"Debarked at Dobodura, New Guinea.  Pitched bivouac at new station.”

“On February 1st 1944, camp was broken at 1430 hours & the troops went aboard the SS Robert Walker at 1605 hr.  Hoisted anchor at 1700 hr & sailed for unknown destination.  The ship docked at Brisbane, Australia on 17th of February, traveling a distance of 1256 miles.  On the 28th of February, 1944, First Lt. McRoberts assumed command of the company.  The troops arrived at Camp Cable on the 29th of February & there joined First Sergeant Baldwin.”  

The date is obviously wrong since the troops arrived at Camp Cable 17 February 1944. 

"The first batch of replacements of Brisbane arrived two weeks earlier & had the camp ready for the old soldiers."

"The month of March brought more hard training & preparations for a change of stations.  Twelve men from Company “B” underwent stiff training at the Australian Commando School.” 

The writer is having trouble with the company designation change.  The school is the Queensland Jungle Warfare School described in Lt. Calhoun’s diary. 

“The men made the best of the short four weeks at Cable by visiting such places as Logan’s Village, Savoy’s Queens St. & Beaudesert & beer call formations."

"Once again the troops embarked on the U.S.S. Sea-Cat, left Brisbane 5 April, 1944.  On April 13 they disembarked at Dobodura (Oro Bay), New Guinea.”

“The regiment was given limited intelligence details on Hollandia and Aitape in preparation for a possible jump there, but the Jap resisitance afforded the ground troops cancelled this mission."

"April and May were occupied by training and on May 26th the Regiment moved to Dobodura to the air strips.” 

This is incorrect.  The Regiment had moved from Cape Sudest, Oro Bay, after about a month to Dobodura to an old cantonment area across from the 31st Infantry Division.  It then moved from there on 26 May to a newly cleared area and set up its cantonment area. 
 

The unit sailed from Bretts Wharf, Brisbane aboard the USAT “Sea Cat”, in a northerly direction, destination unknown.

The “Sea Cat” stopped at Townsville, Cairns, Port Moresby, Milne Bay, and finally dropped anchor at Oro Bay, New Guinea.  The battalion debarked and was transported in ducks from the ship’s gangway direct to the battalion area at Cape Sudest.”

“On June 4, 1944, the troops traveled by air to Cape Cassoe, Hollandia, New Guinea.  Company “F” patrolled and hunted souvenirs in Hollekang area.”

Names were new and confusing as can be seen by the different spellings of several names given in the accounts here.  There are some that may have more than one way of spelling.  This certainly is true of some of the names on Negros Island as will be seen later on.

"F" Company and the rest of the regiment got up at 0300.  Breakfast consisted of one pancake, fat and stringy bacon and coffee.  We did not have the luxury of syrup or jelly with our pancakes -  not even syrup made of sugar and water.  Trucks took the companies to the airfield where C-47’s were lined up.  As we walked around them in the dark they seemed so large, too large for C-47’s.  Loading began at 0530.  We took off at 0600.  The first part of the flight followed the coast.  At Lae the flight moved inland up the Markham valley over Nadzab where the 503^rd had jumped last September.  We crossed by the mountains back to the coast and over Wewak.  As we flew over Wewak we were at an altitude of 13,000 feet.  Far below we could see B-25’s bombing Wewak at low level altitude seemingly to us just above the tree tops.  The planes appeared to be very small along with the puffs of smoke in the forest where their bombs exploded.  Our flight continued on up the coast over Atape and to Hollandia.  The coast is beautiful in this area as viewed from the air.  The coral reefs form peculiar, multicolored formations under the water.  The land is so green.  We knew what mangrove swamps were like though.  Nature is the best camouflager of all.  Approaching Hollandia and descending we passed over a large bay and could see a large lake to the south.  We landed at Cyclops Drome, a 2500 foot Jap field which was very rough.  We got out onto a fiercely hot and terribly dusty place.  The Cyclops Mountain is between the strip and the sea cutting off the winds.  The dust was red and exceedingly fine.  The constant movement of the planes at this busy strip kept this dust moving  covering everything.  In a matter of minutes we were filthy. Nearby a Zero fighter was being rebuilt by our Air Force.  We looked this over along with a Jap aerial .50 Cal. MG which looked exactly like ours.  As a graduate of the Aircraft Armament School in 1941 I had seen and worked on many of our aerial .50 Cal MG’s.  So when I say exactly like ours I mean just that.  They copied well.

We loaded on trucks and moved out of that furnace.  There was evidence of heavy bombing everywhere.  Shattered coconut trees, wrecked Jap planes, craters, wrecked vehicles, and heavily damaged equipment was to be seen all around this field.  We kept our parachutes.  We expected to jump on Biak within the next day or two.  Now we were going to take that step and catch up with the Japs.  We travelled east along a road still along the south side of Cyclops Mountain.  We stopped at a large coconut plantation called Evli Plantation.  A few miles to the northwest was Tanahmerah Bay.  The large bay we had flown over coming in from the east was Humbolt Bay.  This was the good harbor which made this place so valuable.  The town of Hollandia was located on the west side of this bay.  The big lake to the south was Lake Sentani.

The Regt. CP was set up in the Ebli Plantation house.  The house was a low, rambling structure.  The outside walls were woven palm leaves which were about three feet tall.  The upper part of the sides were open.  The roof had an overhang of several feet.   stream ran through the house.  Within the house’s walls the water way was cement lined.  In the kitchen and bathing area brick holding tanks had been built so that water could be heated.  The plantation was at the base of the mountains and many icy, crystal clear stream flowed through the area. 

We pitched pup tents setting up a bivouac area on the grassy flats under the coconut trees.  Our area was at the edge of the plantation next to where the undergrowth started.  The Japs had fled up into the mountains following the invasion.  Many were still up there starving and came down at night seeking food.

At noon the company had K Rations, but that evening we had a choice, K or C Rations.  An engineer unit just east of us located on the two lane graveled, or coral, surfaced road we were by had damned a stream making a great bathing place.  Just as we arrived there to bath the sanitation engineers arrived and placed an “off limits” in plain view.  That was the end of that.  We bathed in the cold streams while we were there.

Word got around that the jump on Biak was off.  The scuttlebutt was that if we did jump on Biak it would be behind our lines because of a lack of ships to transport us.  Another bit of scuttlebutt was that a Jap fleet was coming down from the Philippines to attack us.  This fleet supposedly included two battleships.

That night many of the troopers went up and down the road trying to find a movie but no movies seemed to be operating that night.  Everyone was thinking of the Japs coming down that night and slept with loaded pieces nearby.

K Rations for breakfast.  Soon afterwards a weapons inspection was made.  We were warned to be on alert. Most of F Company and the regiment headed for the mountains to explore.  Lieutenants Ball, Attmore, and I went up the mountain behind us.  We went through old enemy bivouac areas which contained broken china-  saucers and cups- old clothing, field bags, shoes, steel helmets, etc.  On top of the ridge we met Sgt. John R. Phillips and three others.  We along the ridge had found several Jap bodies.  These Japs had been  dead only 3-4 weeks, but they were already skeletons.  The ants and the weather were responsible for this.  We found nothing worthwhile and after a long search went back to camp.

Sgts. Henry Poisant and Luie Commander made the big finds.  Poisant found a beautiful saber by the remains of a Jap Marine captain and Commander got his pistol.  Poisant turned down 500 pounds for the saber. 

Henry Poisant kept the saber until recent years.  He had it wrapped and hidden in the basement of a house he owned.  After a tenant moved he looked for the saber and it was missing.  He could never locate the former tenant either.

The mess served hot food this afternoon, for supper.  The meal was meat and vegetable hash.  This was the same concoction that was canned in the individual C Ration.  Of all Army rations this was the worst to me.  Serving it out of one gallon cans added nothing to it to improve the taste.  At this time there were only three types of meat units in C Rations.

Chow back to normal. 

It was announced during the morning that we would start a regular training schedule the following day.  This was the same as an announcement that combat missions in the near future were off.  This is really hard on morale. 

One might think that there would be a sense of relief when a mission is called off, but just the opposite is true.  Special trained, elite units, as the 503d was,  became highly keyed up when combat becomes imminent.  Call off the combat and a sense of frustration always develops.  It is as though they have been falsely promised, and the promise had now faded. 

Tonight regt. put on a stage show directed by our Special Services, Capt. William J. Rose.  He had an orchestra consisting of a piano, a base fiddle, and a violin.  Rose sang “On the Road to Mandalay” and “ Begin the Beguine”.  He has a good voice and sang well.  Lts.  Knowels and Klatt sang several songs.  Knowels started singing one song such as we quite often sang, but be was stopped, because the words were too obscene and vulgar.  The chaplins were present.  He cleaned up his act and went on. 

Our morale was low.  There had been too much on again and off again.  After the first couple of days when we turned in our parachutes morale took a nosedive.  I am sure this show was ordered by Colonel Jones to raise morale.  It was a good try but failed.  This was demonstrated when Rose asked all the men to rise and join him in singing the Regt. song.  When he started to sing the men got up and left. 

"John Lindgren and I were at the Boston reunion, July, 1989 and we were talking to Bill Rose, our regimental special services officer at that time. We brought up the show he put on at Hollandia under the coconut trees at Ebli’s plantation.  Even to this day he felt a sense of disappointment when he remembered that show, he told us.  He said Colonel Charles Lindberg was at Hollandia at the time of the show, and he felt sure that if he had asked the colonel he would have come to our show and spoke to us.  He did not get around to doing this and felt that he missed the chance to put on a good show.  Rose was .  I feel sure we would have enjoyed seeing and hearing Colonel Lindberg that night.  We probably would have behaved better.  

No one looked forward to the return to the daily grind of training.  The monotony hour after hour.  You trained and trained, then the job you had trained for seemed near at hand, but it was cancelled and back to the jungles.  To be honest, though, although the platoon leaders hated the training routine as much as anyone, once in combat I doubt that there was any platoon leader that did not feel at times that he wished there had been more training.  You look around and see men bunching up or failing to take other normal safety precautions, you felt like we need more training.  Then too deep down we knew everyone did not know all the basics." 

For example, time and time again we went through the principles of map reading.  Soon after we started this series of training, the 1st platoon assistant platoon leader, Emory Ball, was giving a map reading class.  He picked out one of the men, who later transferred to another company, and told him to demonstrate a method of orienting a map.  He handed him a map and a lensatic compass.  The man was at a complete loss.  The bad was that Colonel Jones and Lt. McRoberts had just walked up.  To say they were unhappy is a gross understatement.  This man was one of the chief bitchers when the map reading class was announced.  He could not see why we had to keep taking that old map reading over and over again.  I doubt  very seriously if we ever over-trained, even if we thought we did.

At this time we were beginning to get news from Europe, and the big news was the invasion of France proceeded by the great airborne landings.  This probably added to our woes since our brother units in Europe were all seeing great action and we were training again.  This was not a command failure.  There were just no suitable operations requiring the use of parachute troops in the Pacific.

We were losing a few men at this time or had lost them since Australia.  They had been with the outfit for some time.  George Barnes was the 1st platoon sergeant.  He had been a squad leader at the time of the Nadzab jump.  He seems to have gone while we were at Dobodura.  Some of the officers were going, too.  At this time people seemed to just disappear.

There were probably more rumours flying around here than at any other place we were ever in.  Heavy fighting was taking place on Biak and many rumors concerned this action.  Then there were many rumours concerning Jap counterattacks.  At this stage we did not know how much damage had been suffered by the Japs.  Rabaul was still considered as a great Japanese stronghold, and the Japs were expected to sally forth at anytime. 

In reading back it seems that victory was assured by this time, but to us the issue was still in doubt.  In looking ahead toward Japan we had a lot of territory to capture.  Then even the Philippine Islands seemed far away.  Never was there any doubt in our minds that the Japs would not fight to the bitter end defending every inch of their homeland.  This was a logical opinion, because then Jap soldiers were so fanatical in their warfare that very few ever surrendered.  In our minds we could not see an end, just a war that would go on for years and years.

 Trained hard this morning.  Everyone made a five mile march this afternoon.  Battalion held a smoko at 2030 tonight in the mess area.  We were served coffee, ritz crackers, and pretzels.  Everyone enjoyed this treat, and it was a real treat. 

This sounds like an exaggeration, but it was not.  When you don’t have anything, the smallest things can be appreciated.  Items such as this seldom made it past the rear base echelon.

Training all this morning, cut grass, and policed the area this afternoon. 

Even in bivouac area in the tropics we had to cut that grass in keeping with age old Army traditions.

"After midnight the trucks returned to their area and Lt. Buchanan od D. Co. picked up eight of us-  Ed Flash, John Lindgren, Nicholas Margaritis, Jim Gifford, me,  and others making a total of nine in the Jeep.  We arrived back at Ebli Plantation at 0130.  At 0430 "F" Co. loaded up and went to pancake hill.  My stuff had all been packed and moved to the road ready to load.  Sidney Brock turned up with a can of peaches from somewhere.  We ate these and talked until 0330.  When we got to the hill we found that we were not going to Biak.  The 24th Inf. Div. was going to Biak to reinforce the 41st Inf. Div.  We were moving into the 24th’s area.  The grumbling and complaining started anew. 

Once more “one step ahead of the WAACS and one step behind the Japs”. 

Each man was issued a piece of steak, real steak, for breakfast.  We cooked this on a stick over an open fire.  It was a wonderful breakfast.  Then we went to a nearby creek and bathed.  Soon our Bn. moved to Pie Beach, loaded on LCM’s, crossed the bay, and landed near 6th Army Headquarters.  Trucks picked us up and took us to Cape Kassoe.  Some were left to guard 6th Army HQ.  Cape Kassoe was a beautiful area with white sand beaches and many coconut trees.  The area was muchly walled off by coral cliffs a few hundred yards inland.  On the east these cliffs arched to the sea cutting off easy travel that way.  (Actually these cliffs made travel along the beach east virtually impossible). The area was a cool place with a breeze blowing all the time.  This was the closest place I saw in New Guinea to the beautiful sandy beaches backed by coconut trees which the movies like to show as Pacific island paradises.

Bn. ordered me to take a squad on a two day patrol today.  I took Sgt. Wuertz and his 2nd squad.  Attached to this patrol were two intelligence scouts, two 511 radio operators with radio and a medic.  We moved out south, climbed the lava cliffs and mountains in heavy rain forest on the south side and descended to flat, densely covered, wet terrain.  The rain forest was very heavy here, but the trail we were following led to a broad, well used trail generally running east-west.  We moved east on this trail all day.  That night we bivouacked by a huge bomb crater filled with water.  That night passed uneventfully despite all the noises of the jungles.  The men were calm.

My orders were to find a lake near the coast and to determine if there was any Jap activity around this lake.

We found that the area of the lake was a huge, dense swamp several miles in diameter.  There was no signs of any Jap activity in this entire area.  When we were about half way around the swamp we met patrol from E Co. equivalent to our patrol.  It  was led by 2nd Lt. Joe M. Whitson.  They had been seen out by Bn. to travel east along the coast past the “lake” and then turn back west traveling south of the “lake”.  We were supposed to meet in the vicinity that we actually met in.  We both took a break, exchanges information, and then each patrol continued on its route.  Late in the afternoon we arrived at the coast.  What a relief to get out of the hot, steamy jungles to the cool, clean looking sandy beaches.  It was so great to breathe that cool,  fresh air, to feel the constant ocean breeze blowing.  The first native village we approached had been muchly destroyed.  The Japs had been there.  We moved west along the beaches for several miles and came to two more native villages.  They were occupied, and there was no indication that the Japs had been here.  Evidently the Japs had retreated along the well beaten path south of the swamp and came out at the most eastern village.  They vented their wrath upon this unfortunate village and then continued east toward Atape.

We moved on past the two occupied village and stopped for the night about half a mile past the most western one.  A number of curious natives soon gathered around us.  T-5 William S. Buchanan, one of our company 511 radio operators, engaged a native boy about twelve years of age in a conversation consisting mostly of sign language.  Buchanan indicated to the boy that he would trade his pocket knife for food, ki ki.  The boy took off on the double for his village and before long was back.  He was wearing khaki shorts, and we could see a large bulge in one of the front pockets.  He rushed up to Buchanan and proudly presented a can of vegetable stew, C Rations.  The trade was off.  We knew that Joe Whitson’s patrol had been here.