u/Nearby-Suggestion219

2nd Photo: A view of Mount Austen from the American perimeter

Note: I got both photos from a Facebook page called "Guadalcanal - Walking a battlefield". If you're interested in this battle I suggest you check it out since it has a lot of interesting and rare photographs. The author is a Marine veteran and Guadalcanal tour guide. He also has a YouTube Channel that goes by the same name as his Facebook page.

"US Army soldiers of the 2nd Battalion 132nd Infantry Regiment on top of Hill 27, Mt Austen. They are with the Japanese Type 92 70mm battalion gun they captured on 2 Jan 1943. The gun was used by the Americans and later buried. After the war, it was dug up and is now in a private collection."

"Miller's official US Army history mentions it: By 0907, the leading assault troops gained the summit without firing a shot, and by 1130, all assault troops had reached the top. The Japanese had been completely surprised. As E and F Companies reached the top, they saw a 3-inch mountain howitzer in the open about 100 yards north of the crest. The enemy crew was sprawled at ease in the shade about thirty yards from the howitzer. The Japanese artillerymen ran for their weapons, but riflemen of the assault companies picked off each gunner before he could reach it."

Note: I got the photo and quotes from a Facebook page called "Guadalcanal - Walking a battlefield". If you're interested in this battle I suggest you check it out since it has a lot of interesting and rare photographs. The author of the page apparently lived and worked on the island.

John Benjamin George's fondness of rifle shooting and game hunting started at age seven when he first borrowed his brother's rifle to go hunt squirrels on the outskirts of his small town in Missouri. He first got into competitive rifle shooting in his early mid-teens after his family moved to Illinois where he attended his first competition in the basement of Lakeview High School. Not long after he started participating in small-bore rifle competitions and joined the rifle state team, before eventually becoming the youngest person to win the 1,000 yard, 30. Caliber Illinois state championship in July 1938 at fort Sheridan. He enlisted in the national guard in 1940 shortly after turning nineteen hoping to complete his one year of federal service and was inducted as a 2nd lieutenant in the newly federalized 132nd Infantry Regiment (Illinois national guard) in the 33rd Division on March 5th, 1941. He was assigned to the 2nd battalion and lead the machine gun platoon in H company. Soon after the 132nd Infantry was activated in Chicago, Illinois they were stationed at Camp Forest, Tennessee. George writes about being frustrated about the lack of weapons training received by Soldiers at Camp Forest, stating that most officers there were more focused on how nicely painted the mess hall was or about hand-to-hand combat training then teaching Soldiers how to shoot a rifle. And when they were given weapons training many of the instructors were unqualified and would "learn by instructing". Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor the 132nd Infantry Regiment was sent to Melbourne, Australia to defend against a potential Japanese invasion. In early March they left Australia and set sail for New Caledonia, where they would stay until being ordered to go to Guadalcanal and was reassigned to the 23rd 'Americal' Division. While on New Caledonia John received his personal model 70 Winchester sighted with an Lyman Alaskan scope, along with a Griffin & Howe mount for a Springfield that he had his family ship him from his home in Illinois. When the 132nd infantry arrived on Guadalcanal on December 8th, 1942, the 2nd battalion was ordered to defend the supply dispersal area at Lunga Point and to unload supplies coming to shore. On December 11th when he found free time from unloading supplies on the beach John went on a sniping detail (he would make more sniping trips on guadalcanal and later in Burma) with Lt Art Hantel at Point Cruz using Navy 7 x 50 binoculars and a Bausch & Lomb 19.5 Spotting scope. When they arrived at Point Cruz they ended up utilizing a foxhole that was approximately 60 yards forward of a mortar observation post. In a coordinated effort with the mortar platoon leader they killed two Japanese soldiers that debouched from a bunker during a calculated mortar barrage. On December 16th the 132nd Infantry was ordered to capture Mount Austen with the 2nd battalion being held in reserve on the Beachhead continuing to unload supplies before being committed to the battle on December 31st. Initially half of the heavy weapons company was being held in reserve, taking only some M1918 Brownings and leaving behind the heavier M2 Brownings and 81mm mortars because of the islands almost impenetrable jungle. Soon after his battalion made contact John was ordered to take only his M1918s machine guns along with some natives to carry supplies and head for Mount Austen to help capture and hold Hill 27 at a defensive position called "The Gifu". The Gifu was an elaborate system of roughly forty to fifty camouflaged bunkers with interlocking fields of fire in a horseshoe shaped pattern between Hill 27 and Hill 31. It was considered the stoutest Japanese defensive position on Guadalcanal. The 132nd Infantry Regiment was relieved on Hill 27 by the 35th Infantry Regiment on January 9th, 1943, with both the 1st and 3rd battalions being temporarily incapable of offensive action. Not long after the battle the 2nd battalion was involved in a "shore to shore" operation aiming to trap the remaining enemy forces on the island and then push them deeper into the mountains or the sea. They were transported on destroyers and LSTs and landed in the extreme rear of the enemies left flank near the village of Visale, giving the Japanese a second front. During this operation John witnessed the Japanese Navy evacuate troops from across the Tanamboga river at Beaufort Bay, with many of their sick and wounded being left behind. At the end of the operation on February 7th, 1943, the end of organized Japanese resistance was officially declared, but Soldiers from the 132nd Infantry continued to patrol deep in the mountains searching for stragglers until they left the island on April 7th. Following his personal account on Guadalcanal the second part of the 1st edition of "shots fired in anger" is an extensive evaluation of Japanese weapons and tactics. In 1981 John George published a revised and expanded edition of SFIA that added a little over a hundred pages describing his time in the Merrill Marauders. John was the intelligence officer in the Marauders 3rd Battalion and fought in the battle of Walawbum where he is credited with creating the 3rd Battalions battle cry when members of the battalion repelled a Banzai charge and shouted the two-syllable obscenity "Ass-Hole!" In a intonation similar to that of a wolf howl. He also fought in the siege of Nhpum Ga with him soon after the battle being evacuated with malaria, causing him to miss the Marauders final engagement at the Myitkyina airstrip.

In the 1st edition of the book Coloniel George F. Ferry wrote a Forward for his memoir that says "In 1942-43, during the Battle of Guadalcanal, John B. George, now a Lieutenant Colonel, served as a junior officer in the Second Battalion of the 132nd Infantry Regiment. As commanding officer of that battalion I came to know him well. Johnny George is a fine officer and an able Infantryman. As a leader he was always capable and aggressive; as an individual rifleman he never lost an opportunity to kill or harass the enemy." another excerpt about George is from Charlton Ogburn Jr who was the the communications platoon leader in Merrill Marauder's 1st Battalion. The excerpt is from his memoir called The Marauders (Pg. 39) "of the 3rd Battalion, then being assembled on the other side of the Pacific, the one I came to know best was Captain John B. George, a figure, I thought, who might have been encountered in a tavern in 1775 arguing, with brow furrowed, the difficult questions of the day. His air of early Americanism had to do, I suppose, with his lean build, the quality of his gray eyes and of his nearly black hair, which looked as if it ought to be worn long and drawn back to a knot, and his lifelong habituation to the rifle, with which he was undoubtedly the best marksman in our organization and one of the best in the Army".

1st Photo: My hardback NRA copy 1981 edition of shots fired in anger

2nd Photo: "The author in December 1943, at the Marauders’ training camp in India."

3rd Photo: "Author, age 19, with trophies emblematic of the Illinois State .30 caliber rifle championship, 1938.

4th Photo: Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 132nd Infantry Regiment on top of hill 27, Mt Austen. They are shown with a captured Japanese type 92 70mm Battalion gun.

Excerpts:

"At the suggestion of the Lieutenant, Art and I crept forward into one of them and set up our equipment. The pit we chose was about sixty yards forward of the OP. It gave us a good view of the enemy-held terrain to the front and our own lines off to the right flank. The pit was large and well dug – wide enough for comfort and deep enough for security. It had a shelf-like ledge forward which furnished a good support for the scope tripod, and a good forearm rest for the rifleman. Art set up the big scope and I adjusted the sandbags on my left side to make as comfortable a brace as possible for my arms in order to steady the field glasses. In a short time the two of us were scanning the broad stretch of battlefield before us – he with the B. & L. 19.5x spotting scope and I with 7 x 50 Navy binoculars. Definite Jap entrenchments were easy to make out from where we were, even with the naked eye, but weather or not they were occupied was another question. The Lieutenant told us that he believed the Japs were holding the Point Cruiz sector with a small strength of troops, and were depending upon an intricate system of pillboxes, connecting tunnels, and trenches to enable them to concentrate effectively against any local thrust. We search this far ground with a extreme care, looking carefully through the glasses at every bit of digging and examining each shadow. But we saw nothing that was alive during the next hour. It was his first trip that taught me that it was not wise for an individual to search with binoculars or scope for more than thirty minutes at a time, especially if the ranges are long and the targets obscure. Even then, the eyes should be turned away and rested for a bit every few minutes. This is especially true under conditions of heat where mirage distorts objects and makes focusing uncertain. The mirage on this day was very bothersome, even when looking downward from a considerable height. It's upward boil distorted things so badly that actual discernment was probably limited to objects subtending one or more minutes of angle, making the seven power glasses as efficient, in effect, as the 19 1/2 power scope."

(On Hill 27) "After dark, Art and I experienced some trouble. Japs moving around "F" company's flank got on the ground above us and set up a machine gun – a Nambu light – and sighted the thing right across the top of our hole, which was deep enough to leave a safety margin of about two inches when we crouched as low as possible. And to add insult to injury, the Japanese fired half-tracers in each clip. They poured them directly over our heads, making us feel like the upper edge of the lower four ring while they rapid fire group is forming in the bowl at six o'clock. Occasionally the lower half of that cone of fire which spatter into the lip of our foxhole and stings our faces and hands with flying bits of mud and coral. The worst of it was that we are absolutely hopeless through it all. We were inside the ring of the perimeter and therefore forbidden to fire at anything not actually coming into our holes with us – a necessary precaution, taken to prevent us from shooting each other. Each time either art and I attempted to rise, the gun would cut loose and send another clip over, streaking the air around our ears with tracers"

(Walawbum) "Beyond this, Pete and I could only wait until the Japs might gain this bank and try to climb up over us. But none survived to do so. The slaughter that continued for some 30 minutes longer was so easy and so exultant that the men who were doing it, from the majority of the foxholes that were not blinded as were ours, we're moved from their usual shouted obscenities and insults to a chorus of what had become the 3rd battalions Battle cry. When Charlton Ogburn attributed the origin of this cry to me, years later, I didn't deny it. I'm not ashamed that I among others did bring it into use. In the depths of the Indian night, during one of our maneuvers back at Deogarh, I had felt the need to reply in some way to the yipping, yelping choruses of the jackals and the occasional far off cry of an Asiatic wolf that made our bivouac night music for us. A canteen cupful of hot buttered rum also has something to do with it. In any case, I lifted in my face to the sky and with the most wolf-like intonation that I could muster I howled these two syllables into the sky, letting them draw out operatically, trying to outdo in volume the finest tenor, the strongest bass. Then, borrowing a bit from some hog-calling contest that I had witnessed that various Missouri county fairs, I varied the sounds, cutting them into an explosive yelp. A stattaco cough, a coloratura trill, shifting the accent from first to second syllable and back again as I began to get replies to it, sounding back from our flanks of our outflung, separated battalion bivovac. Like a pack of Arctic wolves, these distant platoons and squat outposts up the call, all around our loose perimeter, until the jackals another natives noisemakers is all went quiet." Omitted "now as the Japanese firing went quiet and the ranks of enemy rose from their firing positions, one soldier out on a right flank how about this obscene cry, and another far to his left, somewhere beyond Pete's and my foxholes in the center of the line, accurate it in that long, drawn out wolfish wail. As these race came closer, most of them at a dead run, the cry was further repeated at points intervening, until it began to sound along the entire line of American foxholes. As the thinning cord of Japanese arrived at the opposite bank of the river, out of foilage and into the clear, shooting gallery aim space, leaving a virtual blanket of dead and wounded on the screen-view earth behind, these long, or short in otherwise varied yells of Ass H–o–l–e! Ah–Ah–Ah–Ah–s Hole! Became interspersive other graphic Anglo-Saxon terms."

John Benjamin George's fondness of rifle shooting and game hunting started at age seven when he first borrowed his brother's rifle to go hunt squirrels on the outskirts of his small town in Missouri. He first got into competitive rifle shooting in his early mid-teens after his family moved to Illinois where he attended his first competition in the basement of Lakeview High School. Not long after he started participating in small-bore rifle competitions and joined the rifle state team, before eventually becoming the youngest person to win the 1,000 yard, 30. Caliber Illinois state championship in July 1938 at fort Sheridan. He enlisted in the national guard in 1940 shortly after turning nineteen hoping to complete his one year of federal service and was inducted as a 2nd lieutenant in the newly federalized 132nd Infantry Regiment (Illinois national guard) in the 33rd Division on March 5th, 1941. He was assigned to the 2nd battalion and lead the machine gun platoon in H company. Soon after the 132nd Infantry was activated in Chicago, Illinois they were stationed at Camp Forest, Tennessee. George writes about being frustrated about the lack of weapons training received by Soldiers at Camp Forest, stating that most officers there were more focused on how nicely painted the mess hall was or about hand-to-hand combat training then teaching Soldiers how to shoot a rifle. And when they were given weapons training many of the instructors were unqualified and would "learn by instructing". Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl harbor the 132nd Infantry Regiment was sent to Melbourne, Australia to defend against a potential Japanese invasion. In early March they left Australia and set sail for New Caledonia, where they would stay until being ordered to go to Guadalcanal and was reassigned to the 23rd 'Americal' Division. While on New Caledonia John received his personal model 70 Winchester sighted with an Lyman Alaskan scope, along with a Griffin & Howe mount for a Springfield that he had his family ship him from his home in Illinois. When the 132nd infantry arrived on Guadalcanal on December 8th, 1942, the 2nd battalion was ordered to defend the supply dispersal area at Lunga Point and to unload supplies coming to shore. On December 11th when he found free time from unloading supplies on the beach John went on a sniping detail (he would make more sniping trips on guadalcanal and later in Burma) with Lt Art Hantel at Point Cruz using Navy 7 x 50 binoculars and a Bausch & Lomb 19.5 Spotting scope. When they arrived at Point Cruz they ended up utilizing a foxhole that was approximately 60 yards forward of a mortar observation post. In a coordinated effort with the mortar platoon leader they killed two Japanese soldiers that debouched from a bunker during a calculated mortar barrage. On December 16th the 132nd Infantry was ordered to capture Mount Austen with the 2nd battalion being held in reserve on the Beachhead continuing to unload supplies before being committed to the battle on December 31st. Initially half of the heavy weapons company was being held in reserve, taking only some M1918 Brownings and leaving behind the heavier M2 Brownings and 81mm mortars because of the islands almost impenetrable jungle. Soon after his battalion made contact John was ordered to take only his M1918s machine guns along with some natives to carry supplies and head for Mount Austen to help capture and hold Hill 27 at a defensive position called "The Gifu". The Gifu was an elaborate system of roughly forty to fifty camouflaged bunkers with interlocking fields of fire in a horseshoe shaped pattern between Hill 27 and Hill 31. It was considered the stoutest Japanese defensive position on Guadalcanal. The 132nd Infantry Regiment was relieved on Hill 27 by the 35th Infantry Regiment on January 9th, 1943, with both the 1st and 3rd battalions being temporarily incapable of offensive action. Not long after the battle the 2nd battalion was involved in a "shore to shore" operation aiming to trap the remaining enemy forces on the island and then push them deeper into the mountains or the sea. They were transported on destroyers and LSTs and landed in the extreme rear of the enemies left flank near the village of Visale, giving the Japanese a second front. During this operation John witnessed the Japanese Navy evacuate troops from across the Tanamboga river at Beaufort Bay, with many of their sick and wounded being left behind. At the end of the operation on February 7th, 1943, the end of organized Japanese resistance was officially declared, but Soldiers from the 132nd Infantry continued to patrol deep in the mountains searching for stragglers until they left the island on April 7th. Following his personal account on Guadalcanal the second part of the 1st edition of "shots fired in anger" is an extensive evaluation of Japanese weapons and tactics. In 1981 John George published a revised and expanded edition of SFIA that added a little over a hundred pages describing his time in the Merrill Marauders. John was the intelligence officer in the Marauders 3rd Battalion and fought in the battle of Walawbum where he is credited with creating the 3rd Battalions battle cry when members of the battalion repelled a Banzai charge and shouted the two-syllable obscenity "Ass-Hole!" In a intonation similar to that of a wolf howl. He also fought in the siege of Nhpum Ga with him soon after the battle being evacuated with malaria, causing him to miss the Marauders final engagement at the Myitkyina airstrip.

In the 1st edition of the book Coloniel George F. Ferry wrote a Forward for his memoir that says "In 1942-43, during the Battle of Guadalcanal, John B. George, now a Lieutenant Colonel, served as a junior officer in the Second Battalion of the 132nd Infantry Regiment. As commanding officer of that battalion I came to know him well. Johnny George is a fine officer and an able Infantryman. As a leader he was always capable and aggressive; as an individual rifleman he never lost an opportunity to kill or harass the enemy." another excerpt about George is from Charlton Ogburn Jr who was the the communications platoon leader in Merrill Marauder's 1st Battalion. The excerpt is from his memoir called The Marauders (Pg. 39) "of the 3rd Battalion, then being assembled on the other side of the Pacific, the one I came to know best was Captain John B. George, a figure, I thought, who might have been encountered in a tavern in 1775 arguing, with brow furrowed, the difficult questions of the day. His air of early Americanism had to do, I suppose, with his lean build, the quality of his gray eyes and of his nearly black hair, which looked as if it ought to be worn long and drawn back to a knot, and his lifelong habituation to the rifle, with which he was undoubtedly the best marksman in our organization and one of the best in the Army".

1st Photo: My hardback NRA copy 1981 edition of shots fired in anger

2nd Photo: "The author in December 1943, at the Marauders’ training camp in India."

3rd Photo: "Author, age 19, with trophies emblematic of the Illinois State .30 caliber rifle championship, 1938.

4th Photo: Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 132nd Infantry Regiment on top of hill 27, Mt Austen. They are shown with a captured Japanese type 92 70mm Battalion gun.

Excerpts:

"At the suggestion of the Lieutenant, Art and I crept forward into one of them and set up our equipment. The pit we chose was about sixty yards forward of the OP. It gave us a good view of the enemy-held terrain to the front and our own lines off to the right flank. The pit was large and well dug – wide enough for comfort and deep enough for security. It had a shelf-like ledge forward which furnished a good support for the scope tripod, and a good forearm rest for the rifleman. Art set up the big scope and I adjusted the sandbags on my left side to make as comfortable a brace as possible for my arms in order to steady the field glasses. In a short time the two of us were scanning the broad stretch of battlefield before us – he with the B. & L. 19.5x spotting scope and I with 7 x 50 Navy binoculars. Definite Jap entrenchments were easy to make out from where we were, even with the naked eye, but weather or not they were occupied was another question. The Lieutenant told us that he believed the Japs were holding the Point Cruiz sector with a small strength of troops, and were depending upon an intricate system of pillboxes, connecting tunnels, and trenches to enable them to concentrate effectively against any local thrust. We search this far ground with a extreme care, looking carefully through the glasses at every bit of digging and examining each shadow. But we saw nothing that was alive during the next hour. It was his first trip that taught me that it was not wise for an individual to search with binoculars or scope for more than thirty minutes at a time, especially if the ranges are long and the targets obscure. Even then, the eyes should be turned away and rested for a bit every few minutes. This is especially true under conditions of heat where mirage distorts objects and makes focusing uncertain. The mirage on this day was very bothersome, even when looking downward from a considerable height. It's upward boil distorted things so badly that actual discernment was probably limited to objects subtending one or more minutes of angle, making the seven power glasses as efficient, in effect, as the 19 1/2 power scope."

(On Hill 27) "After dark, Art and I experienced some trouble. Japs moving around "F" company's flank got on the ground above us and set up a machine gun – a Nambu light – and sighted the thing right across the top of our hole, which was deep enough to leave a safety margin of about two inches when we crouched as low as possible. And to add insult to injury, the Japanese fired half-tracers in each clip. They poured them directly over our heads, making us feel like the upper edge of the lower four ring while they rapid fire group is forming in the bowl at six o'clock. Occasionally the lower half of that cone of fire which spatter into the lip of our foxhole and stings our faces and hands with flying bits of mud and coral. The worst of it was that we are absolutely hopeless through it all. We were inside the ring of the perimeter and therefore forbidden to fire at anything not actually coming into our holes with us – a necessary precaution, taken to prevent us from shooting each other. Each time either art and I attempted to rise, the gun would cut loose and send another clip over, streaking the air around our ears with tracers"

(Walawbum) "Beyond this, Pete and I could only wait until the Japs might gain this bank and try to climb up over us. But none survived to do so. The slaughter that continued for some 30 minutes longer was so easy and so exultant that the men who were doing it, from the majority of the foxholes that were not blinded as were ours, we're moved from their usual shouted obscenities and insults to a chorus of what had become the 3rd battalions Battle cry. When Charlton Ogburn attributed the origin of this cry to me, years later, I didn't deny it. I'm not ashamed that I among others did bring it into use. In the depths of the Indian night, during one of our maneuvers back at Deogarh, I had felt the need to reply in some way to the yipping, yelping choruses of the jackals and the occasional far off cry of an Asiatic wolf that made our bivouac night music for us. A canteen cupful of hot buttered rum also has something to do with it. In any case, I lifted in my face to the sky and with the most wolf-like intonation that I could muster I howled these two syllables into the sky, letting them draw out operatically, trying to outdo in volume the finest tenor, the strongest bass. Then, borrowing a bit from some hog-calling contest that I had witnessed that various Missouri county fairs, I varied the sounds, cutting them into an explosive yelp. A stattaco cough, a coloratura trill, shifting the accent from first to second syllable and back again as I began to get replies to it, sounding back from our flanks of our outflung, separated battalion bivovac. Like a pack of Arctic wolves, these distant platoons and squat outposts up the call, all around our loose perimeter, until the jackals another natives noisemakers is all went quiet." Omitted "now as the Japanese firing went quiet and the ranks of enemy rose from their firing positions, one soldier out on a right flank how about this obscene cry, and another far to his left, somewhere beyond Pete's and my foxholes in the center of the line, accurate it in that long, drawn out wolfish wail. As these race came closer, most of them at a dead run, the cry was further repeated at points intervening, until it began to sound along the entire line of American foxholes. As the thinning cord of Japanese arrived at the opposite bank of the river, out of foilage and into the clear, shooting gallery aim space, leaving a virtual blanket of dead and wounded on the screen-view earth behind, these long, or short in otherwise varied yells of Ass H–o–l–e! Ah–Ah–Ah–Ah–s Hole! Became interspersive other graphic Anglo-Saxon terms."