Page:Papuan Campaign; The Buna-Sanananda Operation - Armed Forces in Action (1944).djvu/70

 the Japanese withdrew from their first line of defense to their second; then, while the tanks pushed on, they slipped back undetected to reoccupy their first line in time to stop our infantry. To prevent a repetition of the costly and unsuccessful attacks which had characterized the early fighting in the Duropa Plantation, our forces marked time until heavy reinforcements could be brought up.

On the 30th the 3d Battalion, 128th Infantry, took over the lines on the right opposite the dispersal bays, and on the 31st the Australian 2/12 Infantry Battalion, a fresh unit of the 18th Brigade, came in to the northwest of the 3d Battalion. More tanks arrived, and on 1 January the 2/12 Battalion under Lt. Col. Arthur S. W. Arnold made a thrust toward the sea across the north end of the enemy strongpoint. Within an hour of the jump-off the Australians were on the beach just southeast of Giropa Point. In the afternoon they moved south in the Plantation against the main center of enemy resistance. The 3d Battalion, 128th Infantry, closed in at the same time. By the evening of 2 January only two small enemy pockets remained. The next day the 1st and 3d Battalions, 128th Infantry, cleaned these out despite a last desperate stand by the enemy. Meanwhile, the 2/12 Battalion moved west to make contact with the Urbana Force.

The action on the Urbana front, without tank support, moved forward less dramatically but with equal success. Buna Village had been taken on 14 December by the 3d Battalion, 127th Infantry. On 16 December the Coconut Grove was taken, but attacks against the Triangle from 17 to 20 December failed. In the course of the next 3 days, units of the 127th Infantry established a bridgehead on the east bank of Entrance Creek north of the Triangle, and on 24 December they began to push a wedge to the sea between the Mission and Giropa Point. By 29 December the wedge had been driven through. The enemy thus cut off in the Mission was assailed each day until 2 January, when the Mission fell. This ended the last organized resistance in the Buna area, but for the next few days it was necessary to mop up the whole region. 53