Shadow Warriors

by Dick Camp

  Carlson called several of his officers together and discussed their predicament—lack of weapons, the almost complete absence of organizational unity, and the plight of the wounded, one of whom was the indomitable “Frenchie” LeFrancois. He decided that the only option was to surrender! The decision did not sit well with the men. Spotts noted in his diary, “The word started around here that we would surrender in the morning [and] this didn’t set so very good with anyone … but there didn’t appear to be any choice. Most of the weapons had been lost in our attempts at getting off.” Another Marine remembered, “… [N]ot many of us accepted the surrender policy.” And Ben Carson said it was “the most terrible message I have ever been given.”

  Carlson took Captain Coyte aside and ordered him to contact the Japanese commander and arrange for the surrender, but stipulated that only if they would be treated as prisoners of war. “At around 0330, Coyte and Pvt. William McCall … set out to the south on their quest for the garrison commander, dressed only in trousers and shoes and unarmed,” Peatross recalled. The two stopped in a native hut and were attempting to find out where they might find the enemy commander when an armed Japanese soldier came in and confronted them. “He was most unhappy,” Coyte explained, “He kept threatening to shoot me and was sticking the end of the rifle in my stomach. I was so tired and exhausted that it really didn’t make much difference. I would push the rifle aside and … demand that he take me to his commanding officer.”

  Peatross noted that, “With the natives’ help, Coyte and McCall eventually assuaged the Japanese soldier’s injured pride and calmed his anger enough to win his reluctant agreement to carry a note to his commanding officer. It was nearly daylight when Coyte addressed himself to the task of composing the offer to surrender, as ordered by Carlson.”

  To the Commanding Officer,

  Japanese forces, Makin Island

  Dear Sir

  I am a member of the American forces now on Makin.

  We have suffered severe casualties and wish to make an end of the bloodshed and bombings.

  We wish to surrender according to the rules of military law and be treated as prisoners of war. We would also like to bury our dead and care for our wounded.

  There are approximately sixty of us left. We have all voted to surrender.

  I would like to see you personally as soon as possible to prevent future bloodshed and bombing.

  /S/ Ralph H. Coyte, Captain, USMCR

  The note was passed to the enemy soldier who took it and left. Shortly afterward, Coyte heard a shot and went to investigate. Two Raiders were walking down the road, one holding a smoking pistol. The two proudly announced they had just knocked off a lone Jap. Coyte assumed it was the messenger and reported the incident and his inability to contact the Japanese commander to the battalion commander. McCall said, “Carlson told me not to say anything about it.” Coyte recalled, “… [W]e [officers] had all prepared written reports of the operation as it pertained to our participation. After they had been submitted, they were returned to us by Colonel Carlson who advised us that Admiral Nimitz had told him that we should all re-write our report, deleting all reference to the offer to surrender.”

  Shortly after daylight another four boats managed to get through the surf after a terrific struggle but further evacuation was stopped by an air raid. Meanwhile, Raider patrols that scoured the island found that, except for a couple of snipers, the Japanese garrison was dead. They counted eighty-three enemy bodies and identified the remains of fourteen dead Raiders (five more bodies were discovered in 1999 when the Army’s Central Identification Laboratory recovered all the remains from a common grave). When the patrols returned with the news and supplies of food, recovered Japanese weapons, and ammunition, morale improved and there was no further talk of surrender. That afternoon the men constructed a raft. “[It] was made up of three rubber boats tied together with a seaworthy native fishing boat on either end, the whole thing being lashed securely together,” LeFrancois recalled. “The two good motors we had were on the end of the rubber boats. The oars of each native boat were manned by our strongest men. Our wounded occupied the center cross seats of the rubber boats.” At 2030 the remaining Raiders shoved the ungainly craft into the water and set sail for the submarines standing by off the lagoon entrance. Nautilus reported, “… [R]eceived the remainder of the Raider unit on board at 2330. The commanding officer reported to the group commander that he was satisfied that all surviving personnel of his command had been evacuated from the island.” The final entry in the Nautilus log book for 18 August 1942 read, “2353—headed for Pearl Harbor.”

  Upon arrival in Hawaii, they were greeted as heroes. “As we sailed up the entrance,” Carson said, “Every ship of the line in Pearl Harbor was turned out with formations on deck as we sailed by.…” Dr. Stephen Stigler of 2nd Raider Battalion recalled, “It was one of the most thrilling parts of my life. Each ship that we passed gave us a salute. We must have heard the ‘Marine Corps Hymn’ ten times going through the channel.” Admiral Nimitz and other high ranking officers were on hand and personally greeted each Raider. The Admiral’s report noted, “Through the courage and endurance of the Marines and cool headed cooperation of submarine personnel, this expedition was successfully carried to completion against and by aid of various chances of fortune … considerable damage was inflicted on the Japanese, and at a crucial time in the Solomon Islands operations, they were forced to divert men, ships, and planes to the relief of Makin Island.”

  Nimitz’s report also noted, “Losses were somewhat larger than they should have been.…” Unknown to Carlson at the time of the withdrawal, nine Raiders were left behind and captured when the Japanese returned to the island. The men were held on Makin until the end of August when they were transported to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. On 16 October, Vice Adm. Koso Abe, the commander of the Marshall Islands ordered the Raiders beheaded. After the war, Abe was found guilty of the crime and hanged as a war criminal.

  CHAPTER 8

  Edson’s Ridge

  Petty Officer Second Class Sankichi Kaneda, 81st Guard Unit, was having a bad day. He had barely escaped a Marine attack near the village of Matanikau, when he was summoned to the headquarters of the Guadalcanal Defense Unit headquarters, located in the jungle a half mile southwest of Point Cruz. There he was ordered to guide Col. Akinosuka Oka’s 124th Infantry Regiment through dense, almost impenetrable jungle to recapture the airstrip on Lunga plain. They started on 9 September. “The [124th Infantry] unit promptly moved out with two of us in the advanced guard,” Kaneda wrote in a diary. “It was pitch black and we moved at a crawl … I followed my compass east, pushing and cutting a path. … [T]he men could not smoke. … [We ate] hardtack. … [W]e were tired and we slept like the dead. … [W]e finally reached our goal and Colonel Oka gave the order to attack.”

  Mukade Gata (Centipede Hill)

  The Japanese objective was a ridge they called Mukade Gata (Centipede Hill) because of its centipede-like shape. It was about a mile south of Henderson field, the Marine airfield and the ultimate prize of the Japanese attack. The ridge not only dominated the surrounding terrain but, more importantly, offered a well-defined avenue of approach to the airfield. Colonel Merrill B. Twinning, division assistant operations officer, said a Japanese approach from that direction would place them, “opposite the weakly defended and highly vulnerable southern approach to the airfield, which was where an attack would be most dangerous to us.”

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL MERRITT A. EDSON

  Merritt A. Edson’s formal military service began in 1915 when he enlisted in the National Guard and served in the Mexican border campaign. After receiving a commission in the Marine Corps in 1917, he was assigned to the 11th Marines in France but arrived too late to see action. Following the end of the war, he served in a variety of posts and stations that qualified him for ever-increasing responsible assignments—among them was service in Nicaragua, where he received the Navy Cross for combat actions aga
inst the Sandino-led bandits. During his fourteen months ashore, most of it deep in the interior of the country, he won a reputation as an aggressive, savvy small-unit leader and came away with the nickname “Red Mike” because of his red beard. In 1921 he began a long career in competitive shooting, first as a firing member, then team coach, and finally captain of the Marine Corps national rifle and pistol team. In 1922, he earned his pilot’s wings and flew for five years before poor depth perception forced him back into the infantry. In the summer of 1937 he became the operations officer for the 4th Marines in Shanghai, China. The assignment gave him an opportunity to observe Japanese combat techniques at close range. In June 1941, he assumed command of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. On 16 February 1942, Edson’s battalion was redesignated 1st Marine Raider Battalion.

  Major Griffith probably knew Edson as well as anyone and described him as someone who “required an awful lot of knowing; he was a quiet, reserved man … not by any means a great talker … in many ways, a pretty cold man. However, he enjoyed social life in what I’d call a restricted sense of the word … he loved to play bridge … and liked to drink with the boys but never drinking too much.” Griffith never really got to know Edson until Guadalcanal. “He was a great stickler for performance of duty. He insisted that everyone give his best, and Lord knows, Edson always gave his best. He was completely unflappable and admired and respected by everyone.” Griffith said he was extremely popular with his men because “he recognized merit and rewarded it.” Lieutenant Colonel Jon Hoffman, his biographer, wrote, “His absolute fearlessness in action would steady his hard-pressed men in the face of Japanese onslaughts and give the Marines one of the most important victories in their history.”

  In Bloody Ridge: The Battle that Saved Guadalcanal, Michael S. Smith described the ridge as “… slender, winding, and grass-covered, with three distinct hillocks—one on both ends and one in the middle—appropriately called Hill 123—was the highest.” A second slightly lower height, Hill 80, was located about five hundred yards directly south. A narrow dirt trail ran from Hill 80 along the entire length of the ridge. The trail served as a point of contact for adjacent units and a convenient marker for anyone who became disoriented in the dark or heat of battle. An impassible stagnant lagoon—sixty feet wide and several hundred yards long—was located about two hundred yards west of Hill 80. “The lagoon would hamper movement and break the continuity of any defensive disposition in the area,” according to Smith. Dense jungle, in some places almost impenetrable, bordered the ridge on all sides.

  At the same time Colonel Oka’s men started their trek through Guadalcanal’s trackless jungle, the ridge was virtually defenseless. The understrength 1st Marine Division was oriented toward the coast. Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift, its commander, was convinced that the Japanese would not attempt a jungle march but would instead move along the more passable coastal route. He was unwilling to refocus the division’s orientation, despite the recommendations of Colonel Twinning and his assistant Col. Gerald “Jerry” Thomas, even though the two were in possession of captured maps and documents that offered proof the Japanese intended to approach through the jungle. Captain Sherwood “Pappy” Moran, the division’s senior Japanese linguist, had translated the documents and was convinced they were genuine. His opinion was shared by Edson, who had reconnoitered the ridge. “This is the place,” he told his runner, Cpl. Walter Burak. “This is the place they’ll hit.” Major Samuel B. Griffith II, his executive officer, recalled, “I remembered distinctly that we were in the operations’ tent, when Edson pointed to where he thought the Japanese were going to come in—and that was the ridge.”

  Fortunately the return of the 1st Marine Raider Battalion and the 1st Parachute Battalion from Tulagi and Gavutu-Tanambogo offered a viable compromise. “Jerry [Thomas] … scored a limited concession,” Twinning recalled. “The Raider and Parachute battalions … could be sent to a ‘rest area’ south of the field, where their mere presence would discourage snipers or other minor enemy activity. To this the general agreed, and that is how the ridge acquired its sardonic second name—‘Edson’s Rest Area.’” Edson briefed his staff and company commanders on the move but decided to keep the bad news to himself. He told them that, “We’re moving our bivouac up to the ridge. It’ll be a rest area for us. We’ll get out of the V-ring for the Jap bombers.” He would later have to eat those words.

  The Raiders were in need of a rest according to Griffith. “I would say the battalion was in pretty poor physical shape. It had been really pretty rough on Tulagi, because everybody had dysentery, we had a lot of sleepless nights [and] there had been quite a bit of shelling … [T]he Japanese were able in those early days to coast right down in broad daylight and shell the hell out of everybody.” The attached casualty-riddled 1st Parachute Battalion was in the same condition after their hard-won Gavutu-Tanambogo victory—exhausted, sickly and malnourished. Several of the officers in both units were on the casualty rosters or sick in the hospital. Lieutenant Colonel Jon T. Hoffman wrote in Once a Legend: “Red Mike” Edson of the Marine Raiders, “Many other leadership slots, particularly at the platoon and squad level, also were filled by men fleeting up from lower positions.”

  On the morning of 10 September 1942, the combined Raider-Parachute force—approximately 800 men, 214 Paratroopers and 600 Raiders—formed up by company in a long column and started the march to the ridge. The men carried everything they owned, including weapons and ammunition—on Guadalcanal, the infantry traveled by “shanks mare” because much of the division’s motor transport had been left in Australia. The 80-plus degree temperature and oppressive humidity quickly sapped the men’s strength, causing many of the weakened men to drop out. The column trudged on, across the flat open area of the runway toward the distant hilltop. Edson hurried the column along; he knew the first Japanese air raid of the day was due sometime around 1100 and they were right on schedule; the bombers appeared, escorted by fifteen Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” fighters. Edson’s men got a ringside seat as four VMF-223 Grumman F4F Wildcats intercepted the formation. The Marine fighters were able to shoot down five of the enemy planes but not before the bombers dropped their ordnance. Fortunately the Raider-Paratrooper column was not their target. Not long after, “Condition Red” announced a second air raid forcing the column to seek cover. The two air raids and the physical condition of the men delayed their arrival on the ridge until mid-afternoon.

  Organizing the Killing Ground: 10 September 1942

  The men were not allowed to relax. “Edson deployed them as they came up,” Griffith explained, “Raiders around the southern knob, the right flank company thinly spread toward the Lunga [River]; Parachutists … on the left.” The high ground was the key to the defense of the southern sector of the perimeter—and the topography of the ridge left Edson with little choice in the deployment of his joint force. He had to hold the high ground, forcing him to leave his left flank hanging. He simply did not have enough men to extend his lines into the jungle. It was a risky decision; the Japanese could simply outflank his lines. Edson did the best he could with the men available but his men were spread dangerously thin. Corporal Daniel Mulcare’s under-strength squad had to cover the entire face of Hill 80. He grumbled that, “You could put a whole platoon between each squad member and still not cover the ridge. We need a whole regiment to defend this area.”

  Edson placed his three strongest companies on the line—Capt. Justin Duryea’s Baker Company Parachutists and two Raider companies, Capt. John B. Sweeney, (replacing Capt. Louis Monville) assumed command of Baker Company on the thirteenth and Maj. Ken Bailey’s Charlie Company, in that order—extending from the jungle on the left flank to the Lunga River on the right flank. Charlie Company, numbering 130 fighters, had one platoon in position on the edge of a swampy lagoon and the other two split into platoon strong points, each of which had an exposed flank. The men had worn a path through the vegetation connecting the outposts. It crossed the lagoon via a slipp
ery fallen log, through Baker Company’s wire, up Hill 80 to intersect the ridge trail. Private First Class John W. Mielke worried about it. “We crossed the lagoon on a fallen tree … which appeared to be our only exit other than … along the river.” A single strand of barbed wire ran along the company’s eight hundred yard front. The men had laboriously cut fields of fire through the waist-high grass with their bayonets. Its well-liked company commander, Ken Bailey, had just returned from the hospital, where he had been treated for a gunshot wound in the leg he received on Tulagi.