Wednesday,
January 14th 1998
Today
we went back again to Edsons Ridge to show
Leigh the area and have a look at the area East of the�
Ridge where the 7th Marines and Army troops fought in the October
1942 Battle for Henderson Field . As we drove past the back of the airfield
we stopped and took a few photos . I dropped one of my cameras in the
long grass and just couldn�t find it . I was about to give it up for
lost when Timothy found it , so I promised him a dozen cans of beer
as a thank you .
As
we arrived a Minibus pulled up with some tourists on a �battlefield tour� . This
seemed to consist of them getting out of the bus and the operator pointing and
saying �this is Bloody Ridge� and �that is Henderson Field� , then back in
the bus and off again ($90.00 please tourists � no way !) . On the Ridge we walked
over the ground again and went up to the first ridge , getting a few expended
cartridge cases from kids along the way . One of the kids remembered me from when
I was there in 1996 . I remembered him too - when I came across the live grenade
lying in the dirt 20 feet from the final Marine line he picked it up and shoved
it under my nose saying �you want
to buy full one?�..oh yes , I remembered him all right !
We
had a look at the Japanese memorial and walked down the front slope , where there
is still US barbed wire in position and Leigh got a few pieces as souvenirs while
Leo and Timothy had a chat to the locals . After some negotiating we got a� rusted
Garand
bayonet and a Medical Corps �Bolo� knife etc. . Leo got a fork marked �USMC� . I had been to the Ridge 3 times
and that was the first article I had seen specifically marked to the Marines�
instead of the usual �US� stamping .
While
we were sitting there talking another Australian (Michael)
doing his own battlefield explorations turned up and we compared notes . He has
been walking along down near the Lunga . We all them went walking along the ridge
to the East , past a 1944 Nissen hut where Leigh found a .30 cal cartridge case
. Some of the area at the foot of the Ridge line was being thinned out due to
logging , but some of the growth was still pretty dense .
We
walked for a few hundred yards past recognisable US foxholes , along the area
where C Company / 7th Marines fought and MG squad leader Sergeant John Basilone
won his Medal of Honour . We turned up expended and unexpended cartridge cases
, shrapnel , part of a Garand rifle (gas rod) , coins , belt clips , buttons etc.
before heading back to the hotel .
That
night at dinner we sat around the table with Michael and had a good
talk about what we had seen / found . An Australian girl we had met� joined us and was quite interested to learn a bit about the wartime
history of Guadalcanal . She worked for a Communications Company and
had been sent over to help re-equip the newsroom of one of the 2 Guadalcanal
radio stations with modern equipment . She revealed that the office
furniture they had been using was still the original US WWII issue and
up until the end of 1997 they had been typing their news bulletins etc.
on original US Army WWII typewriters. Now that they were getting computers
etc. I hoped all that stuff wouldn�t just to tossed out - I told Lawrence,
so I hope he could salvage some of it.
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