Pacifica Military History Free Sample Chapters.pmd

Free Sample Chapters 315
not dare get up, and he knew that yelling for a corpsman in all that din
would be a waste of effort, so he crawled on his belly toward the rear
until shock and pain caused him to faint.
Most of the C Company troopers bolted, but the Japanese were
momentarily halted when a C Company machine gunner cradled his
gun in his arms and charged forward firing a long burst. The attackers
were held for only a moment, for the gunner was shot dead in his tracks.
The unremitting, repeated hammer blows finally forced Duryea’s B
Company to give ground. That in turn caused most of the remainder of
Johnson’s C Company to flee. While troopers from the forward
companies ran headlong toward the rear, McKennan’s A Company
revealed itself to the Japanese by opening with power-ful defensive fires
centered on three well-emplaced medium ma-chine guns. Japanese
Nambus, whose muzzle-flash suppressors made them extremely hard to
spot at night, reached out from the dark to duel the Marine machine
guns. American gunners were going down, one after another, but
volunteers from the rifle squads replaced them. A Company held its
line.
Pfc Larry Moran, of B Company, ran nearly 1,000 yards down the
stem of the ridge before he was stopped by 1stSgt Donald Doxey, who
was reorganizing B Company stragglers in a stand of trees. Doxey
ordered the ‘Chutes to win back the lost ridgeline. As Larry Moran
worked forward, he could hear bellowing voices from the Raider lines,
exhorting the troops to keep the machine guns firing and “kill the Jap
bastards!”
Elements of B Company, Pfc Larry Moran included, regained the
summit, but Moran was soon blasted over the side by a concus-sion
grenade. Uninjured, he collected his wits and scrabbled uphill to rejoin
the fight. Suddenly, a challenge was hurled through the night. Moran
recognized the voice as belonging to MG Bob Man-ning, but he could
not recall the password.
“Mr. Manning,” he called.
“Yeah,” Manning replied.
“It’s Moran; I can’t remember the password.”
“Okay, come on up.”