VI. MOVING ON UP - BOUGAINVILLE
We left Guadalcanal on 1-18-44, on a LCI - Landing Craft Infantry - along with a flotilla of ships. After two days at sea we went into Empress Augusta Bay at Bougainville, just as it was getting daylight. This was planned so as to enable us to unload and give the ships time to get back out on the high seas before dark. The Jap's planes would be there with their bombs as soon as it was dark. They waited until then in order to avoid our fighter planes. Bougainville, another one of the Solomon Islands group, about 50 miles wide, 150 miles long and 6 degrees south of the equator, was well fortified by the enemy.
We landed on Puruata, a very small island in the bay which was about one half mile in diameter and one half mile offshore, as the water was too shallow for the LCI to go into Torokina Beach which was located on the main island of Bougainville.
While the ships were being unloaded all guns were manned as a precautionary measure. I was assigned to a 50 caliber machine gun on the bow, that I had target practice on the first day out. About the time we sat down to eat breakfast the PA system blared out, "A plane has been picked up on radar; all gunners man your guns on the double." Shortly another message - "Hold your fire - this is a friendly plane - repeat: hold your fire - this is a friendly plane." This turned out to be a damaged carrier-based plane diverted to land at our air strip rather than to attempt a landing on the carrier.
Just before dark we were able to obtain an LST landing craft to take us over to the the main island, where we slept in the jungles and ate K rations until we cleared a spot for our tent and had the mess hall operating. The tent location we (Morris, Sloan, Rice and I) were assigned happened to have a small stream running through it. I wrote Rose we were living in class as we had running water in our tent. This was soon corrected by a ditch back of the tent and also a board floor.
Before the American forces landed on Bougainville, the Navy had really poured the big gun ammunition and bombs into the beachhead area, particularly the small island of Puruata. This left the island in a desolate shambles of blasted trees and countless shell holes, the majority of the Japanese were killed; the rest committed suicide, rather than being taken prisoners - consequently it was given the name "Suicide Island."
When we - the United States - went into Bougainville, our intentions were not to take the whole island but to gain a beachhead. This was accomplished. This horseshoe-shaped area was about 5 miles deep and 15 miles around which included two airfields taken from the enemy. This was secured and a three-stage defense line built around it.
For several months the Japanese planes came over every night just after dark and this meant a total blackout. They did not do a lot of damage - it was more of a nuisance raid that kept us in our foxholes for about half of the night. They did hit one of our gasoline storage dumps which caused a terrific explosion and fire. They had a big airbase 300 miles west of us on Rabaul, plus a huge naval base 900 miles north of us at Truk Lagoon.
Our real danger was from flak or shrapnel falling from the exploding 90 millimeter shells being thrown at the planes. To protect ourselves we built bunk-size shelves over our bunks and stored our sea bags, duffle bags and all our gear there to protect us in case we were not able to make it to the foxhole in time. This flak would come down about the speed of a bullet which would go right through the tent and floor into the ground.
Our beachhead area had a squadron of Australian fighter pilots, a battalion of Fijians soldiers in addition to the American troops. All total there were about 45,000 of us at the height of the conflict. Our estimate of the enemy troops at that time was about half as many as ours, but it turned out that there were about 80,000 of them.
Both Guadalcanal and Bougainville are very mountainous, the latter had two active volcanoes. One of those, Mt. Bogona, over a mile high, was only about ten miles from our camp. It steamed and smoked continually; a number of times at night we were awakened by its rumbling and shaking the ground.
The 3rd Marine Division - 2nd Raider Reg. placed this sign on Bougainville in honor to the Seabees of which I have a picture:
When we reach the isle of Japan
With our caps at a jaunty tilt
We'll enter the city of Tokyo
On the roads the Seabees built.
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On 2-27-44, 27 months since Pearly Harbor, our forces launched the largest naval air strike of W. W. II against the huge Japanese naval base in the Truk Lagoon, sinking more than 50 of their ships of the First, Second, Third and Fourth Fleet, destroying 265 of their planes in the air and on the ground, plus the majority of their ground fortifications.