4 January. A 62 man patrol sent by the 2d Battalion along the coastal track to Sel reached Mur and reported no enemy found. Another 2d Battalion patrol was sent southwest. It made no contact with live Japanese but found six fresh Japanese graves and an abandoned OP.
A Company K patrol was dispatched to Cape Iris, crossing the swift Mot River to get there. It carried one SCR-284 radio for hourly reports to 3d Battalion, but it never worked at all. This patrol ran into five enemy at Teteri and killed one and dispersed the rest.
Near Bilau village this patrol signaled the LCMs (landing craft, mechanized) offshore which were bringing up their packs, extra rations, and additional ammunition, to come on in. But as the LCMs closed in on the beach they came under enemy machine gun fire from the bush. They opened up return fire with two caliber .50 machine guns. But they didn’t fire on the Japanese, but at the patrol. By good luck their aim was poor and no one was hit.
At 1430 about 30 Japanese armed with rifles and two light machine guns attacked this patrol. The enemy staged a banzai bayonet charge but our patrol met it with automatic-weapons fire and killed three and drove the rest back. The Company K patrol lost one killed. It withdrew to the east bank of the Mot, killing two more Japanese on the way.
Total casualties for this day were 1 killed, 5 wounded.
Major General H.W. Blakeley, USA, Ret., The 32d Infantry Division in World War II
helicopter flies plasma to injured
They used an experiment helicopter, as delivery by boat would take an hour. Premonition of MASH?