In a family plot, at an old church near Little Rock, South Carolina, there is a monument to a soldier who gave his life exactly seventy years ago this fall. As the years go by, it is possible that less people recall the “who” or the “why”. Lieutenant John E. Cottingham, Jr. (Clemson ’41), was one of roughly twenty-one South Carolina reserve officers who wound up with a Michigan and Wisconsin National Guard unit in combat against the Japanese. At this battle for Buna , New Guinea , they—the 32nd “Red Arrow” Infantry Division—were the first to go and hit back following the shocking Allied losses of early 1942. They were in action through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and just beyond New Years Day, ill-equipped and untrained for jungle combat, in the most miserable conditions imaginable.
How these Southerners wound up in the 32nd has everything to do with the war emergency created by the Pearl Harbor attack. The 32nd Division, based at Camp Livingston , Louisiana since being called to Federal service in 1940, fell under the same area command oversight that administered all ROTC cadet programs in the South. After Pearl Harbor , with this under-strength division imminent to deploy, it received priority on assignments for reserve officer call-ups to fill badly needed vacancies in all three of its regiments. Inevitably, all four South Carolina cadet programs—Clemson, Citadel, Wofford, and Presbyterian—were represented in the assignments that followed.
“Ernest” Cottingham, however, was already on active duty, having postponed a graduate fellowship to Iowa State University to get his obligatory service out of the way. Alongside a handful of other 1941 Clemson, Citadel, and Presbyterian College graduates, he happened to be stationed at Camp Claiborne , Louisiana , with a completely different unit, the racially-segregated 367th Infantry. When the Army disbanded this regiment after a January 1942 racial disturbance in nearby Alexandria , some of the white officers, Cottingham included, found themselves transferred into the 32nd Division just days before it left Camp Livingston .
At the last minute, they were redirected to the West Coast and ordered to Australia , then eventually into combat on New Guinea. Cottingham’s unit (Company A, 126th Infantry Regiment) was still under-strength when it left San Francisco. On the voyage over, he and one other Southerner—Lt. Walter Forbes, University of Georgia ’40— were the company’s only officers, compounding the burdens of unfamiliarity with added administrative needs. One would like to think that here, a bond of trust formed between these two and their men.
Although airlifting most American troops over the Owen Stanley mountains spared them the crossing on foot, the inhospitable nature of New Guinea presented severe logistical problems. First Battalion 126th became separated when a portion, including A Company, landed at a different airfield eighty miles away. After struggling through uncharted swampy terrain, they missed their rendezvous point and instead marched twenty-five more miles to join the 128th Regiment on the battlefront’s eastern flank. They arrived, tired, in the midst of planning for the next day’s attack—the first of the campaign—to which they were committed with little time for rest or recovery.
Poor coordination with the Army Air Corps, causing some friendly fire casualties, highlighted this November 21 attack. A full day spent trying to resolve this problem delayed the jump-off until late afternoon. Equipped with only small arms and grenades, they quickly discovered a well-emplaced and well-concealed enemy, hardly impacted by the air sorties. Lt. Cottingham died in that initial rude awakening.
Four months later, his obituary in The State newspaper noted that “he was at the head of the platoon leading it against an enemy position when he was killed. His body, shot through the heart, was found within ten feet of an enemy pill box.” If a bond had indeed formed within A Company, it would have had a somber outcome, because Lieutenant Forbes was also killed in action within the week.
Ultimately, the Red Arrows sustained over 90% casualties from battle and from jungle diseases, but they defeated the heretofore “invincible” Japanese for the first time on land. The many lessons learned there helped save the lives of others in the Pacific jungle campaigns yet to come. Lt. Ernest Cottingham was one of three South Carolina ROTC graduates killed in action at Buna. Since he rests at the big military cemetery in Manila , Philippines , the Little Rock monument is the only nearby reminder. He and the other “Southern Gentlemen” involved in that battle deserve special remembrance this particular Veterans Day.
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Dr. Camp, a native of Greenwood, is currently writing a book-length manuscript on the same topic; he would like to thank Betty Barclay and Tom Bethea, Jr. of Dillon, and Charles Bethea of McColl, for the support.
