_Troops of the 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, enter the wreckage of Agana in the trace of retreating Japanese forces, who had planted land mines before they left._]
The 77th had moved out on schedule just after daylight on 31 July, with the 307th Infantry in the advance, followed by the 305th. As was the situation facing the 3d Division, enemy resistance to the Army advance was negligible. Within two hours, both Army regiments had secured the cross-island road in their zones. The 307th rescued 2,000 Guamanians in the detention camp at Asinan. Unopposed, the 77th by noon of 1 August was across the Pago River. Residents of the area said the Japanese had left in a hurry for Barrigada, a destination where III Corps intelligence already anticipated the enemy would hold up. The jungle-covered mountain there, 674 feet high, dominated the area.
General Bruce assigned the capture of Barrigada to the 307th. It was to maintain contact with the 3d Marine Division on the left and push through the town, then continue about a mile to seize Mount Barrigada. The 305th to the right of the 307th would attack in the same direction east of the town and Barrigada mountain and protect to the coast. The town was in a clearing fully swept with defensive machine gun fire. In the same clearing was a much-desired well. Its capture meant the world to the parched troops.
[Illustration: _Soldiers of the 77th Division reach the end of the road bulldozed by the 302d Engineer Combat Battalion, and strike out cross country in the 31 July advance._]
At 0630, 2 August General Bruce dispatched a dozen tanks of the 706th Tank Battalion on a reconnaissance. As the “recon” armor turned into Barrigada town, the enemy opened up with a torrent of fire. The determined Japanese fiercely resisted the 307th when it reached the town and were equally determined to stop the 305th on the right as that regiment’s assault companies tried to outflank the town. Repeated tank attacks and heavy artillery support netted only a few yards at a time, but the soldiers kept advancing and by 4 August, the 77th Division held the town, or what was left of it, its precious well, and the crest of the mountain.
Captured documents and interviews with prisoners again left little doubt that the 77th Division’s major obstacle would be rugged, heavily crevassed, and jungled Mount Santa Rosa. It is six and a half miles northeast of Barrigada and a short distance from the ocean on the east coast.