Note 29 — Chapter XV · Battle of the Ridges

The Japanese had not attacked the left flank of G Company. These troops heard the battle raging to the right and the sounds of the Japanese forming below them. A noncommissioned officer in charge of a listening post sent a man to get permission for his three-man group to withdraw. After receiving permission he shouted the order from a distance of fifty yards. As the men from the listening post started back, they were joined by the left platoon and two squads from the center platoon. Within forty-five minutes the two platoons, less one squad, plus the section of heavy machine guns, were moving south on the highway. “There was no thought in their minds that the withdrawal was not authorized.”29 After proceeding down the road 250 yards they met the executive officer of Company H who ordered them back. It was too late, the damage was done. Though the left platoon was able to regain its position without trouble, the two squads from the center platoon found the enemy well dug-in in the bamboo thicket where the squads had been. It was later learned that there were about two hundred hostile troops with twenty machine guns in the thicket.