Strong Men Armed

by Robert Leckie

  By September he had trained his Black Sheep to fly the big Corsairs and had brought them to a base in the Russells.

  By September 16 they roared aloft on their first mission.

  They were assigned to cover a formation of bombers headed for Ballale Airfield off the southern tip of Bougainville. The clouds over Bougainville were thick. Boyington and his 19 comrades didn’t anticipate interception from that direction while the Dauntlesses and Avengers dove and slashed at tiny Ballale, raising puffs of dirt and smoke. The Black Sheep started down. They flew right into a formation of 40 Zeros coming up.

  One of them tore past Boyington’s right wing and wobbled his wings as though to say “Join up.” The American pilot pressed his gun button and found he had been so absorbed in the bombing display he had forgotten to turn on his electric gunsight or his gun switches. He had not even charged his guns. But Boyington quickly corrected the oversight and “joined up” with the Japanese, firing into the unsuspecting Zero’s tail and sending it spiraling down in flames.

  Streaking down to the water where the bombers were reforming for the homeward flight, Boyington flashed by another Zero. He aimed a burst at the cockpit and the plane gushed flame and smoke and vanished, some of its parts striking Boyington’s plane.

  Boyington was alone. The American bombers had gone home. Boyington turned to wolfing among the remaining Zeros. He struck down on a Zero flying low over the water, sensed a trap, eased up—and caught the bait Zero’s triggerman coming at him head-on. Boyington’s bullets tore apart the Zero’s underbelly. It fell into the sea, smoking.

  Now Boyington pointed his Corsair in the direction of the retreating American planes, and found himself above a Zero racing homeward. It was low over the water. A single burst sent it in.

  It had been an impressive first mission. Boyington was satisfied to call it a day and head for Munda, for he had not enough gas to reach the Russells. Nearing the new airstrip he came upon an oil-smeared, shell-riddled Corsair flying low over the water while a pair of Zeros harried its tail. Boyington roared down behind the closest Zero, his guns chattering. The Zero stood on its tail. Boyington hauled back on the stick and fell into a spin just as the Zero burst apart in flames.

  The other Zero fled and the Corsair vanished. Boyington never saw it again, and there was no time to search. He came into Munda with his tanks dry and but 30 rounds of ammunition left for his guns.

  He had shot down an ace’s portion on his squadron’s first mission and his men had added a half-dozen kills of their own to the score.

  Soon the baaing of the Black Sheep would be heard over all the South Pacific.

  Kennedy the coastwatcher had at last been persuaded to come to Guadalcanal. New Georgia had been secured, the entire Central Solomons campaign had been victoriously concluded on September 25, and now, in the final days of September, the Americans were insistent that Captain Kennedy come south to his just reward.

  “Captain Kennedy,” the general said, “we would like to present you with a medal.”

  “Thanks, no—give the medals to the chaps doing the flying.”

  “Captain Kennedy,” the general continued, “there must be something you want.”

  “If you really insist on wanting to know, then I guess I’d better tell you.”

  “Captain Kennedy,” the general said gladly, “what would you like?”

  “After thirty-six months in the bush I would like to have thirty-six beautiful chorus girls arguing over my drunken carcass.”

  The Black Sheep were coming up to Kahili, the formidable air base on the southern tip of Bougainville. This was the base which had to be smashed to make way for two of the three Marine offensives preparing that October. It had been struck repeatedly by Marine aircraft from the Russells and from Munda, where the Black Sheep were now based. On this flight the Black Sheep were escorting bombers, but the weather was bad for bombing and the Avengers flew home. The Black Sheep hung around. Suddenly, in a voice with no trace of accent but too precise to be true, the radio crackled with the question:

  “Major Boyington, what is your position?”

  Boyington grinned. It was the Japanese ground-control director pretending to be an American pilot.

  “Over Treasury Island,” Boyington lied, immediately beginning to climb, for the next question would concern his “angels” or altitude. It came:

  “What are your angels, Major Boyington?”

  “Twenty angels, repeating, twenty angels.”

  “I receive you, five by five,” the Japanese concluded with prim efficiency, and by then the Black Sheep were already up to 21,000 feet—and streaming up below them, coming out of a white cloud, was a formation of 30 Zeros.

  It was over in less than a minute. The Black Sheep struck out of nowhere, with the bright sun at their back to blind their enemies, and they continued their downward flight through the exploding wreckage of a dozen downed planes. Boyington got three of them himself. A few days later he and his Black Sheep again beguiled the enemy by flying high over Kahili in a V of V bomber formation, luring the Japanese into the swift onslaught and massed firepower of fighters.

  For such exuberance in aerial combat-and for off-duty exuberance which was the inevitable consequence of Boyington’s unrivaled ability to draw large issues of medical brandy-the Black Sheep became the toast of the Marine air arm. And they had taken to toasting their leader in a serenade adapted to the Yale “Whiffenpoof Song.” It went:

  To the one-arm joint at Munda,

  To the foxholes where we dwelt,

  To the predawn take-offs that we love so well,

  Sing the Black Sheep all assembled,

  With their canteens raised on high,

  And the magic of their singing casts a spell.

  Yes, the magic of their singing,

  And the songs we love so well,

  Old Man Reilly, Mrs. Murphy and the rest,

  We shall serenade our Gregory

  While life and voice shall last—

  Then we’ll pass and be forgotten with the rest.

  They were indeed “poor little lambs off on a spree,” for in a single month of combat they had damned 57 enemy pilots “from here to eternity” while losing but two of their own.

  5

  In mid-October of 1943 the First Marine Division had said farewell to Melbourne and its units were sailing to staging areas in New Guinea and Goodenough Island. The Third Marine Division was on Guadalcanal, completing jungle training, and the staff of the Second Marine Division was busy on plans for the seizure of Tarawa. In that same month General MacArthur and Admiral Halsey agreed on the first step in the drive to reduce Rabaul.

  Rabaul was at the center of things in the South Pacific. So long as Japan possessed this great air-sea-troop base on the northeastern tip of New Britain, she could move south to the Solomons or strike west to New Guinea. She could send her bombers northeast to the Gilberts and Marshalls.

  Deny Japan the use of Rabaul, and General MacArthur could drive up the New Guinea coast with his seaward flank secure and the assault in the Central Pacific could begin without fear of Rabaul’s bombers.

  But to get at Rabaul required an air base closer to it than Munda on New Georgia. Such a base could be on any one of a number of islands in the Northern Solomons. General MacArthur and Admiral Halsey agreed that it should be Bougainville.

  Bougainville was assaulted by the Third Marine Division, with the Army’s 37th Infantry Division in reserve. Both units were part of the First Marine Amphibious Corps, commanded by Alexander Vandegrift, now a lieutenant general. With three stars on his shoulder, Vandegrift now outranked his old opponent, Haruyoshi Hyakutate.

  Lieutenant General Hyakutate still commanded the 17th Army. He had been placed in charge of the Northern Solomons by General Hitoshi Imamura, whose 8th Area Army command included the Bismarcks (New Britain and surrounding islands), New Guinea and the Northern Solomons. Hyakutate expected the Americans to strike at Bougainville, probably at Kah
ili Airfield on the southern tip.

  Guessing that the Japanese strength was concentrated at Kahili, Vandegrift had to pretend that he was going there while he was actually going somewhere else.

  He was going to land at Empress Augusta Bay halfway up Bougainville’s 130-mile west coast. The landing place would be immediately west or left of Cape Torokina, which formed the Bay’s upper hook. Cape Torokina’s beaches were known to be lightly defended. Its central location suggested that it would take the Japanese months to mount a massive counterattack against it.

  But the 20,000 men of the Third, with the attached Second Raider Regiment, would not sail straight for Torokina. Their convoy would rather make straight for Kahili. After having been seen, the convoy would sneak west and north under cover of night to effect the dawn landing at Torokina.

  This ruse would also be preceded by a hard jab to the left of Kahili and a feint to the right. On October 26 a brigade of New Zealanders were to occupy the Treasury Islands just below and left of Bougainville. This would strengthen Japanese suspicion of an impending assault on Kahili, while providing a forward staging base for Torokina.

  The following night Lieutenant Colonel Victor Krulak’s Second Marine Parachute Battalion was to land at Choiseul, below and to the right of Bougainville. They would come ashore loudly rattling sabers and making very much smoke from very little fire. For though there were only 725 of them, Vandegrift had told Krulak on October 25:

  “I want an immediate and credible appearance of a large force.”

  By that time Hyakutate was ready with new troops and an old plan.

  The remnants of those 17th Army units cut up at Guadalcanal had been sloughed off on Major General Noboru Sasaki in the Central Solomons. While Hyakutate had been up in Rabaul raking in the fresh 6th and 17th Divisions to replace them, the luckless but able Sasaki had been down in New Georgia conducting a brilliant delaying campaign with such men as those Nagoya unfortunates who had arrived in his command swimming. By the time of Sasaki’s defeat in early October, Hyakutate’s 17th Army was again up to 50,000 men.

  Some 40,000 of them were in the Bougainville area, and most of them belonged to the 6th Division—the infamous 6th which had raped Nanking—commanded by Lieutenant General Masatane Kanda. Again, as much because of the inflexible Hyakutate’s notions of how to defend against amphibious attack as because of Bougainville’s extensive coastline, these troops were strung out. There were some 5,000 in the north, another 5,000 on the east coast and about 25,000 around Kahili to the south and those island airfields off the southern shore.

  There were only 300 at Cape Torokina, but Hyakutate was confident of his ability to repulse the enemy no matter where he landed. He still believed that counterattacks or counterlandings with reinforcements from Rabaul would destroy the enemy, despite the fact of what had happened to such attempts at Guadalcanal. He still relied on the sea and air power of the Japanese Navy to make such troop movements possible, despite the fact of what had been happening to that Navy since Ching Lee took the battleships through. He still regarded the jungle as an excellent cover for the maneuvering of troops, despite the fact of how cruelly the jungle had scourged the Kawaguchis and the Sendai.

  By October 26, the day the New Zealanders occupied the Treasuries, Hyakutate was more certain than ever that the invasion would be at Kahili. But next day he was startled to receive reports of “large forces” landing at Choiseul. The Treasuries had held down Bougainville’s eastern flank. Choiseul still guarded the west. Should he join the battle at Choiseul?

  Victor Krulak was called “Brute,” as all the coxswains of Annapolis crews are called. In the Marine Corps the nickname stuck for other reasons. The short, blond Krulak could take it.

  He could also move with great speed. Hardly six days after Lieutenant General Vandegrift had told him, “Take immediate action. Get ashore where there are no Japs,” Krulak had brought his Second Parachutists ashore on Choiseul at a place called Voza.

  They boarded the destroyer-transports Kilty, Ward, Crosby and McKean late in the afternoon of October 27, sped up The Slot through inaccurate bombing of Japanese night prowlers and began landing a half-hour before midnight.

  Next day they hid themselves. They set up a dummy beach far away from the point at which they had actually landed. After they dispersed in the jungle some 80 Melanesian bearers carefully brushed out all their footprints in the sand. They spent the day marking time until Admiral Halsey’s announcement that “strong American forces” had landed on Choiseul.

  At dawn the next day Krulak’s men went out to raise deliberate hell on Choiseul’s southwest coast. One patrol moved noisily into the mountains. Another led by Krulak moved right or southeast toward the Japanese base at Sangigai. The Marines spotted about 15 Japanese soldiers unloading a daihatsu landing barge. Krulak gave orders to fire, but to be sure not to kill more than half of them so that word of the enemy would get back to Sangigai.

  Three light machine guns were set up on a rock cliff overlooking the beach and the Japanese 150 yards away. They fired. They killed three Japanese instantly and shot down four more of those who ran down the beach. They let the rest of them go, destroyed the barge, and while word of the appearance of the Americans was signaled to Hyakutate in Rabaul, Krulak’s patrol began sketching the enemy’s position at Sangigai in preparation for an attack next day.

  On that day, Krulak split his forces. One half moved downcoast to assault Sangigai from the west. The other half, under Krulak, marched up the Vagara River, crossed and came down on Sangigai from the northeast.

  It was a toilsome march, for the Japanese rarely cut roads into the interior of the jungle and they slashed out trails to their own scale. The Marines moved through swamps, fording the snakelike Vagara at twelve different points. And when most men moved through water up to their chest, the Brute was immersed up to his neck. There was no time to rest; the coastal force had been instructed to attack two hours after Krulak’s men marched off.

  Shortly after two that afternoon the coastal force pounded Sangigai with rockets and mortars. The men of Company E charged into the town and found it deserted. The Japanese had taken Admiral Halsey at his word and had already retreated into the hills, where they were already colliding with Krulak.

  About a half-hour after the beach barrage began, the Marines in the mountains heard jabbering in the jungle not 20 yards ahead. They dropped to the ground and began hastily building up a front, just as the Japanese popped into view 10 yards off.

  The fight lasted an hour. First the Japanese closed with yells and rifle shots, and the Marines repulsed them. One machine-gunner, unable to wait for his buddy to bring up the gun’s tripod, fired with the butt braced against his right leg and the barrel clasped in his left hand. By the time the tripod arrived and he withdrew his hand, much of its flesh was left on the barrel. Another gunner fired while a rifleman dueled a sniper in the foliage of a huge banyan tree. The sniper fell alongside the machine-gunner. He was wounded in the hip. The gunner pulled out his knife, killing the sniper with his right hand while continuing to fire with his left.

  The enemy pulled back to a system of burrows and bunkers dug underneath those enormous banyans while snipers left behind in the treetops raked the Marines, wounding Krulak in the face. Marine demolition men crawled forward toward the bunkers. One of them reached into his kit for a six-block charge. It wouldn’t come free. He tore at it and the entire kit of twenty-four blocks came loose. The Marine shrugged, stuck in a fuse, lighted it and hurled it beneath the banyan. There was a rocking explosion. The great tree jumped in the air, toppled and crashed against another forest giant.

  The fight ended with the customary banzai.

  The Japanese crawled out of their holes and came rushing at Krulak’s Marines. They got among them, but were killed in hand-to-hand fighting. Immediately Krulak ordered a platoon forward in a counterattack.

  The Marines rushed at the shrieking Japanese with wild yells of their own, and as they broke
them and sent them fleeing into the jungle, an outraged BARman raised his head above the edge of his foxhole and bellowed:

  “For God’s sake, shut up! Us bastards are mad enough already!”

  In a few more moments all was quiet but for the muffled explosions coastward, where E Company was methodically blowing up the Japanese headquarters, turning ammunition dumps into miniature volcanoes and cheering with delight to see the explosive gala provided by the detonated medical supply dump, where the sky was filled with flaming fragments of wood and metal crisscrossed by long white ribbons of the bandages unrolling in flight.

  Krulak’s men made more smoke for General Vandegrift before they were withdrawn by LCI at midnight of November 3. By that time they had accomplished their mission. General Hyakutate had already begun to move Bougainville troops south to Choiseul by barge. On November 1 he sent 60 bombers and escorting fighters against the “force of 20,000 men” which Radio Tokyo said was then ashore on Choiseul.

  The Japanese aircraft were bombing the bait even as the Third Marine Division commanded by Major General Allen Turnage hit the narrow beaches of Cape Torokina.

  6

  November 1, 1943, was clear and bright, a tropic day when the air is soft and aromatic, when the sea is all silvery and glittering in the light of the rising sun. At a quarter after six Marines crowding the rails of their transports could see the sun standing clearly above the bleak blue line of the Bougainville mountains, a thread of smoke from the crater of Mount Bagana trailing across its face. The Marines also saw the shell-smoke rising from Cape Torokina and from the island of Puruata, 1,000 yards offshore and about the same distance to the left or west of the Cape. American cruisers and destroyers had begun a bombardment. In another hour the landing boats churned shoreward and the naval gunfire lifted.