by Dick Camp
At 0715, Radio Tulagi reported, “Enemy has commenced landing,” and at 0800, “Enemy forces overwhelming. We will defend our posts to the death, praying for eternal victory.” Peatross wrote, “This was the last transmission from Radio Tulagi, as a few seconds later, a shell from one of the naval gunfire support ships put the station off the air permanently!”
“Land the Landing Force”
In the early morning darkness, the sky was punctuated by flashes of light as the light cruiser USS San Juan (CL-54) and destroyers USS Monssen (DD-436) and USS Buchanan (DD-484) bombarded Tulagi with hundreds of five-inch and eight-inch shells. Aboard the transports, the raiders began climbing down the cargo nets into the Higgins boats (first model ramp-less wooden thirty-six-foot landing craft) that would take them ashore. “As we passed across the deck,” Pfc. Thomas D. “T. D.” Smith said, “the sailors clapped us on the back and said, ‘Give ’em hell—see you tonight.’” Private First Class Ashley Ray was scared. His platoon commander had told the men, “By this time tomorrow, some of you will be dead!” The battalion was embarked aboard six transports—a hundred men each on the USS Neville (APA-9) and USS Heywood (APA-6), while the main body was embarked on four flush-deck, high-speed destroyer transports—USS Little (APD-4), USS Colhoun (APD-2), USS Gregory (APD-4), and USS McKean (APD-5). The first waves crossed the line of departure right on schedule and headed for the beach.
OPERATION RINGBOLT LANDING FORCES
Operation Ringbolt, the code name given for the seizure of Tulagi Island, was part of Operation Watchtower, a division-sized operation to seize Tulagi and Guadalcanal commencing on 7 August 1942. The 1st Marine Division, under the command of Maj. Gen. Alexander A. Vandegrift was organized into two landing forces: Guadalcanal (Group X-Ray) and Tulagi (Group Yoke), under Brig. Gen. William H. Rupertus, the assistant division commander.
The Tulagi assault force called for the 1st Marine Raider Battalion (Lt. Col. Merritt A. Edson) and the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines (Lt. Col. Harold E. Rosecrans) to land on the south shore, in column, then wheel right (east) and attack down the long axis of the island. This landing would be followed by further landings by the 1st Parachute Battalion on Gavutu and Tanambogo, plus a mop-up sweep by a battalion (less one company) along the Florida Island’s coastline fronting Tulagi Bay.
At 0800 (H-Hour) the 1st Raider Battalion was to land on Beach Blue, a narrow shelf on the island’s west coast, two thousand yards from the northwestern tip of the island on the western shore. Dog Company commander, Maj. Justice Chambers explained the battalion’s scheme of maneuver. “Dog and Baker Companies were the two assault companies followed by Able and C Charlie. Dog Company, which I commanded, and Baker Company, which Nickerson [Lloyd] commanded, landed abreast … Nickerson on the right and I was landing on the left. We were landing through a Chinese cemetery.”
Major Chambers was in the first wave. “On the way in I had my head up a little bit so I could see over to where the cruiser San Juan was firing support fires. This was an antiaircraft cruiser, and had many five-inch guns. She laid down a terrific barrage. She fired almost like an automatic rifle, they were coming so fast.” The heavy bombardment forced most of the Japanese defenders to remain under cover in the network of caves and tunnels they had carved deep in the limestone cliffs. “During the air raids our commander would be the first one in the shelter,” Seaman Tomisaburo Hirai noted angrily. “He would often tell us to always be brave. But he is the one who is not brave.” Only scattered, ineffective rifle fire met the first waves of Higgins boats but it was enough to remind the men in the open boats that at least some Japanese had survived the shelling. Peatross noted that, “The bullets splattering into the water near Major Nickerson’s boat were effective enough to cause the sailors manning the bow machine gun to duck. The coxswain, however, stayed on course and soon his boat grounded on the reef … with a sudden and terrific jolt, staggering those men who had nothing to hold onto.”
The first wave landed exactly on schedule at 0800 (H-hour). Until now, the landing had taken the Rikusentai by surprise and the Marines landed unscathed. The only casualty had been a Marine who had died from an accidental discharge aboard ship. “It was the last place that the Japs thought we would land,” Chambers said. “The best beach on Tulagi was at the other end of the island and the Japanese had clearly expected that any hostile landing would be made there. So they had very lightly fortified the beach where we landed.” The heavily laden men climbed clumsily over the sides of the Higgins boats into chest deep water—chin-deep for the shorter men. “… Everybody had to plunge into the water and wade to shore [fifty or more yards to the beach],” Chambers recalled. “This was no fun, as we found out during our training at Samoa, because coral reefs are dotted with holes and at any moment you are likely to step into water that is over your head. I once went down completely over my head but I bounced right back up. …”
Peatross credited rifleman-scout Pfc. Clifford J. Fitzpatrick, 1st Squad, 1st Platoon, Baker Company, with being the first Marine to begin the “U.S. Pacific-island-hopping offensive.” “Once ashore, Lt. [Eugene M.] Key quickly sorted out his platoon, and the 1st Squad Leader, Corp. Benjamin C. Howland Jr., sent Fitzpatrick on ahead up the steep slope and followed after him. … [T]he rest of the squad followed him.” Chambers explained that, “The minute we got across the beach—there was not much to speak of and immediately we were in very heavy vegetation going up very steep hills. The boys knew what our job was … get up on the ridge and take off into the jungle. It was, I would estimate, twenty to thirty minutes at the most when we reached our initial objective, the ridge line. So far we had hit no resistance.” By 0815, Lieutenant Colonel Edson received a message from the beach, “Landing successful, no opposition.” Baker Company crossed the island’s spine and continued down the slope to a small village called Sasapi on the opposite side of the island.
When Chambers’s Dog Company reached the top of the ridgeline, he radioed the battalion to give a situation report. “There was a faint trail that ran along the ridge but we couldn’t see a thing,” he said. “Our maps were laid out with target squares and we were supposed to use code designations … we were moving in assault situation in an area where you couldn’t tell where you were.” Major Samuel B. Griffith II asked, “What is your present location?” Chambers replied, “I can’t tell you very well. All I know is I’m standing under one hell of a big tree on the trail right on the ridge line.” The response didn’t satisfy Griffith, who fired back with, “Use the code designations and grid.” At this point a frustrated Chambers responded heatedly, “If you can figure this out you’re crazy. I haven’t got time to fool with this anyway, out!” The exchange was more than just a little report; naval gunfire ships were on station and needed the information to start pounding the Japanese positions ahead of the assault.
The second wave, consisting of Maj. Lewis W. “Silent Lew” Walt’s Able Company and Maj. Kenneth Bailey’s Charlie Company landed shortly after the first waves cleared the landing beach. Charlie Company turned right and moved rapidly along the shoreline to its initial objective, the OA line. Walt’s Able Company had a much more difficult time. The southwest slope of the ridge was extremely steep. Peatross mentioned that, “it required a major effort to keep from falling off, much less move ahead.” It took Walt and his exhausted men more than two hours to reach their objective and report to Edson’s command post on the ridge. Finally Echo Company, the last unit to come ashore, reached the ridge and prepared to support the advance with 81mm mortar fire. At 0900, two M2A4 Stuart light tanks from Charlie Company, 2nd Tank Battalion landed behind Bailey’s company but did not get into action. “One got bogged down in a ravine, and I never did see that damn tank again,” Griffith said. “Then the other one had a mechanical breakdown, so they were actually of no use to us at all.”
Echo Battery, 11th Marines, with its 75mm “Pack” howitzers went ashore in wooden Higgins “Eureka” landing craft. “A 75mm Pack Howitzer was a difficult
piece of weaponry that was manhandled ashore piece by piece, then put together and pulled by a jeep,” Pfc. Howard Schnauber said. “We had to move through the ‘Tulagi Pass,’ the short-cut through the steep hill separating one side of the island from the other. The slot was level, but it had two caves dug into the limestone, large caves that house quite a number of Japs. The only way past them was for the foot Marines to shoot into the entrance as the jeep pulled the howitzer past. This system worked well and we managed to get the gun to the opposite side.”
Shortly after the second wave landed, Lieutenant Colonel Edson and the battalion headquarters group debarked from the Little and boarded a “free boat” (a boat free to move wherever the commander desires to permit him to issue orders and make necessary changes). As the boat headed shoreward, the engine stalled and the craft began to flounder. The embarked staff tried to flag down an empty craft but the coxswains had explicit orders to return directly to their ship and ignored the frantic signals from Edson and his staff. Peatross wrote that, “Finally, after much frantic waving and not a few strongly worded threats from Edson, an empty boat came alongside … and landed them, much later than scheduled.” Edson initially established his command post a few yards northeast of the cemetery but then moved it to the Residency at the crest of the ridge. Platoon Sergeant Francis C. Pettus was a member of Edson’s command group. “Our observation group climbed the central ridge and established its first OP in a tree overlooking Sasapi, where we were able to observe a squad from Baker Company in a flat south of the village. This squad seemed to be puzzled because it had encountered no enemy.”
At 0830, Lt. Col. Rosecran’s 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines (2/5) landed over Beach Blue, crossed Tulagi, and attacked northwest to the end of the island without encountering the enemy. Rosecrans then reorganized and moved into position to support the Raiders. “To protect the left flank of the Raiders as they landed on Beach Blue … Baker Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, seized the Haleta promontory on neighboring Florida Island,” Brigadier General Griffith wrote in The Battle for Guadalcanal. Baker’s landing was unopposed.
Raider Attack
By 1100, all four Raider companies were on a line stretching from Carpenter’s Wharf to the shoreline northwest of Hill 208 in the following order from left to right: Baker, Dog, Able, and Charlie. Edson called the company commanders to his command post to brief them on his plan of attack. “One company in assault on the south side of the ridge, one company in assault on the north side, each backed up by a company,” Griffith explained. Platoon Sergeant Pettus noted that “[t]he operations plan called for naval shelling on the southern part of the island when we reached the OA line, and the battalion’s advance was halted. Machine guns and mortars were set up, the machine guns west of the central ridge and the mortars east of it. They opened fire on the houses in the low, small plane south of us. A number of Japs were killed in the houses, but some ran out and escaped temporarily. Several houses were set ablaze by mortar fire.” San Juan shelled Hill 281 ahead of the Raider attack. In a five minute barrage, she fired 289 rounds but failed to dislodge the Rikusentai, who were well dug in. An hour and a half later while providing support for the Gavutu landing, a loaded five-inch shell cooked off in a gun mount, killing seven and wounding eleven sailors. Meanwhile the Buchanan was shelling the Tulagi radio station, while the Monssen poured a hundred shells into Japanese antiaircraft positions south of the hospital. Later the San Juan shifted its fire to the prison.
At 1130, Edson gave the signal—a green flare—to start the assault. “We came under fire almost immediately as we began to move along the ridge,” Chambers said. Two of his men—Pvts. Leonard A. Butts and Lewis A. Lovin—were hit by machine gun fire as they moved down the face of the ridge. The 3rd Kure’s Rikusentai had shaken off the effects of the air and naval gunfire bombardment and were manning fighting positions dug in the hill. “We thought that coconut trees would not have enough branches to conceal snipers,” Chambers said, “But we found that the Japs were small enough to hide in them easily and so we had to examine every tree before we went by.”
Bailey’s Charlie Company ran into a buzz saw of enemy fire from the seaward side of Hill 208 despite the fact that the height had been pounded with over 1,500 five-inch shells. Chambers recalled, “Bailey had gotten into a cricket field [golf course]. It was quite open country and the Nips by now were beginning to get organized and were fighting back.” It took the company an hour and several men killed and wounded to clear the hill with small arms fire and hand grenades. One of those wounded was its popular commander. As “Ken Dill,” Bailey’s code name, leapt on a troublesome bunker and attempted to kick through the roof to grenade it, he was shot in the leg. As he was being evacuated, he said, “That Jap Arisaka isn’t a bad rifle after all.” The Raiders learned that Japanese machine-gun dugouts contained ten to twelve men. When one man was killed, another stepped up and manned the gun, requiring every man to be killed, a dangerous and time-consuming process.
Charlie Company lost its forward momentum and Edson didn’t know why. “Eddie [Lt. Col. Edson] was pretty upset about it and sent me down to find out,” Major Griffith said. “When the company broke out onto the golf course it got bogged down.” Griffith assumed command and got it moving again. “That afternoon—I’d say about 1400—we had taken the golf club house, which had been occupied by the Japs. We found a lot of uniforms hanging, binoculars, rice left in bowls, raw fish, and stuff like that.”
Dog Company, under fire, crossed the north-south road cut below the Residency. “As we cleared the bridge,” T. D. Smith recalled, “we started taking fire from the right and right front.” Chambers appeared and “ordered us to move out, ‘right now and to hell with the fire!’” At one point Chambers had taken cover when he heard someone ask, “What’s going on here?” “I look up,” Chambers recalled, “and there’s Edson standing there big as life smoking a cigarette! I said, ‘Colonel, what are you trying to do, get me killed?’” Edson was drawing fire. “All Edson said was, ‘Keep them moving,’ and then moved on,” Chambers exclaimed … “I think that episode was probably responsible for me getting wounded later on so many times … because I thought this was the way a battalion commander should act.” After reaching the base of the ridge, the company worked its way toward the Residency on the high ground on the left. “I was pretty well satisfied with the progress that the company had made at this point.”
CODE NAMES
Lieutenant Colonel Edson used code names for some of his key officers, which provided immediate proof of identity under hectic conditions. He was “Red Mike,” because of his red beard; Maj. Sam Griffith, his executive officer, was “Easy”; Capt. Ken Bailey, Charley Company, became “Ken Dill”; Maj. Lew Walt, Alpha Company, became “Silent Lew”; Maj. Justice Chambers became “Joe Pots” (for chamber pot); and Capt. John B. Sweeney, in charge of the command post security, became “John Wolf.” The simple system would twice prove invaluable on Tulagi, and again during the second night at Edson’s Ridge.
Nickerson’s Baker Company was working its way along the boat docks on the northeastern side of the island when Japanese sniper fire hit the lead platoon. One man went down in the open. The platoon commander, Lieutenant Key, was shot to death as he leaped over a stone wall to rescue the man. Then Pvt. Thomas F. Nickel was killed as he attempted the rescue. A third man, Navy Lt (j.g.) Samuel S. Miles, the battalion junior surgeon, leaped over the wall and met the same fate. The remaining members of the squad finally spotted two snipers, assaulted their positions, and killed them. The snipers may have been from WO Sadayuki Kato’s 2nd Platoon. Jersey noted that, “PO1c Nakasuke Miyagi and his squad of nine—with sharpshooter PO3c Ryosuke Kuwabara, supported by PO3c Harubumi Ishida and his seven men with sniper SM Yoshimi Hamaota—were able to block the Marine advance [for a short time].” Baker Company continued to advance until it reached a point adjacent to the government wharf, where it dug in for the night. “I was now pinching Nickerson out,” Chambers ex
plained. “The island had narrowed down, so I had the left flank all the way down to the ocean at this point.”
Dog Company had to cross a ravine and up a hill on the other side. “Several things happened once we got in the ravine,” Chambers explained. “There were some snipers in back of us [possibly from WO Tsuneto Sakado’s platoon which had several snipers]. I know I was leaning my head around a big coconut tree and a Jap laid a round right alongside my head. That’s when I thought they were using explosive bullets, because this thing really banged when it hit the tree.” Chambers’s luck ran out a short time later. “After we got across the ravine and were going up the other side working against the area where the antiaircraft was located, I spotted some Japs firing down on Bailey’s people. I got my 60mm mortars set up and was calling in the fire. All of a sudden there was this great flash of fire right in front of me, maybe ten or fifteen feet in the air. [Shrapnel] smashed my left wrist, broke my right wrist, and took a hunk out of my left leg.”
Chambers refused to be evacuated and continued to lead his company, “walking and hobbling,” until they reached the final objective, a gun emplacement near the beach. About 1500, the company was held up by two enemy positions. “We were having some trouble because there were some Nips dug in underneath a house,” Chambers said. “The boys cleared it out, but a trench line gave us some problems. One of the men threw a grenade in and the Nips threw it right back at us. We did this a couple of times before the Marine let the fuse run before he threw it. I saw this pair of hands come up to catch the grenade again. … [I]t went off … and we didn’t have any more trouble.” A short time later, they reached the gun emplacement and found it empty, the Japanese had pulled out. “At this point,” Chambers explained, “I decided to get back to the aid station. I had a piece of shrapnel in the back of my kneecap and I was bleeding pretty good in my wrists … and I was sore as hell, but I was ambulatory.” And then he added, “If they shot at me hard enough, I could still move pretty fast!”