A platoon (of Company B) was pinned down on a broad boulevard about 100 yards north of the station. Two privates, Cleto “Chico” Rodriguez and John N. Reese Jr., advanced into heavy enemy fire and took cover in a house about sixty yards from the station, and then took turns providing covering fire as they advanced to within thirty yards of the nearest pillbox. In an hour of extraordinary combat, the two soldiers killed about thirty-five Japanese soldiers and wounded many more. Running low on ammunition, they staged a fighting retreat back to the American lines. Reese was killed by a burst of
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