Because the 1st Battalion, 88th Artillery, was shooting from more protective terrain than the 23rd, it did not suffer as badly. Even so, the ammunition train was hit, several prime movers were disabled, and personnel losses were heavy. Japanese fire drove the crew of an A Battery gun to cover, dragging their wounded with them. Jose Calugas, a mess sergeant from another battery, ran across shell-swept ground to the idle piece, organized a pick-up crew and put the gun back into action despite continued enemy shelling.

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Japanese artillery now reached the American infantrymen. ‘The shelling was deadly accurate,’ remembered Private William J. Garleb from H Company. He was crouching in his foxhole when a round burst only six inches from the edge, sending fragments up and out, and leaving him unhurt. This was the first time the Americans had heard enemy artillery explode, and it was disconcertingly loud. Sergeant Walk’s H Company machine-gunners burrowed desperately into their 18-inch-deep holes. All Walk could see for five minutes was dust, and he was sure he had lost everybody. But when the fire stopped, Walk found that no one was hurt. Each man, however, was furiously working to deepen his foxhole.

G Company also took a pounding but lost only a few wounded. Captain John I. Pray crouched in his foxhole and peered at a little red bird five feet away. The bird was singing its heart out as howitzer shells crashed all around. Pray crawled along his line during lulls and encouraged his men. Seeing him disappear in shell bursts and smoke, Pray’s men reported him killed three times. Japanese fire was heaviest in the 1st Battalion area. Twenty-seven-year-old Private James C. Spencer spent most of the day in a deep foxhole listening to shells explode and the whirring of fragments. Spencer raised his head from time to time and saw two young Americans running from the front lines until a captain, waving a revolver, ordered them back into line. Those two men were probably from Lieutenant Lloyd G. Murphy’s B Company.

At 2 p.m., the Japanese had put several infantry units across the small Culo River. Their patrols probed the junction between the 31st Infantry and the 71st Division two hours later. In so doing, they bumped into B Company. ‘I looked out over the front,’ remembers Private Harold J. Garrett, ‘and it seemed that whole field got up and moved.’ Garrett aimed his rifle and fired.

Corporal Milton G. Alexander and two members of his squad raked the enemy with their air-cooled .30-caliber machine gun. Two Browning Automatic Rifles (BARs) joined Alexander’s gun and momentarily slowed the Japanese fire. Then enemy bullets washed over B Company’s line. ‘It seemed like a bunch of bees hit our position,’ recalled one soldier, a four-year Army veteran, ‘the snap, crackle, and pop of small arms and machine-gun fire. Five minutes later, B Company panicked. The whole company took off up the hill towards our artillery.’

The Americans finally stopped 800 yards behind the main line, but their flight could not be tolerated if they were to delay the Japanese. C Company held firm to the left of B Company’s now abandoned foxholes. Private George Uzelac watched the enemy approaching with fixed bayonets that seemed small when they were 500 yards away but looked huge as they got closer. Uzelac, dirty, hungry and convinced he was too young to die, was shaking badly until he started firing his BAR. Then he calmed down and helped stop the Japanese. The 1st Battalion commander ordered his reserve company to counterattack and restore the line. When A Company failed to close the hole, Colonel Steel called on his reserve 3rd Battalion to plug the gap.

Lieutenant Donald G. Thompson of L Company and Captain Ray Stroud of I Company received orders a little after 4 p.m. to report to their battalion commander. Lieutenant Colonel Jasper E. Brady told his officers: ‘I and L companies will immediately move forward from their present positions to the front-line sector formerly occupied by B Company. Report by runner to me as soon as you have your companies in position. K Company will remain in reserve prepared to move up into the lines on my order.’

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