Run to Earth

The battle for Munda entered its second month. To the U.S. public, the campaign seemed desperately slow. General Douglas MacArthur, its director, said that it was progressing satisfactorily. Both were right, as Charles Edmundson, Associate Editor of FORTUNE, discovered at first hand last week.

The slow progress in New Georgia, he reported, could be partly explained by the fact of overwhelming U.S. air and naval superiority: ground commanders had expected the heavy bombings and shellings to pave the way for a nearly bloodless advance of the infantry. This expectation had not been realized, because the Japs had built so many bombproof bunkers, often cleverly using bomb craters as excavation for the log- and dirt-covered shelters. They could be licked only by extermination.

Last week tanks were brought in and the necessary extermination was being administered by explosive shells thrown into the bunkers at point-blank range. At week's end tanks equipped with flame throwers spread more intense terror among the bunkers. The Jap could no longer escape by sneaking up so close to the American line as to avoid the bursts of explosives.

The Snipers. Within the American lines, sniper fire, as heavy as any yet seen, was being encountered. Snipers hit their mark only once in 20 to 40 shots, but they shot so much that they caused numerous casualties. Well-disciplined troops ignored the snipers, considering such poor marksmen beneath their notice, but the snipers strained the morale of unseasoned troops. A curious point about Jap snipers: their effectiveness in critical moments suggested that they might not be trying too hard, lest their proficiency lead to stronger measures for their elimination.

The Neurotics. "Sleeping in foxholes, sometimes half-filled from rain, is rigidly prescribed in better-disciplined regiments," cabled Edmundson. "If you have never spent twelve hours of darkness lying in a foxhole near Jap lines, with their snipers in your own perimeter sending occasional zinging shots in your direction, you cannot make proper allowance for men sometimes seized by jungle neurosis who begin wielding their machetes wildly or tossing grenades promiscuously across the area. In the tenseness of the long jungle nights, every sound and circumstance takes on the aspect of terror. Exhausted soldiers are forbidden to snore lest they attract the attention of snipers. But the night is full of sound. The call of a dry-throated tree frog becomes the signaling of infiltrating Japs. Pebbles falling from the edge of the foxhole on your helmet may be thrown by Japanese trying to taunt you into showing a silhouette. Such things sound fantastic to outsiders, but they are real and existent to some soldiers. Soldiers prone to panic are quickly weeded out."

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