The Triangle and the Coconut Grove (15–20 December)
During the afternoon of 15 December, E and F Companies, 128th Infantry, attacked the Coconut Grove, which commanded the Buna Village trail northwest of the Triangle. By evening they had surrounded it, and the following morning they smashed through to Entrance Creek. Their battalion commander, Lt. Col. Herbert A. Smith, charged at the head of a squad to take one bunker; Sgt. Howard C. Purtyman of F Company led his squad to take another; Cpl. Daniel F. Rini of E Company captured a third bunker almost single-handed. During the mopping-up, Cpl. Rini was shot in the head by a wounded Japanese whom he was trying to aid. Thirty-seven enemy dead were buried.
The Triangle still commanded our best line of supply, the Ango trail; it was imperative to take this strongpoint before attacking the Mission directly. G Company, 128th Infantry, attacked up the trail on the 17th but lost 10 of the 27 men in the company within half an hour. During the night of the 18th, the 2d Battalion, 126th Infantry, moved up and shortly after daybreak on the 19th launched another attack. Thirteen A–20's dropped to tree-top level to plant almost 500 20-pound parachute bombs and to strafe the Triangle; then E and G Companies moved forward behind a rolling mortar barrage to within grenade distance of the enemy. Here enemy rifle, grenade, and small-mortar ("knee-mortar") fire met them. Capt. Boice, third commander of the battalion since Port Moresby, was killed in the action, and the battalion fell back. At 1600 another mortar concentration heralded a new attack, but the troops could not advance and dug in where they were. During the night the battalion was relieved. Thirty-four men, almost half the strength of the units involved, had been killed or wounded.
The 2d Battalion, 127th Infantry, under Lt. Col. Loren L. Gmeiner, had relieved the 2d Battalion, 128th Infantry, on the 18th and now put E Company in the lines at the Coconut Grove. On 20 December this company under Capt. James L. Alford attacked the Triangle from the northwest. Crossing Entrance Creek at 0845 under an artillery concentration, they tried to rush the position under cover of a smoke screen laid down by mortars. The attack failed. At 1230 they tried again. One platoon charged with grenades after the rest
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