SHARP FIGHTING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25372, 2 November 1943, Page 2

SHARP FIGHTING

STRUGGLE FOR BEACHES LIGHT CASUALTIES SUFFERED (N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent) THE SOUTH PACIFIC, (Roc. 7 p.rn.i Oct. 31. A dim black mass almost obscured by low-flying cloud loomed up off the starboard bow. There was just enough light to distinguish the silhouette from the flat expanse of the tropical ocean A brief sharp shower of rain came and men shuffled under what shelter they could find on the decks of the troopcartying destroyer, now slowing down rapidly after a long sea crossing. Small landing craft were being lowered from the ship’s side and the men climbed quietly in, crouching low with light packs on their backs and rifles or machine-guns at their sides. Amid the ioar of the engines of ,the small craft they moved out on to the ocean, quite slowly, as if sizing up the position before the final dash. The route was to be round a headland in front and thence to a beach on Blanche Harbour, lying between the two main islands of the group. Off the headland the boats stopped and lay rocking in the trough of the sea. Suddenly all hell broke loose as the Allied warships lying off the harbour entrance started to pump shells at point-blank range on to beaches which the men could not see.

Under this canopy of fire gunboats proceeded through the harbour entrance. From the guns on both sides of their green and brown striped hulls they belted the shores with shells. Relentlessly, up and down the coast, they plodded. The men who had rounded the headland in landing craft were spellbound at the brilliance of the spectacle. It gave them confidence and spurred them on to their task, and as their boats gathered speed and turned towards the narrow beaches, from which the barrage had now shifted, they felt that tenseness that always precedes a crisis.

The struggle for beach supremacy was brief but bitter. The mortars were our worst enemy. Fighting on their own ground, the Japanese gun crews knew their range to a nicety, and they placed their bombs with deadly precision. Three-inch mountain guns secreted back on spurs of the jungle hills added their quota. Twice during the forenoon the unloading and constructional work on the beach was interrupted by intense fire from Japanese guns placed in the hills. For the first time the New Zealanders experienced the telling effect of closelypatterned mortar bombing. It was hard to know where to seek shelter. Back from the beach was the safest place, but there were men who could not leave the beach. They were the working parties unloading cargo from vulnerable shipping close up on the sand. They stopped only when the bombs came perilously close. Casualty stations worked overtime. The number of stretchers was limited, and wounded men waited patiently without complaint, while bombs burst round them, to take their turn under the medical officers’ expert attention. Still others, carried into the shade of the jungle, lay inert on stretchers. They had contributed in full to the cost of this stern battle.

But just at noon mortars ceased to tumble on us, and we learned later that patrols from one battalion nearing the enemy gun positions had crept slowly in and wiped them out at bayonet point and with grenades. There was little more trouble from the enemy for the rest of that day, and inland, where our companies had nressed hard up the ridges and valleys, we were harassing the Japanese with our own mortars, giving the enemy no respite, keeping him on the move, piling up his casualties, and forcing him into the heart of the forest. Our own casualties were light considering the nature of the engagement, and were greatly below those inflicted on the enemy.