Munja Gun Battery | Second World War 1939-1945, artillery battery

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  Dana (guest)

  "Captain Hudson C. Hill and Lieutenant Larry Brown crawled slowly and stealthily toward the cliff edge overlooking Wheeler Point [southwest of Monja Battery] on the southeast corner of Corregidor's Topside Plateau. It was 6 p.m. on February 22, 1945. At the edge of the plateau, Hill and Brown lay flat on their stomachs and peered over. What they saw "sent a cold chill running up and down my spine,” Captain Hill wrote later. Earlier that afternoon,...their battalion's commanding officer, held a meeting..."destroy the enemy in that general area." To Hudson Hill,[commander of Company E of 503rd Parachute Infantry Regimental Combat Team's 2nd Battalion] that meant, *wipe them out,* from searchlight to Wheeler Point." [Caves, pillboxes, concrete emplacements and a "malignant-looking tunnel" held the ravine. The next day, beginning at 0630 with the company drawing supplies, the company spent the next several hours fighting its way over 700 yards of difficult terrain that involved constant grenade throwing, hand-to-hand, small arms fire, machine-gun cover fire, and Japanese banzai-charges from the entrance of the cave which included charges of nine, fourteen, seventeen, seven and a final charge at 3:30 p.m., twenty-two Japanese banzai-charged the company before Captain Hill was relieved for the day.] "Somehow, the news of E Company’s intense, dramatic fight has reached the other paratroopers on Topside. As the company filed across the Parade ground, other paratroopers would come up, offer a cigarette, or a highly prized canteen of water, or lift a man's rifle off his shoulder...As Hill remembers: "Some tried to help the tired men along, but were firmly shaken off. It was a proud company! Although tired beyond reason, they held their heads high!" Excerpts authored by Edward M. Falnagan, Jr. WORLD WAR II Magazine, July 1988

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