During the day, as far as their limited ammunition would allow, the artillery units fired at enemy troop concentrations and possible observation posts. The service troops worked feverishly to move badly needed ammunition to the front lines. The two most critical items were 105-mm. and 81-mm. ammunition, and by nightfall the front lines had received 1,400 rounds of the first item and 1,600 rounds of the second. General Arnold attached the 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry, to the 32d Infantry but Colonel Finn was forbidden to commit it to action without permission from the 7th Division.
Japanese Counterattack
The enemy forces did not wait. That night, under a full moon, they attacked American positions with great ferocity, opening the engagement with the heaviest artillery barrage the 32d Infantry had yet experienced.[21] The first rounds fell on the front-line troops, but the fire then shifted and centered on Battery A, 49th Field Artillery Battalion, and the infantry and artillery command posts in the rear at Damulaan. At the same time the enemy pounded the front lines of Companies G, L, E, and K with heavy mortar fire. Additional mortars joined the battle and shifted the greater part of their fire against Battery B. The cannoneers held fast and returned the fire.
After this thirty-minute artillery and mortar preparation, the Japanese 13th Independent Infantry Regiment attacked the front lines of the Americans, concentrating the assault against three main positions: the right flank of Company G, the draw between Companies L and K, and the center of Company K. At the same time, combat patrols moved from the north against Companies F and G. The companies easily threw back these patrols.
Colonel Nelson ordered all supporting weapons of the 2d Battalion to fire. All three artillery batteries fired at the maximum rate for seven minutes, while the mortars placed their fire directly on the assault force in order to chop it up or drive it back into the artillery fire. Colonel Nelson then put the Ammunition and Pioneer Platoon of the 2d Battalion and a squad from Company B, 13th Engineer Battalion, in previously prepared positions between Companies G and E. Company G was thus able to strengthen its lines at the heaviest point of pressure and repel the frequently repeated assaults.
At about 1900 a strong force of the enemy gathered on the ridge in front of the right flank of Company L. The American mortars fired on the ridge but the American machine guns kept silent in order to conceal their locations. A group of about fifty Japanese came to within thirty yards of the right platoon of Company L and showered it with grenades. Mortar fire also fell on this platoon, and at the same time the platoon of Company K in the draw came under heavy fire. At least twelve emplaced machine guns, in addition to those carried up by the assaulting troops, raked the positions of Companies K and L with intense fire. Company L employed all weapons and threw back the assault with heavy casualties to the Japanese.
Company K did not fare so well, since it was operating at little more than half strength and there were only nineteen men in the platoon that guarded the draw on the company’s left flank. Under the protection of machine gun and mortar fire, the Japanese moved against the platoon, which was ringed by machine gun fire that cut off any avenue of withdrawal. The platoon seemed to be faced with imminent extermination. A Marine machine gunner from the 11th 155-mm. Gun Battalion, who was stationed on the high ground just south of the draw of the besieged platoon, opened fire and knocked out the enemy machine guns which had cut off the line of withdrawal. He then directed his fire against the Japanese weapons on the ridge across the draw and raked the ridge from one end to the other. After the enemy guns had been silenced the platoon made an orderly withdrawal to the foot of the ridge to positions on its right rear, from which it could cover the draw.[22] Many enemy dead were left in the vacated positions.
The Japanese then attempted to break through the center of Company K’s line, but were driven off by the use of artillery, together with the mortars, machine guns, grenades, and rifles of the company. For the rest of the night the Japanese kept probing the left flank of the company and placing machine gun and mortar fire along the entire line. At one time about twenty-five of the enemy pushed past the outer perimeter to within fifty yards of the perimeter of the command post and set up two machine guns. Headquarters personnel, medical men, and engineers who were manning the perimeter drove the group off.
Meanwhile, the Japanese forces in front of Company L withdrew and were regrouping, preparatory to launching a new attack. Since there was no artillery observer with the company, 1st Lt. William C. Bentley, of the Cannon Company, with two men went to a vantage point from which they could observe the draw and the ridge where the enemy force was assembling. Lieutenant Bentley directed an artillery concentration on the draw. Three times the Japanese tried to pierce the right flank of Company L and three times the artillery drove them back with heavy casualties. The enemy then tried unsuccessfully to get through the left flank of the company. The front line of Company L had comparative quiet for the rest of the night, except for a few infiltrators.
Having failed to pierce the front lines, the 26th Division troops tried desperately to knock out the artillery supporting the 32d Infantry—Batteries A and B of the 49th Field Artillery Battalion receiving the heaviest blows. Battery B had all four of its guns knocked out, but by “cannibalizing” the damaged guns the battery had one of them back in operation by dawn. The enemy shelling gradually slackened in intensity, and by 0400, except for occasional outbursts of fire, all was quiet.