.
Master Gunnery Sergeant Mercurio's 2d Platoon was spread thin
covering the beach area, with many of his positions right on the
water. "At high tide," recalled Corporal Edwin R. Franklin, "I could
reach out and touch the water." The landing craft were only 100
yards away from the beach when Japanese flares lit up the night. The
2d Platoon began firing, but the Japanese were too close to halt the
landing. A landing craft beached in front of Franklin's position and
enemy troops began coming ashore. Mercurio, armed with only a
pistol, killed a Japanese soldier "so close he could have touched
him," as the Japanese overran the beach defenses. The fighting
became particularly bloody, "with every man for himself," remembered
Franklin. The Japanese 50mm heavy grenade dischargers or "knee
mortars" were particularly effective at close range, and the
overwhelming numbers of Japanese infantry forced Mercurio's men to
pull back from the beach.
Corporal Joseph Q. Johnson, a
31st Infantry soldier attached to the 2d Platoon, remembered, "the
gun next to me chattered, and glancing to my right, I saw its
targets, small, fleeting, darting in the shadows." Johnson fired two
belts of machine gun ammunition and was firing a third one when a
grenade landed 20 yards away. A second grenade landed closer, and
rifle fire also hit Johnson's position. When a third grenade landed
only 10 yards from the gunpit, Johnson ran to the next machine gun
position and found the two occupants dead. He kept moving, crawling
along the beach with two other survivors of his platoon, toward
Kindley Field.
Photograph courtesy of
61st Infantry Association |