World War II Pacific: Battles and Campaigns from Guadalcanal to Okinawa 1942-1945 (WW2 Pacific Military History Series)

by Daniel Wrinn

  After being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps, he attended officer school and graduated first in his class in 1915. He commanded a Marine detachment aboard the USS Florida in World War I as a first lieutenant. After the war, he was promoted to captain and assigned to Haiti, where he gained experience in jungle fighting tactics.

  He spent a year in the Army Command and General Staff School in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He was one of three Marines selected for that year and graduated with distinction. In 1929, he was given his first Far East assignment in Peking, China, and was promoted to major. Peking was quiet at the time, and while on duty, his first wife and two children died from a scarlet fever epidemic.

  He returned to the War Plans Section at Headquarters in 1936 where he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Fleet Marine Force. After four years of service stateside, he returned to Shanghai, China as Executive Officer of the 4th Marines. There he became a lieutenant colonel. He witnessed the Japanese’s brutal methods as they attempted to take over the International Settlement. Only with patience and discipline was a clash averted with the Japanese at that time.

  After returning from China, Rupertus took command of the Marine Barracks in Washington DC, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and San Diego, California.

  At the war’s outbreak, Brigadier General Rupertus was the 1st Marine Division’s assistant commander, training in New River, North Carolina, under General Vandegrift. When the 1st Division opened the Allied offensive in the Pacific, landing on the Solomons on August 7, 1942, Rupertus was an assistant division commander and led a successful attack on Tulagi, Gavutu, and the Tanambogo Islands. Two months later, at a ceremony on Guadalcanal, Admiral Nimitz awarded him the Navy Cross for his leadership in the seizure of those islands. Part of his citation read: “For exposing himself frequently and fearlessly to enemy fire and for setting an outstanding example of calmness and courage.”

  In 1943, when General Vandegrift assumed command of the newly created 1st Marine Amphibious Corps, General Rupertus took command of the 1st Division Marines. He brought a firsthand, thorough knowledge of operations in the Southwest Pacific. In a string of brilliant victories from December 28, 1943, to April 1944, which involved many secondary amphibious operations and bloody battles, the 1st Marine Division, under his leadership, cleared the western part of New Britain and drove the enemy back to Rabaul.

  During the Cape Gloucester operations, his careful use of Marine scouts and air maps allowed ground troops to take a nearly undefended route to the Cape Gloucester airfields. After the campaign, General MacArthur went ashore to personally thank Rupertus for the valor of his division and awarded him the Army’s distinguished service medal for “exceptionally meritorious and distinguished service during an undertaking fraught with hazard.” Part of his citation read: “General Rupertus overcame great difficulties of weather and terrain. After firmly establishing a beachhead between two large enemy forces, he brilliantly maneuvered his troops to destroy each other in turn. While the stubbornly resisting enemy had every advantage of terrain and established offenses, he inflicted on it disproportionate losses of a 10 to 1 ratio. The skillful and courageous leadership of General Rupertus was largely responsible for the success of this bold extension of our operations.”

  In November 1944, after the Peleliu Campaign, he returned to the US. He was appointed the Commandant of the Marine Corps School in Quantico, Virginia.

  He died of a heart attack on March 25, 1945 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery among family members.

  Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Walt

  Lewis William Walt, “Lew Walt,” was born on February 16, 1913, in Wabaunsee County, Kansas. Walt graduated from Colorado State University in 1936 with a degree in chemistry. After graduation, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Field Artillery Reserve. He resigned that commission to accept an appointment as a Marine second lieutenant on July 6, 1936.

  AfterLieutenant Walt completed The Basic School at Philadelphia in April 1937, he was assigned to the 6th Marine Regiment in San Diego, California, as a machine-gun platoon leader. He embarked for China in August 1937, where he took part in defense of Shanghai’s International Settlement until February 1938, when he returned to San Diego. In June 1939, he began his second overseas tour when he was assigned to the Marine Barracks on Guam in the Mariana Islands. Here he was promoted to first lieutenant in October 1939.

  After returning to the US in June 1941, before the entry into World War II,Lieutenant Walt was assigned as a company commander in the Officer Candidates Class at the Marine Corps School in Quantico, Virginia. Here he was promoted to captain.

  In early 1942, Captain Walt volunteered to join the 1st Marine Raider Battalion and was stationed with the battalion on Samoa. On August 7, 1942, as commander of Company A, 1st Raider Battalion, he landed his company on Tulagi for the assault in the British Solomon Islands. He was awarded the Silver Star for his conspicuous gallantry during this landing. After the action, he joined the 5th Marines on Guadalcanal, where he took part in combat as Commanding Officer of the 2/5 Marines. He was promoted to major in September 1942.

  In October 1942, Major Walt was wounded in action but continued to fight. Two months later, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, on the spot, for his distinguished leadership and gallantry in action during the Guadalcanal Campaign.

  Following hospitalization and rehabilitation in Australia, Colonel Walt led the 2/5 Marines in the assault on Cape Gloucester. In the middle of the campaign, he was ordered to take command of the 3/5 Marines during an intense battle for Aogiri Ridge. He earned his first Navy Cross during this action, and Aogiri Ridge was renamed “Walt’s Ridge” by General Shepherd. After leaving Cape Gloucester in late February 1944, Walt was ordered to the Naval Hospital in Oakland, California, to treat his malaria.

  In June 1944, he returned to action in the Pacific Theater. That September, he landed with the Marine force on Peleliu as Regimental Executive Officer of the 5th Marines. On the first day of the battle, he was again ordered to command the 3/5 Marines after the battalion’s CO and XO were wounded. After dark on the first day of fighting, three battalion companies had failed to contact the command post, and their whereabouts were unknown. At significant risk to himself, Walt went into enemy territory in the middle of the night and located the missing companies. He directed them to their correct position along the divisional line. For these actions, Colonel Walt was awarded his second Navy Cross.

  In November 1944, Walt returned to the US and assumed duty as Chief of the Marine Officer Candidates’ School Tactics Section.

  General Walt died at 76 years old on March 26, 1989, in Gulfport, Mississippi. He was buried in Quantico National Cemetery.

  Garand M-1 Rifle

  After the Guadalcanal Campaign, the 1st Marine Division received the M-1 rifle. This new rifle was designed by John Garand, a civilian employee from the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts. This weapon was semiautomatic, gas-operated, and weighed 9.5 pounds with an eight-round clip. While less accurate at a longer range than the former standard rifle, the M-1903, which Marine snipers continued to use, the M-1 Garand could lay down a deadly volume of fire at a short range typical to jungle warfare.

  The M-1 used a .30-06 round and was the first semiautomatic rifle to be generally issued to any nation’s infantry. In November 1941, the Marine Corps classified the M-1 as its standard service rifle. Its bayonet was an M-1905 bayonet. Several Marines resisted the Garand at first because they had become used to the Springfield rifle for almost 30 years. The Springfield was well-respected because of its long-range accuracy and reliability under the harshest of battlefield conditions.

  The M-1 Garand gave Marine riflemen a superior firepower advantage against the Japanese opponent, who carried Arisaka Type 99s, which were among the best bolt-action rifles of the war.

  Reliable and easy to maintain in the field, an M-1-equipped Marine rifle platoon could sustain the same volume of fire as a full
company armed with bolt-action rifles. Operation of the M-1 was simple. Ammo loaded with an eight-round clip inserted into the top of the receiver. When the rifleman fired his last round, the bolt locked to the rear, and the empty clip ejected with a unique ping. Reloading, the rifleman simply pushed another loaded clip into the top of the receiver. Once the clip was fully inserted, it unlocked the bolt which stripped off the first round to load in the chamber.

  A common problem experienced by new shooters was known as the “M-1 thumb,” which happened when the rifleman failed to quickly take his thumb off the clip as he loaded. When the bolt unlocked, it could smash a shooter’s thumb against the front of the ejection port. This usually only happened once for most new shooters. While the M-1 had some minor deficiencies, it was without question the finest service rifle of World War II. Marines who carried it in combat swore by its reliability, simplicity, and hard-hitting firepower. It served the Marine Corps well in Korea and through many years of the Cold War until retired from service in the early 1960s.

  Piper L-4 Grasshopper

  The 1st Marine Division had an air force of their own at Cape Gloucester. It consisted of a dozen Piper L-4 Grasshoppers provided by the Army. This improvised air force could trace its origins back to the summer of 1943, before the division plunged into the hellish inferno on New Britain.

  Captain Petras was General Vandegrift’s personal pilot. He devised a plan that would acquire light aircraft for artillery spotting. General Rupertus had seen the Army troops making use of the Piper Grasshoppers on maneuvers. He presented the plan to General MacArthur, who promised to give the 1st Marine Division twelve Piper Grasshoppers for their next operation.

  When the 1st Marine Division arrived off the southwestern tip of New Guinea to prepare for further combat, Rupertus directed Petras to organize an aviation unit from among the Marines. The call went out for volunteers with aviation experience. Out of sixty candidates, twelve were qualified as pilots in the new Air Liaison Unit. When the dozen Piper L-4 Grasshoppers arrived as promised, six proved to be in excellent condition while three needed repairs. The remaining three were only fit to provide parts to keep the others flying.

  Nine flyable planes practiced a variety of tasks during the two months of training. Afterward, airmen gained experience in radio communications, artillery spotting, and snagging messages hung in a container trailing a pennant to help the pilot see it from a line strung between two poles.

  The division’s air force landed at Cape Gloucester from LSTs on D-Day. After reassembling the aircraft, they were put into action. The radios installed in the Piper Grasshoppers were too balky for artillery spotting. The pilots concentrated on courier flights, photographic reconnaissance, and delivering small amounts of cargo.

  Piper Grasshoppers could drop a case of dry rations with pinpoint accuracy from an altitude of 200 feet. These light planes could also become attack aircraft when pilots or observers rained hand grenades onto enemy positions.

  The Piper L-4 Grasshopper evolved from the civilian plane the Piper J-3 Cub, which was the name most military personnel referred to it as. The only differences were the paint color, and more windows for better visibility. Mechanically, however, they were one and the same. There was room for a pilot in front and a spotter and radio in back, who could perform reconnaissance duties, looking out the extended windows.

  The Piper L-4 Grasshopper was not armed, nor armored, which made it vulnerable to antiaircraft guns, but allowed it to fly at low altitudes and low speeds, giving it ideal maneuverability for observation and transportation of supplies and information. It was used in both the Pacific and European Theaters.

  Fortress of Rabaul

  At Simpson Harbor on the northeastern tip of New Britain, Rabaul served as a naval and air base. It was also a troop staging area for Japanese conquests in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

  Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Rabaul was captured by thousands of Japanese naval landing forces. Once the Japanese had seized Rabaul, they got to work converting it into a significant installation. They improved the harbor facilities and built barracks and airfields. They brought in hundreds of thousands of soldiers, airmen, and sailors, who either passed through the base en route to operations elsewhere or stayed to defend it. The Japanese Army dug hundreds of kilometers of tunnels to shelter from Allied air attacks. They also expanded the facilities by constructing Army barracks and support structures. By 1943 there were over 110,000 troops based on Rabaul.

  After MacArthur escaped from the Philippines and assumed command of the Southwest Pacific Area, Rabaul became his dominant objective. MacArthur proposed a two-pronged advance on the fortress, bombing it from the air while amphibious forces closed in through eastern New Britain and the Solomon Islands.

  When the Allies began to close their pincers on Rabaul, the strategy changed. Through MacArthur’s opposition, the American Joint Chiefs decided to bypass the stronghold. As a result, Rabaul remained in Japanese hands for the rest of the war, though the Allies controlled the rest of New Britain.

  The Jungle Battlefield

  Throughout the campaign, the 1st Marine Division fought the terrain, weather, and an unyielding Japanese enemy. Seasonal monsoon rains fell with the velocity of a firehose, soaking everyone, sending streams from their banks, and turning trails into muddy quagmires. The volcanic island terrain varied from coastal plain to mountains that rose as high as 7,000 feet above sea level. The forest-covered island was punctuated by grasslands, large coconut plantations, and garden plots near scattered villages.

  Much of the fighting in the early days raged in swamp forests, sometimes described as damp flats. The swamp forests consisted of scattered trees growing as high as a hundred feet from a plane that remained flooded throughout the rainy season—if not the entire year. Tangled roots braced the towering trees but could not anchor them against gale-force winds when vines and undergrowth reduced visibility on the flooded surfaces to only a few yards.

  The vegetation in the mangrove forest was no less formidable. Gigantic trees grew from brackish water deposited at high tide. The mangrove trees varied in height from thirty to sixty feet. They had a visible tangle of thick roots as high as ten feet up the trunk holding the tree solidly in place. Underneath the mangrove canopy, a maze of roots wandered through streams and standing water and impeded movement—this limited visibility to less than fifteen yards.

  Both the swamp and mangrove forest grew at sea level. Another form of vegetation was the tropical rain forests that flourished at higher altitudes. Different trees formed an impenetrable double canopy overhead. The surface generally remained open except for low growing ferns or an occasional thicket of vines. Marines walking beneath the canopy could see a standing man as far as fifty yards away. A prone rifleman could remain invisible at a distance of only ten yards.

  Rain and Biting Insects

  Monsoon winds drove rain that drenched the entire island and everyone on it. At the front, heavy rains flooded foxholes. Conditions weren’t much better toward the rear where men slept in jungle hammocks slung between two trees. A Marine would enter his hammock through an opening in a mosquito net and lay down on a rubberized cloth, zipping the net shut. Above him, enclosed in the netting, stretched a rubberized cover designed to shelter him from the rain. Fierce gales like the one that ripped through on the night of D-Day would set the cover flapping like a loose sail and drive the rain inside the hammock.

  In the darkness, gusts of winds could uproot trees, weakened by flooding or bombardment, and send them crashing down. A falling tree toppling onto a hammock occupied by one of the Marines could drown him if someone did not slash the covering with a knife.

  The rain was like a waterfall pouring down. The first storm lasted five days, and the next storms lasted for weeks. Wet uniforms never dried. Marines continually suffered from fungus infections and jungle rot, which developed into open sores. Mosquito-borne malaria also threatened the Marines’ health. They had to contend w
ith aggressive insects: Little red ants, little black ants, and giant red ants on an island where even the caterpillars bite. The Japanese may have endured even more because of medicine shortages and difficulty in distribution, but this was a minor consolation to the Marines beset by disease and discomfort. By the end of January 1944, non-battle injuries or illness had forced over 1,000 Marines to evacuate.

  The island’s jungles and swamps would have been an ordeal enough without the added rain, wind, and disease. At times, the tormented Marine could see only a few feet in front of him. Movement was nearly impossible, especially with rains flooding the land and turning the volcanic soil into slippery mud. General Shepherd compared the New Britain Campaign to “Grant’s fight through the Wilderness in the Civil War.”

  1944 Battle for Saipan

  Breaching the Marianas

  Dawn on June 15, 1944 would be a brutal day. Navy fire support ships off Saipan Island increased the previous day’s firing. At 0542, Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner ordered, “Land the landing force.” At 0700, the LSTs (Landing Ship, Tank) moved to a thousand yards behind the line of departure.

  Troops waiting in the LSTs debarked into LVTs (Landing Vehicle, Tracked). Navy and Marine personnel took their positions with radio gear. They displayed flags to indicate which beach approaches they controlled.

  Admiral Turner delayed H-hour for 10 minutes until 0840 to give the boat waves extra time to get into position. After the first wave headed full speed at the beaches, the Japanese were ready. They waited, poised to make the Marine assault units pay a heavy price in blood.