They lived in squalid shelters along a trail that led from the sea, beyond the palm trees, through the regimental headquarters area and on toward towering mountains. There was a swamp nearby and it sent forth a briny stink. The shelters weren’t substantial enough to be called huts. They were, at best, crude shebangs made of ponchos and stripes of canvas laced to flimsy warped frames fashioned from tree branches lashed together with vines or scraps of tent ropes. There was enough shelter to fend off some small part of the daily rains.
One soldier, bare to the waist, sat in his shelter, alternately cursing and touching the burning cigarette to spots on his stomach, the only sure-fire way available to him to get rid of chiggers that had buried themselves in his skin. Another man was trying to shave with cold water cradled in a steel helmet. He had no shaving cream or soap and his razor blade was rusty. The pain of shaving was unbearable. He cursed, gave up trying to shave and rubbed his itchy chin vigorously.
Beside almost every shelter there was a small fire and men held canteen cups over flames to heat water for instant coffee, which was, along with cigarettes, their total breakfast. Smoke from the fire stung their eyes.
The sergeant walked from soldier to soldier, asking each the same question: You up to going on patrol today?” He got almost as many negative answers as there were soldiers, about twenty-five. One man said that he had had diarrhea all night and was too weak to go. Another said his malaria was acting up and he was shaky. Still another said he had a toothache and wanted to see if he could find the dentist.
“Good golly”, [Edit: There was probably an F bomb in this exclamation] the sergeant said. “You guys sure can come up with excuses. One of these days I expect one of you to say your ass has fallen into a pit and you must go drag it out. Isn’t there anybody here well enough to take a walk up into those mountains? We should be back in a day, two days at most.”
There were no immediate volunteers but he knew his men weren’t cowards. They had been in almost daily contact with the Japanese for more than a month. Further, many were genuinely ill and all were undernourished. A man who had weighed more than two hundred pounds three months ago now weighed one hundred and twenty-five. Just about everyone had occasional attacks of the chills, fever and aches that went with malaria. Several had had the more severe dengue fever and were terribly debilitated.
These soldiers were, in a way, poverty stricken. Some didn’t have boots. Only one had underwear and those who had socks were considered wealthy. Their green fatigue uniforms were in tatters. They had no soap and no razor blades that weren’t rusty. Their bodies reeked of stale sweat and their beards hid their faces. They were U.S. Army infantrymen, infantry scouts, one of the deadliest of all military specialties.
It was because the men were in an impoverished condition and because the duty was so dangerous that the sergeant asked for volunteers instead of ordering certain men to go on the patrol. It was assumed that men fit to take on the duty would volunteer. And always, somehow, the sergeant managed to find enough men to make the assigned patrols.
A lanky blond corporal, despite the fact that he was underweight, tired and suffering from a general feeling of the blahs, spoke up, saying he’d go. In a moment, another man, a private said: “Well if he can make it, so I can,” [Edit: This private was probably JJS, my father]
“Good,” the sergeant said, “We have our patrol. We’ll move out in ten minutes.”
The corporal had a question: “Where are we going?”
“Charlie Hill,” the sergeant said, “The Australians say the Japanese have left the hill and we should be able to take it over easy as anything.”
“Want a bet?”
“Hell no. I’m not sure the Aussies could even find Charlie Hill. They’re pretty good soldiers but with these lousy maps they seem to get lost easily. We’ll go up there and have a look for ourselves.”
The sergeant, corporal, and third man readied themselves, each folding half a blanket and a poncho into a neat package and putting this under his ammunition belt loaded with .30- caliber ammunition in eight-round clips for his M1 rifle. They filled canteens from a Lister bag which hung from a nearby tree. One man sampled the treated water, and made a sour face because of the chlorine taste.
They knew what they faced on patrol. They had been to Charlie Hill before, had been there and had run into Japanese in great numbers. They knew the way to the hill was difficult and required more than five hours of walking, most of it uphill and through dense jungle growth. It wasn’t a stroll you’d take on a Sunday afternoon with your best gal.
Charlie Hill was important. It sat above the town of Salamaua on the north coast of New Guinea. The hill was the key to the capture of the village, which was an Australian trading post and now a Japanese stronghold and goal of the campaign that was more than two months old.
The three soldiers did not go alone on patrol. They took with them a five-foot tall Melanesian, a soldier of the Papuan Infantry Battalion. He was Tapiole, the best of the very good native scouts.
The four bid the others of the platoon goodbye and were warned to be “goddamn careful” and struck out, passing through a defense perimeter formed by members of the Headquarters Company Defense Platoon. There were more goodbyes and a defense platoon sergeant repeated the warning: “Be damned careful out there.”
The patrol was indeed dangerous. Going out to find the Japanese was something like approaching a sleeping tiger. All was well as long as the tiger stayed asleep. Awakened, he might strike with sudden, deadly fury. The men on patrol were going to get very close to the enemy but they would do everything they could to make sure they didn’t arouse the Japanese. As infantry scouts, these soldiers weren’t expected to fight the Japanese. Their job was only to determine whether the Japanese were still on Charlie Hill or whether, as the Australians had said, they had fled. If the enemy still held the hill, the four were expected to count them, assess their condition and fortifications, figure out how they were being supplied and to do this without waking up the sleeping tiger.
The patrol moved ever upward, single file, with the native soldier in the lead because his senses were acute and he was the one most apt to see or hear the Japanese before they could see or hear him. The three Americans were grateful that they had this man along. He knew the land and seldom became disoriented no matter how complex the hills and no matter how thick the jungle.
He had another attribute, one he shared with the Americans. He detested the Japanese, who, two years earlier had impressed him into service as a carrier, along with thousands of other New Guinea natives, making them slaves of a sort by feeding them as little as possible, beating them to increase their output of labor and denying them all medical aid, even failing to provide quinine, needed to subdue the ever-present malaria.
Conversely, the diminutive native loved the Americans, who treated him with far more respect than any other white men he had ever encountered.
He wore a khaki wraparound skirt and an ammunition belt of cotton webbing. He was barefoot and carried in one hand a small canvas sack containing food. He was armed with a .30- caliber Enfield rifle that had been issued to him by the Australians who had organized the Papuan Infantry Battalion.
The Americans wore green fatigue uniforms with huge pockets that held food and cigarettes. They wore floppy hats that went with their fatigues, leaving behind, foolishly perhaps, steel helmets, which they found too hot in the tropics. They reasoned that the helmets might be some protection from mortar or artillery shrapnel but wouldn’t stop a bullet, which they were likely to encounter.
As the four moved steadily uphill, the native soldier raised a hand, calling for the patrol to halt. He thought he had sensed danger. He stood still for nearly half a minute, looking this way and that and cocking his head in an effort to hear better. He took a deep breath through his nose. There was nothing. We moved on.
The going was made more difficult by the heat, which resulted in sweat-soaked uniforms for the Americans and caused the native’s torso to become as shiny black as a patent leather dancing pump.
Then there were other nuisances, especially black flies. These had the tendency to bite a man on the face and hands, fly away and return to the precise same place to bite again. Worse yet, sometimes a man, gasping for breath as he climbed, would ingest a fly, which would sickeningly remain alive deep in his throat for a minute or so.
After two hours of steady climbing, they came to a small stream and the sergeant signaled for the patrol to take a break. The three Americans sank to the ground, putting their rifles down with as little noise as possible. Quietly, they went to the stream and washed their faces and hands and used their hands as drinking cups. The native didn’t drink just yet. He walked away from the group and circled through the jungle, listening and looking. He returned with a one-word report: “Nothing.”
They spoke in low voices. The sergeant produced a well worn map and they all took a look, trying to estimate where they were. The map, made from an aerial photo, was crude and imprecise. But it was all they had.
It really didn’t matter where they were. It was mostly curiosity, plus knowing that if they could determine the precise route from the sea to Charlie Hill it would make the going easier for those who would later make the same trek. When they had agreed on their location on the map, they stood and started upward again. The higher they got, the more careful they were to not make noise. A Japanese patrol might be anywhere. If the enemy were on Charlie Hill, he would be foolish not to send men out to look for possible attackers.
The quartet came to a dry riverbed that headed in a northward direction. They started to walk along it because it was easier going than through the rain-forest. Suddenly the native scout stopped and put his forefinger to his lips. He whispered in Pidgin English words: “Jopon he stop.” [Edit: Tapiole and my father spoke Pidgin English] There were Japanese! The men moved to the side of the riverbed and dropped to their knees, holding their rifles at the ready.
Had the native scout been wrong? The sergeant asked him what he had seen or heard. The answer: He hadn’t seen or heard a thing. He pointed to his nose and said he smelled the Japanese. He pointed ahead to where the riverbed went around a bend.
Very quietly, the group moved ahead to the bend and just around it saw a trio of Japanese soldiers. They were huddled around a small fire and had a can hanging on a stick. They apparently were making tea or coffee or maybe boiling rice.
The Americans were bug-eyed at the sight of the enemy, bug-eyed and excited. They quickly retreated around the bend. They could have shot the Japanese with greater ease than winning a kewpie doll at a county carnival. But they were scouts and charged with finding the Japanese, not with killing them. Further, shooting might alert the Japanese on Charlie Hill, if they were up there and it now appeared likely that they were.
The scouts left the riverbed and headed upward through the dense jungle, careful not to make any noise. They were like burglars leaving a house with their loot.
The Americans trusted the native soldier completely, but they also trusted each other. They had been together for a year and knew from their experiences on patrols just what each man would do in the event they encountered the Japanese. They were a team, a well-trained team.
The native came to a clear area in the forest and raised his hand in a gesture that said: “Stop!” He pointed up the mountain to its crest, a semi-bald eminence. There were several Japanese walking along a trail down the crest. They were not more than fifty feet away. The Americans went to their knees and froze in place. Their hearts pounded. They were terribly close to the sleeping tiger. They wanted the beast to stay asleep.
There was no wind but air moving down the side of the hill brought with it the bone-dry smell they associated with the enemy. The odor seemed to be a mixture of rotted vegetation from the Nipponese fortifications, wood smoke from their fires and body stinks from men who had not washed in several weeks. The smell was strong and always the same.
The sight of the Japanese was almost hypnotic. There they were, the supposed champions of jungle warfare.
As the soldiers watched, more Japanese showed up, trudging along the trail. Trudging? They seemed to waddle. The Americans made a quick count. There were at least thirty of the enemy and all were carrying what appeared to be crates of ammunition. They struggled and sweated and the Americans were glad to see that black flies pestered them too. It was damned descent of the flies not to play favorites, one man thought.
The sergeant pointed to an area above and beyond the Japanese on the trail. There were several pillboxes made of heavy logs with earth placed on top. From slits in the fortifications what seemed to be machine gun barrels stuck out, menacingly.
The sergeant rose from his knees to a low crouch and backed quietly downhill. His men and the native scout did likewise, watching every step lest they step on a fallen branch or trip on a vine and alert the Japanese. In a fire fight with up to a dozen they might have a chance, if not to win at least to escape. With all the enemy soldiers they had seen, there was almost no chance whatsoever to survive in a battle.
When they had backed off maybe three hundred yards, they stood, turned and walked swiftly downhill to a point of safety. They sat down and found that the experience of being so close to the Japanese had somehow tired them. Their hearts were still pounding.
Each of the four men, the native soldier included, had reason to rejoice inside. Despite their inclinations, they had not run away at the sight of the sleeping tiger. They had stood their ground.
Fear of Fear
What was it that had kept them from fleeing? Not heroism, not heroism in the usual sense. While each had his own reason for daring to come within feet of the enemy, there was a shared reason as well. Each feared fear and feared it deeply.
As youngsters, the three Americans had read the likes of :The Red Badge of Courage” and “All Quiet on the Western Front,” read these and were appalled at the thought of the tremendous fear that caused other soldiers in other wars to lose control of the bowels when fear struck in combat. To dirty one’s pants was unthinkable, a sign of cowardice that could not be kept a secret from those around you.
Thus they feared being afraid because it would somehow get back to their parents, brothers, sisters and friends.
So don’t call it heroism. Call it a deep fear of being afraid.
As for the native soldier, his willingness to stand firm before the enemy probably was tinged with his fear of being afraid. But he was sustained by his deep hatred of the Japanese, as were the Americans.
To this extent the four were disadvantaged: In recent weeks they had seen men of the rifle companies charge heavily fortified Japanese positions. They had witnessed the value of being men in a large group, who, when ordered to charge into enemy gunfire with the wild spirit of group madness. The patrol had no such horde spirit. They had only each other...and their fear of being afraid.
But these things were never discussed by the men of the platoon of scouts. Each man held within himself his feelings about heroism and cowardice.
It was late afternoon and it started to rain softly. The sergeant decreed: “We’ll go back to that little stream we saw and camp for the night. Tomorrow we’ll come back up here and have a better look at those pillboxes.”
They walked perhaps a mile and a half and came to the stream. Even though the rain became heavier, the native managed to build a small fire. They heated cans of C-ration, and water for instant coffee. Wrapped in ponchos and blankets, they sat around the meager fire and ate. By the time they had finished, it was dark and they spread out, each picking a sleeping place in a circle with a diameter of fifty feet or so. It isn’t easy to sleep in the rain but they managed to doze off and to rest uneasily.
At dawn the native soldier went for a walk, looking, listening and smelling for signs of the enemy, but he sensed nothing. So he returned to the others and built a small fire. They ate a breakfast of instant coffee and dust-dry biscuits from their C-rations and then started up again to Charlie Hill. They returned to the very spot from which they had watched the Japanese the afternoon before. Again there were Japanese soldiers walking up the trail, apparently from the village of Salamaua, and some were carrying more ammunition and some seemed to be carrying boxes of food.
Whispering very softly, the sergeant said he was going to take the native scout and try to get closer to the pillboxes to see what they contained and the directions in which their guns might be fired. He left orders that if he and the scout failed to return, the others were to go back to regimental headquarters and report that – regardless of what the Australians thought – there were indeed Japanese on Charlie Hill and they apparently were being supplied from Salamaua and they had pillboxes.
The sergeant and the native were gone for more than an hour during which the other two tried to count the Japanese moving along the trail. They decided there were more than a hundred.
The sergeant and scout returned and beckoned for the two to join them in clearing out. The trip that had taken most of the day before only took a bit more than three hours going downhill. They were slowed only because they remembered the Japanese patrol they had seen making tea in the riverbed and wanted to avoid them or any other patrol that might be in the area.
They arrived back at regimental headquarters in mid-afternoon and reported to the colonel in command of the regiment what they had seen. They were able to assure him that the Japanese were still on Charlie Hill no matter what the Australians had reported and they were there in strength and getting supplies from Salamaua.
The colonel, a man over fifty, listened and asked a few questions. He then touched each of the soldiers on the forearm and said to each: “Thank you for a job well done.” He came to the native soldier, paused and then patted his arm and told him the same thing. The native spoke little English but seemed to understand what the colonel was saying and beamed with pride. So did the Americans.
The colonel and his intelligence officer were delighted with the results of the patrol for another reason, a prideful but justified one. It proved that the Australians, who tended to belittle the Americans as soldiers because they mistook our caution for a reluctance to fight, were wrong when they reported the Japanese fled Charlie Hill. By radio, the Australians were told of what the patrol had found and they sent back a message that said they doubted the Americans’ findings but would check out Charlie Hill once more. They did. And they got into a hell of a firefight with the Japanese they said weren’t there.
The patrol of Charlie Hill was significant for this reason: It showed that the hill, still held by the enemy, was, because of its location above the village, the key to the capture of Salamaua and the hill was vulnerable to attack by our people. The fall of Salamaua would open the door to further moves northwest along the New Guinea coast. To Lae and Wau, to Finschhafen and on to Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea. The island would be lost to the Japanese and their grand plan for taking Australia and then Hawaii would be dead forever.
That was the meaning of the imminent capture of Salamaua. But that one campaign, lost in the history of wars, had a far greater significance to the men of the I & R Platoon. For them the capture of Salamaua was the end of a frenzied period of seventy-six days, a time when they made dozens of patrols that tested their bodies and their prowess as infantry scouts and a time during which they found themselves being hammered into a strong brotherhood.
So the three who had gone to Charlie HIll returned to where their platoon was bivouacked and were warmly greeted. Somebody said: “Glad you made it back safely.” The platoon leader, a lieutenant, listened to what the sergeant and others had done and commented: “Good job, darned good.”
He might have said, but didn’t, that it had taken the scouts a year to develop their skill and rapport, those attributes that allowed them to go up Charlie Hill, take a good look at the sleeping tiger and get away with it.
They couldn’t have done this a year earlier. They just didn’t know each other that well then and they hadn’t yet trained as infantry scouts.
A year earlier they had been strangers, an undisciplined gang of misfits who had no idea of what was ahead of them.
Rosemary Stuebi
Thank you for sharing your father’s story. It is powerful – as is is writing.