Combat· World War II
Battle of Piva Forks
As the Marines pushed inland on Bougainville, they needed the high ground around the forks of the Piva River to protect the site of a future airfield.
The Japanese 23d Infantry held strong positions there and meant to fight for them. Marines first seized a key ridge and held it against repeated wild charges. Then two battalions attacked behind one of the heaviest artillery barrages a Marine operation had yet fired. The enemy answered with their own shelling, and the fighting turned into a brutal close-range struggle among shattered trees and flooded streams. The Marines drove forward with tanks, flamethrowers, and machine guns until the enemy regiment was wiped out. A follow-on fight for a nearby knoll, nicknamed Grenade Hill, finished the job. The victory broke the back of organized Japanese resistance west of the Torokina River.
Podcast episodes on World War II
Record no. 861