Challenge for the Pacific

by Robert Leckie

  On the morning of August 19, Brush led his patrol of eighty men eastward from the Tenaru. Shortly after noon, his advance scouts caught sight of the Ichiki wiremen moving slowly westward. Brush attacked.

  He pinned the enemy down while Lieutenant Joseph Jachym led a squad off to the right and took up a position in the Japanese left rear. The Marines then struck the enemy front and rear with converging automatic fire. In a fight of about an hour’s length Brush’s men killed thirty-one Japanese while three others escaped into the jungle. Three Marines were killed and three wounded.

  Sensing something unusual in the enemy patrol, Brush posted security and personally searched the bodies. He found, for the first time, helmets marked with the Japanese Army star rather than with the Navy’s chrysanthemum. He found an unusual number of officers among the dead. Four carried swords and field glasses, wore polished boots and were clad in neatly pressed uniforms decorated by rows of campaign ribbons. Brush rifled their map cases. He was astonished. Although the maps’ markings were in Japanese they were startlingly clear and they pinpointed the Tenaru line’s weak points with appalling accuracy.

  Brush withdrew and made his report to Colonel Cates’s headquarters. General Vandegrift was notified. Some of his staff advised him to push rapidly eastward to surprise this new enemy. Vandegrift demurred. His mission was to hold the airfield. But he did order immediate strengthening of the Tenaru flank, and Colonel del Valle’s artillerymen quickly “zeroed-in” on every point along the line.

  The evening of that momentous August 19, unknown to Vandegrift and his Marines, President Franklin Roosevelt radioed Joseph Stalin: “We have gained, I believe, a toehold in the Southwest Pacific from which the Japanese will find it very difficult to dislodge us. We have had substantial naval losses there, but the advantage gained was worth the sacrifice and we are going to maintain hard pressure on the enemy.”10

  If Admiral Robert Ghormley back in Nouméa had seen the Chief Executive’s cable he probably would have been astounded at its optimism—for Admiral Ghormley had already gotten off pessimistic dispatches to Nimitz and King—and if Admiral Yamamoto to the north in Truk had seen it, he would have dismissed it as typical of American soft-soap salesmen.

  That American toe, as Yamamoto confidently expected, was about to be squashed flat by Operation Ka.

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  KA, the first syllable of the Japanese word for Guadalcanal, was the code name for the joint Army-Navy plan to recapture that island. Colonel Ichiki’s force—the 900 already on Guadalcanal and the remaining 1500 still steaming down The Slot—represented the Army’s contribution. It was to be supported by much the greater part of Yamamoto’s Combined Fleet.

  Since August 7, the admiral had been gathering ships from all over Greater East Asia. Within about a dozen days—or at least by the time Captain Brush’s Marines had met and destroyed the Ichiki patrol—there were three aircraft carriers gathered around Truk,* supported by three battleships, five cruisers, eight destroyers, one seaplane carrier, and numerous auxiliary ships. To this could be added Admiral Tsukahara’s Rabaul force composed of one hundred planes of the Eleventh Air Fleet and four cruisers and five destroyers of Admiral Mikawa’s Eighth Fleet.

  Combined Fleet’s carrier aircraft were to clear Solomons waters of all American surface ships.

  Eleventh Air Fleet’s planes were to hammer Marine positions on Guadalcanal by day.

  Mikawa’s ships—the Tokyo Express—were to batter the Marines by night.

  All of this was in support of 2400 troops: it was a whale backing up a weasel. But it was typically Japanese, and it reflected, once again, the Army’s unshakable conviction that there could not be more than a few thousand Americans on Guadalcanal, and the Navy’s fixed determination to lure out and destroy the American fleet.

  Moreover, General Hyakutake had given Colonel Ichiki orders which permitted him to attack immediately, without waiting for anyone to move, if he saw fit. And Ichiki, on August 19, had already decided to attack. The weasel would strike without waiting for the whale.

  To the south of Guadalcanal a flying whale was fighting a flying elephant.

  A huge four-engined Kawanishi flying boat homeward bound for the Shortlands after scouting American waters had blundered into a Flying Fortress returning to Espiritu Santo after scouting Japanese waters.

  Captain Walter Lucas brought his more-maneuverable Fort up under the Kawanishi’s belly. The American’s guns began stuttering. The Japanese began to weave from side to side to bring the American within range of his 20-mm tail cannon. Captain Lucas whipped his big plane broadside to the lumbering Kawanishi’s tail. Sergeant Vernon Nelson in the Fort’s waist triggered a killing stream of bullets into the enemy tail gun.

  Lucas cut in sharper. The big Kawanishi weaved away. Now on this side, now on that side, these great groaning mastodons of the sky fought each other. They turned and twisted for twenty-five minutes, until, at last, the Kawanishi broke off to flee and the Fort bored in to kill.

  Nelson and Sergeant Chester Malizeski shot out three of the Kawanishi’s engines, and the whale went down for a water landing near an island. Lucas pursued. He brought his winged elephant in low over the taxiing whale, and Sergeant Edward Spetch, another gunner who had so far failed to fire a shot, caught the enemy full in his sights, pressed the trigger and watched him blow up and burn.

  It was August 20, a date to remember for men accustomed to the dull routine of aerial reconnaissance.

  American reconnaissance—plus reports from Australian coastwatchers—had warned Admiral Ghormley of the impending Ka Operation. Ghormley ordered Vice-Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher to protect the Solomon sea lanes with the three-carrier force he had withdrawn from Guadalcanal. A fourth carrier, Hornet, with her supporting cruisers and destroyers, left Hawaii to join them. Meanwhile, new battleships Washington and South Dakota, together with the antiaircraft cruiser Juneau and escorting destroyers, were ordered from the East Coast through the Panama Canal.

  Admiral King was preparing for a showdown battle at Guadalcanal. He was deliberately pushing in the blue chips. Like all of the other high commanders, King was aware that in mid-August of 1942 the entire war had come to crisis. Everywhere—in Russia, in North Africa, in the North Atlantic, in the Pacific—the enemy was on the verge of triumphant breakthrough. Stalin was clamoring for more supplies, so was Britain’s General Montgomery in Egypt, the Bolero build-up was still going forward, and Churchill and Roosevelt had agreed to massive Allied landings in North Africa. What claim could Guadalcanal advance among such lofty preferences and priorities? Alone among the high commanders, Admiral Ernest King considered Guadalcanal paramount and urgent.

  On Guadalcanal the Marines holding the Tenaru line had also sensed that a critical time had come. From the first light of August 20, the Second Battalion, First, under Lieutenant Colonel Al Pollock had been busy fortifying the west bank of the river.

  Actually, the Tenaru* was not a river but a backwater. It flowed sluggishly north to the sea, but was barred from entering it by a broad sandspit. The sandspit was like a bridge across the river and was thus the focal weak point. Here Pollock concentrated most of his machine guns and rifles and a 37-mm antitank gun dug in behind a single strand of barbed wire strung across the sandspit. Pollock also had 81-mm mortars, of course, and the guns of the Eleventh Marines behind them.

  Next, Pollock decided to extend his right flank. He ordered a group of riflemen to take up positions south along the river, and he pulled machine guns off the beach to support them.

  Among the riflemen was Phil Chaffee and among the gunners were Lucky and Lew Juergens and their comrades Bud Conley and Bill Smith. Grumbling, they broke down their guns. Juergens spread-eagled that heavy iron instrument of torture known as the tripod across his back and Lucky hefted the gun on his shoulder. The others grasped the water cans and ammunition boxes and moved out.

  They passed the sandspit and saw that outposts had been stationed a
t its eastern end. Men were carefully sandbagging the antitank gun. There were piles of cylinders heaped behind the gun’s wheels.

  “Canister,” Lucky explained. “The canisters are made of wax and filled with steel balls. When they’re fired the wax melts and the shots spray all over the place. It’s like a shotgun, only with ball-bearings instead of bee-bees.”

  “Goddlemighty damn, Lucky,” Smith snorted. “A feller could git kilt in this war.”1

  They laughed and trudged along the river bank. A hundred yards to the south they came to a machine-gun dugout. Johnny Rivers and Al Schmid had their gun outside the dugout and were oiling it. There was a shamrock painted on the gun’s water jacket for Schmid and the word Chief for Johnny. Schmid got up and limped toward them.

  “Hey, Smitty,” Juergens called, “what’n hell’s wrong with you?”

  “The rot,” Schmid said sourly. “The doc says I got blood poisoning from it. He says I gotta go in the hospital tomorrow if I don’t want to lose my leg.”2

  They shook their heads in commiseration and toiled on. Almost everyone on the island had “Guadalcanal rot,” a fungus infection resulting from humidity and the habit of sleeping in shoes and socks, fully clad, which the visits of the Tokyo Express had induced. Most of them had dysentery, too, and a few were already down with malaria.

  Passing a bend about 150 yards upstream from Schmid and Rivers, the men came to the gunsite chosen by Gunny Blalock. They put down the guns. Although they had two of them, there was time to dig only one emplacement. Sweat poured from their bodies as they dug. It made sodden ropes of their belts. Mosquitoes and ants bit like fire and flies landed on their festering fungus sores to feed on pus and increase infection. From the coconut groves to their left they could hear axes ringing. But there was no time to cut logs to roof their own dugout. They would do that tomorrow. Behind them shadows were lengthening and the sun was sinking beyond the groves of coconuts across the river, when, suddenly, directly overhead they heard the sound of airplane motors.

  They scattered.

  Then someone shouted:

  “They’re ours!”

  It was true. The airplanes had red-white-and-blue stars painted on their wings and fuselages. Slew McCain had delivered. In the last hours of sunlight little Long Island—a carrier converted from the motor ship Macmormail—had stood southeast of San Cristoval and flown off twelve Marine Dauntlesses under Major Richard Mangrum and nineteen Marine Wildcats commanded by Captain John Smith.

  Two of the planes deliberately circled Henderson Field and Vandegrift’s perimeter for all of their comrades of the foot Marines to see, and the men ran whooping and cheering along the ridges and river banks and beaches, punching each other joyfully and hurling bloodthirsty threats into the no-man’s-land occupied by the invisible foe.

  Across the Tenaru, Mr. Ishimoto heard the motors and paused momentarily in his interrogation of Sergeant Major Vouza.

  Vouza had gone on his patrol carrying a miniature American flag given to him as a souvenir. On the twentieth he became uneasy about it. He hid it beneath his lap-lap and made for the village of Volonavua, where he intended to hide it, and he blundered into a company of Japanese.

  They seized him and brought him before Colonel Ichiki. Ishimoto was there. He watched while the Japanese tore off Vouza’s lap-lap and he smiled evilly when the little rolled flag tumbled to the ground. Speaking in pidgin, Ishimoto began his interrogation.

  But Vouza refused to answer. He remained silent and defiant. The Japanese hustled Vouza to a tree. They bound him with straw ropes. They battered him with the butts of their rifles. They jabbed him with bayonets. Groaning, blood pouring from his wounds, Vouza sagged against the ropes. At last came the coup de grâce. A soldier stabbed Vouza in the throat.

  At dusk, the Japanese departed. They moved into position for the attack. Although Colonel Ichiki had discovered that there were more Americans on Guadalcanal than he had been led to believe, he was still confident that he could push through them and capture the airfield.

  Vouza was not dead. He awoke in darkness. His chest was sticky with blood. He could feel the cut beside his tongue where the enemy steel had entered. Yet, he was alive. He must warn the Americans. He began biting the ropes that bound him. He felt himself weakening from pain and loss of blood. He chewed on. Finally, the ropes parted. Vouza slumped to the ground and began crawling west.

  It was dark along the Tenaru. Only the faint light of stars glinted on the river’s black surface.

  In the center of the line Al Schmid lay on his blanket with mosquitoes droning in his ears and his leg throbbing with pain. He wondered if he would have to leave his buddies. One of them had promised to “cook it” out of him, saying: “When we get up I’ll get some salt water and heat it up in the pot, and you put your foot in there when it’s boiling hot. That’ll draw the goddam lump down.”3 Now, Schmid felt waves of heat pass through his body. Then he felt cold and began to shiver. Did he have malaria, too?

  Farther to the right Lucky and Juergens sat on sentry duty outside the unfinished gunpit—a gaping black square in the dark night—peering at the river between them and the coconut grove. From far to their left came the gentle murmur of the sea. Suddenly a strange rippling V appeared to their right moving downstream. Two greenish orbs were at its center. It was a crocodile, and a Marine on their right whooped and fired at it. It dove and disappeared.

  “Goddam, Lew,” Lucky whispered, glancing uneasily at the coconuts, “I could stand a cigarette.”

  “They’d spot it, Lucky. Anyway, those Jap butts taste like they’re half tobacco and half horseshit.”

  “You ask me, Lew, they’re a hundred per cent horseshit.”4

  Suddenly there were lights swinging and bumping across the river. The two Marines were astounded.

  “Who goes there?” Juergens bellowed.

  The lights bumped on.

  “Who goes there? Answer, or I’ll let you have it!”5

  The lights went out.

  Now all of the men on the right flank were excited and awake. They crowded about the gunpit, speculating, searching the darkness with straining eyes.

  Sometimes Vouza was able to walk and make better time. He lurched along the trail, yet sure of every step; for Vouza had been born on Guadalcanal and knew the trails as they can only be known by a man who has spent his boyhood on them. At other times, though, Vouza was so weak he had to crawl. When this happened he wanted to weep. He was sure that he was dying and he wanted to live only long enough to warn the Americans of the impending attack.

  Just before midnight, perhaps a half mile from the Tenaru, Vouza blundered into Marine outposts.

  “Me Vouza,” he called. “Me Sergeant Major Vouza.”

  Warily, they let him approach. He began to blurt out his tale, and they carried him to Colonel Pollock’s command post.

  By the time Vouza reached Pollock, the battalion’s outposts had detected enemy to their front. They exchanged rifle fire. Pollock gave them permission to withdraw and turned to deal with the bleeding, gasping native who had come to warn him.

  “How many Japs?” Pollock asked sharply.

  “Maybe two hundred-fifty, maybe five hundred,” Vouza gasped.6

  Round numbers were enough for Pollock, and he wheeled to call Regiment to send down Martin Clemens, for whom the dying man kept calling, and at that moment a flare rose from the river bank and the Ichiki charge began.

  Colonel Ichiki had gathered his nine hundred men in the woods east of the sandspit. He was going to hurl about five hundred of them across the sandspit. After they had broken through, he would pour more of his men through the gap. At some time around half past one in the morning of August 21,7 the Ichiki shock troops began gathering in the shallows. Their mortars fell on Marine lines. Nambu light machine guns spoke with a snapping sound. Heavier automatics chugged. And then, silhouetted against the sea by the eerie swaying light of a flare, the Ichikis charged.

  They came sprinting and howl
ing and firing their rifles, and the Marines were ready for them. Like a train of powder, the American lines flashed alight. Machine guns spat long lines of curving tracers. Grenades exploded in orange balls. Rifles cracked and their muzzles winked white like fireflies. Mortar shells plopped smoothly from their tubes, rising silent and unseen until they had climbed the night sky and fallen among the enemy with flashing yellow crashes that shook the earth. Everywhere were tongues and streaks and sparks, orange and white, red and yellow, and the night was herself a slashed and crisscrossed thing. Everywhere also was the counterpointing of the guns, the wail of battle, the mad orchestration of death—and running through it all like a dreadful fugue came the regular wham! of the antitank gun spewing out its mouthfuls of death.

  In the center Al Schmid had rolled out of his sleep and come crawling into the gunpit. Johnny Rivers was already at the trigger, his helmet on. Corporal Lee Diamond burst inside. He began pushing sandbags away from the gun so that they could fire it into the water if the enemy tried to swim. Rivers saw a dark, bobbing mass on the opposite shore. It looked like cows coming down to the river to drink. “Fire!” Diamond yelled, and Rivers’ gun began to stutter and shake. With screams and movement, the crowd broke up.

  To the right Lucky and Juergens had seized their unemplaced gun and were triggering short bursts at the sound of movement in the coconuts. They moved the gun up and down the riverbank to give the impression of massed weapons, to confuse the enemy whose tracers came gliding out of the black toward them.

  Down at the sandspit the barrel of the antitank gun glowed red in the dark. It cut swathes in the ranks of the enemy still pouring to the attack; squad after squad, platoon after platoon, running low with outthrust bayonets, gurgling “Banzai! Banzai!” But the short squat shapes were falling. Singly, in pairs, sometimes in whole squad groups, the antitank’s canister sickled them to the sand. Banzais changed to shrill screams of pain or the hoarser trailing cries of death. Now a grenade sailed into the antitank position. It exploded in a flashing roar. The gun fell silent. But a squad of riflemen leaped into the pit and the gun glowed red again.