Hell in the Pacific: A Marine Rifleman's Journey From Guadalcanal to Peleliu

by Jim McEnery

The division was sure as hell in no shape to actually fight anybody at this point. All the companies were shorthanded, and none of them had functioning machine gun or mortar sections. We were short of everything, and what equipment we did have was left over from World War I. Those of us in the Fifth were called the “raggedy-ass Marines,” and we lived up to—or down to—that description.

  By the time the Japs hit Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Corps was growing at a frenzied pace, and the raid on Pearl kicked it into an even higher gear. On April 10, 1942, the Seventh Marines—with Remi Balduck among them—sailed for American Samoa to defend it against an expected attack by the Jap “supermen,” who couldn’t seem to be stopped anywhere.

  Just a day before the Seventh Marines left the States, our forces on Bataan—over 70,000 American and Filipino troops—had surrendered to the Japs. This left only our guys on Corregidor still holding out, and in less than month, they’d have to surrender, too.

  I can’t tell you how much I admired those guys for the stand they put up. But my biggest heroes were the few hundred Marines on Wake Island who held out against a huge Jap force for sixteen days. They fought off a whole enemy invasion fleet and sank or damaged a bunch of enemy ships. I swore right then that I’d do everything I could to uphold the high standards they’d set for the rest of us in the Corps.

  The British were catching it even worse in the Pacific than the Americans were. After they lost 180,000 troops at Singapore, Prime Minister Winston Churchill told President Franklin Roosevelt that “Fighting the Japanese soldier on land is like jumping into a pool full of sharks.”

  THE FIFTH MARINES were about to be next to take that jump.

  On May 17, 1942, we went aboard the USS Wakefield, a refitted passenger liner formerly called the SS Manhattan. Three days later, we sailed out of Norfolk with a cruiser and four destroyers shielding us from German U-boats. We headed south through the Atlantic and the Caribbean, then took a hard right at the Panama Canal.

  As we steamed southwest across the endless expanse of the Pacific, our cruiser and destroyers were nowhere in sight. We had six PT boats as an escort for three days. Then they disappeared, too. We were on our own.

  Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift, commander of the First Marine Division, and his whole division headquarters battalion were aboard the Wakefield. So we got the idea that—escort or no escort—wherever we were going was pretty damn important.

  On June 14, after riding out a fierce storm in mid-Pacific, we docked at Wellington, New Zealand, where, it was announced, we were to train for six months.

  Twelve days later, on June 26, the division received its orders: “Occupy and defend Tulagi and adjacent positions on Guadalcanal, Florida, and Santa Cruz Islands.”

  Our debarkation date was initially set for August 1. Then it was grudgingly moved back to August 7.

  So, instead of having six months to get ready for the first U.S. offensive ground action of the Pacific war, we were actually getting just six weeks—including travel time.

  And that, in so many words, is how I happened to be in that godforsaken place called Guadalcanal.

  Along with the rest of K/3/5, I’d be there for a little over four months. They were four months that seemed more like four years.

  When they were over, a lot of the guys I’d shared foxholes and swapped stories with were dead, and those of us who managed to leave Guadalcanal alive would never be the same again.

  If there was any kid left in me, I lost him right there.

  DISASTER AT SEA, SLAUGHTER ASHORE

  AT FIRST LIGHT on August 8 (D-Day-plus-1), Lieutenant Adams got the word from K Company headquarters and passed it along to everybody in the First Platoon. “The whole company’s going on a recon patrol as a unit,” he said. “We’ll check out the area to our immediate front. If everything looks okay, we may form a new line farther west.”

  The first thought that popped into my head was: Oh crap, sounds like we’re in for more digging!

  About 9 AM, we moved out and proceeded very cautiously to the southwest. Despite the fact that our mission was supposed to be strictly reconnaissance and not combat, we were all on high alert. But we still didn’t see or hear any sign of enemy ground activity.

  We advanced maybe 1,500 yards, using the undergrowth and coconut palms for cover and staying within sight of the beach. After that, we stopped for a break, then started retracing our path back toward our original defense line.

  We were nearly there when a formation of Jap Zeros and Betty bombers suddenly showed up.

  It was about 12:30 PM, almost exactly the same time as the first Nip air raid the day before. The Zeros were flying real low, and this time we had enough sense to either take cover or hit the deck where we were. But just like on the first raid, these planes didn’t have the slightest interest in us. They were looking for bigger game out in Sealark Channel.

  They never slowed down or gave us a second look, but one of the Zeros flew directly over me, and I swear he wasn’t over fifteen or twenty feet above the tops of some of the coconut palms.

  For a second, I could see the pilot as clear as if he was sitting across a table from me. He was the first Jap I’d ever gotten a close look at. He was wearing goggles, so I couldn’t see his eyes, but the grin on his face looked like it was a foot wide.

  So this is what a Jap looks like, I thought. I wonder if the ones on the ground look the same way.

  The bombers did a little better job this time around than they had on their first raid. They brought the unloading of our supply ships to a standstill and scored a major hit on the USS George Elliott, a transport carrying most of the supplies intended for the Second Battalion, First Marines. They left the Elliott blazing from stem to stern. It was damaged too bad to be saved and finally had to be scuttled.

  Except for that, nothing much happened on our patrol that second morning. We did manage to pick up a few supplies off the beach, but otherwise it was a dry run. By 1 PM, we were back at our original line and still waiting to see something happen on the ground.

  WHILE WE WERE patrolling the beach, the First Marines were moving toward the airfield. Along the way, they made a couple of very important discoveries.

  For one thing, the jungle undergrowth was almost impenetrable in some places. You could chop at it for hours and never seem to make any headway. There were giant trees in it with trunks as tough as steel and as wide as a tank was long with vines as thick as a man’s thigh wrapped around them.

  For another thing, the maps we’d been given were all fouled up. They weren’t worth a damn for anything, except maybe toilet paper. If you tried to follow them, you were sure to get lost.

  The First Marines’ mission that day of seizing the airfield was a lot more critical than ours was in K/3/5. But because of the thick jungle and bad maps, the First got seriously bogged down on the way to their objective. That “Grassy Knoll” they were supposed to use as a landmark was actually a mountain named Mount Austen. It was four or five miles from where the maps showed it, and the area they were trying to march through was crisscrossed with rivers and streams that didn’t show up on the maps at all.

  Because of the delays, it was 4 PM by the time the First got the airfield secured, but what they found when they got there was real encouraging. The work the Japs had been doing on the field was almost finished. That meant our planes might be able to start flying missions from it in about a week, which was good news. The Marines also captured a lot of heavy equipment and supplies the Japs had left behind. They even took some prisoners, but most of them turned out to be Korean construction workers, not actual Nip combat troops.

  The Koreans didn’t have any great love for the Japs because they’d been brought to Guadalcanal by force and then had to work their butts off carving that airfield out of the jungle. So the Koreans didn’t mind a bit telling our intelligence people everything they knew about how many Japs were on the island and where they’d gone. As a result, we got some very interesting informat
ion before the day was over.

  According to the Koreans, there was nowhere near the 5,000 Nip troops—including a regiment of 2,100 infantry—we’d been told to expect on Guadalcanal. Except for two naval construction battalions with a total of around 1,800 men, there were actually fewer than 500 enemy combat soldiers there. And when our planes and ships started blasting the island, those had panicked and hauled ass to the west as fast as they could go.

  What it added up to was the Marines’ first victory on Guadalcanal. But we knew it was way too early to celebrate, and we didn’t have time to do much of that, anyway.

  After the news about the small number of Japs on the island reached Fifth Marines headquarters, Colonel Hunt got orders to contract our beachhead and advance west toward where the Japs were supposed to be. There was a road near the beach we could follow, and we were supposed to leave early the next morning, D-plus-2. En route, we were told to check out a village called Kukum and flush out any Japs that might be hiding there.

  Suddenly, everything started looking a lot simpler—and easier—than it had that morning. We felt like we’d gotten a big break. All we had to do now to finish our job on Guadalcanal was find and take care of those few hundred Jap combat troops and get the airfield into operation. Then we could kiss this damn island goodbye and turn it over to the Army.

  Boy, it looks like we’ve got this one made! we thought.

  We never stopped to consider what might happen if the Japs launched an all-out naval attack on our ships in Sealark Channel. In two major air raids, they’d only put one of our ships out of commission, and we heard they’d lost twenty-five or thirty planes in the bargain. So with all the firepower our task force had available, we just assumed it wouldn’t have much problem holding the Nip navy at bay.

  But, my God, were we ever wrong!

  On the night of August 8–9—before K/3/5 and the rest of the Third Battalion, Fifth, even got started on our new assignment—a powerful strike force of enemy ships left the Jap base at Rabaul and slipped down a sea lane through the Solomon Islands called the Slot. An hour or so before midnight, they attacked the task force of Allied cruisers and destroyers supporting our landings. Then all hell broke loose.

  Those of us ashore thought at first it was a great American victory. That’s how out of touch we were. We cheered like crazy when we saw the big guns flashing and heard the explosions far out in the channel. We were convinced our Navy brothers were giving the Japs an ass-kicking they’d never forget.

  Instead, what we were watching was the worst American naval defeat since Pearl Harbor.

  BY LATE AFTERNOON on August 9, D-plus-2, we found out what really happened. As I remember hearing it, it went like this:

  After the Jap air raid on August 8, Admiral Frank J. Fletcher, commander of the carrier task force providing air cover for the Guadalcanal operation, received some news that got him seriously worried. Reliable reports from Navy reconnaissance pilots to the northwest warned Fletcher about that large, mean-looking Jap strike force that was headed our way.

  Fletcher notified Admiral Richmond K. Turner, the man in charge of the landings on Guadalcanal and the other islands, and told him that all U.S. aircraft carriers supporting the landings were going to be withdrawn that night. Fletcher said the carriers had to leave because they’d lost a bunch of planes and their supply of gasoline was running low.

  But the main reason Fletcher was pulling his carriers out was this new threat from the approaching Jap strike force. Plus, there were other reports that a flock of Jap submarines was heading into the area.

  Admiral Turner wasn’t happy at all when he found out what was about to happen. In effect, he told Fletcher, “Hey, I’m not leaving my transports here as sitting ducks if you bug out and take away all our air cover.”

  Unless Fletcher changed his mind by 6 AM on August 9, Turner said he was ordering all his supply ships to safer waters, and they wouldn’t be back till they were guaranteed to have air support. Whatever hadn’t been unloaded by the time they left would just have to go with the ships.

  At this point, close to half of the First Marine Division’s total supplies and equipment were still aboard those ships in the channel. So you can imagine how upset General Vandegrift, our division commander, was when Turner broke the news to him at a meeting that night on Turner’s flagship, the attack transport USS McCauley.

  Vandegrift stayed aboard the McCauley arguing with Turner till almost midnight. The general said later he was “most alarmed” by Turner’s decision. He said he did everything he could to make Turner realize what a disaster it would be for the Marines ashore if the transports pulled out half-unloaded and with several Marine units still aboard. But Turner refused to budge. He wouldn’t change his mind.

  Vandegrift felt like the Marines were being sold out—and rightly so—but Turner did have a point. If he hung around long enough to finish the job, he could lose every transport in the convoy. But his decision to pull out sure played hell with our hopes of making short work of the Guadalcanal campaign.

  Fletcher took a lot of flak later on for not keeping his air cover in place, but maybe he had a point, too. The Navy had already lost one carrier at Midway and another one in the Battle of the Coral Sea, and Fletcher was scared shitless of losing a third one. If he had, it would’ve left only three U.S. carriers in the whole Pacific and given the Japs a big edge in naval airpower.

  Still, it was pretty damn obvious that Fletcher thought more of his carriers than he did of the Marines he was leaving marooned in the middle of enemy territory.

  As it happened, it was our fighting ships, not our transports, that took a battering from the Japs on the night of August 8–9 in what came to be called the Battle of Savo Island. Savo is a round chunk of land near the west end of Sealark Channel and about ten miles off the northwestern tip of Guadalcanal.

  The Japs sank three of our heavy cruisers, the Vincennes, Astoria, and Quincy, and one Australian heavy cruiser, the Canberra, that night. A fourth U.S. heavy cruiser, the Chicago, was badly damaged, along with two of our destroyers, the Patterson and Ralph Talbot. A total of 1,077 American and Allied sailors and Marines were killed, and another 700 were wounded.

  For some unknown reason, another damaged U.S. destroyer, the Jarvis, limped away alone from the Savo Island battle that night. I guess the Jarvis’s captain had lost radio contact with the rest of the ships and was just trying to get the hell out of there.

  Anyway, early on the afternoon of August 9, the Jarvis was spotted and sunk by Jap planes 130 miles southwest of Savo. None of her 160-man crew lived to tell about it, and nobody ever knew what happened to her until after the war.

  Only three enemy ships—all cruisers—were even hit during the battle, and the damage they suffered was strictly the easy-to-repair kind. Jap casualties were just fifty-eight killed and seventy wounded.

  After that terrible night, the brass changed the name of Sealark Channel to Iron Bottom Sound—for obvious reasons. Its floor was now paved with the wreckage of our ships.

  THE ONLY THING that didn’t go the Japs’ way that night was that, by some good maneuvering and maybe a small miracle, Admiral Turner’s transports, which were most likely the Jap strike force’s main target, got away clean.

  I found out later that as soon as Turner heard gunfire that night he ordered his ships to quit unloading and weigh anchor, and within five minutes they were all under way. To Turner’s credit, though, his ships stayed in the area the rest of the night and part of the next day while he begged Admiral Fletcher again for air support that never came.

  Visibility in the channel was close to zero that night, and Turner managed to stay out of harm’s way by keeping his ships circling in the dense fog. The next morning, after the Jap strike force withdrew, his crews were able to unload quite a few supplies on Tulagi.

  But any hope Turner had of unloading more stuff on Guadalcanal ended late on the afternoon of August 9, when he got reports of a huge flight of Jap bombers headed
his way. About sunset, he gathered up his transports and sailed south as fast as he could go. He didn’t stop till he got to the port of Noumea on the island of New Caledonia.

  In case you’re not too familiar with the geography of the South Pacific, New Caledonia lies off the east coast of Australia and more than 1,100 miles southeast of Guadalcanal.

  There was no way we were going to see anything else of Turner’s ships and the supplies they carried for a long, long time. We were being left high and dry, like they say.

  In The Old Breed, author George McMillan’s classic history of the First Marine Division, he put it this way: “The only sign of the American Navy the men of the First Division got on the morning of August 9 was the sight of burning and damaged ships. And this was more than they were to get for many mornings after that.”

  That report on the Jap bombers turned out to be a false alarm, by the way. They never showed up.

  ONCE WE FOUND out what had really happened in the big navy battle, our confidence sank down to about the same depth as those sunken hulks in Iron Bottom Sound. Less than a day before, we’d thought we were almost home free. Now we knew we were in trouble up to our eyeballs.

  The ships and planes of our Navy had disappeared and left us stranded on Guadalcanal with barely enough supplies to survive on. The Japs were in full control of the air and the sea around us. There was nothing to stop them from sending in as many supplies and reinforcements as they needed to pin us down and bleed us to death.

  What it boiled down to was that the First Marine Division was surrounded by the enemy. Beyond our perimeters, the Jap troops already on the island could move freely wherever they wanted to go and hit us whenever and wherever they chose. And we didn’t have anywhere near enough fortifications and fixed defenses to hold off a Jap amphibious landing, even if it was right under our noses.

  For the time being, though, there was nothing for K/3/5 to do but follow orders and move west in a hurry. We still didn’t have but one unit of fire per man for our ’03 Springfields. We heard there might be some additional ammo at the Third Battalion command post, but that was a good half-mile away. So we just marched with what we had.