November 1943 to May 1944: Bougainville
- It's November 3, 1943, and Chester and Roy are on a Higgins boat approaching the shore of Bougainville, another island in the Pacific.
- The day before, the Japanese Navy had tried to intercept the American troops and stop them from landing on the island.
- On Bougainville, there are Japanese airfields on the northern tip of the island and on the southern tip. The airfields are guarded heavily by the Japanese.
- The Americans have bombarded the northern and southern airfields on the island in order to trick the Japanese. The American troops (including Chester's code talking team) are landing on the western coast of the island, at Cape Torokina.
- Chester and Francis land at Cape Torokina and make it to the tree line, about 250 yards away from the beach.
- That evening, they dig a foxhole in the soggy soil and hunker down. There just ain't no getting away from those foxholes, is there?
- That night, they hear a shot. The next morning they discover that one of the code talkers, Harry Tsosie, has been shot dead by an American corpsman, who mistook him for a Japanese soldier when Harry crawled out of his foxhole in the middle of the night to pee.
- Poor Harry! This is the first death among the code talkers.
- A few nights later, Chester and Francis have trouble sending an important message: for some reason, they can't deliver the message by radio.
- So they have to act as runners, leaving their foxhole and venturing out into enemy territory. They only have to go four or five hundred yards, but those yards feel like miles. There are mortars and gunfire everywhere.
- The Americans manage to hold the beach at Cape Torokina, but the Japanese are up in the ridges and mountains surrounding it, and they have an advantage from their place up on "Hellzappopin," the nickname the Marines give to the ridge overlooking Cape Torokina.
- It's dangerous. One morning, as Francis, Chester and a few others are running along the beach, a bullet whizzes right by Chester's head. Yikes! It's really a close call this time.
- On Christmas Day in 1943, the Marines scale Hellzapoppin and take it from the Japanese.
- It's quiet after the Americans take the ridge, but not for long.
- One morning, as Chester and Francis are loading up their trays with breakfast, Japanese Zeros (military planes) swarm in. Francis and Chester run for cover in their foxhole as bombs explode all around them.
- The Japanese commander Hyakutake and his men arrive on Bougainville in March 1944.
- The Japanese attack the beach at Cape Torokina, and for seventeen days the battle rages. The code talkers don't get a break: they're busy manning their radios.
- The Americans win the battle for the shore, and by April 1944 they secure the island. 1,000 American troops have died. That's a lot—but not as much as the 7,000 Japanese soldiers who've died too.
- One day, while they're eating, a fellow Marine asks Chester what his home back on the Checkerboard is like. Chester tells him about how beautiful it is, and he grows nostalgic.
- A few days after Bougainville is secured, a message comes through to the code talkers that the Japanese are returning to the island by ship. Uh-oh.
- A "condition black" is issued by the American command. Weapons are at the ready. Francis and Chester wait in their foxhole.
- Soon after another message arrives to Chester: the American navy has beaten off the Japanese ships attempting to re-invade Bougainville.
- Yay! They're in condition yellow now, "all clear."