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124th Infantry Regimental Combat
Team Command
Driniumor River Campaign
By
Ken Walters
This was one of the most vicious battles
of the entire war. It has been described by one historian as "A
knife fight out of the stone age," ". . . some of the harshest
terrain ever faced by land armies in the history of the war," ".
. . one of the forgotten, grislier, campaigns of WWII."
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In 2010, National Geographic reported
that there were still headhunters and cannibals on New Guinea.
They were smart enough to hide out during this campaign.
KilroyWasHere.org editor
". . . most merciless and
most primeval battles."
George Johnston, an Australian
war correspondent
The "ultimate nightmare country."
General Hugh Casy, MacArthur's
chief engineer.
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"war would be almost impossible
to wage on this island."
General Hugh Casy, MacArthur's chief
engineer.
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It was in 1968 during the height of the Cold War and the war
in Viet Nam raging. I was attending the Foreign Service Institute
in Washington, D.C. Our speaker, a Mr. Cabot Lodge, told of an
abortive raid by a team from the USSR. A small armed force went
deep into New Guinea to start a communist movement. Their usual
method was to kill any leader that arose making it easy to control
leaderless natives. Mr. Cabot Lodge concluded by "the mission
failed. They were eaten . . . They didn't try again."
KilroyWasHere.org editor
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This is another
first hand record about this battle. Some parts are not easy to read.
It is certainly not for the queasy. Pat Harrison Bullock tells it like
it was.
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1 The
Unit Journal. This includes more information about the
battles including an article by Arthur Veyseym, Chicago Press
Service. It also includes names as well as casualties. This is
in Adobe Acrobat format to preserve the original look and feel.
This
is in Adobe Acrobat format. If you need the free program, click
the image 
Click this
star to open the Unit Journal 
2. Notebook
PFC Pat Harrison Bullock's personal notes while in combat in the
New Guinea jungles of 1944. It pulls no punches. It was typed
from the original for readability.
Click
this star to open the Notebook
3.
Memoirs PFC Pat Harrison Bullock's comments about
the battle written much later.
Click
this star to open the Memoirs
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Additional reading in KilroyWasHere about this awful battle
Click this
image to Read Bill Garbo's Dog Platoon 
Click this
image to read James McConnell's I Remember grandpa 
Click this
image to read Mike Sheehan's The Battle . . . 
Click this
image to read Jim McCracen's Patrol to River X 
Click this
image to read Jim McCracen's amazing Return to Drinuimor 
Click this image to read Paul Tillery's History of the 124th 
Send Corrections, additions,
and input to:
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the star for
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