Flushing out 'the Japs' in the jungle

6th January 1944: The collective experience of the US First Marine Division is used to their advantage in tackling Japanese snipers

Marines on New Britain, January 1944.

Following a Japanese ambush which resulted in one Marine KIA.

Marines nearing Cape Gloucester's airfield.

The campaign on New Britain continued. The thick tropical jungle was almost as much of an enemy as the Japanese. The veterans of the US First Marine Division had jungle fighting experience from their time on Guadalcanal. This did not stop the Fifth Marine Regiment from getting into a firefight with the Seventh Marine Regiment as both units probed into the dense vegetation.

Here it was rarely possible to see the enemy that was firing at you. Romus Burgin¹ had joined the 1st Marine Division as a replacement but he had picked up a few ideas from the Guadalcanal veterans:

We all finally caught up with a large body of Japs dug in along the far side of a stream we came to call Suicide Creek. They were screened behind brush, and every time we tried to wade across, they just cut us to pieces. We lost a lot of good men there.