by Rising Sun Victorious: An Alternate History of the Pacific War
The Situation
After the setbacks at Coral Sea and Midway, Japanese plans changed a little, but they continued to pursue the strategic initiative. The Imperial Japanese Navy postponed, then canceled its push south to take New Caledonia, the Fijis, and Samoa. Instead it formed the 8th Fleet, stationed at Rabaul, to guard its southern conquests and approaches. Vice Adm. Gunichi Mikawa, a soft-spoken warrior, commanded the 8th Fleet, a collection of cruisers and destroyers. Foiled at Coral Sea, the army chose to continue its advance against Port Moresby, New Guinea, with an overland assault across the Owen Stanley Mountains, landing at Buna on the island's north coast on July 21, 1942.
Almost overlooked were Japanese moves in the southern Solomons. On May 3 they landed on Tulagi Island and began establishing a seaplane base, primarily for reconnaissance. Two weeks later a recommendation to build an advanced air base on the nearby island of Guadalcanal was made to the Imperial Navy General Staff. Such an air base would strengthen the outer perimeter of Japan's advance and put pressure on the supply line between the United States and Australia. The staff approved the air base on June 13. On July 6, 2,600 men of the 11th and 13th Naval Construction Units arrived to begin work.
Meanwhile, U.S. Army and Navy leaders were locked in contentious discussions on how to take advantage of the victory at Midway. Gen. Douglas MacArthur wanted all assets assigned to support his plan to move up through New Guinea, but the U.S. Navy was reluctant to commit its limited carrier forces to the narrow waters there. On July 2 a compromise between army and navy plans was reached, and the three-task Operation Pestilence was born. The navy would seize the Santa Cruz Islands and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands as Task One. MacArthur would occupy the rest of the Solomons, Lae, Salamaua, and the northwest coast of New Guinea in Task Two. The final task was the seizure of the Japanese base at Rabaul. Word of the arrival of construction units on Guadalcanal forced a modification of Task One to include the capture of the new airfield before it became operational. Operation Watchtower was born.
Overall command of the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific was entrusted to Rear Adm. Robert L. Ghormley. Until his assignment to the Pacific, he was the Special Naval Observer in London. Under Ghormley was Rear Adm. Richard K. Turner, assigned as the Amphibious Force Commander. The aircraft carriers Enterprise, Wasp, and Saratoga under Vice Adm. Jack Fletcher would provide support. The 1st Marine Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. Alexander A. Vandegrift, would make the actual landing.1
Vandegrift's marines went into Watchtower as a cobbled-together organization. He had only two of his three regiments, the 1st and 5th Marines. The 7th Marines were stationed on Samoa protecting that vital island. To replace the 7th, the 2nd Marine Regiment of the 2nd Marine Division on the Atlantic coast was hastily built up and sent west. In addition to these three infantry regiments, Vandegrift would have the 11th Marine Artillery Regiment, 1st Raider Battalion, 1st Parachute Battalion, and the 3rd Defense Battalion. The last, armed with 90mm antiaircraft guns and 5-inch coastal batteries, would be crucial to the defense of the island. In total, some 19,000 troops would be committed to this first offensive.
There was very little hard information on the targets, and less time to get it. The marines headed for Guadalcanal knowing little about the terrain, landing beaches, climate, or, even worse, enemy dispositions. Fortunately, plans were made assuming an enemy garrison of some 7,500 troops—double what was actually on the target islands. Loading the transports with supplies and men was chaotic, leading to the operation's unofficial nickname: Shoestring.
After a week of sailing, eighty-two ships of the navy's Task Force 61 entered the waters near their objective and opened fire on August 7, 1942.
The First Phase
The landings on Guadalcanal met virtually no resistance. The 1st and 5th Marines landed east of the airfield and moved inland. The field was captured the next day, with the Japanese construction units retreating into the jungle. Across the channel, more difficulty was experienced in securing Tulagi, Florida, and the smaller islands of Gavutu and Tanambogo. The 1st Parachute Battalion suffered almost sixty percent casualties on Gavutu, forcing Vandegrift to release the divisional reserve, the 2nd Marines, to finish the job. At the end of August 8, however, resistance had effectively been eliminated and the uncompleted airfield on Guadalcanal captured.
The invasion caught the Japanese completely off guard. They assumed they had the initiative and had done little to prepare for what should have been an obvious Allied step following Midway. In part, the lack of foresight and preparation was due to the poor communication between army and navy leaders— the army still did not know about the Midway disaster. The first Japanese reaction to the invasion was an air attack by Rabaul-based bombers, originally intended for a bombing run on Port Moresby and still armed for that mission. Eighteen Mitsubishi G4M Betty bombers arrived in early afternoon and were rudely met by the covering force of U.S. carrier fighters. Six Japanese aircraft were shot down without inflicting a single hit. An attack later in the day by nine Aichi D3A Val dive-bombers (operating beyond their capability of returning to Rabaul) did manage one hit on the destroyer Mugford, but none of the nine attacking aircraft survived. Attacks the next day managed to hit the transport George Elliot, but cost seventeen of the twenty-three aircraft involved. In two days of attacks, the bomber force at Rabaul was nearly wiped out.
Swift naval reaction came from Admiral Mikawa. He initially hesitated because his fleet had never trained together, but he knew that the enemy had to be attacked. He sortied with his full force, heading south. His 8th Fleet was a tough, confident group of five heavy cruisers (Chokai, Aoba, Kako, Kinusaga, and Furataka), two light cruisers (Tenryu and Yubari) and one destroyer (Yunagi). With little hard information, Mikawa simply planned to attack the enemy at night. Japanese doctrine of nocturnal torpedo attacks had proven effective in all their modern wars and was augmented by excellent optics, flashless powder, and extremely powerful, long-range “Long Lance” torpedoes, carried by all Japanese cruisers and destroyers.
Mikawa's force was sighted several times in its passage, but the sightings' information was delayed in a clumsy chain of communications. The Americans had meanwhile lost a good portion of their covering force. Fletcher informed Turner he was pulling his carriers south earlier than planned due to the increasing number of torpedo aircraft being thrown at them. He sailed at midday on August 9, leaving protection of the beachhead to the force of Allied cruisers and destroyers commanded by Rear Adm. V A. C. Crutchley, Royal Navy. Crutchley had been the commander of the Australian Squadron prior to his appointment as Turner's deputy for Operation Watchtower in deference to the Allied nature of the naval forces involved. Crutchley positioned his forces in two groups, on either side of Savo Island, some fifteen miles from the beachhead. The southern group consisted of the heavy cruisers HMAS Canberra and USS Chicago, with the destroyers Patterson and Bagley. The northern group had the American heavy cruisers Vincennes, Quincy, and Astoria, and the destroyers Wilson and Helm.2Farther out, the destroyers Blue and Ralph Talbot picketed the approaches to the anchorage.
Mikawa managed to evade the picket destroyers and enter the area south of Savo Island at 0143 on August 9. By the time Patterson radioed a warning, the Japanese had launched torpedoes and opened fire. Canberra took the brunt of fire and was quickly put out of action. Chicago lost her bow to a torpedo and limped off to the west and out of the fight before she could respond with anything more than a few shots from her 5-inch secondary batteries.
The brief battle with the southern force split the Japanese column—four of the heavy cruisers in one, the rest of the ships in the other. The two columns swept north and within minutes encountered the Allied northern group, still unaware that the Japanese were upon them. The three U.S. cruisers were not ready for the storm of fire that struck them from both sides, and were only able to respond feebly before being inundated with shells and torpedoes. All three were effectively destroyed in fifteen minutes of firing.
/> Mikawa assessed his situation. His ships had expended half their ammunition and torpedoes, and were scattered by the brief fight. His flagship Chokai had suffered the only real damage during the exchange when a salvo from Quincy killed some thirty crewmen around the cruiser's chart room. His staff estimated two hours to reassemble in order to push on to the transport anchorage. Unaware that the American carriers had departed, he felt justifiably concerned for his ships should they linger too long off the island and be caught by aircraft in daylight. He chose caution and sailed north. Ironically, on his way home the American submarine S-44 torpedoed and sank the cruiser Kako.
He left chaos behind: four cruisers sunk or sinking, over 1,700 men killed or wounded. The success of the landings had been reversed in forty minutes of battle at sea. Feeling incapable of defending the remaining ships, especially without air cover, Turner chose to withdraw. The withdrawal carried away 1,800 of the 2nd Marines and most of the construction equipment needed to complete the airfield. Vandegrift's marines were left with enough ammunition for four days of fighting and about one month's worth of rations, including food the Japanese had left behind.
When reconnaissance noted that the American ships were gone, the Japanese assumed that only a small force had been left on the island. They had previously estimated the Americans to be in divisional strength, but the lack of naval support let them downgrade their estimate. The 17th Army was given the assignment of taking the airfield back. It designated the 35th Infantry Brigade under Maj. Gen. Kiyotaki Kawaguchi, augmented by troops from the 4th and 28th Infantry Regiments, to carry out the recapture. The 28th under Col. Kiyoano Ichiki was immediately available on Guam. It had been originally tasked with occupying Midway, but lost that job after the naval disaster. It now began its move while the 17th Army prepared detailed orders. By August 15 Ichiki's first 900 men were ready to deploy to Guadalcanal. His specific orders were to recapture the airfield if possible, and if not, to await reinforcements, expected in ten days. To support the move, the Imperial Japanese Navy began to transfer its carriers south toward the island.
On Guadalcanal, the marines kept busy. In the absence of their own construction equipment, they made use of what the Japanese left behind—trucks, explosives, steamrollers, and two narrow gauge locomotives. On August 12 they named the emerging airstrip Henderson Field, after Maj. Lofton Henderson, a marine flight leader killed at Midway. The next day an amphibious Catalina made the first landing there.
Elsewhere the marines were learning the hard way about their two enemies: the terrain and the Japanese. A small patrol, investigating a report of Japanese wishing to surrender, was virtually wiped out, with the survivor spreading tales of flashing swords used on his comrades. A tentative push westward across the Matanikau River achieved little success but proved how difficult operations in the jungle would be.
Then the plans of both sides came together in a week of frantic activity. On August 19, Colonel Ichiki and the first half of his regiment were landed at Taivu Point, some twenty miles east of the marine perimeter. He moved swiftly toward his objective. The reinforcements from 35th Brigade were preparing to follow up this landing, with support from Japan's carrier force.
August 20 was a momentous day for the marines—nineteen Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters and twelve SBD Dauntless dive-bombers landed at Henderson. The Wildcats were slower than the Japanese Zeros, but they could dive faster and were better armored. In addition, their six .50 caliber machine guns were very effective against the lightly armored Zeros and Bettys. The SBDs could carry a 1,000-pound bomb, which was more than the Bettys could and could deliver it accurately—as the Japanese carriers at Midway had discovered. With these planes on Guadalcanal, the stakes became markedly greater for both sides. The marines now had land-based teeth.
That night, at around 0300 hours, Ichiki attacked the marine line on Alligator Creek, erroneously noted on marine maps as the Tenaru River. Ichiki sent three of his four rifle companies straight ahead without reconnaissance or other probes. The Japanese waded through withering fire from the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Marines and 37mm antitank cannons firing canister. Although the line was breached momentarily, the Japanese attack failed. At dawn the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, swept in on the southern flank of the Japanese and, with the aid of four light tanks, virtually annihilated the entire force. For a cost of forty-four marines, some 800 Japanese soldiers were killed. Ichiki radioed his failure, then committed suicide.
The defeat sent shock waves through the Japanese chain of command but bigger things were already happening. On August 24 the carriers went at it again, for the first time since Midway. The Japanese had two of their best on hand Shokaku and Zuikaku, with 140 aircraft tasked with finding and destroying the U.S. carriers as payback for the Midway debacle. The light carrier Ryujo and her thirty-three aircraft were detached with a small escort to attack Guadalcanal and suppress the now active airfield there. A third approaching force was the reinforcement convoy carrying Ichiki's second echelon and the 5th Yokosuka Special Naval Landing Force. Opposing them were Fletcher's carrier groups. Originally there were three such groups, but in a controversial decision Fletcher sent the Wasp south to refuel, taking a third of the U.S. aircraft out of the coming fight, leaving Saratoga and Enterprise, with 150 aircraft, to engage in what would be called the Battle of the Eastern Solomons.
The Americans struck first in the early afternoon, finding and overwhelming the Ryujo; but as the main U.S. strike was engaged against this small carrier, the big Japanese carriers were also found. The Japanese had already spotted the U.S. flattops, and Enterprise came under heavy attack by a force of twenty-seven Val dive-bombers and ten Zeros. Over half the attacking planes were destroyed, but they succeeded in hitting the Enterprise with three bombs. Damage control parties got the fires under control, but a half hour after the last bomb hit her she lost steering control and began circling, almost hitting one of her escorts. Her speed was reduced while the problem was being fixed, but the damage crews never got the chance. A second Japanese strike force attacked. Ironically, the thirty-plus planes of this attack group almost missed the Enterprise completely, but were drawn toward her when patrolling U.S. aircraft attacked them. Another ten planes were shot down, but the Wildcats, low on ammunition and fuel, couldn't stop the onslaught against the crippled carrier. Three more bombs hit her, creating uncontrollable fires. With the Japanese surface force of cruisers and battleships bearing down, the big carrier was abandoned, then scuttled with a spread of U.S. torpedoes.
The death of the Big E marked the end of the carrier duel. Both sides retired. The Japanese had traded a small carrier for Enterprise, but suffered severe losses in aircraft. Saratoga withdrew to rejoin Wasp. The next day, planes from Henderson found the reinforcement convoy still pushing for Guadalcanal and severely damaged it. They sank a destroyer and one transport, and inflicted severe damage on the convoy's flagship, the light cruiser Jintzu. Guadalcanal's teeth were sharp.
The convoy's repulse ended the first phase of the campaign. The results were a mixed bag for both sides. Guadalcanal's airfield had been captured and put into service by the United States, making the surrounding seas dangerous for Japanese ships, especially during the daylight hours. But the beachhead was suffering from lack of supply, and the U.S. logistics chain moved slowly. With no port facilities on the island, supply ships had to use their own landing craft to beach supplies, a time-consuming process limited to two to three ships at a time. Worse, the night belonged to the Imperial Japanese Navy, which added a major time constraint to the whole process. The U.S. supply ships had to arrive early in the morning, unload, and depart prior to darkness. The Japanese had severely hurt the U.S. Navy by sinking Enterprise but lost too many aircraft and trained crews doing it. Their navy had wrested control of the night waters off the island from the Allies with their stunning victory off Savo Island, but didn't follow that victory up with an effective blockade. The army's initial counterthrust by Colonel Ichiki was a complete disaster.
The Second Phase
The failure of Ichiki's infantry attack and the repulse of the reinforcement convoy caused a storm of acrimonious argument at all levels of the Japanese military. The army was angry at the navy for limiting the troops sent to the island; the navy was equally angry for the army's handling of the attack. One point was incontestable. The U.S. Marines and their airfield at Guadalcanal constituted a serious breach in the Empire's outer perimeter—Japanese ships were suddenly at risk within 200 miles of the airfield. The breach called for a more serious effort against the beachhead. Kawaguchi's brigade, assembling at Rabaul, might not be enough.
The airfield was the most restrictive problem. It had to be retaken or suppressed. Suppression could take several forms. Bombing could keep the airfield unusable if the attacks were strong enough. The distance from Rabaul to Guadalcanal was 565 miles. This was well within the range of the Betty bombers, but only long-range Zeros could accompany them and, at that, they would be at the edge of their operational range. Worse, the bombers usually attacked at altitudes between 20,000 and 25,000 feet, where the Zeros were not at their best. Suppression could also come from the sea through bombardment by the Imperial Japanese Navy. Knowing full well the power of aircraft against ships, the navy would have to operate in a risky environment and make full use of their nighttime capabilities. This was an attractive option since the enemy's capital ships had left the area, driven away by Mikawa's success. The final option was to retake the airfield by ground assault or at least interdict it by artillery fire. This would require transporting men and equipment to the island. Along with the risk posed by Allied aircraft, the Japanese had no port facilities and little capability for beachhead supply. But this was the ultimate answer to the problem. Surprisingly, given their concerns about supplying their own troops, they appear to have not considered the tenuous supply situation of the marines and an attack on the Guadalcanal problem from that angle. They chose the more direct approach.