when the 127th was ordered to attack as part of the general plan of the 7th Division.
In preparation for the attack on the Soputa–Sanananda Road, A, B, and C Companies of the 163d, which had been squeezing "R," were relieved late in the afternoon on the 15th by I, K, and L Companies. During the night of the 15th–16th, the enemy north of Huggins was harassed by artillery fire. Then from 0845 until the jump-off at 0900, the artillery and mortars provided a heavy preparation while machine guns combed the trees and brush to the northwest of Fisk, where A, B, and C Companies were to advance around the right flank of the enemy positions and effect a junction with the 2d Battalion on the road. Soon after the jump-off, A Company on the right was pinned down by machine-gun fire from a Japanese perimeter at "S," but C Company, on the left, followed by B Company, met almost no opposition as it swung around to the road. Here at "AD" a perimeter bivouac was established. Company A, which had 20 heat-exhaustion casualties, was then withdrawn and sent to join B and C in the new perimeter. The two tanks, held in reserve for an emergency, were not used.
Meanwhile, the Australian 18th Brigade had advanced up the Killerton trail through the 2d Battalion of the 163d, which was now on its way eastward from the Coconut Garden toward the road. After some 800 yards, the trail followed by the 2d Battalion petered out and the troops began chopping their way through the jungle on a compass course aimed at the 1st Battalion objective. F and G Companies came out on the road just south of "AD" and were guided into the biyouac by a patrol from B Company. Part of H Company was left near the Coconut Garden to guard a trail junction, but the rest of the battalion chopped its way eastward to the road a mile north of "AD," where it made contact with patrols of the 18th Brigade's 2/12 Battalion, which had moved eastward from Cape Killerton along trails roughly parallel to the coast. The 2d Battalion had encountered numerous small parties of the enemy and killed over a hundred.
K and L Companies, operating northward from Huggins, had been squeezing "R," and in the early afternoon of the 16th mopped up this perimeter, from which most of the defenders had slipped out during the preceding night. Since the Australians had also cleared up the strongpoint at "P," all resistance south of Fisk was now
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