Their task would not be easy. “We will have to call on all our patriotism, stamina, guts, and maybe some crusading spirit or religious fervor thrown in, to beat him,” said Lieutenant General George Kenney, commander of the air forces in Douglas MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Area, of the Japanese. “No amateur can take this boy out. We have got to turn professional. Another thing: there are no quiet sectors in which troops get started off gradually, as in the last war. There are no breathers in this schedule. You take on Notre Dame, every time you play!”5
A pattern developed in the coming weeks. With the US infantry shoving the Japanese into Guadalcanal’s western corner, during daylight hours the destroyers prowled offshore to provide fire support for the Army units, directed by a liaison officer who boarded the destroyers to help pinpoint the targets. By night, O’Bannon and the other Fletcher-class destroyers steamed the waters north of Guadalcanal to tangle with the Tokyo Express. Leaving Tulagi, which destroyer crews labeled the “Sleepless Lagoon” because they enjoyed so little rest there, they swept up the Slot as far as the Russell Islands, thirty miles northwest of Guadalcanal, searching for enemy surface craft bringing supplies or reinforcements to the island, or dropping depth charges on Japanese submarines detected by their sonar.6 Crews aboard older destroyers lacking the advanced radar wished they could join the quartet in their northward dashes to meet the enemy, while sailors aboard the five Fletcher-class destroyers developed a squadron esprit de corps for the first time. The Cactus Striking Force quickly crafted a reputation in the South Pacific as Halsey’s first offensive response to the Japanese and became a foreshadow of what the ships, soon to be organized as Desron 21, could achieve.
Aboard the USS Sterett, the ship into which the O’Bannon had nearly collided in the November battle, Ensign C. Raymond Calhoun prayed that his older destroyer could join the five in pursuing the enemy. “The crew watched with envy as the new ‘cans’ (Fletcher-class destroyers) dashed up the slot to Munda, Rendova, and New Georgia, where the action was now furious.” According to Calhoun and his Sterett shipmates, that quintet “was intercepting and doing battle with just about every Japanese force that attempted to reinforce their garrisons in the central Solomons.”7
Foster Hailey selected this unit, though, because in his opinion the Cactus Striking Force typified early 1943 naval combat in the South Pacific. He arranged to be placed aboard O’Bannon, where, standing on the bridge next to her new skipper or sitting in the mess room with the enlisted, he could study the role of a destroyer in combat. When Hailey first inspected O’Bannon’s crew, most looked so young that he thought he was back in high school. As he mingled with the sailors, most of whom had less than a year of naval service, he found that they offered a smorgasbord of backgrounds, coming from farms and cities, from newspaper delivery stations and behind drugstore soda fountains. He occasionally came across the weathered face of a veteran, but he guessed that the average age of the crew could hardly be twenty years.
Hailey witnessed enough to inform home-front readers that the crew of O’Bannon and her four mates will “go willingly anywhere they are led by officers in whom they have confidence and fight with all their might when they get there.” Despite their youth and inexperience, and armed “with only a tin helmet between them and the Japanese bombs and shells,” they were prepared to meet the vaunted Japanese and send them packing.8 Hailey intended to be there at every stage to relay their exploits to his readers.
The bombardments by day and the patrolling by night from Sleepless Lagoon took a toll on MacDonald’s crew, some of whom contended that Halsey considered them expendable. “There seemed to be no relief in sight and daily twenty-four-hour operating was a terrific strain,” wrote MacDonald. Night after night, MacDonald and his crew, often accompanied by one or more of their Cactus Striking Force brethren, plied dangerous waters, and while MacDonald was proud of his men, “we had to stand more than men ordinarily can endure.” He denied the few requests for transfers to shore duty, and while he tried to maintain his men’s morale, “it was most difficult trying to cheer them up without much to offer them except the sacrificing of their life for their country.”9 The Cactus Striking Force had to hold the line, though, for it was one of only a few tools Halsey then had at his disposal.
Standing beside MacDonald on the bridge of O’Bannon, Hailey saw it, too. He explained to home-front readers that on their behalf, these sailors went without rest, good food, and all the amenities that people in the United States took for granted. A crewmember of the Cactus Striking Force “must spend long days or weeks or even months at sea doing necessary things like convoying or patrol, in which he must always be on the alert for the enemy plane or ship that may be, so far as he knows, a thousand miles away or just over the horizon. If he let it, the strain could become intolerable.” Hailey emphasized that during these long, difficult stretches at sea, the sailors saw the same faces every day, none of which were female. “There probably isn’t one of them who wouldn’t rather be doing something else, but fighting and killing is now their job, and they’re not shirking it.”10
Because his ship was so often at general quarters while operating in the Guadalcanal area, each day the communications officer aboard De Haven, Lieutenant (jg) John J. Rowan, spent anywhere from twelve to eighteen hours on the ship’s bridge during these hectic times. Twice in one week he remained at his station for thirty straight hours, standing the whole time, and he described most days in the Guadalcanal area as “continuously busy and with a good chance for contact with the Japanese coming down the slot from Rabaul.” He called the experience “exhausting,” exacerbated by a lack of air-conditioning. Since De Haven was almost always either in Condition One or Condition Two, the tropical sun created insufferable environments inside the sweltering ship, and so baked the decks that men dared not step on them barefooted. “A closed steel ship in the sun is like a bake-oven that gets hot and stays hot,” said Rowan.11
January 19 typified each day in the first two months of 1943. With Hailey observing their operations from O’Bannon, the Cactus Striking Force made four firing runs on Japanese positions near Kokumbona Village, on Guadalcanal’s northwest corner. For five hours, into early afternoon, the ships bombarded enemy units dug in on ridges and slopes. Guided by naval and Marine observers aboard each ship who communicated via shortwave radio with spotters ashore, the destroyers’ five-inch shells pulverized Japanese in foxholes and bunkers. “At times we were firing only fifty yards ahead of the troops,” wrote an impressed Hailey, “who were moving in behind the sea-and-shore barrage before the Japanese could reform their shattered defenses.”
Hailey wrote that O’Bannon and her companions encountered infrequent opposition, even though they “went in so close you often could see the Japanese running around like mad looking for good deep foxholes in which to hide.” Aboard Nicholas to observe the bombardment, Army Major General Alexander M. Patch was impressed with the intensity and accuracy of the destroyers’ gunfire. O’Bannon’s gun crews alone expended almost a thousand rounds at the Japanese, leading one of the destroyer’s boatswains to joke with Hailey that they had done their job in utilizing their portion of the metal collected in scrap drives back home.
After a day of blasting enemy shore positions, the squadron returned to Tulagi, where instead of resting, the crew brought additional ammunition aboard and prepared for the next outing. Five hours later they followed Nicholas out of Sleepless Lagoon to patrol near Rua Dika Island to the northwest, sweeping the waters in search of the Tokyo Express.
Throughout the day lookouts and radarmen tracked every airplane that flew within range, and gun batteries remained trained on each until its identity could be established. Aviators often vexed destroyer crews by failing to respond to identification calls, placing gun crews and officers in the awkward predicament of choosing between shooting at a plane that could be friendly or withholding fire and allowing a Japanese intruder to draw closer. MacDonald and other commanders filed reports comp
laining about the issue, but the problem persisted.
The majority of days and nights were spent at battle stations. “There was little rest for the weary crews,” commented Hailey about MacDonald and his men. They patrolled, investigated sonar contacts for enemy submarines, watched for air attacks, and waited to engage the Tokyo Express. At night “Washing Machine Charlie,” the nickname given the solitary Japanese scout plane whose engine noises sounded like a washing machine in operation, interrupted their sleep with flares and engine rumbles. The squadron, Hailey observed, “was the only United States naval group actually around Guadalcanal. If battle were to be joined, it appeared we would be the ones who would start it.”12
“Bad News for Japs”
Halsey ordered another offensive strike in late January to complement the earlier one conducted against Munda. On the west side of Kula Gulf, two hundred miles northwest of Guadalcanal, stood Kolombangara Island and its two plantations, Vila and Stanmore. The Japanese collected supplies at these locations and ferried them to Munda, thirteen miles across the gulf on New Georgia Island, where workers were constructing an airfield. Halsey wanted to bombard the plantations to hinder that construction and to give him additional time to prepare a more ambitious offensive.
The January 22–23 nighttime bombardment of the plantations differed from the one staged earlier in the month. A full moon would make it simpler for Japanese aircraft to spot the encroaching American ships, and should the force reach the narrow waters of Kula Gulf, they could be easy prey for Japanese aircraft based at Kolombangara and New Georgia. Admiral Ainsworth, again in command, decided to advance partway into the gulf, reverse course, and open fire only as the ships were on their way out. He hoped this tactic would shield him from the enemy until his ships were already exiting the gulf and on their way back to Tulagi.
Ainsworth’s four light cruisers and seven destroyers left Espiritu Santo on the morning of January 22. After dark, he divided the ships into two divisions, with the bombardment force of O’Bannon, Nicholas, De Haven, and Radford escorting Nashville and Helena, while the other three destroyers remained to the rear with the cruisers Honolulu and St. Louis as support.
MacDonald, who had assumed command of O’Bannon less than two weeks earlier, believed that his crew would perform more efficiently if the men knew as much as possible before they headed into an operation. He thus began hosting almost nightly informational broadcasts over the ship’s loudspeaker, during which he explained as much of the planned mission as possible.
This night’s message carried more import. Not only was the crew embarking on their first offensive, but the bombardment was also MacDonald’s first offensive operation as skipper. How he conducted himself now and during the action was as crucial to his men as were their actions.
“All hands, this is your captain. Tonight we are going to bombard Vila airdrome on Kolombangara Island,” he began. Then he immediately plunged into the most dangerous aspect of the mission. “At the present time the Japs are in possession of all the surrounding land. We may see action tonight but no word has been received regarding surface ships.” He ended with words designed to ease their qualms: “All hands will be called to General Quarters at 2130 [9:30 p.m.]. Between now and then obtain as much rest as possible. When you are called to your battle stations, proceed quietly. Do not show any lights. Take as much water as you can carry. That is all.”13
According to Hailey, the ships “boiled along through the night and the next day” to reach their destination.14 Men cursed the full moon that bathed the ships, thereby handing the enemy a clearer look. At 1:30 a.m. the ships spotted Visuvisu Point and swung southwest to enter the gulf, with every gun manned and lookouts on the alert. As the cruisers and destroyers increased to flank speed, MacDonald moved O’Bannon into the lead spot to scout ahead and learn, by offering himself and his crew as bait, whether the Japanese knew they were coming. MacDonald steamed the entire length of the gulf before reaching the bombardment position off Vila and swinging back to the north.
“This was an extremely hectic night,” said MacDonald.15 As the skipper carefully navigated the ship through the darkness, so close to shore in the narrow gulf that Japanese batteries could hardly miss should they open fire, eighteen-year-old Seaman Whisler tensed in his gun mount, expecting at any moment a salvo of enemy shells to rip into the destroyer. He did not even want to consider that a Japanese surface force might steam out to engage them.
“The night was as silent as a tomb, the water smooth and oily-looking,” wrote Hailey, standing beside MacDonald during the tense moment. “Our wake made a neat, geometric pattern across its face. We could see the hills of Kolombangara plainly. In the center was the cone of an extinct volcano. Mist was drifting down the narrow valleys from the hilltops toward the sea.”16 To everyone’s elation, MacDonald completed his sweep in the gulf, reported that conditions were favorable, and resumed his station with the other ships.
Ainsworth immediately turned his ships parallel to the coast and, while the destroyers of the Cactus Striking Force screened, opened fire. For twenty-nine minutes Nashville and Helena poured salvo after salvo at the Japanese installations. As MacDonald watched the spectacle through his glasses, the shells arcing through the sky reminded him of “racing comets.” Next to him, Hailey marveled at the bombardment’s ferocity, and informed home-front readers that the cruisers sent a stream of fireballs shoreward that “served the Japanese a concentrated hell.” He wrote that the “tracers lobbing through the air looked like colored balls from Roman candles and flowed in such a steady stream it was like a spray from a deadly garden hose playing back and forth across the Japanese positions.” Ashore, the numerous fires merged “and a great pillar of flame hundreds of feet high rose in the air.”17 The O’Bannon deck crew emitted a huge cheer when a salvo from Helena struck an ammunition dump and kicked up an enormous ball of fire.
Once the cruisers completed their bombardment, those ships exited the gulf and gave center stage to the four Cactus destroyers. Briscoe’s ships moved closer to shore and, over the next hour against minor opposition, pumped 3,500 rounds toward Vila. “It was as audacious and courageously tough a raid as had yet been made in the Pacific,” concluded Hailey of the bombardment he had just witnessed from O’Bannon’s bridge.18
After firing their final shells, the quartet “started to get the hell out of there because it was no place to be,” as Ensign Clem C. Williams on the De Haven put it. The skippers ordered full speed and commenced a wild race to reach Guadalcanal air cover two hundred miles southeast before Japanese warships and aircraft caught up. Rushing along the shore leading to the gulf’s exit, MacDonald and Hailey glanced toward Vila, where “there was over the whole area a ruddy glow silhouetting retiring ships against its fiery backdrop.”19
Thirty minutes after the destroyers rendezvoused with the cruisers, Japanese planes dropped flares that, according to Ainsworth, “seemed to illuminate all of the Kula Gulf area. We felt very naked indeed.”20 As they left the gulf, the Japanese also dropped float boxes in the water to mark for torpedo and dive-bomber attacks the path taken by Ainsworth. Ainsworth formed his ships into antiaircraft disposition and hoped he could make it to Tulagi and friendly air cover before the Japanese trapped him.
His luck ran out at 3:30 a.m. Over a span of two and a half hours, torpedo bombers intermittently attacked the ships, forcing Ainsworth to seek shelter in a sequence of rain squalls. Stationed with the other three destroyers in a box formation about the cruisers, MacDonald evaded two aircraft that shadowed O’Bannon on either side. He maneuvered from squall to squall, so limiting the time the ship remained in the open that the Japanese enjoyed only brief moments to form up for an organized attack. When Radford gunners splashed one of the intruders with radar-directed five-inch shells containing preset fuses, they became one of the first crews to accomplish that feat.
Ainsworth successfully hopped from squall to squall until dawn, when the force reached the Russell Islands and its welc
ome air cover. Four Wildcat fighters from Henderson Field, followed by more than fifty American torpedo planes, dive-bombers, and their fighter escorts on their way to Vila, rose to attack the Japanese. “Look to the sky,” announced O’Bannon’s executive officer, Lieutenant George Philip Jr. “There goes the might of the United States. The enemy is on the run.”21 Sailors on deck let out a huge cheer at Philip’s words.
By a slim margin Ainsworth’s ships won the race down the Slot. Admiral Halsey radioed to Ainsworth that his task force “is bad news for Japs. Your second successful bombardment has hammered another nail in the coffin and this time spike size. Well done.”22
The officers and crews of the newly formed Cactus Striking Force had prowled the southern Solomon waters since the previous October, with brief times in back areas when the ships needed minor repair work. MacDonald longed to give his weary crew a break, but unlike the cruisers that headed south away from Guadalcanal, the destroyers remained in Solomon waters, facing yet more days and nights patrolling and screening. “It was quite a letdown in feeling,” said MacDonald, “because we knew that once again we were here until the end, with no relief in sight.” In his writing, Hailey had sung their praises for his readers, but he now informed his home-front audience, “There was little rest or liberty at rear bases for the men of the tin-can navy.”23
Hailey did not rest, either. Having gathered what he wanted aboard O’Bannon, he asked to be placed on one of the other Cactus destroyers to gain a different perspective. Commander Charles E. Tolman, skipper of De Haven, invited Hailey to join his destroyer, but Hailey opted instead for Nicholas, the more experienced ship.
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