A Marine Corps legend-in-the-making and a future U.S. President were key players in a diversionary operation whose objective was to raise as much hell as possible.
The South Pacific. Fall 1943. After six grueling months of fighting for Guadalcanal, Admiral William F. Halsey’s forces had made a cautious push into the central Solomons and now were poised to accelerate their advance. The Allies aimed to isolate the major Japanese base at Rabaul, New Britain. Airfields on nearby islands would enable Halsey to keep up pressure with constant air raids.
The island of Bougainville was big enough to accommodate as many strips as the admiral cared to build. Halsey’s South Pacific Area Command (ComSoPac) remained confident in its capabilities to capture Bougainville, but a forceful enemy response could be expected. The admiral therefore decided to conduct an array of subsidiary operations to confuse the Japanese, keep them off balance, and prevent them from reinforcing Bougainville.
One operation would target Choiseul, located about 50 miles southeast of Bougainville. Occupation of the island, 75 miles long and 20 miles across at its widest point, could buttress the isolation of Rabaul.
When ComSoPac was planning to invade southern Bougainville, where most of the island’s Japanese defenders were deployed, it considered first occupying and establishing air bases on Choiseul. But plans changed as the Bougainville operation evolved. The landing site was shifted from the southern end of the island to Cape Torokina, at the northern end of Empress Augusta Bay, and an invasion of Choiseul was scrubbed.
But with only about two weeks to go before the 1 November landing on Bougainville, Major James Murray, a I Marine Amphibious Corps (IMAC) staff officer, revived the idea of a landing on Choiseul—specifically a diversionary raid—that would suggest to the Japanese that the Allies were planning to invade Bougainville at its southern tip after all. General Alexander A. Vandegrift, the hero of Guadalcanal who commanded IMAC, liked the idea. Admiral Halsey had given Vandegrift and SoPac amphibious force commander Vice Admiral Theodore S. Wilkinson a free hand, and they approved.
Surveilling the Target
Vandegrift’s headquarters knew little about Choiseul. Two Australian coastwatchers on the island, Alexander Waddell and Carden W. Seton, made regular reports, but Allied commanders planning the original landing and occupation of the island had wanted to know more. They had the coastwatchers guide patrols sent to scout the island. Between 6 and 12 September, a patrol landed from a PT boat and explored the vicinity of Kakasa, the main Japanese encampment located on the southwestern side of the island. The patrol made its way across Choiseul to the coastwatcher station, where its members were recovered by a flying boat.
Between 22 and 30 September, two more scouting parties explored the northern end of Choiseul. Marine, Navy, and New Zealand personnel participated. They tabulated Japanese strength at between 3,000 and 4,000 troops and, more disturbing, found the enemy shifting northward, toward a barge terminal the Japanese had set up at the island’s northwestern tip. A group of native scouts allied with Seton and Waddell ambushed several Japanese in a barge on 2 October. On the 13th, the coastwatchers reported that the enemy had vacated south Choiseul and the main concentration of Japanese had redeployed more than halfway to the barge terminal.
When Seton and Waddell observed on 19 October that the Japanese had moved another ten miles toward the base and that they seemed to be awaiting transport, Allied commanders decided the enemy was in the process of withdrawing to Bougainville. IMAC was determined to disrupt the redeployment by dispatching a raiding force.
Paramarines
Vandegrift assigned the task to Lieutenant Colonel Robert H. Williams’ 1st Marine Parachute Regiment, and Williams believed he had the ideal unit for the job: Lieutenant Colonel Victor H. Krulak’s 2d Parachute Battalion. Williams, a godfather of Marine paratroops and a hero of Guadalcanal, had led one of the Corps’ first airborne companies, one that became a nucleus of the 2d Battalion. Spending much of 1942 in training at Camp Gillespie in San Diego and adding a third rifle company that September, the battalion sailed for the South Pacific a month later, arriving in New Zealand that November. In January 1943, it transferred to Camp Kiser on New Caledonia, joining Williams’ regiment.
A lack of aircraft resulted in the 1st Regiment being unable to perform any drops after May 1943. The 2d Battalion’s last drop, a night exercise, went awry; one Marine was killed and 11 injured. The Marine Corps had ordained as early as April 1941 that Paramarines also should practice with assault boats, and Krulak now concentrated on amphibious and raider operations with an emphasis on live-fire exercises. By the summer of 1943, his Marines thought theirs was the best-trained battalion in the South Pacific. They moved up to Guadalcanal in September, and up the chain of Solomon islands to Vella Lavella on 1 October. Their introduction to war came that very day, when Japanese aircraft struck as the Marines disembarked, killing 14 parachutists. The 2d Battalion spent the next few weeks on patrols that helped secure Vella Lavella. Those operations were a perfect rehearsal for the Choiseul mission.
On 20 October, General Vandegrift summoned Colonels Williams and Krulak to Guadalcanal, where they conferred with the IMAC commander and his staff, planning the raid on the fly. Colonel Merrill Twining provided Krulak with some primitive maps of Choiseul. The battalion’s orders were to land, make as much noise as possible, identify a potential site for a PT-boat base, and withdraw after 12 days unless ComSoPac decided to establish the facility. Vandegrift issued final orders for the mission, codenamed Operation Blissful, on the 22nd, with the landing set for the 28th.
Preparations and Landing
Only by driving hard could short, wiry Victor “Brute” Krulak put together all the mission’s moving parts. To beef up his battalion’s firepower, he incorporated a special detachment that included a machine-gun platoon and an experimental rocket platoon. He also added a communications platoon to enhance his radio capacity. The Navy lent him Lieutenant (junior grade) Richard Keresey, a former PT-boat driver, to help select the location for the boat facility. Flown to Vella Lavella in a PBY Catalina, coastwatcher Seton briefed the Marines about Choiseul. He would serve as the paratroops’ guide and liaison with his scouts.
Colonel Krulak wanted to get his men and supplies ashore quickly and at night, and the Navy, wary of prowling Japanese aircraft, was in agreement. H-hour was set for 0100. The day before the landing, 27 October, supplies, equipment, and raiding force were embarked on board eight landing craft mechanized (LCMs). Because movement through Choiseul’s vast jungle was difficult, four LCP(R)s—landing craft, personnel (ramp)—would accompany the battalion to provide transportation along the island’s coast. To mislead the Japanese, Krulak would radio that a full Marine division had stormed ashore and was headed for its objectives, and then Admiral Halsey would issue a press release to that effect. In reality, Krulak’s 656 Paramarines would be greatly outnumbered by Choiseul’s defenders.
Later that day, the LCMs set out, and off Vella Lavella matériel and Marines were transferred to four high-speed transports (APDs). Led by the destroyer USS Conway (DD-507), which would use her advanced radar to locate the planned invasion point, the convoy headed for Choiseul. Despite a swift crossing of New Georgia Sound—the “Slot”—an enemy plane did find the little flotilla and put a bomb close to one of the APDs. An hour later, the ships stopped 2,000 yards off Choiseul and Colonel Krulak ordered two of his three companies into the landing craft, while a reconnaissance party went to check the beach at Voza village.
Waddell and Seton’s scouts already had cut a trail inland. After landing, most of Brute Krulak’s men followed it to a high plateau they would use for a patrol base. Empty boxes left two miles up the beach hopefully would convince the Japanese a much larger force had landed. One platoon was designated to camouflage and guard the landing craft. From the first afternoon, patrols began scouting for a cove suitable for PT boats.
On the second day, Krulak led one of several patrols to reconnoiter the Japanese barge base at Sangigai, southeast of Voza, where he planned to alarm the enemy by attacking the 200-man garrison. One patrol discovered about ten Japanese unloading a landing barge near the base, managed to kill seven of them, and sank the craft. Other Marine probes saw enemy barges moving along the coast, and a Marine rear guard repelled a platoon-size column of the enemy, killing seven more Japanese.
The First Raid
Marines moved on Sangigai before dawn on 30 October. Using two of his three companies, Krulak intended a pincer attack. There are conflicting accounts of what happened during the operation. All agree a supporting air strike by a dozen Navy TBF Avengers accompanied by 26 fighters went as scheduled before the Marines arrived at the target. One version has the U.S. planes mistaking Krulak’s LCP(R)s for Japanese landing craft and damaging three of the four, but the U.S. vessels in fact transported one of the Paramarine companies back to Voza later in the day.
Another account has Marines first moving to the beach for transport by the LCP(R)s to Sangigai but the craft not showing up, resulting in Krulak’s men marching to the enemy base. That is consistent with the notion of a “blue-on-blue” attack on the U.S. landing craft. But more than one account of the raid has the Paramarines advancing on the Japanese without giving thought to boats.
The battle sequence also has its uncertainties. Krulak accompanied his battalion’s F Company, which looped inland behind Sangigai. Captain Robert Manchester’s E Company hugged the coast, taking position for a direct attack timed for 1430. Here, discrepancies concern Krulak’s plan. National Archives archivist Greg Bradsher’s version has Krulak taking ambush positions on high ground inland from the village, with Manchester’s Marines driving the Japanese into his guns. The Marine official history has Krulak planning an enveloping attack by both prongs of his force.
Regardless, plans miscarried. E Company’s advance encountered little resistance, but the Japanese spotted the Marines in time to get off a few shots, evacuate Sangigai, and retreat to a prepared position on the same high ground where Krulak intended to assemble F Company. That unit, whose advance had been slowed because of the dense jungle, faced a hornet’s nest. The Marines and the Japanese surprised each other in the jungle. A brisk firefight ensued, punctuated by enemy banzai charges and sniper fire. After a nearly hour-long clash, the Japanese melted away.
Krulak was one of a dozen Marines wounded; one of his men was missing and six others were killed. Japanese dead were recorded at 72. At Sangigai, meanwhile, E Company destroyed 180 tons of supplies, sank a barge floating at the dock, and discovered at least one key bit of intelligence: a Japanese chart of mined waters off Bougainville. The chart and the worst wounded later were flown to Guadalcanal. To strengthen the deceptive effect of Operation Blissful, that morning Admiral Halsey issued his press release on the Choiseul “invasion.”
The Choiseul Bay Op
The Japanese had another barge station at Choiseul Bay, near the island’s northern tip. On 31 October, while regrouping at his base, Krulak sent his executive officer, Major Warner T. Bigger; the battalion’s intelligence officer, Lieutenant Samuel Johnston; and a ten-man patrol to scout the north. Krulak wanted to get close enough to Choiseul Bay to bring the Japanese base under mortar fire. The major’s patrol moved up the coast to Nukiki but found no Japanese.
On 1 November, as the invasion of Bougainville jumped off, Bigger led 87 Marines of Captain William H. Day’s G Company back to that general area. His orders were to advance northward and bring the Choiseul Bay barge station under mortar fire. The plan went awry when landing craft carrying the patrol up the Warrior River began to ground in its shallow waters. Worried for the boats and that the noise they made might alert the Japanese, Bigger had his Paramarines disembark and begin hiking toward Choiseul Bay. But the force lost its bearings in a swamp (its native guides were from another part of Choiseul and confessed they knew nothing of the area).
The major had left a few men manning a radio post near the river’s mouth, and he now detached a squad to make its way back there to get word to Krulak of Bigger’s predicament. Unfortunately, the post’s TBX radio was not working. Meanwhile, Bigger and his raiders bivouacked in place on the night of 1–2 November. The next morning, the detached squad and radio team found themselves nearly surrounded by the enemy. They managed to slip past the Japanese and make their way to Nukiki, where they were picked up by LCP(R)s and returned to Voza. After being briefed, Krulak radioed General Vandegrift to ask for air support and PT boats to withdraw Bigger’s force.
Bombardment and Rescue
At this point, Navy Lieutenant John F. Kennedy enters the story. On Vella Lavella, the commander of the PT-boat base, Lieutenant Arthur H. Berndtson, received orders to protect the craft evacuating Bigger’s expedition. He had one boat, PT-236, fully armed and ready. Another, Kennedy’s PT-59, was refueling. She had enough fuel in her tanks to reach Choiseul but not to get back. Kennedy had been given command of the vessel after his previous boat, PT-109, was run down by a Japanese destroyer in the Slot during the early hours of 2 August 1943. Berndtson had been nearby, leading a different section of PT boats, that fateful night. Now, he did not want to put Kennedy so obviously in harm’s way without talking it over with him. But Kennedy was anxious to help. They agreed that both PTs would sortie. When PT-59 ran out of fuel, PT-236 would take her in tow.
Plenty went wrong. Bigger found his way to the coast, but the Marines exchanged fire with a Japanese outpost while advancing toward the enemy barge station. Bigger then decided to attack a nearby alternate target, the supply base on Guppy Island, which his force pounded with 143 mortar rounds. Bigger’s Marines had to fight their way back to the mouth of the Warrior River. They expected to find LCP(R)s, but none were there. When several Marines attempted to swim across the river, they came under enemy fire. Among the casualties was Lieutenant Johnston, who was wounded, captured, tortured, and killed. After several hours of fighting, three of the landing craft appeared.
The PT boats crossing the Slot initially passed the LCP(R) that was supposed to guide them to the pick-up location. Kennedy finally spotted the craft at about 1800; the late hour necessitated a night recovery—another complication. Lieutenant Keresey, the former PT-boat skipper accompanying the Paramarines, boarded PT-59 from the guide boat. He also had been on patrol with Kennedy the night PT-109 was lost. The PT boats arrived on the scene amid rain and high seas, with just half an hour of daylight left. Bigger’s men were crowding on board a pair of LCP(R)s. After backing off the beach, both landing craft became caught on an offshore reef. Kennedy put PT-59 between the foundering LCP(R)s and the shore and began rescuing what ended up being 55 Marines. As the boat headed for Voza, her skipper fed the survivors canned peaches, the best food many of them had in days. PT-59 then transferred the exhausted Marines to a landing craft off Voza, which ferried them to shore. Soon afterward, PT-59 ran out of fuel.
Withdrawal and Assessment
General Vandegrift and Admiral Wilkinson, now confident they had the Bougainville landing well in hand, no longer thought the Choiseul deception necessary. Queried whether Blissful should continue, Colonel Krulak observed that the enemy was assembling for strong attacks, which he expected within 48 hours. If his IMAC superiors believed the mission was accomplished, the Paramarines should be withdrawn.
Wilkinson dispatched several landing craft, infantry (LCIs), to Voza to recover Krulak’s battalion on the night of 3–4 November. Five PT boats, PT-59 among them, supported the extraction. Kennedy patrolled off Voza as Krulak and Seton directed the LCIs to shore. The colonel gave the embarkation order at 0138. The Marines left their rations for the natives and managed to load their other equipment and supplies and board the landing craft within 12 minutes. By dawn, they were back at Vella Lavella.
The Choiseul raid cost the Japanese more than 143 men killed, two barges sunk, and more than 180 tons of supplies and equipment destroyed at Sangigai. In turn, the Marines lost 9 men killed, 15 wounded, and 2 missing. Along a 25-mile front, Krulak’s 2d Battalion certainly fulfilled what has been characterized as its mission—“to raise hell”—but judging the Paramarines’ success in diverting Japanese attention away from the landing at Empress Augusta Bay is more difficult. In any case, according to the citation for the Navy Cross he earned for the Choiseul raid, Brute Krulak’s “brilliant leadership and indomitable fighting spirit assured the success of this vital mission.”
“Jack” Kennedy’s last action with PT-59 was a routine patrol on 16–17 November. The next day a Navy doctor ordered the lieutenant, who had reinjured his back when PT-109 was rammed, to the hospital on Tulagi. It was the end of his war; he left for the United States on 21 December.
After Kennedy became President in January 1961, Krulak, by then a major general, presented the chief executive with a bottle of whiskey—a reward for the PT-boat skipper’s work rescuing Krulak’s men.
Greg Bradsher, “Operation Blissful,” Prologue, 42, no. 3 (Fall 2010).
Robert J. Bulkley Jr., At Close Quarters: PT Boats in the United States Navy (Washington, DC: Naval History Division, 1962).
James F. Christ, Mission Raise Hell: The U.S. Marines on Choiseul (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006).
Robert Coram, Brute: The Life of Victor Krulak, U.S. Marine (Boston: Little Brown, 2010).
Robert J. Donovan, PT-109: John F. Kennedy in World War II (New York: Fawcett Crest Books, 1961).
Harry A. Gailey, Bougainville, 1943–1945: The Forgotten Campaign (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1991).
LCOL Jon T. Hoffman, USMC (Ret.), Silk Chutes and Hard Fighting: U.S. Marine Corps Parachute Units in World War II (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1999).
LTGEN Victor H. Krulak, USMC (Ret.), First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999).
John Miller Jr., The United States Army in World War II: CARTWHEEL: The Reduction of Rabaul (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1959).
John Prados, Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun (New York: NAL Caliber Books, 2012).
John M. Rentz, U.S. Marine Corps Historical Monograph: Bougainville and the Northern Solomons (Washington, DC: Historical Branch, U.S. Marine Corps, 1946).
Henry I. Shaw and Major Douglas T. Kane Jr., Isolation of Rabaul, 2, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II (Washington, DC: Historical Branch, G-3 Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1963).
Richard Tregaskis, John F. Kennedy: War Hero (New York: Dell Books, 1963).
“Victor H. Krulak, Marine Behind U.S. Landing Craft, Dies at Age 95,” The New York Times, 4 January 2009.