Although military censorship prevented soldiers from writing home about the attack, months later, after they had moved to a new location, The Squadron Pulse newsletter was able to publish this article about it (April 28, 1945, issue).
FLASHBACKS --- By L.H. Stringfield.
“PARATROOPERS!”
OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL EVENING---ALMOST
December 6th was our first clear day, and in the evening the bent & shattered ridge of palms, flanking “Fluke River,” glared in lazy black silhouette against a burnished copper sky. [“Fluke River” was probably the Daguitan River, which was about half a mile south of the San Pablo airfield. - Ed.] It was relief from the weeks of almost continual rain and sloshing about in ankle & knee deep mud. With a change in the weather, so changed the men themselves----from glum, sunken, wearied souls to men that could laugh, chafe and jibber-jabber perhaps about---Gloria, the wash-woman, blood flukes, the dog-fight during breakfast, the irksome artillery at night and of course home.
This was the evening of the 6th, when by degrees seven different kinds of hell broke loose, ending in an apocalyptic climax. The unfolding of events leading up to & including the “big moment,” will have by this time been told in so many unrecognizable, personalized forms that for the benefit of those who do not possess a composite picture of it all, this little summary, we hope, will help clear up the confusion.
WE TURN INFANTRY
We’re Air Corps, true---but you wouldn’t’ve thunk it from 6:30 on this particular eve, nor for 60 hours thereafter. We lived Infantry, ate Infantry (with less rations), looked Infantry & suffered Infantry.
This is the story: Here and there eyes curiously stared upward. There was nothing too unusual about the group of medium bombers up there, except that they were in a perfect V formation. This we had never seen before anywhere....They were just “Navy planes flying around like this morning,” someone said, but the spectacle was impressive & more eyes came out to stare, wonder and be glued. Then, like thunder, the evening’s splendor and the men’s wonderments burst into shreds. The right hand side of the V formation broke & before wits could be gathered, planes were twisting and diving everywhere, while the remainder of the V continued its flight. Bombs were dropped, but this brought little attention, for now in the fray were scores of enemy fighters, seemingly from nowhere, joining their brothers in raising general hell. By now, after a moment’s hesitation, our ack ack boomed from scattered places. For about 3 to 5 minutes, it was like a circus. You couldn’t see all the show at once. Some of us just to say we shot at a Jap, took pot shots with carbines at the low diving planes. Some merely looked on, bemused, while others dashed to foxholes with cottontail alacrity. After all, this was not much more than what we were used to seeing every day, so why get all hot & bothered. Then as though controlled by a magician’s hocus-pocus, the Nip planes vanished. Only the hiss, crackles & explosions of a nearby fire bore evidence of the unfriendly visitations--all else was quiet, too quiet for 3 long minutes. The feeling was irrepressibly expectant of something bigger to come.
It did! ---- The climax that could’ve knocked everyone over with a feather. It was an incredible sight. There coming bigger than Job’s turkeys [referring, perhaps incorrectly, to the old saying "poor as Job's turkey" - Ed.], were low flying hedge-hopping transports.....coming right at us. Some of us thought they were bombers, but of course Reinhalter’s surmise takes the cake. He said that they were C-47’s & that we’d have mail on the morrow. His utterances, subsequently proved false---and how false!
As though on an electric frequency, voices cried in unison, “Paratroopers!” Yes, Jap paratroopers----scads and scads of ’em floating down like Mauritian mushrooms, showing a pinkish orange in the still glimmery red sunset. Ack ack roared, belched and spewed--carbines cracked, Tommies burped & sputtered. But the big grey, sinister transports still came over, bearing the brazen Rising Sun insignia, with greenish silver spurts of exhaust from the engines. They buzzed directly overhead, about 300 ft in groups of 3 and 5’s and still the Japs dropped. About all I can remember at this point is emptying a clip, inserting another & with Bill Butto taking off, like raving maniacs, to reconnoiter “Fluke River,” & get some Japs. Not wanting Purple Hearts, we rocketed back amidst a hail of bullets and sensibly got into foxholes. Night descended fast and perimeters were set up in no time. The men responded like seasoned vets that they were. After the troopers landed, no shots were wasted and the time was devoted to entrenchment and circumspect defense. We were alone against unknown numbers of the enemy, only later to learn that 200 dropped----each loaded down with 175 lbs of equipment, grenades, mortars, etc.
After a night of volley and thunder, listening to the bop-bop-bop falsetto of Jap machine guns, our own growling rat-tat-tats and the swish of mortar shells, et al., we realized the “Battle of Fluke River” was well under way. As sun bit thru the dawn greyness, it revealed a bunch of haggard, mud-caked, mosquito-welted GI’s, each with a sadder tale to tell than the other. But before we could crawl to our breakfasts, which consisted of a flapjack and a half cup of coffee (tasting like a Marzetti’s dinner in Columbus), the Nips decided to pester us some more. Zeros first strafed the area, but our fighters were hot on their tail and drove them away before any damage was done. Some of the fellows saw one of the Nips burst into flames, but by this time the chief concern of the rear (Bloody Gizzard Ridge) perimeter was the fusillade of hot lead coming from beyond Fluke River. I saw Basso hit the dirt with his perennial stub of cigarette hanging from his mouth, but nails scratching away dirt furiously. I saw Hofer, Butto, Ivanick & J.T. Goodman preparing for the worse. Somehow we were visualizing an Alamo. Like always, shooting stops as quickly as it starts. The lull found us milling around to see what if anything reshaped our area during the nite. Near our latrine (Fort Maggot) was a dead Jap Sgt Major shot thru the neck, slumped in a cluster of nipa with his Luger still in hand and his parachute tangled about his body. He got his promotion which made him Warrant Officer 2nd Class. Before too many sights could be taken in....shooting started again, and we took off like striped-buttocked pterodactyls. Later in the day we got word that a battalion of Japs broke thru from the mountains and were heading our way. Of course this meant more excitement. With nerves on end as they were, even a swaying coconut high on a lofty palmetto, made one swear that it was a Jap sniper...so patrols, armed to the teeth, investigated, only to find the milked fruit (or is it vegetable) doing the suspicious swaying.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to list everything or even a partial list of things happening during this now-famous attack. Censorship forbades [sic] us to mention some of the particulars, but of course some of these things are not lively subjects to talk about…rather things to be remembered in a hallowed manner. Nevertheless, the 3rd turned Infantry, held perimeters and showed we had the guts to take it. The Battle of “Fluke River,” at any rate proved Yamashita’s words were said in vain. Quoting, “We are squeezing the Americans out of.....” All we can say is horse dung, brother. [This quote cannot be found elsewhere. The source is unknown. - Ed.]
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