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AP U.S. History Reading 221: “Battle of the Tenaru, August 21, 1942,” by Robert Leckie.
Robert Leckie (December 18, 1920 – December 24, 2001) was an American author of books on United States military history, fiction, autobiography and children’s books. As a young man, he served in the Marine Corps during World War II.  In January 1942, Leckie enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.  He served in combat in the Pacific theater, as a scout and a machine gunner in H Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division.  Leckie saw combat in the Guadalcanal Campaign, the Battle of Cape Gloucester, and was wounded by blast concussion in the Battle of Peleliu.  Due to his wounds, he was evacuated to an Army field hospital on the Pavuvu Islands. He returned to the United States in March 1945 and was honorably discharged shortly thereafter.
Following World War II, Leckie worked as a reporter for the Associated Press, the Buffalo Courier-Express, the New York Journal American, the New York Daily News and The Star-Ledger.  In 1951, he saw South Pacific on Broadway and walked out halfway through. He said “I have to tell the story of how it really was. I have to let people know the war wasn’t a musical.”  His first and best-selling book, Helmet for My Pillow, a war memoir, was published in 1957.  This poem comes from that book.
The battle of the Tenaru was the first major Japanese counterattack to the U.S. landing on Guadalcanal.

Battle of the Tenaru, August 21, 1942

by Robert Leckie

A helmet for my pillow,
A poncho for my bed,
My rifle rests across my chest-
The stars swing overhead.
 
The whisper of the kunai,
The murmur of the sea,
The sighing palm and night so calm
Betray no enemy.
 
Hear! river bank so silent
You men who sleep around
That foreign scream across the stream-
Up! Fire at the sound!
 
Sweeping over the sandspit
That blocks the Tenaru
With Banzai-boast a mushroomed host
Vows to destroy our few.
 
Into your holes and gunpits!
Kill them with rifles and knives!
Feed them with lead until they are dead-
And widowed are their wives.

Sons of the mothers who gave you
Honor and gift of birth
Strike with the knife till blood and life
Run out upon the earth.
 
Marines, keep faith with your glory
Keep to your trembling hole.
Intruder feel of Nippon steel
Can’t penetrate your soul.
 
Closing, they charge all howling
Their breasts all targets large.
The gun must shake, the bullets make
A slaughter of their charge.
 
Red are the flashing tracers,
Yellow the bursting shells.
Hoarse is the cry of men who die
Shrill are the woundeds’ yells.
 
God, how the night reels stricken!
She shrieks with orange spark.
The mortar’s lash and cannon’s crash
Have crucified the dark.

Falling, the faltering foemen
Beneath our guns lie heaped.
By greenish glare of rocket’s flare
We see the harvest reaped.
 
Now has the first fierce onslaught
Been broken and hammered back.
Hammered and hit, from hole and pit-
We rise up to attack!
 
Day bursts pale from a gun tube,
The gibbering night has fled.
By light of dawn the foe has drawn
A line behind his dead.
 
Our tanks clank in behind him,
Our riflemen move out.
Their hearts have met our bayonet-
It’s ended with a shout.
 
“Cease fire!” –the words go ringing,
Over the heaps of the slain.
The battle’s won, the Rising Sun
Lies riddled on the plain.
 
St. Michael, angel of battle
We praise you to God on high.
The foe you gave was strong and brave
And unafraid to die.
 
Speak to the Lord for our comrades,
Killed when the battle seemed lost.
They went to meet a bright defeat-
The hero’s holocaust.
 
False is the vaunt of the victor,
Empty our living pride.
For those who fell there is no hell-
Not for the brave who died.

Approximately 817 Japanese soldiers of the 28th Infantry Regiment conducted a nighttime frontal assault on Marine positions at Alligator Creek in the early morning hours of 21 August 1942.  They were stopped with very heavy casualties.  The Marines counterattacked at daylight, killing more Japanese.  In all, 789 Japanese were killed in this action.  41 U.S. Marines were killed.

Hornfischer also wrote Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, the story of Taffy 3's battle off Samar during the overall Battle of Leyte Gulf.  It'll bring you to tears.

Authors I enjoy reading:

Cornwell
Stephen Hunter
W.E.B. Griffin
Grisham
John Sanford
Michael Connelly  (Bosch series)
Jane Austin
Stephen Ambrose
Forest Carter
C. S. Forrester