Honor Before Glory

by Scott McGaugh

  Dahlquist’s intelligence officers learned the Germans had placed up to four 88mm artillery guns to the north of Higgins’s position. Higgins reported that three prisoners had told him that German reinforcements were proceeding to a point more than a mile northeast of his position and that they were reinforced by artillery, mortars, and machine guns. But like the Americans, they were low on ammunition.

  Enemy machine gunners were digging in at various points between the roadblock at Col de Croisette and Higgins, less than a mile away. Enemy troops had been spotted coming up from the valley to the south, and enemy artillery was confirmed in Corcieux, a village four miles south of Higgins and well within range of the lost battalion.

  Were the Germans planning an all-out assault when the sun rose? Higgins’s men were exhausted from enemy attacks that had lasted throughout the day. It had been, by far, the toughest fighting since the 1/141 had been surrounded.

  Perhaps the Germans sensed they could not hold off the 442nd much longer. Perhaps they concluded they had to press their advantage before more supplies reached Higgins’s men and fortified them into a more formidable fighting force. A coordinated attack against Higgins, reinforced by artillery, would be critical if the enemy was to destroy the 1/141 before the 442nd reached it.

  The Germans had lost an estimated 350 men in recent days. But a final assault could come in the morning. Higgins had 45 men left in Company A, 71 in Company B, and 95 in Companies C and D. All told, he had about 100 riflemen left. He still needed more supplies.

  The day’s final resupply mission by air took off at 1600, in fading daylight. Within an hour, seven more tanks had fallen within the 1/141’s drop zone. Flight leaders like Lieutenant Eliel Archilla had overcome both the enemy and the weather. Archilla was perhaps one of the most talented pilots who delivered supplies to Higgins. He had trained as a glider pilot and flown P-51 Mustangs before transfer to the 405th. Archilla recalled after the war that he had flown so close to the ground that he could see the GIs he was resupplying.

  Seven resupply missions had now been flown within forty-eight hours. On at least one occasion, the 405th had caught Germans by surprise in a clearing near Higgins. They strafed the enemy, adding to its mounting casualty list and the 405th’s confidence that it could keep supplying Higgins’s men.

  The 1/141’s morale lifted as bellies were filled with rations most soldiers had disdained only a few weeks earlier. Higgins believed that if he could keep his men supplied, they could hold off the Germans indefinitely. Higgins calculated that he had about three days’ worth of supplies but needed Halazone for water purification and more ammunition. Higgins had used the high ground he occupied to maximum advantage. Many foxholes now had log roofs. And the enemy had fallen into a somewhat predictable pattern of attack.

  However, Higgins needed to get his wounded to a hospital as soon as possible. He also needed dry socks. Too many of his men were in excruciating pain from trench foot. Many would not be able to move out of their foxholes if an assault in the morning resulted in hand-to-hand combat. If Higgins’s men made it through the night, the 36th Division planned another airdrop in the morning, this time with seven hundred pairs of socks, one hundred cans of foot powder, Halazone, batteries, and ammunition.

  Those supplies might buy Higgins enough time because the 442nd was planning renewed attacks at 0900 the next morning. But the regiment had suffered horrific casualties in recent days. The survivors in the 100th Battalion’s three companies numbered about 220, less than 40 percent of the companies’ authorized strength. The losses suffered by Companies I and K were hard to fathom. There were only 20 men left in Company K and even fewer in Company I. Nearly every officer had been killed or wounded. A soldier previously on a food detail was now the acting sergeant for Company K, a unit that had a prewar authorized strength of about 190 men. Company I had suffered 4 dead and 40 wounded in a day’s fighting. But when enemy fire finally ebbed at sunset, danger never departed the battlefield.

  As evening fell, some men were once again ordered to go back over the ground they had just captured to bring supplies forward for another day’s fighting. At Company I, Captain Joe Byrne turned to Sergeant Tak Senzaki, a soldier with an uncanny sense of direction. Senzaki and 14 others headed back to the rear. And directly into a pocket of Germans. Muzzles flashed in the grim darkness as heavy clouds muffled the detonations. Senzaki’s men fought their way through. Shortly after the gunfire stopped, Senzaki heard a distant explosion, back where Byrne and the remnants of Company I were digging in, an odd, isolated blast in an unexpected portion of the forest at an unexpected time.

  When the supply detail returned with its rations at midnight, the word spread. Captain Byrne had been worried about the exchange of gunfire he had heard. According to Senzaki, he had started out in the direction of Senzaki and stepped on a mine. He was killed instantly. Company I’s survivors were horrified. They had lost one of the most respected men of the 442nd.h

  Officially, he was listed as killed in action on October 30. But for many men, such as Company I’s Mutt Sakumoto, he was the final casualty on a day that survivors would relive in nightmares for the rest of their lives.

  a Kuwayama was awarded the Silver Star for his bravery.

  b Saburo Tanamachi was one of four brothers who served in World War II and on June 4, 1948, became one of the first two Japanese American soldiers to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. General Jacob Devers, chief of the army field forces, and General Dahlquist, deputy director of army personnel and administration, were two of the five generals who attended the ceremony. Colonels Virgil Miller, Charles Pence, James Hanley, and Charles Owens were pallbearers.

  c The 202nd ultimately lost so many men in October, its first month in combat, that it was disbanded two months later, with the survivors absorbed by the Germans’ 338th Division.

  d Topographical-map coordinates produced specific numerical designations for precise locations. For example, 522nd Field Artillery Battalion at 255569 was near Bruyères, about five miles from the front line. Almost directly east, Lieutenant Colonel Hanley’s objective, Hill 617, was at 326606. The massive German roadblock at Col de la Croisette confronting the regiment was at 334588.

  e A year earlier in Italy, Ohata had led a three-man squad against forty Germans. At one point, he killed ten Germans as he rescued one of his men when his gun had jammed. After the soldier found another gun, the two of them killed twenty-seven more before capturing the remaining three Germans. Later in the day, they held their position, killing four and wounding three. A half century later, Ohata received the Medal of Honor for his heroism.

  f Some Nisei soldiers carried their senninbari in their packs or helmets, concerned that wearing them would imply their empathy for Japan. It appears that wasn’t an issue for their commanding officer, Al Pursall, as several members of his 3rd Battalion wore their senninbari on the battlefield.

  g In dire circumstances, companies, platoons, and squads could be reorganized on the battlefield when one or more units had suffered extreme losses of men or officers.

  h Another soldier’s recollection was that Byrne was headed toward the battalion’s command post in the early hours of October 30 when he was killed by the mine.

  CHAPTER 7

  NEED ANY CIGARETTES?

  EICHI WAKAMATSU WOKE UP TO A BONE-CHILLING RAIN. THE rifleman in the 100th’s Company B had closed to within about six hundred yards of Higgins’s men. The 100th and 3rd Battalions remained abreast, the 100th on the south side of the logging road and the 3rd on the north. A few yards ahead lay another German roadblock at Col des Huttes. An estimated fifty Germans were waiting for Wakamatsu, Okubo, Sakumoto, and others to summon another day’s courage.

  Wakamatsu had grown up in the Hood River, Oregon, area, where a handful of Japanese American families grew apples and stone fruit. He didn’t know that a few days earlier, the Hood River American Legion post had decided to erase his name from an honor wall of local residents serving in uniform.
His was one of sixteen Japanese American names that would be taken off the memorial in the coming weeks as a protest against some Japanese American families who were about to return to what might remain of their homes, farms, or businesses. The American Legion post’s goal was to exclude all Japanese Americans from the county.a As he scanned the misty forest on October 30, he had no idea he would become the lightning rod of a national controversy before Christmas.

  He was one of only fifty-five men left in Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Singles’s Company B. Singles had sixty-five men in Company A and seventy-two in Company C. He had only about one-third the fighting force of a fully manned battalion. Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Pursall had only a few more men in his 3rd Battalion. It was a bloodied and beleaguered force that rolled out of slit trenches and carefully got on its feet behind trees to stretch aching muscles and stiffened spines. The first order of business was to “count noses,” to see how many men might have been killed by enemy artillery in the night.

  They had tried to sleep through heavy American artillery directed at the roadblock on the road ahead. The Americans had left a trail of blood on the logging road as they had overcome a series of enemy strongpoints along the ridge. Colonel Virgil Miller couldn’t be sure how many more enemy roadblocks his men in the 442nd had left in them.

  But Miller knew the 442nd was getting close to Higgins’s men. The 442nd had been averaging about six hundred yards’ advance each day. They had fought for every foot, as the Germans had pressured each step with gunfire and then pounded night positions with artillery. But on this morning, his men jumped off at 0900 with little resistance. Surely, the counterattack would come soon. Regardless, his thoughts turned to a completed mission. Miller ordered his personnel staff to write citations for “Colonel Singles and Colonel Pursall for a DSC [Distinguished Service Cross] for getting through to that battalion. I also want at first rest period FO [forward observer] of artillery written up.”1 Miller also wanted Pursall and Singles to recommend any men they thought worthy of citations for bravery.

  AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME, HIGGINS SURVEYED HIS REMAINING men. He had forty-five men in Company A, seventy-one men in Company B, eighty-one men in Company C, and fourteen men in Company D. But after discounting for casualties, he figured he had about one hundred riflemen and a handful of machine-gun crews. He calculated he had enough basic supplies for about three days. Although he was out of water-purification tablets, he begged off any more airdrops for fear they were pinpointing his men’s positions for the enemy. Its artillery attacks had become more precise once the 405th had begun hitting the drop zone with regularity. He knew that Germans still controlled the roadblock at Col des Huttes, about five hundred yards to the west. Perhaps worse, German prisoners told him more enemy troops were approaching from the northeast with artillery, mortars, and machine guns. About the only good news from the prisoners was that advancing troops were low on ammunition, too.

  Yet as dire as the situation Higgins faced had become, Dahlquist again issued what seemed to be his standing order: attack the enemy! Once more Higgins was told to prepare to attack the German roadblock from the rear. Higgins had about forty minutes to organize his men and then, if he had fresh batteries, start listening for additional instructions at 0900. Higgins and the other lieutenants must have been stunned to receive the same order they had rebuffed earlier. As usual, the order was incomplete, leaving them to wonder if Dahlquist expected an all-out assault by those still standing or whether it was to be a more modest diversionary attack.

  “What about disabled? German patrol harassing our position,” Higgins radioed.

  “Remain in position. Await further orders” was the quick reply from headquarters.2

  Colonel Charles Owens clearly shared Higgins’s concern and made his case to Dahlquist’s operations officer against an attack. “If 1st Battalion advances, it will mean for them to split their forces and if they are met by a strong German patrol they may be wiped out completely,” radioed Owens.

  “Leave [a] detachment of weapons platoon to protect [your] casualties and be prepared to attack back along original route to northeast side of road so as to contact 3rd Battalion, 442. . . . Remain in position until time and direction given for attack.”3 Now it was clear. Dahlquist wanted an all-out attack.

  Dahlquist may have thought the 442nd was running out of firepower and lacked the strength to reach the 1/141, in which case an attack by Higgins from the rear might be necessary. Whether Dahlquist believed Higgins’s reports of his weakening men is open to question. Many times in the past, Dahlquist had overruled his frontline officers and nearly called some of them liars. Certainly, the other two battalions of the 141st were in no position to take over the rescue mission. Regardless of his motivation, he wanted the 100th and 3rd Battalions of the 442nd and the 1st Battalion of the 141st to fight toward each other with the few men who remained on their feet.

  Shortly thereafter, enemy fire shattered midmorning preparations as Higgins stood not far from Blonder’s radio. Sergeant Bill Hull’s machine-gun position was suddenly confronted by Germans on three sides. This is the last fight, Hull thought. “It was like the enemy was determined to wipe us out one way or another. That was the first time I thought I was going to die. The only thing in my head was, if I’m going to die then I’m going to take as many of them as I can.”4

  The attack was ferocious, and some Germans closed to within thirty yards. Hull’s machine gun ripped through wide swaths of the forest after he switched from single shots to automatic fire. Eason Bond, Arthur Cunningham, and others fired at the slightest movement. The crack of rifles and pistols reflected how intimate the battlefield had become. Germans fell in what appeared to be a suicidal charge.b More Americans slumped in their foxholes, dead or wounded.

  And then the forest disappeared.

  Higgins’s men smelled it seconds before it filled the forest. Smoke. Around midmorning, the Germans had begun laying smoke south and east of Biffontaine, in the valley below the south side of the ridge. As it drifted, the smoke consumed the valley and crept up the ridge. It cloaked man and tree. Was this the Germans’ cover for their last desperate attack? Was this another all-out assault that the lieutenants had been waiting for? Higgins believed a final massive enemy assault was about to begin. For days he had prepared his men, marshaled his meager resources, and now could rely on only their resolve. Would Cunningham, Bond, Wilson, and the others remain at their posts even if they couldn’t see a German charge? Six days of stalemated battle might be determined in the next handful of minutes. What were the Germans up to?

  If Higgins’s men were blind, perhaps artillery might save them from the Germans. American artillery batteries began pounding the blanket of smoke in the valley. Higgins asked for the same in the forest surrounding his men. The closer, the better.

  Six minutes later, at 1120, Higgins tactfully refused Dahlquist’s attack order. “Not trying to beg off. Situation here gets worse. 22 litter casualties, 11 trench foot cases, 10 walking wounded, need transportation. Efficiency low. Enemy patrols active on flank and front with automatic weapons. Mines at Point 10. Require engineers to clear. Can send [reconnaissance] patrol to feel out the rear of enemy. Awaiting orders.”5

  BY MIDMORNING THE 442ND’S TWO VANGUARD BATTALIONS HAD reached a point only four hundred yards from Higgins’s men. They had encountered some enemy resistance, but it had become clear that overnight artillery fire directed at the roadblock had been extremely effective. Abandoned German clothing and equipment littered the logging road. They passed the Col des Huttes roadblock and then cautiously entered the relatively open stand of willows where Higgins’s men had suffered some of their most serious losses a few days earlier. They discovered two of Higgins’s men who had been killed. They had been “manning a machine gun,” according to a division report.

  When Dahlquist told Higgins shortly before noon to send a patrol toward the Germans’ roadblock, he inexplicably added that the 442nd was one and a quarter miles from Higgins
. But if the 442nd had reached the roadblock at Col des Huttes, it was less than a half mile from the lost battalion.

  Miller received reports that his battalions’ slow advance continued to produce casualties. Eichi Wakamatsu was one of them. He was taken to an aid station along with others. Medics, chaplains, and support personnel had advanced behind the frontline troops, establishing command posts and aid stations along the logging road as engineer crews cleared it of mines.

  Masao Yamada, a chaplain in the 100th Battalion, witnessed a new development among the combat veterans of the 442nd who were coming off the front line. Combat stress had begun taking a toll, according to a letter from Yamada to his wife:

  Up to now we had a very small portion of shell-shock cases. We are beginning to receive serious cases of shell shock in greater numbers. Many of them break down due to the loss of their best friends. In many cases when they see their buddies go, the going becomes a mental strain, and the enemy shelling becomes a mental disturbance of greater fear than usual. When shelling continues for days and nights, mental hope diminishes and the accumulation of fear increases in proportion to the degree hope vanishes. The result is finally a close call—a complete breakdown.

  Those that were once wounded also have a difficult time adjusting themselves in combat. The fear of being hit again, the sense of suffering, the dread of physical pain, all sensitize the soldier mentally to avoid combat. Hence with the intense shell fire around, one normally dreads the experience. If the fear continues long enough, one cracks up. It is one of the tragic episodes of combat.6

  A prolific letter writer to the War Department, Yamada’s letters in late October and early November reflected the creeping malaise that threatened the rescue mission: