Challenge for the Pacific by Robert Leckie
Once more they hit the wire and were torn apart. But some of them got through. Captain Robert Putnam rang up Lieutenant Colonel William McKelvy, to report:
“Some Japs just got inside my barbed wire.” There was a pause, and then Putnam concluded: “There were twenty-seven of them.”20
Squat dark shapes were running low toward the Ridge when Red Mike Edson’s telephone jangled. A voice said cautiously:
“What name do you identify with Silent?”
“Lew,” Edson whispered.
“That is correct,” Captain Lew Walt said, and began his report. Another voice broke in:
“Our situation here, Colonel Edson, is excellent. Thank you, sir.”21
Edson swore softly. It was the enemy. They had cut the wire and Captain Sweeney on the right was still cut off. How to reach him? Red Mike seized an iron-lunged corporal and sent him forward. The man cupped his hands to his lips and bellowed:
“Red Mike says it’s okay to pull back!”22
Out in the wild spitting blackness of the right flank Sweeney’s isolated remnant fought back to the contracted Marine line.
For Red Mike Edson was shortening his position. The battle had come to crux and he was taunting his men to win it. He lay within ten yards of his foremost machine gun. He lay with his arm curled about his telephone and shielding his face against fragments whizzing from the blasts that lifted him up and slammed him to the ground. He saw men drifting toward the rear and he ran at them. He seized them and spun them around and pointed his finger at the enemy and snarled: “The only thing they have that you don’t is guts!”23
Major Bailey also darted at retreating Marines. He had been running back and forth from the Ridge to the rear for grenades and ammunition. He crawled over the bullet-swept Ridge to bring them to Marine foxholes. He caught at the arms of dazed men and slapped them, screaming: “You! Do you want to live forever?”24
It was the cry of old Dan Daly echoing across the decades from Belleau Wood, and it made another generation of young Americans ashamed of what they were about to do. They turned and went back.
They fought on while Colonel Edson lay on his belly bringing his own artillery in closer and closer to the charging enemy. A corporal named Watson who would be Lieutenant Watson in the morning spotted the enemy for him. He marked the Japanese rocket signals and directed redoubled fire to break up the enemy’s massing points.
“Closer,” Edson whispered. “Closer.”25
The Ridge shook and flashed. A terrible steel rain fell among Marines and Japanese alike. Terrified enemy soldiers dove into Marine foxholes to escape death above ground. Marines knifed them and pitched them out again. The night was hideous with the screams of the stricken, for artillery does not kill cleanly: it tears men’s organs with jagged chunks of steel, it blows off their limbs and burns their faces black.
But now the Kawaguchis were falling back again. Now the short squat shapes were springing to their feet and sprinting back into an opaque wall of darkness, jabbering once they had gained cover—for it was the chief failing of these jungle-fighters that they could not keep silent in the jungle. At two o’clock they came again behind another mortar barrage which cut wires to Vandegrift’s headquarters and the artillery.
“Marine you die!” the Japanese shrieked again, but with a notable lack of their former fervor, and the Marines, already exultant with the scent of victory, replied with strings of obscene oaths and streams of bullets, and they cut the enemy down.
At half past two in the morning of September 14 Red Mike Edson called headquarters and said:
“We can hold.”26
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
BATTLES do not end suddenly, they die down.
Throughout that long dawn of September 14 the Battle of Bloody Ridge sputtered on like an expiring fuse. Before daylight General Kawaguchi launched two more attacks which came after units of Vandegrift’s reserve had groped their way into Edson’s support. But they were faltering thrusts which hardly began before Marine artillery broke them up.
At six o’clock the Army P-400s roared over the Ridge at twenty feet, spewing cannon into Kawaguchi’s assembly points with devastating effect.
Two thousand yards to the east on the Ishitari Battalion front, five Marine tanks clanked rashly past their own wire in an attempt to repeat the Tenaru slaughter. Three of them sank in the mud and were knocked out by antitank fire. Nevertheless, the Ishitaris retreated rapidly east.
On the Ridge the random pinging of sniper’s bullets still kept Marine heads low. Souvenir-hunters such as Phil Chaffee would pause yet a bit before venturing among more than five hundred Japanese bodies strewn about these muddy slopes. Marines were still dying. At eight o’clock a jeep loaded with wounded was riddled by machine-gun fire that killed Major Robert Brown, Edson’s operations officer, and almost all the other occupants. One of the wounded drove the shattered vehicle out of range on its starter: it hopped out of sight like a monster toad.
Some of the Japanese had infiltrated. Three of them slipped into General Vandegrift’s command post.
“Banzai! Banzai!”
Vandegrift looked up from messages he was reading outside his pavilion. He saw two onrushing enemy soldiers and an officer swinging a saber. The officer hurled the saber like a spear at a nearby sergeant, transfixing him. Inside a tent Sergeant Major Shepherd Banta heard the enemy scream: he turned from castigating a clerk to rush outside with drawn pistol and shoot the enemy officer dead. A Marine corporal tried to shoot one of the soldiers, but his pistol jammed. He dove at the intruder; just as he hit him shots rang out all over the command post and both Japanese soldiers fell dead.
Vandegrift continued reading his messages. They indicated to him that Edson had won the most critical battle of the campaign. But they also made it plain that he could not go over to the offensive to destroy his shattered enemy. Colonel Thomas had already fed the Second Battalion, Fifth, into the battle and left Vandegrift without any reserve. Even though Edson had won a great victory at a loss of only fifty-nine Marines dead or missing and 204 wounded, his composite force was reeling. The parachutists were in tatters, down to 165 officers and men of an original 377, and he would have to get them off the island. The Raiders were down to 526 effectives out of an original 750. Vandegrift dared not weaken any point in his line by pulling out troops: there had been the attack to the east and there were reports of enemy forces massed at the Matanikau. No, Archer Vandegrift could only be thankful for Red Mike Edson and his men and let the enemy withdraw.
General Kawaguchi was withdrawing. He was departing in tears.
Throughout the morning he had heard the roll call of disaster: 708 of his men dead, 505 of them wounded. American firepower had been ferocious. Even now the American aircraft with shark-teeth painted on their sharp snouts were pumping cannon into his survivors. And shame had dishonored his defeat: Colonel Watanabe had failed to join the action. The powerful battalion which was to dash to the airfield had spent the night marking time. When Kawaguchi heard of this he wept openly. His guardsman’s mustache quivered, and he sent for Colonel Watanabe.
“Coward,” he cried as the colonel approached, “commit harakiri!”1
Colonel Watanabe hobbled closer and Kawaguchi relented. The man could barely stand, and Watanabe explained that the jungle march had ruined his feet and he had been unable to lead his troops. He did not say why he had not turned his command over to his executive officer, and Kawaguchi was too distressed to press him on it.
The general had to choose between returning to Taivu in the east or marching west to join Colonel Oka at the Matanikau. Still unclear on the nature of the American force that had landed in his rear at Tasimboko, wishing to gather his forces, he decided to go west. In mid-morning he gave the order to break through the jungle toward the headwaters of the Matanikau. Some 400 badly wounded men were placed on improvised litters, four and sometimes six soldiers to a litter, and Kawaguchi’s ragged, beaten, bleeding column began
In mid-afternoon they heard firing to the west. Colonel Oka was at last launching his attack from the Matanikau. The firing died down almost as soon as it began, indicating that Oka was not only tardy but also timid.
Overhead, above the matted jungle roof that gave them cover, Kawaguchi’s men could hear the familiar growling of dogfighting airplanes.
Rabaul had still not heard from General Kawaguchi, although it was plain that Henderson Field was still in American hands. Therefore the customary bombing formations were sent south, and they were met by the customary flights of Marine Wildcats.
There was now a rivalry among these fliers, and Captain John Smith and Captain Marion Carl were tied for the lead with twelve kills apiece. That day neither of them shot down another enemy plane, but Carl’s fighter was so badly riddled that he was forced to bail out over Koli Point to the east.
His parachute blossomed above him and he drifted down into the Bay. He freed himself from his harness and swam ashore. Waiting for him on the beach was a powerful, smiling Fijian named Eroni. He was one of Martin Clemens’s most valued men, a “medical practitioner” who was highly respected by the natives. Eroni promised to take the tall American back to Henderson Field.
Kelly Turner was keeping his promise to Archer Vandegrift.
On that morning of September 14 he sailed in McCawley at the head of a force bringing the Seventh Marines from Espiritu Santo to Guadalcanal. Admiral Ghormley, who had not favored Turner’s plan, had nevertheless given his beetle-browed amphibious commander all that he could, once he saw that Turner could not be dissuaded. A strong carrier group built around Wasp and Hornet and commanded by Rear Admiral Leigh Noyes was to protect Turner’s convoy of six transports.
Throughout the day these transports went zigzagging toward Torpedo Junction. Reports of enemy activity multiplied: carriers and battleships to the north, Tokyo Express warships to the northwest.
At noon a big Kawanishi lumbered overhead and Turner knew he had been spotted. He decided that he must withdraw: he could not dare to risk these four thousand Marines who might be the saving of Guadalcanal. But he would continue on until nightfall to delude the enemy into thinking he had held course. After dark, he would retire to await a more favorable opportunity.
Wasp and Hornet with mighty North Carolina and their screens held toward Torpedo Junction.
September 15 dawned cloudless and blue. Six miles of white-plumed waves separated Wasp and Hornet. The morning passed with no reports of the enemy, either above or below the sea. Some time after noon combat air patrol shot down a two-engined flying boat beyond the range of the carriers. At 2:20 o’clock Wasp turned into the wind to launch and receive planes.
Commander Takaichi Kinashi, skipper of submarine I-19, watched this maneuver through his periscope. His joy was unbounded. Wasp was in an awkward position and none of her six circling destroyers seemed to have sighted his submarine yet.
Captain Forrest Sherman aboard Wasp sounded the routine whistle for a turn, and bent on 16 knots to return to his base course, and Commander Kinashi sent a spread of four torpedoes hissing toward the swinging ship.
“Torpedoes!” starboard lookouts yelled.
Captain Sherman ordered rudder full right. But the Long Lances were running fast and true. Two of them struck forward to starboard and a third broached and dove to strike the hull fifty feet forward of the bridge.
Wasp was whipsawed. She leaped and twisted like a stricken monster. Planes were lifted and slammed to the deck. Men were hurled against steel bulkheads, generators were torn from their foundations, and the great ship took a dangerous list. Fires broke out, and Wasp was a floating torch whose smoke and flames were ominously visible to Hornet a half dozen miles away.
Now Hornet had to meet her own ordeal, for submarine I-15 had joined the attack. Her skipper loosed his own spread of steel fish. They sped unseen toward Hornet, until destroyer Mustin on Hornet’s port bow sighted a wake ahead and to port. Mustin swung hard left to avoid it, hoisted the torpedo warning and gave the alarm by voice radio.
Hornet got out of the way.
But one of I-15’s torpedoes passed under Mustin’s keel and ran 500 yards into the side of North Carolina. A great roar, a pillar of water and oil shooting into the sky, five men killed—and a gash 32 feet long and 18 feet high was torn twenty feet below North Carolina’s water line. But battleships are built to take it. Forward magazines were flooded as a fire-prevention measure and within five minutes the great vessel had lost her list and was steaming majestically along at twenty-five knots.
Destroyers are not so husky, and another of I-15’s torpedoes tore into O’Brien to deliver what was to be her death wound: she would break up and sink while attempting to return to West Coast ports.
And now Wasp was a holocaust. Flames raged out of control. At three o’clock a shattering explosion shook her, killing men on the port side of the bridge and hurling Admiral Noyes to the deck, his clothes burning. Captain Sherman evacuated the bridge. He conferred with his officers on the flight deck and concluded that the ship was lost.
“Abandon ship!”
Wounded were gently lowered over the side onto life rafts and floating mattresses and then Wasp’s men jumped and dove for their lives. Destroyers picked them up. Of 2247 men aboard, 193 were lost and 366 wounded. All but one of Wasp’s airborne planes landed safely on Hornet, and Rear Admiral Norman Scott in cruiser San Francisco, now in command of the group, ordered destroyer Lansdowne to sink the ship that had fought German U-boats in the Atlantic and saved Malta.
Lansdowne fired five torpedoes. All hit, three exploded, and at nine o’clock that night Wasp went to her death in the Pacific.
Hornet was now the only American carrier operational in the Pacific. O’Brien’s special antiaircraft firepower was lost to her, North Carolina was also out of the fight for Guadalcanal, and Washington was the only new battleship still available.
And four thousand Marines had lost half the protection required to get them safely through the waters of Torpedo Junction.
News of Wasp’s sinking sweetened the bitter taste in Admiral Yamamoto’s mouth. Commander, Combined Fleet, had been chagrined to receive reports of the American carrier force at the very moment when his ships were low on fuel. He had had to spend three days refueling at sea at a point two hundred miles north of Guadalcanal, and had missed the chance to strike.
Then, on September 15, he had heard reports of the Kawaguchi disaster, and had been filled with bitter anger.2 Rather than waste more valuable fuel sailing aimlessly around, he had ordered his ships back to Truk. Enroute, he received Commander Kinashi’s joyful report of having destroyed Wasp.
At Truk a conference was held between Yamamoto’s staff and General Hyakutake’s staff. It was decided that more troops would be needed in addition to the Sendai Division already assembling at Rabaul. Tokyo was notified and two days later Imperial General Headquarters assigned the veteran 38th or Nagoya Division to Hyakutake.
Japan’s high command also instructed Hyakutake to suspend the Port Moresby operation indefinitely. On September 14 his troops had looked down on the lights of the Allied port, but now they were to retire to Buna to await the successful conclusion of Operation Ka.
In the meantime three new carriers then training in home waters would join Yamamoto at Truk. They would not arrive, however, until the second week in October, much to the consternation of some officers who believed that to delay a full-scale counteroffensive for almost a month was to grant the enemy a respite which might prove suicidal for Japan. They wanted to strike immediately, break in on the Americans while they still had their backs to the wall.
But Isoroku Yamamoto was adamant. He wanted those three carriers. Besides, it would take nearly a month to get the Sendai Division into Guadalcanal.
The loss of Wasp was to deepen Admiral Ernest King’s conviction that the desperate situation at Guadalcanal could not be retrieved without more airplanes for Henderson Field. King
General Arnold replied that the need was landing fields, not planes. If Guadalcanal had more than eighty or a hundred planes the craft would sit idle on the fields and their pilots would get stale. In England planes and pilots could be used against Germany every day.
“There should be a reconsideration of allocation every time there is a new critical situation,” King said. “The Navy is in a bad way at this particular moment.”3
It was an astounding admission from King the confident, and the Navy’s commander-in-chief followed it up by asking for Lightning fighters for Guadalcanal. Arnold reluctantly agreed to divert fifteen of them from the North African invasion scheduled for November. That was all he could spare, and he could not say when he could spare them. King insisted that the South Pacific had to be saturated with such planes, and Arnold exploded:
“What is the saturation point? Certainly, not several hundred planes sitting on airdromes so far in the rear that they cannot be used. They will not do us any good, and may do us some harm.”4
King left the meeting in exasperation. Next day, his pen impelled by reports of the Wasp disaster, he prepared a memorandum for General Marshall. Of sixty-two Wildcats delivered to Guadalcanal since August 20 only thirty were operational. The Navy, he wrote, could not “meet this rate of attrition and still operate carriers.” It was therefore “imperative that the future continuous flow of Army fighters be planned, starting at once, irrespective of, and in higher priority than, the commitments to any theater.”
King had ceased to make requests. Now he was demanding.