Merrill’s Marauders by Gavin Mortimer

Author:Gavin Mortimer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zenith Press
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Merrill Goes Down

Weston had come south from Janpan several days earlier, travelling along the well-worn trail through Auche and Nhpum Ga. At Manpin on March 25, Lieutenant Colonel Beach had instructed Weston’s I&R platoon to set up a block at Poakum, seven miles north of Kamaing. Simultaneously, Beach ordered a rifle platoon under Lt. Warren Smith of K Company, Orange Combat Team, to perform a similar task on the Warong–Tatbum road, south of Warong.

By the afternoon of March 24, Weston’s block was in place among the thick shrub of the trail that led from Kamaing to Poakum. His forty-two men—including a mortar section and some .30-caliber machine guns—were positioned on a slope with their flanks well protected and a withdrawal route plotted. Weston was in communication with Merrill and had knowledge of the 2nd Battalion’s engagement on the west bank of the Mogaung River. He guessed that the Japanese would attempt to outflank McGee by coming up the trail he was now blocking and attacking from the east.

Sure enough, up the trail appeared a twelve-strong Japanese patrol. Weston’s men wiped them out. Next, the Japanese sent scout dogs down the trail to sniff out the enemy. The dogs were killed, as were many of the soldiers who followed. The Japanese now tried to blast the Americans out of the jungle with mortar rounds, but Weston’s men were too well protected in their foxholes. Night fell, a gloom illuminated by the odd spray of tracer and the flash of an exploding mortar round. “Every muscle in our bodies tensed as we peered into the pitch darkness,” recalled Weston. “We could hear the muffled sounds of the Japanese moving in the darkness, regrouping for another inevitable attack.”

The I&R men strained their ears to detect the slightest sound from out in front. Grenades were the most effective weapon, lobbed gently down the hill, exploding in the faces of the Japanese who crawled through the jungle.

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