corporal commanded that squad from there on.

1415 hrs

   A few more skeletal squads and platoons are coming up from the rear.  W/O Joe Bitala arrives with most of the communication section, tell me most of the heavier radios and the bundles containing the wire and phones are lost.  Asked Lt. Jacomini how many 81’s (mortars) he now had.  (I knew it probably wasn’t many because I’d only seen one).  “Hell, I don’t know, I haven’t been worth a damn since the jump.

1530 hrs

   Moved out of the jungle and into a clearing—the trail across the clearing is a tribute to the air force.  Every ten yards or so there is a new bomb crater.