In a few minutes they had turned around and were struggling over the steep bank up from the beach. Three of the guns had landed, and one was still coming in from the ship. The battery was busy getting up its own fire-direction center, as the big tractors lumbered onto the spongy, yielding tundra dragging the guns slowly behind. About seventy-five yards from the beach the treads of the first cat chewed through the tundra and began to slip. In just seconds it was wallowing helplessly in the black oozy mud. The other two cats soon shared the same fate. When the tundra broke, the big treads turned round and round and only dug the machine deeper into the mud. What the hell, seventy-five yards was far enough initially! The crews swung the big guns around and pointed them into the valley. They were setting up.

The radio to the advance party popped back into life. The tin voice Said, ". . . encountered no enemy " The crews went ahead rapidly setting up the big guns. Lieutenant William Kimball was on the radio, the guns were getting ready. The first half hour passed. "No enemy . . . " And Kimball said, "For Christ's sake, find something!" The guns were set, and the crews were moving ammunition in when the 610 (Field Artillery portable radio set) spoke again, Lieutenant West's voice, "Enemy mortar position . . . map target 10." The battery knew where the target was, on the map, but they didn't know exactly where the guns were on the map's beach. The FDC (Fire Direction Center) popped a pin into the map, took a deflection reading off the fan for target 10. The guns were already laid up the valley in the general direction of the enemy. Lieutenant Kimball was shouting, "No. 1, adjust . . . shell HE . . . charge five . . . fuze quick . . . base deflection . . . left two zero . . . elevation three two zero . . ."

Eager fingers moved over the gun making adjustments. Then Private First Class Roy W. Watson said, "Set!" and Corporal Billie V. Vannoy, "Ready!" Lieutenant Kimball sang into the radio. "One on the way," then "Fire!" and the big gun slammed back into recoil. The trail log jumped eighteen inches into the boggy mud. The first round of artillery was whistling through the Attu sky toward the enemy.

For a long thirty seconds everybody waited, then the radio spoke, "eight hundred right . . . five hundred over." The computers, Staff Sergeant Stanley West and Corporal Howard Campbell, flipped the figures a moment converting the yards into millimeters. The muzzle of the big rifle moved slightly to the left and down. Lieutenant Kimball called, "Fire!" The trail log hunched deep into the mud as the gun roared another round at the unseen Japs ahead in the fog. The radio spoke again, "one hundred right . . . two hundred over," and again these figures were changed to millimeters and the big gun adjusted. The third round ripped into the enemy mortar position, and far up the valley Lieutenant West watched the burst as he reported, "Fire for effect!" When Lieutenant Kimball called out, "Battery, three rounds . . . "and the three guns roared in unison, Section Chief No. 1, Staff Sergeant Allen W. Robbins, looked over at Vannoy, his gunner, and grinned, "This is it, boy; we're gunnin'."

That was it. The beginning of twenty-one long, backbreaking, cold days and nights of fighting they would never forget.