The Attack on Buffalo Ridge

Sergeant Clent O. Brown, Company F, 32d Infantry

Lieutenant Dale V. Stice, the Kid, "Muscles Malone," was a young, cocky, good-looking guy, with life in his eyes and a fog-horn voice, and more guts than he needed. He stood up on a pinnacle of rock and looked down and behind Company G, working across the rocky flat from the "Rock Ledge" to Buffalo Ridge. Company F was way out in front, the going was rough, they needed help. The whole valley was filled with his huge voice as Stice cupped his hands and hollered, "For Crisake, Company G, get off your ass! You're strung out so far behind you look like a supply line!"

The attack against the ridge, made the night before, had been repulsed by the Taps' machine guns that lashed out from behind rocks and crags all across the front at the attackers as they struggled up the slopes. The line had broken and in wild, rolling, tumbling confusion, the men withdrew.

On the 27th another attack had been launched with Company C on the left and F on the right. The companies crawled, heads down, across the boulder-strewn flat at the foot of the ridge into the machine-gun bullets that snapped and whined away in crazy ricochets through the rocks. They were within two hundred yards of the ridge. The 4th Infantry was working on Points 3 and 4 on the Fish Hook and had practically secured the left flank. It was late in the evening. The pressure on the attackers was high as they moved closer to the Jap positions. They started up the slope to the ridge. Lieutenant William B, Frost was hit in the chest. "The little bastards ruined my fountain pen," he said after he had stopped rolling into a draw. From over on the right a great explosion sent a tattered boot flying into the air. Albert Novak, Jr., was in bad shape.

Either a bullet had hit the grenades he was carrying or he had stepped on a mine. His legs were almost torn off when Sergeant R. L. "Pinky" Holman got to him. He was shocked very badly and moaned about his legs. Pinky said, "Don't look at them, Al. I'm going to try to move you." The men were exposed, and Holman started dragging him down the hill to cover but Novak couldn't stand to be moved.

Staff Sergeant Harold C. Wunsch was hit in the stomach, and Corporal James D. O'Connor and Corporal James L. Ferguson had dragged him into the draw with Lieutenant William B. Frost.

The attack had stopped. It was getting dark; over on the left some of the men of Company C were digging. Holman found the battalion wireman and they got a line in to the CP. Company G had been pinned down 200 yards from the rock ledge where the battalion was located, so the two companies, F and C, each consisting of about seventy tired and grimy and frozen fighters, were out at the foot of Buffalo alone. When Lieutenant Stice got on the phone Major Charles G. Fredericks asked about the situation and told Stice that they should withdraw. Stice insisted that the company was OK, beat-up but OK. They were right in the Japs' lap, but if they pulled back they'd have the whole goddamn nightmare to do over again in the morning. They stuck. The two companies scratched holes in between rocks and tried to rest in the few hours left of the night.

Early in the morning, before daylight, Stice was looking for a route of advance up out of the ravine. He had Bill Baggett with him and Joe E. Ruiz. They were working across the snow that blocked the head of the draw when they saw a Jap asleep in a hole. Stice walked over to him and jammed the muzzle of his .45 against the Jap's head. The Jap woke up with a start. Stice whispered loudly in his ear, "Do you want to surrender?" The Jap grabbed for his rifle and the heavy .45 jumped as Stice pulled the trigger. Six other Japs in the immediate vicinity were awakened by the shot and raised up. Stice shot two; Ruiz shot one just as he was ready to kill Stice; and Baggett, standing over the holes spraddle- legged, fired three times in rapid succession with his rifle at his hip. The noise of the little fight opened everything up again. Guns began firing all across the
front and the fight was on.

From back near the battalion, Company H was blasting the top of the ridge as the troops started up. Company Fs weapons platoon moved along with the riflemen, the mortars firing beside the BAR men. Nunzio J. Savino ducked and shook his head as a bullet ripped through his helmet. He turned the light machine gun over to the assistant and grabbed a pocketful of grenades and started up the hill. The Japs were rolling volley after volley of grenades down on the heads of the attackers. Baggett was trying to grenade a machine gun in a crevice of rock and each time he raised up a man behind him fired. Baggett hollered, "Don't shoot, don't shoot. It's Baggett," and he waved. But the Jap who was firing at him didn't care if he was Methuselah and almost got him before a grenade landed by the Jap. Corporal Manuel Andrade had rushed a Jap in a pile of rocks on the right and was bayoneted in the neck just an instant before Joe Ruiz shot the Jap.

Lieutenant Stice and about ten of the men had gathered under a tall ledge seeking shelter from the hail of grenades that beat down on them, and he shouted to Sergeant Clent Brown to try to skirt to the left around the ledge and flank of the Japs above. Brown started up, while the men under the ledge edged to the right to go around. They ran into more grenades. Just before Brown ran around the rock he saw Lieutenant Stice hit the ground and grenades were rolling down on him. Ruiz was firing madly up the hill. Over on the flank Zvgmond P. Borucki, Raymond Gloe and Roy Perry were running up the hill through jagged rocks throwing: grenades ahead of them. Big Albert J. Rofski fired his M1 into the rear end of a Jap draped over a boulder and an explosion almost tore the Jap in two. Ernest L. Redington and Sergeant Ullman B. Osborn had just bayoneted and shot a pocket of Jap machine gunners.

Then it was over. The firing ceased. Lieutenant Charles W. Farnham was at the top of Buffalo Ridge. Sergeant Brown came over and Farnham sent him to look for Lieutenant Stice to find out what was to be done now. The men had given out. No one talked and there was no firing.

Brown went down the hill to the ledge where he had last seen Stice and Ruiz. There was no one there. He moved up on top of the ledge. There below, to the right of the ledge, he saw them, Joe Ruiz and the "Kid." Lying a few feet apart, both dead. Stice had a hand blown off when he tried to pick up a Jap grenade and throw it back. Ruiz had several wounds from fragments and bullets. Sergeant Brown walked back up to the top of the ridge where Lieutenant Farnham was. He said, "You're the company commander, sir."

It was evening. The wild assault had taken the entire day. Company E
moved out to secure the right flank. Company G filled the gap between F and C, and the 4th Infantry was on the left.

The company began to dig in on Buffalo Ridge.

The Unit Report, BCT 32-2, May 28, 1943, said, simply, "… Cos C and F
assaulted Buffalo Ridge and seized their objective."

Clent O Brown