B Company extended the corridor southeast of the Mission to the sea and thus isolated the Mission from the enemy still holding out at Giropa Point. During the night of the 29th a patrol from H Company under Lt. Alan W. Simms waded across the mouth of Entrance Creek from the spit on the Village side to the spit on the Mission side and reported the crossing feasible. On 30 December, F Company, 128th Infantry, was moved up to Buna Village. A final assault was planned for the 31st.
Before dawn E Company, 127th Infantry, and F Company, 128th Infantry, began wading across and by o500 had gained the spit on the Mission side without opposition. Then some of our troops advanced too far and alerted the enemy. E Company swung east but was unable to clear the bridgehead needed for G Company, 128th Infantry, which was to cross by the bridge at the east end of the island and attack northeast toward the Mission. The 1st Battalion, 127th Infantry, advancing on the right flank as the other jaw of the pincers, was held up along the beach.
Yet the end was not far off. A patrol of the 2d Battalion, 128th Infantry, made contact with the Warren Force on the 31st; on 1 January the 1st Battalion, 127th Infantry, could see our tanks in the vicinity of Giropa Point. All through the afternoon of the 1st, patrols in the neighborhood of Siwori Village kept reporting Japanese swimming from the Mission toward Tarakena.
On the morning of 2 January, the Urbana Force shifted its pressure to the corridor which it had forced through to the sea between Giropa Point and the Mission. G Company, 127th Infantry, under Capt. William Dames, swept forward on a 150-yard front in a final push up the coast. Many of the enemy attempted to escape an inevitable doom by taking to the sea, some swimming, others paddling small boats, rafts, and logs. These fugitives were machine-gunned by our coastal patrols and strafed by our planes. Meanwhile, the remaining Japanese were driven slowly up the coast through the desolate wreck of Buna Mission. The commander of the 1st Battalion, Maj. Schroeder, was mortally wounded, but the advance continued. By 1550, H Company had crossed from the island and was moving northeast; at 1600 G Company had reached the point of the Mission. Organized resistance was over. After 45 days of fighting, Buna Mission was ours. The Japanese force at Buna had been destroyed.
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