Mt. Yaetake provided Colonel Udo with ideal ground for defensive positions. Here he had unlimited observation in every direction; it was impossible to attack him without warning. The rugged character of the terrain prohibited the use of mechanized support in the reduction of his positions.
While the Twenty Ninth Marines were fixing the enemy position and determining its character and strength, General Shepherd saw that he would need additional troops to destroy Udo’s force. His tactical decision was to move the Fourth Marines, less the Third Battalion, to Sakimotobu on the western side of the peninsula and attach to it the Third Battalion, Twenty Ninth Marines which was near by. Then he ordered a coordinated attack for 14 April with the Fourth Marines driving into Yaetake in an easterly direction while the Twenty Ninth Marines, with two battalions, near Itomi, attacked to the west and southwest. Udo would be hit from front and rear.
Map 3. 4th Marines Battle for Mt. Yaetake.
On 14 April the Fourth Marines, commanded by Colonel Alan Shapley with the Third Battalion, Twenty Ninth, attached, moved rapidly inland to seize the first high ground from which to launch the attack on Mt. Yaetake. The Twenty Ninth Marines found enemy dispositions to its front in such strength and on such unfavorable ground, that it was virtually impossible to attack in a southwesterly direction.
Resuming the attack on 15 April the Fourth Marines drove up the approaches to Mt. Yaetake; fighting was bitter with one battalion commander killed and several company commanders casualties. The First Battalion, Fourth Marines, seized a key hill mass southwest of the Yaetake peak against heavy resistance. Over rugged terrain the Twenty Ninth Marines continued to advance into the rear of Udo’s position against intermittent resistance.
Map 4. Battle for Mt. Yaetake.
Next day, 16 April, the Sixth Marine Division prepared to attack the enemy from three sides. The First Battalion, Twenty Second Marines, which had been in immediate reserve near Awa, was ordered to advance to the north to close the gap between the two attacking regiments. After a day of extremely hard fighting the Fourth Marines seized Mt. Yaetake and held it despite an all-out Banzai charge. Meanwhile, the Twenty Ninth Marines, now under Colonel William J. Whaling, USMC, had swung its front to the west and north, destroying fixed emplacements and enemy groups as it moved.
With Udo’s force caught in the jaws of a giant nutcracker, and driven from the commanding ground in its position, the Fourth Marines changed its tactics. Colonel Shapley ordered his two left battalions, facing east, to initiate a holding attack on 17 April, while the two right battalions drove down from Mt. Yaetake to the north with the mission of seizing the Manna Road. The situation on this day then, was for the two battalions to sweep down a corridor formed by the First and Second Battalions, Twenty Ninth, on the east and the Second Battalion, Fourth Marines, and Third Battalion, Twenty Ninth, on the west. Down from Yaetake and through the corridor swept the First and Third Battalions, Fourth Marines, mopping up enemy remnants as they went. Nightfall saw both regiments on the first hills south of the Toguchi-Itomi road, the road that ran through Manna.