Page:Papuan Campaign; The Buna-Sanananda Operation - Armed Forces in Action (1944).djvu/94

 liquidated. To the north the attack was making rapid progress. By evening of 16 January, the 18th Brigade, carrying out its wide envelopment, had pushed the 2/9 Battalion into the Sanananda perimeter. The 2/10 Battalion was left to face a stubborn enemy group on the coast west of the bay, while the 2/12 Battalion, advancing on the right flank, was on the road about a mile from the coast and in contact with the 2d Battalion of the 163d. On the coast, the 1st Battalion of the 127th attacked at 0800, following a rolling artillery and mortar barrage, but despite reinforcements from the 2d Battalion, made no progress in the face of effective enemy machine-gun fire. Pressure against this flank of the Japanese position was being maintained, to the obvious advantage of our operations elsewhere on the Sanananda front.

Any plan which the enemy might have had of an orderly withdrawal along the road to the beach at Sanananda had been foiled. His remaining forces were split up and under heavy pressure, short of ammunition and starving. The second phase of our attack had come to a successful end. The enemy himself realized that his few isolated strongpoints would soon be liquidated. During the night of 16–17 January, the higher Japanese officers removed their wounded from barges in which they set off to seek safety for themselves.

The exact nature of the remaining enemy defenses on the Soputa–Sanananda Road was not yet known, but a considerable force was believed to be between Fisk and Perimeter "AD." On the 17th, B Company probed southward from “AD” until it was stopped by fire from bunkers at "S." On the following day, C Company pushed forward east of B Company to envelop "S" but was stopped by fire from both flanks. Then A and K Companies extended the envelopment still further eastward but ran into another enemy perimeter at "T." F Company, ordered to join the attack on "T," advanced down the road from the north, disposing of 54 Japanese before it was held up by machine-gun fire from the northeastern end of Perimeter "T." About noon the enemy, caught between our 1st and 3d Battalions, showed their nervousness by opening fire on Fisk without being attacked. 77