Challenge for the Pacific: Guadalcanal: The Turning Point of the War

by Robert Leckie

  But the enemy was absent. Only a few—Mr. Ishimoto among them—were east of the Tenaru River. Most of them—about 1700 naval laborers, with their protectors of a Naval Landing Force—had fled to the west of that Lunga River against which the Fifth Regiment was advancing.

  The Fifth was also moving slowly, but without the excuse of difficult terrain. They were attacking, as General Vandegrift angrily told Colonel Hunt, as though they expected to encounter the entire Imperial Army. Hunt passed the general’s rage along to his leading battalion commander, and the Fifth finally reached the day’s objective about two miles west of the landing beach.

  Both regiments dug in to pass nights made miserable by rain and mosquitoes, and fitful by the wild firing of trigger-happy sentries shooting at land crabs, wild pigs, shadows, and—with occasional tragedy—their own men. At midnight Vandegrift directed Cates to forget Grassy Knoll and to swing west toward the Lunga River in the morning, coming in on the airfield from the south.

  On Saturday morning the First Marines quickly overran the airfield. Here was the prize of the campaign, and it would soon be named Henderson Field in honor of Major Loften Henderson, a Marine flying hero who was killed at Midway. Besides Henderson Field there was a complex of wharves, bridges, ice plants, radio stations and power and oxygen plants. The Japanese “termites,” as the Marines were contemptuously calling the enemy laborers and their impressed Korean allies, had thrown all this up in slightly more than a month.

  Meanwhile, the Fifth Regiment continued its cautious advance against Kukum. Patrols did not reach the camp until midafternoon. They found a litter of uniforms, those two-toed, rubber-soled shoes called tabis, shirts, helmets, caps, packs, mosquito netting, blankets, rifles, tea cups, chopsticks, and—most indicative of the panicky flight induced by Quincy’s opening shells—rice bowls containing half-eaten breakfasts. Later, the Fifth Marines found great stores of rice, wormy, gummy rice which the Marines then spurned but which they did not, fortunately, destroy: it would one day stand between them and starvation.

  In less than two days Admiral King had obtained his coveted airfield and General Vandegrift had occupied nearly all the ground he required to defend it. It would have seemed incredibly easy, if the fighting had not then been continuing across the Bay, and if Vandegrift’s supplies were not mounting in target-size piles on the beach.

  This, the unloading problem, had turned out to be Vandegrift’s biggest headache. Because he had put five of his six infantry battalions into action and kept one in reserve, he had had only a few hundred men to spare for stevedore duty. They could not possibly cope with all the supplies dumped on shore by hundreds of landing boats and lighters plying back and forth from the transports like swarms of buzzing water bugs. Confusion had multiplied the difficulties. Untrained coxswains brought rations to beaches marked for fuel or medical supplies were mixed in with ammunition. Sailors could not help, because, as they rightfully maintained, it was their job to bring material ashore and the Marines’ to get it off the beach. Many Marines not committed to action might have helped, but they merely watched their comrades of the shore parties melting under the strain. “Hell, Mac, we’re combat troops,” they sniffed. “You unload the goddamn stuff.”2 Combat troops, they said, swimming in the Bay or cracking coconuts. Eventually the disorder became so great that perhaps a hundred boats had to wait offshore, bobbing gently in the swells, while coxswains searched vainly for an open stretch of beach to land on. Even though Vandegrift had received the message, “Unloading entirely out of hand,” he dared not, on this eighth of August, risk weakening his line troops. He could only hope that the supply dumps might not seem so conspicuous from the air next time the Japanese bombers came calling.

  Early on August 8 the coastwatcher Jack Read began moving to a new position atop a steep ridge on northern Bougainville. At twenty minutes of nine, as he and his carriers plodded upward through the jungle, they heard the thunder of low-flying aircraft. Directly overhead passed flights of Betty bombers escorted by Zeros layered above them and to their flanks. Read started to count, while two carriers set up his aerial. A few minutes later he had signaled Townsville, Australia:

  “Forty-five bombers going southeast.”

  From Townsville the message was flashed to Melbourne and thence to Pearl Harbor, and at 9:10 that morning the alarm was received by the fleet in Iron Bottom Bay. Unloading ceased. Beaches were emptied of working parties. All ships got underway while Saratoga stacked flights of Wildcats over Savo at altitudes of ten, fifteen, and twenty-five thousand feet.

  This time the Japanese avoided Savo. Fifty miles away from the island they swung to the north, turning southeast again to come in over Florida Island unharried by the American fighters. This time the Bettys carried torpedoes. This time they skimmed the treetops and went thundering among the transports.

  They counted on a slaughter. They flew low, only twenty to forty feet above the water, hoping to come in under the guns’ depression limit, as they had done against British warships. But the American ships were equipped with better fire-control systems and their guns were built to depress.

  It was the Japanese who were slaughtered. They flew into a literal storm of steel and were torn apart. Up at Bougainville stony-eyed Jack Read smiled softly to hear an excited voice on the radio shouting: “Boy, they’re shooting them down like flies, one, two, three … I can see eight of them coming down in the sea right now!” Everywhere the Bettys were blowing up, flaming, disintegrating. American ships were showered with pieces of wings and fuselage. On one transport sailors swept the limbs and torsos of Japanese airmen over the side. But one Betty did succeed in sending a torpedo flashing into the side of destroyer Jarvis, sending her staggering south to be caught by more Japanese bombers the next day and sent to the bottom with all hands. Another Betty crashed and exploded on the deck of George F. Elliott and set her hopelessly afire. The creaking old ship which had brought Johnny Rivers and Al Schmid and Phil Chaffee and Lucky and the rest of the Second Battalion, First Marines, from San Francisco to Guadalcanal would eventually perish.

  So did all but one of the forty-five Bettys that flew to Iron Bottom Bay that day. The surviving bomber pilot landed at Rabaul and announced that he had sunk a battleship.

  Pilots of all nations commonly exaggerate the results of their missions. The height and speed of aerial war only magnify the human tendency to make all destroyers battleships or to confuse a smokescreen for a funeral pyre. Some pilots exaggerate out of overenthusiasm, others out of unashamed mendacity. Japanese pilots, as Admiral Mikawa might have known, are more susceptible to the affliction, because, like Japanese admirals, they cannot lose face.

  Nevertheless, Mikawa sailed down The Slot warmed by reports from Rabaul pilots to the effect that yesterday they had sunk two cruisers, a destroyer, and six transports, while heavily damaging three cruisers and two transports. Then, at noon, a search plane from Aoba returned to report that the great American fleet still lay in the harbor unscathed.

  Mikawa was shocked, and the news aggravated his earlier dismay at having been discovered by the enemy.

  At 10:20 that morning a Lockheed Hudson bomber was sighted circling above a group of Mikawa’s ships. Eighth Fleet commander had cannily divided his forces to deceive the enemy, and the Hudson sighted the larger group. The enemy plane hovered overhead for a quarter-hour before flying off toward Australia. At eleven o’clock another Hudson appeared over the smaller section, to be driven off by massed guns. Admiral Mikawa had no doubt that these planes had alerted the Americans. He was sure that the enemy carriers had been warned.

  Mikawa’s dismay increased at the sight of Zeros returning from Guadalcanal in straggling twos and threes. Their lack of formation meant that they must have been through heavy fighting. Mikawa discussed the situation with his staff during lunch. They had lost the hoped-for surprise and they had heard nothing of the whereabouts of the enemy carriers. What to do? As though by answer, Mikawa broke radio silence to ask Rabaul about t
he carriers. He got no reply.

  At one o’clock Mikawa concluded that if the enemy carriers had not been sighted, that meant that they were far to the south—too far away from Guadalcanal to catch him after he began his getaway. He decided to continue the attack. He ordered speed increased to 24 knots and set course through Bougainville Strait.

  At four o’clock Mikawa’s ships turned left and entered The Slot.

  Meiyo Maru was leaving Rabaul.

  Almost all of the naval troops which Admiral Mikawa was sending to Guadalcanal were aboard this 5600-ton transport. Five smaller ships would escort Meiyo and carry her supplies. Meanwhile, many of the men belowdecks were making out their wills, as Japanese soldiers do before entering battle. They cut off locks of hair or pieces of fingernail and slipped them into the envelopes containing the wills and sealed them shut. Other men wound belts of a thousand stitches around their waist. They had received these bulletproof talismans from sisters or sweethearts who had stood patiently on Japanese street corners to beg a stitch from passing women. Not many of the soldiers believed in the magic powers of the belts, yet they put them on rather than be guilty of discourtesy to a loved one. A Japanese may be cruel, but he is never rude.

  In early afternoon Meiyo Maru stood slowly out of Simpson Harbor bound for Guadalcanal.

  Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher was leaving the Solomons.

  The commander of the Expeditionary Force was not waiting until Sunday morning, as he had promised, but had turned his ships southward before dusk of Saturday night. He was taking with him three aircraft carriers, one battleship, six heavy cruisers and sixteen destroyers—by far the greater portion of the invasion fleet’s fighting power.

  Throughout that day of August 8, Admiral Fletcher had been fretting. He had bombarded his commanders with inquiries about enemy torpedo-bombers. He was remembering the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, when Japanese torpedoes had finished Lexington and Yorktown. With forebodings he learned of the torpedo-bomber attack in Iron Bottom Bay that afternoon. But Admiral Fletcher did not consult Admiral Turner who had been in that battle, nor did he take comfort from reports of how completely the enemy had been devastated. Admiral Fletcher consulted chiefly with his fears. In late afternoon he radioed Vice-Admiral Ghormley:

  “Fighter-plane strength reduced from ninety-nine to seventy-eight. In view of the large number of enemy torpedo planes and bombers in this area, I recommend the immediate withdrawal of my carriers. Request tankers be sent forward immediately as fuel running low.”

  Fletcher did not wait for Ghormley to approve or reject his recommendation for withdrawal. His carriers were already heading south as the message cleared, and it would be twelve hours before Fletcher finally received Ghormley’s approval to retire. He had yet to be sighted by the enemy, his fighter strength was double the enemy’s, and his bunkers held enough fuel to keep him in the area for at least two more days; but the commander of the Expeditionary Force was pulling out.

  Admiral Fletcher had thought too much about a long black shape tipped with 1200 pounds of explosives—the dreaded Long Lance Torpedo of Japan.

  Because, after World War I, Japan had been denied naval equality with the great powers, she felt that she must, of necessity, turn to other measures which would offset superior opposition. One of these was foul-weather or night torpedo attacks aimed at whittling the enemy down to size for decisive daylight battles.

  Throughout the 1930s the Japanese Navy trained in the stormy North Pacific, seeking, in nocturnal maneuvers, the utmost in realism. Ships collided and sank and men were lost without qualm. Night binoculars were developed, for the Japanese knew nothing of electronic detection devices such as radar, and the fleet was combed for men with exceptional night vision. These sailors were trained in special techniques until they were able to distinguish objects four miles away on dark nights. Excellent starshells were also produced, as well as parachute flares. Night-fighting cruisers, some of which carried as many as eight torpedo tubes on their decks, were equipped with float planes whose crews were well-drilled in night scouting or in dropping flares to illuminate a surprised enemy.

  It was with such crews and such weapons that Admiral Mikawa came steaming down The Slot, bound to destroy the American invasion fleet.

  In the afternoon of that August 8, Commander Ohmae aboard Chokai finished drafting the battle plan. With a feeling of extreme confidence he sent it to be wigwagged to the Fleet.

  “We will penetrate south of Savo Island and torpedo the enemy main force at Guadalcanal. Thence we will move toward the forward area at Tulagi and strike with torpedoes and gunfire, after which we will withdraw to the north of Savo Island.”

  As dusk approached every ship was ordered to jettison all topside flammables to clear the decks for battle. Depth charges and loose gear were stowed below. Gradually, as the sun began to sink, a feeling of exhilaration ran through the Fleet. Admiral Mikawa signaled:

  “Let us attack with certain victory in the traditional night attack of the Imperial Japanese Navy. May each one calmly do his utmost.”3

  Gunichi Mikawa was himself calm. It was by then full dark and he had come down The Slot without an American airplane to detain him.

  Defense of Iron Bottom Bay against surface attack depended upon extensive aerial reconnaissance.

  Searching of The Slot began, on that August 8, with none of the additional reconnaissance which Admiral Turner had requested the night before.

  Then the Flying Fortresses on routine search missed Mikawa’s fleet by sixty miles.

  Finally, of the two Royal Australian Air Force pilots who had sighted Mikawa from their Hudsons, only one bothered to make his report.

  That report was filed after the pilot flew another four hours, returned to base in New Guinea and had tea. It then passed through seven separate relays before it was received by Admiral Turner eight hours and nineteen minutes after the sighting was made. The message said: “Three cruisers, three destroyers, two seaplane tenders or gunboats, course 120, speed fifteen knots.” Reading it, Turner took counsel from what he thought the enemy would do, rather than what the enemy could do. He decided that the Japanese were going to set up a seaplane base at Gizo Bay in the central Solomons. Turner was not at that moment entirely calm, for he had just intercepted Fletcher’s message to Ghormley.

  Turner was trembling with rage. He, too, would have to leave quickly. Even though the ships were far from unloaded, he could not risk them to air attack without air cover of his own. But he would still like to discuss the situation with his commanders, so he sent for Vandegrift and Rear Admiral Sir Victor A. C. Crutchley.

  Rear Admiral Crutchley was the last Briton to hold the rank of Flag Officer Commanding the Australian Naval Squadron. He was both a veteran of World War I, in which he had won the Victoria Cross, and of the present war, in which he had commanded battleship Warspite in the second battle of Narvik. Very tall, very charming, Crutchley was a great favorite with the Aussie sailors, who called him “Old Goat’s Whiskers” for the magnificent red beard and mustache which he wore to hide an old wound-scar.

  Turner had given Crutchley the Western Defense Force. Eastern Defense had gone to Rear Admiral Scott in San Juan accompanied by the Australian cruiser Hobart and the American destroyers Monssen and Buchanan. Turner did not expect trouble at the eastern entrance to the Bay because an attack there would have to follow a roundabout route.

  But at the western entrance to either side of Savo an enemy coming down The Slot would have a clean shot at the American fleet. So Crutchley had gone there, and the British admiral had begun by dividing his forces.

  He put his radar destroyers Blue and Ralph Talbot to either side of Savo on the outside and his six heavy cruisers to either side of Savo on the inside. Aboard Australia, his flagship, Crutchley sailed a north-south patrol followed by Canberra and Chicago in that order. Destroyers Patterson and Bagley were in front to screen. The cruisers were in column about 600 yards apart and they reversed course every hou
r.

  The northern group was commanded by Captain Frederick Riefkohl aboard Vincennes followed by Quincy and Astoria. Destroyers Helm and Wilson formed the screen. Riefkohl sailed a box patrol, ten miles to a side, cruising at ten knots to turn right at 90 degrees every half hour.

  Crutchley thought dividing his forces was excusable because he believed that six heavy cruisers would be an unwieldy force at night. Admiral Mikawa with seven cruisers did not share this belief. Crutchley also thought that he would have ample forewarning of enemy approach; it was not his fault that Allied reconnaissance had failed utterly. Then, Crutchley thought that Admiral Turner’s message to come aboard McCawley meant that he should withdraw Australia from the battle line. This he did, leaving Captain Howard Bode in Chicago in charge. But Captain Bode remained at the stern of his column because he expected Admiral Crutchley to resume position in Australia. In fact, Admiral Crutchley had not drawn up a detailed battle plan. Meanwhile, Captain Riefkohl aboard Vincennes was not aware that Australia and Crutchley had left station. Anyway, Captain Riefkohl was tired and going to bed. So were all the other cruiser commanders.

  Finally, the conference called by Turner served no purpose other than to reduce and confuse the Western Defense Force. Turner merely notified Vandegrift and Crutchley, at about eleven o’clock, that he was leaving in the morning. He showed them Fletcher’s message. Vandegrift understood. It was a fait accompli foreshadowed by the conference in the Fijis. He could also agree with Turner’s description of Fletcher’s flight.

  “He’s left us bare ass!”4

  Mikawa’s staff was gathered in flag plot, when, at nine o’clock, the great news came in from Rabaul: Sunk, two enemy heavy cruisers, one large cruiser, two destroyers and nine transports; left burning, one heavy cruiser and two transports. Gunichi Mikawa forgot yesterday’s exaggerations to believe today’s.