Paul Owen Gunter

The third day of November 1942 marked the third day of a combined Marine-Army push to the west along Guadalcanal’s northern coast. Ambitious planners hoped to seize the Japanese base at Kokumbona, but an unexpectedly fierce defense by the Imperial Army’s 4th and 124 Infantry Regiments inflicted heavy casualties and stunted progress. The 5th Marines faced an especially tough challenge from Colonel Nomasu Nakaguma’s 4th Infantry entrenched around the base of Point Cruz. Two days of fierce fighting, including an unusual American bayonet charge, finally trapped the surviving Japanese infantry in a constricted pocket west of the Point.

The task of eliminating the final resistance fell to the Second Battalion, 5th Marines, with support from the Third Battalion. Item and King Companies weathered a Japanese bayonet charge at 0630 hours. Between 0800 and noon, the Americans inexorably advanced, compressing the defenders in an ever-shrinking perimeter. The fighting grew desperate and personal at close quarters, with both sides using bayonets as well as bullets. Second Lieutenant Paul Moore (F/2/5) recalled that “The skirmishers went on down to the beach and wound up in a bayonet fight with the Japanese, whom they finally pushed back into the sea. Others were killed. There was a terrible slaughter of Japanese and the battle was finally concluded.”

In his memoir Hell In The Pacific: A Marine Rifleman’s Journey from Guadalcanal to Peleliu, Sergeant Jim McEnery (K/3/5) related a hand-to-hand fight at the climax of the action. “Right before we jumped off, I heard [Bill] Landrum tell the Marine next to him, ‘Just give your soul to the Lord, and let’s go!’ We went right through the ditch where the main Jap line had been, but it had already fallen to pieces….I saw Japs blowing themselves up with grenades and others running like so many scared rabbits.”

The killing was not all one way.