Lonely Vigil: Coastwatchers of the Solomons by Walter Lord
Reaching Vella, he was greeted by name by the Reverend Silvester and was soon reunited with Feliton. Escorted by Keenan to Paramata, they were both evacuated by PBY on the 12th. Boarding the plane, de Blanc presented a memorable sight: He was now wearing a complete Japanese uniform and carried, as a souvenir, a nine-foot native spear.
On New Georgia Donald Kennedy was getting his share of flyers too. On February 4, American fighters and bombers caught some 20 Japanese destroyers coming down the Slot. They were covered by Zeros, and a wild dogfight developed off Visu Visu Point. Navy Lieutenant Bob Sorensen, flying an F4F, found himself chased by four of the Zeros. He sent one down smoking, but the other three got him, and he splashed in the Marovo Lagoon off Batuna Mission.
Encountering some natives next morning, he was paddled over to Segi, where Kennedy greeted him with a very reserved British “Howjado.” Four other flyers from the battle soon joined him—a Marine fighter pilot named Leeds … two gunners from a downed TBF … and a captured Zero pilot. They were taken out in a week by a PBY.
On Choiseul Nick Waddell and Carden Seton played host to four more participants. Ensign Keith Hollandsworth’s TBF was knocked out by AA fire, then harassed all the way down by Zeros. They got the turret gunner as he swam away from the plane, but Hollandsworth and the radio gunner, Adcock, managed to escape. Heading for shore in their rubber boat, they were picked up by natives and taken to a village called Boe-Boe.
Next morning the natives reported two Japanese were down too and not far away—what should be done? Hollandsworth recommended wiping them out, and a war canoe set off full of natives with hatchets and clubs. Closing in, someone realized at the last second that the “Japs” were actually Americans—Marine SBD pilot H. J. Murphy and his rear seat man, Corporal G. W. Williamson. They had been shot down in the same battle and made shore during the night.
Soon all four flyers were at Boe-Boe together, and on the 8th Hollandsworth and Murphy accompanied a party of natives to the Coastwatcher hideout up the coast. A pickup was arranged for the 12th, and Nick Waddell suggested a feast to celebrate. This unfortunately had to be aborted when the flyers discovered they had a day less than they thought to get back to Boe-Boe. It seemed Waddell was still operating on a 1942 calendar.
The PBY arrived exactly on schedule, scooping up the castaways while fifteen fighters flew cover above. It was the first pickup in the Solomons by VP-44, a squadron that would become famous for its “Dumbo” missions, as these rescue flights came to be called.
The early days of February were especially rough on the flyers who operated out of Henderson Field. The Tokyo Express was more active than at any time since the November offensive—big runs of about 20 destroyers on the 1st, 4th, and 7th. Ominously, Yamamoto was again at sea—two carriers, two battleships, more than a dozen cruisers and destroyers hovering about 200 miles north of Choiseul.
To the American command on Guadalcanal it all looked like preparations for a new Japanese offensive. General Patch had launched a cautious push west of the Matanikau River; now he suspended the drive and recalled the 25th Division to defend Henderson Field. From the looks of things, the Japanese were bringing in thousands of troops.
Actually, they were taking them out. In a masterpiece of deception called Operation KE, Lieutenant General Hitoshi Imamura and Vice Admiral Jinichi Kusaka, the commanders at Rabaul, were evacuating the 13,000 Japanese remaining on Guadalcanal. In a series of leapfrogging tactics, the starving remnants of the Imperial Army were pulled back, while a sprinkling of fresh troops held the line against any American advance. Even the men themselves didn’t know what was up; they were told they were being redeployed for a new attack.
Gradually the force was concentrated at the coastal village of Komimbo on the extreme western tip of the island. Here they were ferried out to the destroyers in the blackness of night. Only the occasional flash of blue signal lights indicated that anything unusual was going on. February 1, 5424 men were taken out … on the 4th, another 4977 … on the 7th, Colonel Matsuda’s rear guard of 2639. General Hyakutake went with the last contingent. Boarding the destroyer Hamikaze, he went straight to his cabin, never looking back at the lost island.
The Americans still didn’t catch on. Planning a classic pincers movement, Patch had landed a well-equipped force southwest of the Japanese position on February 1. The spot was picked by Father de Klerk, now wearing a U.S. Army second lieutenant’s bars, pinned on him by General Patch himself. On the 7th this force began moving toward Cape Esperance, as the main body of U.S. troops advanced from the east. The pincers snapped shut on the 9th, but caught nothing. The Japanese were gone.
The spotlight shifted to the Central Solomons, as Tokyo moved to strengthen its hold on the other islands. Occasional cargo ships and an ever-increasing number of diesel barges headed down from Faisi, pouring men and supplies into the seaplane base at Rekata Bay … the airfield at Munda … a supporting strip at Vila on Kolombangara … the advanced base at Viru … a dozen other outposts along the way.
Paul Mason was gone now—driven out of Buin and trying to join Jack Read in northern Bougainville—but from their lookout on Choiseul Nick Waddell and Carden Seton usually caught the traffic as it left the Shortlands. Then Henry Josselyn would pick it up as it passed Vella Lavella—either to the east down Vella Gulf; or to the west, hugging the coast and hiding out during the day near Bagga Island. Finally Dick Horton—now established on a ridge high in the hills of Rendova Island—would catch the shipping as it unloaded at Munda, or headed on for some other point. Using his 10-power artillery binoculars, Horton could even see trucks and individual Japanese working on the runway.
Back on Guadalcanal KEN would receive their reports and pass them on to the Air Strike Command. It was all very routine now, and everything seemed in order when Eric Feldt arrived on an inspection tour in mid-March. Then, without a hint of warning, on the 20th he suffered a coronary stroke. He survived but was sidelined for good and replaced by Lieutenant Commander J. C. McManus, a wiry Australian with long experience in both intelligence and the South Seas. It might have been a disaster—Feldt had such close ties with so many of his men—but McManus proved a skillful, tactful replacement.
Through all these weeks Waddell, Josselyn and Horton continued to radio their ship and barge sightings, generating new business for the flyers at Henderson Field. On February 27, for instance, Nick Waddell reported a large freighter escorted by two corvettes leaving Faisi at 1:00 P.M. At 6:40 the CACTUS Air Force struck, sinking all three ships within sight of Choiseul. For the first time Waddell had the satisfaction of personally seeing the results of his reporting.
Another time, acting on a message from Josselyn on Vella Lavella, SBDs delivered a devastating attack on the cargo liner Toa Maru. They left her in sinking condition, and the crew abandoned ship. But she did not go down. Instead she stranded on a reef off Gizo Island. Josselyn’s scouts soon boarded her and salvaged not only a great deal of military equipment but also the ship’s supply of cutlery and linen. From then on, the Coastwatchers at station NRY dined with Japanese silver.
But these triumphs had their cost. The air battles were now taking place deep in enemy territory, and the downed American flyers were in greater danger than ever. Even with the Coastwatchers on the lookout, the way home could be long and hard ….
On April 13 Staff Sergeant William I. Coffeen of Marine Fighter Squadron 213 was escorting some TBFs on a strike against Munda when his engine failed and he bailed out over the Slot. Landing halfway between Kolombangara and Choiseul, he managed to scramble into his rubber boat just as two sharks flashed by.
Wind and current carried him into the maze of small islands that make up the southeastern tip of Choiseul, and soon he was hopelessly lost in a labyrinth of inlets and channels. For a week he aimlessly paddled from island to island, often retracing his steps, misguided by whim and fancy. He had no food except coconuts, and sleep was next to impossible. If it wasn’t the mosquitoes that droned “like
About the tenth night he heard something walking toward him that sounded very much like a man. He jumped into his boat, ready to flee, but it turned out to be a giant iguana.
Three weeks must have passed when he stumbled on an island that boasted a European house. A sign proclaimed it to be the “Salikana Plantation Estate—Solomon Development Co.,” but the proprietors were long since gone. The only sign of life was a crafty old hen, which he pursued in vain for nearly two days. He did find about a dozen eggs in the hen house. All were rotten but went down surprisingly well.
Back in the boat, he continued his aimless paddling, vaguely hoping that if he could once reach the mainland of Choiseul, life would somehow improve. He grew steadily weaker; his body was covered with sores; his teeth were loose, and his mind began to wander.
On the 32nd day a great storm swamped the boat. Somehow he got it ashore and dumped it. By now he was raving and screaming, completely delirious, and shortly after he shoved off again, he collapsed in exhaustion.
A native in a canoe eased alongside. Attracted by the commotion, he had been discreetly following the boat for some minutes. Now he politely inquired whether Coffeen was American or Japanese. “Me American,” said Coffeen and passed out.
After resting at the native’s hut a couple of days, Coffeen was taken to Boe-Boe on Choiseul, and here Nick Waddell’s scouts took over. They relayed him up the coast by canoe, dodging several Japanese barges and on one occasion paddling right by the campfire of an enemy outpost.
On the 23rd of May, 41 days after he bailed out, Bill Coffeen finally reached Waddell and Seton’s station DEL, now located on Mount Vasau, about five miles inland from the coast. Coffeen was little more than skin and bones, and he almost immediately came down with malaria. Carden Seton patiently nursed him back to health, while Waddell once again marveled at the way this huge man, so ferocious in a fight, could magically turn into the tenderest of human beings when caring for the sick.
As Coffeen slowly regained his health and strength, he learned that DEL had a jauntiness all its own in looking after flyers. Waddell kept a “visitors’ book” and also organized a club called the “Rubber Rafters Association.” Every rescued airman got a “certificate” saying he belonged, and the only condition of membership was that the candidate had to promise he would get drunk every year on the anniversary of his rescue.
Mid-June, and Coffeen was at last strong enough for the long walk across the island to Nanango Point, where he would be picked up by PBY. This was the first evacuation from the eastern side of the island, but it was no longer safe to use the more convenient west coast. The Japanese seemed to be planting outposts everywhere.
All went off without a hitch. When Seton and Coffeen reached Nanango early on the morning of June 25, they found no less than 30 canoes and 100 natives waiting to help. At 9:35 two PBYs landed and discharged supplies for DEL, while 16 fighters flew cover overhead. Twenty minutes later Bill Coffeen said his goodbyes, boarded one of the planes, and headed home—exactly 73 days after his odyssey began.
These dangerous days a fight in the Solomons could wind up with a rescue ten weeks later—or it could just as easily end in the towering clouds with murderous abruptness. Early on the morning of April 18, only five days after Bill Coffeen went down, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander-in-Chief, Imperial Combined Fleet, took off from Rabaul for a brief inspection of the Navy’s advanced bases at Ballale, Shortland, and Buin. Yamamoto and his staff flew in a pair of medium bombers, while six Zeros provided cover above. At 9:34 they were over the west coast of Bougainville, just letting down for the landing at Ballale, when four P-38s tore into them, chopping both bombers to pieces before the Zeros could intervene. Yamamoto’s plane plunged into the jungle and exploded, while the second bomber smashed into the sea. A crash boat picked up three dazed survivors, but there were none from the plane that fell in the jungle. Isoroku Yamamoto, Japan’s brilliant and indispensable naval leader, had been killed with a single lightninglike stroke.
The P-38s—appropriately nicknamed “Lightnings”—were doing triumphant barrel rolls as they returned to Guadalcanal from this most fateful of missions. Catching the meaning, ground crews ran up to the planes whooping and shouting as they landed. Off-duty pilots crowded around, laughing and slapping backs.
They had good cause to celebrate. Major John W. Mitchell’s 339th Fighter Squadron had just completed the longest planned interception of the war—a 750-mile round trip. Thanks to another coup by CINCPAC’s dazzling code-breakers, Yamamoto’s exact schedule had been learned. With the approval of Navy Secretary Knox and President Roosevelt himself, Nimitz authorized Halsey to stage an assassination mission if feasible. Even with special belly tanks, the P-38s were the only planes with range enough to do the job; and even then, Major Mitchell’s flight plan allowed virtually no margin of error. He based all his calculations on an estimate that Yamamoto would reach the interception point at 9:35. He was one minute off.
By nightfall just about everybody in the CACTUS Air Force knew about the 339th’s spectacular kill. Those who missed the excitement at the field couldn’t escape the boisterous celebration that night, as the squadron took care of a case of I. W. Harper supplied by Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher. But the source of the remarkable information that made it all possible—the decoding of Yamamoto’s schedule—remained a dark secret. The rumor spread, encouraged by headquarters, that the Coastwatchers were responsible; and most of the flyers, who by now believed these guardian angels could do anything, were happy to give them credit for one more miracle.
Actually, the Coastwatchers knew nothing about Yamamoto’s inspection trip and were among the last to learn of the ambush. Geoffrey Kuper got the word on May 7 from another P-38 pilot, Second Lieutenant A. L. Weckel, who ran out of gas returning from a photo mission to Buka and was brought in by the scouts. Weckel’s own squadron played no part in hunting down the admiral, but all the P-38 pilots took a proprietary interest in the feat.
Weckel was Kuper’s seventeenth rescued flyer—and more would follow. His smoothly functioning network of scouts and guides ultimately saved 28 Allied airmen. Not that success was automatic. There was the harrowing day, for instance, when a fighter plane crashed into Rekata Bay, and the pilot bobbed to the surface as Kuper’s scouts and a Japanese launch raced for the scene from opposite directions. It was a toss-up, until the launch opened fire on the scouts, forcing them back. In bitter anguish they watched as the Japanese scooped up the flyer in triumph.
Or there was the time on Vella Lavella, when Henry Josselyn’s natives had to bring some aviators right by the enemy base at Iringila to reach safety. A fight developed, and in the confusion a Navy gunner named Evans vanished—no one ever knew whether he was shot or captured. But these were the exceptions. Altogether, the Coastwatchers in the Solomons saved over 100 flyers.
It was quite different when a Japanese pilot fell into the hands of a Coastwatcher. In this grim behind-the-lines struggle neither side paid much attention to the Geneva Convention. To the Japanese, the Coastwatchers were spies, and that was that. To the Coastwatcher, Japanese prisoners were a deadly liability. There was no place to keep them, and they knew too much to be turned loose. Very few escaped with their lives.
Geoffrey Kuper played this dangerous game like the others, but the authorities never treated him in quite the same way. Of the fourteen Coastwatchers who ran teleradio stations in the Solomons, he was the only one never given a commission. He remained a private in the local defense force the entire time. The prewar attitudes lingered on: Commissions were for “Europeans,” and in the euphemism of the South Pacific, Kuper was a “local” … a person of mixed blood.
Yet this attitude had its compensations. As Merle Farland found out, the colonial government was shocked by the very thought of a white woman in the war zone. But nobody cared about Linda. The great air battles raged in the skies … the
10
DRIVEN OUT
COMPARED TO THE BIRTH of a baby, a supply drop was a comparatively minor complication in the life of a Coastwatcher, and Jack Read was not unduly worried about the drop scheduled for northern Bougainville on the night of April 26.
After some wildly inaccurate drops in the early days, these affairs were now almost routine. Guided by the signal fires, the plane—usually an RAAF Catalina of 11 or 20 Squadron—would circle down to about 500 feet and begin a series of runs over the drop site. Each time it passed, crew members would toss out some containers: fragile things like radio parts would float down by parachute; bulk items like rice and sugar would hurtle to the ground double-packed in jute bags. Never too much on any one pass, so as to concentrate the drop in the area bounded by the fires. When the last container had been jettisoned, the plane would usually waggle its wings, sometimes flash “good luck” on its signal lamp, and disappear again into the night.
On the ground the Coastwatchers would gather in the containers, smother the fires, and vanish as quickly as possible.
Back at camp the containers would be opened, and along with the supplies the Coastwatchers would almost invariably find little presents tucked in by the “delivery boys”: cigarettes, candy, sometimes a bottle of whiskey, and once for Slim Otton, who religiously followed the races, the latest Australian pink sheet giving the results of the Caulfield Cup.