Marine communicators had the difficult task of stringing wire in dense jungle terrain while remaining wary of the enemy.
The various, successive objectives for the Marine and Army riflemen were codenamed using the then-current phonetic alphabet: Dog (reached 15 November), Easy (reached 20 November, except for the 9th Marines, slowed by an impassable swamp), Fox (finally reached by the Marines on 28 November) and How (part of it reached by the Army on 23 November since it encountered “no opposition,” and the remainder as a goal for the Marines). Thereafter, the Marines were to press on to the Item and Jig objectives “on orders from Corps Headquarters.”
One account makes clear the overwhelming difficulties facing the Marine battalions: “water slimy and often waist deep, sometimes to the arm pits ... tangles of thorny vines that inflicted painful wounds ... men slept setting up in the water ... sultry heat and stinking muck.”
In spite of this, elaborate plans were made to continue the attack from west to east. The “strongly entrenched” Japanese defenses, with 1,200–1,500 men, were oriented to repel an assault from the south. Accordingly, the artillery observers on Cibik Ridge registered their fire on 23 November, in preparation for a thrust by two battalions of the 3d Marines to try to advance 800 yards beyond the east fork of the Piva River. All available tanks and supporting weapons were moved forward. Marine engineers from the 19th Marines joined Seabees under enemy fire in throwing bridges across the Piva River.
On 23 November, as the night fell like a heavy curtain, seven battalions of artillery lined up, some almost hub-to-hub. There were the Army’s 155s, 105s, mortars, 90mm AA; and the same array of the 12th Marines’ cannons, plus 44 machine guns and even a few Hotchkiss pieces taken from the enemy.
The attack in the morning began with the barrage at 0835, 24 November, Thanksgiving Day; a shuddering burst of flame and thunder, possibly the heaviest such barrage a Marine operation had ever before placed on a target. The shells, 5,600 rounds of them, descended on a narrow 800-foot square box of rain forest, only 100 yards from the Marines, so close that shell splinters and concussion snapped twigs off bushes around them.
BATTLE OF PIVA FORKS
FIRST PHASE
19–20 NOVEMBER
Yet, as the two assault battalions moved out, the redoubtable Japanese 23d Infantry crashed in with their own heavy barrage. Their shells left Marines dead, bleeding, and some drowned in the murky Piva River, “the heaviest casualties of the campaign. Twice the enemy fire walked up and down the attacking Marines with great accuracy.” But the 3d Marines came on with a juggernaut of tanks, flame throwers, and machine gun, mortar, and rifle fire.