Bloody Beaches : Marine Raiders History in the Pacific War (WW2 Pacific Military History Series)

by Daniel Wrinn

  At dawn on October 7, the 5th Marines surged forward. They ran into a dug-in enemy company on the near side of the river, inland from the sandbar. Edson’s 2nd Battalion secured most of the assigned frontage upriver, but his 3rd Battalion could not break through the Japanese resistance centered on the well-fortified defensive position. Edson committed Company L into battle and then radioed division for reinforcements. Division tasked Company A of the 1st Raiders, they marched toward the coast to bivouac next to Edson’s command post.

  That night the Japanese probed the lines of the 3/5 Marines and attacked the company nearest the sandbar. At dawn on October 8, Edson committed the raiders of Company A to eliminate the Japanese pocket. Edson put Major Lewis Walt in charge. The 1st Raiders made little headway against the interlocking fields of fire from concealed enemy positions. Heavy rains during the night continued into the day, and the division delayed the move across the river for another twenty-four hours.

  Edson delayed his attack on the strong point based on these new events and his own observation at close range of Company A. His 3rd Battalion would still encircle the enemy position while Company A would defend their right flank. Company A’s position was shaped like a horseshoe. The left linked up with the 3rd Battalion and faced south toward the bunker complex, and the center faced west toward the sand-spit.

  Filling out a thin line, mortarmen occupied the left flank positions. The raiders expected the enemy to assault across the river mouth to relieve the surrounded bridgehead. Marines strung barbed wire along the sandbar. This allowed the rest of the raider battalion to come up the coast road and go into reserve.

  Just after nightfall, the enemy attacked from their positions to break through to their own lines. They overran and surprised the left flank of Company A, hitting the center of the raider line from the rear. The Japanese who survived the close quarters fighting ran headlong into the barbed wire—the Marines shot them to pieces.

  A lieutenant commanding the raider company recouped from the confusion and established a fresh line farther back along the coast road. In the morning, there was more fighting with a handful of enemy troops seeking refuge in Marine foxholes. Raider Company C moved up to occupy abandoned enemy positions and killed six more Japanese holed-up there. Raiders found an elaborate complex of trenches and bunkers connected by tunnels to an underground command post. Marines counted sixty-five bodies stacked up against the wire strung through the perimeter. The battalion suffered twenty-two wounded and twelve dead during this fight on the Matanikau.

  The raiders suffered an additional casualty during this operation. When Edson went over to the 5th Marines, he took his long-time runner, Corporal Walter Burak. While carrying a message along the river at 1500 on October 9, enemy machine-gun fire killed Corporal Burak. He was the last member of the 1st Raiders to be killed in action on Guadalcanal.

  On October 13, the Army’s 164th Infantry arrived on the island and the newly relieved 1st Raider Battalion embarked to New Caledonia. The 1st Raiders had 189 effectives left in the unit—a quarter of the battalion’s original strength.

  Carlson’s Long Patrol

  After the 1st Raiders left Guadalcanal, it was time for the 2nd Raiders to get into the fight. Carlson’s Raiders had been refitting in Hawaii after the Little Makin Island and Midway battles. In early September, the 2nd Raiders headed to Espirito Santo, the primary staging area for most reinforcements heading to the Solomon Islands.

  Carlson’s Raiders continued to train on Espirito Santo. Admiral Turner decided to build another airfield on the northeast coast of Guadalcanal at Aola Bay. Carlson and two raider companies would secure the beachhead for the Seabees, an Army battalion, and a Marine defense battalion.

  APDs Manley and McKean put Companies C and E ashore on the morning of November 4. They had no opposition, though it became apparent that the swampy jungle would be no place to put in an airfield.

  General Vandegrift airdropped a message to Carlson on November 5. Marine and Army elements were moving east from the perimeter to mop up a large force of Japanese near the Metapona River. The enemy unit, the 230th Infantry Regiment, had slashed its way through the jungle from the west as a late attack on Edson’s Ridge by the Sendai Division.

  The 230th failed to join in the attack and had completed a circumnavigation of the Marine perimeter before reaching their current eastern location. The Tokyo Express had reinforced them with a battalion of the 228th Infantry. Vandegrift wanted Carlson’s Raiders to march from Aola and attack the enemy from the rear. On November 6, Carlson’s Raiders set out with only four days of canned rations and several native scouts as guides. Among these scouts was the famous Coastwatcher Sergeant Major Jacob Vouza—already a hero on Guadalcanal.

  On November 4, Carlson’s Raiders moved inland before heading west. The trails were overgrown and narrow, the native guides were vital in leading the way. On November 8, the raiders ran into a small Japanese ambush near Reko. Marines killed two enemy soldiers, and one native was wounded.

  The next day the column reached a village on the Balesuna River, six miles from the coast. Carlson halted while his patrols made contact with Army and Marine units closing in on the main Japanese force. On November 10, Companies B, D, and F of the 2nd Raiders landed at Tasimboko and moved overland to join their commander. Company D was barely a platoon at this point. Carlson had used most of its manpower to fill holes in other companies before leaving Espirito Santo.

  Raiders received sporadic supplies, mainly via the native porters brought in from the coast by Higgins boats. The rations were rice, raisins, tea, and bacon—the type of portable guerrilla food Carlson thrived on—with the occasional D-ration chocolate bar.

  On the night of November 10, around 3,000 Japanese troops had escaped from the Marine encirclement on the Metapona. They were tired and hungry and probably demoralized. They had orders to withdraw back to the western side of the perimeter. But they were still a formidable force.

  The 2nd Raiders had four companies out on independent patrols while the fifth guarded the base camp. Each unit had a TBX radio. At midmorning on the 11th, one outfit made contact with the patrol from the 1/7 Marines and learned of the enemy breakout. Minutes later, Company C ran into a sizable force of the enemy on the Metapona River. The Marines had crossed a wide grassy area, and when the advance guard entered a wooded area on the opposite side—they surprised the enemy in their camp. In this action, the advance guard inflicted significant casualties on the Japanese, with five men killed and three wounded. The enemy now had the rest of the company pinned down in the open with machine gun, rifle, and mortar fire.

  Carlson directed two patrols to assist and dispatched a platoon from base camp. As they crossed the Metapona and into the main battle, Company E tangled with another Japanese group coming in from the opposite direction.

  The larger Japanese force forced the Marines to withdraw, but Major Richard Washburn reorganized his company and counterattacked as the enemy attempted to cross the river. The 2nd Raiders inflicted significant casualties on their opponent but could not push through to link up with Charlie Company.

  Company C had extracted itself under covering fire with its own 60mm mortars. Carlson had radioed for dive bombers to strafe the enemy and ordered Company E to break off its independent action while launching Company F in a flanking maneuver against the main Japanese force. The raiders completed this maneuver by dusk and found the enemy position abandoned. When the battalion assembled that night, Company D reported it had also run into another group of enemy troops and had been pinned down for most of the afternoon.

  On November 12, Carlson led Companies B and E back into the woods. During the day, enemy messengers tried to enter the camp under the notion it belonged to them. Raiders killed twenty-five of them. That afternoon Carlson ordered Company C to join him, and the next day he observed enemy units moving in the area. He placed artillery and mortar fire on five separate groups. After each mission, the raiders dealt with Japanese survivors tryi
ng to make their way back into the woods.

  On November 14, Carlson pulled back to the village on the Metapona, and that same day, Company F wiped out a fifteen-man enemy outpost reported by native scouts. After a brief rest, the 2nd Raiders moved their base camp to Asamama on November 15. After two days of patrolling from that site, Carlson determined the main Japanese force had departed the area.

  General Vandegrift requested that raiders enter the perimeter and search for “Pistol Pete,” an enemy artillery piece that shelled the airfield regularly. The battalion was also to seek out trails that circled the perimeter and any Japanese units operating in the south. The raiders advanced forward to the Tenaru River over the next few days.

  On November 25, Company A arrived from Espirito Santo and joined the fight. For the next two days, the 2nd Raiders divided into three teams, each one operating from their own patrol base. Each day they moved farther into the island’s interior between the headwaters of the Lunga and Tenaru rivers. Carlson stayed with the center team where he could quickly reinforce either of his flanks.

  On November 30, the battalion crossed over a steep ridgeline that divided the valleys of the Lunga and the Tenaru. Raiders found a telephone wire that led to a large bivouac site with an unattended 75mm mountain gun and a 37mm antitank gun. Raiders removed vital parts of these weapons and scattered them down the hillside. Farther up was another bivouac site with one-hundred enemy troops occupying it.

  Both sides were shocked, but Corporal John Yancey charged at the Japanese, firing his automatic weapon, and shouting for his squad to follow. The more numerous enemy were at a disadvantage since their weapons were out of reach. This brave handful of raiders routed the Japanese, killing seventy-five enemy soldiers. Carlson called it: “the most spectacular of any of our engagements.” For his heroism, Corporal Yancey earned the first of his two Navy Crosses (the second came years later in Korea).

  The next day on December 1, a Skytrain transport airdropped desperately needed rations and orders for the battalion to enter the perimeter. Carlson asked for a few more days in the field and got it. On December 3, he held a “Gung Ho” meeting to motivate his exhausted men for one more fight. He divided the 2nd Raiders in half and sent the companies with the most field time down to the Marine lines.

  The remainder he led to Mount Austen, where a raider patrol had discovered a strong but abandoned Japanese position. The force had barely reached their objective when they encountered an enemy platoon approaching from a different direction. After a three-hour firefight and two attempts at a double envelopment, Marines eliminated the enemy. Japanese casualties were twenty-five dead at the cost of four wounded raiders. The Marines had a tough night on the mountain. No water was available, and their canteens were empty. The next day Carlson led his force down to the Marine perimeter, but not without one last fight. Seven Japanese soldiers ambushed and killed four raiders before Marines eliminated them.

  The battalion had killed 488 enemy soldiers at a cost of eighteen wounded and sixteen dead. Carlson’s later report praised his guerrilla tactics which undoubtedly played an important role in a favorable exchange ratio. But far away on the Marine perimeter, the Japanese became careless and allowed themselves to get surprised on a regular basis—a phenomenon Marine units had exploited earlier in the campaign. Since the 2nd Raiders operated solely in the enemy rear, they reaped the benefit of stealth and exploited the massive Japanese weakness.

  These casualty figures did not reflect the actual cost to the Marines. Throughout the operation, Carlson’s Raiders had evacuated 225 men to the rear because of ringworm, dysentery, malaria, and other severe illnesses. While sickness was common on Guadalcanal, the raiders became incapacitated at an astonishing rate because of inadequate rations and rough conditions. Because two raider companies spent the entire month in combat, the effect was worse than those numbers indicated. On November 4, Colonel Carlson and Companies C and F had landed at Aola Bay with 266 officers and men. They entered the perimeter on December 4 with a combined total of 57 Marines—one-fifth of their original strength. It would’ve been worse except for the native porters’ Herculean efforts to keep the raiders supplied. The guerrilla tactics inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy—but at an equally high cost of Marine manpower.

  Now, Carlson’s Raiders could hold their heads high. General Vandegrift wrote: “the consummate skill displayed in the conduct of operations, training, stamina and fortitude displayed by all members of the battalion, and further commendable aggressive spirit and high morale.”

  1st Raider Regiment

  On December 15, the 2nd Raiders boarded a transport and returned to Espirito Santo. They recuperated in pyramidal tents along the banks of a river in a coconut grove. While camp and chow were Spartan, their relief came when a ship took the battalion to New Zealand in February 1943 for two weeks of liberty.

  The 1st Raiders had returned to Camp Bailey in New Caledonia. Their living conditions were similar except for a somewhat better hillside site overlooking a river. They spent a month in New Zealand over the Christmas holidays.

  These were no longer the only raider battalions in the Marine Corps. Admiral Turner had tried to force each Marine Regiment to convert one battalion into a raider organization. General Holcomb (with the help of Admiral Nimitz) stopped that type of interference in the Corps’ internal affairs. However, General Holcomb did allow the creation of two more raider battalions. The 3rd Raiders came into being on Samoa on September 20, 1942, commanded by Colonel “Harry the Horse” Liversedge (former enlisted Marine and an Olympic shot-putter). The 3rd Raiders drew volunteers from several Marine units on Samoa and received small contingents from the 1st and 2nd Raiders.

  The 4th Raider Battalion was activated on October 23, 1942, in Southern California. Major Roosevelt commanded this new unit. The 3rd and 4th Raiders arrived in Espiritu Santo on February 1943.

  While there was no common raider table of organization, Carlson kept his six companies of two rifle platoons and a weapons platoon. Griffith adopted the fireteam concept, added a fourth man to each team, and kept the four rifle companies and a weapons company initially established by Edson. Major Roosevelt’s battalion had four rifle companies plus an engineer and demolition company.

  Carlson addressed his men in a “Gung Ho” meeting on the anniversary of creating the 2nd Raiders. He announced his decision to establish a Marine Raider Organization Day, where he reviewed the battalion’s first year of existence. He noted his morale had been low at times as the officers and men struggled to learn and implement a philosophy of “Gung Ho.”

  In his speech, Carlson said: “Makin brought the story of our methods of living and training to the world. Maybe this fact was of greater importance than the material gains of the raid.”

  On March 15, 1943, the Corps created the 1st Raider Regiment and gave it control of all four battalions. Liversedge (now a colonel) took charge of the new organization. A week later, Colonel Alan Shapley assumed command of the 2nd Raiders. Shapley was a traditional line officer who had earned a Navy Cross on board the Arizona on December 7, 1941. He believed that the Little Makin Island raid was a disaster and had no interest in “Gung Ho.”

  Colonel Shapely wasted no time turning the unit into a regular battalion. Carlson temporarily became the regimental executive officer but served only briefly before entering the hospital with jaundice and malaria. Soon after, Carlson returned stateside. One month later, Colonel Michael Currin, another traditional line officer, took command of the 4th Raiders from Major Roosevelt.

  The raider regiment enforced a common organization throughout its battalions. The result was a mixture of Carlson’s and Edson’s ideas. Carlson gave his fire team and squad to the raiders (and then later to the Corps as a whole). Each battalion now had a weapons company and four rifle platoons, composed of a weapons platoon and three rifle platoons. Edson’s other imprint was the concept of a specially trained, lightly equipped, mobile force that could use conventional tactics to accom
plish special missions or fill in for a line battalion.

  The 1st Raider Regiment was no longer a guerrilla outfit. Given the changing thrust of the Pacific War, this was a wise choice. In the future, Marines would attack Japanese forces held up in tight perimeters on small islands and atolls. Guerrilla tactics wouldn’t solve the problem of overcoming the strong enemy defensive positions.

  Operation Cleanslate

  After the fighting ended on Guadalcanal in early 1943, Allied planners stepped up their preparations to seize Rabaul—the main enemy stronghold in the Southwest Pacific. Rabaul was the Japanese primary air and naval base on the eastern end of New Britain, centrally located between New Guinea and the northwest end of the Solomon Islands.

  While the Japanese base on Rabaul would allow the Japanese to shift their air and naval support from one front to the other quickly, it would also enable Allied advances through New Guinea and the Solomons to threaten Rabaul from two directions. With that in mind, Admiral “Bull” Halsey chose to drive farther up the Solomon chain while MacArthur continued his operations on the New Guinea coast.

  Admiral Halsey’s planners focused on the island of New Georgia, a large island on the southern flank of the slot halfway up the Solomon chain. The Japanese had built an airstrip on New Georgia’s Munda Point in December 1942. The seizure of New Georgia would eliminate any enemy threat and advance Allied aircraft one-third of the way to Rabaul.

  The South Pacific command was concerned about enemy activity in the Russell Islands—thirty miles northwest of Guadalcanal. The Russell Islands had been a staging point for enemy reinforcements and their evacuation from Guadalcanal. Strong enemy forces on the island posed a threat to the operation against New Georgia and possibly even to Guadalcanal.