World War II (1 Viewer)

[DCThunder]

Regarding JFK, he had an older brother killed in action in the Pacific during the war. It is extremely ironic to note that this older brother was considered by th entire family the one talented son who was interested in politics and might someday be a Senator or even President of the United States.

Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., the older brother was lost over the English Channel in an attempt to destroy German gun emplacements by flying explosives laden bombers which would crash into the gun emplacement and the crew would parachute out before hand.Operation Aphrodite

Operation Aphrodite was a series of bombing runs by explosive-laden aircraft piloted by a skeleton crew who would parachute from the aircraft before detonation. After U.S. Army Air Forces Operation missions were drawn up on July 23, 1944, Kennedy and Lieutenant Wilford John Willy were designated as the first Navy flight crew. Willy had pulled rank over Ensign "FNU" Simpson (who was Kennedy's regular co-pilot) to be on the mission.

They flew a modified version of the B-24 Liberator (code named "Anvil") for the U.S. Navy's first Aphrodite mission. Two Lockheed Ventura mother planes and a navigation plane took off from RAF Fersfield. Next the BQ-8 "robot" aircraft loaded with 21,170 pounds (9,600 kg) of Torpex took off. It was to be used as a guided missile against the V-3 cannon site in Mimoyecques, France.[2]

Following 300 feet behind them was Colonel Elliott Roosevelt — son of the U.S. President, Franklin D. Roosevelt — in a de Havilland Mosquito to film the mission. Kennedy and Willy were aboard as the BQ-8 completed its first remote-control turn. Two minutes later and ten minutes before the planned crew bailout, the Torpex detonated prematurely and destroyed the Liberator. Wreckage landed near the village of Blythburgh in Suffolk, England.

ATTEMPTED FIRST APHRODITE ATTACK TWELVE AUGUST WITH ROBOT TAKING OFF FROM FERSFIELD AT ONE EIGHT ZERO FIVE HOURS PD ROBOT EXPLODED IN THE AIR AT APPROXIMATELY TWO THOUSAND FEET EIGHT MILES SOUTHEAST OF HALESWORTH AT ONE EIGHT TWO ZERO HOURS PD WILFORD J. WILLY CMA SR GRADE LIEUTENANT AND JOSEPH P. KENNEDY SR GRADE LIEUTENANT CMA BOTH USNR CMA WERE KILLED PD COMMANDER SMITH CMA IN COMMAND OF THIS UNIT CMA IS MAKING FULL REPORT TO US NAVAL OPERATIONS PD A MORE DETAILED REPORT WILL BE FORWARDED TO YOU WHEN INTERROGATION IS COMPLETED

– Top Secret telegram to General Carl Andrew Spaatz from General Jimmy Doolittle, August 1944[3]

Roosevelt's damaged Mosquito was able to limp home, some of the crewmen injured. Fifty-nine buildings were damaged in a nearby coastal town. The Navy's informal board of review rejected the possibility of the pilot erroneously arming the circuitry early and suspected jamming or a stray signal could have armed and detonated the explosives. An electronics officer had warned Kennedy of this possibility the day before the mission.[3] Kennedy's body was never recovered; he was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. His Navy Cross citation reads: For extraordinary heroism and courage in aerial flight as pilot of a United States Liberator bomber on August 12, 1944. Well knowing the extreme dangers involved and totally unconcerned for his own safety, Kennedy unhesitatingly volunteered to conduct an exceptionally hazardous and special operational mission.

Intrepid and daring in his tactics and with unwavering confidence in the vital importance of his task, he willingly risked his life in the supreme measure of service and, by his great personal valor and fortitude in carrying out a perilous undertaking, sustained and enhanced the finest traditions of the United States Naval Service.[4]

Willy was also posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, and both men's names are listed on the Tablets of the Missing at the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial, a cemetery and chapel near the village of Madingley in Cambridgeshire, Britain, that commemorates American servicemen who died in World War II.

 

[DCThunder]

Dame Vera Lynn, the Forces Sweetheart of WWII has the #1 album in England this week, ahead of the Beatles releases. Her album is of songs she made 70 years ago during the war.

Watch this YouTube. It's her most famous song, "We'll Meet Again" with vintage still photos of WWII, including Churchill, Monty, GIs and Tommies.

 

[timschochet]

The Battle of El Alamein Part Two

Bernard Law Montgomery was master of the set-piece battle. He would not move until every last advantage was his. The last gun had to be emplaced, the last rifle loaded, the last tank fueled and the last soldier counted to assure Monty of his insisted upon 5 to 1 advantage. In the weeks following Alam Halfa, he worked tirelessly to train his rapidly expanding 8th Army in the tactics of his master plan. These were: no tactics. "No more manuever- fight a battle," he told his commanders. Beachse he doubted the ability of his army to match the moves of the Germans, he sought a methodical battle tightly controlled by himself. The plan was relatively simple: two corridors would be cut through enemy minefields, through which armor was pass or fight its way to open ground in the west. After Rommel's fixed defenses had been broken and his armor destroyed, an armored corps was to pursue and mop up.

Monty exuded an incredible confidence in ultimate victory. And why not? He was aware that, in November, the Anglo-Americans would land in French North Africa. The arrival of this new army in Rommel's rear, close to his base in Tripoli, would compel the Desert Fox to fall back on Tripoli lest he be crushed between two armies superior to his own.

Thus Montgomery simply could not lose.

By late October, Monty had achieved an enormous superiority of numbers. He had 220,000 men to Rommel's 96,000, of which only 53,000 were Germans. In weapons and equipment, he had 1,100 tanks, of which 270 were the splendid Shermans and 210 were the heavy Grants, with another 200 in reserve. Against this, the Germans posessed 200 German tanks plus 300 Italian tanks, nicknamed "self-propelled coffins." Only the German Mark IV could hope to duel the Shermans or the Grants, and of these Rommel only had 30. Eighth Army's assault would be supported by 1,000 guns of medium caliber, amply supplied with ammunition. Rommel had only 24 of the dreaded 88s. THe RAF owned the skies.

It is true that the Axis forces were cleverly emplaced behind deep minefields, but these defenses have been grossly exaggerated by Monty's admirers, most notably himself and Winston Churchill. (Churchill called El Alamein "The Hinge of Fate" and devoted an entire book of his 6 volume history of the Second World War to this battle. Only about 40 pages is spent on Stalingrad. Midway and Guadalcanal are barely mentioned.)

Acute fuel shortages hampered the Axis command. It's armor could not be placed well back to rush to the endangered points like fire brigades. Instead it was stationed close up. Because there was not enough fuel for the armor to move from flank to flank en masse, it was divided, half in the north and half in the south.

Finally, perhaps mopst advantageous of all to Montgomery, he would not be opposed by Rommel. The Desert Fox was lying sick in a hospital in Semmering. General Georg Stumme had replaced him.

On the night of October 23, the assault troops of Monty's multinational army moved stealthily into the foward concentration areas. Throughout the following day they lay in trenches beyond the British front. True to form, Montgomery sent them a personal message:

The bettle which is about to begin will be one of the decisive battles in history. It will be the turning point of the war.

 

[Ozymandias]

The Battle of El Alamein Part Two

Bernard Law Montgomery was master of the set-piece battle. He would not move until every last advantage was his. The last gun had to be emplaced, the last rifle loaded, the last tank fueled and the last soldier counted to assure Monty of his insisted upon 5 to 1 advantage. In the weeks following Alam Halfa, he worked tirelessly to train his rapidly expanding 8th Army in the tactics of his master plan. These were: no tactics. "No more manuever- fight a battle," he told his commanders. Beachse he doubted the ability of his army to match the moves of the Germans, he sought a methodical battle tightly controlled by himself. The plan was relatively simple: two corridors would be cut through enemy minefields, through which armor was pass or fight its way to open ground in the west. After Rommel's fixed defenses had been broken and his armor destroyed, an armored corps was to pursue and mop up.

Monty exuded an incredible confidence in ultimate victory. And why not? He was aware that, in November, the Anglo-Americans would land in French North Africa. The arrival of this new army in Rommel's rear, close to his base in Tripoli, would compel the Desert Fox to fall back on Tripoli lest he be crushed between two armies superior to his own.

Thus Montgomery simply could not lose.

By late October, Monty had achieved an enormous superiority of numbers. He had 220,000 men to Rommel's 96,000, of which only 53,000 were Germans. In weapons and equipment, he had 1,100 tanks, of which 270 were the splendid Shermans and 210 were the heavy Grants, with another 200 in reserve. Against this, the Germans posessed 200 German tanks plus 300 Italian tanks, nicknamed "self-propelled coffins." Only the German Mark IV could hope to duel the Shermans or the Grants, and of these Rommel only had 30. Eighth Army's assault would be supported by 1,000 guns of medium caliber, amply supplied with ammunition. Rommel had only 24 of the dreaded 88s. THe RAF owned the skies.

It is true that the Axis forces were cleverly emplaced behind deep minefields, but these defenses have been grossly exaggerated by Monty's admirers, most notably himself and Winston Churchill. (Churchill called El Alamein "The Hinge of Fate" and devoted an entire book of his 6 volume history of the Second World War to this battle. Only about 40 pages is spent on Stalingrad. Midway and Guadalcanal are barely mentioned.)

Acute fuel shortages hampered the Axis command. It's armor could not be placed well back to rush to the endangered points like fire brigades. Instead it was stationed close up. Because there was not enough fuel for the armor to move from flank to flank en masse, it was divided, half in the north and half in the south.

Finally, perhaps mopst advantageous of all to Montgomery, he would not be opposed by Rommel. The Desert Fox was lying sick in a hospital in Semmering. General Georg Stumme had replaced him.

On the night of October 23, the assault troops of Monty's multinational army moved stealthily into the foward concentration areas. Throughout the following day they lay in trenches beyond the British front. True to form, Montgomery sent them a personal message:

The bettle which is about to begin will be one of the decisive battles in history. It will be the turning point of the war.

The Shermans were perhaps not so splendid. However, at this stage of the war, they were a very good tank. They were highly mobile, and although they later in France became vulnerable to German artillery and tanks, they were probably the best available for desert warfare. Churchill knew of course, that the victory over the Germans would be won, eventually, primarily by the Soviets and the Americans. Of the 85 Allied divisions fighting on the Western Front as they went into Germany, 72 were American. So it is perhaps natural, that he would spend a lot of time writing about a victory, probably the last major one, in which the British forces predominated.

 

[timschochet]

The Battle of El Alamein Part Three

A few minutes before 10:00 that night under the risen moon, some 1,000 Allied guns began to roar. From the Mediterranean south to the Qattara Depression, the Axis troops were battered by a dreadful rain of explosive and steel. There was no answering fire because Stumme wanted to conserve his scanty stocks if ammunition. 20 minutes later the barrage lifted and 2nd Alamein began.

On the British right 70,000 men and 600 tanks surged forward against the German left center, held by one Italian and one German division. Not counting the armor, the odds were 6 to 1. Following such a mighty artillery preparation, how could it fail? But it did. Too many men and guns and vehicles were packed into too narrow a front. There was no fighting space. The engineers did not clear corridors straight through the minefields, and the armor following the infantry became jammed up in a series of dead ends. Upon this stalled and floundering mass the Axis artillery delivered a heavy and accurate fire.

To the south, a diversionary attack by an armored corps was halted in a similar cul-de-sac. Infantry and armor could not penetrate the enemy minefied and were immobilized by mines that the Germans had cleverly sown between the belts. They remained stuck their until nightfall. Then, startling news swept through the command: captured soldiers reported that General Stumme had died of a heart attack. The inexperienced Ritter von Thoma had started to take command, but then Rommel had climbed from his sickbed and was flying to the battle to take command himself!

Monty had issued orders that if lanes could not be cleared through the minefields, the armor was to fight it's way through. Each armored division had three lanes, each wide enough for one tank. In the north, two armored divisions clanked forward, attempting on a 6 tank front to force a minefield 5 miles deep. Some units did pierce the minefiled, but not the Axis defense line. The sothern attempt came to a halt at 4 in the morning. There now ensued a dramatic conference in Montgomery's trailer.

 

[timschochet]

The Battle of El Alamein Part Four

Monty was awakened by three of his generals frantically pleading for him to withdraw the scourged armor. He was told by Maj. Gen. A.H. Gatehouse commanding the stricken division on Miteriya Ridge had reported that if he succeeded in penetrating the minefield and tried to descend the ridge's southern face, he would be shot to pieces by enemy antitank guns. Montgomery in his memoirs says he insisted that the armor must fight its way out. Gatehouse, who had spent his entire career in armor and had won 4 decorations for personal bravery, provides a different version. He says he angrily refused the order to continue the attack and called Montgomery on the field telephone. "What the Hell's going on?" he exploded, and then in less than deferential tones he outlined the impossibility of his situation. Monty thereupon reduced the scope of the sothern assault from 6 armored regiments to 1. It lost all but 15 of it's tanks, and the assault remained mired in the minefield. Yet, Montgomery years later told a television audience: "The necessary part of the armored division got established beyond the minefields."

In Monty's mind, it had to be there. If it were not, its failure would suggest that after 48 hours of fighting against a heavily outnumbered foe, not only had his assault failed but his forces were on the verge of defeat. Such a conclusion simply could not be allowed. So he blamed the breakdown on the cowardice and foot dragging of his northern armor- as though his northern infantry had not also been halted.

But at this juncture Montgomery proved that if he had planned his battle poorly, he was still a resolute commander. In the field, he was superb. He had the calm and above all the patience to realize that his enemy could in no way match his enormous resources. Like Grant "whittling" Lee in Virginia, he could afford losses. After repelling a piecemeal counterthrust by the inexperienced Thoma, he bagan attacking again on October 26. Some ground was gained on Miteriya Ridge, but the great offensive remained immobilized.Montgomery spent the day in his headquarters, thinking.

It was at this point that Rommel arrived on thebattlefield. Gathering his armor on October 27, he struck at the British on Kidney Ridge, north and forward of Miteiriya. Here was the Rommel of olf,attacking with the setting sun streaming over his shoulder into the eyes of the enemy!

 

[timschochet]

The Battle of El Alamein, Concluded

Rommel was the Rommel of old, but he was not facing the 8th Army of old. He was scourged from the air as he assembled a force of fewer than 150 tanks, and then he beaten off by the British armor and the 6 pound antitank guns. He lost a third of his force. Next day, Rommel tried again, but the RAF savaged him once more, breaking up his attack before he reached the enemy. Now his army was almost out of fuel. In such straits, Rommel expected his enemy to launch its decisive attack. But Montgomery remained busy with "stage management" for the next few days, patiently preparing the final blow, which he had given the code name Supercharge.

It began at one in the morning of November 2, with Montgomery's 700 tanks facing Rommel with only 90. Here at Tel el Aqqaqir was fought the last great tank battle of the Desert War, and Rommel rose to the occasion. By the very force of his character, he held his army together. His weary, fought-out veterans did not break beneath the enemy blows. Instead, they rallied to the Desert Fox, cherred by the very presence among them of that familiar stocky figure with the fighting friendly face beneath the goggled hat. Again and again he struck the oncoming British with counterstrokes aimed at gaining time for the retreat he was preparing, and these blows were so skillfully delivered that they nearly broke through the enemy salient. By the end of the day Supercharge had failed to achieve any of its objectives.

Next day, the Desert Fox was ready with a rearguard action that held British armor in check while his army began its retreat. This was the most heroic feat of generalship in Rommel's career. Under constant aerial attack and short of fuel, he was going to disengage his vastly outnumbered and mostly immobile army in the face of an enemy possessing great masses of armor and mechanized infantry. That he did so in open country that gave him no natural shields against enemy attack made his withdrawal that much more remarkable.

But then Adolf Hitler came to Montgomery's aid. On November 3, Der Fuhrer ordered Rommel to stand and die at Alamein. Rommel obeyed, canceling his orders to retreat. Without this intervention he almost certainly would have sooner rescued his army from the eager but fumbling fingers of Bernard Montgomery. But he had to wait until nightfall of November 4, while a personal emmisary persuaded Hitler to lift his order. This gave Montgomery a gift of 36 hours, and he made the most of it. British weight of men and armor finally broke into open desert, and the Second Battle of El Alamein was over. "Gentlemen," an elated Monty announced to the press, "this is complete and absolute victory."

He had paid a stiff price for it: 13,500 dead, wounded and missing and 600 tanks lost, again German losses of 1,000 dead, 8,000 prisoners and 180 tanks, and Italian of 1,000 dead and 16,000 prisioners. But if in Clausewitz's famous dictum the fruits of victory are to be plucked in the pursuit, Montgomery had dawdled again. Full scale pursuit was not launched until November 5. Rommel, with a full day's start even after that 36 hour delay, was simply not catchable. All of Monty's "traps" in tight little turns toward the coast came up empty, On the night of November 6, a downpour turned the desert into a quagmire. Montgomery offered this as an excuse for his failure to catch the Desert Fox, as if rain only fell on the 8th Army. Rommel was not only overjoyed by his masterly getaway, he was astonished. "I wonder why he doesn't hurry," he said to Gen. Fritz Bayerlein. "But it's lucky for us."

WHen Rommel made this remark, he had only 10 tanks, and his little army had no fuel. But he had gotten away through brilliant manuveurs, and also because he was faced by a cautious man, who for all his bluster was most likely wary of him. Perhaps Monty did not want to risk sullying "one of the most decisive battles in history."

 

[timschochet]

El Alamein: Final Commentary

The most important question about El Alamein which must be asked is: why was this battle fought at all?

The sad answer is it was fought purely for political reasons. The 8th Army need not have wasted itself in those furious frontal attacks, staining the desert sand with the blood of its men and the oil of its ruined armor. The 8th Army should have waited until the Torch landing in Rommel's rear had forced the Desert Fox to withdraw from Alamein and make haste for his base in Tripoli. Then, and then only, Monty could have been its pursuit. Rommel would have been helpless. He would have been caught between two enemy armies each superior to his own. There would have been no way to escape.

But for the British to have done this would have been to share the inevitable victory with the Torch forces- with the Americans. This Winston Churchill would not allow. Churchill needed a great victory to shore up his collapsing political fortunes. "Ring out the bells," General Alexander cabled from Cairo. They were indeed rung, and the big black banner headlines announced a great conquest comparable to Blenheim or Waterloo.

In another sense, however, as much as we might be critical of Churchill here, we should not forget that for nearly two years his nation stood alone against Germany, while America stayed neutral and Russia looked the other way. And El Alamein was the swan song of the British Empire. For 200 years the Empire had ruled the Earth, and Churchill would argue to his grave that whatever weaknesses it had, it was a source for good, and for human liberty. El Alamein was its last great victory over evil. Now came the passing of the guard to America.

As for Erwin Rommel, what can one do but admire his brilliance while despising that whom he chose to serve? I'm not enough of a military expert to rank Rommel (perhaps Ozy will have a word or two about this) but he certainly has to be up there.

I'm going to take a break from this for a day or two and then begin Guadalcanal. If anyone has any thoughts about the Battle of El Alamein, please feel free to add them now.

 

[Ozymandias]

El Alamein: Final Commentary

The most important question about El Alamein which must be asked is: why was this battle fought at all?

The sad answer is it was fought purely for political reasons. The 8th Army need not have wasted itself in those furious frontal attacks, staining the desert sand with the blood of its men and the oil of its ruined armor. The 8th Army should have waited until the Torch landing in Rommel's rear had forced the Desert Fox to withdraw from Alamein and make haste for his base in Tripoli. Then, and then only, Monty could have been its pursuit. Rommel would have been helpless. He would have been caught between two enemy armies each superior to his own. There would have been no way to escape.

But for the British to have done this would have been to share the inevitable victory with the Torch forces- with the Americans. This Winston Churchill would not allow. Churchill needed a great victory to shore up his collapsing political fortunes. "Ring out the bells," General Alexander cabled from Cairo. They were indeed rung, and the big black banner headlines announced a great conquest comparable to Blenheim or Waterloo.

In another sense, however, as much as we might be critical of Churchill here, we should not forget that for nearly two years his nation stood alone against Germany, while America stayed neutral and Russia looked the other way. And El Alamein was the swan song of the British Empire. For 200 years the Empire had ruled the Earth, and Churchill would argue to his grave that whatever weaknesses it had, it was a source for good, and for human liberty. El Alamein was its last great victory over evil. Now came the passing of the guard to America.

As for Erwin Rommel, what can one do but admire his brilliance while despising that whom he chose to serve? I'm not enough of a military expert to rank Rommel (perhaps Ozy will have a word or two about this) but he certainly has to be up there.

I'm going to take a break from this for a day or two and then begin Guadalcanal. If anyone has any thoughts about the Battle of El Alamein, please feel free to add them now.

I rank Rommel very highly. In the World's Greatest Draft, which was held here in the FFA a few months ago, I ranked him 12th among all military leaders in history (I was the Judge for the category). Here is what I said about him there: "The most brilliant general to emerge from WW2. As a division commander, his panzer division was known as the “ghost division” because of its ability to strike quickly where it was not expected. When he was placed in charge of the Afrika Corps his aggressive and bold behavior (exceeding his orders) won him large chunks of territory, defeated the British in the Battle of Gazala, captured Tobruk, and chased the British to the gates of Egypt. During all of these battles, he usually had an inferiority of artillery and tanks, but used them so skillfully that he made the British retreat. He also treated prisoners generously, and turned a blind eye to orders to execute Jews. Some of his strength was also his weakness; a tendency to risk too much, and to refuse to listen to contrary opinions, even to ignore orders. Sometimes that produced great gains, but overextended his troops."

 

[Offa]

Rommel is probably the most overrated general in the history of human warfare. Tactically he was skilled (though it should be remembered that Generals O'Connor, Richie and Montgomery also achieved spectacular advances in the desert), but Rommel showed almost zero understanding of either strategy or logistics. Instead of realising the limitations of the Afrika Korps and his Italian Allies, Rommel pursued a flight of fancy, a fantasy of conquering all of Egypt and the Middle East that was nowhere near possible. Had he been able to marshal his forces competently on a strategic level, the Axis would have delayed defeat in Africa (and thus the invasion of Italy) by several months, which is all Rommel or any commander could have accomplished.

 

[Ozymandias]

Rommel is probably the most overrated general in the history of human warfare. Tactically he was skilled (though it should be remembered that Generals O'Connor, Richie and Montgomery also achieved spectacular advances in the desert), but Rommel showed almost zero understanding of either strategy or logistics. Instead of realising the limitations of the Afrika Korps and his Italian Allies, Rommel pursued a flight of fancy, a fantasy of conquering all of Egypt and the Middle East that was nowhere near possible. Had he been able to marshal his forces competently on a strategic level, the Axis would have delayed defeat in Africa (and thus the invasion of Italy) by several months, which is all Rommel or any commander could have accomplished.

The only reason it wasn't possible is that Hitler wouldn't give him the troops and materiel. Had he done so, Rommel would have taken the Suez Canal.

 

[timschochet]

Rommel is probably the most overrated general in the history of human warfare. Tactically he was skilled (though it should be remembered that Generals O'Connor, Richie and Montgomery also achieved spectacular advances in the desert), but Rommel showed almost zero understanding of either strategy or logistics. Instead of realising the limitations of the Afrika Korps and his Italian Allies, Rommel pursued a flight of fancy, a fantasy of conquering all of Egypt and the Middle East that was nowhere near possible. Had he been able to marshal his forces competently on a strategic level, the Axis would have delayed defeat in Africa (and thus the invasion of Italy) by several months, which is all Rommel or any commander could have accomplished.

In order to write about the Desert War, I used a variety of sources, but mostly Delivered From Evil by Robert Mackie. He loves O'Connor nearly as much as he loves Rommel, but based on his description, I hardly think we can regard what Ritchie and Montgomery did as "spectacular advances." To compare them to Rommel's brilliant attacks is somewhat ludicrous IMO. Unless you have another source which contradicts most of what I've written here...

 

[timschochet]

Another aspect of Offa's criticism of Rommel is that we should look down upon the Desert Fox because supposedly he didn't realize his limitations. This same criticism is often applied to Lee at Gettysburg. In both instances, these two generals took tremendous gambles precisely because they did recognize their limitations, and further realized that only by taking huge risks would they have any chance of success at all.

 

[Offa]

The only reason it wasn't possible is that Hitler wouldn't give him the troops and materiel. Had he done so, Rommel would have taken the Suez Canal.

Hitler can send all the material he wants to North Africa. He can't make Tripoli harbour any bigger, or the roads in Libya any better, or expand the rail network. You can't will hundreds of tons of supplies (especially oil) over the mediterranian and then across thousands of miles of desert. It's no coincidence that Rommel won his victories closer to the logistical base of Tripoli and ran out of steam once his own logistics choked him off. When a competent British general finally arrived in the form of Montgomery, Rommel was done for.

 

[Offa]

In order to write about the Desert War, I used a variety of sources, but mostly Delivered From Evil by Robert Mackie. He loves O'Connor nearly as much as he loves Rommel, but based on his description, I hardly think we can regard what O'Connor and Montgomery did as "spectacular advances." To compare them to Rommel's brilliant attacks is somewhat ludicrous IMO.

Unless you have another source which contradicts most of what I've written here...

Rommel's brilliant attacks were a one trick pony outflanking maneuver to the right. He did this during his dash across Cyrenaica at the very beginning. He did this during Operation Crusader. He did this at Gazala. He did it at Mersa Mutrah. He tried doing it al El Alamein but the British were finally competent enough not to throw their forces piecemeal at him and so finally halted him. In the end Rommel was defeated due to his obstinate refusal to ever consider not attacking, ignoring the advice of his superiors. The OKW were ordering Rommel not to attack because they understood the logistical situation made it impossible for Rommel to reach Alexandria, and offensives would only weaken his strength.I don't know too much about the American Civil War, but I'll tell you now that comparing Rommel and Lee is insulting to the Virginian.

 

[Ozymandias]

In order to write about the Desert War, I used a variety of sources, but mostly Delivered From Evil by Robert Mackie. He loves O'Connor nearly as much as he loves Rommel, but based on his description, I hardly think we can regard what O'Connor and Montgomery did as "spectacular advances." To compare them to Rommel's brilliant attacks is somewhat ludicrous IMO.

Unless you have another source which contradicts most of what I've written here...

Rommel's brilliant attacks were a one trick pony outflanking maneuver to the right. He did this during his dash across Cyrenaica at the very beginning. He did this during Operation Crusader. He did this at Gazala. He did it at Mersa Mutrah. He tried doing it al El Alamein but the British were finally competent enough not to throw their forces piecemeal at him and so finally halted him. In the end Rommel was defeated due to his obstinate refusal to ever consider not attacking, ignoring the advice of his superiors. The OKW were ordering Rommel not to attack because they understood the logistical situation made it impossible for Rommel to reach Alexandria, and offensives would only weaken his strength.I don't know too much about the American Civil War, but I'll tell you now that comparing Rommel and Lee is insulting to the Virginian.

Really got your British dander up, eh? Competent is probably a little too generous to Montgomery. Most generals can win if you give them 4-1 advantages in materiel.

That's OK. Wars have their start in arguments. No problem with your differing opinion.

 

[Mjolnirs]

I don't know too much about the American Civil War, but I'll tell you now that comparing Rommel and Lee is insulting to the Virginian.

My two favorite military figures in history. Comparing either to the other is an insult to neither.

 

[Ozymandias]

THE BATTLE FOR NEW GUINEA

The battle of the Coral Sea in May interrupted the Japanese plans to land a large force and take Port Moresby. As a result, their troops transports had to go back. But the Japanese still wanted New Guinea to forestall the eventual Allied comeback, which they believed would be based from Australia. So they decided to try again, this time by landing on the northern side of New Guinea. However, they were devoid of maps, and had no realization that New Guinea is one of the most mountainous regions of the world, with peaks that go up to 12,000 ft. (there is a reason that New Guinea has over 200 languages—villages have been isolated from each other since the beginning of time).

In July 1942, the Japanese landed on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. At roughly the same time, the Allies occupied Port Moresby on the southern shore. Between the two armies stretched 120 miles of mountainous terrain, dense forests, and disease-infested swamps. Violent thunderstorms lasted days and left waist-deep pools of standing water. The jungle was unbearably hot and humid.

Gradually, the Japanese forced their way through the jungle and by mid-September 1942, had Port Moresby in sight. "For the first time, Port Moresby, main Allied base in Papua, seems in danger with the outflanking of our lines," a news report said. "… The advance is patterned faithfully on the Japanese tactics of infiltration and envelopment so effectively used in Malaya."Within days of the news report, the Japanese abruptly stopped their advance 30 miles from Port Moresby and reassigned New Guinea troops as reinforcements on Guadalcanal.

With that, the Allies started their push to the opposite side of the peninsula toward Japanese strongholds on the northern coast of Papua. Japanese and American operations on Papua were a study in contrasts. The Japanese marched every inch, taking two months to cut through the dense jungle and to climb methodically over 7,000-foot mountain passes. Each step made logistics more difficult. Not only was the terrain impossible, the Japanese had to contend with low-level U.S. air attacks on both Japanese land forces and supply ships. The attacks severely affected supply and troop positions of Japanese forces on New Guinea. "When the heavy-bombers came, the landing strips were seriously damaged but there were not very many casualties," Commander Yasumi Doi of the Imperial Japanese Navy said. "The dive-bombers were very serious against ships and did practically all of that kind of damage. One day … was a bad one. Dive-bombers sank four supply ships in the harbor." With the United States in control of the air, the Allies did not have to worry about Japanese planes. Because overland movement was extraordinarily difficult, the Allies used some boats and mostly air transports to move from the south shore to the north.

The Japanese did not try airlifting troops or supplies on a large scale. The soldiers on the ground were cut off and left to starve or fall victim to disease. "Their positions were strong and their troops would not yield, but without food, medicine, or ammunition men can do only so much," analyst William O'Neil concluded. "Tens of thousands were rendered ineffective, or even died outright, from lack of sustenance." Conversely, the mainly Australian forces were weak in almost every other respect. They lacked artillery, and despite that their commanders pushed them to make gains at any cost against an enemy that was dug in and willing to fight to the death. In the end, six months of hellish combat conditions yielded what seemed a modest victory as they reclaimed a tiny piece of the vast island network that had fallen to Japan in a comparable period of time.

The Japanese attempted to take Milne Bay, where there was an airport which they wanted to use to attack Port Moresby. After ferocious fighting, the Australian troops finally repulsed them.

The British Field Marshal Sir William Slim, who had no part in the battle, said:

"Australian troops had, at Milne Bay in New Guinea, inflicted on the Japanese their first undoubted defeat on land. If the Australians, in conditions very like ours, had done it, so could we. Some of us may forget that of all the Allies it was the Australian soldiers who first broke the spell of the invincibility of the Japanese Army; those of us who were in Burma have cause to remember."

Japanese forces had experienced local setbacks before: their first attack on Wake Island was thrown back, and American Marines defeated the Japanese on Guadalcanal in the Battle of the Tenaru, four days before the Battle of Milne Bay began. But unlike Milne Bay, these actions did not result in complete Japanese withdrawal and the abandonment of the military campaign.

That success by Australian troops was followed by the battle of Buna Gona. On November 16, 1942, Australian and United States forces attacked the main Japanese beachheads in New Guinea, at Buna, Sanananda and Gona. By January 22, 1943, after prolonged heavy fighting in trying conditions, the Allied forces had overcome the defenders. Casualties were extremely high. Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger later compared the casualty ratio to the United States Civil War. As a percentage of casualties, killed or wounded in action at Buna exceeded the better known Battle of Guadalcanal.

On January 20 General Yamagata ordered an evacuation and escaped while General Oda and Colonel Yazawa ran into Australian troops and were killed. The Japanese positions on the coast collapsed with little resistance. Evacuation of the main track was not possible and this last position was overrun on January 22. After almost three months of fighting the Japanese had lost 1,500 men, the Australians 2,700 and the Americans 798.

The Allies in the battle for New Guinea were aided significantly by the naval Battle of the Bismarck Sea, where Australian Air Force and USAF planes attacked a convoy carrying 10,000 troops to Lae, New Guinea. Most of the convoy was sunk, including all the troop transports, leading to a huge loss of Japanese soldiers. The convoy had started from Rabaul, in January 1943.

There was also significant fighting along the Kokoda Track, where Japanese and Australian forces tangled in the hellishly hot jungle. Eventually, the Japanese were slowly pushed back, although some fighting in the jungle continued all the way to 1945. After their initial successes, the Japanese faced the lack of supplies and support, and at the end, some of them were so ravaged and starving that there were reports of cannibalism. (But of course, New Guinea was known for that!)

 

[timschochet]

I'm going to begin to discuss Guadalcanal in a day or two, but with Ozy mentioning New Guinea, I want to bring up a point about American soldiers:

The first battles we have discussed involving Americans (Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, Bataan, the Coral Sea, Midway) were mostly fought by professionals. The Marines on Wake, the pilots of the Enterprise, the army units at Bataan- these were all mostly military men who had enlisted in the armed services seeking some sort of temporary or long term career. They were trained fighters, and can be compared to the men who are fighting for us now in Iraq and Afghanistan- as I said, professionals.

But starting with New Guinea and Guadalcanal, and for the rest of the war, the amatuers were coming. These were the bulk of American young men who had little or no military experience and would now pit their skills against the finest professional soldiers in the world on the other side. All of them had grown up in the Depression. Most of them felt a quiet but very real patriotism that made them willing to go across the sea and risk death. Not that they had a choice- the draft was in effect. But unlike the Vietnam war, most soldiers did not question the lack of personal freedom that the draft instituted. Nearly every healthy man went; if somehow you didn't, you were considered a coward. Concientious objectors were not popular.

Beginning with Guadalcanal, I want to pay special attention to the United States Marine Corps. Of course the Marines, which was then part of the Navy, had many important battles before World War II (starting with the halls of Montezuma). But the men who fought in the Pacific, again mostly youths who were amateur, created a legend all their own, and it will remain one for as long as this nation exists as a free country. Their amazing stories deserve to be told again and again. We'll do our best to do them a little justice here.

 

[timschochet]

Prelude to Guadalcanal Part One

The commander of the United States Navy during the Second World War was Ernest J. King, a tall, hard, and humorless man, of whom FDR liked to say, "He's so tough, he shaves with a blowtorch." King had such a dour personality that he was roundly disliked by most of the men running the war: Stimson, the Secretary of War, General Marshall, Alan Brooke, even Churchill. These were the men who had decided on the Anglo-American strategy: Germany First. King argued that Jaoan must be checked. They could not be allowed to gather more resources while the Allies concentrated on Hitler.

After the victory at Midway, King saw his chance. He proposed that it was now time for America to seize the offensive, and he chose Tulagi-Guadalcanal as the proper place to begin it. But Marhsall was still cool toward an early Pacific counteroffensive. He was still committed to Operation Bolero, the buildup of American forces in Britain. On May 6, Roosevelt had told the Joint Chiefs: "I do not want Bolero slowed down." But that had been a month before Midway. Now, quoting intelligence reports that the Japanese were moving into Guadalcanal, King returned to the attack. Reluctantly, Marshall agreed to his proposal.

But who would command? King held out for Nimitz, pointing out that it would be a navy show with Marines going ashore. But the Solomons were in MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area, Marshall replied. Finally it was decided to include the Solomons in the South Pacific Area commanded by Vice Adm. Robert Ghormley under Nimitz's control. On June 25, 1942, the Joint Chiefs ordered Ghormley to confer with MacArthur on the operation. Gormley was in Auckland, New Zealand. Next day, he put in a call for Maj. Gen. Alexander Vandegrift, just arriving in Wellington with advance units of his First Marine Division.

Vandergrift was of old Virginia stock, the grandson of a Confederate colonel who had served with Lee in several battles. He was taught to pray to "the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson." Unable to get into West Point because his grades were not good enough, he decided to take the Marine Corps examination instead. "If you do this," his father warned him, "you will spend a large portion of your life fighting small wars in the southern American hemisphere."

This turned out to be nothing but the truth. Vandergrift spent most of the 33 years of his service in the Corps in Central America, fighting "Banana wars." These were the "Old Corps", tough, grizzled men who between the wars were always in action: in Central America, South America, and China. They refused to accept the doctrine that seemingly laid down by the British debacle at Gallipoli in World War I: that hostile and defended shores cannot be seized from the sea. The Marines argued that they could; moreover that it was not necessary to capture ports with all their shiop facilities but that invasions could be made over open beaches. Most brass ears were deaf to this absurd doctrine. Many generals, and some admirals, derided Marines as "beach jumpers" unfit to command more than a platoon, let alone discover and evolve new military theories. After all, the Marine Corp was a small auxillery force of scarcely 20,000 men; it was only, in the phrase of some very famous detractors, "the navy's police force."

But the Marines perserved in studying and practicing amphibious warfare. They had to. Without a reason for being, they actually were nothing but naval police. Strugging for their very existence, they developed the tactics, weapons, and equipment needed for amphibious warfare, unaware that they were preparing themselves for the naval war par excellence.

It was from these tough men that Alexander Archer Vandegrift now emerged: a big, strong, extremely courteous man. Vandergrift received his second star and command of the First Marine Division in March of 1942. His first task, in New River North Carolina, was to triple the size of the Marine Corps. To accomplish this, new raw recruits would have to be trained. To train them, Vndergrift called for the "old salts" and "China hands" to return back home. These were considered the dregs of the military: professional privates who had spent as much time in the brig as barracks. Gamblers, hard drinkers, and connivers, they scorned more traditional Army and Navy protocol. They were also among the best soldiers in the world. As Vandy later said, "they could strip a machine gun blindfold and tie a tourniquet with their teeth. They were tough, and they knew it, and they exulted in that knowledge. They were the Leathernecks, the old breed of the American regular, regarding the service as home and war as occupation, and they transmitted their character and temper and viewpoint to the volunteers."

At first, however, when the Leathernecks studied the volunteers, they thought it was downright impossible: these skinny, "professorial" geeks who couldn't stand straight, couldn't hold a gun, couldn't march- these losers could NEVER be made into Marines. In a few months? Not possible.

 

[Ozymandias]

Prelude to Guadalcanal Part One

The commander of the United States Navy during the Second World War was Ernest J. King, a tall, hard, and humorless man, of whom FDR liked to say, "He's so tough, he shaves with a blowtorch." King had such a dour personality that he was roundly disliked by most of the men running the war: Stimson, the Secretary of War, General Marshall, Alan Brooke, even Churchill. These were the men who had decided on the Anglo-American strategy: Germany First. King argued that Jaoan must be checked. They could not be allowed to gather more resources while the Allies concentrated on Hitler.

After the victory at Midway, King saw his chance. He proposed that it was now time for America to seize the offensive, and he chose Tulagi-Guadalcanal as the proper place to begin it. But Marhsall was still cool toward an early Pacific counteroffensive. He was still committed to Operation Bolero, the buildup of American forces in Britain. On May 6, Roosevelt had told the Joint Chiefs: "I do not want Bolero slowed down." But that had been a month before Midway. Now, quoting intelligence reports that the Japanese were moving into Guadalcanal, King returned to the attack. Reluctantly, Marshall agreed to his proposal.

But who would command? King held out for Nimitz, pointing out that it would be a navy show with Marines going ashore. But the Solomons were in MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area, Marshall replied. Finally it was decided to include the Solomons in the South Pacific Area commanded by Vice Adm. Robert Ghormley under Nimitz's control. On June 25, 1942, the Joint Chiefs ordered Ghormley to confer with MacArthur on the operation. Gormley was in Auckland, New Zealand. Next day, he put in a call for Maj. Gen. Alexander Vandegrift, just arriving in Wellington with advance units of his First Marine Division.

Vandergrift was of old Virginia stock, the grandson of a Confederate colonel who had served with Lee in several battles. He was taught to pray to "the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson." Unable to get into West Point because his grades were not good enough, he decided to take the Marine Corps examination instead. "If you do this," his father warned him, "you will spend a large portion of your life fighting small wars in the southern American hemisphere."

This turned out to be nothing but the truth. Vandergrift spent most of the 33 years of his service in the Corps in Central America, fighting "Banana wars." These were the "Old Corps", tough, grizzled men who between the wars were always in action: in Central America, South America, and China. They refused to accept the doctrine that seemingly laid down by the British debacle at Gallipoli in World War I: that hostile and defended shores cannot be seized from the sea. The Marines argued that they could; moreover that it was not necessary to capture ports with all their shiop facilities but that invasions could be made over open beaches. Most brass ears were deaf to this absurd doctrine. Many generals, and some admirals, derided Marines as "beach jumpers" unfit to command more than a platoon, let alone discover and evolve new military theories. After all, the Marine Corp was a small auxillery force of scarcely 20,000 men; it was only, in the phrase of some very famous detractors, "the navy's police force."

But the Marines perserved in studying and practicing amphibious warfare. They had to. Without a reason for being, they actually were nothing but naval police. Strugging for their very existence, they developed the tactics, weapons, and equipment needed for amphibious warfare, unaware that they were preparing themselves for the naval war par excellence.

It was from these tough men that Alexander Archer Vandegrift now emerged: a big, strong, extremely courteous man. Vandergrift received his second star and command of the First Marine Division in March of 1942. His first task, in New River North Carolina, was to triple the size of the Marine Corps. To accomplish this, new raw recruits would have to be trained. To train them, Vndergrift called for the "old salts" and "China hands" to return back home. These were considered the dregs of the military: professional privates who had spent as much time in the brig as barracks. Gamblers, hard drinkers, and connivers, they scorned more traditional Army and Navy protocol. They were also among the best soldiers in the world. As Vandy later said, "they could strip a machine gun blindfold and tie a tourniquet with their teeth. They were tough, and they knew it, and they exulted in that knowledge. They were the Leathernecks, the old breed of the American regular, regarding the service as home and war as occupation, and they transmitted their character and temper and viewpoint to the volunteers."

At first, however, when the Leathernecks studied the volunteers, they thought it was downright impossible: these skinny, "professorial" geeks who couldn't stand straight, couldn't hold a gun, couldn't march- these losers could NEVER be made into Marines. In a few months? Not possible.

"Corporal Whitlock paraded before the platoon, which stood frozen."###### Yankees," he finally hissed. "Goddamyankee is one word in my book. All right, you people. My name is Whitlock...you address me as sir. You sonofa#####es aren't human beings anymore. I don't want any of you lily-livered bastards getting the idea you are Marines either. You're boots! Crapheads! The lowest, stinking, scummiest form of animal life in the universe. I'm supposed to attempt to make Marines out of you in the next three months. I doubt it. You goddamyankees are the most putrid-looking specimens of slime I have have ever laid eyes on...Remember this, you sonofa#####es—your soul may belong to Jesus, but your ### belongs to me."

(Battle Cry)

 

[timschochet]

"Corporal Whitlock paraded before the platoon, which stood frozen.

"###### Yankees," he finally hissed. "Goddamyankee is one word in my book. All right, you people. My name is Whitlock...you address me as sir. You sonofa#####es aren't human beings anymore. I don't want any of you lily-livered bastards getting the idea you are Marines either. You're boots! Crapheads! The lowest, stinking, scummiest form of animal life in the universe. I'm supposed to attempt to make Marines out of you in the next three months. I doubt it. You goddamyankees are the most putrid-looking specimens of slime I have have ever laid eyes on...Remember this, you sonofa#####es—your soul may belong to Jesus, but your ### belongs to me."

(Battle Cry)

Battle Cry is a terrific novel that describes the volunteers who would become Marines in the Second World War. The author, Leon Uris (more famous for Exodus) was a Marine himself who fought in the Pacific, and he wrote from experience and from the heart. Highly recommended.The volunteers came from all walks of life: high school teachers, engineers, college professors, factory workers, laymen, farmers. They were Christian and Jewish, Italian and Dutch and Mexican-Americans. There were no African-Americans, because the Marines were not integrated. Very few of them had military experience. They had enlisted as a result of patriotic feeling after Pearl Harbor. These young men (usually between the ages of 18 and 25) generally believed in the good of their country, and in honor and duty. The Leathernecks put them through three months of intense training, and turned them into soldiers. But neither their teachers nor the men themselves had any idea of what they would be getting into. For all of the experiences of the Leathernecks, Guadalcanal would begin a stage of bloody fighting that the Marines had never before encountered.

 

[timschochet]

Prelude to Guadalcanal Part Two

When Ghormley met Vandergrift in New Zealand, he handed the latter a top secret dispatch. Vandy read it with unbelieving eyes. The Joint Chiefs were directing him to take his raw recruits and seize some place called Tulagi-Guadalcanal. He was to land August 1. Five weeks away! Five weeks, with his division fragmented: the 7th in Samoa, the 1st at sea, the 5th here with half of the 11th artillery and the other half at Samoa or at sea. Most of his men had not been in uniform 6 months. His supplies would now need to be unloaded, sorted, and combat-loaded. He would need combat suppies such as barbed wire, which had not been included in his inventory. Worst of all, Vandergrift knew nothing ot the target area and would have just those five weeks to discover what he could about Guadalcanal.

If the general had been commanded to invade the moon, he would have known as much about the target area as he learned about Tulagi-Guadalcanal. All available information was contained in an old marine chart, a few faded photographs taken by missionaries five years before the Japanese landed and a short story by Jack London. Desperate, his Intelligence section rounded up the same hard-bitten Australian islanders whom Dwight Eisenhower had vainly tried to hire to fun the Philippine blockade. They were much more amenable to interrogation, provided that "the Yanks" would supply them with enormous amounts of Scotch Whiskey. Some of the information they provided was valuable, but some turned out to be costly because it was incorrect. So haphazard was this gathering of intelligence that Vandy's staff began to refer to the invasion as Operation Shoestring. Perhaps the only ay of hope in those feverish weeks of pulling a farflung division together and preparing for an invasion on an unknown island 10,000 miles from home was the extra week of grace given by the Joint Chiefs.

The invasion was to be no later than August 7, because the Japanese were coming perilously close to completing an airfield on Guadalcanal. Land based air could scourge the American invasion fleet. Land based air could also cut the American-Australian lifeline. That was what Guadalcanal was all about, that was what the island war would be all about: a struggle for air bases, for unsinkable aircraft carriers from which the enemy could be attacked by long-range, land based air. From Guadalcanal, the Americans would be able to strike at the big Japanese air and sea bases at Rabaul at the northern tip of New Britain, or at Kavieng on the northeastern end of New Ireland.

This meant that the Japanese could not tolerate an American airfield on Guadalcanal any more than the Americans could not tolerate a Japanese airfield on Guadalcanal. Therefore, unlike the battles of Stalingrad and El Alamein, this battle would be for a key strategic objective to both sides. Both sides considered it of primary importance, and would put whatever resources they could into winning it and/or keeping it. Guadalcanal was going to be one of the pivotal battles in world history.

 

[the rover]

Rommel is probably the most overrated general in the history of human warfare. Tactically he was skilled (though it should be remembered that Generals O'Connor, Richie and Montgomery also achieved spectacular advances in the desert), but Rommel showed almost zero understanding of either strategy or logistics. Instead of realising the limitations of the Afrika Korps and his Italian Allies, Rommel pursued a flight of fancy, a fantasy of conquering all of Egypt and the Middle East that was nowhere near possible. Had he been able to marshal his forces competently on a strategic level, the Axis would have delayed defeat in Africa (and thus the invasion of Italy) by several months, which is all Rommel or any commander could have accomplished.

In order to write about the Desert War, I used a variety of sources, but mostly Delivered From Evil by Robert Mackie. He loves O'Connor nearly as much as he loves Rommel, but based on his description, I hardly think we can regard what Ritchie and Montgomery did as "spectacular advances." To compare them to Rommel's brilliant attacks is somewhat ludicrous IMO. Unless you have another source which contradicts most of what I've written here...

Robert Leckie. Just in case anyone wants to read it. Carry on.

 

[timschochet]

Rommel is probably the most overrated general in the history of human warfare. Tactically he was skilled (though it should be remembered that Generals O'Connor, Richie and Montgomery also achieved spectacular advances in the desert), but Rommel showed almost zero understanding of either strategy or logistics. Instead of realising the limitations of the Afrika Korps and his Italian Allies, Rommel pursued a flight of fancy, a fantasy of conquering all of Egypt and the Middle East that was nowhere near possible. Had he been able to marshal his forces competently on a strategic level, the Axis would have delayed defeat in Africa (and thus the invasion of Italy) by several months, which is all Rommel or any commander could have accomplished.

In order to write about the Desert War, I used a variety of sources, but mostly Delivered From Evil by Robert Mackie. He loves O'Connor nearly as much as he loves Rommel, but based on his description, I hardly think we can regard what Ritchie and Montgomery did as "spectacular advances." To compare them to Rommel's brilliant attacks is somewhat ludicrous IMO. Unless you have another source which contradicts most of what I've written here...

Robert Leckie. Just in case anyone wants to read it. Carry on.

Yep. Thanks.

 

[timschochet]

Prelude to Guadalcanal Part Three

Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher was in command of the task force, the greatest invasion fleet yet assembled. Three carriers: Saratoga, Wasp, and Enterprise- representing all of America's air-sea power in the Pacific- the battleship North Carolina, heavy and light cruisers by the dozen, and destroyers by the score. With auxiliary ships such as oil tankers, the total was 48 ships ordered to accompany Vandegrift and his 19,000 Marines to Guadalcanal.

Yet Fletcher was uneasy. He knew the vital value of the carriers he commanded and he distrusted the operation on which he was embarked. In Hawaii, he had openly predicted it would fail. He had already lost two carriers to enemy bombs and torpedoes- Lexington in the Coral Sea, Yorktown at Midway, and he had no desire to enter history as the admiral who had lost five carriers.

Beneath Fletcher in the chain of command was Vice Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner, a man as audacious as Fletcher was cautious. Kelly Turner's job was to command the amphibious force- the troop transports and supply ships- while Maj. Gen. Vandegrift was to lead only the landing force of 19,000 Marines who were to seize the objective. When Vandegrift met Fletcher, he was surprised to see how tired and nervous the admiral appeared. Next, he was surprised that Fletcher had neither knowledge nor interest in the Guadalcanal operation. Finally, he was dumbfounded to hear Fletcher prophesy failure, and to learn that he would only allow two days to unload Vandegrift's Marines.

Vandy, stunned, told Fletcher that this was no mere hit-and-run raid. This was an expedition to take fortified enemy islands. There was going to be a fight. His Marines would need air cover. Five days was barely enough. Two would be suicidal. Turner agreed, with heat and force. Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher shook his head again. He was leaving on the third day.

"This conference is dismissed," he said.

 

[DCThunder]

Beginning with Guadalcanal, I want to pay special attention to the United States Marine Corps. Of course the Marines, which was then part of the Navy, had many important battles before World War II (starting with the halls of Montezuma). But the men who fought in the Pacific, again mostly youths who were amateur, created a legend all their own, and it will remain one for as long as this nation exists as a free country. Their amazing stories deserve to be told again and again. We'll do our best to do them a little justice here.

The Marine Corps is STILL part of the Navy, a source of great frustration to Marines everywhere.

 

[DCThunder]

"Corporal Whitlock paraded before the platoon, which stood frozen.

"###### Yankees," he finally hissed. "Goddamyankee is one word in my book. All right, you people. My name is Whitlock...you address me as sir. You sonofa#####es aren't human beings anymore. I don't want any of you lily-livered bastards getting the idea you are Marines either. You're boots! Crapheads! The lowest, stinking, scummiest form of animal life in the universe. I'm supposed to attempt to make Marines out of you in the next three months. I doubt it. You goddamyankees are the most putrid-looking specimens of slime I have have ever laid eyes on...Remember this, you sonofa#####es—your soul may belong to Jesus, but your ### belongs to me."

(Battle Cry)

Battle Cry is a terrific novel that describes the volunteers who would become Marines in the Second World War. The author, Leon Uris (more famous for Exodus) was a Marine himself who fought in the Pacific, and he wrote from experience and from the heart. Highly recommended.The volunteers came from all walks of life: high school teachers, engineers, college professors, factory workers, laymen, farmers. They were Christian and Jewish, Italian and Dutch and Mexican-Americans. There were no African-Americans, because the Marines were not integrated. Very few of them had military experience. They had enlisted as a result of patriotic feeling after Pearl Harbor. These young men (usually between the ages of 18 and 25) generally believed in the good of their country, and in honor and duty. The Leathernecks put them through three months of intense training, and turned them into soldiers Marines. But neither their teachers nor the men themselves had any idea of what they would be getting into. For all of the experiences of the Leathernecks, Guadalcanal would begin a stage of bloody fighting that the Marines had never before encountered.

NEVER call a Marine a "soldier" unless you want to be picking your teeth up off the floor. Same way you never call a guy who flies planes for the Navy a "pilot". They are Naval Aviators, son. And despite what Uris says, I always thought that non-coms didn't want to be called "sir" because only officers were called "sir" and non-coms worked for a living.

 

[timschochet]

Guadacanal Part One

August 6, 1942.

Aboard the troopships there were tensions in the air. Marines squatted on the humid, grimy decks, blacking rifle sights or applying a last light coat of oil to their rifle bores. Many of these men wondered silently how they would react the next day in the holocaust of battle. The vast majority had never been in combat before. In the heads, the big poker games were played. The money had found its inevitable way into a few skilled hands, and the big winners gathered for showdown games in lavatories below decks filled with cigarette smoke.

Aboard all the troopships final classes were held by each platoon on the subject of "Know Your Enemy". For perhaps the 20th time they listened while lieutenants, none of whom had ever seen combat, read to them from hastily assembled manuals celebrating those qualities which made the Japanese soldier "the greatest jungle fighter in the world." The strong, stoic Asiatic, who tortured and slaughtered in the name of an Emperor he believed divine, was able to march farther, eat less and endure more than any other soldier in the world, etc. Though some of this was true, much of it was hysterical hokum born of the Pearl Harbor psychosis.

At 2:00 in the morning of August 7, the American force rounded Cape Esperance at Guadalcanal's northwestern tip. Men on the weather decks could make out the bulk of Savo Island, a round cone which sat at the western edge of Sealark Channel. Because of Savo, the invasion fleet had to split in two. Ships carrying the main body turned immediately east to sail between Savo and Guadalcanal and take up stations off the Guadalcanal beaches. The rest sailed North moving to stations off Tulagi.

Both sections were in position before daylight. American cruisers and destroyers opened fire, while the carrier airplanes started dropping bombs. The Japanese on both sides of the channel awakened to find their waters covered with enemy ships. Seaplanes in Tulagi Harbor were caught before they could rise and turned into floating torches. Marines moving to battle stations gazed with satisfaction at flickering shorelines to north and south. At shortly after 7:00, the assault groups of both sections were ready to launch simultaneous attacks.

 

[timschochet]

Guadalcanal Part Two

On Tulagi the Japanese made their first defensive stand of the war. Against them came the First Marine Raider Battalion. They leaped from their boats into the surf and drove swiftly across the island at a point two thirds above the boot. Another battalion following behind them wheeled left to overrun the lightly defended northwestern third of the island. The raiders attacked three companies abreast. The Japanese responded with a withering sniper fire. Snipers fired from beneath houses or behind giant trees. Caves also spat machine gun fire. Slowly, inexorably, the Americans drove forward.

That night the Japanese launched the first banzai charge of the war. They came running in bands, their officers leaping and howling before them, waving their long samurai sabers. They might have been drunk- for banzai charges usually were fueled by liberal rations of whiskey- and they screamed in their native language or shrieked those quaint English oaths which, they had been told, would terrify the effete Americans:

"U.S. Marine be dead tommorow!"

"Japanese boy drink American boy's blood!"

Back with foul mouthed disdain came the Marine battle cry: "You'll eat #### first, you bastards!"

Firing their rifles as they charged, the Japanese sought to draw giveaway fire, but they were met instead by grenades spiraling silently through the night to go flashing and crashing among them. Sometimes they infiltrated, wielding knives, and when they did, they were met with knives. Five times they charged the Raider position, greeted each time by mortar fire, which drove them into barbed wire and guns. In the end, they were broken, and just as would occur throughout the Pacific War, the foolish and wasteful banzai charge had also broken their backs. In the morning, the Raiders swept forward against a mere handful, and Tulagi was taken by nightfall August 8. On that same day, the islands of Gavutu and Tanambogo were taken with similiar ease. This left Guadalcanal, where Vandegrift and his main body of 10,000 Marines had landed.

 

[RudiStein]

"Corporal Whitlock paraded before the platoon, which stood frozen.

"###### Yankees," he finally hissed. "Goddamyankee is one word in my book. All right, you people. My name is Whitlock...you address me as sir. You sonofa#####es aren't human beings anymore. I don't want any of you lily-livered bastards getting the idea you are Marines either. You're boots! Crapheads! The lowest, stinking, scummiest form of animal life in the universe. I'm supposed to attempt to make Marines out of you in the next three months. I doubt it. You goddamyankees are the most putrid-looking specimens of slime I have have ever laid eyes on...Remember this, you sonofa#####es—your soul may belong to Jesus, but your ### belongs to me."

(Battle Cry)

Battle Cry is a terrific novel that describes the volunteers who would become Marines in the Second World War. The author, Leon Uris (more famous for Exodus) was a Marine himself who fought in the Pacific, and he wrote from experience and from the heart. Highly recommended.The volunteers came from all walks of life: high school teachers, engineers, college professors, factory workers, laymen, farmers. They were Christian and Jewish, Italian and Dutch and Mexican-Americans. There were no African-Americans, because the Marines were not integrated. Very few of them had military experience. They had enlisted as a result of patriotic feeling after Pearl Harbor. These young men (usually between the ages of 18 and 25) generally believed in the good of their country, and in honor and duty. The Leathernecks put them through three months of intense training, and turned them into soldiers Marines. But neither their teachers nor the men themselves had any idea of what they would be getting into. For all of the experiences of the Leathernecks, Guadalcanal would begin a stage of bloody fighting that the Marines had never before encountered.

NEVER call a Marine a "soldier" unless you want to be picking your teeth up off the floor. Same way you never call a guy who flies planes for the Navy a "pilot". They are Naval Aviators, son. And despite what Uris says, I always thought that non-coms didn't want to be called "sir" because only officers were called "sir" and non-coms worked for a living.

good lord

 

[timschochet]

Guadalcanal Part Three

Guadalcanal was 90 miles and slender and beautiful, seen from the sea. It's towering central mountains ran down its spine in a graceful east-west keel. The sun seemed to kiss the timberline, and lay shimmering on open patches of tan grass dappling the green of its forest. Gentle waves washed the beaches white, raising a glitter of sun and water and scoured sand beneath fringing groves of coconut trees leaning languorously seaward with nodding, star shaped heads.

It was beautiful, but beneath the loveliness, within the necklace of sand and palm, under the coiffure of the sun-kissed treetops with its tiara of jeweled birds, Guadalcanal was a mass of slops and stinks and pestilence; of scum-crusted lagoons and vile swamps inhabited by giant crocodiles; a place of spiders as big as your fist and wasps as long as your finger, of lizards as long as your leg or as brief as your thumb; of ants that bite like fire, of tree leeches that fall, fasten or suck; of scorpions, of centipedes whose foul scurrying across human skin leaves a track of inflamed flesh, of snakes and land crabs, rats and bats and carrion birds and of a myriad of stinging insects. By day, black swarms of flies feed on open cuts and make them ulcerous. By night, mosquitoes come in clouds- bringing malaria, dengue or any of a dozen filthy exotic fevers. Night or day, the rains come; and when it is the monsoon, it comes in torrents, conferring a moist mushrooming life on all that tangled green of vine, fern, creeper and bush, dripping on eternally in the rain forest, nourishing kingly hardwoods so abundantly that they soared 100 feet in the air, rotting them so thoroughly at their base that a rare wind-or perhaps only a man leaning against them- will bring them crashing down.

Guadalcanal was hot, Guadalcanal was humid, Guadalcanal stank. All those Marines who came to her shores that morning were bathed in sweat. It was here, on that first day, August 7, 1942, that someone first uttered the phrase that would become legendary as the Marines' nickname for Guadalcanal. Forever afterwards, if a Marine or former Marine uttered these words, you knew they were referring to Guadalcanal:

That ####### Island.

 

[timschochet]

Guadalcanal Part Four

Vandegrift's main body, some 10,000 Marines in two regiments, hit Red Beach almost at the center of the island's northern coastline. A Japanese laboring force of 1,700 men had fled into the rain forest when the first American shells and bombs crashed among them as they sat for breakfast. Marines bursting into the encampment found still warm bowls of rice on their tables. They also discovered that the airfield the enemy had abandoned was nearly complete: hangars, blast pens, and a dirt runway 3,800 feet long. It was promptly named Henderson Field after Major Lofton Henderson, who had crashed his airplane into a Japanese warship at Midway. Around the field was a complex of wharves, bridges, ice plants, radio stations and power and oxygen plants. Huge stores of wormy rice- wormy, despicable, gagging rice- were also discovered, and much as the Marines might disdain this enemy staple, it would very soon stand between them and starvation. One battalions of the First Marines took the airfield August 7, while its two other battalions continued on south, plunging into the steaming morass of the jungle towards their first-day objective: a high clear height called Mount Austen, which commanded Henderson Field from the south. But they did not reach it. That night they halted and dug in.

Meanwhile, the Japanese surface fleet was reacting to this surprise attack. The Slot was the sea corridor of the Solomon Islands, running 400 miles from Bouainvilled to Guadalcanal. A force of 7 enemy cruisers commanded by Rear Adm. Gunichi Mikawa entered the Slot about noon of August 8. His flagship, Chokai, led, followed by the heavies Aoba and Furutaka, two more heavies, then a pair of light cruisers. An American search plane sighted them almost immediatedly but by 11:30 that night not all the ships in Iron Bottom Sound had been warned.

Cruisers Chicago and Canberra with their picket destroyers guarded the south gate between Savo and Guadalcanal while the cruisers Quincy, Vincennes, and Astoria held the north gate between Savo and Florida. A rain squall at midnight hid Mikawa. From the destroyer Patterson came the cry: "WARNING! WARNING! STRANGE SHIPS ENTERING HARBOR!"

The warning was too late. Canberra was the first destroyed. Chicago's bow was blown away. She was helpless to stop the Japanese from swinging north to scourge Quincy, Vincennes, and Astoria. Turning on their powerful searchlight they took the Americans at point-blank range and sank them. Not all went down immediately, but they were finished.

This episode became known in history as The Battle of Savo Island, or, as it was called by Marines and sailors, The Battle of the Five Sitting Ducks. It went on until dawn, when Mikawa went racing back up the Slot. Perhaps he feared the aircraft from Fletcher's carriers, but he needn't have, because they were already withdrawing. Frank Jack Fletcher had warned that he would not stay longer than two days; now his fleet was leaving. From his headquarters at Tulagi, Vandegrift watched the remainder of the undamaged ships leave Iron Bottom Bay, taking their much needed supplies with them. Who knew when they might return?

The Marines were alone.

 

[DCThunder]

Guadalcanal Part Four

Vandegrift's main body, some 10,000 Marines in two regiments, hit Red Beach almost at the center of the island's northern coastline. A Japanese laboring force of 1,700 men had fled into the rain forest when the first American shells and bombs crashed among them as they sat for breakfast. Marines bursting into the encampment found still warm bowls of rice on their tables. They also discovered that the airfield the enemy had abandoned was nearly complete: hangars, blast pens, and a dirt runway 3,800 feet long. It was promptly named Henderson Field after Major Lofton Henderson, who had crashed his airplane into a Japanese warship at Midway. Around the field was a complex of wharves, bridges, ice plants, radio stations and power and oxygen plants. Huge stores of wormy rice- wormy, despicable, gagging rice- were also discovered, and much as the Marines might disdain this enemy staple, it would very soon stand between them and starvation. One battalions of the First Marines took the airfield August 7, while its two other battalions continued on south, plunging into the steaming morass of the jungle towards their first-day objective: a high clear height called Mount Austen, which commanded Henderson Field from the south. But they did not reach it. That night they halted and dug in.

Meanwhile, the Japanese surface fleet was reacting to this surprise attack. The Slot was the sea corridor of the Solomon Islands, running 400 miles from Bouainvilled to Guadalcanal. A force of 7 enemy cruisers commanded by Rear Adm. Gunichi Mikawa entered the Slot about noon of August 8. His flagship, Chokai, led, followed by the heavies Aoba and Furutaka, two more heavies, then a pair of light cruisers. An American search plane sighted them almost immediatedly but by 11:30 that night not all the ships in Iron Bottom Sound had been warned.

Cruisers Chicago and Canberra with their picket destroyers guarded the south gate between Savo and Guadalcanal while the cruisers Quincy, Vincennes, and Astoria held the north gate between Savo and Florida. A rain squall at midnight hid Mikawa. From the destroyer Patterson came the cry: "WARNING! WARNING! STRANGE SHIPS ENTERING HARBOR!"

The warning was too late. Canberra was the first destroyed. Chicago's bow was blown away. She was helpless to stop the Japanese from swinging north to scourge Quincy, Vincennes, and Astoria. Turning on their powerful searchlight they took the Americans at point-blank range and sank them. Not all went down immediately, but they were finished.

This episode became known in history as The Battle of Savo Island, or, as it was called by Marines and sailors, The Battle of the Five Sitting Ducks. It went on until dawn, when Mikawa went racing back up the Slot. Perhaps he feared the aircraft from Fletcher's carriers, but he needn't have, because they were already withdrawing. Frank Jack Fletcher had warned that he would not stay longer than two days; now his fleet was leaving. From his headquarters at Tulagi, Vandegrift watched the remainder of the undamaged ships leave Iron Bottom Bay, taking their much needed supplies with them. Who knew when they might return?

The Marines were alone.

The HMAS Canberra was a ship of the Royal Australian Navy and Iron Bottom Sound got it's name after the Battle of Savo Island.

 

[timschochet]

Guadalcanal Part Five

Abandoned by the Navy, Vandegrift now held a conference with all his officers. He was blunt: the Marines were completely alone and God only knew if or when they would receive support from the sea or air cover. They were open to every form of attack: troops by land, shells from the sea, bombs from the air. Every officer and man in their command must be informed of these facts. But this would not be another Bataan. Marines had been surviving bad situations since 1775, and they would survive this one, too.

Colonel Gerald Thomas, the operations officer, spoke next. He said they would now organize the defense of Guadalcanal, get the supplies inland, finish the airfield, and patrol. They were going to hold a perimeter roughly 7,500 yards wide from west to east and penetrating inland south by about 3,500 yards. Its northern or seaward front would be heavily defended, for it was here Vandegrift expected the enemy counterattack. Its landward rear would be lightly held, for here there was a jumble of hills and jungle manned by outposts tied together by roving patrols. On the east or right flank was the Tenaru River, on the west or left the Kukum Hills. Insided this thin, tooth gapped perimeter was vital Henderson Field.

This was the position which the Marines were to hold in isolation against a determined enemy now possessing the initiative and all the ships, airplanes, guns, and men require to pursue it. United States Marines, having been trained to hit, were now being asked to hold.

In Japan all was jubilation. Though Yamamoto had privately reprimanded Mikawa for failing to sink the transports, in public Mikawa and his men were hailed as heroes. Headlines announced "great war results...unrivaled in world history." Australia had "absolutely become an orphan of the Southwest Pacific." It was announced that 24 warships and 11 transports "filled to capacity with Marines" had been sunk. The House of Peers directed a certificate of gratitude be presented to the minister of the navy, and English-language broadcasts coyly suggested that there was "plenty room at bottom of Pacific for more American Fleet- ha! ha!"

In America there was silence. Maj. Gen. Millard Harmon, commander of army forces under Ghormley, wrote gloomily on August 11: "Can the Marines hold it? There is considerable room for doubt."

The Marines themselves were least impressed by the prophecies of their impending doom. They found and plundered a Japanese warehouse filled with beer and sake, and drank nearly all of it within a few days. Meanwhile, to conserve dwindling food supplies, Vandegrift put his men on a twice daily ration consisting chiefly of captured wormy rice, which the men detested. Beginning on August 9, signs of their isolation and the enemy's determination to retake the island began to appear. On that date the emperor's "glorious young eagles" began to bomb and strafe the Marines. Twin-engined Betty bombers flying in formations of about 24 airplanes began to drop 500 pound bombs that made Guadalcanal shudder and shake and fragmentation grass-cutter bombs that maimed and killed. Soon the Tokyo Express- the name bestowed on the enemy ship traffic up and down the Slot- began to run each night with Japanese destroyers or cruisers entering the bay to shell the Marines cringing in their sodden holes, while submarines surfaced by day to shoot at everything in sight. But by August 12 Henderson Airfield had been pronounced operational, although it received nothing more warlike than a Catalina flying boat.

 

[timschochet]

The HMAS Canberra was a ship of the Royal Australian Navy and Iron Bottom Sound got it's name after the Battle of Savo Island.

thanks. The source I am using doesn't mention this. I suspect that it uses the name (Iron Bottom Sound) for familiarity, or perhaps the author simply did not know.

 

[timschochet]

Are you a Marine or former Marine, DC? You seem to know a lot about the Corps, and the history of this battle.

 

[timschochet]

Guadalcanal Part Six

Lt. Col. Frank Goettge was Vandegrift's intelligence officer. On August 12, a captured Japanese seaman was brought to him. He told Goettge that hundreds of his comrade to the west were sick and dying and anxious to surrender. This coupled with an earlier report of a white flag waing in the same area, lest Goettge to form a patrol to go on a mercy mission to Matanikau village, a cluster of native huts. 25 men, the cream of Division Intelligence, plus some of the best scouts from the Fifth Marines, went with Goettge by Higgins boat to the "surrender area." But there was no surrender. Instead, converging streams of machine-gun fire massacred the ill-fated Goettge patrol. Only 3 Marines survived, escaping by swimming downcoast to the safety of their lines. They staggered ashore streaming blood from flesh torn and slashed by coral. One of them who fled just before daybreak told of turning to see sabers flashing in the sun.

Sabers flashing in the sun.

That was the phrase and image that transformed Vandegrift's Marines from a merry to a murderous mood. Then enemy had chopped up wounded Marines who had come on a mission of mercy to save the false and wretched enemy. So be it. Now let the enemy come, so that these Marines- products of a soft and effete society- could also kill, could also chop up wounded; and with their own sabers.

From that day forward, Marines seldom took prisoners in the Pacific. It was not a considered "policy" ordained from on high. It was to be the arterial response of company-grade officers who, with their men, actually came to grips with the enemy. They had learned now that they must become what they fought.

After the Goettge patrol there would be no quarter.

 

[DCThunder]

Are you a Marine or former Marine, DC? You seem to know a lot about the Corps, and the history of this battle.

No, not a Marine, but had a couple of Marine buddies over the years. And I've read enough WWII novels, many of which focus on the Corps. And being here in DC for as long as I have been you pick up some military stuff just by osmosis. Haven't been to the new Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, but it's supposed to be very spectacular. And the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington at night or at sunset is awesome.BTW, you got the terminology right. When you retire or are discharged, you are NEVER an "ex-Marine", you are always a "former Marine".

 

[Frostillicus]

"Corporal Whitlock paraded before the platoon, which stood frozen.

"###### Yankees," he finally hissed. "Goddamyankee is one word in my book. All right, you people. My name is Whitlock...you address me as sir. You sonofa#####es aren't human beings anymore. I don't want any of you lily-livered bastards getting the idea you are Marines either. You're boots! Crapheads! The lowest, stinking, scummiest form of animal life in the universe. I'm supposed to attempt to make Marines out of you in the next three months. I doubt it. You goddamyankees are the most putrid-looking specimens of slime I have have ever laid eyes on...Remember this, you sonofa#####es—your soul may belong to Jesus, but your ### belongs to me."

(Battle Cry)

Battle Cry is a terrific novel that describes the volunteers who would become Marines in the Second World War. The author, Leon Uris (more famous for Exodus) was a Marine himself who fought in the Pacific, and he wrote from experience and from the heart. Highly recommended.The volunteers came from all walks of life: high school teachers, engineers, college professors, factory workers, laymen, farmers. They were Christian and Jewish, Italian and Dutch and Mexican-Americans. There were no African-Americans, because the Marines were not integrated. Very few of them had military experience. They had enlisted as a result of patriotic feeling after Pearl Harbor. These young men (usually between the ages of 18 and 25) generally believed in the good of their country, and in honor and duty. The Leathernecks put them through three months of intense training, and turned them into soldiers Marines. But neither their teachers nor the men themselves had any idea of what they would be getting into. For all of the experiences of the Leathernecks, Guadalcanal would begin a stage of bloody fighting that the Marines had never before encountered.

NEVER call a Marine a "soldier" unless you want to be picking your teeth up off the floor. Same way you never call a guy who flies planes for the Navy a "pilot". They are Naval Aviators, son. And despite what Uris says, I always thought that non-coms didn't want to be called "sir" because only officers were called "sir" and non-coms worked for a living.

good lord

I have a friend who is in the Marines, and was recently promoted to Sargent. I said, "Congrats, Sarge." Yeah. They don't like that either.

 

[timschochet]

Guadalcanal Part Seven

As a result of faulty intelligence, the Japanese believed that only 2,000 Marines had landed on Guadalcanal. Colonel Kiyono Ichiki had a crack detachment of 2,000 men on Guam, and these forces were chosen for the honor of eliminating the pesky Yankees. Ichiki's troops were elite; they had defeated the Chinese in several battles, and the Russians in the secret war of 1939. They were supposed to be the vanguard force invading Midway, but that had been spoiled, and now they thirsted for revenge. Ichiki didn't believe the 2,000 Marines would present much of a problem, so he put 900 of his best men on six fast destroyers to get there quickly; the rest of his command, equipment, and heavy guns would follow by slower transport.

Two days later the 900 landed at Taivu Point, 20 miles east of the Tenaru River. Ichiki had been given strict orders by his superiors not to attack immediately if there were difficulties, but to wait for reinforcements. Ichiki considered this a personal insult, and chose to ignore this order. How could 2,000 foreign barbarians handle 900 of the Emperor's finest soldiers? Ichiki was going to attack right now, without waiting, at night, to surprise the foe. He wrote in his diary: "Aug 18, the landing. Night, the battle. Aug 21 The enjoyment of the fruits of victory." (He wrote all of this on August 18, so sure was he of the victory about to ensue.)

The Marines were alerted through scouts. They laid barbed wire and awaited attack. What followed was a bloodbath. Wave after wave of the Japanese soldiers charged into Marine machine gun fire. Over 700 Japanese died, to 34 Marines and 75 wounded. At least another 100 Japanese died afterwards in the forest. Ichiki, distraught, and unable to live with the shame of this defeat, burned his colors and shot himself through the head. If the Battle of Savo Island had been Round 1 of Guadalcanal, Round 2 (the Battle of Tenaru) went to the Marines.

The Japanese had begun to display fatal tendencies that were to remain with them during the long American sea charge across the Pacific. The first was dilatoriness: during the 12 days following the Battle of Savo Island, they had the opportunity to retake Guadalcanal and drive its defending Marines into the sea. They had the wherewithal to do it- the ships, guns, airplanes, and troops- but they did not do it. Failing 2 was the habit of committing forces piecemeal, rather than concentrating them so that they could be defeated in detail. The Ichiki strike was an example of this. After the Battle of Tenaru, the Marines were fully entrenched and would be a very hard nut to crack. Failing 3 was the habit of writing reports through rose-colored glasses. In all the Imperial Army there was no commander more adept at this perverse skill than Lt. Gen. Haruyoshi Hyakutake, Ichiki's superior on Guam. In his communiques to Tokyo, a defeat became a "valiant advance", and a rout was a "glorious withdrawal of unshaken discipline." His comment to Tokyo about Ichiki was:

The attack of the Ichiki Detachment, while it accomplished much, was not entirely successful.

Then he drew up another plan for recapturing Guadalcanal.

 

[timschochet]

Guadalcanal Part Eight

Still committed to piecemeal reinforcement, Hyakutake would use Ichiki's rear echelon-about 1,500 men- plus another 1,000 from the Fifth Naval Landing Force. He also ordered Maj. Gen. Kiyotake Kawaguchi with his brigade of 5,000 Borneo veterans to stand by for movement to Guadalcanal. It did not occur to Hyakutake to wait for all of them to assemble. He still believed that 2,500 men was enough to conquer the 10,000 Marines he now calculated to be on Guadalcanal. He still refused to accept the Americans as worthy foemen. He had written: "The American soldiers are extremely weak when they lack support of firepower. They easily raise their hands during battle and when wounded give cries of pain." (This attitude was similar to the Confederates' view of Yankees early in the Civil War, when it was asserted that one Southerner could whip 10 "Yankee rabble".) Supporting these troops was the entire Combined Fleed under Admiral Yamamoto. Naval aircraft would soften the Marines by daily bombings while the destroyers and cruisers of the Toyko Express would bombard them nightly. Three carriers, three battleships, nine cruisers, thirteen destroyers, thirty six submarines and numerous auxilleries would cover a reinforcement of roughly 2,500 men bound for western Guadalcanal. Thus, a whale was to escort its whelp to battle.

Such ship movement did not escape the observation of Australian coast watchers and American scout planes. Admiral Ghormley had ample warning. He ordered Admiral Fletcher's carriers (Enterprise, Saratoga, Wasp) to protect the sea lanes to the Solomons. On August 23 the three flattops were east of Malaita Island and a mere 150 miles from Henderson Field. Fletcher, misinformed by Pacific Fleet Intelligence that the Japanese forces were still far away at Truk, sent the Wasp group steaming away to a refueling rendezvous. It was not his fault, but it was a bad move, for Nagumo was already pressing ahead with his big veterans, Zuikakuand Shokaku.

On the 24th, a Catalina flying boat found light carrier Ryujo 280 miles northwest of Fletcher's two-carrier force. Yamamoto intended Ryujo to be bait for the Americans, just as the doomed Shoho had been in the Coral Sea. Fletcher took the bait and with the same results: Ryujo was sunk. Now Nagumo launched his own attack groups at Enterprise and Saratoga. Fletcher was ready for them. 51 Wildcat fighters were stacked above the flattops in three layers. They went wolfing among the enemy, but 24 bombers got through. They struck at Enterprise, about one every 7 seconds. She took 3 bombs, rupturing her decks, killing 74 men, wrecking some of her 5 inch guns. But excellent fire control saved the Enterprise. The battleship North Carolina, in her Pacific baptism of fire, also was attacked. But she shot down or drove off 14 bombers. Only Saratoga was unmolested, while her own planes severely damaged the seaplane tender Chitose. With losses of only 17 aircraft, Fletcher withdrew. Pursuing Japanese battleships and cruisers were unable to find him before darkness ended the air-sea phase of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons.

On the following day- August 25- Marine air, now called Cactus Air Force after the code name for Guadalcanal, attacked the invasion force under Rear Adm. Raizo Tanaka. A Dauntless found Tanaka's flagship, the big cruiser Jintsu and planted a bomb on her forward deck. She went staggering home, asmoke and aflame, while Navy and Marine dive-bombers, followed by a flight of Flying Fortresses, fell on the transports. They sank two of them and the destroyer Mutsuki. The remaining transports turned north and sailed to the safety of the Shortland Islands, where the troops debarked to board barges for a nocturnal and less ostentatious trip south.

Thus, the Battle of the Eastern Solomons had ended in a moderate American victory. One light carrier had been sunk and the enemy invasion force was repelled. Saratoga was later torpedoed by an enemy submarine, but the ship was saved and returned to action three months later.

Meanwhile, Henderson Field had withstood the aerial assaults which had been planned to make way for these these troops. On August 24, the Marine fighter pilots shot down 11 Zero fighters and 10 bombers at a loss of 3 of their own planes. That date marked the beginning of the long epic defense of Guadalcanal's skies, which was to match the stand being made on the ground. From August 24 onward, Marine fliers began shooting down Zeros and twin-engined Betty bombers at a rate of 6 to 8 kills for every one of their own men lost. These were the Nameless Wonders of the ******* Air Force. They flew in patched up aircraft flying wing to wing in that technique of fighting by pairs which they would bring to their perfection. They would paint red balls on their planes for every Zero shot down, and some of these men were aces. By August 30, Maj. John Smith had five red balls on his Wildcat fighter; at nightfall, he had 4 more.

On the ground, in September, Vandegrift and the Raiders faced their own threat- Kawaguchi and his 5,000 Borneo troops had slipped into eastern Guadalcanal by night barge and were marching through the jungle towards Henderson Field.

 

[RudiStein]

"Corporal Whitlock paraded before the platoon, which stood frozen.

"###### Yankees," he finally hissed. "Goddamyankee is one word in my book. All right, you people. My name is Whitlock...you address me as sir. You sonofa#####es aren't human beings anymore. I don't want any of you lily-livered bastards getting the idea you are Marines either. You're boots! Crapheads! The lowest, stinking, scummiest form of animal life in the universe. I'm supposed to attempt to make Marines out of you in the next three months. I doubt it. You goddamyankees are the most putrid-looking specimens of slime I have have ever laid eyes on...Remember this, you sonofa#####es—your soul may belong to Jesus, but your ### belongs to me."

(Battle Cry)

Battle Cry is a terrific novel that describes the volunteers who would become Marines in the Second World War. The author, Leon Uris (more famous for Exodus) was a Marine himself who fought in the Pacific, and he wrote from experience and from the heart. Highly recommended.The volunteers came from all walks of life: high school teachers, engineers, college professors, factory workers, laymen, farmers. They were Christian and Jewish, Italian and Dutch and Mexican-Americans. There were no African-Americans, because the Marines were not integrated. Very few of them had military experience. They had enlisted as a result of patriotic feeling after Pearl Harbor. These young men (usually between the ages of 18 and 25) generally believed in the good of their country, and in honor and duty. The Leathernecks put them through three months of intense training, and turned them into soldiers Marines. But neither their teachers nor the men themselves had any idea of what they would be getting into. For all of the experiences of the Leathernecks, Guadalcanal would begin a stage of bloody fighting that the Marines had never before encountered.

NEVER call a Marine a "soldier" unless you want to be picking your teeth up off the floor. Same way you never call a guy who flies planes for the Navy a "pilot". They are Naval Aviators, son. And despite what Uris says, I always thought that non-coms didn't want to be called "sir" because only officers were called "sir" and non-coms worked for a living.

good lord

I have a friend who is in the Marines, and was recently promoted to Sargent. I said, "Congrats, Sarge." Yeah. They don't like that either.

They don't like being congratulated?

 

[timschochet]

Guadalcanal Part Nine

Red Mike Edson's Raiders held the ridge above Henderson Airfield, and whoever held the airfield held Guadalcanal. Vandergrift was grimly aware of this when he sent Edson and his men up there. All the signs told him that a payoff battle was impending. Scores of frightened natives flocking into the sanctuary of the American perimeter told of being forced to "cut a tunnel" through the southern jungle. (They also reported the murder of Catholic missionary priests and the rape and murder of their nuns.) Finally, enemy aerial and naval bombardments were rising in fury. Something big was coming, and Vandegrift, with but a single battalion in reserve, was powerless to maneuver against it. He had already formed his specialists- truck drivers, pioneers and amtrac men- into rifle battalions and sent them to hold isolated strong points. He dared not strengthen Edson's ridge with Marines drawn from other points already dangerously thin and held by troops melting away with malaria. All depended on Edson and his force of Raiders and Paramarines.

On the 11th there was help. 24 Navy fighters flew into Henderson, where they received a welcome from a Cactus Air Force down to 11 planes. That day there had been 46 enemy aircraft over the airfield. On the same day Edson scouted his front, detecting a buildup, which caused him to bring his men forward and order them to string barbed wire and dig in. The next day furious aerial battles raged over Henderson Field. Betty Bombers flew low to lay sticks of bombs along the ridge. Then there was silence until nightfall. At 9:00 pm a Japanese patrol plane dropped a green flare over Henderson Field. 30 minutes later an enemy cruiser and three destroyers stood off Lunga Point to pound the ridge with 8 and 5 inch shells. 20 minutes after that, a rocket rose on the right or Lunga side of the ridge and Kawaguchis men struck with a howl.

They had marched down the bank of the Lunga, wheeled right towards the ridge, and then, silhouetted in the light of their parachute flares, had come charging forward in waves. Grenadiers came first, followed by riflemen and light machine gunners, coming in columns stretching as far back as the Marines could see. They slapped their rifle butts to a cadenced beat, screaming in a rising, rhythmic chant: "U.S. Marines be dead tommorow!!!"

They broke the Raiders and drove them back. They split Edson's center and sliced off a platoon on the far right flank. Cutting Edson's wire as they came, they moved down the Lunga to prevent an encirclement. Here again, as always, the Japanese penchant for night fighting, either to strike terror into the enemy's heart or to cancel out his superior firepower, dissolved their discipline. Kawaguchi could not capitalize on the first shattering charge. His men, so far from overwhelming the ridge, now merely flowed up against it, thrashing about in the jungle that engulfed them, tripped them, confused them, once they had left the straight going of the riverbank. So now the battle was fragmented, man against man, bayonets jabbing, a mindless melee raging beyond the control of either commander. But the advantage lay with Kawaguchi. He had driven the Americans back. When daylight came, his forces retreated to their assembly areas, preparing for the final blow the next night.

Edson's men were stunned. They moved like sleepwalkers. They had been driven back, attempted a counterattack, and this too had failed. A relieving battalion had been unable to reach the ridge because of the constant aerial action over Henderson Field. It would be up to 400 Raider Marines holding a line 1,800 yards long against 4,000 Japanese- one man every five yards against 10 of the enemy. Now would be the climatic battle. Edson gathered the men together and spoke these words:

This is it. It is useless to ask ourselves why it is that we who are here. We are here. There is only us between the airfield and the Japs. If we don't hold, we will lose Guadalcanal.

Kawaguchi was ectastic. He knew Admiral Mikawa's cruisers would arrive at midnight, and by shelling the ridge and the airfield that would help him considerably, but it also might give the Navy part of the honor of final victory over the cursed Americans. This should belong to the Army, so he decided to attack early. This would be the greatest triumph in the war, the key battle, and he, Kiyotaki Kawaguchi would forever be immortalized. He radioed Tokyo that he was attacking and expected a quick knockout. At 6:30 pm his men moved out.

 

[timschochet]

Guadalcanal Part 10

On the fragile right flank, a full battalion of Japanese- close to 1,000 men attacked this critical area held by 100 American Marines. This was a night for individual heroics. Pfc. Jimmy Corzine saw four Japanese setting up a machine gun on a knob above him. He charged, bayoneting their leader, turning their gun on the rest of them, killing them, and kept on firing until he himself was killed. Capt. John Sweeney's company had been cut into little pockets. He had lost half his company, and the Paramarines on his left were driven back by a charge supported by mortars.

Captain Torgeson took command of the retreating Paramarines. He rounded up the men drifting rearward, held roll call, singled them out by name and challenged them to go forward. They did. They passed through a shower of enemy grenades to reach a bare slope to set up machine guns, and there they cut down the charging enemy to the ground. But the Japanese replied with another shower of grenades, firing them from so-called knee mortars, the launchers they carried forward strapped to their legs. Sgt. Keith Perkins roved the ridge hunting for ammunition for his two guns. One by one his gunners fell, dead or wounded. Perkins jumped on his last gun, firing it until he, too, perished.

Red Mike Edson was desperate to make contact with Captain Sweeney on the right. He used his field telephone. A voice said primly, "Our situation here, Colonel Edson, is excellent, Thank you, sir." The voice sounded wrong; it wasn't Sweeney, it wasn't American. Edson swore. It was a ###### ***! He seized a passing corporal famous for his loud voice. The corporal ran forward, cupping his hands to his lips and bellowed above the bedlam: "Red Mike says its OK to pull back!"

Sweeney heard and withdrew. Gradually, Edson shortened his line. He lay on his belly within 10 yards of his guns, his arm curled around his field telephone, sometimes lifted and slammed to earth by the mortar blasts. He saw a group of Marines milling aimlessly around. He rushed them in a fury, pointing towards the enemy and screaming: "The only thing they have that you don't is guts!" More men were drifting to the rear. Edson went among them, rallying them, taunting them. "You, you son of a #####!" he screeched at one. "Do you wanna live forever?" This was a famous Marine cry in battle, yelled first by Dan Daly at Belleau Wood.

They went forward to dig in once more, to hurl the grenades rushed to them,and to draw a shallow horseshoe defense atop the ridge, there to await Kawaguchi's men massing for their final thrust. But Edson had called for artillery. With him to spot the enemy was a corporal named Watson. In the morning he would be Second Lieutenant Watson for the cool skill with which he callded down hell from the heavens that night. He marked the enemy's rocket signals and directed a redoubled fire on their assembly areas. He brought the artillery closer and closer to his own lines.

The ridges shook and flashed. A terrible steel rain fell among Marines and Japanese alike. Terrified enemy soldiers dived into Marine foxholes to escape death aboveground. 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. Now the Kawaguchis were falling back again. They sprinted 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 2:00 in the morning 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 as they cut the enemy down. At 2:30 in the morning of September 14, Red Mike Edson called headquarters and said, "We can hold."

The battle of Bloody Ridge, as it became known in history, was over, and it was a Marine victory. The Americans on the ridge had lost 40 dead and 104 wounded, against 950 of Kawaguchi's men, and many more died in their retreat. One Japanese officer wrote of this retreat in his diary: "I cannot help from crying when I see the sight of those men marching without food for four or five days and carrying the wounded through the curving and sloping mountain trails. The wounds couldn't be given adequate medical treatment, There wasn't a one without maggots. Many died."

Yet, Bloody Ridge was far from being the end, although it was indeed the end of the beginning. That there would be more battles for Guadalcanal was plainly indicated by that anomaly of the Marines' war: a Japanese prisoner. He stood in splendid defiance among his slain countrymen and said:

Make no matter about us dead. More will come. We never stop coming. Soon you all be Japanese.

 

[Ozymandias]

Guadalcanal Part 10

On the fragile right flank, a full battalion of Japanese- close to 1,000 men attacked this critical area held by 100 American Marines. This was a night for individual heroics. Pfc. Jimmy Corzine saw four Japanese setting up a machine gun on a knob above him. He charged, bayoneting their leader, turning their gun on the rest of them, killing them, and kept on firing until he himself was killed. Capt. John Sweeney's company had been cut into little pockets. He had lost half his company, and the Paramarines on his left were driven back by a charge supported by mortars.

Captain Torgeson took command of the retreating Paramarines. He rounded up the men drifting rearward, held roll call, singled them out by name and challenged them to go forward. They did. They passed through a shower of enemy grenades to reach a bare slope to set up machine guns, and there they cut down the charging enemy to the ground. But the Japanese replied with another shower of grenades, firing them from so-called knee mortars, the launchers they carried forward strapped to their legs. Sgt. Keith Perkins roved the ridge hunting for ammunition for his two guns. One by one his gunners fell, dead or wounded. Perkins jumped on his last gun, firing it until he, too, perished.

Red Mike Edson was desperate to make contact with Captain Sweeney on the right. He used his field telephone. A voice said primly, "Our situation here, Colonel Edson, is excellent, Thank you, sir." The voice sounded wrong; it wasn't Sweeney, it wasn't American. Edson swore. It was a ###### ***! He seized a passing corporal famous for his loud voice. The corporal ran forward, cupping his hands to his lips and bellowed above the bedlam: "Red Mike says its OK to pull back!"

Sweeney heard and withdrew. Gradually, Edson shortened his line. He lay on his belly within 10 yards of his guns, his arm curled around his field telephone, sometimes lifted and slammed to earth by the mortar blasts. He saw a group of Marines milling aimlessly around. He rushed them in a fury, pointing towards the enemy and screaming: "The only thing they have that you don't is guts!" More men were drifting to the rear. Edson went among them, rallying them, taunting them. "You, you son of a #####!" he screeched at one. "Do you wanna live forever?" This was a famous Marine cry in battle, yelled first by Dan Daly at Belleau Wood.

They went forward to dig in once more, to hurl the grenades rushed to them,and to draw a shallow horseshoe defense atop the ridge, there to await Kawaguchi's men massing for their final thrust. But Edson had called for artillery. With him to spot the enemy was a corporal named Watson. In the morning he would be Second Lieutenant Watson for the cool skill with which he callded down hell from the heavens that night. He marked the enemy's rocket signals and directed a redoubled fire on their assembly areas. He brought the artillery closer and closer to his own lines.

The ridges shook and flashed. A terrible steel rain fell among Marines and Japanese alike. Terrified enemy soldiers dived into Marine foxholes to escape death aboveground. 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. Now the Kawaguchis were falling back again. They sprinted 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 2:00 in the morning 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 as they cut the enemy down. At 2:30 in the morning of September 14, Red Mike Edson called headquarters and said, "We can hold."

The battle of Bloody Ridge, as it became known in history, was over, and it was a Marine victory. The Americans on the ridge had lost 40 dead and 104 wounded, against 950 of Kawaguchi's men, and many more died in their retreat. One Japanese officer wrote of this retreat in his diary: "I cannot help from crying when I see the sight of those men marching without food for four or five days and carrying the wounded through the curving and sloping mountain trails. The wounds couldn't be given adequate medical treatment, There wasn't a one without maggots. Many died."

Yet, Bloody Ridge was far from being the end, although it was indeed the end of the beginning. That there would be more battles for Guadalcanal was plainly indicated by that anomaly of the Marines' war: a Japanese prisoner. He stood in splendid defiance among his slain countrymen and said:

Make no matter about us dead. More will come. We never stop coming. Soon you all be Japanese.

A well told story Tim. Keep the installments coming.

 

[timschochet]

Guadacanal Part 11

The victory at Bloody Ridge bought time for Vandegrift's 10,000 men at Guadalcanal, but the problem remained they could not be resupplied or reinforced without great difficulty, because the Japanese navy still controlled the sea. Six transports carrying 4,300 Marines meant to reinforce the island were sent from Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides, but they turned around before daring to enter the dreaded "Torpedo Junction". Meanwhile, Japanese subs fell on the powerful fleet escorting the troops: the carriers Wasp and Hornet, the fast new battleship North Carolina, 7 cruisers, 13 destroyers, and the usual complement of auxiliary ships. They put a steel fish into mighty North Carolina and sent her scurrying home. Little O'Brien staggered after her, but fell apart and sank en route. Hornet and the others survived unscathed, but Wasp took three torpedoes and sank.

Tokyo Radio announced this great victory to the cheering throngs in Japan, and they also added that Henderson Airfield was captured and "the stranded 10,000 Marines, victim's of Roosevelt's gesture, have been practically wiped out."At Rabaul, Lt. General Hyakutake was given orders to finish the job. Hyakutake was done underestimating the Yankees. This time, he would send south the entire Sendai Division- some 20,000 men. Advance units would go south in fast destroyer transports. Lt. Gen. Masao Maruyama, the Sendai's commander, would follow, and then the main body of slower transports would slip down the Slot. Next would come the combined sea and air power of the Imperial Navy, and finally, General Hyakutake himself, who would arrive some time in October to accept the American surrender.

While Hyukutake assembled his troops, the 7th Marines had managed to run the guantlet and made it to Guadacanal, giving Vandergrift 22,000 men. In command of the new men was Lt. Colonel Lewis Burwell (Chesty) Puller. At 44, Puller was already a legend, having won two Navy Crosses in Haiti and Nicaragua. (He would win three more in World War II to become the most decorated Marine in history. Here was a man who loved combat and who was beloved by his men.

Remember that Death is lighter than a feather,

But that duty is heavier than a mountain.

This was the motto of the Sendai Division, a quotation from the Emperor Meiji. The Sendai thought of themselves as the "Emperor's Own." The division had been founded in 1870 by Meiji himself. He hd recruited its men originally from the town of Sendai to the north of Tokyo, hence the name. They had distinguished themselves in the past 70 years as the elite spearhead of the Japanese Army. These sturdy young men could remember receiving their rifles like knights recieving their spurs, in a ceremony filled with honor and reverence. Almost all of them wore around their waist a Belt of a Thousand Stitches, given to each by his mother, who had stood in the street begging a stitch of good luck from passersby.

These were the men who were to give the Guadalcanal Marines their first defeat.

 

[Uwe Blab]

Guadacanal Part 11

...

These were the men who were to give the Guadalcanal Marines their first defeat.

Great narrative, Tim.

 

[timschochet]

Guadacanal Part 11

...

These were the men who were to give the Guadalcanal Marines their first defeat.

Great narrative, Tim.

I wish I could take credit. Most of it at this point is quoting Leckie and Manchester, with some of my commentary thrown in once in a while. I am liberally cutting and pasting though, trying to put down what I figure is important.

 

[timschochet]

Guadalcanal Part 12

General Vandegrift had decided to go on the offensive against the Sendai arriving west of the Matanikau. He wanted to break them up before they could cross the river to menace the airfield with their artillery., and he also wanted to occupy he east or inner bank of the Manitakau himself. So he sent Chesty Puller with his entire battalion to make a recon in force west and south of the perimeter.

Puller marched his troops out towards the river, and very soon they came under fire from the Sendai. Capt. Jack Stafford fell, wonded about the neck and face by the explosion of a rifle grenade. Before a medic could arrive, Puller approached, and saw that Stafford was choking in his own blood. Puller unsnapped a big safety pin from his ammo bandoleer, reached into Stafford's mouth, seized his tongue and pinned it neatly to his dungaree collar. By this resolute action, Stafford's life was saved.

Puller's reports of enemy strength convinced Vandy that now was the time to strike them. He fed two more battalions into the area, but in an operation so complicated, so flawed by faulty intelligence and the piecemeal commitment of troops- hitherto on Japanese defects- that he was compelled to withdraw. So the month of September ended with the Marines on the ground bruised and battered though far from defeated, and wiht Marines in the air wresting control of the skies from the once-invincible Zeros. But then on October 4, the Sendai's commander, Lt. Gen. Masao Muruyama arrived. A proud thin man with important Samurai ancestors, Muruyama was determined not to make the mistakes Kawaguchi had. (In fact, he refused to allow the Kawaguchi survivors to even mingle with his Sendai troops, for fear that they might be "contaminated" by the dishonor of having lost to the Americans and by pessimism.) Upon arriving, Muruyama issued the following general order to all Japanese troops:

From now on the occupying of Guadalcanal is under the observations of the whole world. Do not expect to return, not even one man, if the occupation is not successful. Everyone must remember the honor of the Emperor, fear no enemy, yield to no material matters, show the strong points of steel or rocks, and advance valiantly and ferociously. Hit the enemy opponents so hard they will not be able to get up again.

Muruyama, while waiting for his heavy artillery, ordered his troops to occupy the opposite side of the Manitakau river. Vandegrift of course could not allow this, so again he sent Chesty Puller out again. Puller led his men across a series of grassy ridges until, pausing atop the highest, he saw that a ravine below him was swarming with Japanese. The ravine became a slaughter pen. Marine mortars fell with deadly accuracy. The forced the Japanese to come swarming up one side of the ridge into the massed firepower of Puller's men. They fled back down into the ravine, sometimes rolling down in their terror, and went sprinting through that devastating hell of mortar fire in an attempt to escape up the other side. But when they emerged, they were in full view of the Americans and were once again riddled. Fully 700 men fell into that hideous trap. Maruyama's attempt to seize the east bank of the river had met disaster.

But Muruyama was not discouraged, because shortly his big guns would arrive. These were nicknamed "Pistol Pete" by the Marines; they were 150 mm howitzers which the general was sure would chew up Henderson Field. On October 10, 4 of them were placed aboard a seaplane tender at Rabaul. Next day they sailed south in the company of destroyer-transports carrying more of the Sendai division, cargo ships, a protecting screen of destroyers and a division of cruisers with which to shell Henderson and its defenders while the guns, men, and supplies were being put ashore. Waiting for them off Cape Esperance was Real Adm. Norman Scott with 4 cruisers and 5 destroyers of his own.

The two forces collided, and Scott managed to "cross the T"- put his ships standing broadside to the oncoming enemy so that his guns were trained starboard. As Ozymandias explained in an earlier post, this is naval doctrine and ensures victory when it can be accomplished (which is rare.) So it happened here: Two Japanese cruisers and three destroyers were sank, with many transports lost. One American destroyer was also lost, but the Battle of Savo Island had been avenged. This new skirmish would be known as the Battle of Cape Esperance, and the American victory that ensued meant that Iron Bottom Bay was no longer a Japanese lake. The navy was coming back, in strength, and reinforcements were on their way.

However, it was not a total victory; indeed, the outcome seemed a defeat to Vandegrift and his men, because the Japanese had managed to land their 4 heavy guns, which were immediately moved on tractors towards Henderson Field. Pistol Pete had survived the naval battle, and would not present the Marines with their latest, and gravest threat.