Page:Papuan Campaign; The Buna-Sanananda Operation - Armed Forces in Action (1944).djvu/44

 of F Company, spotted a Japanese machine gun 50 yards ahead. By cool action he got his men off the trail before the enemy opened fire, and the remainder of the battalion moved up on both sides of the trail against the narrow salient in the fork. At 1330, enemy fire from the salient, later known as the Triangle, had stopped our troops. This area was to be the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting on the whole Buna front.

On 22 November the 2d Battalion, 126th Infantry, was released by the Australian 7th Division to the 32d Division and advanced along the Ango trail to support the 2d Battalion, 128th Infantry. This was the last major troop movement on the Buna front until reinforcements arrived. Henceforth, the 2d Battalions of the 126th Infantry and 128th Infantry were called the Urbana Force. Under the command of Col. John W. Mott, this force operated in the corridor west of the great swamp. On the east of that barrier, between Simemi Creek and the sea, the rst and 3d Battalions of the 128th Infantry, the 1st Battalion of the 126th Infantry, and the Australian 2/6 Independent Company formed the Warren Force under Brig. Gen. Hanford MacNider. When this officer was wounded on the 23d, Col. J. Tracy Hale, Jr., of the 128th Infantry took over command of the Warren Force. Until 1 January, these forces were to fight separate actions, each with its own story.

The Urbana Force began an attack toward the Triangle on 24 November (Sketch No. 1, page 30). E Company, 126th Infantry, moved to the left flank and got 4oo yards out into the swamp without meeting enemy opposition. By the next day it had struggled through the swamp to a point beyond Entrance Creek, close to the left-fork trail to the Village.

F Company, 128th Infantry, moved directly up the trail; E and G Companies, 128th Infantry, swung around the right flank. Enemy barbed wire and machine-gun fire stopped F Company at the apex of the Triangle. For a while the right-flank companies had easy going. Then, as they came out on the kunai-grass strip southeast of the Triangle, they encountered enemy fire. By dark it was clear that the enemy had drawn them into a trap on the relatively open ground, swept by fire from his fortifications. G Company lost its 60-mm mortars and light machine guns, and the men were forced

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