Late in the afternoon of the first day signal men began stringing temporary telephone wire along the beach, connecting the control points, climbing about 20 feet up the boles of coconut palms to attach them. A Japanese in a tree killed two of them before he was located and liquidated. He had been there all day, looking down our necks. I believe he was a lookout, rather than a sniper, for he had chances to shoot at all ranks of officers during the day. I think he was just waiting for nightfall to try to get away and was panicked by the sight of the telephone men climbing the trees.
There had been a number of these tree posts, but we thought we had destroyed them all. The Japs had set up housekeeping in some of the palm tops. Everything imaginable came down when we got bulldozers to bump the trees a few times. Beer bottles, clothes, food, burlap for padding and camouflage, boards for platforms, rope, letters, books, personal junk and other odds and ends were lying around on the ground afterward.