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"D" COMPANY ATTACK ON BATTERY MONJA, 21 FEB 1945. by John Lindgren For those of us who are still counting the hours and the days since our arrival from the skies over Corregidor, this is day six. Wednesday morning, Wednesday two days after the bloody night battle at Wheeler Point. D Company, now little more than eighty strong, [1] assemble near the western side of the parade ground close to the badly damaged duplex apartments that, in another era, once housed NCO's and their pre-war families. Each man knows he is going down into Cheney Ravine this morning, but little is said about it. The men, in their dirty sweat- stained fatigues sit quietly or stretch out on the ground waiting for the order to move out. They are used to waiting. They are used to each other's company too. When not on combat operations, which is most of the time, the squad live in the same tent, work together, train together, talk together; and know each other quite well. The early morning sun is still low in the east but already it is uncomfortably hot. The riflemen, up since dawn, have already eaten their breakfast from the 10- in-1 ration boxes. [2] Some of them puff unconcernedly on their cigarettes, sitting wherever they can find a little shade near the ruins. According to age old custom, company headquarters has taken the best quarters available in the company area, in this case a roofless two story concrete building. The southern end of Cheney Trail, where they will begin their march, is a few feet west of the bomb-shattered homes. Henry "Buck" Buchanan, the former company executive officer now commanding Company D, is with his executive officer, Jim Gifford. The radioman who will carry the company's SCR 300 battery powered radio on his back, is with them. Buck has replaced Al Turinsky who was killed by a single shot almost at the outset of the battle for Wheeler Point. It hardly seems just two nights before. Today, for the first time, Buck will lead the company on a combat patrol down into Cheney Ravine, using the same trail Lieutenant Endo and his Japanese marines had come up two days earlier to attack D Company at Wheeler Point. The company has suffered several other casualties among its leaders during the first five days, but how this will affect the company, one way or another, is hard to judge. However, the company resumed operations as the casualties were replaced by others. [3] Late Tuesday afternoon Buchanan and Gifford had gone across the parade field to attend the 2d battalion commander's meeting at the command post on the ground floor in one of 59th Coast Artillery's old squad rooms. They went there to get orders for today. The battalion is to clear the northwest end of Corregidor right down to the sea. Company D will advance through Cheney Ravine and then go north on the beach to contact E Company moving south on the beach from James Ravine. F Company will patrol in the same area between D and E Companies on the high ground up to the cliffs, over looking the beach. The companies are to "clean out the caves" and otherwise clear their areas of the enemy. This done, all companies shall return to their perimeter positions on topside. If you look at all the arrows and circles drawn on a map showing today's operation, it would seem that not a stone is to be left unturned and the area shall be swept clean of enemy troops. The people in the company who would do this work on the ground take a far less optimistic view of it. While they might enter any part of it at any time they wished, they are never sure they have uncovered every single enemy soldier, because they could never hope to search every square foot of it, for that is what it would require The company might travel into it during the daytime, but at night, as they withdraw to the perimeter ringing the parade ground, the enemy will be free to reassemble, and to move anywhere they wish to go. And so it will go. The outcome of the recapture of Corregidor is never in doubt, from the first day. If the patrols do nothing else, the rifle companies are slowly but surely killing the enemy by going through it again and again. Because the fighting is being done on an island whose surrounding waters are heavily protected by our warships, there isn't even the slightest chance any additional enemy troops might be reinforced to alter fate's equation and it will be simply a matter of time until there is no one left to fight. But there will be a cost, and the price paid on each of the previous days and nights weighs upon all of the men now waiting patiently for the day's patrol to begin. The companies are supported by aircraft circling the island and destroyers cruising in the North Channel off Corregidor's western escarpment. The company commander can request air or naval fire through liaison parties [592d JASCO and 6th SAP] who are with Larry Browne, the 2d Battalion plans officer on Topside near the edge of the cliff overlooking the battalion's area of operation. A regimental demolition section will go with the company for this first expedition into Cheney Ravine. The battalion commander has, on call, two LCM's berthed at bottomside. If the company needs them, they can ask for them. [4] The waiting men watch, without too much interest, the stir of activity on the parade round above them. The 75mm howitzers and 81 and 6Omm mortars have been pouring fire into Cheney ravine since 0800. Each time the guns open up on the broad dusty parade ground above D Company's position they stir up clouds of dust in front of them. The flat field, surrounded by broken roofless buildings, is pocked with countless bomb craters, and near each of the gun positions are disordered heaps of brass artillery casings, wooden ammunition crates, cardboard ration boxes and hundreds of black cardboard tubes used to pack each artillery and mortar round. Everything is covered with a fine white dust; the trash, the men, their guns and ammunition. The disordered scene is a far cry from the carefully kept grass field where once, not too long ago, Coast Artillerymen in their spotless heavily starched khaki uniforms and campaign hats, marched smartly in review past the handsome buildings surrounded by precisely clipped shrubbery and flower beds. This morning the tired, sweating artillery and mortar crewmen lift round after round of ammunition from neatly stacked piles and feed the shells into the guns pointed northwest. Company D's men, waiting below the western edge of the parade field for the order to move, hear the shells exploding in Cheney ravine go "ca rump, ca rump, ca rump" over and over again. The rumbling explosions seem to be a long way off. Joe Gouvin and his nine mortarmen will remain on the parade ground with their mortars ready should the company call for fire. The mortar platoon's observer is stationed at the edge of the escarpment where he can see the company's operation area below and adjust mortar fire. Headquarters Company's 2d light machine platoon, usually attached to Company D, too will remain on Topside and not accompany the column. [5]
The company commander raises his arm and
points toward Cheney Trail. The men, who |
