the 7th Division moved up the Markham and Ramu Valleys, the 9th Division made another landing at Scarlet Beach near Finschhafen. The timing of the landing was contentious; Barbey, who feared air attack, wanted to land at night while Herring held out for a dawn landing, threatening to take the issue to General MacArthur. Eventually Berryman managed to persuade Herring to accept a compromise H-hour in the darkness before dawn. The U.S. Naval Historian Samuel Eliot Morison noted: "The Australians proved to be right; 'Uncle Dan's' outfit was not prepared for a neat night landing. The usual SNAFU developed." But Berryman saw Herring as being uncooperative, and his intransigence as a sign of battle weariness. In the subsequent Battle of Finschhafen, it soon became clear that the strength of the Japanese forces there had been seriously underestimated, and the 9th Division needed to be resupplied and reinforced, and its casualties evacuated. Herring strove to get the necessary amphibious lift from the navy but the commander of the United States Seventh Fleet, Vice Admiral Arthur S. Carpender, was reluctant to expose his ships to the Japanese air threat. The matter went up the chain of command to Mackay, to Blamey, and ultimately to MacArthur, who could do little, given that he had no real authority over the U.S. Navy. Carpender was not inflexible, and reached a compromise with Mackay to transport a battalion to Finschhafen in high speed transports (APDs). Herring was in Dobodura, lunching with Lieutenant General Brehon B. Somervell, when he heard this news. He decided to fly to Milne Bay to discuss the matter of resupply in general with Barbey. On 28 September, Herring and two of his staff officers, Brigadiers R. B. Sutherland and R. Bierwirth, boarded a U.S. Fifth Air Force B-25 Mitchell bomber at Dobodura. As the plane was about to take off, the undercarriage collapsed and the plane ploughed into the Marston Mat runway. A propeller shattered, splinters ripped through the fuselage into the cabin and Sutherland, who was sitting in the navigator's compartment next to Herring, was struck by a flying fragment that killed him instantly. The crew, Herring and Bierwirth escaped shaken but unscathed. The trip to Milne Bay was cancelled. Brigadier Sutherland was buried with full military honours at Soputa the next day, with a fly past by B-25s. When next he flew, Herring once again took a B-25 and made