Ghosts in the Fog by Samantha Seiple

Author:Samantha Seiple
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2014-03-11T04:00:00+00:00

It wasn’t until May 16, 1943, six days after the U.S. troops landed, that they finally had a breakthrough. When the sun finally set around 10:30 P.M., Colonel Frank L. Culin and his Company B of the Seventh Infantry climbed the rugged ridge on Davis Hill and attacked the Japanese head-on.

U.S. soldiers waiting for a mortar shell to explode

For several bloody hours they fought in hand-to-hand combat, finally forcing the Japanese to retreat. The Americans now had control of Holtz Valley. Company B of the Seventh Infantry would be awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for their fearless and valiant fighting.

For the next ten days, the fighting between the Americans and Japanese was brutal. Slowly, the Japanese were being pushed back toward the main Japanese camp in Chichagof Harbor. The U.S. plan was working, until May 26, 1943, when it came to a standstill.

For two days, on the snowy and rocky ridge called Fish Hook, Company K of the Thirty-Second Infantry had been trying to break through the Japanese line of defense. If the Americans succeeded, it would be the last push needed to send the Japanese into the final trap — but the Japanese weren’t giving an inch.

Whenever the Japanese were cornered, they fought harder. They were strategically positioned in a cliff above the American soldiers. From their trench in an overhang, they fired their guns and threw grenades, pinning down the American soldiers below.

Crouched behind a rock, with bullets whistling past his head, was twenty-three-year-old Private Joseph P. Martinez. Joe was a man of few words. Before joining the army ten months earlier, he had worked on a farm, growing and harvesting sugar beets in a small Colorado town. Now he was armed with a Browning automatic rifle (BAR) and had a bag of grenades hanging from his shoulder.

The situation seemed hopeless. The Japanese position was too strong. It didn’t look like the Americans would ever break through.

Suddenly, Joe stood up in the line of fire. He ran up the crest of the cliff through a hail of gunfire and positioned himself on a rock that protruded from the edge. He fired away at the Japanese soldiers, continuing to kill one soldier after another.

“And then we heard it,” said Sergeant Earl L. Marks. “A kind of crack and thoomp!”

Joe was hit. He fell backward, but no one could help him because the Japanese were pummeling them with grenades. After about half a dozen grenades were tossed, it was silent.

The fight was over for now, and by killing five Japanese soldiers, Joe had single-handedly cleared a section of Fish Hook, allowing the U.S. soldiers to finally advance.

From a distance, Earl could see Joe. He looked dead, but then his hand moved. Earl and Sergeant Glen Swearingen crawled over the cold ground toward him.

“He had been hit through the edge of his helmet,” said Earl.

Glen took off his jacket and placed it under Joe. Joe moaned in agony, but there weren’t any stretchers to move him to a field hospital.

That night

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