Colonel Clifford went to investigate and found Company B engaged in a bitter fight. While he was there the company sustained six casualties. One of the men had been shot through the thigh and was unable to walk. Since the heavy underbrush and bad trails made it impossible for two men to carry him on a litter, Colonel Clifford carried the wounded soldier on his back for about a mile to the command post, over a difficult mountain trail which ran for several hundred yards in the bed of a swift stream.[33] Colonel Clifford was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross.[34]
At nightfall Company B was separated from the rest of the battalion. Colonel Clifford decided to pull the company off the ridge and replace it with Company C. He was determined to hold what he had “at all costs.”[35] During the day General Sibert attached the battalion to the 32d Division.
Red Badge of Courage
At daylight on 18 November Colonel Clifford brought heavy machine guns into place on the perimeter of the battalion and began to fire on the enemy positions on Ridge Number 3, catching a group of about twenty-five Japanese who were cooking their breakfast. At 0700 a carrying party with rations and medical supplies moved out toward the besieged Company B, and at 1100 Company C started forward to relieve the company. Colonel Clifford decided to displace a platoon at a time during the day. Under intense rifle fire, Company C succeeded in relieving Company B. The fire fight continued throughout the day, and approximately fifty more Japanese were killed. At 1200 the battalion conducted burial services for Henry Kilay, a Filipino soldier and guide who had served the battalion well.[36] During the night and continuing into 19 November, Japanese heavy machine guns fired into the perimeter on Ridge Number 2.
In the meantime the enemy began to deliver heavy fire against Company B, which had moved to the south flank of the battalion on Kilay Ridge. Colonel Clifford estimated the Japanese assault force to be one reinforced company well equipped with mortars and light machine guns. By 0905 on 19 November the Japanese had destroyed one heavy machine gun and had begun a flanking movement to the east of the southernmost outpost of Company B.
The artillery liaison party moved south and directed artillery fire on the enemy. By 1150, however, Company B was being surrounded and its ammunition was very low. Colonel Clifford made a reconnaissance of the area and ordered the besieged company to fall back 100 yards to the north and set up a strong point with the assistance of Company A. The next morning Company A was to attack and retake the knoll from which Company B had been forced to retire. Because of strong Japanese resistance, the gradual attrition of the battalion’s forces, and the “extreme scarcity” of ammunition, Colonel Clifford also decided to have Company C withdraw from Ridge Number 2 to Kilay Ridge on the following morning.[37]
Rain fell constantly upon the troops and churned the surface of the ridge into a “slick mass of mud and slime.”[38] Men were tired. With insufficient rations, broken sleep in sodden foxholes, and constant harassing fire, many had sickened. Fever, dysentery, and foot ulcers were commonplace.
Early on the morning of 20 November Company C withdrew silently in the rain without the knowledge of the Japanese, who threw an attack of company strength against the position thirty minutes after it had been vacated. Company C established a strong position 200 yards south of the battalion command post. The artillery fired intermittently on the enemy to the south until 1200, when it concentrated its fire in front of Company B. So intense was the rain that although artillery shells were falling only 150 yards away, the artillery liaison party had to adjust the fire almost entirely by sound. At 1225 Company B moved out in an effort to retake the knoll from which the enemy had launched his attacks the previous day, but it came under intense rifle and mortar fire which forced it to retire. At this point the battalion’s supply of ammunition became critically low.[39]
The downpour continued through the night and the next day. Patrols, sent to search for a means of flanking the Japanese, were unsuccessful, but they brought back information which made it possible to place artillery and mortar fire on enemy positions. At 1430 Colonel Clifford received the report that two strong Japanese columns were converging on the battalion from the southeast and northeast. One of the platoons from Company C moved to the north end of the ridge to assure that the supply line to Consuegra would be kept open. A carrying party from Consuegra brought in rations and at 1705 the battalion received an airdrop of blankets, ammunition, and litters.[40] There was no major enemy contact.
The rains persisted during the night and the next day, 22 November. Throughout the morning, patrols probed the area. At 1130 the battalion received an airdrop of ammunition, medical supplies, and ponchos. The main perimeter lines were comparatively quiet until 1430 when the enemy pinned down Company B with heavy fire and assaulted Company A. These attacks rapidly grew in intensity. The Japanese with fixed bayonets charged against the perimeters and almost completely surrounded both companies.