Victory Fever on Guadalcanal by William H. Bartsch

Author:William H. Bartsch [Bartsch, William H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Published: 2014-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

9

“Goddamn, They Got Me in the Eyes!”

ABOUT FORTY-FIVE MINUTES AFTER George Codrea’s 1st Platoon, G Company, had been ordered to the line, the 2nd Platoon’s seventeen-year-old runner, Pvt. George Gibbs, reported to his CO, 2nd Lt. Bob Smith, with a message from Captain Sherman. The men were to leave their bivouac position in the coconut grove 75–100 yards inland from the ocean beach and head for the mouth of the Tenaru, 125–150 yards to the east, to give support for Codrea’s men engaged in deadly combat with the Japanese who had crossed over the sand spit and into the 2nd Battalion’s defense line. Plat. Sgt. John Robinson would be leading the first and second squads to the point, while platoon guide Sgt. Ed Claffey would angle off to the left to the beach side.1

With Cpl. Knight Farr in the lead and assistant squad leader Pfc. Al Schlemmer bringing up the rear, the platoon’s first squad formed up as if for close-order drill and double-timed through the palms, followed by the second squad. But when about two-thirds to the mouth of the Tenaru, they were abruptly met by machine gun fire flying overhead through the palms. All nine men in Pvt. Jim Couch’s second squad ran to shelter behind palm trees and piled up on top of each other. Recovering from the shock of first combat, the men of both squads spread out as they continued to move towards the Tenaru.2

When they neared the Japanese who had made it across the spit and were now rushing towards them, illuminated by the flares going off overhead, the Marines of the two squads responded by countercharging. But then their line buckled, lacking direction. “Out of the smoke and powder” came a blast from Platoon Sergeant Robinson: “Gawdammit, you’re going the wrong way! What the hell is this, the Japanese are over there!” Regaining their courage in response to the “deep-throated blast” from their “jut-chinned” leader, the men of the two squads plunged forward and began engaging the bayonet-wielding Japanese in hand-to-hand combat.3

Corporal Farr in the first squad led the fighting with his four-man fire team. Pfc. Dick Stitt, a twenty-two-year-old former guard on the University of Pittsburgh football team, emptied his BAR’s twenty-round magazine of .30-caliber bullets into the Japanese. While Stitt fired, Farr and the other two fire team members—Pvts. Tommy Lynch and Leo Carvalis—protected him with shots from their ’03 Springfield rifles.

Among the group of second squad men, Jim Couch was firing his BAR as fast as he could, hoping it wouldn’t jam. But when it got so hot it did stop firing, the eighteen-year-old from Power, West Virginia, jumped into a nearby foxhole to try to fix it. Succeeding, he climbed out and resumed firing. But a few minutes later, his assistant BAR man, Pvt. Jim Carlin, was shot in the shoulder and started screaming for the corpsman. Now Couch was virtually disarmed again; he had no assistant to pass him more twenty-round magazines to reload his BAR.4

In the meantime,

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