Major Ralph Pate’s 3rd Battalion had experienced the hardest march thus far in the campaign. The jungle growth that his men plowed through was more dense than that encountered by the Pilowo column. Moreover, to join the fight for Hill 40, the 3rd Battalion of the 136th had to abandon the trails and travel cross-country. Time and again, the 3rd was uncertain of its exact position.

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Whenever the 3rd Battalion became lost in the jungle, the helpful liaison plane would come to its aid. Through radio direction, the plane would first locate the column, which was not visible from the air. “Fly north a little,” those on the ground would direct. “Now bank right about 45 degrees…you are overhead now!” With the column thus located, the plane would report the position of the column in relation to certain features of nearby terrain.

Although the battalion had marched and fought its way forward for 10 days, it was still in reasonably good fighting shape. The number of dead Japanese found buried along the trail indicated horrendous losses suffered by the enemy. Major Pate believed the lack of Japanese resistance during the previous two days indicated that the enemy had withdrawn. Actually, he learned later that the Japanese 3rd Battalion, 211th Infantry Regiment, had been eliminated as a military force.

An alert was sounded on the morning of January 5 as Company B, commanded by Captain Charles Kissel, started moving on the right of the 1st Battalion. American troops immediately took up their positions and manned their automatic weapons. An attack was bearing down on the extreme right flank of the U.S. position, but the Japanese soldiers were cut down in their tracks. The sword-waving officer in command had charged to within 10 yards of the Americans when a Browning automatic rifle burst stopped him as suddenly as if he had hit a brick wall. His last act was to throw his Samurai sword into the U.S. position.

The officer and eight other enemy soldiers were found dead. This raised a couple of questions. Why had the Japanese troops abandoned their fortifications to fight in the open? Did this indicate that they were vacating their position? The Americans never did learn the answers.

The 3rd Battalion arrived in time to participate in a coordinated attack by all three battalions of the 136th, which began on schedule at 7 a.m., after a final burst of artillery fire. The jungle had become unusually quiet, with no fire from enemy positions. The advancing troops became apprehensive. Company B of the 136th was on the right and had easy going along a trail, advancing rapidly over a slight rise. Just ahead was the enemy position. Without realizing it, a squad moved directly into the path of a cleverly concealed Japanese machine gun. Scarcely 10 feet from the squad, the machine gun spat flame, and within five seconds eight members of the squad lay dead or wounded. The squad next in line immediately hit the ground barely 50 feet from the enemy position. Four men on the right of the squad moved to the east and flanked the gun emplacement. Two grenades finished it off.

When the machine gun opened up on Company B, another enemy emplacement opposite Company G also began to fire. It was apparent that the two enemy machine-gun positions were part of a final protective fire plan in which the firing of one was the signal for the second to open up. Fortunately, Company G had not arrived in position when this gun fired, so it was a small task for them to take out the gun that had prematurely disclosed its position.

The two machine guns proved to be the last organized Japanese defense. The 1st and 2nd battalions then rushed the remaining enemy riflemen and proceeded to mop up the position. The devastation of the Japanese perimeter was spectacular. The aid station and command post had been blown to pieces by artillery fire. There was evidence of many tree bursts, and flying fragments had taken a terrible toll. During the course of the three-day battle, the Japanese had buried their dead in shallow graves.

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