Tin Can Titans

by John Wukovits

  The cruisers opened fire shortly after 1:00 a.m. Streams of fire rent the nighttime darkness as shells arced toward the airstrip, reminding MacDonald of “watching a hose spraying bullets over there on the target.”32 After each cruiser pounded the airstrip with a thousand shells, O’Bannon dropped seven hundred yards astern of Fletcher and the pair of destroyers opened a ten-minute bombardment from twelve thousand yards.

  Fletcher’s new skipper, Lieutenant Commander Johnson, stood on the bridge next to Captain R. P. Briscoe, Commander Destroyer Squadron 5. When lookouts spotted a large vessel five thousand yards to their west, Johnson brought the ship hard left, increased his speed to twenty-five knots, and ordered his torpedo battery to stand by. He asked Wylie to confirm the sighting, but the executive officer replied that the radar screen revealed no such contact.

  Wylie wondered who was right. Radar had contributed to the success of the November surface engagement off Guadalcanal, but Johnson, a skipper new to South Pacific combat, insisted that the radar was malfunctioning. “The bridge insisted that a ship was there,” said Wylie, “and radar, with the PPI screen, insisted that there was no such ship.” Wylie “was perspiring freely” when he learned that the ship’s torpedomen were preparing to launch torpedoes, and agreed with the radarman third class next to him, who shook his fist at the radar screen and growled, “Oh you bastard, if you let us down now!”33

  On the bridge, Briscoe also had difficulty balancing Wylie’s conclusions with what materialized before his eyes. He and Johnson became more perplexed when the image imitated Fletcher’s course change and also turned to the left. They also noticed that when Nashville ceased firing, the image disappeared, only to reappear moments later with more gunfire. The commanders suddenly realized that what they saw was Fletcher’s own shadow outlined in the haze by the cruisers’ bombardments. Johnson belayed his order to the torpedo crew, forestalling what would have been an embarrassing torpedo attack against thin air. The captain wrote in his action report that the image had seemed so real that it might explain conflicting reports of enemy locations during earlier night engagements.

  This first offensive naval bombardment was a success. Ainsworth punished Japanese installations at Munda without sustaining any damage, and the operation handed him and his commanders their first opportunity to conduct a radar-guided bombardment at night. According to Lieutenant Commander Dennis Crowley, one of three Navy aviators spotting for Ainsworth’s ships, it was “the most accurate big gun fire we have ever seen or hope to see.” Crowley added, “The ships didn’t need much help. The first shell struck directly on the runway a third of the way from the west end. Following shells worked toward the western end, then switched back and in neat succession ran the length of the runway down to the east end just like a plane taking off. That done, the firing next fell in a pattern on both sides, covering a large area around the field.” Crowley guessed that the enemy was taken completely by surprise and that many Japanese must have perished from the voluminous shelling. “The warships looked afire as they poured out their shells hot and heavy. It was almost as light as day in the space between the fleet and the beach.”34

  After the bombardment, Fletcher and O’Bannon guided the cruisers out of the bay toward the rendezvous point near Guadalcanal to join Nicholas and the support group. As they arrived, thirteen enemy dive-bombers bracketed Honolulu with bombs, showering her with water and bomb fragments, while another bomb struck a gun mount on the cruiser Achilles, killing thirteen crew. Antiaircraft gun crews aboard the cruisers laced the sky with their bullets, shooting down two aircraft, while Henderson Field fighter aircraft splashed four more.

  When Ainsworth learned of two downed enemy pilots floating in the water, he ordered Wilkinson to retrieve them. Wilkinson moved O’Bannon alongside the pair, now clinging to debris and in obvious need of medical attention, but when a boatswain tossed life rings to them, the Japanese shoved the rings aside and began swimming away. The crew retrieved the first pilot from the water, who died from his wounds soon after, but the second continued to resist. MacDonald used a whaleboat to approach the man, but “as we got alongside to grab him, he reached down and pulled a revolver and held it at me. He actually shot, but the bullet didn’t go off.” With that failed attempt on their executive officer, men with machine guns standing on O’Bannon’s bridge “just let him have it and blew his head right off.”35

  The use of radar “under all conditions of visibility permits both exact navigation in strange waters and successful conduct of night bombardment on practically any type of area target,” wrote a convinced Johnson in his action report, handing Wylie credit for promoting the device. Johnson was so impressed with radar’s capabilities that he urged that “no combatant vessel should fire a planned night bombardment unless equipped with Sugar George [surface] Radar,” and suggested that there was no longer any need for a submarine or other type of vessel to wait ahead of the force as a navigational aid. Wilkinson agreed with his fellow skipper, claiming that the use of SG radar for both accurate bombardments and for navigation “makes a night bombardment of this sort simple and deadly.”36 Other officers said that because of radar, bombardment vessels could open fire at longer ranges and enjoy greater accuracy, and claimed that even if all radar did was help ships navigate the tricky Solomon waters, that would justify its use.

  These comments confirmed what Wylie had suspected. In his brief time with the destroyer, he had helped develop an early version of what would soon become the combat information center (CIC). Wylie’s enhancements in relaying crucial information to the skipper during surface engagements soon gained notice at headquarters.

  In June 1943 Wylie was detached and sent to Pearl Harbor to compile a handbook outlining the tools a CIC should possess, how the room should be arranged, and how it could be properly managed. The CIC, in effect, would analyze and deliver material to the captain, who could then make the speedy decisions that demanded his attention.

  Wylie spent six weeks developing the CIC Handbook for Destroyers Pacific Fleet. The twenty-page handbook placed the SC radar (air-search) on one side of CIC, the SG radar (surface-search) on the other, and the air plot and surface plot forward of them. “That was the first time there had been brought together a concept and a process for the management of all information relating to the enemy.”37

  Wylie’s renovation soon became an established part of each ship. Older vessels set up the CIC in the division commander’s cabin, which was not often utilized anyway, while newer vessels had the CIC incorporated into the ship designs. In addition, Wylie started an informal destroyer school in Espiritu Santo, called Coconut College, for exchanging ideas and bringing newly arrived ships up to speed on current tactical developments. Wylie’s contributions in formulating the CIC and disseminating information to commanders when they most needed it became one of the most important advancements in handling ships while in a combat zone.

  “We Are in the Big Leagues”

  Wylie’s innovations arrived at the right time, as the Navy speedily expanded to meet the dual threat posed by Germany and Japan. Senior commanders, including Halsey and Nimitz, scoured the Naval Academy’s rosters for viable candidates to man and skipper the new ships.

  The first four vessels that would eventually coalesce into the United States Navy’s most honored destroyer squadron had already arrived. O’Bannon, Fletcher, and Nicholas had come onto the scene in September, gaining valuable experience in escorting, patrolling, and surface combat. The recently arrived De Haven was the fourth destroyer, but her crew lacked the experience to know what South Pacific combat was like.

  The commanders of what would by early February be a full squadron of ships were already acquainted with one another. They had graduated from the Academy in the mid-twenties, taken classes together, participated in common exercises, and held the same hopes for promotion during a naval career. Commanders of the first three destroyers had already established an efficient working relationship, systems that evolved durin
g the shakedown cruises and then during combat with the enemy. The more recent commanders had yet to pass through those stages.

  Skippers of the newest seven destroyers benefited from preliminary experience in escorting transports before they reached the Pacific. During the fall of 1942, while the first three Fletcher-class destroyers battled the Japanese off Guadalcanal, six arrivals were initiated in Atlantic waters. The USS Radford (DD-446), under Lieutenant Commander William K. Romoser, helped tow a burning transport to Halifax, while the other five destroyers participated in the November 1942 invasion of North Africa. The USS Taylor, with skipper Lieutenant Commander Benjamin J. Katz, Lieutenant Commander Harry H. Henderson’s USS La Vallette (DD-448), the USS Strong (DD-467), commanded by Lieutenant Commander Joseph H. “Gus” Wellings, and the USS Chevalier (DD-451), led by Lieutenant Commander Ephraim R. McLean Jr., escorted transports across the Atlantic to North Africa. The USS Jenkins (DD-447), under the command of Lieutenant Commander Harry F. Miller, also screened for battleships as they bombarded German positions ashore.

  One by one these ships departed the Mediterranean or Canada; they gathered in the United States, then embarked on the longer voyage through the Panama Canal to the South Pacific. Like every commander who entered Pacific waters, the captains of each of these vessels, aware that each mile they steamed west brought them a mile closer to the fighting, conducted daily drills to prepare the young crews for battle. Operations in European or Canadian waters carried the risk of being attacked by German U-boats, but Pacific combat would add perils from surface warships and from the air that were not as predominant off North Africa or North America. The crews had to be prepared for those new threats.

  As the Chevalier left the Panama Canal to enter the Pacific Ocean, Lieutenant Commander McLean announced over the loudspeaker in the booming voice to which the crew had quickly become accustomed, “All hands not on watch lay aft to the fantail.” One of his young crew, Yeoman R. H. Roupe, wondered what McLean was doing. “As the fantail slowly filled with men, the Captain appeared and climbed to the top of the after five-inch gun turret. On watch in sky-aft, we crowded the edge of the gun-shield and strained our ears to hear.”

  McLean’s strong voice cut through the ocean breezes to announce, “We have now joined the Pacific Fleet.” He added that he had been looking forward to engaging the Japanese for almost two decades, and now that they were in the same waters as the enemy, he expected the crew to keep their life jackets close by at all times. “All hands be on your toes,” he said. “We are in the Big Leagues.”

  Chevalier and her crew would soon be battling toe to toe with the Japanese, which meant they could no longer afford to commit any amateurish blunders. “We realized that we were in the Big League, all right,” said Roupe, “and probably on the first team, too.”38

  In the South Pacific, MacDonald and the crew of his O’Bannon wondered about the proficiency of the new arrivals. MacDonald said that he “only hoped that any new ship that joined up and hadn’t been in one of these battles could control itself to the point of not shooting some of its own friends, also at some of its own friendly aircraft. This is one of the things that you gain by experience and experience only, because the great tendency is to be trigger-happy once you start opening fire.”39

  The first few months of 1943 would begin providing answers.

  CHAPTER 5

  BIRTH OF A SQUADRON

  Foster Hailey knew a story when he saw it. The veteran New York Times reporter had left his New York home at 11:00 p.m. on December 7, 1941, anxious to rush to the Pacific, where, he hoped, he could make sense out of the catastrophe at Pearl Harbor and bring the drama of war to his readers. If a reporter wanted to convey the emotions and significance of an event, Hailey believed, he had to be where the action occurred and stand among the participants. His search for the next story took him to the Coral Sea for the May 1942 naval battle, to Guadalcanal to experience a thundering Japanese bombardment of Henderson Field, and to the offices of Admiral Bull Halsey to study the war as orchestrated from above.

  He now sought stories from the naval spectrum’s tail end, where sailors took center stage. He had already seen war from the trenches during his tenure with the Marines on Guadalcanal, and he now wished to add a different perspective by heading to the sea. He shunned the glamorous aircraft carriers and their squadrons of fighters—the reading public already knew about those vessels and their flyboys—and turned instead to some of the smallest ships then prowling the Solomons, the speedy destroyers. “That is one of the lures of the tin cans,” Hailey wrote, “they travel fast. They’re hard-hitting, tough-living, hell-for-leather ships, the cowboys of the fleet.”1

  Hailey wanted stories that illuminated men more representative of the American home front than the generals and admirals. He found what he sought among the officers and crews of Admiral Halsey’s first destroyer squadron to populate the Solomons, a unit anchored by O’Bannon, Fletcher, and Nicholas.

  Like Admiral Halsey, Hailey recognized that at this stage of the Pacific war, success and victory rested on the outcome of the fierce land and sea battles waged in the islands and waters of the Solomons. The combatants stood at opposite ends, with the Japanese based at Rabaul in the northwest and the US military operating from Guadalcanal to the southwest. In between lay an eight-hundred-mile arena consisting of narrow channels, sharp underwater ridges, bays and harbors, and Japanese-held islands and airfields.

  The opponents would contest that stage over the next year with planes and PT boats, Army infantry and Marine battalions, cruisers and destroyers. Day after day the destroyers steamed into the Slot, the narrow body of water separating the Solomons’ two island arms. Stretching from southeast to northwest, it offered a compact battle area that made daily encounters almost inevitable. Upon MacDonald and Whisler on O’Bannon, Chesnutt and Holmes on Fletcher, and every officer and enlisted aboard the destroyers that gathered off Guadalcanal in January 1943 would depend victory or defeat in the Solomons. For much of that time, Hailey mingled with those men, interacting with officers and chatting with enlisted so that he could sufficiently convey that Solomon Islands drama to home-front audiences.

  “Anxious to see some action, I joined a destroyer squadron which had been operating with Admiral Ainsworth’s force and was being sent to Tulagi to do any odd chores that might be found, such as sidetracking the Tokyo Express if it should attempt resumption of the old schedule down ‘the slot,’” he wrote.2 Hailey found a home with the men of O’Bannon and Nicholas, soon to be operating as a unit called the Cactus Striking Force.

  “Fighting and Killing Is Now Their Job”

  Upon emerging from the desperate November days, and with the arrival of new destroyers such as De Haven, Admiral Halsey finally saw an opportunity to mount minor strikes against the Japanese. Nimitz’s headquarters had estimated that naval superiority in the Solomons would not come until the spring arrival of additional ships and aircraft, but until then, Halsey intended to keep the Japanese off guard by sending his destroyers and a handful of cruisers north for quick nighttime bombardments. Unwilling to risk his few battleships in such forays, Halsey turned to his Fletcher-class destroyers, such as O’Bannon, as being perfectly suited for the task. The missions would also sate the old warrior’s passion to be freed from the defensive shackles required around Guadalcanal and allow him to seek out the enemy.

  In mid-January Halsey organized a fast-moving destroyer unit to mount those raids. “As a destroyer sailor of long service,” he wrote Nimitz on January 11, “it has broken my heart to see the way these ships were of necessity abused materially and in the way of personnel.” He said that squadron and division organization had been wisely abandoned in the early months off Guadalcanal, but explained, “With our new organization, which I shall use my utmost endeavor to keep going, this handicap should be overcome. In other words, I believe at long last we are in sight of a position where we can use destroyers as they should be used.” Excited at the prospect of
allowing his destroyers to seek out the enemy rather than escorting transports, Halsey added, “It is the first offensive force that we have had in the South Pacific. I hope it grows larger and larger and that the ‘Yellow Bastards’ forces grow smaller and smaller.”3

  Based out of Tulagi and nearby Purvis Bay on Florida Island, thirty miles northeast of Guadalcanal across Ironbottom Sound, Captain R. P. Briscoe’s Cactus Striking Force of O’Bannon, Nicholas, Fletcher, and De Haven, plus the newly arrived Fletcher-class destroyer Radford, were given three principal tasks. During daylight hours the unit was to support the infantry fighting the enemy on Guadalcanal, mainly by bombarding Japanese shore positions between Point Cruz and Cape Esperance, while at night the ships would intercept the Tokyo Express or, more important, join with cruisers to bombard enemy installations to the north. His directive offered little rest for sailors already weary from two months of naval action but promised they would at least be taking the offensive, as indicated by the inclusion of the word “striking” in their unit name.

  “This was to be one of the most exciting periods of our entire stay in the South Pacific,” said MacDonald later.4 His destroyer and the four companions now had a home. While still occasionally dashing to Espiritu Santo, the force principally operated in one area, with Florida Island’s dual harbors at Tulagi and Purvis Bay, shielded by hills ringing the harbors and a wall of jungle stretching to the water’s edge, offering havens for the unit.

  The switch handed MacDonald and other destroyer officers the opportunity for advancement. With aircraft carriers and battleships either damaged or being withheld from combat until more vessels arrived from American shipyards, destroyer commanders occupied center stage. Upon Wilkinson’s departure, MacDonald received command of O’Bannon on January 10. Lieutenant Commander Andrew Hill became skipper of Nicholas when Commander Brown left to join the staff of Rear Admiral Aaron S. “Tip” Merrill. Should they and the other skippers excel at their duties, additional promotions were certain to follow.