Pacifica Military History Free Sample Chapters.pmd

312 Pacifica Military History
Shortly after B Company collapsed, Red Mike moved his CP forward
to the high knob dominating the southern end of the ridge, only several
yards behind the most advanced machine-gun em-placement. As Edson
sought to steady his rattled troops, Cpl Walt Burak, his runner, scuttled
to the rear in search of communications wire, which was spliced in to
the battalion message center and run back to the division CP, where the
senior staff was anxiously await-ing news. Edson was coldly determined
to stand his ground, though he, as every man around him, could barely
lift his head for fear of having it blown off by the sheets of fire the
Japanese were putting out. Edson presented a terse rundown to LtCol
Jerry Thomas, the division operations officer, who was directing the
overall effort from his operations center, just north of the ridge. (Red
Mike would leave his exposed CP only once that long night, and then
only to briefly spring to the rear to alleviate some of the confusion
experienced by his superiors at division headquarters.)
Individual Marines drifted back through the blackness from overrun
positions while others crept forward. As the life-and-death struggle raged
across the killing ground, Red Mike called on C Company to defend the
knob on which he had established his for-ward CP. Then beleaguered B
Company was allowed to withdraw. Only sixty Raiders responded, but
many other B Company Ma-rines were fighting individually and in small
groups on other parts of the battleground.
*
Fifth Battalion, 11th, was having the most active night in its brief history.
Its twelve 105mm howitzers had been brought so close to the ridge
during the late afternoon that the crews had had to dig pits beneath the
breech blocks in order to take up the recoil when they fired at extreme
high angle. The tubes were so steeply inclined that the rounds described
trajectories similar to those of mortars. Initial fire missions consisted of
individual concentrations directed by trained artillery forward observers
on the ridge or by infantry officers and NCOs who had open lines to the
battery fire direction centers.
All that separated the howitzers from the Japanese was the line of
Raiders and ‘Chutes on the ridge. Pfc Larry McDonald, the nineteenyear-old
O Battery recorder, was obliged to use a narrow-beamed pen-