Bloody Beaches : Marine Raiders History in the Pacific War (WW2 Pacific Military History Series)

by Daniel Wrinn

  Allied losses in this campaign were ninety-one wounded and fifty-five dead. Still, soldiers and Marines killed nearly 400 enemy troops and took twenty-five machine guns and three 140mm coastal defense guns (notable results given the challenges the Allied forces faced).

  Rough terrain made it impossible for troops to carry out all the ammunition and rations they needed (the raiders had gone without food for over two days before supplies were airdropped and finally reached them on the front lines.) Except for one airstrike, all fire support had come from the raider’s 60mm mortars.

  There was no way to evacuate the wounded to suitable hospitals until the Allies could take Enogai. On July 11, three PBYs took the Allied casualties to the rear. That mission nearly turned into a fiasco when two Japanese planes appeared on the horizon and strafed the PBYs as they boarded the wounded. Luckily, the damage was manageable, and the amphibian planes took off after the attack.

  When the PBYs departed with the wounded, they also carried two of the 3rd Raiders wounded staff officers and a plea from Colonel Liversedge for an additional aerial resupply and reinforcements.

  Attack on Bairoko

  Things went much worse for the 140th Infantry.

  After breaking off from the 1st Raiders on July 6, soldiers moved over equally rugged terrain to assume their blocking position on the Bairoko Trail by July 8. After a brief success against surprised enemy patrols, soldiers fought a bloody battle that pushed them off the high ground and away from the all-important trail.

  Heavy jungle and poor maps prevented an aerial resupply, while casualties and illness depleted manpower. Colonel Liversedge led a company of the 145th Infantry to the scene on July 13. He was frustrated at the results and was unable to reinforce or supply the outpost. The raider colonel withdrew his force to Triri. From there, soldiers could recuperate for the upcoming assault on Bairoko and harass enemy movement on the river trail with periodic patrols.

  Before dawn on July 18, APDs brought the 4th Raiders and fresh supplies to Enogai. Colonel Liversedge now had four battalions, but all were understrength because of losses suffered in the New Georgia campaign. The 4th Raiders was reduced by over 250 Marines. Liversedge reorganized the raiders into two Companies (B and D). And along with a detachment of the 145th Infantry from Rice Anchorage—he was ready to attack Bairoko.

  The Japanese were aware of the threat to their position. Raider patrols in July reported the enemy had fortified the landward approaches to the harbor on the northern coast of the island.

  Colonel Liversedge ordered the attack to begin on July 20. Two companies of the 1st Raiders and the entire 4th Raiders would move out from Enogai, while the 148th Infantry deployed along the Triri-Bairoko Trail. Allied forces would converge on the Japanese from two directions in a pincer movement. The rest of the Army Battalion would guard Triri. The skeleton raider Companies C and D would defend Enogai and also serve as the reserve. Liversedge requested an airstrike on Bairoko, coinciding with the assault—but the request was denied.

  At 0800, the Bairoko assault kicked off. The 1st Raiders made enemy contact two hours later. Companies B and D surged through a series of enemy outposts. By noon, raiders reached the primary Japanese defenses of four fortified lines on parallel coral ridges a few hundred yards from the harbor.

  The enemy bunkers were well protected by coral and coconut logs. Each held an automatic weapon or a machine gun. Here, the raiders’ assault stalled. Liversedge used the 4th Raiders to turn the Japanese flank, but they met heavy resistance. By late afternoon, the raider company had slogged their way forward and dispatched the first two enemy lines. But as they advanced, Japanese 90mm mortar fire ripped through the raider units inflicting multiple casualties.

  In the southern prong of the attack, Army soldiers engaged the Japanese a thousand yards from Bairoko. But the Japanese held a critical piece of high ground blocking the trail. Pinned in by a lagoon on one side and a deep swamp on the other, soldiers could not outflank the enemy position. After obtaining approval from the raider XO, the Army commander pulled back his lead units and used his two 81mm mortars to hammer enemy defenses.

  When Colonel Liversedge heard the southern attack was stalled, he asked raider battalion commanders for their input. Raiders were running out of water and ammunition, they’d suffered heavy casualties and had no friendly fire support. Neither raider battalion had any fresh reserves to commit to the fight. Also, large numbers of men were needed to carry the many wounded to the rear. The 4th Raiders had over ninety litter cases already. From their position on the high ground, raider commanders could see the harbor only a couple hundred yards away. But a continued assault against a well-entrenched enemy with fire superiority was a waste of Marine lives. At 1700, Colonel Liversedge ordered the lines to pull back into defensive positions and prepare to withdraw to Triri the following day. He again requested airstrikes to cover their movement.

  The withdrawal to Dragons Peninsula on July 21 went smoothly from a tactical point of view. After failing to provide air support in the initial assault, command sent 257 sorties to cover the raider withdrawal. While the enemy did not pursue the Allied troops, it was still tough going on the ground. Water was in short supply and Marines took turns carrying litters. The column halted every few hundred yards. By late afternoon, riverboats had picked up most of the wounded and ferried them to the rear.

  By that evening, the entire force was back in Enogai. Catalina PBYs also helped to evacuate the wounded. But this time, a pair of Zero fighters damaged the amphibious planes after takeoff and forced them to return to the inlet at Enogai. Total Allied casualties in the Bairoko assault were over 200 wounded, with 50 killed and two missing—raiders suffered the majority of these casualties.

  The failure to seize the objective and the numerous Allied losses resulted from a lack of firepower and poor logistics. In a post-operation report by the Joint Chiefs: “lightly armed troops cannot be expected to attacked fixed positions defended by heavy mortars, artillery, and automatic weapons.”

  Another significant factor was the absence of surprise. The raiders succeeded in taking Enogai against similar odds because the Japanese had not expected an attack from anywhere but the sea. The Allied victory at Enogai gave ample warning to the garrison at Bairoko. The Japanese troops there prepared for an overland assault. Raiders may still have won with a suicidal effort—but the price of Marine blood would not have been worth it.

  The 1st Raiders and their assorted battalions settled into entrenched defensive positions for the rest of July. They harassed enemy patrols on the Bairoko trail and avoided strafing runs from Japanese aircraft.

  On August 9, Army troops from the Southern Landing Group made contact with the raiders. Together they moved cautiously into Bairoko and encountered only an occasional small outpost. The main Japanese force had escaped by sea. Allied forces secured the harbor on August 24.

  On August 28, both raider battalions embarked on transports toward Guadalcanal. The New Georgia campaign had been costly. Each raider battalion endured battle casualties of greater than 30 percent. Illness and tropical disease claimed an even larger number. The 1st Raiders had 245 effectives while the 4th Raiders had 153.

  D-Day on Bougainville

  After the fall of New Georgia, allies seized other islands in the vicinity: Kolombangara, Vella Lavella, and Arundel. South Pacific command now turned its attention to the encirclement of Rabaul. The Allies reviewed several options, but the final choice was made to land on Bougainville—the largest island in the Solomons group.

  MacArthur’s force would assault Cape Gloucester (Operation Backhander) on the western edge of New Britain one month later. Rabaul would then be within range of Allied land-based fighter aircraft coming in from two directions. Allied planners believed this airpower could neutralize the Japanese stronghold and allow it to be bypassed.

  November 1, 1943, was the scheduled D-Day for Bougainville.

  Several factors complicated Admiral Halsey’s assault plan for the
offensive. He had too few Marines and transports for a direct assault on the heavily defended enemy airfield. Another consideration was the range of the land-based fighters from the central Solomons: they could only cover a landing in the southern half of Bougainville.

  Halsey settled on the western side of the island at Cape Torokina. There were negligible defenses, and Bougainville’s rugged terrain would prevent a rapid enemy ground force reaction from elsewhere on the island. Once ashore, the invasion force would secure a defensive perimeter, build an airfield, and neutralize the rest of the island.

  In late September, a patrol, landed by submarine, discovered the area behind the landing beaches was swampy. In October, aerial reconnaissance also found the construction of new enemy defenses.

  None of these facts changed the assault plan.

  On November 1, the 3rd and 9th Marines, assisted by the 2nd Raiders, seized a strip of Cape Torokina’s northwest coast. At the same time, the 3rd Raiders assaulted Puruata Island (off Cape Torokina). Enemy defenses were a single company supported by a 75mm gun. One enemy platoon occupied Puruata and Torokina Island, while the rest of the enemy troops and the gun were dug-in on the cape.

  The small Japanese force fought well. Their 75mm guns pounded the eastern landing beaches while machine guns on the two small islands peppered the approaches into a crossfire. This resulted in mayhem for the initial right flank assault waves—landing in considerable disorder.

  The enemy’s 75mm gun destroyed four landing craft and damaged twelve others before Sergeant Robert Owens of the 1/3 Marines silenced it. For his single-handed charge against this position, he received a posthumous Medal of Honor.

  The 2nd Raiders landing to the left also suffered from the 75mm gun along with mortar and machine-gun fire raking the beach. Raiders reorganized their forces and attacked. They swept away enemy defenses at a high cost to themselves. Other battalions further to the west met little to no resistance, except high surf, which caused several landing craft to veer off course.

  The 3rd Raiders moved out at noon and occupied a blocking position on the Piva Trail—the main avenue of approach into the beachhead. By November 2, the 3rd Raiders had silenced the machine guns and dispatched remaining enemy troops on the island. Total raider casualties at this point were fifteen wounded and three dead.

  Over the next several days, raiders advanced inland, extending their perimeter. While there were occasional engagements with small enemy patrols, the most significant resistance came from the terrain. Inland of the beach consisted of dense jungle and swampland. Bougainville had a deep, sucking mud that would cover everything.

  On November 4, the 2nd Raiders were relieved, and both battalions of the raider regiment were attached to the 9th Marines. Raiders assumed responsibility for the roadblock.

  On November 5, Company E of the raiders was attacked at the roadblock. The Japanese assault poured mortar shells on the raiders all night. The next morning, raiders continued to hold the roadblock as Marines counterattacked the stubborn enemy. After a thirty-minute artillery barrage, the enemy withdrew. A Marine patrol soon discovered the abandoned bivouac site of the Japanese 23rd Infantry Regiment a few hundred yards up the trail.

  In this action, Private First Class Henry Gurke covered an enemy grenade with his body to protect another Marine. He was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor for his heroic act of self-sacrifice.

  On November 10, the raiders celebrated the Marine Corps’ birthday by moving off the front lines and into the division’s reserve. Other than an occasional patrol or short stint on the line, the next two weeks were quiet.

  By now, the Army’s 37th Division had arrived and reinforced the perimeter. The 1st Parachute Battalion had also come ashore and temporarily joined the raiders—acting as a core reserve. Two days later, the 2nd Raiders joined in an attack that extended the perimeter several hundred yards to the east, but met little to no opposition.

  On November 29, Company M of the 3rd Raiders reinforced the parachutists for a pre-dawn amphibious assault at Koiari, several miles southeast of the perimeter. The assault should have been a repeat of the successful raid at Tasimboko, but the Marine force came ashore on the edge of a large enemy supply dump. The Japanese quickly reacted, pinning down the Marines with heavy fire. Landing craft sent in to extract the force were driven off twice. It wasn’t until that evening that air, artillery, and naval gunfire support silenced all opposition and the parachutists and raiders got safely back out to sea.

  Army troops flowed into the enlarged perimeter. By December 15, the I Marine Amphibious Corps passed control of the landing force to the Army’s XIV Corps. The Americal Division replaced the 3rd Marine Division who bore the brunt of the fighting.

  For the rest of the month, the 2nd Raiders (Carlson’s Raiders) served as the core reserve. These highly trained assault troops spent most of their time on working parties at the airfield and carrying supplies to the front lines. On December 21, the raiders, reinforced by the 1st Parachute Battalion, assumed the position formally occupied by the 3rd Marines. The Raider Regiment remained there until January 11, 1944, when relieved by an army outfit.

  The next day, raiders boarded transports and sailed to Guadalcanal.

  APD Destroyer Transports

  The origins of the high-speed destroyer transports are vague. The first mention came in the 1st Marine Brigade after-action report on FLEX 3 (Fleet Landing Exercise 3).

  General James Meade suggested in February 1937 that destroyers could solve the dual problem of a shortage of amphibious transports and fire support. Meade wrote: “troops could move quickly into shore and disembark under the protection of the ship’s guns.”

  The Navy agreed and experimented with one of its four-stack, flush-deck destroyers. The Navy had a large number of these leftover from World War I—most in mothballs.

  By November 1938, the Navy reclassified Manley as a miscellaneous auxiliary. After several weeks of swift work in the New York Navy Yard, the Manley became a transport for Marine units in the Caribbean.

  By the fall of 1939, the Manley went back into the Navy Yard for a more extensive conversion. Workers removed one gun, two boilers and their stacks, and all torpedo tubes. This opened a hold amidships for troops and cargo.

  The Chief of Naval Operations wanted the Manley ready for FLEX 6 in early 1940. Company A of the 1/5 Marines was the first unit to use the revamped Manley. Marines used rubber boats to execute their amphibious assault on February 23, 1940, against Culebra in the Caribbean.

  Convinced by the utility of this destroyer transport, Allied command re-designated the Manley again, but this time as the lead ship of a new class: APD-1. This designation signified a high-speed transport. By the end of 1940, the Navy had reactivated five of the Manley’s sister ships and converted them into APDs.

  The Navy left out any amenities for embarked Marines. When Colonel Edson took his Battalion on board the APD squadron in the summer of 1941, the troop compartments were an empty space—no bunks, no ventilation, and three washbasins for 130 Marines. After an enlisted Marine wrote to his congressman, an investigation was started and the billeting spaces were upgraded.

  These original six APDs would be the only ones available as the Navy rushed to convert more in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. When the two raider battalions moved out to the Pacific—so did the APDs. All six ships saw service in the Solomons, but only the Stringham and Manley survived. Enemy bombers sank Colhoun on August 30, 1942, just after transferring a company of the 1st Raiders to Guadalcanal.

  A Japanese destroyer sank the Little and Gregory in the early morning hours of September 5, 1942, after the two transports took part in a reconnaissance of Savo Island with the 1st Raiders.

  On November 17, 1943, an enemy torpedo bomber sank the McKean as she ferried troops to Bougainville. By the end of the Pacific War, the Navy had converted another 133 destroyer escorts and destroyers into APDs.

  Raider Training Center

  In late 1942, the Raider Tra
ining center was created. General Holcomb authorized an increase in the table of organization of the newly formed 4th Raider Battalion. An additional twenty-six enlisted men became the cadre of the center, which officially started at Camp Pendleton, California on February 5, 1943.

  The purpose was to train new men to raider standards and create a pool of qualified replacements for the overseas battalions. Before the training center was established, each raider unit had sought fresh volunteers from other organizations in rear areas, incorporating them into their ranks.

  Most of these young Marines had only rudimentary training in tactics and weapons, so the raiders had to spend a considerable amount of effort on individual instruction. This system was not sustainable to replace casualties during prolonged combat operations.

  The course was eight weeks long. Carlson’s vision of the raiders at first influenced the training program (probably because of Captain Roosevelt’s part in setting up the center). The classes on guerrilla warfare and “individual cookery” were prime examples. The latter was a fixation of Carlson’s—he believed regular infantry relied too heavily on bulky field kitchens. Riverboat operations occupied a significant block of the schedule, as well as a week-long field problem in which the soon-to-be raiders were divided into a main body and guerrilla bands acting as aggressors.