Thompson told his 1st Platoon to follow the left flank of the 71st Division and use a concealed route along a dry streambed. The other two platoons fixed bayonets and formed into platoons abreast. Two I Company squads were attached to Thompson and served as his reserve. The 3rd Platoon with attached machine guns moved to the right, and the 2nd Platoon worked its way forward with orders to re-establish the line to the right of C Company, which was still in place on the main line.

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A battery of Japanese guns tracked Thompson’s progress. The enemy artillery fired each time the platoons crossed a ridge. The Americans lay down when they heard the guns fire, ran forward after the shells landed, then re-formed in the gullies and started out again. The advance was rapid and the company well under control as they covered the one kilometer toward their objective. The enemy artillery fire consistently passed over the Americans or fell short, and some shells that were on target failed to detonate.

Japanese artillery was more effective against Captain Stroud’s I Company. Bursting shells badly shook the men as they prepared for the counterattack. ‘In the distance we could hear a salvo of four guns,’ recalls Private Grant E. Workman, ‘then another and still another. After the shells started landing on our outfit, it was havoc. Soldiers were hit, bushes and hard clay flying all over the place.’ Like B Company, I Company broke, more from disorganization and shock than from actual casualties. Some scurried from one shell hole to the next, figuring the Japanese gunners would correct after each shot and aim at another spot. Movement was all to the rear.

When lead elements of L Company entered a big cane field, Japanese infantrymen noticed and fired upon them. Thompson’s point squad and attached BARs returned fire and dispersed the enemy. L Company advanced through the brutally hot cane field and into the positions lost by B Company. Two of M Company’s water-cooled machine guns, positioned in defilade and well to Thompson’s rear, lofted streams of bullets into the Japanese occupying papaya trees off to Thompson’s right. The fire knocked the first victim, a Japanese motorcycle messenger, off the road. Thompson’s men found two heavy machine guns when they took their objective, as well as several BARs abandoned by their former American owners. They used them to support the advance.

Thompson’s men distinguished themselves by their quick action, confidence and aggressive movement. ‘There wasn’t any doubt in our minds that we could whip the Japs,’ recalled Private Wilburn L. Snyder, then an 18-year-old in L Company. Colonel Brady now sent Captain Coral M. Talbott’s K Company up to support Thompson. ‘We advanced 300 yards through fierce shelling, dashing 30 or 40 paces, going down, then running again,’ remembered Private Mondell White, who was 22 years old at the time.

Although the 31st Infantry had restored its line, the situation still looked bad. The Japanese had bombed the town of Hermosa, exploded an ammunition dump there, set the town afire and blocked the only road with rubble. Most of Selleck’s artillery was out of action. Enemy planes left him without concealment, and all of his infantry reserves were committed. If the Japanese broke through the 71st Division, they would cut the only road leading south and trap the entire Layac force. Light firing continued along the American regiment’s front into the early evening. Still more Japanese were seen arriving at Layac, and Japanese movements forward of the 71st Division were increasing.

Selleck was forced to assume that the bulk of General Masaharu Homma’s Fourteenth Army faced him, for he had no accurate information on enemy strength or dispositions. Selleck’s mission was to defend the position until a coordinated attack forced a withdrawal, not to fight a pitched battle. He had already lost the two-battery 23rd Artillery and the 1st Battalion, 71st Artillery. Two American rifle companies had run and were out of the fight. Selleck’s reserve battalion was committed, and the Filipinos along the 71st Division’s front–even though they had not been seriously pressed–were shaky and ready to bolt.

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