"At dawn of the 19th I reported our situation to Bailey.  We were cut off to the east by the Japs in the railroad cut, and to the north by Japs under and around the trolley cars. They had a Nambu LMG.  Any movement drew fire from them and the riflemen. We were out of ammunition. We had several wounded who were in real need of medical attention. Pasquale Ruggio, of the 2nd platoon, was hit by rifle fire from the direction of the rail-road cut and killed.  Pfc Lawrence Rainville, mortar platoon, was wounded too. The mortar men, Sgt. Phillips, Burl Martin, George Montoya, the young Richard "Tropical" Peterson▼, Virgil Short, and others searched through the dozens of empty mortar shell cartons and found 5 or 6 rounds.  After Ruggio was killed they fired these rounds at the "ditch", or railroad cut. They thought they'd put every round in it. Even the .50 cal was fired towards the cut.  In truth, there was a crater against the railroad cut which we could not see, and there were over a dozen Japs taking very effective shelter in it. These were the Japs who were firing at us. Those in the cut were unable to climb the high, sheer walls to get into position to fire at us. 

The sun was up now, and the SCR 536 radio was powered up. At this point the CO of D Battery contacted me by radio.  His thin radio voice was quizzing me,

"I can see about 300 yards to the east north-east of your position, looking straight down the cut, and see a group of men in the cut. Are they enemy?"  

"Affirmative. They have us cut off from Topside," I responded. 

"Well, we'll soon take care of that," was his assurance. 

Only when the D Battery's 60 mm mortar battery delivered an awesome amount of fire down the cut, where it created a carnage exploding between the concrete walls, was the problem eliminated.  Later we would find the bodies so heaped up and mutilated that we could not get an exact body count. 

We evacuated our wounded. Pvt. Lloyd McCarter, Pfc. Benedict Schilli, Pfc. Richard Aimers, Pfc John Albersman, Pfc. Lawrence Rainville, and one of the LMG section men, possibly two, were wounded. All the wounded were litter cases, which gave us some problems.  S/Sgt Donald E. White from the 2nd platoon had had moved his position on the southeast corner forward several yards in order to better see the enemy and to control his squad.  For this act of bravery he lost his life. Pfc. Pasquale A. Ruggio, also of 2nd platoon,  was a fatality. The casualty list belied the serious situation we had been in, and how close the Japanese had come to defeating us.  

The ground is littered with Japanese weapons and one of our conventional 60 mm mortars. We had both of them out there. The direct fire 60 was over with Bailey's force on Way Hill. From left to right are Richard "Tropical" Peterson (15 years old), Bill Calhoun, George Montoya holding a Jap 50 cal. MG, Virgil Surber, and Burl Martin holding a Jap 50 cal, MG. All the men with me are in the mortar platoon.

The Japanese had suffered dearly for their Bushido. The next day, the 20th, we counted and estimated about 315 corpses,  including about 200 dead along Maggot Valley. We had to use some estimates, because the Japs had dragged many bodies into craters, and we were not about to remove them just to count them. There ere two very large craters on Grubbs Road which were filled to the top, as well as several small ones. There were 70 bodies in between our east defenses and the crater, about 30 down in the railroad cut, and 15 in the crater adjoining the cut. Bill Bailey estimated that his force on Way Hill had accounted for 135 more.   

 We destroyed or captured at least 13 machine guns.  We destroyed a HMG (Schilli's the afternoon of the 18th at the wooded knoll, we brought six 50 cal HMG's from the valley to the top of the hill along with five 30 cal LMG's ( three Lewis type and two Nambus) and one Nambu was destroyed under the trolley cars.  In addition there was a probable.  Jack Mara tells me of a machine gun located up on Way Hill behind the trolley cars some distance.  This gun opened up on us during the night.  Qur LMG's soon silenced this gun.  We did not get up there so we did not know if the gun was still there.

In addition to John Bartlett and Perry Bandt bringing up guns, some of the mortar platoon brought up guns.  It took two men to carry the HMG's.  The Japs tied wire or cloths around the barrel near the muzzle so the man in front would have something to carry the gun by.  I have no memory of how we disposed of these guns.  We probably carried the LMG's with us, but I doubt if we carried the HMG's.

Our platoon had prevailed against a multitude of attackers in exchange for relatively few casualties on our side. This was due to several factors. Firstly, we held a formidable position. Secondly, our men were placed to take the best advantage of their position. In the face of an overall laxness,  Bill Bailey had exercised great foresight in taking precautions,  seeing that both strong points were adequately manned and supplied with extra ammunition.  Fourthly,  we had to thank the mindset of the Japanese officers, who simply failed to comprehend that the principles of Bushido were no substitute for the principles of a good offensive action. Their staggering incompetence to the task still stupefies me, and the waste of the duteous servitude of their lower ranks appalls even all these years later.  Fifthly, the élan of the U.S. paratrooper, as finely attuned to the necessities of close combat as our years in training had been able to make us – the best! "

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