Strong Men Armed

by Robert Leckie

  On September 21 Lieutenant Colonel Albert Cooley led the bombers against the destroyer Kagero while she landed troops at Kamimbo Bay, a point roughly 30 miles west of the Marine perimeter.

  On September 22 the bombers hit the Japanese massing-point at Visale, a few miles north of Kamimbo Bay. One of the dive-bombers was flown by fifty-seven-year-old Roy Geiger. He had become angered when his men complained that the runway was so pocked with bomb-blasts they could not take off safely. He lumbered from The Pagoda, squeezed his bulk into a Dauntless cockpit and roared north to drop a thousand-pounder on the enemy. That same date more bombers went after destroyer-transports in a night attack.

  On September 24 Cooley’s planes bombed and strafed destroyer-transports Kawakaze and Umikaze in Kamimbo Bay.

  But the troops were getting ashore, and this, together with patrol reports of increasing build-ups to the west, convinced General Vandegrift that before the Japanese could gather all their strength he had better break them up.

  He attacked.

  Vandegrift had two reasons for striking the Japanese west of the Matanikau River. He wanted to break them up before they could cross to the east bank, from which they could punish Henderson Field with their artillery and prepare an assault on his line at Kukum, and he wanted to occupy the east or inner bank of the river himself.

  On September 23 Vandegrift ordered the famous jungle-fighter, Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Puller, to take his First Battalion, Seventh Marines, on a reconnaissance-in-force into the hills south and west of the perimeter. The scouting expedition was to end by September 26, on which date the Raider Battalion, now under Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Griffith, was to cross the Matanikau River at its mouth and march about 10 miles farther west to the village of Kukumbona. The idea was that the Raiders could set up a patrolling base at Kukumbona. All this was to be preliminary to Vandegrift’s attack.

  Nothing was heard from Puller until, on the night of September 24, he reported meeting the enemy near Grassy Knoll, about four miles south of the western half of the perimeter, and losing seven men killed and 25 wounded in the fight that followed. Because of rugged terrain, it required four men to carry back each of the stretchers on which the 18 seriously wounded lay. Vandegrift sent Puller the Second Battalion, Fifth Marines, and told him he was on his own as far as continuing his mission or withdrawing was concerned.

  The wounded were placed in the care of two companies from Puller’s own battalion under Major Otho Rogers. Then Puller led the rest of his force west of the Matanikau.

  The night of September 24 Puller’s force bivouacked just short of the Matanikau’s east bank. Next morning the Marines reached the river and turned right, or north, to work down its east bank to the sea. In early afternoon, still several hundred yards short of the rivermouth, mortar shells fell on them from enemy positions across the river and near the coast. The Marines took cover and gradually crept down to the mouth of the Matanikau. But every attempt to cross the river was repulsed.

  And now the Raiders who were to cross the Matanikau on their march to Kukumbona that very same day were obviously unable to do so. Vandegrift sent them up the east bank of the river. They were to move inland, or south, about 2,000 yards until they came to a log-crossing just beneath a fork in the river. They would cross there and come down on the Japanese right flank. This action was to begin the following day, September 27, with support from the air and from Marine artillery.

  It began, but as the Raiders approached the log-bridge they were pinned to the ground by Japanese who had crossed the Matanikau at that point during the night and had occupied the east bank. The gallant Major Bailey was killed here and the Japanese kept the Raiders pinned down and cut them up with mortars.

  Back at his headquarters, Vandegrift was under the impression that the Raiders had crossed the river and were now engaging the enemy on the west bank. He thought his planned strike at the Japanese right flank was taking place. So he sent the companies under Major Rogers on an amphibious thrust at the Japanese left. They were to go west to the Kukumbona vicinity by boat that same day. They were to land there and cut off the “defeated” enemy’s retreat.

  The Marines under Major Rogers shoved off just as the first of three waves of Zeros and bombers swept overhead. Destroyer Ballard which was to deliver supporting fire was forced to flee. Still the Marines went west, but when they came ashore they were far short of Kukumbona. They were at Point Cruz, a small peninsula just west of the Matanikau and just north or behind the Japanese left.

  The Marines went in without radio, without naval gunfire, and before they had gone 500yards they were blasted by Japanese mortars and Major Rogers was killed. An enemy column came from the Matanikau’s west bank and struck them. The Marines took refuge on the top of a ridge, and the Japanese moved in between them and the sea and began pounding them with mortars.

  Now Vandegrift had three battalions in trouble and the last one was out of contact.

  H-E-L-P

  Lieutenant Dale Leslie could not be sure. He was flying his Dauntless west of the Matanikau, on station for the aerial support planned against the Japanese there, and this could be another enemy trick. Leslie peered over the side of his plane. There it was—H-E-L-P—spelled out with something white, maybe T-shirts.

  Leslie passed the word to the Fifth Marines, with whom he was in radio contact. The Fifth contacted Vandegrift and a rescue by sea was set in motion.

  Ballard went west along the coast again. She stood off Point Cruz. Her officers saw a Marine leap up on a ridge about 500 yards inland. He was waving his arms, making semaphore signals.

  The waving Marine was Sergeant Robert Raysbrook, standing erect amid Japanese bullets. His signals told Ballard’s officers that the Japanese stood between the Marine ridge and the beach. Ballard’s five-inchers boomed, striking the Japanese, cutting a swath of safety for the Marines. One of the batteries of Marine artillery which was to support the attack at the rivermouth raised sights and battered the nose of Point Cruz, which jutted into the water east of the besieged ridge and which could hold enemy gunners.

  The Marines came down the ridge, taking heavy enemy fire. The Japanese rushed to close. Sergeant Tony Malinowski turned to cover his company’s withdrawal. He took on the onrushing Japanese with his BAR. He was never seen again.

  But his comrades got down the hill. Now they were at the beach. The Japanese set up an interlocking fire of machine guns. They swept the beach. Casualties mounted. The Marines threw up a defensive perimeter while a Coast Guardsman named Donald Munro led the first wave of boats through the surf. They got in, though Munro was killed—winning a posthumous Medal of Honor. But the second wave hesitated.

  Lieutenant Leshe nosed his Dauntless down again. He came in with a roar, flying low, shepherding the faltering boats shoreward, spraying bullets as he banked to climb for the return swoop. The Marines got out, with all of their 23 wounded, but not all of their 24 dead.

  It was a daring rescue compounded of ingenuity and courage, and it served to take some of the sting out of the Marines’ defeat at the Matanikau.

  Defeat it was, for Vandegrift shortly afterward called all his forces back from the river. He had lost 60 dead and 100 wounded and his repulse had been the result of bad intelligence and piecemeal commitment of forces, tactics that had heretofore characterized only Japanese operations.

  But Cactus Air Force was still master of the aerial enemy. By the end of September General Geiger’s flyers had 171 Japanese kills to their credit. There were 19 little red balls painted on Major Smith’s Wildcat and “Smitty” had won the Medal of Honor. So had Major Bob Galer, who shot down 13 enemy planes, who might have destroyed more if he had not been knocked down three times himself. Captain Marion Carl’s string had been run up to 16, after the interruption of a jungle crash.

  So the second month on Guadalcanal ended with the Marines on the ground bruised but still capable of more battle and with those in the skies steadily whittling enemy air power.

 
And then it was October.

  11

  October was the month of the dreadful rains, the month of decision, of change, of unending battle between men and ships and airplanes—the month of the Night of the Battleships, of Dugout Sunday, of Pistol Pete—the month when Americans on Guadalcanal were still hanging on while other Americans in Washington were backing off.

  By day the Marines strengthened their lines, sent out patrols, rushed in supplies and troops or flew from the airfield to break up those aerial attacks which the enemy launched by day to clear the way for his movement at night. At night the Marines lay still in their holes, peering into the rain-swept darkness, knowing that destroyers were disgorging troops to the west, or that great dark shapes were gliding into the bay and that at any moment the silence might be shattered by the thundering of guns and the yelling of a new attack.

  On each of those early October nights, the Tokyo Express brought an average of 900 troops to the island. On the night of October 4, they landed Lieutenant General Masao Maruyama.

  Maruyama was a disciplinarian. He was a proud man, with haughty chin and an aristocratic nose beneath which ran a thin line of mustache as supercilious as a raised eyebrow. He was easily irritated, and he was displeased with what he found on Guadalcanal. Colonel Akinosuke Oka should not have allowed the American Marines to get away so cheaply on September 27. More, he should not have permitted the Ichiki and Kawaguchi survivors he commanded to mingle with the men of the Sendai’s fresh 4th Regiment and spread their tales of horror among them.

  The 4th had arrived first from Rabaul. It had come ashore on Guadalcanal and reached Kukumbona, Maruyama’s headquarters, with its men full of vigor and splendidly equipped. Apart from his weapon, each man was supplied two pairs of trousers, two shirts, gloves, camouflage helmet-cover and split-toed shoes. His pack bulged, not with uncooked rice, but with canned fish or beef, canned vegetables—even a ration of hard candy. None of the “Old Whisky” looted from the Philippines had yet come down to Guadalcanal for the troops, but there would certainly be beer for them later and saki for the officers.

  But Oka had allowed these excellent men to mingle with the scarecrows bequeathed him by General Kawaguchi. Those who were not prostrate with malaria or malnutrition had been telling horrible stories of Guadalcanal to the men of the 4th.

  On October 5, General Maruyama received a letter written by a soldier of the 4th and intercepted by his commanding officer. It said:

  The news I hear worries me. It seems as if we have suffered considerable damage and casualties. They might be exaggerated, but it is pitiful. Far away from our home country a fearful battle is raging. What these soldiers say is something of the supernatural and cannot be believed as human stories.

  Lieutenant General Masao Maruyama issued a general order, which said:

  From now on, the occupying of Guadalcanal Island is under the observation of the whole world. Do not expect to return, not even one man, if the occupation is not successful. Everyone must remember the honor of the Emperor, fear no enemy, yield to no material matters, show the strong points as of steel or of rocks, and advance valiantly and ferociously. Hit the enemy opponents so hard they will not be able to get up again.

  Then, while awaiting the arrival of his other troops—the 16th and 29th Regiments, his heavy artillery and a few thousand men of a Naval Landing Force Brigade—General Maruyama went to work planning an advance across the Matanikau. He, too, had seized the importance of the east bank. He would need it to gain room for the jumping-off of his main attack. He ordered Colonel Juro Nakaguma to take the 4th across the river in the early-morning dark of October 7.

  Then Maruyama began searching his maps for that point most suitable to receive the surrender of the American General Vandegrift.

  Although the detail of a surrender point escaped him, Alexander Vandegrift also studied maps of the Matanikau that afternoon of October 5.

  He still believed that he could not allow the Japanese west of the river to build their forces unmolested. His earlier setback had only impressed upon him the need of using a force large enough to destroy the enemy. He decided to use five full battalions led by Red Mike Edson, now commander of the Fifth, and Colonel Wild Bill Whaling of the special Scout-Snipers group.

  They would attack on October 7.

  On October 6 the Japanese 4th Regiment’s approach march from Kukumbona to the Matanikau was broken up by Marine aircraft. The men took cover. At night Colonel Nakaguma ordered them forward to the west bank of the river. They dug in. They would cross in the early morning. Meanwhile, Nakaguma sent three of his companies downstream to the rivermouth. They crossed there.

  On October 7 Colonel Edson’s force reached the east bank of the Matanikau mouth. The Third Battalion, Fifth, joined battle with Nakaguma’s three companies which had crossed to the east bank. The Marines pressed the Japanese back, slowly containing them. Edson asked for reinforcements. Vandegrift sent the Raiders into their last battle. Commanded by Major Silent Lou Walt of the Fifth Marines, the Raiders helped push the enemy into a pocket. During the night the Japanese attempted to break out. They were destroyed.

  Upriver on October 7 Colonel Whaling’s men were unable to cross until nightfall, at which time they turned right to face the sea themselves on the west bank, the Edson forces on the east bank.

  On October 8 it rained. Water poured from skies so dark that the jungle became a murk of gloom. Both sides were mired in a slop of mud.

  On October 9 the coastwatchers up north sent word of a great invasion force making up in Rabaul. Vandegrift was forced to shave his ambitions. Even though Whaling’s men had begun to make good progress seaward that day and Edson was across the Matanikau, Vandegrift decided that he would not strike at Kukumbona but be content with battering the enemy in the Point Cruz-Matanikau Village area before withdrawing to the east bank of the river and fortifying it.

  It was then that the First Battalion, Seventh, was ordered out on reconnaissance again.

  Lewis Burwell Puller was the battalion commander’s full name, but he was simply “Chesty” to his men. This was the famous Chesty Puller who had already blooded his battalion in the Matanikau defeat and who had chafed at the order to withdraw. He was a man of only five feet six inches in height, but with an enormous rib cage stuck on a pair of matchstick legs—the barrel chest crowned by a great commanding head with strong outthrust jaw. At forty-four Puller was only a “light” colonel, for in him there was none of the guile that slips up the ladder of promotion. Chesty had become notorious among brother officers for insisting that regimental staffs were too large and the distance between command posts and front lines was too long. When he came to Guadalcanal leading the First Battalion, Seventh, he was already legendary for battles which had won him two Navy Crosses and for a salty tongue which had won him the affection of his men. Asked why Nicaragua patrols were slow, he had snapped: “Because of the officer’s bed roll!” Shown his first flame-thrower, he had growled: “Where do you fit the bayonet on it?” Flunked out of Pensacola flying school on the unique report, “Glides too flat, skids on turns, climbs too fast,” he had merely been relieved that he might return to the riflemen where “all the fightin’s on foot.”

  And now he was on foot again during the afternoon of October 9, leading his battalion over a series of grassy ridges west of the Matanikau near the coast. Atop a high ridge Puller saw that a ravine below him was swarming with Japanese. At the same moment he received orders to scout the coastal road toward Kukumbona and to avoid combat. He asked and obtained permission to stay where he was for he had found a whole battalion under his guns.

  The ravine became a slaughter-pen.

  Marine mortar shells fell with dreadful accuracy. Death swept suddenly and invisibly among those Japanese, devastating them. They swarmed blindly up the hill against Puller’s men. They were raked with small arms. They fled back down into the ravine, rolling down the slope, sprinting in terror through that hell of mortar fire and up the side of an
opposing ridge, only to re-emerge on the crest in full view of Puller’s Marines. They were riddled.

  Again they fled down into the ravine, again they tried to come up through Puller’s men again, were halted, turned, and sent through the reverse gantlet once more—and now the carnage was multiplied by the aerial bombs and artillery shells which Chesty Puller had called down into the ravine.

  There were few Japanese who survived.

  Seven hundred fell in that awful trap, and Lieutenant General Masao Maruyama’s attempt to seize the east bank of the Matanikau met with disaster. For there were roughly 200 more casualties inflicted on the 4th Regiment as the converging Whaling and Edson forces drove briskly into Point Cruz-Matanikau Village. The 4th was shattered and now Nakaguma’s men had terrifying tales of their own to spread among comrades sailing south to the place they would call Death Island.

  Marines withdrawing east from the river, bringing back their 65 dead and 125 wounded, heard the welcome roar of massed motors overhead. Major Leonard (Duke) Davis was leading Squadron 121 to the Cactus Shivaree.

  Riding the cockpit of one of those 20 Wildcats was a cigar-smoking, blunt-featured, high-spirited Marine captain by the name of Joseph Jacob Foss.

  12

  It was clear that the Matanikau had eclipsed the Tenaru in importance. The Japanese no longer landed on eastern Guadalcanal but came ashore in the west. It was vital that the Marines’ western boundary be extended to the east bank of the Matanikau River to stop the inevitable thrust from the west.

  Because he had not enough men to hold all the river line, Vandegrift decided to defend the two main crossings—at the mouth of the river and at the upriver crossing which the Marines called Nippon Bridge from the Japanese characters ippon-bashi, meaning “one-tree bridge.” This was about 2,000 yards inland, just below the fork in the stream.