1943 (Kirov Series Book 27)

by John Schettler

  King took the whole plan to Marshall, and in the sly way he had devised, a mix of fiery intransigence and then laying out his suggestion about MacArthur taking over the whole operation on Fiji. Marshall bit, just as he thought, and the Joint Chiefs agreed to the idea. The only obstacle now was MacArthur, and Marshall’s skill as a negotiator became invaluable. He ordered MacArthur to meet him in Pearl Harbor to see if he could hammer out a final agreement.

  “Fiji?” said MacArthur. “We ought to be hitting Noumea with my troops. That will allow us to cover the flank of my move on Papua New Guinea.”

  “True, but we aren’t ready to hit Noumea yet—not with two Japanese divisions and air squadrons behind us on Fiji. Besides, there are political considerations here. When the Japanese took Port Moresby and bombed Darwin, the Australians yanked three divisions out of the Middle East and, lo and behold, we lost Java, Burma, and Ceylon. Now they’ve jumped on Fiji, and folks down in New Zealand are afraid the enemy will be on their doorstep tomorrow morning. They want to recall their 2nd New Zealand Division from North Africa, and that has Churchill all in a tither again. Don’t you see? The New Zealanders see Fiji as their northern shield. If that falls, then what’s to stop the Japs from pushing right down through the Kermadec Islands to Auckland, or even Wellington? By god, from there they would control the Tasman Sea and cut off all shipping to Melbourne and Brisbane. We simply can’t allow that, so we need Fiji before we move any further. The Joint Chiefs agree, and they want you to kick the Japanese behinds out of there.”

  “Me? The Army only has the 23rd Division in that fight. I thought the Marines were going to do the job there.”

  “1st Marine did the heavy lifting,” said Marshall. “They landed in the thick of things last summer and stopped the Japanese push for Suva. Now we have the center and east, but the Japs control the west end of the island. The Joint Chiefs want you to take full authority there and wrap things up.”

  “Including the Marines?”

  “There’s the rub,” said Marshall. “Admiral King wants Nimitz to retain control of the two Marine Divisions.”

  “Dual command? That won’t do at all. It’ll muddle the whole operation up. It’s already bad enough that we have both Army Air Squadrons and Marine Squadrons at Suva.”

  “That can’t be helped. When the carriers pulled out we had to rely on those airfields, and threw every good fighter squadron we had in there.”

  “Why doesn’t King just land the 2nd Marine Division and finish up there, while I plan for Noumea and New Guinea?”

  “Because that would mean we’d have to take the 23rd Division away from you, and probably the 37th as well—unity of command and all…”

  “What? Those are Army Divisions. You can’t seriously be contemplating turning them over to Navy control.”

  “No, what we want is for you to take over. King wants to pull the 1st Marine Division off, and move in the 25th Infantry from Pago Pago. He wants offensive capability for the Navy to threaten the New Hebrides. So here’s what the Joint Chiefs have decided. You’ll take the 23rd, 37th, and 25th. Then pick anything else you have in the nest at Brisbane, and the Navy has agreed to move it to Suva at the first opportunity. You’ll have all the force you need to stomp on the Japanese and wrap this thing up. At the same time, King wants to take his Marines in to go after Efate and Luganville. That flanks Noumea, and then you move from Fiji to take that place. After that, we roll with your plan to move north, but we simply have to clean house on Fiji first. I’ve taken this to the President as well, and he’s approved the whole thing. So that’s the offer. You can either step in now and lead, or I’ll have to turn it over to Nimitz and the Marines. In that case, we can do nothing for you until that operation concludes, and you and all your forces, will just be sitting there in Brisbane twiddling your thumbs for another two or three months.”

  MacArthur frowned. “Yet if we committed those same troops to New Caledonia, Fiji would be bypassed and fall like ripe fruit. They couldn’t supply it any longer.”

  “Says who? That depends on the Navy, and there’s no guarantee we can assure naval control of those sea lanes. The President doesn’t want that. He wants certainty. He wants something more direct. With Churchill foaming at the mouth and New Zealand clamoring for help, would you leave such a strong enemy force unfought in your rear like that?”

  It was an argument MacArthur would once make when the Navy would propose bypassing the Philippines later in the war, and he was silent for a moment, taking a long drag on his iconic pipe. “I’ll have complete authority there?” he asked again.

  “It’ll be your show,” said Marshall. “And your headlines as well.” He smiled.

  “Alright,” said MacArthur. “I’ll agree, but on one condition. After I take Fiji, we go for Noumea as I’ve already planned.”

  “I think I can sell that,” said Marshall.

  So it was decided. Marshall had one the first battle, ending the long simmering rivalry between his Theater Commanders, and now they could finally face the real enemy, Imperial Japan.

  Chapter 2

  The Japanese Operation FS had been a shock to both sides. As it struggled to stop the enemy, the American Navy had been just good enough to inflict serious harm on the Kido Butai, prompting Yamamoto to withdraw his carriers to refit and replenish at Truk and Rabaul. At the same time, Halsey had been hospitalized and Spruance took over with the last two US flattops, Enterprise and Hornet. His orders were to preserve those ships at all costs, and so he would be restricted to light raiding against Japanese supply convoys, and had to withdraw at the approach of any enemy carrier force.

  For their part, the Japanese wanted no further carrier action in late 1942, concentrating on both their northern front in the Sea of Okhotsk, and then in the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean for their highly successful operation to seize Ceylon and drive the British fleet back to Madagascar. In the Fiji Group, they would send one carrier division to watch over supply runs to Nandi Bay, but did not willfully seek out their enemy. All eyes were now on the land battle joined on the big island of Viti Levu, but it did not go as the Japanese had planned and hoped.

  For the Army, the shock of seeing the Sakaguchi Detachment halted as it advanced on Suva from the north, then seeing it pushed back to Tavua by the American Marines, was yet another unexpected development. This was the Army that had overcome 100,000 British and Commonwealth troops in Malaya. Until that last stubborn defense put up by Montgomery on Singapore Island, it had been an unbeatable force in every engagement. Now it found itself retreating from American Marines, the burn of shame hot on the back of Sakaguchi’s neck. This had not happened in the Philippines, or anywhere else. That it happened there on far flung Fiji was most alarming.

  The Army’s reaction was swift and predictable. Yamamoto first thought that they would claim the objective was too distant to adequately support the troops, and then blame the defeat on the Navy, but that was not what happened. Their pride and honor at stake, they doubled down, calling on some of the very same divisions that had delivered those stunning early victories. A single regiment had not been enough they realized. Now, with at least two American Divisions landed in the Fiji Group, they would need a much stronger force to prevail. Sakaguchi was ordered to dig in a little east of Tavua in the north and await reinforcements.

  The 38th Division had taken Hong Kong, the 48th had taken Manila, then both had stormed into the Dutch East Indies, sweeping through Borneo and on to Java. They were quickly sent to the fight, the 38th arriving first, and Army planners smiled to note that the 38th Division, with only two regiments landed on the main island, had nonetheless taken Nandi and pushed south to Queen’s Road, driving the two Fiji Brigades before them as they expected. Then they met the Americans.

  In this instance, it was the 23rd Pacifica Division, certainly every bit as raw and untested as any of the US divisions shipped so hastily to the Pacific Theater. Yet Alexander ‘Sandy’ Patch had his entire outfit, the last regiment sh
ipping in from Tonga, and he had a mission—eliminate all Japanese forces operating in the Fiji Island Group. Before he could do that, he had to show the enemy who was boss on Viti Levu, and used the sheer mass of the force he had in hand to halt the Japanese advance, which was exactly what he did.

  The Japanese reacted by first claiming the 38th Division was lacking its third regiment, and pressed the Navy to deliver. In their eyes, it was the lack of transport shipping, and ill-coordinated maneuvers by the Navy that were the root of the problem. Once ashore, however, there could be no further excuses. The 38th was indeed stopped at the line of the Singatana River, and then, when the Marines had pushed the Sakaguchi Detachment in the north to the point of near collapse, considerable forces had to be withdrawn from the south and sent by rail to hold the line just east of Tavua.

  It was clear that more forces were required, and when the Navy finally delivered the 48th Division, the heroes of Manila relieved the remainder of the 38th Division, and took over defense of the south, but considerable amounts of ground had been yielded in the process. The Americans, with troops closer at hand in New Zealand, Tonga, and Samoa, and a good harbor at Suva Bay, had simply been able to deliver more forces to the island at a critical time to tip the balance in their favor. By the time the whole of the 48th Division was on the island, the Japanese defensive line had been established at Momi Bay on the southwest coast. There they dug in, receiving much needed supplies and waiting for their artillery to be delivered in the final convoys of late December. Now it was time to fight again.

  Strategically, the Japanese only controlled about a third of the island as 1943 dawned. The last month of 1942 had seen the US relieve the 1st Marine Division with the 25th “Tropic Lightning” Division from Pago Pago, and it was now holding the line against General Sano’s 38th, about 10 kilometers east of the airfield and port at Tavua in the north. From there, roads led south into the highlands, where the Japanese had found a valuable resource in the gold mine near Vatukoula, and the General had a full battalion working there to pull whatever they could from the mine and stockpile it at the west coast ports for shipment to Japan. The newly arrived 48th Division held the western third of the island, and those ports were at Lautoka, Nandi, and the smaller landing facilities at Momi Bay.

  General Shuichi Miyazaki, Chief of Staff for 17th Army, had come ashore personally to direct the landings, with his HQ at Lautoka. He reported directly to the Army Commander, General Harukichi Hyakutake in Rabaul. Midway between Tavua and Nandi, Lautoka was connected to both of those sites by the single rail line on the island, a real advantage that the Japanese now possessed in being able to shift forces back and forth from one front to another. The limited rolling stock was therefore a prime target for US planes based at Suva, and many duels were fought over those thin steel rails, with Japanese planes flying from the main field at Nandi. That air duel was a prelude to the ground action that would soon follow, for with the carriers absent, both sides had been relying on land based air power to try and wrest control of the airspace from each other.

  The Japanese had a small field at Tavua, and a better one at M’ba (pronounced ‘Emba’), some miles to the east. Then their main field was at Nandi, where Late December had seen the arrival of better planes and pilots. Rear Admiral Sadayoshi Yamada was leading the Japanese 5th Air Attack Force at far off Noumea on New Caledonia. That was where the Japanese based most of their long-range bombers, but being 825 miles to Suva, the distance to Fiji strained and limited their operations. For this reason, the Japanese were now looking at the New Hebrides as better sites to bring in their G3M Rikko bombers, (the Nell), and the reliable G4M Hamaki, which meant Leaf Roll, due to the shape of the plane’s rounded fuselage. The allies simply called it the Betty. Efate was only 660 miles from Suva Bay, a much easier ride for those bombers.

  On the main Fiji Group island of Viti Levu, the Japanese now had some of their very best aviators in the Tainan Kokutai Group. That unit was flush with many of Japan’s top aces, Hiroyoshi Nishizawa with 36 kills and many more assists that pushed his total to 87, Saburō Sakai with 28, (though Sakai himself claimed 64). Toshio Ōta got 34 enemy planes, and Junichi Sasai, Japan’s ‘Flying Tiger,’ had 27 kills. By late December, eighteen more Zeroes had come with them to relieve the cumbersome A5M Claude fighters that had been slowly outclassed as the Marine squadrons arrived near Suva. More fighters were moving down the Solomons to Tulagi, intending to continue on to Fiji.

  For their part, the Americans had decided they would not try to rely on the airfield near Suva, and looked to the big island northwest, Vanua Levu, where a big effort had been made to build air bases the last three months of 1942. There were new fields at Bua on the western end of that island, at Lambasa in the center, at Savu Savu in the south, and Natewa in the east. Fields were also thrown up at Katherine Bay on the small Rambi Island, and at Matei on the larger Taveuni Island. Some were just small “dispersal” fields where planes could deploy or land if the main fields were hit too hard by the enemy, and they were mostly waiting to receive their planes to flesh out the squadrons building up in the region. But collectively, they provided that unsinkable aircraft carrier on station 24/7, and a means of contesting or controlling the air space over Fiji.

  In the old history, the initial buildup of planes on Guadalcanal’s Henderson Field had been called the “Cactus Air Force” because of the Allied code word “Cactus” for that island. In this history, the code name for Fiji was “Fantan,” and so the early Allied air command over the islands was now simply “Fantan Force.”

  Conditions on Fiji were far superior to those the Marine aviators faced on Guadalcanal. There they lived in muddy tents in a Coconut plantation they came to call “Mosquito Grove.” Fantan Force enjoyed far more plush accommodations in Suva, where the off-duty pilots could even get berthings at the Grand Pacific Hotel overlooking the stunning beaches. In addition to the main airfield at Nasouri near Suva, the Seabees had also hammered out a new field to the north where 1st Marine Division had been using Viti Levu Bay as its logistical base. Lighters and local steamers would come and go there with supplies, and so a field was built near Korovou south of the bay to provide rapid air cover. That, if anything, was the Henderson Field for the Marines on this island, a more wild and undeveloped region, with more Spartan conditions.

  The Japanese had those three good airfields to the west, and so every day, just after noon, the main US fields would be visited by the enemy, and little fighter duels would be fought over the eastern end of the island. If the fields got hit particularly hard, Marine flyers would make it a point of honor to go in and hit the Japanese back, bombing and strafing for a little payback.

  Commander, Aircraft, Fiji, or ComAirFANTAN was General Roy Geiger, who arrived in September of 1942 to set up the 1st Marine Air Wing. That was the one bone that King had also thrown to MacArthur. He could command those units until the Navy needed them, or suitable Army Air Squadrons could be brought in to replace them. A tough and demanding officer, Geiger pulled the sometimes vigilante temperament of the Marine flyers together very quickly. There were some good men under his command, including “Smoky Joe” Foss, who would get 26 kills in the war. Pappy Boyington would later join the group as well and lead his legendary “Black Sheep Squadron.”

  Even as planes on either side were being drawn to this theater, both sides were also now committing the bulk of all the ground forces they had available in theater. The Americans had completed the shipment of the 25th Tropic Lightning Division from Hawaii to relieve the 1st USMC Division as Nimitz wanted. The last convoys were harassed by the Japanese A5M Claude fighters trying to bomb them with little result.

  The American plan was a simple one. Sandy Patch and his 23rd would drive up Queen’s Road in the south towards Nandi, and Collins in the North would take his 25th Tropic Lightning Division along King’s Road, through Tavua to M’ba. The Corps commander MacArthur had selected, General Krueger, wanted one more division behind the 25th up north, but it di
d not look like anything would get there in time. The expedient would be to take one of the three Regiments from the 37th Division on Vanua Levu, and use it as his reserve. In effect, he was making the 25th a Square Division again, as he saw that front as the more difficult mission.

  General Joseph Lawton Collins would walk the King’s Road, a man with a no-nonsense disposition, hard driving spirit, and excellent skills as an administrator. Collins had his troops out on the slopes of Oahu, training hard from the moment he took command. As he was setting up his Unit Codes, he hung the name “Lightning Joe” on his own Division HQ post, and the name stuck to him ever thereafter.

  * * *

  When General Krueger had his farewell conference with Marine Commander Vandegrift at Suva to plan the redisposition of forces, he put his finger squarely on the round heart of the island, and made a fateful pronouncement. “This is the war here,” he said. “They’ve dumped virtually everything they have onto this island, and so will we. Whoever wins this thing is going to win this war, and that has to be us. How soon will fresh forces from Australia come up?”

  “As soon as MacArthur makes his pick of the litter,” said Vandegrift. He’s got the 32nd, 38th and 41st down there, but for my money I’d ask for the 6th or 7th Australian Divisions. Those men have some hard fighting under their belts and they know what they’re doing. We’ll be facing some equally tough troops here. We were up against Sano’s 38th up north. They call it the ‘Swamp’ Division, a good name for it I suppose. The whole area near Tavua has a lot of Mangrove swamps off the coast. Those are the bastards that took Hong Kong, then they moved them into the Java invasion that eventually ran Montgomery off that island.”

  Krueger nodded. “Then I’ll want two more divisions, one up north to work with the 25th, and one down south behind the 23rd. That’ll double team them at both ends of the island, and we can make our push.”