Night on Bougainville

The bald communique from Bougainville said: "Our ground forces enlarged their perimeter. ..." From that bleached and pickled bit of news, one Marine, back in Washington from the beachhead on Empress Augusta Bay, reconstructed a nightmare narrative. The story of stocky, red-haired Technical Sergeant Harold Azine, in civilian life a radio-program director, on Bougainville a combat correspondent:

Into the Jungle. One night, early in the Empress Augusta Bay operation, Sergeant Azine's company slipped into the jungle to hold a "road-block," an outpost guarding the approach to the Marines' beachhead. Miasmal swamp and forest hemmed the area. Most of the company bivouacked smack on the trail. Flank units took position in the jungle; they alone might use firearms, because they alone could shoot without danger of hitting their comrades. Marines on the trail were limited to knives, entrenching tools, fists, or any weapon that would do a job silently.

The men had to be in foxholes at dark, between 6:30 and 7 o'clock. They could not smoke, talk or leave their stations until daybreak. Anything that moved in the bivouac area after dark would be killed. As they dug in, rain fell--the heavy, soaking, almost unbelievable rain of Bougainville that swiftly rots clothes and bodies--and turned the foxholes into sticky beds of mud.

Out of Darkness. Related Sergeant Azine: "About 8 o'clock we got our first sign of the enemy. He started throwing mortar shells at us, without damage. We had been told we could expect Japs in person next. Our fellows on the fringes began firing Tommy guns and rifles. Some of it was jitters but some was Japs, too.

"They'd come sliding right up to our positions. We could hear them signaling with bamboo sticks: 'tap-tap-tap-tap,' then a pause, and then 'tap-tap.' Then a grenade would land somewhere near by so when we heard the tappings, we'd just pray that the next one wasn't for us.

"The Jap grenade is different from ours. To arm it, they pull a pin but then they have to strike the grenade on something solid a couple of times to set off the fuse. They usually knock it on their helmets or rifle butts. They got so close to us at times, we could hear them pull the pin, bang the damn things on their helmets 'klunk-klunk'; and then 'WHAM!' "

Toward Rabaul. The strain that night--the darkness, the tense waiting, the ban on talk, the weird jungle sounds--made the toughest leathernecks say they never wanted to go through it again. Japs got close enough to be smelled. Within 50 feet of one U.S. foxhole, 16 grenades fell. Once Sergeant Azine, dozing, was unintentionally kicked by a buddy; he snapped awake, grabbed his fellow Corpsman by the throat, had his trench knife poised for a thrust before he realized it was not a Jap.

This kind of fighting wrenched the jungle from the Jap, slowly enlarged the Empress Augusta Bay beachhead. Now, after six weeks of fighting, it runs roughly 10,000 yards along the shore, 8,000 yards inland. Last week came the announcement that U.S. engineers had completed a runway within the beachhead. The Allied command could now count on better fighter cover for air and sea attacks on Rabaul, the Jap Southwest Pacific strongpoint.

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