by Daniel Wrinn
The naval force covering for the supply and reinforcement convoys was attacked by Japanese submarines. The battleship North Carolina was damaged and the carrier Wasp was torpedoed and sunk. The destroyer O’Brien was hit so severely, she broke up and sank on her way to drydock. The Navy accomplished the mission. The 7th Marines were landed, but with a terrible loss of life. One of the few optimistic outcomes of the devastating Japanese torpedo attack was the remainder of the Wasp’s aircraft joined the cactus Air Force. Similar to what the planes of the Enterprise and Saratoga had done with their carriers. This left the Hornet as the only whole fleet carrier in the South Pacific.
As the ships that brought in the 7th Marines withdrew, they took with them the survivors of the 1st Parachute Battalion with sick bays full of badly wounded men. General Vandegrift now had control over five artillery battalions, one under strength raider battalion, and ten battalions of infantry. The 3/2 Marines, arrived from Tulagi. The defensive perimeter was reorganized into ten sectors. He gave the engineer, pioneer, and amphibian tractor battalions sectors along the beach. The other sectors were manned by the infantry battalions, which included the jungle’s inland perimeter. Each infantry regiment was assigned to battalions, one to be kept in reserve and one battalion online.
General Vandegrift had a select group of infantrymen training to be scouts and snipers under Colonel “Wild Bill” Whaling. An experienced jungle fighter, marksman, and hunter, he was appointed to run a school to sharpen the divisions’ fighting skills. As the men finished their training under Colonel Whaling and went back to their outfits, others took their place and were available to scout and spearhead operations.
Now that General Vandegrift had over nineteen thousand men onshore. He planned to take a forward position on the east bank of the Matanikau River. He probed the Japanese reaction with a strong force of Marines. General Vandegrift chose the fresh 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Lewis “Chesty” Puller, to move inland along the slopes of Mount Austin and to patrol north toward the coast and the Japanese held area.
Puller’s battalion ran into Japanese troops bivouacked on the slopes of Mount Austin on the 24th and, in a sharp firefight, lost seven men and twenty-five wounded. Vandegrift had sent the 2/5 Marines, to reinforce Puller and help carry wounded men out of the jungle. Puller advanced with reinforcements moving along the east bank of the Matanikau River. He reached the coast on September 26 as planned. He encountered intense fire from ridges west of the river. He attempted to cross with the 2/5 Marines but was beaten back.
The 1st Raider Battalion was ordered to attack on the 27th and establish a patrol base west of the Matanikau River before they were sent inland to outflank the Japanese. The battalion, now commanded by Edson’s former XO, Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Griffith, ran into a hornet’s nest of Japanese who had crossed the Matanikau River during the night. A garbled message led Colonel Edson to believe that Griffith’s men were advancing according to the plan. He landed companies of the 1/7 Marines behind the Matanikau River and struck the Japanese from the rear. Another assault was launched across the river.
This landing was made without incident, and the 7th Marines moved inland only to be cut off and ambushed by the Japanese. A rescue force was ordered to assist. They moved with difficulty through Japanese fire and landing craft. The Marines evacuated after a tough fight under covering fire from a destroyer and machine guns of an overhead SBD. The 7th Marines returned to the perimeter, landing near Kukum. The Raider, and 5th Marines Battalions pulled back from the Matanikau. The Japanese strongly contested any westward advance, and it cost the Marines sixty men killed and over one hundred wounded.
The Japanese soldiers who the Marines had encountered were men from the 4th Regiment of the 2nd (Sendai) Division. Prisoners confirmed that the division was landing on the island. This included the enemy’s reinforcement of 105mm howitzers, guns capable of shelling the airfield from positions as far out as Kokumbona. This was direct evidence of a new and more potent enemy attack.
September drew to a close, and several of the senior officers, picked in the order of when they joined the division, were sent back to the states. They would provide training and organization at a new level of combat expertise with the several new Marine Corps units now forming. The air wing was not ready to return its experienced pilots to the rear. The vital combat knowledge they possessed was needed in the training pipeline. But they, the survivors, would soon rotate back to the rear, some for a much needed R&R before returning to combat and others to lead new squadrons into the fight.
Japanese Offensive on Maruyama Trail
On September 30, a B-17 carrying Admiral Nimitz made an emergency landing on Henderson Airfield. The admiral made the most of the opportunity. He took a tour of the front lines, saw Edson’s Bloody Ridge, and spoke to several Marines. He reaffirmed to General Vandegrift that the overriding mission was to hold the airfield. He awarded Navy Crosses to several Marines, including General Vandegrift, and promised all the support he could give. He left the next day visibly encouraged by what he had seen.
The next Marine assault involved a punishing return to Matanikau. Whaling commanded five infantry battalions along with his men in the 3/2 Marines. He surged inland, clearing the way for the 7th Marines. Their objective was to drive through and hook toward the coast, destroying the Japanese along the Matanikau. Colonel Hudson’s 2nd and 3rd Battalions were set to attack across the river’s mouth. The rest of the division’s artillery was positioned to fire in the support role.
Whaling’s force moved into the jungle upstream of the Matanikau. They encountered Japanese troops that harassed his forward elements, but not in enough strength to stop the advance. He bypassed the enemy and dug in for the night. Behind him was the 7th Marines, prepared to move through the lines, cross the river, and attack north toward the Japanese. The 5th Marines Assault Battalion moved toward the Matanikau. They ran into the Japanese in strength less than four hundred yards from the river.
They had run into a strong advance element of the Japanese 4th Regiment, which had crossed the Matanikau to set up a base from which they could fire artillery into the Marine perimeter. The fighting was intense. Even though the 2nd Battalion encountered little opposition and broke through to the riverbank, they turned north. They hit the inland flank of the enemy troops. General Vandegrift sent a company of raiders forward to reinforce the 5th and maintain a holding position toward the beach.
On October 8, rain poured all day long, stopping virtually all forward progress. It did not stop the hand-to-hand fighting around the pockets of Japanese. When the enemy troops retreated, they attempted to escape the encircling Marines. They smashed into the raiders’ position near their escape route. Wild hand-to-hand combat ensued, and only a few Japanese broke through to reach across the river. The rest died fighting.
The next day, Whaling’s force, flanked by the 2nd and the 1/7 Marines, crossed the Matanikau. They turned and continued to follow ridgelines to the sea. Puller’s battalion discovered several Japanese in a ravine to his front, fired his mortars, and called in artillery. His men used rifles and machine guns to pick off enemy troops trying to escape. When his ammunition ran short, Puller pushed inland toward the beach to link up with Whaling’s force, which had encountered no opposition. The Marines then recrossed the Matanikau River, joined Colonel Edson’s troops, and marched back to the perimeter. They left a strong combat outpost at the Matanikau now clear of Japanese. Vandegrift, informed by intelligent sources that a major Japanese attack was coming from the west, consolidated his positions.
He left no sizable Marine force more than a day’s march from the perimeter. The Marine advance on October 8 had thwarted the Japanese plans for an early attack and cost the enemy over seven hundred dead. The Marines paid a hefty price as well, 65 killed and 130 wounded.
Disease was killing men in numbers equal to the battle casualties. Crippling stomach cramps known as gastroenteritis and other tropical fungus in
fections like “jungle rot,” infamous for uncomfortable rashes on men’s armpits, elbows, feet, and crotches—a product of seldom being dry. If it didn’t rain, sweat provided moisture. Along with this came hundreds of malaria cases. Atabrine tablets were some relief. Besides turning the skin yellow, they were not effective enough to stop the spread of the mosquito-borne infection. Malaria attacks were becoming so severe that nothing short of complete prostration, becoming a litter case, could earn a rest in the hospital. These diseases affected the men who had been on the island the longest, especially those who experienced the early days with short rations. General Vandegrift suggested that when his men got relieved, they should not be sent to another tropical island hospital. But to a place where a genuine change of atmosphere and climate existed. He asked for Wellington or Auckland in New Zealand to be considered.
Under present circumstances, there was no relief for the men starting their third month on Guadalcanal. The Japanese did not abandon their plan to seize back Guadalcanal and gave painful evidence of their intentions in mid-October. General Hyakutake landed on Guadalcanal to oversee the Imperial Japanese offensive. The elements of General Maruyama’s Sendai Division was already a factor in the fighting near the Matanikau River. More enemy troops were coming. The Japanese were taking advantage that the Cactus Air Force flyers had no night attack capability. They planned to ensure that no planes at all would rise from Guadalcanal to meet them.
On October 11, US Navy surface ships assisted in stopping the “Tokyo Express.” The nickname given to Admiral Tanaka’s almost nightly reinforcement for his covering force of five cruisers and destroyers. Admiral Scott, who commanded Renell Island, got word enemy ships were approaching Guadalcanal.
Admiral Scott’s mission was to protect an approaching reinforcement convoy. He steamed at flank speed eager to engage the enemy. He encountered more ships than expected, three heavy cruisers and two destroyers, as well as six destroyers escorting two seaplane carrier transports. Scott maneuvered between Cape Esperance and Savo Island—Guadalcanal’s western tip. He engaged the bombardment group head-on.
Alerted from the scout plane on his flagship, San Francisco, the spotting’s later confirmed by radar on the Helena. The Americans could open fire first because the Japanese had no radar and did not know of their presence. When the Japanese enemy destroyer sank immediately, two cruisers were severely damaged. Another remaining cruiser and destroyer turned away from the hellish inferno of American fire. Admiral Scott’s own force was punished by enemy fire, which damaged two cruisers and two destroyers, one of which, the Duncan, sank the next day. The Cactus Air Force flyers spotted two reinforcement destroyer escorts retreating and sank them both. Named The Battle of Cape Esperance, it would be counted as an American naval victory—one sorely needed.
A welcome reinforcement convoy arrived on the island on October 13 when the 164th Infantry Regiment of the newly formed Americal Division arrived. These soldiers were members of a National Guard outfit from North Dakota. They were equipped with Garand M1 rifles—a weapon most overseas Marines had only heard of. The rate of fire of the semi-automatic Garand outperformed the single shot, bolt action Springfield’s that the Marines carried, and the bolt action rifles carried by the Japanese. Most 1st Division Marines believed their Springfield’s were more accurate and a better weapon. This did not stop some light-fingered Marines from acquiring these new weapons when the occasion presented itself. Such an opportunity arose when the soldiers were landing, and supplies were being moved to the dumps.
Flights of Japanese bombers appeared over Henderson Field, unscathed by the defending fighters, and started dropping bombs. The soldiers headed for cover, and the alert Marines inured to the bombing, used this interval to “liberate” interesting crates and cartons. The news that the Army had arrived spread across the island like wildfire. There was hope. It meant the Marines may eventually be relieved.
If the bombing wasn’t enough grief, the Japanese opened on the airfield with their 150mm howitzers. The men of the 164th, commanded by Colonel Robert Hall, got a rude welcome to Guadalcanal. On that night, October 13, they shared a terrifying experience with the Marines that no one would ever forget.
The Imperial Japanese were determined to knock out Henderson Field to protect their soldiers landing in strength west of Koli Point. The enemy commander sent the battleships Kongo and Haruna into Ironbottom Sound to bombard the Marine positions. The Japanese flare planes signaled the bombardment, seventy-five minutes of sheer hell, 14-inch shells exploding with such a devastating effect that even cruiser fire was barely noticed.
No place was safe. No one was safe. No dugout could withstand the fury of 14-inch shells. One seasoned veteran used to being cool under enemy fire said nothing was worse in war than being helpless on the receiving end of naval gunfire. “Huge trees being cut apart and flying about like toothpicks,” he said.
The airfield and surrounding area were reduced to a fiery shambles when dawn broke. The naval shelling, and artillery fire and bombing left the Cactus Air Force commander, General Geiger, with only a handful of aircraft still operational. Henderson Airfield was now thickly cratered with shells and bombs, and a death toll of forty-one. The Cactus Air Force flyers had to attack because the morning revealed a shore and sea full of inviting targets.
Japanese transports and landing craft had broken through. The enemy was now everywhere near Tassafaronga. The escorting cruisers and destroyers had proven to be a formidable screen of antiaircraft. Every American plane that could fly was in the fight. General Geiger’s aid, Major Jack Cram, took off, in the generals PBY, rigged with two torpedoes. He put one into the side of an enemy transport as it unloaded. A new squadron of F4Fs took part in the day’s action. He landed, refueled, and took off again to join in the fight. After an hour, when he landed again, he had four enemy bomber kills. Bauer, had over twenty Japanese aircraft kills and in later air battles, was killed in action. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor along with four other Marine pilots in the early days of the Cactus Air Force.
General Hyakutake believed the Japanese had now landed enough troops to destroy the Marines occupied beachhead and seize the airfield. He approved General Maruyama’s objective to move most of the Sendai Division out of sight through the jungle without engaging the Marines. They were to strike south near Edson’s Ridge. With seven thousand men, each carrying a mortar or artillery shell, they trekked along the Maruyama Trail. General Maruyama had approved the trail’s name to show his deep confidence. He intended to support this attack with infantry guns and heavy mortars—70mm pack howitzers. The men had to push, lug, and drag the supporting guns over miles of broken ground, two major streams, the Matanikau and the Lunga, and through heavy underbrush, for their commander’s path to glory.
General Vandegrift knew the Japanese were going to attack. Patrols and reconnaissance flights had shown the push would come from the west, where the enemy reinforcements had landed. The American commander changed his disposition. There were now Japanese troops east of the perimeter, but not in any considerable strength. The 164th Infantry Regiment, reinforced by the Marine Special Weapons Unit, was put into the fight to hold the sixty-six-hundred-yard eastern flank.
They curved inland to meet up with the 7th Marines near Edson’s Ridge. The 7th Marines held twenty-five-hundred-yards of the ridge to the Lunga. From the Lunga, the 1st Marines had a thirty-five-hundred-yard sector of jungle which ran west to the point of the line curving back again toward the beach in the 5th Marines’ sector. Since the attack was expected from the west, the 3rd Battalion’s Marines kept a strong outpost position forward of the 1st Marines’ lines along the east bank of the Matanikau.
In the lull before the attack—if Japanese destroyer cruiser bombardments, artillery harassment, and bomber attacks could be called a lull—General Vandegrift was visited by the commandant of the Marine Corps, Lieutenant General Thomas Holcomb. The commandant flew in on October 21 to see for himself how the Marines
were faring. It proved to be an occasion for both senior Marines to meet the new commander of the South Pacific, Admiral “Bull” Halsey. Admiral Nimitz had announced Halsey’s appointment on October 18. The news was welcome in the Marine and Navy ranks throughout the Pacific.
Halsey’s well-deserved reputation for aggressiveness promised renewed attention to the situation on Guadalcanal. On the 22nd, Holcomb and Vandegrift flew to Noumea to meet with Halsey. They gave a round of briefings about the Allied situation. After Vandegrift described his position, he argued against the diversion of reinforcements intended for the Cactus Air Force to any other South Pacific venue. He argued that he needed all of the Americal Division and another two Marine Division regiments to beef up his forces. He also said that more than half of his veterans were worn out by over three months of fighting the ravages of jungle incurred diseases. Admiral Halsey told the Marine Corps general: “You go back there, Vandegrift. I promise to get you everything I have.”
When General Vandegrift returned to Guadalcanal, Admiral Holcomb moved on to Pearl Harbor to meet with Admiral Nimitz. He brought with him Halsey’s recommendation that, landing force commanders, once established onshore, would have equal command status with Navy amphibious force commanders. At Pearl Harbor, Admiral Nimitz approved Halsey’s recommendations as well as in Washington. This meant that the command status of all future Pacific amphibious operations was determined by the events of Guadalcanal.
Another piece of news Vandegrift received from Holcomb, was that if Pres. Roosevelt did not reappoint him, (which was likely because of his age), he would recommend that Vandegrift be appointed as the next Commandant of the Marine Corps. This news did not divert Vandegrift’s attention when he flew back to Guadalcanal. The Japanese were in the middle of their offensive. An enemy patrol accompanied by two tanks on the twentieth tried to find a way through the line held by the 3/1 Marines. A sharpshooting 37mm gun crew knocked out a lead tank, and the enemy’s force fell back. In the meantime shelling the Marines’ positions with artillery.