While planning this issue’s package of articles commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal, it occurred to me that Naval History has pretty well covered the big picture—the ebb and flow of the six-month land, sea, and air campaign. So this time we’re going small by focusing on a trio of the campaign’s participants.
First up is “No Ordinary John Smith,” a profile of a Marine aviation giant by Robert Mrazek. If the author’s name sounds familiar, it may be because while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1988, he helped lead the fight to prevent the construction of a shopping mall on historic land adjacent to Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia. Soldiers buried there “are owed more than having their graves paved over with a Burger King or a Bloomingdale’s,” the New York congressman said at the time. Since leaving politics, Mrazek has turned out three historical novels and two works of nonfiction; his latest is To Kingdom Come: An Epic Saga of Survival in the Air War over Germany (NAL-Penguin, 2011).
The subject of his article, John Lucian Smith, commanded Marine Fighter Squadron (VMF) 223, the first fighter unit at Guadalcanal’s Henderson Field. Smith and his outnumbered men battled Japanese Zeros and bombers for more than seven weeks until relieved in October 1942. As Mrazek tells the story, while John L.’s tally of “kills” rose to the point that he temporarily became America’s top fighter ace of the war, he agonized because so many of his pilots were being lost in battle.
Smith’s achievements over Guadalcanal earned him the Medal of Honor and landed his photo on the cover of the 7 December 1942 issue of Life magazine. They also inspired Hollywood moviemakers. The 1951 film Flying Leathernecks is loosely based on the exploits of VMF-223 and Smith—with John Wayne’s character, Major Dan Kirby, subbing for John L.
Marine Master Technical Sergeant James Hurlbut, who’s featured in “Observations of ‘the Canal,’” also has a connection to Tinseltown via Guadalcanal. The Marines’ first combat correspondent to see action, Hurlbut landed on the island with the second wave of Leathernecks on 7 August 1942. Our article is a transcript of his March 1943 interview by Navy Department officials in which he answers questions about the fighting there.
A journalist who’d served a hitch in the Corps during the 1930s, Hurlbut was a savvy observer. Later in ’43 he was technical adviser on the movie Guadalcanal Diary. After the war, Hurlbut got into TV; his 1963 interview with Malcolm X is posted on YouTube.
Our final Guadalcanal article focuses on the Patterson (DD-392) during the Battle of Savo Island. In “Composure Amid a Naval Disaster,” John Domagalski recounts how the destroyer was the first Allied vessel to spot the Japanese forces in the night battle, but her warnings to other friendly ships failed to change the course of the lopsided fight.
While the Patterson served throughout the Pacific war only to be decommissioned in late 1945 and sold for scrap two years later, many of the Navy’s ships remained in the Fleet long after the conflict. Norman Friedman explains why in “Judging the Good from the Bad,” his analysis of factors that differentiate well-designed warships from nautical turkeys.