Chapter 93 Even when King Kong is coming, it's hard to break through

On December 5, 1942, the 32nd Division resumed its offensive.The airport was the focus of the US attack. Eickelberg concentrated the main forces of the 128th and 126th regiments, as well as a battalion of the Australian army, and rushed towards the Japanese positions under the cover of five newly arrived armored personnel carriers. With this rush, he stumbled.The armored personnel carrier fell into the crossfire of the Japanese army. Within 20 minutes, all five vehicles were destroyed, and the occupants were either killed or injured.After losing the cover of armored vehicles, the infantry became even more difficult to move forward. In the evening, they only advanced a few tens of meters.

Before the war, the Japanese army obviously surveyed every terrain carefully. They dug the front passage into narrow paths, and the U.S. army attacked from the front, and they would inevitably fall into an ambush by the crossfire of the bunkers.After some calculations, Eickelberg changed his tactics and used small troops to shoot and throw grenades to lure the Japanese bunkers to expose their positions, and then concentrated artillery fire to destroy them. To his disappointment, the Japanese bunker was discovered, but the general mountain artillery is too weak, and the sandy soil layer on the Japanese bunker can absorb all the impact of the shell.The 105mm howitzers transported to the front line were up-to-date and could effectively destroy Japanese bunkers and fortifications. However, there was only one in the entire army, and the shells were all fired later.

The attack on the airport gradually came to a standstill, and the U.S. military began to compete for the village of Buna again. The 2nd Battalion of the 126th Regiment carried the big axe.In order to boost morale, Eickelberg brought a group of staff and went to the front line to participate in the battle.Ekelberg is a lieutenant general, and his staff members are at least major generals. The officers and soldiers of the 2nd Battalion were both surprised and excited to see so many generals appearing on the front line and fighting side by side with him holding guns.After the U.S. plane bombed in the air, they all shouted and went into the battlefield.

What courage reaps is not necessarily fruit. The 2nd Battalion also encountered crossfire, and in the end it also made no progress.During the battle, Eickelberg was almost shot by a concealed Japanese sniper, his assistant and a general officer were shot, and all the American generals who participated in the battle were killed except Eckleberg himself. Injured, had to withdraw from the battlefield. Eickelberg was at the front, firing a gun.Soldiers also need to be conquered, especially in difficult times, any skill, appearance, talent, and sensationalism are useless, but as long as the commander-in-chief rushes to the front with a gun, the big guy will follow up automatically .

The 2nd Battalion was then forced to suspend its offensive.They wanted to set up machine guns to shoot, but the machine gun mounts were sunk in the mud and could not function. Eickelberg really felt the difficulty of Buna's battle. The Japanese army closed the door like an iron barrel, and it was difficult to break open even when King Kong came. The gatekeepers are actually not doing well either.Before and after Ekelberg arrived at Buna, Anda, the commander of the 18th Army, had sent the 21st Independent Mixed Brigade to reinforce him. He even planned to land on the island to command himself, but was stopped by Imamura, because Imamura knew that Buna was very dangerous. , Anda went and didn't know if he could come back.

At this time, the sea around Papua has been controlled by the Fifth Air Force. The Japanese army used destroyers to carry troops in four batches. Under the violent bombing and strafing of American planes, the Japanese landing barges were either sunk or injured. In the end, only the brigade commander About 1,300 people under Major General Lihua of Yamagata arrived at their destination. The Fifth Air Force was as strict as the "Cactus Air Force", which made the Japanese army's supplies almost completely cut off. The "Tokyo Express" of the submarine at night was just a drop in the bucket.The Buna garrison was seriously short of food and medicine, and the epidemic caused the field hospitals to be overcrowded.In terms of weapons, they were even more unsustainable. The U.S. military lacked heavy weapons, and the Japanese army not only lacked heavy weapons, but even light weapons. Many people could only tie bayonets to wooden sticks as weapons.

It is such a situation, but the Japanese army can still grit their teeth and carry it to the end, which makes people feel amazed. Eickelberg urgently summoned F Company, who had impressed him deeply. Company F was accidentally bombed by a U.S. plane a few days ago. The company commander was injured and was sent to a field hospital. O'Dell was promoted from platoon leader to replace him.Although the combat and non-combat attrition of this company has continued to increase, and its strength has been greatly weakened, there is no doubt that they are still a sharp knife for the 126th regiment and even the entire 32nd division.

O'Dell divided Company F into two groups, and launched an attack on the village of Buna at the same time along both sides of the road leading to the village. Still invalid.The flanks are full of mud and swamps, and the Japanese fortifications are built in relatively dry areas, which makes "they (the Japanese) live on the sand dunes with coconut trees near the coast, while our people (the US military) soak in the swamps." inside".Which is difficult and which is easy, you can tell at a glance. On the road led by O'Dell, 40 people died in the battle, 18 people were seriously injured, and the other road also suffered heavy losses.

Company F was withdrawn, and Eickelberg sent an assistant battalion commander to Company F to serve as company commander, and O'Dell was relegated to the position of platoon commander. By the end of the Battle of Buna, the commander of the 32nd Division had been changed four times, the chief of staff had been changed six times, the commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 126th Regiment, and the commander of Company F where Odell belonged had also been changed three times each. Frontal breakthroughs and flank assaults all failed.Eickelberg believed that it was difficult to do anything that day, so he had no choice but to act as a living horse doctor, adopting the infiltration tactics of breaking up the whole into parts, and trying to break the deadlock through sporadic assaults by small troops on both sides.

The miracle happened when there seemed to be no hope. That night, a small detachment led by Sergeant Bozke of H Company finally brought good news to Eickelberg. Botzke, a German who had lived near Berlin, fought for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and emigrated to the United States to join the U.S. Army.He can't speak a few words of English, but as a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, he has rich combat experience, which is not comparable to the group of recruits around him, so he is very appealing among his comrades. With 18 men and a machine gun, Botzke found a breach from the beach and wedged the Japanese defenses.After succeeding, he immediately ordered to dig trenches to defend, and personally operated the machine gun to stop the Japanese army who wanted to drive them away.From night to daytime of the next day, hundreds of Japanese soldiers attacked Botske's detachment on both sides. Botske swept with a machine gun, and the corpses of Japanese soldiers shot to death by him lay all around his small position.This brave warrior also climbed out of the position again and again in order to destroy the Japanese machine gun bunkers with grenades.

Eickelberg immediately saw the significance of Bozke's breakthrough. On December 6, O'Dell was ordered to lead a detachment of 10 people to attack. Their task was to extend the US defense line to the beach while relieving the pressure on Botsk's detachment.