A Dawn Like Thunder

by Robert J. Mrazek

  USS Wasp

  1500

  The American reinforcement effort suffered a catastrophic blow almost as soon as it began. On the same morning Kawaguchi began his retreat from Edson’s Ridge, an American naval task force set out from Espiritu Santo, heading north for Guadalcanal. It was transporting four thousand men of the 7th Marines, along with their vehicles, guns, and equipment, to the landing beaches near Lunga Point.

  The Navy had provided two heavy carriers, the Wasp and Hornet, along with the battleship North Carolina and ten other warships to escort the transports. On the afternoon of the fifteenth, the task force was one hundred fifty miles southeast of San Cristobal when it unwittingly passed through a screen of Japanese submarines. One of them fired a spread of nine torpedoes at the Wasp. Two exploded along its starboard side, piercing aviation gas tanks and powder magazines.

  Within seconds, the escaping gasoline triggered a massive explosion. The heat of the flames ignited stores of bombs, powder, and ammunition, causing a rapid succession of new fires in the forward section of the ship.

  With the Wasp’s water pipes shattered, it was impossible to contain the conflagration as it spread through the carrier. Oil and aviation gas set the sea around the ship on fire, further hampering rescue efforts.

  At 2100, the Wasp went down by the bow, carrying 194 men with her. Fred Mears’s closest friend, Dick Jaccard, the Dauntless pilot who had scored a direct hit on the Hiryu at Midway, was asleep in his stateroom when the torpedoes hit. He was trapped in his compartment and went down with the ship.

  “C’est la guerre” had been one of his favorite expressions. “C’est la vie, c’est l’amour.”

  Two of the torpedoes fired by the Japanese submarine narrowly missed the Wasp and traveled five more miles through the sea until one of them hit the destroyer O’Brien. The other smashed into the battleship North Carolina, which was forced to head for Tongatapu for repairs. The O’Brien sank before she could make it to Pearl Harbor, although most of her crew was rescued.

  One thousand nine hundred forty-six crew members of the Wasp were picked up from the sea before the naval task force continued steaming north toward Guadalcanal carrying the 7th Marines.

  The Groove

  Wednesday, 16 September 1942

  Guadalcanal

  Torpedo Squadron Eight

  1700

  Gene Hanson learned about the disaster when he heard another flier say that the Wasp was gone. His first reaction was, “Gone where?”

  “Sunk,” the flier said, adding that with the Hornet the only American carrier left in the South Pacific, the Japanese would have open season on them now at Guadalcanal.

  That afternoon, Swede brought his four pilots together to say they were going out on their first mission early that evening. Their job would be to patrol the body of water between Bougainville and Guadalcanal through which the Japanese were bringing down their reinforcements.

  The Marine fliers called it “the Slot.” The Navy pilots had their own name for it.

  The Groove.

  In a briefing at the Pagoda, General Roy Geiger, the new commander of the Cactus Air Force, told Swede and the dive-bomber squadron leaders that they needed to take the battle to the Japanese. His Wildcat fighters would be responsible for knocking down the Japanese planes hitting Guadalcanal every day. He wanted the dive-bombers and torpedo planes to sink the ships carrying the Japanese troop reinforcements before they arrived.

  The five Avengers took off at 1800. Each plane was carrying a two-thousand-pound torpedo. Near the runway, Jack Barnum taxied into a shell crater and damaged his landing gear. The other four took off and headed north in the company of thirteen Dauntless dive-bombers.

  Near Gizo Island, they hit pay dirt on their first combat mission. Flying at seventy-five hundred feet, Swede spotted a group of enemy warships heading south: three light cruisers and four destroyers.

  The dive-bombers went in first.

  The enemy ships immediately sped up and began executing a series of evasive turns. Swede timed his own attack to begin between the seventh and eighth bombing runs. Diving to two hundred feet, he radioed the other Avenger pilots to go after the third cruiser in the column. They launched their torpedoes into the teeth of heavy antiaircraft fire at a distance of less than six hundred yards, and then headed for home.

  Back at Henderson Field, the four pilots agreed that at least one of the torpedoes had struck the cruiser amidships on the port side, and that she had slowed down after taking the hit. Swede put it in his After Action Report. The Dauntlesses had succeeded in sinking a Japanese barge, but lost one of their planes when it failed to come out of its dive and crashed into the sea.

  That night, another Japanese submarine surfaced in Sealark Channel and began shelling Marine positions near the beach. Although the pilots were getting used to it, they failed to get much sleep.

  The next morning, Swede thought they might get lucky again if they went back to Gizo. There were no Dauntlesses available to accompany the Avengers, but Swede received approval for the mission.

  Torpedoes were scarce, and so each plane carried four five--hundred-pound bombs. This time, all five Avengers took off safely. The evening sky was hazy, with limited visibility. North of Savo Island, Swede dove down to check out what he thought might be an enemy ship. By the time he regained altitude, he had lost contact with the others.

  Near Gizo, one of Swede’s gunners sighted two Japanese light cruisers heading down the Groove toward Guadalcanal. Turning west so that he could bomb them from out of the dipping sun, Swede headed down.

  Within seconds, they were under attack from two Japanese floatplanes. His turret gunner, Ervin “Judge” Wendt, fought them off with short bursts of fire as the first came in high, and the second low.

  At three thousand feet, Swede salvoed his bombs on the lead cruiser. Without waiting to see the results, he turned for home with the Japanese fighters in pursuit. Judge Wendt kept firing until one of them began smoking, and they broke off the attack.

  The other four Avengers were already at Henderson Field when Swede landed. Somewhat sheepishly, they told him they had patrolled the same area around Gizo, but visibility was poor and they never saw an enemy ship.

  Friday, 18 September 1942

  Guadalcanal

  Torpedo Squadron Eight

  0600

  To General Vandegrift, it looked almost too good to be true. In the gray murk of dawn, Sealark Channel began to fill with American ships, one after another, until the transports and tankers were anchored offshore with their precious cargoes of Marines, equipment, and aviation gas for General Geiger’s Cactus Air Force.

  In spite of losing the Wasp and the North Carolina, the Navy had kept coming, taking a chance that no Japanese carriers were lurking near Guadalcanal to wipe out the transports before they could be unloaded.

  Early that same morning, the Japanese had mounted one of their largest air attacks of the whole campaign, but serious storms kept the sixty-four planes from reaching Guadalcanal after they took off.

  Into the evening, the transports unloaded their cargoes, including four thousand Marines and tons of food, ammunition, guns, artillery, vehicles, tents, barbed wire, and spare parts. When they had finished, Higgins boats carried the wounded survivors of the Battle of Edson’s Ridge out to the transports. As night fell, the task force weighed anchor and headed south.

  Additional reinforcements for the Cactus Air Force landed that same afternoon. Swede was at Henderson Field to greet them when they landed. The flight of six Avengers from Espiritu Santo was led by Bruce Harwood.

  Smiley Morgan and Bill Dye were there to stay. Harwood, Mears, Katz, and Evarts had flown up a new supply of torpedoes, and were flying right back to Espiritu Santo. However, the same fierce storms that had blocked the Japanese now led to the cancellation of their flight.

  It gave Harry Ferrier, who had flown up with Fred Mears, a chance to catch up with Bert Earnest. Afterward, Bert approached Fred to
say he needed a good turret gunner, and asked if it would be all right if Harry transferred into his crew. Fred said fine.

  At around midnight, the pilots were asleep in their tents when a Japanese cruiser and four destroyers arrived in Sealark Channel and began shelling the coconut grove. Fred was sharing a tent with Aaron Katz. He awoke to the sound of an exploding shell, followed by the shout of a Marine as he ran past their tent.

  “Hit your foxholes,” he yelled.

  Fred had no idea where his foxhole was. Besides that, it was raining like the deluge and he was wearing a new pair of blue-striped pajamas. He and Aaron talked it over and decided to stay in their cots. A few minutes later, a shell went off in the trees above them. It lit up the inside of their tent.

  “Let’s not be stupid about this,” said Aaron.

  Under the exploding shells, they ran to the closest foxhole. It was full of men. So was the second one. They kept running through the pelting rain until they saw a shallow empty trench. When both of them tried to squeeze into it, their arms and legs protruded over the edge. They remained there until it was over.

  Thursday, 24 September 1942

  Guadalcanal

  Torpedo Squadron Eight

  For almost a week, violent storm fronts ranged across the Eastern Solomons, keeping most of the planes grounded at Guadalcanal and frustrating the goal of the Japanese air force to make the airfield permanently inoperable.

  With no flights scheduled, the pilots and crews of Torpedo Eight caught up on rest. One morning, the rain stopped long enough for Smiley Morgan to decide to take a bath in the Lunga River.

  When he got to the riverbank with his soap, razor, and towel, some Marines were washing their jeeps in it. Smiley had let his beard grow, and after soaping up he began shaving with his straight razor. One of the Marines yelled over not to nick himself or he would be certain to get dengue fever.

  When Smiley asked what that was, the Marine said it caused an ugly red rash to break out all over a man’s body, after which his cock would fall off. Even taking into account Marine exaggeration, Smiley decided he didn’t really need to shave.

  Food was being rationed at the order of General Vandegrift, and the men on the island were limited to two meals a day, the first one shortly after dawn, and the second late in the afternoon.

  Smiley tried to eat whatever they put in front of him. Along with Pete Peterkin, he had come down with dysentery at Espiritu Santo. He had already lost fifteen pounds, and couldn’t afford to lose any more. His “fluid drive” had persisted at Guadalcanal, and he had spent many hours sitting on the multihole throne chairs suspended over the latrine pits. If he didn’t get his strength back, Swede told him, he would be grounded.

  By wardroom standards, the meals on the island were barely edible. Once in a while they got hotcakes in the morning, but mostly it was plain unsweetened oatmeal ladled into their metal mess kits.

  Even though the stuff had the texture of wallpaper paste, Smiley had learned to eat it fast. The big glob would start out white in the plate, but it would get darker and darker between bites. Every time a man walked by, his shoes would stir up swirls of the dark, loamy soil. No matter how fast Smiley kept dipping his spoon, the bottom layer would usually be black by the time he got to it.

  The afternoon meal was usually boiled rice. Sometimes it was served with canned sausage, other times with Spam. Occasionally, they got stew with real meat in it, or canned peaches and hardtack. What really kept them going was coffee. They drank it all day long. Sometimes, it was sweetened with condensed milk.

  A thriving black market in Japanese war souvenirs had sprung up after the Edson’s Ridge battle. The pilots were offered everything from bloodstained fountain pens to combat badges, medals, rifles, and pistols. Prices ranged up to one hundred dollars for a run-of-the-mill samurai sword.

  Smiley didn’t need bloodstained souvenirs to remind him of where he was. The whole island had a bad smell to it, from the rotting jungle that surrounded them to the scummy swamps near the river. His tent smelled of clammy, sweat-stained clothes.

  A newly arrived pilot in another squadron had jokingly suggested they look at it like they were there on a camping trip. Smiley had camped out plenty of times in Missouri and Florida, but he had never chosen a place to camp where the river smelled like a sewer and contained leeches and poisonous snakes. His camping spots also didn’t feature white ants the size of rosary beads that could devour a hunk of Spam in less than a minute. Or jungle rats as big as badgers that liked to nestle inside your overseas bag. He had never gotten hives, rashes, crotch rot, or dysentery on a camping trip, either. In some places, his skin was scraped raw from scratching.

  Smiley was hoarding his small supply of cash to hopefully buy a bottle of whiskey, preferably scotch, if one were to miraculously appear. Liquor was at a premium on the island. Pilots would occasionally fly up a few bottles from Espiritu Santo. It disappeared fast. No one wanted to admit they had any, because it would be immediately stolen. The Marines were relentless foragers.

  When General Geiger had arrived to take command of the Cactus Air Force in early September, he quickly put the fear of God in the men serving under him. Almost sixty years old, he was short and barrel-chested with cold, uncompromising eyes. A no-nonsense officer, he made it clear that he expected every man to toe the line.

  After flying in, he had dropped off his personal gear at his guarded command tent and gone straight to see General Vandegrift. When they finished discussing the challenges they were facing, Geiger told Vandegrift he had brought a gift for him from Admiral Nimitz. His aide carried in a case of Johnny Walker scotch. But knowing that Vandegrift favored bourbon, Geiger said, “Archer, I have a case of bourbon and will trade you even up though mine are quarts.”

  Together, they rode back to Geiger’s tent to make the swap. The case of bourbon was no longer there. Vandegrift gave Geiger two bottles of Nimitz’s scotch but it didn’t mollify him.

  Three days earlier, Pete Peterkin had arrived from Espiritu Santo to take over as Torpedo Eight’s engineer officer, bringing with him ten mechanics familiar with Avengers to help keep the squadron’s planes in the air.

  Swede invited Peterkin to share his tent, which was big enough for three men. It turned out to be fortuitous, because spare parts for their planes also had a way of disappearing on Guadalcanal. Pete kept the most important ones stored under his bunk.

  On September 22, native scouts had reported that Japanese barges full of troops were being landed each night at Cape Esperance on the northern tip of Guadalcanal. That evening, Swede took Smiley up with him and they bombed the landing areas.

  On the afternoon of the twenty-fourth, Gene Hanson was called up to General Geiger’s headquarters and told that a group of enemy ships had been spotted northwest of Guadalcanal. Swede was down with fever, and Gene had been chosen to take a patrol out to try to intercept them.

  His Avenger would be loaded with four five-hundred-pound bombs, and he would be accompanied by three Dauntlesses. At 2100, they took off from Henderson Field in the falling darkness, and headed out on a northwest compass heading.

  They ran into the enemy ships almost immediately. He could see from the wakes that there were three ships in the formation. One was a light cruiser, and the other two destroyers.

  The three Dauntless pilots each carried a single thousand-pound bomb, which they proceeded to drop in individual runs. None hit the enemy ships, which were making violent turns at flank speed.

  Gene decided to try a glide bombing attack. He dropped down to fifteen hundred feet and headed straight into the barrage of antiaircraft fire that was pouring up from the cruiser. The first of his four bombs missed it, and he circled around for the next attack.

  After Gene dropped the second bomb, Rube “Carpenter” Francis, his turret gunner, called on the intercom to say that it had missed, too. That only made the stoic Hanson more determined. On his third run, he was sure he had made a hit, but Francis said that it was only a
near miss, exploding about thirty feet ahead of the cruiser.

  Gene only had one bomb left. On his last run through the antiaircraft fire, he dropped it as close to the middle of the cruiser as he could. Francis told him it had exploded in the water within spitting distance of the starboard bow. As he headed back to Guadalcanal, the frustrated Hanson hoped it had fallen close enough to cause some damage.

  After they landed, he went to the Pagoda to write up his After Action Report. General Geiger happened to be there. He listened as Gene described the mission, and the results of his four runs.

  “You were taking on a cruiser, son,” said the general. “Why didn’t you just salvo all your bombs on the first run?”

  Gene told him he wanted to make sure one of them hit home.

  “I admire your guts, Hanson,” said General Geiger, “but not your brains. Next time you’re in a situation like that, make one pass and try to make it a good one.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Gene.

  As he made the long walk back to the encampment, he remembered the intensity of the gunfire from the cruiser and realized the general had been right. It was the dumbest thing he had ever done. He definitely wouldn’t try it again.

  Friday, 25 September 1942

  Guadalcanal

  Torpedo Squadron Eight

  2100

  Swede Larsen had escaped death again, although this time on the ground.

  He had led a flight of eight Avengers two hundred thirty miles northwest toward Bougainville, but they found no Japanese warships coming down the Groove. Swede’s backup orders were to bomb the new Japanese ground installations near Cape Esperance.

  In near total darkness, Swede was unable to pinpoint any specific targets until the Japanese cooperated by sending up some antiaircraft fire, which allowed him and the others to strafe and bomb the gun positions.

  After they returned to Henderson Field, Swede was visibly angry. He ordered several of the crews to remain behind while he reported the results of the strike. When he came back, Swede declared that a number of the gunners were not carrying their weight.