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By Richard B. Frank
In the high summer of 1942, Americans looked at a very somber world. The borders of recent experience were framed in economic, political, and military disarray. The 1930s witnessed the Great Depression, which visited deprivation upon most of the nation and raised disquieting doubts about the future of the American experiment. Abroad, virile totalitarian movements emerged on the right and left, boasting that they were the trailblazers t° the future. By 1941, a shockingly long list of famous Peoples and nations had fallen before the swords of Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin. In too many eases, these defeats generated vivid P'ctures of spiritless inaptitude that seemed to confirm all of the voices e.onfidently predicting the extinc- lon of democratic capitalism.
In some ways, the first six Months of 1942 represented the ^ery nadir of fortunes for the Al- les- H°th the British counteroffen- s,Ve in the Western Desert begun ln November 1941, and the Soviet Counterattack before Moscow raunched in December 1941 had Un parabolic courses, soaring to j°Uc.h success, and then plummet- in more defeat. Elsewhere, the pXls Hde surged even stronger. jCar* Harbor started a roll call of Panese triumphs, creating an • a2e of the Japanese soldier as a g n§le-fighting superman. For the rnt's^’ lhe humiliation of the sur- ^nder of Singapore in February as revisited with the staggering eWs of the fall of Tobruk in June, o Cn Kinston Churchill, the epit- if rf ^etermination, wondered th em°Crat'c youth could rise to fn.G cHalIcnges that had to be met t0r victory.
thJ^e Hattie of Midway checked C aPanese expansion into the ntraj Pacific and thwarted Ad- ra Isoroku Yamamoto’s bid to
create political conditions propitious to a negotiated peace by seizing Hawaii. But the Imperial Army remained on the march in the South Pacific, and America’s means remained limited while its industry refitted for global war. At this juncture, Admiral Ernest J. King took the course of history into his own hands and turned it. Despite the avowed strategy of Germany First and its concomitant dedication of resources to the European theater, King demanded an offensive in the South Pacific to halt the Japanese plan—revealed by radio intelligence—to con-
75
-'edings / August 1992
struct an airfield on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
Everything about the campaign, dubbed “Operation Shoestring” in some quarters, exuded an aura of improvisation. It is astonishing to note that only five weeks separated the Washington directive from the crunch of the first Marine boots on Solomons beaches. The original order targeted only “Tulagi and adjacent positions;” it was the first sign of the excellence of the Marine command under Major General Archer Vandegrift that on 7 August 1942, the 1st Marine Division landed not only on Tulagi and the “adjacent positions” of Gavutu-Tanam- bogo, but also on Guadalcanal to seize the airfield site.
The thrust achieved both tactical and strategic surprise of the first magnitude. Indeed, Imperial Headquarters would let weeks pass before it recognized the significance of the challenge thrown out by King. But the local Japanese commanders mounted immediate ripostes. Two days of air attacks cost one U.S. transport and 19 planes for 36 Japanese aircraft.
In the early hours of 9 August off Savo Island, the bold and skillful Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa inflicted the most humiliating defeat at sea suffered by the U.S. Navy in World War II. Incurring only trivial damage to his materially inferior task force, he sank four heavy cruisers—the Australian Canberra and the U.S. ships Astoria (CA-34),
Quincy (CA-39), and Vincennes (CA-44)—and killed 1,077 seamen and Marines. The Battle of Savo Island and the withdrawal of carrier air cover left the Marines isolated. They erected defenses and completed the Guadalcanal airstrip, begun by the Japanese, and named it Henderson Field.
The Japanese commanders grossly underestimated the number of Americans in the area. Their first effort ashore pitted a mere reinforced battalion under the headstrong Colonel Kiyoano Ichiki against the entrenched defenders. Ichiki, who helped to start the war at the Marco Polo Bridge in China in 1937, died with almost his entire 917-man command along the banks of the “Tenaru River,” actually Alligator Creek. Like the Revolutionary War Battle of Bunker Hill this fight was misnamed. But also like Bunker Hill, this small battle set the tone for the entire war: no quarter.
An effort to land the rest of Ichiki’s command drew Japanese and U.S. carriers into the Battle of the Eastern
Solomons on 24 August. The Enterprise (CV-6) sustained serious damage from three bomb hits, and 25 U.S. aircraft were lost, but the Japanese lost their light carrier Ryujo and 75 aircraft. Following frustration of this attempt to land reinforcements by convoy the Japanese placed into high gear the “Tokyo Express.” These were nocturnal deliveries—usually by destroyers—of troops or supplies to Guadalcanal, with the relentless precision of a crack railroad line. The Japanese resorted to this method, because the Americans had established an air contingent at Henderson Field. Marine aviators, joined by Army Air Force and Navy fliers, formed what soon
became the illustrious Cactus Air Force. With the vital aid of the early warning provided by coast watchers, the Cactus Air Force turned Guadalcanal into the Verdun of the Imperial Navy’s Air Force.
Three weeks later, an Imperial Army brigade under Major General Kiy- otaki Kawaguchi lunged at Henderson Field, mainly from the south, on the nights of 12-13 and 13-14 September. Along a blood-soaked ridge, Marine defenders under Lieutenant Colonel Merritt Edson, backed by strong artillery, flung back all assaults. Following this triumph ashore, the firs1 major U.S. reinforcements arrived, but not before the Japanese submarine 1-19 torpedoed and sank the carrier Wasp (CV-7).
The defeat of Kawaguchi shocked the Japanese coni' mand, from Rabaul to Tokyo. In the Japanese lexicon, Guadalcanal became a “decisive battle,” and accordingly’ they committed decisive forces. Amid more-frequent aif clashes and two major battles along the Matanikau Rivet, Japanese reinforcements flowed to the island. On the nigh* of 12-13 October, Rear Admiral Norman Scott led 11 cruiser-destroyer task force to victory at Cape Espet' ance. American gunfire mortally wounded the Japanese commander, Rear Admiral Aritomo Goto, and one each of his cruisers and destroyers, against the loss of the U.S. destroyer Duncan (DD-485). Two nights later, jus1 after the landing of the first U.S. Army reinforcements- two Japanese battleships pummeled Henderson Field & never before with their 14-inch guns. A six-ship rein' forcement convoy disgorged more Imperial Army soldier in broad daylight on 15 October, but the Cactus Air Force rallied again and sank half of its merchantmen.
With a new crisis at hand, Admiral Chester Nimitz i°'
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Proceedings / August
tervened. He relieved Vice Admiral Robert Ghormley as lhe theater commander and replaced him with Vice Admiral William F. Halsey. Within less than a week, the -Japanese 17th Army executed its complicated plan to seize Henderson Field. While some elements feinted along the £?ast, the Sendai Division launched the main punch at Henderson Field during the night of 24-25 October, again rr°m the south after a long jungle approach march. Lieutenant Colonel Lewis “Chesty” Puller’s 1st Battalion, th Marines, with some timely Army reinforcements, frustrated this stab; a renewed effort the following night merely ^ngthened the Japanese casualty list. As this action died, he two navies squared off on 26 October near the Santa ruz Islands for the fourth carrier battle of the war. The °rnet (CV-8) and the destroyer Porter (DD-356) were ^rnk, and the Enterprise was seriously damaged again.
he Japanese lost no ships, but the air groups of all four Carriers were mauled, and two carriers were damaged. The Japanese victory at Santa Cruz, their perception that e 17th Army had just missed victory, and a number of •S' radio and newspaper accounts full of gloom and doom •'Purred Imperial Headquarters to renew the offensive and nggered the great Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Each ^'de strived to land reinforcements and deny its adversary . e same advantage. After U.S. reinforcements reached the and, a task force of five cruisers and eight destroyers nder Rear Admiral Daniel Callaghan met two Japanese tleships, a cruiser, and 11 destroyers in the early hours A hdday, 13 November. In the wildest sea fight of the war, uiiral Callaghan and Admiral Scott were killed, and four eestroyers and the cruiser Atlanta (CL-51) were sunk in change for two Japanese destroyers and crippling dam- ^§e to the battleship Hiei, scuttled later that day after more raiTlage from U.S. aircraft. During the withdrawal of the mnants of Callaghan’s command, a torpedo sank the Rinser ^uneau (CL-52), with the loss of all but 14 of her U 'man complement, including five brothers named Sul: a,n’ who had persuaded their superiors to let them serve mJhe same ship.
n 14 November, the Cactus Air Force and the Enter* s A'r Group-10 pounded an 11-ship reinforcement tu V°^ unc*er Hear Admiral Raizo Tanaka, sinking six and Rrn,ng one vessel back. That night, Halsey committed ^ear Admiral Willis Lee’s task force of the battleships fou (HB-56) and South Dakota (BB-57) and
r destroyers to halt another Japanese bombardment and
the convoy. Despite having lost three of the four destroyers and suffering damage to the one remaining and the South Dakota, Lee’s cool leadership and the excellence of the Washington defeated Vice Admiral Kondo’s force of one battleship, four cruisers, and nine destroyers by sinking the battleship Kirishima and a destroyer. The last four members of the Japanese reinforcement convoy were beached and wrecked under relentless air attacks. The victory in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal was not cheap: at least 1,732 U.S. sailors, Marines and airmen died, as did about 1,895 Japanese sailors, soldiers, and aviators.
The Imperial Navy administered another whipping to the U.S. Navy as November became December, at the Battle of Tassafaronga: eight destroyers under Tanaka lost only one of their number in sinking one and crippling three U.S. heavy cruisers of an 11-ship task force. But during December, Imperial Headquarters recognized defeat in a raucous debate and chose to withdraw their starving soldiers from Guadalcanal. A final U.S. offensive under the command of Army Major General Alexander Patch, who had taken took over from Vandegrift upon relief of the 1st Marine Division, began on 10 January. With the complete 2d Marine and Americal Divisions and the newly arrived 25th Infantry Division, Patch assailed the Japanese 17th Army as it moved to embarkation points. In a brilliantly conceived and executed plan, the Japanese extracted 10,652 soldiers and sailors at a cost of only one destroyer and 56 planes. In return, they sank the cruiser Chicago (CA-29), a destroyer, and three PT-boats; 53 U.S. aircraft also were lost.
By the end of the six-month campaign on 9 February 1943, 7,100 U.S. and Allied soldiers, sailors, and Marines had died; but the Japanese had lost at least 30,343 killed. For the U.S. Navy, however, the list of exactly 4,900 killed was exceeded only by 4,907 dead at Okinawa. Proportionately, Guadalcanal was vastly more bloody. Warship losses were 25 U.S., including two carriers, to 24 Japanese, including two battleships and a light carrier. No fewer than 615 Allied planes were lost to all causes against 682 Japanese. But Japanese air crew losses proved to be vastly more crippling. Guadalcanal was the turning point of the Pacific war, in marking the path to victory—but more important, it vindicated a generation. It proved that Americans could triumph in the face of adversity.
Mr. Frank is the author of the exhaustive Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle, (New York: Random House, Inc., 1990).