The Pacific

by Hugh Ambrose

  With the ship damaged and the probability of more attacks high, Mike's job was to get out of the way. Bombing Six sat in the ready room and waited. Two sailors sat up front, each with a ship's phone. One man heard reports from the air operations office. The other sailor's phone connected him to damage control. The latter had a lot of information to relay about the ship's condition. The rudder had jammed, he told them soon after Mike walked in. "We are sailing in a circle." A great shudder, felt throughout the ship, followed. The engines had been thrown into reverse in order to prevent Enterprise from ramming one of her escorts.64 The sailor with the phone also yelled things like, "Hey, they've got a fire down in compartment such and such" or "They're patching the deck at frame something or the other." Mike did not pay attention to the details. The repairs were out of his hands.

  News about the missions of the other pilots, however, did get his interest. Davis and his wingman had taken the most likely sector to find the enemy, 340 to 350 degrees True. They had found them all right and set up for a perfect strike on the flattop: the sun at their backs and the wind in their faces. The carrier turned so hard to starboard, though, she had spun through a 60-degree arc by the time Davis's five-hundred-pound bomb exploded, five feet off the starboard side aft. His wingman's bomb had detonated another fifteen feet away. Two other comrades had made dives that day, diving on a large cruiser. They had also come up just shy of the mark. All four pilots described blasts of AA fire, "like silver dimes" coming up "in bunches" until they exploded in red and black.65 Davis had radioed the coordinates to the Big E twice; one had never been received, the other had arrived too late to do any good.

  The loss of his transmissions must have seemed unremarkable, if unfortunate, amid the deluge of stories and information about this day. Special guest Ensign Behr had a wild story. A Sara pilot, he had landed on Enterprise because of a foul-up on Sara's deck. He and his strike had found the IJN carriers, too, and dove. The Zeros had chased him most of the way back, so he had no clear idea of his success, but someone's bomb had smacked it good. For the moment he attached to Bombing Six. His plane, shot through with bullet holes, had been pushed over the side. Two of Mike's other squadron mates told an even crazier story, though. They had returned from their search to find enemy dive-bombers attacking their ship and both pilots and their gunners had cut loose on them. The Aichi-type 99 dive-bombers had flown off without obvious signs of damage.

  Mike had not seen the enemy planes. He would not have mentioned being shot at by the Sara's gunners, since apparently the AA gunners had shot at a lot of pilots. As the men talked, the sailor on the phone to air ops yelled that radar had picked up another flight of attackers. The Wildcats from Saratoga would have to handle them. Enterprise could not conduct flight operations; two of her elevators were out. The upshot of it all was that Yamamoto's ships had not been stopped. Most probably they were still sailing south, preparing to attack again the next day.

  The Big E, meantime, had her rudder straightened, if not fully repaired. The fires still burned. She sailed south at a stately pace, listing three degrees, flanked by Saratoga and an array of destroyers, cruisers, and the battleship North Carolina. Eventually Mike started to hear about his carrier.

  About thirty enemy planes had attacked Enterprise, their dives every bit as steep, every bit as determined, as any Dauntless. Twenty bombs exploded near her, sending geysers of water over her deck, bending her painfully at the waistline. Two of the attackers, set afire by AA guns, had attempted to crash into her. These had been driven off. Three bombs detonated on or inside of the ship. The damage-control teams, who had patched the deck so Mike could land, and who had straightened the rudder, had hours more of dangerous work. In asbestos suits and armed with hoses of water and foamite, they fought to extinguish fires in several decks, to stop leaking, and to assess the damage to two of the giant elevators used to move airplanes. The medical teams coped with dozens dead and dozens more wounded.

  Doctors and repairmen worked on all night. The carrier limped south for another day, meeting up with Wasp on the twenty-fifth. As it became obvious that the Big E would be out of the war for a while, it became equally obvious that her squadrons could not be sidelined as well, particularly when the marines on Guadalcanal needed pilots and planes badly. A few planes would have to stay and guard the ship, which Mike heard was headed for Pearl Harbor, and some would go fight with the marines.

  Those decisions, however, would have to wait. After the Big E exited the combat zone, she had to stop for a moment and, in the ancient tradition of the navy, commit the bodies of her dead to the deep. Seventy-two enlisted men and six officers of the ship's crew had been killed in what they had begun to call the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. At nine a.m. on the twenty-sixth the Stars and Stripes were lowered to half-mast and the call went out.66 "All hands bury the dead." The ship came to a stop. The men assembled on the flight deck. Those in the Honor Platoon took their positions. When the chaplain came to the committal, the Honor Guard stepped to attention and saluted. Mike watched as the bodies, each wrapped tightly in a clean mattress cover laced with heavy weights, slid feet- first over the side. At the benediction, the crew's heads bowed. A seven-man squad fired three volleys. The bugler sounded taps. As the last note faded, the ship resumed course and speed, as per tradition, and the men of Enterprise said their good-byes over the broad foaming wake. Thy will be done.

  THE IMPERIAL JAPANESE NAVY AND ARMY RARELY SKIPPED A DAY. ANOTHER surprise from the Tokyo Express arrived every few hours: ships and submarines shelling them at night, bombers thundering overhead in the day. From what Sid's squad could tell, the planes on Henderson and the U.S. Navy were "mopping up with the jap navy." The mortar squad continued to scrounge eggs or flour for pancakes to supplement the two ladles of rice per man being issued at the mess. On August 28, Topside issued a postcard to each man so he could write home. The 2/1, who had lost much of their personal equipment when the Elliott sank, were also issued one captured IJA backpack apiece. The members of the #4 gun squad wrote "Remember Hell's Point" on their new packs. Two days later, scuttlebutt had it that the emperor had landed as many as 150,000 troops on the island, although other men passed along lower figures. Against such a force, the 1st Marine Division fielded ten battalions, now that the Raider and the Parachute battalions had come over from Tulagi. The marines "really hope it is all false, for we really are all tired of war and want to go back to good old USA." In his nightly prayer, Deacon added, "God speed the day."

  The men of the mortar squad often found themselves on a working party at Lunga Point, unloading a ship as fast as possible. A lot of it was ammo, aviation gas, and C rations, but on September 1 six truckloads of mail arrived. Later, the enemy's bombs hit a few stockpiles of aviation gasoline and of aerial bombs, making for big fires. Many of the bombs that day exploded in and around the area held by the 2/1. Another shelling at three a.m. sent Sid a little crazy, and he ran around outside yelling. The next day he received some more mail, as the postmaster got it all sorted, and some newspapers from home. More bombs fell around Henderson Field. Lieutenant Benson held a rifle inspection that afternoon and, as usual, he told his #4 gun squad to expect an all-out attack when it got dark.

  With hours to pass before the attack, the mortar squads held a joking contest. Durocher, a friend in the platoon from New York, had begun to perform little skits now and again. He would hold up his bayonet like a microphone and launch into a radio show, imitating a popular news commentator of the day, H. V. Kaltenborn. Durocher began, "I have some good news tonight," just as Kaltenborn had begun his programs for decades. "Nothing is too good for the boys overseas," he continued, "and so we've decided to send the boys on Guadalcanal nothing." Snatches of songs or phony commercials might follow, but his program could also get interrupted by one of President Roosevelt's "fireside chats." The iconic voice with its distinctive accent began, "My fellow Americans. I hate war. My son James hates war. My dog Fala hates war. My wife Eleanor hates war. And I've
been in war and I've been in Eleanor and I'll take war." In moments like this, Sid let the laughter well up inside him and wash away so much of the pain and the fear in his heart.

  Within the tight confines of their air raid shelter, Sid burst a large boil on Deacon's buttock accidentally with a clod of dirt and now his friend could scarcely walk. "Blood and corruption" ran down his leg. Deacon would never utter a curse, but had he been able to move quickly, he would have burst Sid's head. W.O. had become so weakened by diarrhea and sleep deprivation he could not stand. Sid tended to him, bringing him food and carrying him to the slit trench when he had to relieve himself, making sure to tell W.O. at every turn "what a pain he was and how we all wished he would quit goofing off and pretending to be sick. . . ."

  Ships had begun to arrive in drips and drabs, so NCOs "volunteered" their men for working parties to unload the small lighters then sent to shore. How Company, dug in near the beach, furnished plenty of manpower. Sid's squad had loot to trade with the swabbies, though, so they could get goodies while they worked "like jack-asses." Sid finagled a few cups of sugar, a cup of cream, a bit of butter, salt, and baking soda. With plenty of fresh coconut shavings for flavor, he boiled water and made pull candy in the rain. While munching the sticky treat, sitting in their "slop holes," they debated the possibility of going home soon. They heard one of the lieutenants speak "very encouragingly about us going home for the forming of the third brigade."

  Later that night the squad had guard duty. Sid and Deacon traded their pistols for rifles to stand the guard. Lieutenant Benson ordered them to fall in, inspected their weapons and ammo, and marched them to their posts near the river. As they climbed into the foxholes, Benson announced, "Anyone on top of the ground was an enemy and could and should be shot." He ordered them to relieve themselves inside their foxholes by using their helmets. Benson reminded them that his foxhole was behind theirs. When the enemy troops came, Benson warned, do not "come back there looking for your mother, because there was nobody there but old Benny and he had a BAR on full automatic and you would get cut in half." Ladling in a dose of his trademark sarcasm, Benny encouraged them to "be sure and fire . . . stupidly when there was no target because that would show the Japs" where you are. With that, he left them. It got quieter. Something was always making noise in the jungle, which was unnerving. Until, as soon became common, the enemy yelled, "Marine, you die!" A pause, then, "Marine! You die!" The enemy wanted to see the flashes of their rifle fire, so they would know where to attack, only they had trouble pronouncing the letter r, so what the marines usually heard was "Maline! You die!"

  They stood guard only every other night. The wail of the air raid siren sounded twice a day. The twenty-six bombers that arrived overhead at eleven a.m. on September 10 unloaded their ordnance on the 2/1's positions. The monstrous thunder enveloped them. In times like these, Sid found himself in his muddy earthen pit, staring into Deacon's eyes. He saw friendship there and faith in God. He could rely on John Tatum. When the all clear sounded, they came aboveground to find their tents, packs, and weapons scarred by shrapnel. Some of it was useless. Great trees had been knocked down. How Company sustained eleven casualties; three of them from its 81mm mortar platoon. Sid's wounded friends were carried out to the airfield and evacuated by a four-engine bomber later that day. "We," Deacon Tatum wrote in his journal, "are all nervous wrecks."

  ON AUGUST 27, ELEVEN DAUNTLESSES OF BOMBING SIX AND THEIR CREWS RECEIVED orders to report to the senior naval aviator, on the island of Efate, for "further assignment as directed by competent authority." Put another way, they were headed for a forward air base where a great deal of confusion existed. They and their planes would be used as needed. While his gunner, Halterman, jammed two seabags into the back of their plane, Mike checked his .45, which hung on a shoulder holster. It was clean, loaded, and unused. Enterprise turned into the wind and Bombing Six set off for the same small island in the New Hebrides that had been the carrier's goal months ago on Mike's first war cruise.

  Back in May, the Big E had intended to drop off a squadron of marine pilots on Efate to protect America's supply line to Australia by building a chain of military bases beyond the reach of Japan. A link in that line, Efate clearly had been growing every day since then, developing its port facilities, supply depots, salvage capabilities, and temporary camps for troops. Mike got a quick view of the port and the base as his squadron circled and landed on the muddy field.

  Lieutenant Ray Davis and his squadron reported in to Major Harold W. Bauer, who served on the staff of Admiral John McCain, the commander of the U.S. air forces in the South Pacific. Major Bauer would have been glad to see them. The mission of McCain's COMSOPAC and the air wing Bauer commanded had grown from protecting a supply chain to supporting the battle raging for control of the Canal.67 His air wing and its service unit numbered less than a thousand men. Bauer helped give the pilots and marines on Guadalcanal whatever they needed. The demand was growing daily. The navy had sent Bauer a group of ensigns fresh from flight school in Pensacola. These men needed time to train. The veterans of Bombing Six would go to the Canal before the rookies, whenever that was. Davis, Pittman, Micheel, and the others found a rack in the tents near the airfield and waited.

  As officers, they did not have to fill the fifty-gallon drum that served as their shower, although Mike learned not to take a shower in the morning, when the water was still ice-cold. The mess hall served food on tin plates, the mud on the airfield took a toll on the carrier planes, and the pilots did not have anything much to do. "We were saving those airplanes to go to Guadalcanal so we didn't fly too much." After the fast pace of life on the Big E, Efate felt like a quiet backwater. The marines guarding the base told the pilots not to stray off the base. The "aborigines in the hills . . . were cannibals." Having served in the field artillery during his ROTC training in college, Mike liked to joke that he had joined the navy specifically to avoid such a life. Lieutenant Davis spent his days writing a long report about the recent carrier battle and setting forth a list of recommendations.

  In two weeks, Bombing Six got the call to fly up to the island of Espiritu Santos and report to the commander of all the aircraft in the South Pacific. Buttons, the code name for the airfields on Espiritu Santos, was a much bigger and busier base than Efate. A number of squadrons flew big multiengine patrol planes, often the navy's PBY, to provide crucial intelligence about enemy moves in the South Pacific in general and in the Solomon Islands in particular. Mike landed on Buttons on September 14, his last stop on the way to Cactus, the code name for the airfield on Guadalcanal. Among the four-engine beasts along the taxiways stood thirty carrier planes; they had come off Saratoga, which had been torpedoed a week after the Big E was hit.

  SEPTEMBER 14 FOUND BASILONE AND THE MEN OF D/1/7 ON THE DECK OF USS President Adams in the harbor of Espiritu Santos, watching their convoy get under way.68 The ships carrying the Seventh Marines had already attempted to reunite them with the rest of the 1st Marine Division, but had been turned back several times by enemy ships, enemy planes, or enemy submarines. The retreats had had little effect on the morale of his machine gunners, Sergeant John Basilone noted, because of the view from the deck. Manila John and his friends "looked in awe at the tremendous panorama spread out before us. On the horizon as far as we could see were ships, freighters, transports, heavy cruisers, sleek destroyers, [and] bulky aircraft carriers. . . ." One of his gunners had exclaimed earlier, "Jeez, we could go right into Tokyo Bay," but after days aboard President Adams they were ready to settle for just making it to the big show.69

  John, his buddy J.P., and the rest of their regiment had been hearing about their division's big fight for some time now. Few of them enjoyed the irony of having sailed for Samoa months ago expecting to be the first to fight, only to guard airfields and take long conditioning hikes while the First and the Fifth took it on the chin. The news of the imperial ships sending more and more men every day to Guadalcanal, what guys called the "Tokyo Express," mad
e no made sense to John. "We could not understand where our navy was. Why couldn't they stop the jap transports?"70 The next day they noted a large column of smoke on the horizon. Only later did they hear that an IJN submarine had slammed four torpedoes into the belly of their escort, the carrier Wasp. Did that mean their convoy would turn around again? None of the swabbies bothered to tell them.71

  VERY FEW MEN IN SID'S SQUAD WOKE UP ON SEPTEMBER 14, SINCE IT HAD BEEN impossible to sleep for two nights running. On the twelfth, "an old squeaky plane" had flown over and hung two flares over Henderson Field. Everyone knew what that meant. When the shelling started, the mortar squad "lay in nervous trembles in our holes." The ships not only shelled Lunga Point and the airport, they switched on a powerful spotlight and began to search for the marines' heavy artillery. About one a.m., the ships' shells began stalking them and the mortar platoon had had to run for it, through a darkness lit by menacing red explosions, for their old positions farther back from the point.

  Daybreak brought a short lull before the first Japanese fighters arrived, making pass after pass, strafing the airfield with their heavy machine guns. Sid and Deacon lay in a foxhole, the bullets ripping the ground around them, expecting to be hit at any moment. The night of the thirteenth rang with the violence of the big guns and their concussions rocked the ground under Sid's feet. The eruptions originated not from offshore, however, but from the 75mm, 90mm, and 105mm cannons of the 1st Marine Division. When Sid's squad manned their mortars at one a.m., the firing was concentrated on one location. In a phrase used by everyone (except Deacon), the shit had hit the fan south of the airport. The inferno engulfed a long ridge. The ridge, whose barren crest rose well above the jungle, started a few hundred yards from Henderson and jogged south, well back into the interior. The #4 gun squad stood by and awaited orders. "Once more we are battling life and death and japs." The battle continued the next day and the squad heard the Japanese were rushing the lines in three places, but mostly along Bloody Ridge, where they confronted the Raider and Parachute battalions. Deacon got a look at a captured officer's map, which had his platoon's position marked in red.